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| Metroid Prime 4 by Rafiki 01/10/2026, 5:23pm PST | ||||
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| sucks.
A couple hours in. I don't know. 4 hours, 5? You start off with a bunch of basic abilities, morph ball, bombs, double jump, spring ball, and then after being taught how to use them you get them taken away because of course you do. Then you immediately start earning them back. Instead of bombs, you get ~*psychic bombs*~. They're just like regular bombs, but you also get spring ball with them and you can pick them up by holding down A. Instead of double jump, you get ~*psychic boots*~. They give you back double jump and let you stand on previously invisible platforms. You also get your missiles taken away, and then get them right back. What was the fucking point? I know the first Prime pulled this shit, but at least that had the excuse of being the first 3D Metroid and reinventing the FPS genre to support it, so they had to acclimate you to the paradigm shift going on. This is just lazy, in particular because they're all such basic abilities. I've seen magnetic tracks and grappling points, so I'm assuming I'm going to get ~*psychic*~ magnetic ball and ~*psychic*~ grapple beam someday. 4 or 5 bosses, and they're all the same. Just endlessly circle strafe, every one has a charge ability that you have to dodge by dashing to the left or right, every one has an ability that sends a ring across the ground that you have to jump over, every one you have to "unlock" the ability to do damage. Same boss, different appearances. You get a stupid, boring motorcycle early on. You have to earn a driver's license (I mean, "certification") before you're allowed to leave the level with it. This entails completing closed-circuit courses where you drive in a loop and complete objectives related to the basic controls. They couldn't just give you the bike, give you prompts explaining the controls, and then just trust you to learn as you go and organically find ways to teach you. Nope, drive around on F-Zero tracks and shoot at enemies 3 times. (Don't get your hopes up about the F-Zero name drop. These tracks are not exciting at all.) The only reason they give you the bike is because there's a central desert hub that is huge and open and almost completely empty. You need it to drive from area to area because if you had to go on foot you'd quit the game. I saw a comment somewhere that this game is kind of structured like Ocarina of Time. The desert hub is Hyrule Field connecting multiple areas. That's seems probable. Instead of Epona, the bike's name is Vi-O-la (hyphenation theirs). The trailer for this game was what prompted me to decree that scan visors suck. This game drives the point home. Just constantly standing around and waiting for a progress bar to fill. It'd be fine if it was just some optional feature I could ignore, but, no, it constantly gates progress. I just completed an area where every single elevator had to be activated with the scan visor. I couldn't just walk into the elevator and let it take me to another floor. I had to stand around and fill up a progress bar before I could proceed. ~*Immersion*~ And let's look at some examples of the rich lore for scanning optional items:
So, crates. Super-advanced, futuristic, alien scanning and identification technology to explain to me "large crate" and "small crate." This is like using ChatGPT to calculate your tips.
This was in the opening military base invasion level, I guess in case Encino Man might be playing and doesn't know what fucking monitor is. And just to really underscore how inane the writing is, these monitors "randomly select key findings to display." Because what you want is your information system to display important information at random. HOW ABOUT: If I scan the monitor, it tells me something unique and informative about the alien invasion happening.....RIGHT NOW! As for the actual story, at the start there's a big alien invasion on a military base. You are deployed or some such by the Galactic Federation (aka military). I don't think anyone working on any of the Metroid Games since Super Metroid knows what a fucking "bounty hunter" is. Then you are transported into an alternate dimension where ancient psychic beings give you your long-term objectives. Here are some choice quotes from the dialogue:
To use it [a teleporter -ed], you must first collect five keys.[fuck you - ed] Did you hear about Myles MacKenzie? It's all true, he sucks. As if even the universe couldn't stand him, the first thing I did when I got control back after this scene was shoot him and, in the most amazing coincidence, at the exact moment the beam hit him the signal from my TV dropped out and the screen went black. I thought maybe I was going to get a Game Over screen for killing him, but it was just perfect timing. That's the most entertaining thing that's happened while playing this game. I don't know how to explain it, but with the audio it's like the music and sound effects are mixed in a way that they cancel each other out. The music is constantly playing on an endless loop and it's so forgettable it may as well be white noise, and about the only sound effect I can hear is the regular energy beam. There's no ambience at all. No real audio cues, except for obnoxious beeping when you're at low health or low missiles that repeats AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN if you shift in and out of morph ball. Nothing stands out at all. I even cut the music volume to 50%, and everything still just sounds so muted. Probably the only thing I can really compliment about the game is that the graphics are nice. |
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