Metroid Prime 4 Review
Metroid Prime 4 is a good action game with moments of greatness, but as a Metroid game, the experience doesn’t meet the expectations the series has established.
As an action game, you have a highly polished first person adventure that displays the power of the Nintendo Switch 2 with incredible dungeons to explore, awe-inspiring environments, unique abilities to wield and fantastic performance. The greatness is hindered by an inconsistent tone, bad pacing, especially near the end, and the forceful inclusion of an open world that drags the experience down as you’re forced to engage with it constantly.
The point of contention for Metroid Prime 4 Beyond is the absence of many series pillars, essentials and too many design choices that feel incongruent with the Metroid experience.
However, as many have inferred before, a bad Mario or Zelda is still better than the majority of games. The same principle applies to Metroid and with the right expectations, Metroid Prime 4 Beyond finds amongst the best action experiences of the year.
METROID PRIME 4 BEYOND REVIEW
Metroid Prime was a watershed moment for the franchise back in 2002 as it reinvented the series and still remains one of the highest rated games of all time. The recent release of Metroid Prime Remastered was a fresh reminder of just how ahead of the time the experience was. After nearly two decades since the last entry in the Prime series and almost over 8 years since it was first revealed back in 2017, Metroid Prime 4 Beyond is finally here.
The year is 20X9 and the Galactic Federation is in trouble. While on a nearby reconnaissance mission, one of the galaxies greatest bounty hunters answer the distress call. After sweeping in to save the day with all of her powers intact for the prologue mission, Samus is transported to the an unknown part of the galaxy and finds herself on Planet Viewros. To complicate matters, Samus also has to deal with the sharpshooting bounty hunter and pirate leader Sylux, who has a grudge to exact against her and The Galactic Federation.
As expected for the metroidvania genre, Samus has been stripped of her powers as they are no longer operational with the exception of her basic arm cannon and morph ball. You quickly learn of the extinct alien race known as the Lamorn that used to inhabit the planet, now require the help of Samus to preserve their legacy. Through a beneficial partnership, Samus agrees to help the Lamorn and in exchange she gains the use of their telekinetic powers. Although the psychic powers don’t initially appear to be overly interesting, the provide a wrinkle to the Metroid experience that give it a fresh feeling.
To help the Lamorn, Samus will need to find five keys spread out across Viewros and as you would expect, these keys will be located in five distinct and stunningly realized biomes from lush jungles, frozen caverns, and magma filled volcanoes. Each biome features gorgeous environments to admire, fantastic level design to explore, and challenging dungeons to solve.
If you zoom in, some of the textures aren’t great, but with the absence of a microscope, Metroid Prime 4 looks gorgeous and showcases how art direction is equally as important as technology. On Switch 2, Metroid Prime 4 runs at an impressive 120FPS. It might not be at 4K, but with HDR, Metroid Prime 4 is in rare company for games that look and perform as well as it does.
Samus begins her journey by exploring the biome of Fury Green, a jungle biome that immediately conjures a familial Metroid Prime atmosphere: Isolated and atmospheric. Samus soon discovers Myles MacKenzie, a stranded member of the Federation Force, which is the beginning of the deviation from the classical Metroid experience.
Once rescued, we learn more about Mackenzie and his role as technician for the Federation Force. To help Samus, MacKenzie sets up a base of operations and offers to improve her suit if she can find microchips around the world. Between the microchips you will find and the new Lamorn abilities that you will learn throughout, Metroid Prime 4 follows a very traditional genre blueprint with the refreshing variety of environments and the ever evolving abilities to keep you invested.
Myles isn’t the only member of the federation force who was also transported to Viewros, as you will quickly meet three other members who offer their support and become part of your squad. Each one of these squad members are very archetypal with Myles being the neurotic nerd, another being a huge fan of Samus, the lone wolf soldier and the grizzly veteran.
None of these characters are bad, and they are all given surprisingly strong voice performances, but they arent given much depth. In any other game, these characters wouldn’t be given a second thought, but in Metroid, they don’t fit well and as a result, they stick out like a sore thumb.
METROID PRIME 4 BEYOND CRITICIMS
When it comes to the flaws of Metroid Prime 4 Beyond, they should be divided into two separate categories: The flaws of an action game and the flaws of a Metroid.
As an action game, there were too many inconsistencies with tone and pacing. The majority of the pacing issues can be attributed to the forced open world design that connects the five different hubs. The open world desert felt mostly lifeless, but it slowed down the game to a crawl and highlighted one of the worst aspects of a metroidvania, which is the backtracking.
Unlocking a new ability should be fun, but instead it brought feelings of dread as Samus always needed to take the new microchip back to camp for Miles to study it and apply it to her suit. This involved a long slog across the lifeless desert and then multiple hidden loading screens to transport you from the open world to each individual hub. Once Myles applies the new tech, it was more loading screens, empty open world travel and more loading screens before you are tracking down your next objective. Metoid Prime 4 even introduces a tool to teleport huge items you find in the world back to camp, so why didn't Samus use this technology to fast travel to each hub once she had already visited them?
The other major inconsistency was the tone. At the start, the experience felt more akin to a traditional Metroid with the atmosphere dripping of hostility and isolation, but then you meet many members of the Galactic Federation, the tone shifts and it continues to shift as the story tries to conjure heartfelt emotions, which lack impact due to flat characters, but it attempts the exact same narrative mechanic numerous times to generate the same response and became comically predictable.
As a Metroid title, not only was Metroid Prime 4 Beyond missing all of the core elements dating back to the beginning of the series, but the two new additions to the formula didn’t resonate. Unforgiving environments, horror tinged atmosphere, methodical exploration, and constant isolation are the pillars of Metroid. The environments didn’t feel unforgiving as you quickly become overpowered for the world, the atmosphere lacked horror as Samus is quickly joined by a whole crew removing the isolation and the exploration felt overly guided. A lot of the ingredients of a classic Metroid are present, they just don’t come together in the way they should. The bosses are great, but they aren’t as varied and impressive as Dread or Prime Remastered, the two most recent Metroid entries.
The addition of the motorcycle or VIOLA felt slow to use in the open world despite speeds of over a thousand and in the tighter areas felt clunky. The other new addition was the psychic powers, which provided some clever moments, but removed a lot of the autonomy of the player. Even if you knew what to do, you usually still needed to scan something with the visor, which meant that you were constantly encouraged to remain in visor mode, which felt counter intuitive to rewarding curiousity, which has been a series staple.
METROID PRIME 4 BEYOND FINAL THOUGHTS
If you’re looking for the best Metroid on Switch, it’s either Metroid Dread or Metroid Prime Remastered and for some incredible genre experiences, then consider Hollow Knight: Silksong or Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. These are arguably the best metroidvania experiences of recent memory that highlight the strength of the genre better.
Even though Metroid Prime 4 Beyond is not the Prime experience that you have been waiting nearly two decades for, it’s still visually stunning with great worlds to explore complete with plenty of epic moments. With the exception of a few odd design choices, and with the right expectations, Metroid Prime 4 Beyond is an impressive blend of refinement, spectacle, scale and action.
