Gaviin

@michellelynn0976 "Samus needs to develop more as a character"

Oof, no thanks. That's how we got the cringeworthy Other M. They should embrace what Metroid and Samus are when they're at their best: mysterious, silent, solitary.

@marandahir That would assume I had any digital games.

The only thing that gave me pause was my saves, including my 100% korok seed BotW save, lol. I could have subscribed to MyNintendo or whatever to transfer them to the cloud, but I decided against it. So if/when I ever get a S2 and get an urge to replay (or finally finish) anything I already own, I'll have to start from scratch. In the end, no big deal.

I sold my Switch 1, assuming that Metroid Prime 4 would be good enough to spur me to buy the Switch 2. Sadly, that has not panned out as expected. So I guess I'll wait to see if something else comes along that pulls me in. Another Metroid game... maybe an Eternal Darkness remaster and/or sequel... not sure. Kinda bummed though.

@Ultimapunch I dunno, the first one certainly horrified me.

@SuperWeird I haven't played MP4 yet, but I'm shocked to see any praise for Dread's music. It was the one part of that game that I found to be at best intensely forgettable and in some places actively bad (similar to Fusion).

I've been buoyed by seeing some praise for MP4's music as I'm really on the fence about the game and music is very important to me. Would you say it's similar in style to the earlier Prime games (which I loved... MP1 especially), or did they try something new?

@GravyThief That was my feeling. I could barely get to like six hours before losing all interest. Been collecting dust since then. Maybe I'll give it another shot if/when I pick up a Switch 2, but man, these open world Zeldas just do not click with me. I miss the old formula.

Prime 2 and 3 Remastered, please.

@Cia I certainly hope you're right!

Oof. If anything could dampen my excitement for Metroid, the words "open world" certainly do it.

@Lizuka Preach! If all this EPD dev team can do is open world stuff, I'll look elsewhere.

Really hope they release MP2 and 3 remasters. MP1 was amazing.

I desperately need a remaster of Eternal Darkness.

@Yoshi3 My thoughts exactly!!

"... where she and a crew of Galactic Federation soldiers..."

Ugh. Vastly prefer this series when it's a lonesome, solitary affair for Samus.

Where are Prime 2 and 3 Remastered? So weird that they don't seem to be in the offing before Prime 4.

@rosemo Also a movie named "My Own Private Idaho" from 1991 with Keanu Reeves.

Prime 3 is "best of the trilogy"?? I know everyone is entitled to their opinions and tastes, but... come on.

It's very interesting... looking at my favorite Square soundtrack (Chrono Trigger), I think the weakest songs are the ones that Uematsu contributed. Not saying he's bad by any stretch; I like a fair amount of the classic Final Fantasy stuff. But it's weird how overshadowed he was by Mitsuda on that particular game.

To you folks saying the original was too long, oof, that was one of my favorite aspects! Thought it was the perfect length. I kept dreading that it would wrap up, and it thankfully went on for a few "chapters" more. Very satisfying and meaty story. Really hope they capture lightning in a bottle again with the sequel.

@GameOtaku Until the AI algorithms doing the translating have ideological tendencies baked in. Which already occurs. Sigh.

Oof. Pretty cringe-worthy.

Yeah, pass. Too bad.

@BlublacMH Ah, I wasn't aware that his tenure extended so far back. Thanks for clarifying!

My complaint is with the extreme move away from the traditional Zelda formula of more curated plots and progression tracks. I assumed it was Aonuma who was responsible for that, but I may be wrong. If he was, I can only rate his tenure as checkered, at best, especially considering Zelda seems quite set on this open world formula for the foreseeable future.

@MetalKingShield I can't express how deeply I disagree with that statement.

Where's the "neither" option?

@TheGreyandTheRed I believe he was at least partly referring to your use of "irregardless," which isn't actually a word. It's just "regardless."

@Coalescence Couldn't agree more! I'll never understand the praise Fusion gets. The constant narrative interruptions go against what Metroid is all about, it's pretty ugly graphically, and the music is truly awful.

I probably liked Dread a bit more than you did, but there too the music was just bad. Same with Samus Returns. Those two could have really gone up in my estimation with good soundtracks. Missed opportunities.

@canaryfarmer Parsec is a unit of distance, not time.

It's "jibe with", not "jive with".

Lol uhhh... no thanks. Sorry, but her performance as Zelda is terrible.

"... hasn't got off to the best start..."

You mean "hasn't gotten* off to the best start".

0-9%, and prob won't pick it up again for a long while, if ever. I miss the old Zelda, especially 2D style.

Doesn't have to be a launch title, but I really hope at some point we get an Eternal Darkness remaster/remake.

I gave it a few hours, but haven't touched it in about a month and a half. I bounced off BotW a couple times before it stuck (more or less), and even then it felt like more of a grind than an enjoyable Zelda experience. TotK felt like more of the same and maybe even worse, so I fear I won't be able to summon the resolve necessary to get through it.

Some of the earlier comments capture my feelings well. I'm just not a big fan of this open world wave we're in the midst of. I'd much prefer a more curated, deliberate, progression-based experience, with a tight story, fewer NPCs that I have to talk to and work through countless lines of dialogue that aren't particularly interesting or necessary, no grind, and memorable music. Hopefully Nintendo gets back to that at some point.

@Yalloo Oh yes, the original Metroid is certainly of a bygone era. Unapologetically opaque. And sadly the performance hinders the gameplay in a lot of places, especially towards the end. I loved it back in the day, and it still holds a very special place in my gaming heart. But if I were to experience it fresh now, I'd feel exactly the same as you.

Fortunately Super Metroid is a timeless classic. And I think it's fair to say that experiencing — and ideally conquering — the original, as painful as that can be, only serves to enhance the experience of the SNES follow-up.

After that, the Prime series is amazing, with Dread being a very solid entry as well (only downside on that one being the extremely lackluster music).

Lol omg. They really should not have brought anyone back from BotW, especially Zelda. Some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard. It's always hard to determine if it's more the direction vs. the acting, but I suppose it's usually a bit of both. All I know is I actually took to muting the game whenever there were voiced scenes. They were... so bad. :/

I don't know who he is or how he'll do, but I hope he and the rest of the cast do an infinitely better job than the folks who did BotW. That was... painful. To put it mildly.

Nice review, but this is an 8 for me. The two things that bugged me the most were the "talky" and narrative-heavy nature of it (vs. the silent, lonesome, isolated feel of the other classic entries of the series) and the music, which was forgettable at best and grating at worst.

I played through it recently and couldn't believe how many times I thought to myself, my god this music is simply awful, lol. Unfortunately Dread suffered from the same lack of attention in that department, but thankfully made up for it with other qualities.

In the end, Fusion is pretty decent not great.

I just hope they focus a lot more on a unified, overarching story and better writing this time around. I enjoyed the first game, but felt essentially no emotional connection to the story or characters. It was all very simple and bland. The only part that got me interested was the final segment when story shifted to be grander and character-spanning. That was good stuff, but came way too late and was too abbreviated.

No Metroid anything??? D: How disappointing.

Well, one thing we can all agree on... Square Enix makes the worst game titles around.

Given MP3 is by far the weakest of the trilogy, I would venture to say the less Halo influence the better.

Great to see! I just hope for any future entries in the franchise they put far more effort into the music. That was the one negative aspect of Dread and frankly was an utter failure, especially when compared to how great Metroid music has been historically. Other than that, thoroughly enjoyed the game.

Nah, Trigger really is that good.

I wanted so badly to love Cross, but having like 50 playable characters (!) resulted in my not really caring about any of them. It was exhausting, and eventually I lost interest in the story altogether. Plus the music pales in comparison to Trigger.

@EriXz I felt the same way. Great gameplay, story was pretty good, beautiful visuals.... but my goodness was the music bland and lacking. I might even say it was straight-up bad. Unfortunate. It really holds the game back from greatness in my mind.

Yeah I can't hear any sound effect in that video.

Square Enix really needs to hire a new Head of Game Naming...

For some reason I just couldn't get into this game. Made two attempts. Second time I got further, but still lost interest and never finished.

"They're very, very particular about vocal sounds"

Yet somehow we end up with the god awful voice acting (at least in English) from Other M and BotW, to name a couple. I guess bad is preferable to maybe-a-little-sensual?

How do I not remember some of these DKC:Tropical Freeze songs? Seashore War. Omg.