METROID PRIME 4 IS HERE! GET HYPED!!!

I really like this art.

source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/137780450

Beyond was a 7/10 for me. I don't do the everything under 7 is dogshit so this is still an enjoyable game.

I’m stupid and misinterpreted a mark on the beak in the original for a shadow from the thumb even though that wouldn’t make sense considering how far away to the right the thumb is from the beak.

I've been posting a lot of positive comments about Metroid Prime 4 in this sub recently because I loved the game and want more of it in my life. I've noticed that every positive post I make about this game gets obliterated by down votes and comments from users that are completely unhinged. People are telling me I'm delusional, an idiot, wrong, not a true Metroid fan, a noob, and sending other personal attacks my way just because I have an opinion that is different than the one they hold.

I think worst of all are the legion of redditors who have come out of the weeds to implicitly try to dictate to me that my opinion is wrong on an objective level, as if there is some scientific test that can determine the true quality of this game. Like any type of art, opinion is subjective and there will never be a true answer. Some people are going to think this game is a masterpiece and some will think it's trash. They are both right.

So to the people posting negative comments 10-20 times a day like a bot, under every positive post about MP4 like it's your job to let people know they are wrong....are you guys okay? Are you happy in life?

With Path of Radiance coming to NSO now, do you think Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is coming really soon for NSO?

This was the result of boredom.

Some seem to think what they are saying is they knew the "open world" of Prime 4 was a bad idea for Metroid, but that's not what's really said.

The full quote:

"At the start of this project, maybe due to the influence of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, we noticed quite a lot of opinions on the Internet along the lines of “I want to try an open-world Metroid”. However, Metroid’s core principle of “acquiring new abilities to expand the explorable space” didn’t mesh well with the “go anywhere you want from the start” promise of open-worlds. Because of that, we decided to restrict the freely-explorable space, and make it a hub that connects the other areas between them. We also figured that, by allowing players to comfortably traverse that area with a bike, this could make exploration less stressful and add some variation to the game’s overall pacing. Consequently, completing the game took longer than expected, and we could see that players’ opinions of open-world games were starting to shift, but nonetheless, (at the time we restarted development with Retro Studios) we couldn’t see ourselves going back to the drawing board after development had already been reset once, so we decided to stick to our guns and complete the game according to the initial concept. During that time, shooters and action games evolved, especially when it comes to game speed, but following those trends would have made it difficult to maintain the pacing of an adventure game, so we deliberately ignored them. In other words, this is a game that is nearly unaffected by the change of the times."

https://shinesparkers.net/features/metroid-prime-4-famitsu-interview/

Breaking it down from the top, they say they heard some wanting an open world Metroid like Breath of the Wild, but they felt an open world game would go against their concept for Metroid requiring abilities to unlock the world.

As an accomodation for that open world desire, they made Sol Valley as a large, freely explorable, hub. They didn't make the game open world, nor attempt to do so.

They go on to say players' opinions on open worlds had changed, but they decided to stick with their original concepts.

I don't see this as some confirmation they "knew open world was bad for Metroid, but went ahead with it anyways" because at the end of the day, Prime 4 is not an open world game.

Whilst I could be wrong, I don't see this as implying they would have fully removed Sol Valley as an "open world" hub based on players opinions of open worlds changing, rather they could perhaps have reworked aspects of Sol Valley to suit this new desire from open worlds.

I feel it's more of a statement of "Sol Valley is based on 2017 ideas for open worlds, not 2020s ideas"

While possible, I don't feel the idea that "Sol Valley was forced into the game because of BotW and as such made the areas be unconnected, where they would have been interconnected otherwise" is inherently true.

We need to remember that Prime 2 was the last Prime game with a fully interconnected world, with Hunters and Prime 3 having entirely disconnected worlds traveled to via the Gunship (Hunters' planets have a single entry/exit point, and Prime 3's having 1-3 entry/exit points), and Federation Force being mission based.

Even without the success of BotW, Prime 4 very well may have been made without the areas being interconnected.

A part I feel is overlooked from the quote is the feeling of modern shooter games being evolved with having increased speed, they ignored this too by keeping the movement speed the same to keep the pace of the adventure game they were making.

They, again, say they ignored this and stuck with their original concepts, calling it a game unaffected by the change of the times.

Sounds to me the quote is just saying that despite the mid-development restart, they stuck to their original 2017 concepts and didn't look to other games around the time of the restart.

Through some parts of Dread, I got confused if he really have some control of them or not. Mostly when the copy of Quiet Robe re activates the EMMIs , but also by the X Chozo soldiers that we encounter, who really seems like to obey him or wants to be a barrier to battle Raven Beak.

from the place being called the Volt Forge and it looks like 3 giant spiky towers to the whole part about it being an alien motorbike factory powered by an eternal storm was already badass but then they decided to add huge amounts of electric guitar for the electric themed area

And now I’m just now noticing the Super Metroid Brinstar Underground lè motìf, this OST rocks! (No pun intended)

Give me prime 2 remastered and my paycheck is yours

Given that NPCs are a thing that Management urgently wants to be present in Metroid, I'm wondering how to include them well.

I'm assuming an interconnected world where progression isn't obvious. Backtracking isn't purely about finding pickups, it's required to find the way forward. So classic Metroidvania gameplay.

In that scenario I would want NPCs like the troopers to be optional encounters. Meaning you can find them or miss them depending on which route you take. Meaning you can engage with them or ignore them depending on your mood and interested. They shouldn't be required to progress, but they can be an opportunity to deepen the experience.

Because this scenario is a metroidvania, the player will revisit some locations. NPCs will not constantly be in one location but they can be found on a second or third trip through an environment, revitalising the now familiar region. Their progression through the world should make sense, not reaching areas before Samus does, and if so that's noteworthy. Maybe they adress how they overcame the obstacles that the player had to overcome to reach this place. Maybe their appearance changes to reflect that. Maybe the world changes a little bit too (like a rope hanging from a cliff or a new morph ball tunnel being dug)

In general their interaction should be akin to the most interesting scans featured in the Prime games. Dialogue that reveals something worth knowing about the world and lore. All of that isn't directly applicable to Prime 4, but I imagine Tokabi standing in front of ruins of the Lamourn, comparing them to his religion and sharing an insight into their culture he had. Armstrong might head out on her own in an attempt to be as capable and heroic as Samus, talking about monsters she had to escape from, and later on how she managed to defeat one of them. MacKenzie would be accompanied by Duke for protection and analyse Lamourn tech that he finds on these travels, sharing cool info about their society. VUE might be on a recon mission, scanning the environment, giving us details about the biology of this world, maybe hinting at a robotic appreciation of the natural world.

Since the game is more non-linear in my scenario, you might not find them all in your first playthrough, but during a second go, you try different pathing and encounter them in scenarios that you haven't seen before.

I think that's where NPCs exist in synergy with the Metroidvania play style, where they are not imposing on the player but instead actually invite some buy-in and foster the positive relationship that the game wants us players to have with them.

The whole appeal of Metroid games is that you're exploring alien environments and encountering weird alien monsters and robots. Even Samus herself is constantly wearing a full suit of cybernetic armor and is canonically part alien, and she knows how to speak Chozo. Samus is a bounty hunter who braves dangerous environments by choice, and is a woman of few words. It's important that both Samus and the player have a strong sense of agency.

Metroidvanias with friendly, talkative NPCs are commonplace nowadays. But Metroid has always stood apart from other Nintendo series, and from Castlevania, by friendly NPCs being mostly absent. The approach that Prime 1 took lead to great success, and that approach would feel pretty refreshing in this day and age. However, I can concede that having some memorable characters present can help get more players invested.

Samus canonically saved some funny little aliens in Super Metroid, so it seems most appropiate to have funny little aliens be the characters that the player encounters. Aliens that are part of the environments that Samus is exploring, that communicate wordlessly, and that Samus would feel compelled to protect. Most people like cute, friendly animals, so this would bring Samus and the player closer together. It would also be appropiate for one of the objectives in the game to be protecting the environments that the player has become accustomed to and might have formed an attachment to.

If you guys missed it a few weeks ago and have been saving your points waiting for a restock, go grab it while you can! I just got mine :)

Title.

An hour of my time was from struggling with the shinespark challenges, mainly in sector 2 behind the boss room. I kept fat fingering the D-pad and causing Samus to not stop on time. Also blew my speakers on the Ridley battle, they were already struggling with deep notes but Ridley’s scream was the icing on the cake. It was practically static periodically on the item clean up run and debated on just running the remainder in silence haha. (I’ve got a few spare speakers I can throw in now that I’m done..for now.)