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Interesting, I missed this. Thanks for sharing!
I hope the "big open areas" description isn't indicative of the entire game. Metroid to me should be at least a little claustrophobic.
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Pre-Release Metroid Prime 4: Pre-Release Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Phendrift
- Start date
Interesting, I missed this. Thanks for sharing!
I hope the "big open areas" description isn't indicative of the entire game. Metroid to me should be at least a little claustrophobic.
SpaceGodzilla
Did You Get that Thing I Sent You?
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I trust Xboxera as much as I trust zippo
Shoe
Cappy
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She's also previously a games + other media journalist.
Tracy Nicoletti
Tracy Nicoletti is a contributor for Merry-Go-Round Magazine.
merrygoroundmagazine.com
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I don't know anything about them so I wouldn't know one way or the other if they are reliable. I will say, however, that their statements (it looks amazing visually, there are a lot of big open areas) are vague enough that they will probably be accurate even if they are making it up. Seems like very "safe", nondescript things to claim about the game.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Manakete
How open Prime 4 will be interesting considering how heavily Prime 1 Remastered relies on baked indirect lighting and other techniques that do not scale well to large or open worlds.
I'm mostly expecting a linear action game with slightly more emphasis on shooting than platforming, roughly comparable to Doom Eternal and Metroid Dread.
I'm mostly expecting a linear action game with slightly more emphasis on shooting than platforming, roughly comparable to Doom Eternal and Metroid Dread.
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Zeal543
Paratroopa
Prime trilogy always leaned more on exploration even with prime 3, I doubt they'd go that far
Stopdoor
????
Prime 3 being 16+ years old makes it seem fair to me to assume it may pick up some current trends
though, I'd personally be very surprised if it'll end up described as "linear"
ItWasMeantToBe19
Manakete
I’m expecting Dread levels of linear to be clear.
With room size comparable to Prime 2.
With room size comparable to Prime 2.
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I still feel like they're going to stick to the original concept of making it like Prime 1 as opposed to 2 and 3, but on a larger scale. Tanabe usually sticks to his guns, so the focus will be on isolation and exploration like was originally said. Sylux is obviously going to play a big part. The only thing that kinda seemed up in the air was the whole time travel concept he mentioned. I wouldn't be surprised if it's there, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they took another direction. I do think this will be the biggest and longest Metroid game, but nothing crazy, maybe a bit over 20 hours.
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I wonder what form the time travel would take; past, present, future like sonic cd with Prime 2 portals or something more like that level in titanfall 2, switching between time periods on the fly to get through areas.
Magic-Man
Perseus Jackson
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I hope they go back to the varied environments and level design of Prime 1 as compared to the more realistic approach Prime 2 and 3 took. I don't care if a glacier and a desert wouldn't be side by side in real life, this is an alien world we're talking about here. I want a singular world with a bunch of different, varied environments in it.
manfromthedam
Semi Undercover Game Music Guy
Am so ready for this after adoring Prime 1 - never finished it though, those final two boss fights are garbage. At least I tried. But man, an interconnected world like that, but modern, in that engine...? Drool.
Switch 2 launch title, for sure. Whenever that is - waiting for Switch 2 has made me feel so mortal
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also 1,2,3,4,5 visor man let's go
Switch 2 launch title, for sure. Whenever that is - waiting for Switch 2 has made me feel so mortal
.also 1,2,3,4,5 visor man let's go
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That would be my argument against them going this direction, is that it might be too similar to Prime 2. But of course they could do it in a way that would be totally unique. The dark world was drab asf and a cheap way of reusing level design and art assets. Though it certainly allowed them to complete the game in a timely manner.
ProteusRidley
Famiboards one and only Lost Kingdoms simp
its gonna be out this holiday, mark my words.
Zeal543
Paratroopa
Could have been anything, zelda does time travel 4 times and in each instance it's different (oracle of ages/seasons, OoT, MM, SS)
manfromthedam
Semi Undercover Game Music Guy
Dang, imagine Titanfall 2 type time travel - with the press of a button. Didn't Lords of the Fallen do something similar this year with their Umbral plane?
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I never played TF2 but I probably should one of these days.
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Tanabe specifically said the type of time travel he was interested in involved going to different time periods on one planet, though he was concerned it would be too similar to Metroid Prime 2's light world/dark world concept, which implies that he was thinking you'd go from past to future via portals.
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I think it would be fine, if it involves a longer span of time. Say, 100 year gap between the post-apocalyptic world Samus lands on, and the past just before it happened.
If nothing else, I'd like the idea just because it'd be nice to have another "Prime 2" style adventure, where Samus gets a chance to interact with the denizens of the "doomed civilization" (and gets a chance to help/save them!), instead of the usual thing where she's already arrived too late to do anything.
Either way, Tanabe's scenario scripting chops includes Zeldas LTTP, Awakening and Ocarina of Time, so I'm not worried if we get another instance of him revisiting a trope from another game he worked on.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Manakete
I'm guessing this game started development in like 2013 (with planning and other pre-production work happening under the assumption that Next Level Games would be the developer after Federation Force) and the time travel idea was floated back in 2015... And it's been like ten billion years since then so I have no idea what will survive to the actual release.
Maxrunner
Bob-omb
Whats this time travel thing?
OctoSplattack
Chain Chomp
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At E3 2015, Tanabe mentioned it as a gameplay idea he had for a potential Metroid Prime for NX.
Said interview (plus the post-credit scene in Federation Force) is also why a lot of people believe Sylux will play a narrative role.
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Vookatos
Like Like
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I feel like 3 actually has some of the best enviroments. Their only crime is being placed onto different planets which made traversal a chore. However, a floating city, frozen caves, a factory, acid rain settlement and a war-torn ruins were some of the best enviroments in the series. If they were on a single planet it would make for one of, if not the best, place in the series to explore.
While I enjoy how colorful Prime 1 tends to be, there's little more to its designs than a relatively Earthy mountainside, magma corridor, or an ice level. Most inspired ones are Chozo Ruins whihc by far have the most thought and lore put into them.
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Agreed.
I'll always say that Prime 3 had a lot of great ideas that just didn't quite stick the landing. Some of the best environments that didn't overly rely on usual Metroid series tropes tropes...separated by planet traversal. Samus' gunship is finally integrated into the game in a more interesting way besides being another save point...but it's unwieldly at best. A variety of colorful characters that could serve as recurring, friendly rivals to Samus...systematically killed off for good mere hours after their introduction. The Federation FINALLY takes a more active role in helping Samus protect the galaxy's peace...too bad it's all humans, and doesn't at all seem to reflect the wide coalition of various races from other source material.
Zeal543
Paratroopa
IIRC the GF having aliens was retconned around the time of fusion's release (or was it super?), It's just humans now. Lame change if you ask me
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Prime 3 has my favorite environmental art direction of all time. It's simply sublime. A lot of the artists that worked on Prime 3 are still at Retro so I'm drooling over what they'll come up with for Prime 4.
VintoWin
Bob-omb
I couldn't even tell how linear/open Metroid Dread was because I felt like I made all the right choices in which way to go...if that makes sense?
Almost felt guided subconsciously in the right direction... Okay no, I definitely got lost once. So, in a sense, I'm having a hard time understanding what Dread-like linearity means compared to let's say Super.
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If we at least go by the likes of the Zero Mission manga, the Federation still has aliens within it. Granted, most of them seem to be politicians a la Chairman Keaton (who may even be the same guy referenced as "leading the investigation" in Other M's ending).
Even if we go by the idea that the Federation Marines and the Space Police are predominantly made up of humans, I would've thought there'd at least be a few alien races among them in command or on the ground. But I guess the more "exotic" you are, the more you'd prefer to be a Space Hunter like Samus, and Prime 3's misfits.
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Basically, Dread is very good at making you think it's non-linear by just very cleverly guiding you into the direction it wants you to go via, for example, making a teleporter end up suspiciously close to the next needed power up.
Game Maker's Toolkit did an excellent video on it some time ago:
VintoWin
Bob-omb
Okay yeah that describes the experience exactly. IIRC Metroid Fusion was also fairly guided.
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I'm still holding out hope that U-Mos and the Luminoth might return as allies for Samus in Prime 4. But yeah, it was kind of lame that we got some cool new characters/frenemies (at least conceptually) that were killed off right away.
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The 'moths would be nice to see again in at least a small capacity, if for no other reason than a) continuity and b) showing again that we don't always have to explicitly rely on Chozo stuff for exposition. Like, yes, we know, the space ninja wizard birds had a talon dipped in practically EVERYTHING in the damn galaxy. But it wouldn't it be nice if there were holes in their knowledgebase that even they didn't know much about, yet perhaps the moths' databases did?
I enjoyed the way Dread balanced the exploration, as opposed to Fusion where it is very explicit and limiting with its guiding hand. Dread also guides the player but it does it with more subtlety, attempting to hide the hand behind the curtain while allowing the player to maintain the feeling of being in control, even in instances when it's more of an illusion. That kind of careful and detailed design is really cool. MercurySteam obviously put a huge amount of thought into their map. Dread was a very well thought out game.
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Yeah, Fusion is arguably even more guided (in fact it took speedrunners until like last year to actually break the game a bit more open)
Zeal543
Paratroopa
Damn then where are the aliens at? At least get us some more luminoth
Stilt Village
GBA
Both games allow sequence breaking and don't use map markers, but Dread is a lot more heavy handed in actively blocking off paths and stuff to try and funnel you. Though I think it's still easier to get lost in Dread because the world is so huge and, probably due to this practice, weirdly laid out.
Super is in general significantly more subtle in its world design than the later "open" games. For instance there are no hidden passages and the like that exist solely to make a sequence break possible, or sections designed as a challenging sequence break (Zero Mission also has obstacles that exist solely to prevent a sequence break, and disappear once you have an unrelated item). Super maintains kayfabe a lot better.
All three Prime games, by the way, aggressively prevent sequence breaks and basically require the hint system due to a weird habit of making you leave an area for one item on the other side of the map with no warning, then come back to continue. I wouldn't quite call Dread's world design elegant, but I think it would be an improvement over what Prime was doing for guidance.
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In Prime 3's case, I'm assuming it simply wouldn't have made sense to create more character models for aliens that would only appear in a brief, early portion of the game (as background NPCs aboard the G.F.S. Olympus).
From a lore standpoint, the Federation vessels we see in the Prime series have names based on human mythology (Olympus, Valhalla, Anhur, Enkidu, etc.), so I think it'd be interesting to explore an alien ship named after a mythological element from a different civilization. It'd emphasize that the Federation isn't just a bunch of human Jim Bobs, even if it's predominantly human.
Gingerbread Man
Paratroopa
I still have to play 2 and 3 (hopefully, they'll be ported soon), but I believe Prime 1 would be massively improved by marking on the map morph ball passages and spider ball rails, and maybe something else I'm forgetting. Prime map doesn't convey enough information, and you have to rely on the hint system.
SpaceGodzilla
Did You Get that Thing I Sent You?
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What if for a melee attack the arm canon briefly turns into a beam sword?
Ricimer
Moblin
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I like ZM's approach to non-linearity the best. It's the only game (along with orignnal M1) where people will have vastly different orders of upgrades/boss on a first-time playthrough. In SM everyone does the intended order of Kraid/Phantoon/Draygon/Ridley on their first go-through. The SM sequence breaks that open up the game (wall jumping up red-tower/moat skip for early Phantoon/Gravity Suit) are so ridiculously hard that I bet 99% of players have never done them, let alone on a first playthrough.
Dread's sequence breaks (early morph bomb/early gravity) are but don't really change the major order of events. It's especially disappointing you can collect power bombs very early but they're locked until you're supposed to get them.
With your last point about the Prime games, the hint system is absolutely not required and I really dislike it. I think it totally kills the sense of exploration. I'm glad it togglable but it should be Off by default, it's essentially an Easy Mode. I did my first ever playthroughs of Prime 1-3 late last year with the hint guidance off and thought it was a better experience. The only time I got stuck due to other-side-of-the-map backtracking is with the Gravity Boost being on the far reaches of Torvus Bog in Prime 2. That was an unintuitive location. But they only pull thst backtracking trip like twice in the entire trilogy.
Shoulder
Koopa
More like Samus the Energy Tank Engine.
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SR had a nice solution with the Lightning Armor turning the counter attack into a mid-range sweep.
That said? Especially after playing a lot of Ultrakill, I'm more than down with the idea of Samus just socking things in the mouth with her fist. She's got a free hand.
Mr Swine
Like Like
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I want Retro to go all out with bosses in Prime 4, let Queen Metroid, Crocomire, Draygon and Mother Brain return.
If there are Metroids, their evolutions (please add Alpha, Beta, Zeta and Omega) and Space Pirates there should be a Mother Brain controlling them. Make it lead up that Mother Brain scans Samus Power Suit she got from Zero Mission which leads up to her new body
If there are Metroids, their evolutions (please add Alpha, Beta, Zeta and Omega) and Space Pirates there should be a Mother Brain controlling them. Make it lead up that Mother Brain scans Samus Power Suit she got from Zero Mission which leads up to her new body
Ricimer
Moblin
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I'd rather the bosses be mostly new. The Prime games always had spectacular boss fights and almost all (sans Ridley) were original. Other M had all classic bosses and it was to the games detriment since it just became fan service (Remember Ridley? Remember Nightmare? Remember Queen Metroid??)
The Prime 1/3, Fusion, and Dread formula of all original bosses + 1 classic boss is a good formula, I would stick with it. Ridley has been overplayed, so it would be cool to see a 3D take on Draygon. Kraid could work too, but he was just in Dread. Mother Brain I don't see them touching, too story focused.
space_dragon
Cunning Commander
Holy crap, are you me?? I also applied for that position, with a similar background as you. It would have been a dream come true to help write for a Metroid game. But, like you said, I'm happy to experience Prime 4 as a fan. Working on becoming a published author right now, though! So, maybe that dream of writing a Metroid game will happen one day! (For both of us!)
OctoSplattack
Chain Chomp
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I think at least three people in this thread have now talked about applying to be a writer at Retro Studios, which is starting to convince me that this is some rite-of-passage thing that I didn't know about.
space_dragon
Cunning Commander
It is but one of many paths toward accepting...TheProcess.
