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| This is one of the most uninspired games I've ever played. by Rafiki 02/08/2026, 7:37pm PST | ||||
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| Just shocking how bad it is.
What if instead of a sprawling interconnected world with level design that loops back on itself to unlock shortcuts, open new areas, and access and reveal previously unattainable secrets for power-ups, the world was a big, empty central desert hub with 4 areas at each corner that were just a big long corridor with a boss at the end and a shortcut to return to the start? What if instead of exotic alien locales, the levels were instead Fire Level, Ice Level, Lightning Level, and Earth Level? And every level was Aliens, with one level that had an NPC who actually says, "They're coming outta the walls!" as enemies literally crawl out of the walls? What if every single boss in the game was exactly the same but just looked different? What if instead of power-ups that were new to the Metroid series you instead got missiles, fire, ice, and lightning beams, and all of the suit abilities were just existing abilities with the word "Psychic" tacked onto the front? On the subject of NPCs, in addition Myles you meet some sniper, Seargent Carl Weathers, a giant robot, and a woman who is a combat soldier but acts like a fucking 8-year-old. ROFL! LOL! OMG ^____^ Listening to her is like listening to a toddler that wants to help in the kitchen. In the future, humanity will be enslaved by aliens because the military will be staffed by Hannah from Questionable Content. She doesn't even have the dumbest line in the game, though. That goes to Carl Weathers with, "PIECE'A CAKE! Red VELVET cake!" Late in the game there's a LIKE IF THIS MAED U CRY moment where Carl Weathers nobly sacrifices himself against the alien hordes to protect Samus. Later in the same level, Armstrong nobly sacrifices herself (oh thank god) against the alien hordes to protect Samus. Then finally, the robot nobly sacrifices itself against the alien hordes to protect Samus. Three times in the exact same level they repeat the same story beat. Still later you have to go find the sniper to get a key item to progress the game. He's out in the desert somewhere, you're told. For no reason at all they don't give you a map marker, you just have to drive around and look for smoke from a campfire (what). I guess a military outfit doesn't want to keep tabs on its members when they've crashed on a hostile alien planet. When you find him, he's playing the harmonica (what) and starts dispensing what's supposed to be age-earned wisdom like he's some wandering sage. He asks if you can feel the desert air and smell the wild game while you're both standing there in full-body power armor that shut your senses off from the outside world. I recently rewatched The Producers and I'm not ruling out that Metroid 4 is some sort of Springtime for Hitler attempt at deliberate failure. Wikipedia says that this game was originally started by Bandai/Namco and then handed over to Retro Studios and development completely restarted. I thought maybe Retro must have not had much time and was just trying to salvage what they could, but, nope, turns out they had 6 years. How the fuck do you turn out a game like this after 6 years with a company that proved they could do Metroid three times over and with the financial backing of a billion dollar publisher? I also read that the game was originally being developed as an open world game, but they had to ditch that idea because it didn't work. So my personal theory is that after getting the game from Bandai after that development failed, Retro actually did try to make a Metroid that was new and different, failed, and then in a last-ditch attempt to recover millions of dollars of development costs they slapped together some bullshit about you being the Chosen One foretold from the Ancient Prophecy along with suit powers they already knew worked and as many video game stereotypes as possible. Because if this is actually the best they can do, they may as well rebrand as Ubisoft Texas. Random note: The attempt at an open world game + the desert hub + the motorcycle makes me think they were trying to ape Borderlands. I don't know why anyone would ever want to do that, but after I had that thought I started to notice that every time Myles contacted me over the radio he reminded me more and more of Claptrap. |
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