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Pre-Release Metroid Prime 4: Pre-Release Discussion Thread

Aurc said:
Normally, I'd be inclined to agree with you, but the composers for Dread had a very poor grasp on what Metroid is "supposed to" sound like. In light of that, I can't help but feel at least somewhat apprehensive. If you look up Soshi Abe and Sayako Doi (the pair that worked on Dread), they have very sparse composer's credits, with the latter only having joined Nintendo in 2019.

Now, I'm not saying you can't give new blood a chance, because obviously Yamamoto or Hamano aren't always going to be around to do the OST for every single new Metroid game, but it's a bit of a shame that Abe and Doi in particular clearly weren't the right fit for the series. It's not because Dread went for "ambient", either, despite that being the common, straw man rhetoric people (usually fans of Dread's OST) generally like to employ. There are, in actuality, many ambient, or atmospheric tracks across the whole of the Metroid series, and they don't sound anything like Dread's glorified, royalty-free hotel elevator music. Rather, they're of a much higher quality, and far more memorable, to boot.
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As someone who isn’t big on Dread’s music either, you can’t really call something a straw man and then bring up the fact that the composers being recent hires as a possible reason as to why it was bad, especially since Hamano was in the same boat with Super Metroid.

Direction can influence music dramatically. I’m not trying to say Yamamoto is bad now or anything because that would be dumb, but I’ve also seen people say that his invovlement with Samus Returns and Dread was minimal as an excuse and that he’s too busy with Prime 4, which I don’t think is true. Sushi Striker is the only game he’s been involved with in between SR and Dread, and that was only for sound support.

Also, I doubt that either Abe or Doi are working on Prime 4, at least in a major capacity. They’ve been credited in other games recently like Brain Training, New Horizons, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, and Big Brain Academy. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Matsuoka again, as he’s worked under Yamamoto several times. He did work on Bowser’s Fury, but that’s a 3 year gap for essentially a side mode in an exisiting game.
 
N75 said:
As someone who isn’t big on Dread’s music either, you can’t really call something a straw man and then bring up the fact that the composers being recent hires as a possible reason as to why it was bad, especially since Hamano was in the same boat with Super Metroid.

Direction can influence music dramatically. I’m not trying to say Yamamoto is bad now or anything because that would be dumb, but I’ve also seen people say that his invovlement with Samus Returns and Dread was minimal as an excuse and that he’s too busy with Prime 4, which I don’t think is true. Sushi Striker is the only game he’s been involved with in between SR and Dread, and that was only for sound support.

Also, I doubt that either Abe or Doi are working on Prime 4, at least in a major capacity. They’ve been credited in other games recently like Brain Training, New Horizons, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, and Big Brain Academy. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Matsuoka again, as he’s worked under Yamamoto several times. He did work on Bowser’s Fury, but that’s a 3 year gap for essentially a side mode in an exisiting game.
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The straw man I refer to is simply the one some use to dismiss criticisms of the soundtrack as "Eh, you guys just don't like an ambient OST", when in reality, we do appreciate ambient, but we're particularly harsh on Dread because it's not up to the standard of some of the other high points in the series, music-wise. In fairness, it does seem to be a minority of people employing that dismissive handwave in their remarks, but I've seen it pop up, here and there, when / wherever Dread's OST is a point of discussion.

Maybe it's uncouth of me to bring up Abe and Doi being on the newer side, but I only do so to imply that they may be lacking in experience, or that their style isn't the right fit for Metroid, rather than to suggest they're somehow bad at their jobs. You do raise a valid point, in that they were only operating under Yamamoto's direction, so I'm not exactly sure what happened there. I really wish we knew who was doing the music for Prime 4.
 
Dark Cloud said:
2023 is when I thought it would come for a little while now. I’m starting to wonder if they might do an open world now though. With the latest interview with a former Retro employee saying they had ideas for open world Prime 3; maybe this will be revisited for Prime 4.
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Dark Cloud said:
Retros going to make it open world I hope. I like for them to be trendsetters. Metroid Prime barely can be replicated by other devs and that’s 20 years old. I’d like for them to advance it again.
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Open world Metroid Prime game sounds very demanding and complicated for making, also I am not sure it would work very well and that would be best solution for Metroid Prime, but game with more open world and more open areas compared to MP Trilogy, sure.
 
This thread hyped me to the roof.

Few of my takes:
-Most likely 2023. game while we will have Metroid Prime 1 Remaster next year
-It will be cross gen in any case, similar like Sony is doing their cross gen games
-Dont expect open world Metroid Prime game but definitely more open world and more open areas compared to MP Trilogy
-Hoping for improved combat and great world puzzles, but less or at least easier backtracking.
 
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Marizza Pia Spiritto said:
Do y'all think they'll try to bake in a MP mode with microtransactions to look cool with the new kids like Halo, COD, BF?
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No, definitely not lol. Not a single Nintendo paid game has microtransactions, not even multiplayer heavy and multimillion sellers like Smash and Splatoon.
Metroid focus will always be single player and isolation. It may feature a multiplayer mode, but it'll be something in the vein of the Echoes mode probably, or something like Hunters or Federation Force.
 
I feel like an open world would be counterintuitive for Metroid's design philosophy. Give me scary corridors and oppressive closed spaces.
 
I'm hoping that it can actually be open World, I don't know the size of the team, but i hope they take heavy from botw in the exploration part. Botw was at its best when you were just wandering around and explore. The environment puzzles were great and Metroid should use them too. Also use the ship.
 
Being credited as Music Director doesn't mean Yamamoto didn't compose anything, for the contrary, Hajime Wakai on BOTW , Kazumi Totaka on ACNH, Kenta Nagata on Mario Kart 8 Koji Kondo on Mario Maker 2, all credited as Sound Directors and in every case they did compose for the games
 
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MetalLord said:
Being credited as Music Director doesn't mean Yamamoto didn't compose anything, for the contrary, Hajime Wakai on BOTW , Kazumi Totaka on ACNH, Kenta Nagata on Mario Kart 8 Koji Kondo on Mario Maker 2, all credited as Sound Directors and in every case they did compose for the games
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I think Yamamoto is even credited for some of the Super/Prime remixes for Samus Returns on one of the compilation albums.
 
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YolkFolk said:
It might not be called Prime 4.

They avoided using the term ‘Metroid 5’ in the release version of Metroid Dread because they didn’t want to overawe new players.

To be honest I’d like a new title without ‘Prime’ being included and for the story to take place at a different point in the timeline. The Prime/Phazon story was wrapped up perfectly with 3 apart from a run in with a certain bounty hunter.
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Yeah I doubt it'll be 4, no reason with phazon gone. Prime is to prestigious of a title to drop
 
Zeal543 said:
Yeah I doubt it'll be 4, no reason with phazon gone. Prime is to prestigious of a title to drop
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Yeah it shouldn’t be called 4, but should still be called Prime as that’s become shorthand for first person adventure
 
Prime isn’t gonna go away. The 4 can go away though, especially with Metroid Prime 1 most likely being the only game coming before 4. Numbers are no longer needed.
 
I can't really see the 4 in the title getting dropped. I don't see the point of revealing the game as Metroid Prime 4 and then changing it down the line.
 
Robert said:
I can't really see the 4 in the title getting dropped. I don't see the point of revealing the game as Metroid Prime 4 and then changing it down the line.
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It was revealed as Prime 4 to let the Nintendo audience watching know what it was. You know considering by 2017 the series was dead for over 9 years. Now that it’s established what it is for the core, they can drop the 4 because they don’t want to scare away new consumers.
 
Jimmy Joe said:
I tell you what

I feel bad for ol' Sylux

Purt near twenty years they've spent building up Sylux into a potential rival, laying breadcrumbs, trying to get them over

And the Chozo General from Dread managed to overshadow all of that in one trailer, and has become what might be the favorite Metroid antagonist of all time in like a week of Dread actually being out
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raven beak is a one and done with hardly any development, I doubt his popularity will last by the time prime 4 drops
 
Dark Cloud said:
It was revealed as Prime 4 to let the Nintendo audience watching know what it was. You know considering by 2017 the series was dead for over 9 years. Now that it’s established what it is for the core, they can drop the 4 because they don’t want to scare away new consumers.
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I don't really see how a number at the end would scare off casual customers. People love the new Resident Evil games, and they go up to VII and VIII now.
 
Zeal543 said:
raven beak is a one and done with hardly any development, I doubt his popularity will last by the time prime 4 drops
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All I'm saying is that if they do try to put Sylux over, they've got a steep hill to climb to measure up to how much the fans instantly liked Raven Beak
 
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Jimmy Joe said:
And the Chozo General from Dread managed to overshadow all of that in one trailer, and has become what might be the favorite Metroid antagonist of all time in like a week of Dread actually being out
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Lol, no way. It's still Ridley and it's going to be Ridley for basically ever. Even villains like Mother Brain, which are arguably less interesting than "the Chozo General", are probably still favored by the general Metroid community. Maybe not by the smaller individual condensed online Metroid communities, though. I swear Dread's echo chamber is unreal.
 
On the topic of Metroid Prime 4's naming scheme, it is probably in Nintendo's best interest to keep the Metroid Prime name but simply drop the 4. This will make the game more inviting to newcomers but people who care about it being a sequel rather than a Prime spin-off will be able to tell it is one just from the marketing campaign alone.

About Prime conforming to the ideas set by the 2D games (like sequence breaking), I honestly think it's time we get a third person 3D Metroid game that is a mainline exploratory title. I get Other M was a trainwreck, but I think in much the same way Breath of the Wild kind of closed the gap between some of the 2D-specific attributes of the Zelda games (particularly the earlier, more non-linear ones) that were previously not present in the 3D games, it would be nice to have a 3D Metroid that excels at some of the same things that the 2D games do (like platforming).
 
AngryAlchemist said:
About Prime conforming to the ideas set by the 2D games (like sequence breaking), I honestly think it's time we get a third person 3D Metroid game that is a mainline exploratory title. I get Other M was a trainwreck, but I think in much the same way Breath of the Wild kind of closed the gap between some of the 2D-specific attributes of the Zelda games (particularly the earlier, more non-linear ones) that were previously not present in the 3D games, it would be nice to have a 3D Metroid that excels at some of the same things that the 2D games do (like platforming).
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Absolutely agree, I'm always confused when I see people asking for a third person prime when prime still has so much more to experiment with in first person. On the other hand, Dread basically didn't have anything new and was just a synthesis of previous 2D metroids, trying for another 3D third person title instead of a 2D metroid in addition to prime makes more sense to me.
 
Jimmy Joe said:
I tell you what

I feel bad for ol' Sylux

Purt near twenty years they've spent building up Sylux into a potential rival, laying breadcrumbs, trying to get them over

And the Chozo General from Dread managed to overshadow all of that in one trailer, and has become what might be the favorite Metroid antagonist of all time in like a week of Dread actually being out
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Is Sylux an actual character, even? I'm finally playing through Hunters for the first time, and so far, these other "hunters" are jobbing harder than Boba Fett at the beginning of RotJ. Game is minimal on the lore, but the cutscenes are pretty dope, even if they're in like 144p. I hope this Sylux buildup will actually amount to something cool, and that he's not just Tanabe's favorite OC because that's what he happens to be.
 
Aurc said:
Is Sylux an actual character, even? I'm finally playing through Hunters for the first time, and so far, these other "hunters" are jobbing harder than Boba Fett at the beginning of RotJ. Game is minimal on the lore, but the cutscenes are pretty dope, even if they're in like 144p. I hope this Sylux buildup will actually amount to something cool, and that he's not just Tanabe's favorite OC because that's what he happens to be.
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I'd argue most Metroid villains aren't proper characters. Raven Beak is only a massive jump because the series doesn't have much to compare it to. That's why I roll my eyes at all the Sylux hate, it feels like a "bitch eating crackers" situation
 
Robert said:
I don't really see how a number at the end would scare off casual customers. People love the new Resident Evil games, and they go up to VII and VIII now.
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We have the even better example of Mortal Kombat dropping the numbering after 4 and then going back to it with 11.
 
SiG said:
Dunno if this was overlooked, but...

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So if I have the rumor correct, Retro was making 2 games: 1) A Metroid Prime remake by artists with no real producers/directors involved in development since it is basically an art asset to art asset remake while leaving gameplay untouched and 2) Metroid Prime 4 with a development team having both artists and producers/directors, etc.

I wonder if this new producer role is a step in filling out the MP Remake team so it is capable of making original titles as they are assigned producers and directors.
 
ILikeFeet said:
don't think that's how it works
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I probably should have worded it better. My understanding was the remake doesn't have the typical development team since it is a remake, and that maybe this new hire would be to help round out the team to make it more in line with the team working on MP 4.
 
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I posted about the Lead Producer a month or two back. Their Lead Producer left about a month or two ago and then they put up to hire a new one.
 
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AngryAlchemist said:
Lol, no way. It's still Ridley and it's going to be Ridley for basically ever. Even villains like Mother Brain, which are arguably less interesting than "the Chozo General", are probably still favored by the general Metroid community. Maybe not by the smaller individual condensed online Metroid communities, though. I swear Dread's echo chamber is unreal.
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I think affection for Ridley and (especially) Mother Brain is more for the old-heads, while people who are new to the series have joined a lot of other veterans in enjoying the Chozo General as a character

It helps that Raven Beak is an actual character, of course, whose relationship with Samus is built through dialogue

And the original thrust of my post, which is that Sylux has a ton to live up to when it comes to generating the same reaction as Raven Beak, still holds. The number of people who went "oh this guy is SUPER SICK" at the original trailer, as well as every time he actually appears in Dread, was very high, and I don't think that has anything to do with an "echo chamber"
 
Isnt that a considerable amount of time for a 'simple' HD remaster?
This sounds a bit more than that, assuming there was a decent sized team working on it?
 
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Oh wow this is eye opening lol, thanks!
 
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Maxrunner said:
Isnt that a considerable amount of time for a 'simple' HD remaster?
This sounds a bit more than that, assuming there was a decent sized team working on it?
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Define 'simple'. Most of Xenoblade Chronicle's art assets were redone from scratch for Switch, but Takahasi still calls it a "Remaster".

You're right though. Prime HD doesn't sound like a simple remaster. It sounds like a lot of work was involved in this. But internally, Nintendo is tentatively calling it Metroid Prime HD Remaster. Maybe the title will change when it's officially released.

I haven't seen it with my own eyes. So I wouldn't know how big of a graphical update it received.

Keep in mind that Retro Studios had another canned project with David Wise attached. It was likely canned in 2018.
 
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Emily said:
Define 'simple'. Most of Xenoblade Chronicle's art assets were redone from scratch for Switch, but Takahasi still calls it a "Remaster".

You're right though. Prime HD doesn't sound like a simple remaster. It sounds like a lot of work was involved in this. But internally, Nintendo is tentatively calling it Metroid Prime HD Remaster. Maybe the title will change when it's officially released.

I haven't seen it with my own eyes. So I wouldn't know how big of a graphical update it received.
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David wise was on that project? such a shame it was cancelled.
I wonder if we will ever know what it was. Wait, wasnt the original Deus Ex composer attached to the Retro project at one point ?
 
An ambitious project with years of development cancelled like that.. i wonder if the game was middling or if it's deeper than what we think.
 
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girllllll-youtuber.gif
 
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Thanks for all that info, it certainly clarifies the Prime Trilogy/Prime 1 confusion.
 
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I do remember when Prime 4 was officially moved to retro and a lot of people jumped on the “Nintendo throwing BN under the bus” even tho they were never reveal as the official developer.

But I guess it shouldn’t be surprising they’ll be upset to lose a project like that. Unfortunate.
 
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