That’s fine

Beep boop bop

this game is a pretty mixed bag for me

i think when the game is playing it straight with the usual prime gameplay loop its fairly solid, but i can't help but feel like for a game with as much anticipation / dev time that it had, it was in a desperate need for a shake up. the prime series luckily has the benefit of being one of the few if not the only games that even plays the way it does and especially in a time where it seems every other first person shooter play pretty much plays the same. to a newcomer this probably feels weird / different to play at first so it wouldn't be as much of a problem but as someone that has actually played the first 3 games, i feel the whole shoot enemy, strafe to dodge attack, and scan have gotten pretty stale (especially the scanning part cos its definitely my least favorite thing about these games to be frank). this becomes jarringly clear when you realize you're basically fighting the same 2 enemy types for the entire game, the robots or the viewros animal bullet sponge f*** thing that moves fast whenever you try to charge shot it forcing you to have to spam shots at it.

when they first revealed that samus was getting a motorcycle, i thought it was pretty cool at first, until i gave it some more thought and wondered why it even existed when you consider what samus is capable of doing with her power suit alone but i digress. now when they proceeded to show what the bike used for, my hype for the game did take a pretty decent hit, BUT i was still willing to hear the game out as to why they decided to add such a tired and controversial addition to the metroid formula. now that ive gotten my hands on the game and have put a fairly decent amount of time on the game and that section as a whole, i can genuinely say this is f***ing god awful and I can't fathom why they thought this was a good inclusion.

it almost makes me appreciate how seamless prime 1 was able to connect multiple sections of the map together so well, because thats what it essentially is for prime 4. except now its binded by one of the most ashy, lifeless driving sections ive ever seen and played in a video game. they didnt even at least try to spice it up with like sand particles as you drive around or tornados and s***, you know SOMETHING to make it seem like theres some life in that area (although that alone might make the switch 1 version of the game spontaneously combust). the few enemies, and im being very generous with few, that you interact with barely do jackshit against you. you could legit drive past them the entire section and be perfectly fine. i had to literally force myself to attack them whenever they showed up just to feel like i was doing something. and if that wasnt bad enough, the game has the audacity to terrorize you with some bullshit grind hunt that you HAVE to do just to even access the last level of the game. even when i was made aware of this s*** from reviews, i still had to grind a bit after collecting all of the keys.

the npcs are also a very pointless addition to the game and story. when i first played the game and finished the first part with myles, i legit thought people were kinda overreacting the hate on him at first (besides his god awful writing). but the people that are like "hes barely in the game" are actually underselling how much he is in the game. whenever you enter or take a decent amount of time in sol valley, myles will literally pop out of nowhere just to bug you on where you should be going next. any time you collect a beam add-on you have to literally go all the way back to the base just so myles can activate it for you. that in itself is already f***ing egregious considering in prior games you simply pick up the add-on and its good to go immediately. you have to go through 2-3 loading screens just for this jerkoff to give you the ability to use an add-on, its reaching other m levels of silliness i cant believe they actually okay'd this. the other npc are just very basic and border on being stereotypes of squadrons from insert any other f***ing game with squad members here. this game makes zero effort to even flesh out any of these guys out so when the game decides to do fake out deaths (until they actually die in the end lol), i feel absolutely nothing because they didnt give enough of these characters for me to feel invested in them

the story is one of the stories of all time. now ill be honest, i dont really care for metroid stories or lore at all really and neither does nintendo either. the closest they came to actually telling a solid story that i gave a damn about was fusion and super to some existent, but that was more so on the visual side than the actual story cos theres barely any in that game to begin with. i always thought samus origins with the chozos would make for a pretty compelling metroid game and one that i wish they would tap into for a game at some point but who knows. the main villain sylux is legit not even in the game at all. he shows up at the very end and has some beef with samus apparently idk, they have the nerve to lock his backstory with her through 100%ing the game or buying his amiibo but theyre smoking crack if they think im gonna spend money for that s***.

this came out a lot more negative than i wanted to be but i legit cant imagine replaying this at least not any time soon because of how dogshit the """"new""""" additions to the game truly are, they bogged down the experience of the game quite a bit and its hard to ignore it with how integrated it is with the game. after reading the interviews that came out recently about this game from retro studios, it becomes very apparent that they were stuck with whatever the f*** bandai namco was gonna do with this game and how they had to pretty much work with what they got. for what its worth i do think some of the sections were pretty fine for what they are. i think ice belt was probably the closest to feeling like the older games in terms of level design and isolation. i thought the little fake outs they did of trying to scare you like something was about to attack you out of nowhere after seeing those capsules with dead bodies inside of them was pretty genius, if only the game had more stuff like that.... also the music is pretty good, fury green is pretty convincingly the best track in the whole game, they put their all into that track. the song that plays when you activate the towers in volt forge is a close second for me.

all in all im probably feeling like a 6 on this, it couldve been an easy like 7 or 8 even if they just reworked a LOT of s*** in this game cos it really does feel like theres something good in here, its just buried underneath a bunch of bullshit sadly

tl;dr play metroid prime 1

Between it feeling very linear, the constant scanning, myles being myles... i have found peace in accepting it for what it is and enjoying it that way

Still kinda mid but it's a beautiful looking game nonetheless

This game was fire and ass at the same time

MP4 feels like gentrified Metroid Prime
That said, I still find the loop of acquiring upgrades & solving puzzles fun

what makes Metroid Metroid is the isolation. Being down on your guns and having to survive in an existential environment. Don't know how they lost that. I hope Zelda keeps it's voice.

Finally beat this.. Got all the items but scans completion had 2% missing
They really did f\*\*\* all with Sylux
The NPCs were a misstep, but I won’t hold it against the game for including them.
The level design, bosses and enemies all seemed to lack inspiration and thus were forgettable. (That Griever audio was f***ing obnoxious btw lmao)

All in all, I find it to be a bizarre game that I still enjoyed completing cus the Metroidvania gameplay loop was still intact.

My mainline MP ranking:
1. Corruption
2. self-titled
3. Beyond
4. Echoes
Still need to beat Echoes tho

Me if Retro still wants to make Prime 5:

i was going for 100% in my first playthrough but because the federation troops and space pirates in the very beginning are missable scans i couldnt get it

just stopped bothering after i found that out lmao

Yeah the intro of the game was quite action-packed by Metroid standards (felt Halo-esque) so having to scan things just completely wrecks the pacing of that segment.
I was getting hyped during the intro and then once you turn the Scan Visor on, you see all these scannable elements and then my OCD kicked into overdrive, and so I scanned everything one by one
(I tried to scan EVERYTHING for the 100% completion so to only get 98% despite my OCD putting in the work was like a slap in the face )

Final battle spoilers:
They tried to make it so epic having all the NPCs tag along like it was an Avengers moment, but we just don’t give a s\*\*\* about them :koolaid: We never did and never would want to see them again (it sounds like I’m highkey hating the NPCs themselves, but it’s more how the game wants us to care about them and failing miserably in doing so).

I actually didn’t mind Myles all that much during the entirety of the game, BUT GODDAMN his screams in the final battle were too much for me

Sylux was introduced in Prime Hunters with an air of mystery and very little backstory about how he hates the Galactic Federation’s and Samus’ guts (they never explained why back then).

So in the proper ending of MP3, you see they’re setting him up as the next antagonist, which makes you believe they’ll finally give him the spotlight as Ridley and Dark Samus have gotten.

Some Sylux spoilers:
In Prime 4, he’s barely even in the f\*\*\*ing game.
He shows up as a mini-boss a couple of times, but then they turn out to be fakeouts.
He makes a last-minute appearance in the finale of the game with ZERO buildup and narrative framing.. He’s as generic as it gets for a villain, especially with his '90s villainous dialogue.
We entered & exited the game with the SAME vague base knowledge about Sylux, which makes you wonder why Nintendo even bothered at all by picking him as the next main baddie
Sylux in MP4 in a nutshell:

Gonna post my review in the next few days, just here to share the viola amiibo is cool af, even if i don't like the game that much i cant deny the design is awesome

Goddamn the late-game mandatory Green Energy Crystal fetch quest sounds so awful and has soured a lot of people on the game

Personally it was tedious for me as well, but I’ve completed the GEC meter before the game forced you to do it.

Despite the bigger NPC focus, the game still somewhat respected the isolation tradition

You were off by 20 points

Its very interesting, i thought my opinions on this game would settle, i was pretty negative despite liking it overall, and yet the more i think about it the more its pitfalls and failures hurt.

I was one of the people most hyped and faithful for this game in this site probably, and i wont sugarcoat it - the game is a disappointment, on many fronts, on arguably the most important front.
And its still surprising to me, because regardless of internet chatter, almost everything i was seeing of this game since june last year seemed exactly what i wanted. A continuation, a graphical showcase, an art and sound direction bless, and more generally a return to form. Not even the desert deterred me.
But after a playthrough (and an attempted replay that ended nowhere as i quit after reaching volt forge, ironic as i still consider it one of the highlights of the game and the series tbh), im just left wondering what went wrong.
I can talk all day about the art direction, the ost, the graphics, but these cant overshadow what are some pretty fundamental flaws of this game.

The level design is bad. Really bad for this series standards. How sad i was to realize in real time fury green, one of the most gorgeous places ive seen in any videogame with a top 10 metroid track ever, a place that invites exploration like few others, ended up being a long corridor with a few branching paths that don't meaningfully increase level complexity or even evoke curiosity. Whats to follow isnt better, although i'll credit volt forge for introducing the idea of going through this ancient deactivated facility, being back the power source and then doing the same road backwards and seeing how the level design and player interaction changes, often including a honestly brilliant ludonarrative consonance.
Too bad this structure is repeated again and again, and besides ice belt that at least changes the atmosphere into a glacial, almost horror-like experience, every other attempt is worse and really makes the level design of these later areas even worse.

My favorite aspect of Metroid games is the level design. Whether linear or open-ended, the planets/facilities you explore had enough activities (whether simply thinking about what to do next, putting obstacles in your way in form of enemies/platforms, hidden unlockables or blocked pathsways) to make the experience flow smoothly and be generally more enjoyable. Metroid prime 4 ditches all of this, and if the long corridors werent enough, these hallways are mostly BORING to go through (volt forge and at times great mines excluded). No sort of friction in your way, no actual roadblocks, you just keep on walking and scanning, completely destroying the pacing of the game. For how brilliant ice belt is in basically everything else, for me it was a chore to play.

Another flaw that everyone has mentioned but bears repeating, is the endgame shard hunt. Its borderline idiotic design, at no point does the game actually illustrate how important these are, and the way they're scattered makes the entire experience of getting these pitiful. If they really needed to keep this idea, the actual chunks you needed shouldve been placed in all the main areas, given at the memory statues and at the sol valley shrines (which tbf does have already some chunks but shouldve had more). The ones scattered around the desert should've been a sort of cushion for players who didnt explore well (although with the level design at present that would be a huge challenge in itself).
Im not one who likes to tell devs how to do their job, but i just cant comprehend what possessed them to go with what we have. Im deadass, my stupid idea is probably better.

The level design disappointed me so much the talkative, annoying npcs do not even register in my head. I don't mind most of them, but they don't get properly utilized, and frankly they do call you every 5 minutes to tell you what to do, so i gotta give the pre-relesse naysayers props, y'all got me on this one.

I do have some positive things to share about the game though.
The combat, despite not being a revolution, has enough additions to feel fresh and responsive, so i actually quite liked It. Too bad the enemy variety is so low, most enemies are weak bugs or robots, a metroid game should have more alien life.
The bosses are all great, amazing even, but sylux phase 1 is easily the weakest fight in the series ive played so far. Thank God the rest of the fight is stellar. Sylux may still be underutilized in the plot, but his fights were all great.
I liked the shrines, i wish there were like 2 more of them. Nice change of pace, looked pretty cool and had fun puzzles.
I even liked the desert, i don't usually care if an overworld is empty if its fun to traverse and has a great aesthetic, and sol valley imo has both. Viola is amazing, loved driving around with It.
Game feel is immaculate. The weight in your actions is felt, controls are responsive, viola is so slick to control, sound design is on point, every animation is pristine, at least this game continues the long lasting trends of the big Nintendo games having top tier game feel.
Surprisingly, the endgame item hunt was great and gave me the only glimpses of classic Metroid level design in the entire game. If only it was better integrated to the main game...
And of course, as mentioned multiple times, the art direction and sound direction in general.

So yeah, i honestly want to stop thinking about this game for a while lol. While im hopeful for the future, as they only need to iron out and figure out level design, which im sure they can, Metroid prime 4 was a great disappointment, a game that at best i can describe as decent and doesnt fulfill my main requests of what a great metroid title should be.

Ok, thats all the time i've got. I gotta get back to playing Kirby Air Riders on my Nintendo Switch 2

Volt Forge is only nice outside and in its music theme tbh. Once you get inside, it’s so linear and uninspired like damn.
Those circuit tracks, while they serve as a tutorial for Vi-O-La, still seemed so out of place that I couldn’t believe they thought it fits Metroid.

I saw on the Internet a comparison between the desert area and The Wind Waker’s sea was made and I couldn’t agree more (but I lowkey enjoyed TWW’s overworld traversal cus of its art style & music).
I wish it never made it in the game. It feels like it’s only there to give it the illusion of scope. It was concerning seeing it pre-release and I was being hopeful that actually experiencing it would change my mind..

I tried hard to not hate the NPCs, but the game itself did not make it easier lol
I don’t really hate hate them; it’s their integration that’s lacking overall.

Having to heal them when they’re down wasn’t that cumbersome; it’s just the concept of it all is pretty lame. The whole set of psychic powers I really didn’t care for..

So looking at the game in its entirety, I disliked the bike/desert, NPC integration, psychic abilities, linearity & unexciting level design, underuse of Sylux, forgettable bosses & enemies, (etc.?)
Lmao that’s a lot to not appreciate and yet I still enjoyed my time going for the 100% item completion
Won’t ever do it again that’s for sure though

First impressions had me feeling like it’ll be a 8/10 game, but the more you play it the worse it gets so my final score would be 7/10.

Samus deserved a voice and an actual personality!!

I mean they did zero marketing for the thing so of course it didn't sell well

Ya and it doesnt help that the only thing people talked about was the NPCs and no music open world