Heron
The BABY
I think the pixel-peeping part of the visual criticism is whatever. I don't care if the space pirates' farts are volumetric or what have you. I hope the game has a high quality IQ on Switch 2, and if it does that will do me just fine.
But the gameplay.... Damn, I remember being back in my CS degree, almost 20 years ago, and spending evenings with friends coming up with ideas with how MP combat could improve for Metroid Prime 3 (which wasn't yet released at that time - and we were hyped!) We would then try to prototype some shit (with terrible results as we had no artists / animators, just coders lol - and our experience was mostly limited to 2d Metal Slug clones lol), but we had a TON of ideas. Not for new items, but for how the basic flow and gamefeel of combat could be improved - as we all agreed this was the main area the first two games could be massively improved.
From grappling hook attacks (which kind of made it into Prime 3!) to stun/interrupt windows on enemy attacks to active/passive shielding for samus (or enemies) to an adrenaline bullet-time feature (lol) a different base power beam - but most of all, by far - to a far different hit reaction, animation system and AI for enemies.
So, I guess I've had in my head ideas for what an evolution of Prime combat could look like for almost 20 years. That's two decades, damn. And these paid game designers at Retro would have 1000x the imagination and talent than me and my dumb classmates in their little fingers. Since then we've seen tons of successful first person shooters and first person adventures too with tons of new ideas. So for it to look almost identical when it finally gets re-revealed all these years later is just crazy to me from a game design perspective. I really, truly didn't anticipate that to be the case.
I didn't expect the shooting and moving to look exactly like the first 3 prime games. Not after 17 years. Seems like everyone else here did. Maybe I'm the fool, but I am really, really surprised. I was expecting this to be no more similar to MP3 than, say, BotW is to Twilight Princess.
The part starting at 1.08 in the trailer is the biggest offender by far, but even this tiny clip shows what I'm talking about. Like, ignore the nice environmental art/textures and the background action. Just look at the enemies here. How they stand there. How they react to hits. The lame attempt at a side-dodge one makes. How the first just keels over having eaten enough pac-pellets. It looks like what it is - game design circa 2002. Yes, this is likely the very opening of the game and the most basic that combat (or enemies) will be, but it suggests that the core basics of combat will function the same as prior Prime games, where they were never good enough. And it's 20 years later. Gah.
And while the rest of the game (morph ball gameplay, exploration, new items / abilities) is all hidden for now, the vibe of the trailer suggests it will be similarly conservative. I won't mind that as much, because those parts of the game were always brilliant. But it will still be disappointing if it's the case.
I know people think of negative posts in pre-release hype threads as a form of shitting in the punch bowl, so I'll leave it at this.
But the gameplay.... Damn, I remember being back in my CS degree, almost 20 years ago, and spending evenings with friends coming up with ideas with how MP combat could improve for Metroid Prime 3 (which wasn't yet released at that time - and we were hyped!) We would then try to prototype some shit (with terrible results as we had no artists / animators, just coders lol - and our experience was mostly limited to 2d Metal Slug clones lol), but we had a TON of ideas. Not for new items, but for how the basic flow and gamefeel of combat could be improved - as we all agreed this was the main area the first two games could be massively improved.
From grappling hook attacks (which kind of made it into Prime 3!) to stun/interrupt windows on enemy attacks to active/passive shielding for samus (or enemies) to an adrenaline bullet-time feature (lol) a different base power beam - but most of all, by far - to a far different hit reaction, animation system and AI for enemies.
So, I guess I've had in my head ideas for what an evolution of Prime combat could look like for almost 20 years. That's two decades, damn. And these paid game designers at Retro would have 1000x the imagination and talent than me and my dumb classmates in their little fingers. Since then we've seen tons of successful first person shooters and first person adventures too with tons of new ideas. So for it to look almost identical when it finally gets re-revealed all these years later is just crazy to me from a game design perspective. I really, truly didn't anticipate that to be the case.
I didn't expect the shooting and moving to look exactly like the first 3 prime games. Not after 17 years. Seems like everyone else here did. Maybe I'm the fool, but I am really, really surprised. I was expecting this to be no more similar to MP3 than, say, BotW is to Twilight Princess.
The part starting at 1.08 in the trailer is the biggest offender by far, but even this tiny clip shows what I'm talking about. Like, ignore the nice environmental art/textures and the background action. Just look at the enemies here. How they stand there. How they react to hits. The lame attempt at a side-dodge one makes. How the first just keels over having eaten enough pac-pellets. It looks like what it is - game design circa 2002. Yes, this is likely the very opening of the game and the most basic that combat (or enemies) will be, but it suggests that the core basics of combat will function the same as prior Prime games, where they were never good enough. And it's 20 years later. Gah.
And while the rest of the game (morph ball gameplay, exploration, new items / abilities) is all hidden for now, the vibe of the trailer suggests it will be similarly conservative. I won't mind that as much, because those parts of the game were always brilliant. But it will still be disappointing if it's the case.
I know people think of negative posts in pre-release hype threads as a form of shitting in the punch bowl, so I'll leave it at this.
