Topic: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

@WoomyNNYes I mean, that final area they showed off when revealing the release date looked gorgeous. Knowing Retro, and based on how highly-detailed Prime Remastered is, I'd say we don't have much to worry about.

@WoomyNNYes Part of the reason those reveals looked more impressive is because those games are open world/open area. Metroidvanias typically are not, and they might not have wanted to change that much because the Metroidvania formula might not work with open world. That clip of the jungle area at the end is probably about as good as they could get as far as showing those impressive, sweeping panaromas. I don't think a first look at this game can really show the kinds of changes that a Metroidvania can do to evolve the formula (if there actually are any), I think anything that they're doing that's unique and different would be better for a second trailer or so. Something more equivalent to that E3 2017 trailer for Odyssey.

I think one of the main things is that Metroid Prime 3 came out in 2007, and basically zero video games have been a replacement for it since. So its inherently going to be more fresh than most games.

If they had consistently released Metroid Prime games since and this had the same long delay, I'd be more annoyed at the lack of immediately clear innovation. This is the exact same reason why Mario 3D World was a better video game for its Switch release, if for no other reason (and it had other reasons) than it was no longer the 5th game in the classic Mario platformer style in 2 years. This is the exact reason why if I agreed with people that BOTW was just another open world game, it'd be one of the most disappointing video games of my life, because almost no one is making 3D Zelda and many people are making open world games.

So IF Metroid Prime 4 is a critical darling despite a lack of innovation, blame the game industry for looking at a series that literally started with one of the most acclaimed video games of all time and saying "we'll do nothing with this!" I'd have played at least several Metroid Prime knockoffs if they were good enough, instead of endless COD and later Overwatch wannabes. Compare that to the endless beloved Metroidvanias that have come out in the past decade.

Sweet trailer. For the life of me, I can't understand why the didn't drop prime 2 and 3 though.

As astronomically dumb as they may sound I wholeheartedly forget I own Prime 1 digitally. I’m just so used to digging stuff from my physical backlog that I rarely pay attention to what I got digitally or remember it at all.

kinda random, but I feel like this game would work really well being open world and I kind of hope it is

I don’t. I like first person shooters and would prefer this to remain as a standard one with the standard exploration stuff.

If it was truly open world you would l kind of lose that metroidvania aspect.

Personally I wish I had this game but third person.

Third person does actually feel somewhat likely. It’s not the craziest thing in the world to give first person games a third person view and vice versa.

The games already give you a third person view for the Morph Ball, so the tech is there. That said, I'd think that the visor and scanning systems work better from the first person. While not an immersive sim by any means, you're still seeing the world from inside Samus's suit.

As for the open world aspect, I'd doubt it. They've always used subtle cues to make it look as though some environments are far larger than the limited boxes that the player is allowed to move it. Consider the Meta Ridley fight from MP1 or the outside areas of Elysia in MP3, for a couple of obvious examples.

Having a lot more RAM and a better GPU to play with than in the GameCube days would allow for loading much larger environments, but a full open world requires a very different school of game design. Most likely, it'd just be a similar case to Bayonetta 3 where you've got larger levels and less loading, but everything is still fundamentally a corridor.

I would say those other reasons were more the reason why 3D World was better received with its Switch port. Honestly I think most people that praise it like Bowser's Fury more than the base game. There is an element of fatigue with a particular style and Prime 4 doesn't have that going against them, but I still feel like people expect a certain amount of gameplay evolution after a long period of time. You would expect a game released almost 20 years after its previous entry to be far more advanced, regardless of the level of competition.

I was going to mention this, trailer analysis videos have been bringing up the portal that Samus seems to have come from entering the jungle world shown at the end and that lead me to wonder "are they getting rid of doors?". But I rewatched the trailer and it does seem like there are doors in the Federation base so they aren't (at least not entirely), but I do think that is one area they could improve in. They don't need to use doors as glorified loading screens as they did in past Metroid games, the Switch can load in much larger areas than the GC and Wii. They could definitely have much larger/longer rooms in this game. Heck, maybe they could even abolish the concept of "rooms" altogether and the whole game world is one natural, interconnected network of paths rather than a series of artificially segmented rooms. I wouldn't be surprised if we could reach that bridge in the distance of that jungle area being reachable without needing a door. That would be a much more likely improvement than open world.

Sadly, I expect this to be another 2-3million tops seller. I'm not sure what gameplay mechanic or technical upgrade they can provide to push this series forward. I feel like they are boxing in consumers and not expanding the series to take advantage of modern fps trends.

I hope they give us one big planet again, instead of many smaller planets (Prime 3 had different planets).

@Henmii
I hope so too. Metroid Prime 3 lost a lot of its "Metroidvania" flair.

Nintendo just seems to be bad at first looks of games. Everyone said the same thing about Mario Odyssey after the first clip, that it didn't look like much. Then the second one when they fully unveiled everything blew everyone away. It was exactly the same with TotK, everybody thought it looked like the exact same game as BotW, until they truly opened the lid and let everyone see what the game was all about with subsequent videos. This game may be a year away. They are clearly not showing much yet.

Everyone's complaining they didn't change the formula while I'm super hyped that it's still Metroid Prime. BotW ruined modern Zelda for me, and was was scared that Metroid Prime would go the same direction. Not every game needs to reinvent the wheel. Metroid Prime more than holds up today, and doing the same thing but bigger and better is exactly what I wanted.

@Sigran102
I 100% agree. BotW was so different it didn't feel like Zelda anymore.
I'm glad Metroid isn't trying to do the same.

@WaveBoy Really? I actually found Prime 3 to be the least colorful and appealing of the original trilogy and it's the one I come back to the least. Many of the levels are fairly generic Metroid environments (military bases, space stations, volcanic areas, we've seen these over and over and over again) with lots of dull browns and grey in their color palettes and tons and tons of pirate enemies. So much of the game just seems to blend together and feel like generic mush, there's little that stands out about it (Skytown does, particularly Skytown West, but that's about it). The other two Prime games are much better about varying their environments and color palettes. And honestly Prime 4 already seems to be off to a better start than Prime 4 with that jungle area. Hope there's some other interesting and colorful locations too.

I’m in the same boat as you are. I just want more Metroid Prime. I did not like BoTW whatsoever, although I loved its sequel TOTK because it went back to its roots while also experimenting with different facets which were optional.

Preach! I am def not missing this one.