| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| Nintendo Switch | 6.80 |
| Overall | 6.80 |
|
One of the most anticipated Nintendo games ever finally gets its release and the result is a big shrug, what happened? Metroid Prime 4 was known to have a tough development cycle and it shows, it is a game that feels like it lost it's identity and doesn't have the series spark. The good news is its still a pretty good game, the framework is still there which means it controls great and has some solid moments. MP4 has the best feeling controls of the Prime series, there are options of which I tried both controller and motion controls, both were great to use. Motion in particular felt like MP3 which I loved so I used that a lot. Movement feels a bit faster, gunplay and dodging is snappier. Even the bike controls feel easy and responsive to use. The combat shines as the game's brightest spot, its new four elemental beams allow for some mixing and matching of abilities against enemies. Ice will freeze them obviously, fire will give them damage over time and electricity chains between a large group. There doesn't seem to be weaknesses to any element, it’s more of the effect the beam has which will determine what you use. Environmentally they allow you to access new areas and solve some puzzles. Freezing an enemy then blowing them up with a missile always feels great. Shooting a giant stream of electricity like a ghostbuster melting enemies is a fun time. It all works well because enemies are faster and have more attack patterns than ever before. There are these robots that can teleport around the arena and need to be slowed down with a beam to damage them. Some have multiple pieces that have to be hit with your mental beam which you control in slow mo like the beetle in Zelda SS. There are action sequences with hordes of enemies invading a spacious room allowing for some run and gun action, it actually felt like a decent shooter. This all comes to a head with the fantastic boss battles which are some of the best in the series. They are large in scale, and usually make use of whatever new item you learned. Here all of Samus's skills come into play in fun ways while learning a pattern and avoiding damage. They are different enough to feel fresh throughout, I wish there were more but what we got was really great. I do not play Metroid for the combat though, I'm here for the intricate level design, the finding my way through an ever unfolding labyrinth. Prime 1 really stands above and beyond the two sequels in that department but 2 and 3 still had some of that clever level design. In contrast MP4 seems generic and simplistic, as if it's another company's first attempt at a Metroid game. I am not even that upset at the structure, yeah it is more Zelda than Metroid with a HUB world and five larger areas that serve as the "dungeons" so to speak. That wasn't the issue, the issue is what's in those levels was not compelling. I didn't feel there were many clever uses of Samus' abilities. I never felt like the level itself was something I had to pay attention too as most of them were a linear line to one point then backtracking out, maybe with a new shortcut. One of the most talked about elements pre-release were the space marines that accompany Samus throughout the game. Miles the engineer in particular got the brunt of the hate for acting like some nerd in a Marvel movie, and he does sound like one but he is actually harmless and hardly in the game. I feel the other companions mess with the flow of the game, they appear in the levels and basically guide Samus through them. One level has you and two others run from room to room fighting enemies and opening doors. Other times they wait for you to solve a simple puzzle all while chatting about who knows what. It felt more like a Sony first party game where there are always two characters so they can talk to each other and it has that guided gameplay experience. The Sony games though have better stories and make sure the action has big moments, here it feels like a bad generic third party Sony game ripoff. Why am I going through linear levels with chatty NPCs in a Metroid game? Even when there is no one the level design still isn't great. There is this sequence in the middle of the game where you need to go to the ice area but first you need a fire beam so Miles tells you to go to the volcano, you cross the map, get there and walk in like two rooms, fight a creature and get this chip. Now you have to leave, go back to Miles across the map again, walk across two rooms to give him the chip to get the fire beam. Then walk back out and go across the map again to get to the ice lab where now you can melt ice with the beam. The level itself is boring as hell as you do nothing for like 20 minutes; you walk around an empty lab scanning objects looking for hidden mental keys used to open a mental door. No real puzzles, no combat, nothing even clever, you just walk and scan and do it TWICE. Once you reach the end you turn on the power and the lab is overrun with enemies, now you just backtrack out using new opened tunnels. This is not compelling gameplay. At every turn MP4 picks the most simple and boring way to progress. New powers are severely under utilized, some you don't get to the very end like the spider ball which I love. All these new mental abilities are hardly used and when they are used it's like draw a preset line. Oh there is this amazing ability to drop a mental morph ball which hangs in the air and allows you to grab it and shoot it at distant objects to turn them on. I could think of so many clever puzzles using this in conjunction with the other powers, nope, its hardly used and when it is it's so obvious and one note. The only new ability that gets to be used a bit is that mental beam which again is just the beetle from Skyward Sword, not used as well as it was in that game. Speaking of under-used gameplay mechanics, the bike is a wasted opportunity. It serves its purpose well to get you around the giant bland desert. It can also be used in combat where you can rotate the camera and lock onto enemies as you drive, feels a bit like panzer dragoon. Once again there could have been so many amazing combat sequences and even boss battles with this bike but instead you battle the same 3 enemy types over and over. The overworld is a massive disappointment as well as most of it is empty save for green crystals which you must collect, more on that later. Early on I found this missile upgrade floating between rocks, you have to hit a few ramps to reach it, wow if there are hidden upgrades like this around the map could be fun... nope it was mostly a one time thing. There are some shrines which let you get a new beam ability if you have the prerequisite power to get in and solve a simple puzzle, at least these were decent. There is no fast travel and distances are pretty far, could take a minute or so to get to where you need to go even booking it. It is a shame there isn't much to do cause controlling the bike is pretty fun. There are two levels which I thought were good, the best being the lightning factory which is the most visually appealing and has the best enemies and environments. Each level also has plenty of items you just can't reach yet, but I feel past metroid games give you a more natural way to backtrack, here at the end you just need to sweep old areas. I actually found my end game 100% item search to be one of the best parts of the game because the items actually made use of the spider ball and other powers, I love me some morph ball puzzles and there were some good optional ones here. There is just too much back and forth between the levels and going back to home base to give Miles something that lets you reach the next level, this time wasting is compounded by the big empty overworld. Like I said before there are green crystals all over, you better be hitting every one as you drive around because you need to fill this green crystal meter to end the game and it takes FOREVER. I purposefully got every green crystal as I drove around and still had to actually cover the entire map, get 100% exploration just to max it out. It is a totally brain dead activity, at least the artifacts in Prime 1 were well hidden in the world itself, this is just busy work. That's not the only fetch quest at the end, after finishing the five dungeons Miles gives you a mission to collect six mech parts around the world, they are spread out in the overworld and sometimes require you to enter certain areas again. You might have noticed the parts as you play but you couldn't do anything with them until the end. The triforce hunt in WW and the artifacts in MP1 let you collect them as you play, if you explored well you had most everything before it became a requirement; you can't do that here as the collecting is locked until the end so you waste time just going to a spot and pressing A. Once you do all that and have the green crystals you unlock the final level... which is not a level it's just the final boss, extremely anticlimatic. Speaking of the final boss, Sylux was supposed to be this compelling villain but he hardly shows up. The entire story is simple, this game really tries to make the squad be fleshed out characters the player will love but their dialogue is so simple and their stories so half assed that it doesn't work. It ends on a ridiculous note that a felt was a slap in what Samus would do, bad ending. Graphically it's a great looking switch game, which runs in 4k 60fps on Switch 2. It's still clearly a switch game so some models and objects have a very simple PS2/3 era look to it. Other times the artistry on display really shines through and the game has some beautiful moments. The desert is not one of those areas, its so flat and plain looking, with no particle effects nothing seems to move or react, it looks very old school. I will say the music is great, one of the better soundtracks in a Metroid game. I am so disappointed in Metroid Prime 4. What should have been the triumphant return of the glorious Prime games became an imitation of what should be a Prime game. A game that lacks the creative juices and level design that elevates this franchise above so many others. Is it good, yeah it's not bad, I just have played so many games like this, generic attempts from less talented teams which I have fun playing because I love this genre but are still just sort of bland. MP4 fits in that group, remove the name and it's any other Metroid like clone that fails to capture what really makes the series tick. |
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Posted by Dvader Wed, 24 Dec 2025 11:54:52
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