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« Last post by Evan_B on December 05, 2025, 07:55:44 AM »
Metroid Prime 4… good?
Metroid Prime 4 good.
It feels reeeeeeeally good to be back, though there are a couple of sticking points, none of which have previously been discussed. The game is as gorgeous as I have been led to believe, with Samus in particular looking very sharp. I have the Vi-O-La at this point, and the narrative and gameplay aspects that lead up to that point are fantastic. I really love when level design is recontextualized on a return trip, and the region in which you discover/use Vi-O-La does that excellently. I’ve seen multiple “hey, you’re going to come back here and unlock stuff” elements as I’ve been exploring, and yeah… Myles is not a huge deal. I think there’s a tendency to assume that just because a character exists, you need to give them your full attention. People who have never played a Prime game are likely to benefit from Myles’s commentary, but if you have experience in these games and know where you want to go, he sort of fades into the background. Once he’s in his element- i.e. tech analysis, engineering- he’s also a lot more bearable.
Lastly, the lore of Viewros is a bit more upfront than previous games due to the nature of the main quest, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What I mean is, you’re getting more commentary about the planet and its culture in cutscenes, but there’s plenty of supplementary material to observe, and some connections could be inferred intuitively just by reading logs. There’s a specific lore room in the first region that actually telegraphs the second boss clearly, and it’s neat to see how it was originally perceived and dealt with by the Lamorn. I do also like that the first two regions are sort of opposed to one another thematically.
My personal gripe is more of a new adjustment, which is how you can and are encouraged to free aim while locked on during the first boss battle. I assume this will be less of a problem with the Psychic Charge Shot, but having to aim at nodes on a character’s body while said character is cycling through shield animations was a bit cumbersome. We’ll see if it remains an issue.
I’m absolutely incredibly biased, but I’ve been having a great time so far. Even the ways that some mechanics are streamlined over the course of play is very cool.
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