Topic: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

I've never been so disappointed in my life lol...

First area feels like everything is peak, myles isn't problematic at all and you wonder what reviewers were even talking about in terms of annoyance he basically doesn't do anything bar get escorted across a bridge, first boss fight is clean and uses the new mechanics well..

but then as soon as you get into the 2nd 'area' you encounter a whopping variety of 2 different kinds of enemies that aren't particularly fun to fight, a linear hallway connected to hallway system, and every single area does this.. by the time i was on to the fourth area i set my expectations to 'nothing to see' and I wasn't wrong cause it was literally just the same enemies on repeat, like at some point one enemy just becomes the only enemy in the game that even interacts with you and the variations are just their textures not actual gameplay. I've actually taken my headset off cause i was so sick of hearing their terrible theme.. the music tries to be like old prime games but its just like looping the worst sounding effects instead of making something actually pretty to listen to for awhile. One of the bosses I audible went "You can't be serious.. they couldn't make something original for this???? This looks like it was ripped directly from another franchise".

The desert especially sucks when you consider backtracking cause there is no fast teleport system, at least that i have found after 12+ hours anyways, and theres multiple moments where you're just unsure where to go. The game doesn't really hand hold you like you'd think with the characters, its kinda less than corruption infact, but the way you get upgrades is so anti-climate and in such... bizarrely randomly open in your face areas and you don't unlock them as soon as you get the pickup... you bring the pickup to myles to give it to you which is just stupid.

Its like the demo and the trailers exclusively showed off the best parts of the game cause there's so little here actually good... and its such a shame cause that first area is genuinely what sucks you in and makes you think we have a good successor and the wait was worth it and then it gets to a point where i genuinely didn't even feel like playing anymore. I did a lot of exploring, backtracking for item upgrades, picked up every green crystal on the map cause of the fruit thing.... deposited it near the very end of the game and saw the required grind only went up to like 10%, i genuinely cannot see anyone replaying it while thats a thing, the requirement for that should be the first thing they patch.

...speaking of things they need to patch... here's my main complaint about the characters; i softlocked on an elevator... yeah... SOFTLOCKED on an elevator in a 18 year development game, because the elevator required the npc to be on the lift with you, and even though the npc was standing literally in it fully, it would not detect they were there and they even played the voice line indicating that they were, the lift just bugged and would not work and they would not move to try and manually reposition them for it.. forcing a reset

Gosh dang. 11 people on my friends list got Metroid Prime 4. Haven't seen those kind of numbers (excluding Mario Kart World) since Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Kirby I had 7 friends who got it, and DK was about 7 also.

This bodes well. Dual release across NSW1 and NSW2 was definitely the right move. Seems like a lot of ppl are interested which means.... drum roll... we're likely gonna get another one!

Got a solid 2.5hrs in tn. Got vi-o-la and I basically turned it off for the time being. Not sure I'll play anything else this weekend.

I don't get the people who say it's not a real Prime game. But then I'd feel the need to ask what one of those is.

Is it an interconnected labyrinth of areas, swappable beams and missile combinations with visors and suits and an artifact hunt?

Is it areas surrounding a central hub with dimension swapping puzzles, a more annoying artifact hunt, and your beams have ammo?

Is it several planets with isolated areas you can travel between, gunship puzzles, stacking beams, no suit upgrades and a ***** load of talking with an emphasis on hyper mode?

Is it a 4 player coop shooter that's mission based?

Is it several small planets with random boss fights and little exploration using touch controls?

Or is it areas connected by a central hub with swappable beams with ammo, no visor upgrades, a bike, some talking and psychic powers?

This is the thing: Metroid Prime has been experimented with so much over the years of course this one would be different.

Each game changes it up in ways some like and others don't. And that's ok.

If this was just one of those games again with a new coat of paint, I think we'd have far more issues. A stagnation after these years.

I just got done with the Ice Belt, and it honestly was one of the most gripping areas I've encountered in this game. Fury Green and Volt Forge were alright areas, but I feel like Ice Belt was the first one to suck me in on this level and make me sort of forget that I was even really playing a video game to begin with. The way that they handled the lighting and the lack of bombastic music made for amazing atmospheric horror. It really felt like I was exploring a place that I wasn't actually supposed to be in- and collecting the data logs in the facility only cemented that. The fact that some pipes broke when you would walk past them- along with the frozen monsters really made me want to explore the facility in full. It makes me wish that Retro would do a full on atmospheric horror game- or at least that Prime 4 would be this way for the entirety of the game and not just for a singular slice of it.

@JaxonH As someone who is playing Prime for the first time with this game, it's really selling me on trying out the Prime 1 remaster. Just sort of wish that the remaster for Prime 1 came out after the Switch 2 so that it could've gotten the same mouse control scheme that Prime 4 has. Maybe they'll drop a Switch 2 patch for it at some point.

Was very disappointed to get home from family holiday last night to see my copy still hasn’t arrived.

Got everything crossed the postman delivers today!

I didn't actually know you could do that but it does reduce the overall experience surely if you have to do something like that instead of just playing the game and enjoying it. Looking at this thread there are quite a few people that have not really enjoyed the game that much and giving it fairly low scores. It does seem a good technical showcase for the console at least in beautiful artwork of the graphics. I guess maybe games like Cyberpunk using DLSS are more impressive but then that definitely doesn't play at 120 fps or even 60fps I think its 30fps and 40fps. It definitely feels like this isn't an essential purchase on Switch 2 or Switch 1 just another good title to consider.

@Haruki_NLI For me Metroid Prime experience is about the atmosphere, sense of isolation, focus on exploration, a planet with rich lore and fauna, space pirates and great music. Prime 4 had some parts that felt like that but in the end wasn't what I was hoping for.

Well the postman came, with a game shaped box, but it was yakuza kiwami and kiwami 2….

Ironic I’ve got them early but no Metroid… hopefully just a postal delay given is December and will come Monday

Just started the game, very impressive visually and looks to be a solid start

A question though - when in ‘free aim’ regular mode I have Y axis inverted , so tilting right stick down makes gun go up (and vice versa)

However- when I go into lock-on mode (holding ZL) and then aim with right stick, the inversion disappears! Any way to enable inversion when in lockon mode?

I said this from the beginning- all publicity is good publicity. All the controversy has catapulted this game into the spotlight in a way that never would have happened otherwise. I checked Amazon and it still continues to climb. It's now the #2 Best Selling game on the site, #9 overall in Video Games.

Keep in mind, this is a niche series. You never saw Dread hit that high up the best sellers list, especially in the holiday period. It was hanging around #33 for a week or two leading to release, then shot to 19 the day of release, then shot to #15 the day after release, and now it's #9. You'd think it would be dropping or at least not moving up.

It's that Pokemon effect. Everyone rages about every little thing, telling others how bad it is and they shouldn't waste their money on it, and all it does is make the game more popular. I never expected all that much from Prime 4 sales figures, but I was a bit nervous it wouldn't succeed. Now I'm confident that won't be the case.

@CJD87
Pretty sure. Dig around in settings there's all kinds of stuff you can tinker with. Can also enable gyro if you want it on all the time or just when locked on or whatever.

edit
Just checked. In settings, you can invert X or Y in CAMERA, and you can invert X or Y in CURSOR. One is for when you're just aiming normally, one is for when you're locked-on.

You can also enable gyro for all the time, but have it turn off when locked on. Which I prefer, because I don't want my controller movements to snap me off a target when locked on, but I also want to be able to aim with precision gyro at other times, which is why having it on except when locking on is such a great approach imo.

You can do practically anything in these settings, even remap buttons. They killed it.

@VoidofLight
I hear that. But at least we got Metroid Prime Remastered, and it definitely holds up as a NSW1 remaster of a GameCube title. And has fantastic gyro aiming.

It's been my dream to have the Metroid Prime Trilogy with dual analog controls and gyro on an HD handheld hybrid. We don't have MP2 or MP3, but we do have MP1 and MP4, which itself is miraculous.

You're eating like a champ if this is your first Prime game. I really feel this game is the perfect entry point for new players unfamiliar with the series, who don't have some preconceived notion of what it "should be". Starting with the original can feel pretty obtuse, tbh. There's a reason so many bounced off it. This game really solves those issues in a way I don't think new players will feel stuck to a point of frustration.

And after you beat Prime 4, then go back and play Prime Remastered, which you'll appreciate more having learned the fundamentals and how the game expects you to think.

Btw, some of these morph ball tunnels are absolutely jaw-dropping. I thought Volt Forge couldn't be matched, but I was wrong. Ice Belt might be my favorite area now... but it's so hard because Fury Green is just classic, and Volt Forge is excellent too. And even Flame Pool is a noticeable step above Magmoor Caverns in the original.

You know what, they're all good, I can't choose!

@JaxonH I'm one of those who never finished MP1. You said that for some wanna-be players, the game "really solves those issues". Could you share what issues MP4 managed to solve?

@cwong15
I wouldn't characterize them as "wannabe players". That comes off insulting I think. I'd say players who bounced off the first. Here's why.

Metroid Prime can be confusing as to where to go next. Yes, if enough time passed it would show a "?" on the map to instruct the player of the intended destination, but how you got there could get really tricky for some players, to the extent I personally know some who gave up as a result.

Prime 4 is designed in such a way that's not really a stumbling block in the same way it was in prior entries. It still has the same design philosphy- if you're in the desert for a bit Myles will radio you and suggest heading to a specific area, but it's not confusing how to get there since the desert isn't a labyrinth. The map clearly shows the destination, and you can even visibly see it in the distance- the giant tree of Fury Green, the massive volcano of Flare Pool, etc.

And when you're in a zone, it always tells you the destination you're supposed to reach. And yes, that's no different than the original, but it's less confusing how to get there. You can look at the map and clearly see the route you need to take. Sometimes a door might be sealed off or frozen over or malfunctioning, and you'll need to look for a tunnel to roll through, but there were times in the original where the destination was across the map and was so far away, you had no clue how to get there. Even I wasted an entire hour exploring the wrong way in an underwater section only for progress to be ultimately blocked near the end, because I didn't yet have the right power to proceed.

Beyond fixes that by blocking your progress much earlier on, so you don't waste so much time before figuring out you're not supposed to be going that way yet. And, thanks to the hub world design with areas around it like spokes on a wheel, and the game suggesting which area to head to next, you don't have to worry about going to the wrong area. And even if you do, progress is blocked pretty early on so you're not wasting so much time.

The game also has checkpoints you can restart from if you die. That's a seismic change from prior entries, which exclusively relied on last used save stations for you to restart from. I died and it restarted me 2 rooms back, and it only took me 60 seconds to get to where I died, whereas in prior games you could lose half an hour's worth of progress, easily.

Finished Flare Pool. I found it to be kinda meh, but the ending was much more exciting. I was wondering if we were going to get a boss we fight on Vi-O-La and we did here (kind of, only for the first phase but I'll take it). Also a nice little escape sequence. It's not super long or difficult (although I did struggle with it a bit trying to find Grapple points), but it is quite thrilling.

@JaxonH Thank you for taking the time to advise on that (inversion Y Axis on 'cursor' aka lock-on)

It was so unbelievably jarring going from an inverted Y-Axis in free-aim... to then lock on and be dealing with the complete inverse (!) The game is now thankfully playable for me now, cheers mate

I started the game this morning and it's pretty much everything I could ask for in a Metroid game. Don't get the negativity of some people here and to say it will destroy the franchise is just utterly absurd. It's clearly a game that's not for you and that's ok but going around putting a damper on things without giving any constructive feedback is just annoying and on that I'm unsubscribing from the thread now. There's enough negativity in the world already I don't want to come on this website and be drowned by it.

@CJD87
Glad to help!

I'm astounded at the various control methods people prefer, and this game accommodates all of them.

• Dual Stick
• Dual Stick + Gyro (Camera)
• Dual Stick + Gyro (Lock-On)
• Dual Stick + Gyro (Camera + Lock-On)
• Motion Pointer Aiming
• Mouse Aiming

There's even multiple options for free-aiming:

• Free Aiming (Gyro) with threshold settings
• Free Aiming (Right Stick)
• Free Aiming (Revised Right Stick)

You can invert X Camera, invert Y Camera, invert X Lock-On, invert Y Lock-On, change sensitivities for all of them individually, change X mouse sensitivity, Y mouse sensitivity, toggle motion for grapple lasso, motion for spring ball, and customize every last button imaginable, even separately for morph ball mode and when on Viola and when on foot.

It's the new gold standard for control options.

@JaxonH Thanks. Those improvements in MP4 do seem like they'd remove a lot of frustrations for newbies like myself.