r/metroidprime

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I've finally finished playing through this game after bouncing off for quite a few months. But it was worth picking it up again. And what shall I say? This game is such a weird release. It took them roughly 8 years and a developer-reset to create a game that ultimately received mediocre reviews, a lot of hate from fans and maybe never was capable to step out of that franchises dense shadow anyways. In the end, the highs are pretty high while the lows indeed are heartbreakingly low. It still ends up being a ride worth taking for me, but it never ceases to depress, thinking at what it could've been.

+ The biggest achievement and something that just doesn’t get enough spotlight is, that this game runs on a Switch 1 at ~60fps. PS5 people might look at this and at least in some areas still think „this ain’t look so bad“ not realizing that this game runs on a portable system that was already outdated when it launched around 9 years ago and consumes something around 7-8 Watts. They should get an award just for that. Also the Switch 2 version is more than just higher resolution and more FPS. There are some locations that are a true joy to look at and show how much the devs actually really wanted this to work.

+ 18 years after the last Metroid Prime game they still have that exact formula of how this franchise needs to feel. The visor, the music, the controls, the way visuals and effects behave, the style, the designlanguage… anyone working in design and understanding what a brandbook for a static brand looks like immediately has endless respect for what they achieved here. Not sure how many people of the OG team were working on this, but apart from its shortcomings it at least feels unbelievably consistent. This alone is a reason why to still recommend this to Metroid Prime fans.

+ unlike corruption, the characters somehow harm the Metroid feeling less than I thought. Still, I believe a Metroid game without any wannabe-blockbuster-dialogue should be doable.

+ the game gains a lot of momentum the longer you play it. At around 70% I really felt like I’m having a good time with the game.

+ This got mentioned but I feel I still have to point out what an amazing demo for mouse mode this is. The implementation and also the use case of jumping back an forth between mouse and analog stick on the fly just as you switch between bike and FPS is the most amazing feature. Also having mouse controls on one hand plus analog controls in the other hand feels like the most superior setting for mouse-movement.

+ The new additions are at times pretty fun. Like the gameplay layer of PSI powers and their corresponding puzzles and tasks. They might still feel a bit underutilized though but I prefer them over that corruption-layer in MP3.

+ The weapons system is also quite OK. I dan’t remember all of the other MP-games systems, but having special ammo for ice, shock and fire and being able to level these 3 weapons worked quite OK.

+ The hookshot in this game reminds me of Twilight Princess’ double hookshot. Which was TPs greatest item. So thats cool.

+ The locationdesign is seriously great at times. They somehow also profit a bit from the game’s more linear approach and are able to implement some more storytelling through events.

~ For better or worse, the good thing with that game’s linear structure is that its easier to get it just done. This shouldn’t be a good thing, but I was able to 100% complete it with ease. And there were at least some nice little morph ball puzzles and the usual stuff you’d expect from that franchise.

~ There’s a very infamous concept of collecting green crystals in this game and its indeed an absolutely weird one. Like a lot of things in the hub-world its like a huge filler-element that will take you a lot of time to just drive around to search for crstals. That being said, I didn’t mind as much as others did. Tune to a podcast and just cruise around. It can be quite relaxing this way. It just doesn’t have anything to do with playing a Metroid Prime game and its kind of sad they had to come up with this. But I found 100% of those crystals, so if I can do it, everyone can.

- Sylux is the most stupid antagonist ever. MP antagonists have never been amazingly creative nor surprising, but this is just something else. The finale was actually really impressive with this white tower and the actual alien setting. Then Sylux comes out of nowhere just for the sake of a boss fight? I mean I kinda liked that boss fight, it just didn’t have any weight as I couldn’t care less about Sylux. Been playing FFVII Remake next to this and maybe I’m spoiled by how crazy of an antagonist Sephiroth is, but no. Sylux just really sucks. I had preferred just another king-monster-alien-thing like they would usually do. When you try to do something more interesting and end up doing the most boring thing.

- not enough cool new gadgets. the Psi-aspect was interesting, but all in all you’ll once again for the 4th time will have to find a very basic set of MP-gadgets like hookshot, super-missiles and so on. Not even a screw attack nor anything that hasn’t been there before. Some might argue „really? theres a whole bike in there???“ … and those might have a point. still the general FPS-gameplay feels sorta samey.

- There are a lot of other negative things to point out here but I feel like most of it has already been said. The Ocarina of Time-world structure, the lack of trust in player’s capabilities to figure out stuff by themselves, a ton of questionable decisions. Those green crystals. Boy. How could this survive any pitch meeting? Such a ridiculous concept.

Conclusion: It's the definition of a mixed bag. Everyone loving Metroid and being cautious due to bad reviews and user opinions: maybe pic it up if you see this at a discount, don’t expect too much, it could award you with some excellent elements from the series and also very cool new elements. I don’t think the game is such a chore to play, actually its kinda straight forward and will lead you through some nice environments. The painful thing here really comes down to what could’ve been and what this series should be heading towards to. But what is here can definitely be enjoyable.

Whether you like it might be totally up to you. Some MP-veterans like myself might be able to really enjoy the MP-parts of the game as they can feel so right at home at times. But they also might not be able to overcome its shortcomings and hate it.

Some people new to the franchise might really love the game for what it is, as their expectations aren’t as spoiled as those of MP-fans. Some might just feel like playing some weird game out of the PS3-era.

For me, the most painful issue I got with this game is just the potential it did have. Looking at games like Bioshock (which was released 20 years ago) there are ways to make 3D Metroidvanias more dynamic, more modern. With newer tech, Retro had the chance to really bring this genre a step further, showing the industry how its done. The structure could’ve been more open, enemies could have spawned more randomly, the world could’ve been more dynamic. games like Bioshock and Prey really innovated that genre and yet …. yet MP4 decided to move backwards. Away from Metroidvania structures toward a more streamlined experience. And the part where its more open feels like a huge deserted dump to randomly place all the stuff that didn’t make it into the actual game. Upgrades, items, collectibles that you could’ve been discovered through cool puzzles or challenges are just spread throughout this hubworld.

The bottomline was that it was quite a nice playthrough which I sometimes enjoyed way more than Metroid Prime 3, but I know I’ll never go back to it again due to it at the same time reminding me of all the things it could’ve been doing. I just hope this didn’t sell so bad they wouldn’t do another game in this series and at the same time bad enough to motivate them to try out some more brave concepts and decisions next time. This text was also published on my Backloggd under my username Valcoholic.

The story was bad to begin with but then it cuts to credits abruptly in the most out of character moment for Samus. She just lets the bums sacrifice themselves for her. And no I didn't care about them, the writing did nothing to endear them to me and they didn't really add anything but since they are there it's weird they all borderline worship her and she just bails on them.

Sylux was a bad villain, he literally appears only at the end for one of the worst designed boss fights I've ever experienced. Also the whole Metroid thing and him fusing them with random shit is completely unexplained and weird. I know there was a DS game that introduced him but I didn't play it did it do enough work to make the "plot" of prime 4 make sense? I doubt it.

The open world was so barren and boring, I get it's a desert but no one forced them to make this weird useless overworld that mostly exists to pad run time. The bike was fun but only exists to make the shitty desert traversable. I also don't get why they felt the need to include the NPCs just to have Samus ignore them. It feels like they're terrified to have her talk after Other M, but then it's awkward to have her still be completely mute, especially when people are directly asking her things or interacting with her.

I think this is definitely the worst Metroid I've played. It's not the worst game. I think it's just pretty mediocre. It's not outright an awful game it's an awful Metroid. Pretty disappointed considering how long the wait was. God knows when/if we get a 5th game. But I also wouldn't want a sequel to pick up where this nonsense left off, narratively speaking.

Hi all, I'm close to giving up due the Phazon Mines huge difficulty spike. I tried many times and after dying for the 5th time after progressing 30-40mins and losing it all again, I abandoned the game about 1 1/2 ago.

I've come back to it now with better knowledge of how to defeat the various different enemy times relatively quickly, however, there is so little health available I'm really fed up with dying and wasting hours of my life.

So, I've made it to the cylinder morph ball maze room but health is getting pretty low. I'm wondering if I now backtrack to the save point, will I be able to return here without redoing the canon room task etc?

I know many of the enemies respawn after saving, but wonder if I could attempt to speed run past them all to return to here?

I've read there are still many difficult enemies before the next save point.

If not, I'll probably give up on the game and sell it and an otherwise 10/10 game becomes a 5/10 game.

Thanks

EDIT:

So, I've made it through to the next save point which has taken a lot of pressure off.

There is a save point almost immediately after the mini boss (elite pirate), and there is places before it to rebuild your health to full.

My advice to anyone tackling Phazon Mines:

1. Find out exactly how to take down each enemy type (basically match your gun colour to their highlighted colour). Use charge blasts of the correct colour.

2. The first part is the hardest (for me anyway). Use a guide so you know exactly what to do in each room.

3. Exploit item respawns as much as possible. The main one I found was around the elevator to Level 2. You can take it down and get the items in the boxes then from the box that kills the pirate, then go back up and destroy the electrons for their energy cells. You can repeat this over and over again until you have full health. You can then go in to the mini boss with full health. You can also harvest energy from the toxic mines floating in the ventilation shaft after the mini-boss.

4. The mini boss is actually very easy if you know what to do. Look it up before hand. There is a save pretty much right after that.

(Hi, I'm a new poster on this subreddit)

I know there has been a lot of speculation for a while now around the possibility of Metroid Prime 2 being remastered. I played MP1 Remastered on Switch a few months ago and was really blown away by the amazing job that was done on it. Having played that I (along with many other MP fans I'm sure) was hoping that we might see a follow-up remaster of MP2 at some point.

Then, there was the news/rumor a few months ago that MP2 was scheduled to be released as part of the Switch Gamecube online library, which seemed to be a negative indicator for a possible MP2 remaster. Ok.

However, that rumor seems to have been denied at the time. It has been a few months now since that leak and still there hasn't been any sign of MP2 being released for the Switch GC library, or even being confirmed for it.

So, here's my question: as more time passes without MP2 being released for the Switch GC library, could that be seen as a possible positive indicator that a remaster might actually be in the works? It seems that releasing the Gamecube version of MP2 for Switch online wouldn't be such a difficult thing to do. It would surely make sense to release it sooner than later, to capitalize on the interest in the series generated by MP4, and I would think it would be a very popular game for the GC library. After all, it was one of the best games on the GC and many people are likely interested in playing MP2, having played the MP1 Remaster.

So, if they were going to release MP2 for the GC online, why haven't they done it (or even announced it) by now? What are they waiting for?

I was having a good time until I rescued Miles, and you know what? I thought it was just the internet blowing things out of proportion, but no, he is genuinely one of the most annoying characters I’ve ever encountered in a video game. Every thing you do, he has some totally-relatable adorkable XD randum quip about it.

I know it would be a waste of money to drop this, but if this is how he and other characters are throughout the rest of the game - that is, following me around and vomiting out “hilarious” lines every 90 seconds - then I’d rather play something else and spare myself the pain. So let me just ask: does the game get to a point where you don’t have Miles and his buddies in your ear with this garbage?

I'm going to call it now: The NPCs are NOT dead--they do *not* die. There's no evidence in the game to support them being killed. In fact, the only ones who were shot were Samus and MacKenzie; Sylux grabbed Armstrong by the neck, but let her go. As the game ends, the NPCs are wrestling with Sylux, and that's all. The game doesn't even suggest that they died at the hands of Sylux. Were they abandoned--marooned on Viewros? Yes. But there's no evidence that they were killed (by Sylux) or that they died of starvation.

I'm predicting that they will reappear in the next installment of the series--I'm convinced there will definitely be a 5th Prime sequel.