Metacritic Shares Updated List Of "Every Metroid Game, Ranked"

That is exactly my list.

Dread is way too low

Apparently Metroid Prime 4: Beyond “got a terrible rating” because one site needed a viral video, YouTube boosted it, and everyone else just ran with it. Because who needs facts when we have algorithms and clickbait, right?

🤣

An 8 for great! What a series, almost everything scores so high...

And now that they have a great engine to work on, and a great group of talented 3D artists and designers, I'm very positive Retro will be able to create an excellent or masterful metroid prime 5 again.

Can't wait to start playing it tonight

Damn Metroid Prime 4 being rated the lowest among it's series is pretty sad to see, especially after the long wait.

An 8/10 is still good though.

Laughable that Metroid Prime Hunters is higher than Beyond. To anyone who hasn't played Beyond yet, it's definitely underrated. 81 is not bad by any means, but it deserves at least a 90. My opinion, of course.

@Scrubelicious If you want some facts as to why it might deserve a low rating, watch Skill Up's review.

I can hardly put the game down.
Definitely up there with Prime 1 for me.
Feels like the first exclusive first Party game that really takes advantage of the new hardware in a way that feels next gen to me. (And yes I realize it was built for last gen too.)

I've never played Metroid so I have no idea what is different about Prime. I assume it's the fps series?

@DankDonk Yeah same! There’s so much polish and inventive design. My favorite improvement from the older ones are the increased scale of non just the set pieces , but in fights there is a lot more space to move around.

@JohntheRaptor Yeah it’s the 3D fps series. It’s kind of combined shooter and classic Metroid but in 3D.

I’d say times are different, and that Prime 1 wouldn’t get a 97 today, but holy crap I didn’t realize the remastered version got a 94. Should I cope further and say that nostalgia carried it? Because I’m shocked Prime 1 gets a 94 today while Prime 4 is on the cusp of 79. I wonder what’s so different about it that the review aggregate has fallen so much? I have to play this for myself and find out.

If they had the old games included Super Metroid would easily claim #1

Personally I'm enjoying MP4 a lot. I don't see how this would rate so differently from Corruption. But hey, who cares!

Very disappointing to see Metroid Prime 4 ending up so low.

Really a shame that they insist on shoehorning open world design into every franchise these days.

@Scrubelicious The fact is the desert is extremely barren, the green crystal collecting is ridiculous and the powerups have extremely niche usage. There are "Metroidvanias" that ironically have far surpassed the Metroid formula nowadays.

This game is very flawed and the reviewers just pointed the obvious out. If you just want to close your eyes to the game's flaws because you enjoy it, it's your choice. Reviewers need to actually point out the games qualities and flaws so people make an informed decision.

@Galaxy2IsTheGOAT I agree. And this is coming from someone that at first, didn't like Dread at all. I thought it was probably a decent action platformer in itself, but not a great 'Metroid' game.

I came back to it though and stuck through it, and I'm glad I did, as my opinion completely flipped. One of the very finest Metroid games IMO, and a great game in general.

I am enjoying Beyond more than any of the other Prime games so far. Only a few hours in but all of the concerns about the extra characters seem overblown so far (Sol Valley, even with radio calls seems like the most isolated place in the series, genuinely like waking up on some distant planet).

Those saying about Dread I think a lot of people (myself included) took issue with the insta-death sections and occasionally massive difficulty spikes (the final boss probably accounted for about 30% of my total playthrough!). I think they patched in an easy mode later though.

Since when was scoring an 80 or 8/10 bad.

I'd drop Prime 3 down a few places purely because I have a strong aversion to mandatory motion controls, but other than that (and maybe Hunters) it's hard to argue with the list! Beyond is great so far though, after just a few hours of play. Excited to keep exploring. A big welcome back to the Prime series from me!

From the moment those desert bike sections were revealed, I had a sinking feeling that they were going to detract from the game.

@Scrubelicious

If you think that mediocre scores for this game are just there to generate clicks, read the very insightful review from Eurogamer. Alex Donaldson is a journalist with high reputation and great writing skills.

https://www.eurogamer.net/metroid-prime-4-beyond-review

I’ve adored it so far (just got Vi-o-La). Looks incredible, extremely polished and the pointer controls are amazing on Switch 2 (I guess the gyro in the new joy cons is a lot better than the old ones).

How on earth is Metroid Prime 4 below Metroid Prime Hunters? That makes absolutely no sense. Don't get me wrong, Hunters did some things right. The controls work amazingly well, it has multiplayer, and it's visually among the best DS offers. But as a singleplayer experience, it's extremely mediocre. No proper upgrades (only weapons), only two different boss types etc make it one of the worst games in the series.

Edit: I disagree with the list in other ways as well. I much prefer 2D Metroids over Prime series.

@flighty he straight up lies in his review, though. And I am a subscriber. "Only two enemy types." Huh?

@KoopaTheGamer Different time. It was a technical showpiece for the DS and just having Prime gameplay on a handheld was amazing for 2006. Plus an online FPS for a handheld was a novelty (and it did it very well). I imagine most of the reviews at the time amounted to “the single player is OK but it’s the online you should really buy it for.”

Nowadays taken for what it is, yeah it definitely shouldn’t score so highly but I loved it at the time and can see why it was reviewed favorably.

Really not an FPS fan so I'll leave those out of it but of the ones I have really dug into I'd personally rank them best to worst...

Fusion
Super
Dread
Samus Returns
Zero Mission
Other M
2
1

@JohntheRaptor the exploration and secrets of discovery are one of a kind in Metroid Prime 1.

I think this list is also a good reason why you shouldn't take it seriously.

Having a pretty great time so far! I need at least two runs before I start to compare it to the other prime games but the first two hours have been fantastic.

Just for fun, here's my ranking for the mainline games:

Super
Dread
Zero Mission
Fusion
Samus Returns
2
1
Other M

I love them all, though (except for Other M).

@Edwicket Couldn’t agree more. So far this game seems criminally underrated, even if the aggregate is still a solid score. And I’m playing on OG Switch!
Hunters was so visually horrible I couldn’t even play past the first half hour. Moving from MP1 was just too rough. Can’t believe this game is scoring lower.

There was a Metroid Pinball? Haha. I know Nintendo like to occasionally dip into a pinball game, with Kirby and Pokemon being notable examples, but I would never have thought about Metroid as a candiate for one.

@LikelySatan "straight up lies" is a bit harsh. He immediately clarified what he meant by that in that "it feels like you are fighting the same two enemies over and over again" because there are literally 2 types of enemy that pose any sort of a threat and their variations feel very similar, and then there are fodder creatures that hardly qualify as combat.

There’s no way Hunters is better than Prime 4!

Well - it’s 1 point better than Other M, which I liked! So I’m good

@Scrubelicious It's apparently also got pacing issues and questionable writing (or more so, acting)

Still seems solid, but go in with caution

Lol some stiff competition down at the bottom

But seriously, where are the legendarily high-quality Nintendo games these days? Looking at the numbers, it seems like the quality is dropping while the prices keep going up.

I returned my copy of Beyond to Amazon (unopened), due to the reviews, but also that I have a big backlog. Zero Mission and Samus Returns are my favourites btw.

Having played it for 4 hours yesterday evening, I find myself agreeing with the 60-80 range reviews that I've read. They all mention the linearity, the fact that the biomes are separate and the desert area acting mostly as padding. I.e. the "Prime" parts are very good, but the new elements bring it down. I think that's a fair assessment. There's still much to enjoy here.

The terrible writing alone warrants such a bad rank. Nintendo hired quacks and the game is a lame duck.

So far, I'm still in linear status.
Enjoying it some, but clearly not designed for twin stick gameplay.

Dread below Zero Mission is a sin.

Yeah, that's all great, but the omissions make the list useless to everyone. I'd rather stick with the NintendoLife lists curated by the users.

@Qwiff I watched Abdallah's stream and the core gameplay is just shooting, rolling and scanning.

For me personally, it's way too monotone for me and I like a bit more variety in gameplay. I would get bored very quickly with a game as this, so I won't be picking it up.

I think SkillUp had the most insightful review on Beyond whether you agree with the conclusion or not. Beyond would probably have been considered on-par with previous MP games had it come out 15 years ago. It didn't though and in the decades since the first agme the design for Metroidvanias has evolved significantly. Hence I think one's ranking strongly depends on where you are coming from:

If you come from the OG MP games or Remastered, you probably want more-of-the-same in a fresh coat of paint. Beyond does that, albeit with some making-it-worse additions.

If you come from modern Metroidvanias or even Dread though it probably feels stale at best and backwards at worst.

I wish Retro had settled on what they wanted to do with it. The troubled development clearly shows. I'm super burned out on anything "open-world", but even I can see that a proper BotW'esque MP game could have been seminal. That is not the path they went with though. Then they should have stuck with their guns and give us MP Remastered 2.0. That they also did not abide by.

I haven't played them all, but Metroid Dread was one of my favourite games of the whole Switch generation. The weekend after I bought it, ai came down with COVID so unusually (for me) I was able to blast through a good chunk of it in one sitting.

@Edwicket Hunters is an extremely good title, and amazing for a DS title. It is one of the most technically accomplished DS games. Of course the OG controls now aren't great, but I mean for the time Hunters was amazing

I’ve only played 1-2 hours yet. Just left Myles. I actually enjoyed having him around. But yeah, the game is a bit lame in the writing and directing department. Nintendo isn’t Naughty dog or Guerilla games for sure. The overall production values are a bit lower than many games that have come in the last 10 years. But I enjoy the game for what it is. Samus bad assyness, all the cool lore, new creatures, beautiful surroundings and music and hopefully later on some fun exploration. I would never have wanted to miss this game even if some reviewer says they don’t mike some aspects of it. I just wanna see for myself whats on offer.

I’m 6 hours in and almost all new ideas they came up with feel like a miss. I’m not surprised it ranks substantially lower than the original trilogy.

Ah, Metacritic, poor credibility...

My biggest surprise is the relatively high score for Other M. Everybody seems to hate it. I had fun with it. The technical aspects were great and I liked a few plot points (especially the "big reveal" at the end). But overall the script was just very dumb. My biggest issue was the stupid reason why Samus can't use all her abilities from the start. "Your weapons are dangerous, you can only use them with my permission" just makes her look weak. "Oh, you just climbed through the inside of a volcano, maybe I should allow you to use the varia suit" was just silly. Just go with "Oh no! Suit malfunction" like every other Metroid game

I love Prime 4 so far, but your companions going "you have been wandering around for five minutes, why not try that door over there" is a bit annoying. I could also live without Miles briefing me on where to go at the beginning of an area. But to be fair, the ship's computer in Metroid Fusion does the same thing and that is probably my favorite game in the series

That Metroid Prime 4 scores only one more point than Other M is ludicrous. MP4 is light years superior.

Super on the top followed by dread, and drop hunters after prime 4. Then I'm fine with the list.

Scores aside, the drama around Beyond seems rather silly. While I have not completed the game, the 5 hours I have put in so far feel like a close to perfect re-introduction to Metroid. Scoring Beyond relative to the other games feels unfair-multiple gaming generations have passed. While I understand some of the dislikes about Beyond, they feel like they have received outsized attention and have been a distraction from what is really a phenomenal game.
Like others, I would love to have had an opportunity to have seen Metroid 2025’s BoTW moment. But it feels like a lot of reviewers forget that the first Metroid Prime may have been the original BoTW moment. It was one of the most shocking changes to have experienced as a gamer (unless you count Adventures of Link vs. OG Zelda).
If this is the start of a “new” series, Beyond feels like the right way to bring Metroid back before any additional significant changes.
For those who have been dissuaded by reviews, I encourage you to pick it up. While there are quirks one may dislike or be annoyed by, ultimately, if you enjoy Metroid, and particularly its atmosphere, the first few biomes are amongst the best I have played in any game.

I was totally dreading Myles, but at worst he is a short term annoyance.

@countzero Still waiting for my copy to be delivered; so, is that the case? You're getting directions from NPC's? That's a plus in my book. Getting lost was one of the aspects of Metroid that I was wary of. If this game is more directed, good.

@wishmylove It does seem that Nintendo is having a harder time winning over the critics. At the same time their games are selling better than ever, which is interesting. Maybe they have decoupled further from the mainstream trends than they used to.

Ultimately people should decide for themselves. Someone commented that they cancelled their preorder after waiting 18 years for a new Metroid Prime once they saw the Metacritic score. That's pathetic. If I'm a fan I don't refuse playing the game just because some Bruce from Gamerdoodle didn't like it.

Might be time to stop taking Metacritic to seriously. This was going to be a day 1 game for me but this kinda killed my hype for it slightly and plus I just tried Clair Obscur out and am hooked on it. Just ordered a copy though of Prime 4.

MP4 I think has suffered from ridiculous expectations. If they’d produced something very similar to 1 it would have been blasted for not innovating. So they’ve changed it up a little (and only a little) and now it’s being blasted for not sticking closer to its roots. But I don’t care, I’m only a few hours in but so far it’s easy an 9/10 for me.

If there were a Metacritic score for Super Metroid, it would be about 830!

I almost completely agree with the list. The only exception is Zero Mission, which I didn't like very much, and in my opinion, I would place it below Prime 4.

An 80 MC score is about right in my opinion. It's a good game but clearly has issues. My personal score would be a 7. After the amazing Dread I expected so much more from Prime 4 and it's been a bit disappointing.

@larryisaman I played it when it was new, and I remember being super disappointed. It was great on a technical level, but gameplay was not what I was looking for. That said, I wouldn't mind a multiplayer/deathmatch mode as a DLC for Metroid Prime 4. Or even a standalone game.

A lot of people saying Metroid Prime 4 is underrated, but I'm 100% it'll be one of those games that people will say it's not that good once the honeymoon is over.

AAA games are too expensive now.. For 70-80 USD, I’d required a 10/10 game with no stupid looking bike. I still love Nintendo, but Prime 4 may be one of their biggest flops.

With writing worse than Other M (yes), and that desert...

I mean, I think it won't age well. The lack of marketing from Nintendo shows that they know.

Zero Mission is way better than Fusion. Will die on that hill.

@LazyDaisy I didn’t play Prime 1 until the remaster and it quickly became one of my favorite games of all time. Certainly my favorite FPS.

Metroid Prime 1 Remastered is the greatest of all time but understably the original will be highest due to impact. After those its Super Metroid for me, then Prime 3.

Haven't played 4 yet, but I have a feeling it'll be a top 4 or 5 Metroid game

They're all great games, however...

(except for federation force, ahem....)

Ok, guys, but we should not act as if an 8 was a 4.
This is still great and above average.

Regarding the ridiculously high aggregate rating for Other M, I have a theory: some of its features made it disproportionately "critic friendly". Specifically:

1. Being fairly easy and relatively linear made it simpler to rapidly play for review.

2. Its plot may have been terribly written, but for anyone with low media literacy its "allegory about PTSD and motherhood!" created the surface veneer of 'depth'.

Friendly reminder that this is 1. a list built from aggregated scores, and 2. Every review and human opinion on the matter has at least some degree of subjectivity.

Metroid is a stellar series comprised of (mostly) quality games and spinoffs, most of which I've played. Though I would definitely argue against Metroid Prime: Hunters being that high; I found it somewhat repetitive, plus I was never able to finish the game due to the controls. Dread deserves to be higher. I haven't played Metroid Prime Pinball but would love a chance sometime.

@moevot138 The best comment I've read on this site ever. I joined in early 2017.

I put the overreaction of these extra characters in Metroid Prime 4 down to the internet rage machine needing to hyperventilate on the most absurd and trivial things, and often out of context. As you say, Metroid Prime 4 is so much more than one section with a dopey character. If you let that derail your enjoyment (and it is "let" in this situation) of an outstanding entry of this classic series, then I question that person's status as a Metroid fan or even a Nintendo fan. It's nonsensical and irrational. To think, had Nintendo not released the Myles mission for its preview, at best we get a side note about it, not a dominating narrative and incessant whining.

Of course, the latest hysterical nonsense is the lack of music for the desert bike sections. That it's locked behind completing the game or from the amiibo supposedly means the game is broken, unplayable and a train wreck. 🤣 I own the amiibo and don't care to scan. The sound of silence can often be beautiful! These enraged loons act like this is the first time in the history of gaming that a scene lacks music. Give me a break. 🤣

PS: I'm not saying anyone at this site is an enraged loon. 🤗

Edit:
Even before completing MP4, I know roughly where it will rank.
My Metroid Ranking:
Super
Prime
Fusion
Dread
Zero Mission
Prime 4
Samus Returns
Prime 2
Hunters
Prime 3
Pinball
Metroid
Other M
Metroid 2
Federation Force

(Note: I regard Prime and its Remastered version as the same game.)

@moevot138 I'd add to that the drama* around amiibo unlocks. If you're genuinely angry about not being able to change the color of a pretend motorcycle in a video game, then you've got a problem.

*Drama that exists only among a small but disproportionately loud subset of people on the internet.

Other M is terribly underrated in my opinion.

Maybe because I was already aware of Metroid’s lore so this whole idea of Samus being a person and not a machine wasn’t such a shock that it didn’t detract from the experience for me?!

It still felt pretty “Metroid” to me despite Samus’ new moves - that kind of got retained in later 2D Metroid games.

Anyways, nice list! Metroid is always consistent in brining me joy no matter what the critics say. I can’t wait to start Prime 4 tonight!

P.S. Super Metroid is my #1 with Metroid Prime (either original or Remastered) in a very close 2nd place.

To this day I still fire up Super Metroid and give it a full playthrough (probably because I can knock the whole thing out in under 3 hours).

I wonder if Prime Remastered will ever get a Switch 2 patch. I also wonder if Prime 2 will get a Gamecube for Nintendo Switch Online release soon to celebrate the release of Prime 4.

Though a Prime Trilogy release on Switch would be fantastic, too!

Okay, for the take that this is a "lesser" Metroid because of the 80 score:

I'd say that all of the top 8 games were released before 2010, with the exception of Dread and Prime 1 Remastered. As I recall, lots of people consider Dread the best of the 2D Metroids. And the remaster is an updated version of everyone's favorite 3D Metroid. It seems like something to at least consider.

Nintendo Forecast man has a great breakdown video of why scores are effectively lower for Prime 4. Not just drinking the Koolaid but with some real reasoning behind it. If this came out a few years after 3, I really think it would’ve gotten at least upwards of an 88ish

@moevot138 totally agree, tho I’m only 1hr in

What is this kind of list worth really? Super Metroid is not even there when it's still largely considered one of the best games ever. Not in the series mind you, just one of the best period.