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StarTopic Metroid |ST| Trust The Process

Are we finally seeing Metroid Prime 4's re-reveal in the next Nintendo Direct?

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The Prime series is interesting for me in that Prime 1 has the strongest fundamentals and often approaches perfection, while 2 and 3 are perhaps less polished yet build upon the established foundation in more interesting ways.

The way Prime places you among the crumbling stones, hostile fauna, and stinging winds of Tallon IV is a feeling unrivalled on just in the series but arguably in all of gaming, yet at the same time, I found Prime 2's Light Aether and Prime 3's Skytown and Pirate homeworld more intriguing in terms of design, and Prime 3's Wiimote-powered aiming to be so much more mechanically satisfying.

I really like how each has its own distinct identity, instead of just being three similar takes on the same formula.

My hope for Prime 4 is that is combines the DNA of all three games, plus a just dash of Dread in terms of snappier combat and mobility.
 
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curl-6 said:
yet at the same time, I found Prime 2's Light Aether and Prime 3's Skytown and Pirate homeworld more intriguing in terms of design, and Prime 3's Wiimote-powered aiming to be so much more mechanically satisfying.
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It's interesting because I can both kind of agree and disagree. Torvus Bog and Sanctuary Fortress are, from a visual perspective, better than anything in Prime (wouldn't say from a map perspective for Sanctuary). However, the two desert areas melding together so much, along with Prime 2's hub basically being an afterthought, make Light Aether way less consistent overall to me than Tallon IV.
 
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curl-6 said:
The Prime series is interesting for me in that Prime 1 has the strongest fundamentals and often approaches perfection, while 2 and 3 are perhaps less pure yet build upon the established foundation in more interesting ways.

The way Prime places you among the crumbling stones, hostile fauna, and stinging winds of Tallon IV is a feeling unrivalled on just in the series but arguably in all of gaming, yet at the same time, I found Prime 2's Light Aether and Prime 3's Skytown and Pirate homeworld more intriguing in terms of design, and Prime 3's Wiimote-powered aiming to be so much more mechanically satisfying.

I really like how each has its own distinct identity, instead of just being three similar takes on the same formula.

My hope for Prime 4 is that is combines the DNA of all three games, plus a just dash of Dread in terms of snappier combat and mobility.
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I understand what you meant and i agree, but i cannot agree with the way you worded it. In specific, calling prime perfect becase it adheres to a formula.

I dont even feel Prime did elements of metroid games particularly well, such as backtracking which is a known problem of the game. Just because something follows the formula that doesnt means it is better.

SpaceGodzilla said:
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I dont like the idea of a metroid movie. I cannot imagine people going to cinema to see B franchises like Metroid, its why i defend a series format.

Still, fun news.
 
Mr Doggo said:
I understand what you meant and i agree, but i cannot agree with the way you worded it. In specific, calling prime perfect becase it adheres to a formula.

I dont even feel Prime did elements of metroid games particularly well, such as backtracking which is a known problem of the game. Just because something follows the formula that doesnt means it is better.
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I didn't mean that sticking to the formula was what made it better, or that it's a perfect game, (which I why I said it "approaches" it at times) more that in my opinion 1 has a stronger foundation than 2 or 3, but the sequels build cooler stuff on top.

The feeling of immersion and isolation in Prime 1, the sense of place, just blows me away and elevates the entire experience.
But at the same time, Prime 2 and 3 have even cooler locations, and the Wiimote aiming added in 3 feels incredible.
Hope that makes my intent more clear. :)
 
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Mr Doggo said:
I understand what you meant and i agree, but i cannot agree with the way you worded it. In specific, calling prime perfect becase it adheres to a formula.

I dont even feel Prime did elements of metroid games particularly well, such as backtracking which is a known problem of the game. Just because something follows the formula that doesnt means it is better.


I dont like the idea of a metroid movie. I cannot imagine people going to cinema to see B franchises like Metroid, its why i defend a series format.

Still, fun news.
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I think the only way to make an artistically good Metroid film would be to make a brooding, atmospheric film about exploring a planet in isolation, with it nearly being a silent film. That wouldn't be commercially viable though, so we'd probably get some Other M garbage story instead.
 
I think calling backtracking a bad thing is also a bit dependent on the person. Personally, I LOVE the kind of backtracking in a lot of Metroid games - when you're exploring an area and don't really know where to go next or how to progress, and it turns out that you need to go way, way back to an area you haven't been to in ages and you can open up a new path that leads to a cool new ability. I'm someone who actually thought Dread was too streamlined in this regard and could have used more backtracking. I prefer the Hollow Knight approach: Don't know where to go next? Just go wandering for a while and bask in the atmosphere! You'll either find the thing you need to move on, or you'll stumble upon any number of other cool things in the meantime.
 
SammyJ9 said:
I think calling backtracking a bad thing is also a bit dependent on the person. Personally, I LOVE the kind of backtracking in a lot of Metroid games - when you're exploring an area and don't really know where to go next or how to progress, and it turns out that you need to go way, way back to an area you haven't been to in ages and you can open up a new path that leads to a cool new ability. I'm someone who actually thought Dread was too streamlined in this regard and could have used more backtracking. I prefer the Hollow Knight approach: Don't know where to go next? Just go wandering for a while and bask in the atmosphere! You'll either find the thing you need to move on, or you'll stumble upon any number of other cool things in the meantime.
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I agree with you, but backtracking in 2D Metroid is miles better executed than in Prime. You basically only backtrack to try out a new power (which often changes how you approach the areas you have already been to) and find a new path, not simply because you need to get from point A to point B. Prime has a severe problem where the map isn't interconnected enough and because of how progress is designed, the game constantly makes you go through the same areas again and again just to be where you have to. I lost count of how many times I crossed the entirety of Magmoor. Coupled with the slow movement and limited combat options that never get more varied or powerful, and wandering around in the game was a nightmare for me. By the end I was praying that I wasn't forced to go through the same rooms for the umpteenth time slowly fighting too big of a number of annoying enemies in the exact same way, but I always ended up having to do yet another run of Phazon Mines and the colored space pirates.
 
In Hollow knight you have fast travel, so you dont go through the same rooms over and over. Then there's a fact that you upgrade your character with charms or blacksmith so it gets progressively stronger and you kill previous enemies much faster. Maps in 2d games are also much easier to navigate. Prime was just annoying to play and I have nothing against backtracking.
 
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Leo said:
I agree with you, but backtracking in 2D Metroid is miles better executed than in Prime. You basically only backtrack to try out a new power (which often changes how you approach the areas you have already been to) and find a new path, not simply because you need to get from point A to point B. Prime has a severe problem where the map isn't interconnected enough and because of how progress is designed, the game constantly makes you go through the same areas again and again just to be where you have to. I lost count of how many times I crossed the entirety of Magmoor. Coupled with the slow movement and limited combat options that never get more varied or powerful, and wandering around in the game was a nightmare for me. By the end I was praying that I wasn't forced to go through the same rooms for the umpteenth time slowly fighting too big of a number of annoying enemies in the exact same way, but I always ended up having to do yet another run of Phazon Mines and the colored space pirates.
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That's totally fair, and I think it's better in Prime 3 when you have (effectively) fast travel between planets and locations. That said it never bothered me at all even in Prime since it's so quick to blaze through places. But I definitely think that some sort of fast travel should be included in Prime 4, or at the very least an easily accessible hub location of sorts that can quickly get you where you need to go.
 
Finally finished Prime Remastered!

I'd played Prime twice before, once on Gamecube then again on Wii, but I found myself wowed all over again by just how fantastic an experience it is, especially in its atmosphere and craftsmanship.

It has also aged extraordinarily well for a game that's more than twenty years old and closer to the NES era chronologically than to the present day. It's a credit to just how forward thinking it was for its time that all it needed was a visual facelift and new controls options to stand on its own two feet three generations later.

For me, it still stands as one of the finest games Nintendo have ever produced, and a Prime (heh) example of a remaster done right.
 
Leo said:
I agree with you, but backtracking in 2D Metroid is miles better executed than in Prime. You basically only backtrack to try out a new power (which often changes how you approach the areas you have already been to) and find a new path, not simply because you need to get from point A to point B. Prime has a severe problem where the map isn't interconnected enough and because of how progress is designed, the game constantly makes you go through the same areas again and again just to be where you have to. I lost count of how many times I crossed the entirety of Magmoor. Coupled with the slow movement and limited combat options that never get more varied or powerful, and wandering around in the game was a nightmare for me. By the end I was praying that I wasn't forced to go through the same rooms for the umpteenth time slowly fighting too big of a number of annoying enemies in the exact same way, but I always ended up having to do yet another run of Phazon Mines and the colored space pirates.
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I feel like the boost ball makes back tracking as easy as it is in the 2D games. Prime is a far bigger game than any 2D Metroid and can still be completed in under an hour.
 
nDQUN36.jpeg
Got this beautiful poster from the mynintendo store and I had to frame it.
I love it, it’s so iconic.
 
So I finally beat Metroid Prime 3 this morning! More than 1.5 years after I bought the trilogy I have now finally beaten all the Prime games.

Final Section
Firstly, the final sequence on Phaaze was formidable. Really well executed and super fun to have unlimited access to hypermode. It was a day and night difference compared to Prime 2's final part. That one had a anticlimactic boss area and 2 mediocre boss fights which I found quite confusing. 3 on the other hand the descent into Phaaze and an amazing final showdown with 3 amazing phases. Only thing I missed was a classic escape sequence, but that is not that big of a deal.

Bosses
That's also the strongest part of the game compared to its predecessors: the boss fights. In Prime 1, there were few boss fights and some of them were dull. In Prime 2 there were more boss fights, but most of them really annoying. Only a handful were actually fun, the rest I actively dreaded. Therefore going into Prime 3, I was hoping to finally see an improvement in boss fights.

I can happily say they were improved! Maybe once or twice I was slightly annoyed. But I'm really looking forward to more in Prime 4 now. Meta Ridley, Rundas, Gandraya, Dark Samus, Ghor, Helios, Aurora Unit 313, so many fun fights where the mix between thaving to figure out what to do and just beating the crap out of the boss was just right.

Especially huge shoutout to the Dark Samus fight, so many cool things happening there.

Another thing under bosses I really enjoyed in this game are the 'puzzle fights' where enemies spawned infinitely and you had to figure out what to do in an arena. They were well implemented and a nice break between actual boss fights, but still more memorable than just unlocking an upgrade for free.

Exploration
Speaking of free though, there was a ridiculous amount of basically free missile and energy tank upgrades. A less strong point of the game, as half the fun of a Metroid game is exploring the environment for extra goodies. In this game however 50% of the upgrades were freebies, 40% was 'hey come back later when you have upgrade X' and only 10% was actually neatly hidden.

Part of where this problem stems from I think is that the maps where slightly linear. There was very little map space that did not have a core use in the game, so there were few spots where they could have easily put some upgrades that rewarded exploration.

I was also not very happy with the blatant hint giving system. I turned it off fairly quickly such that I could explore and were not instantly pointed to the location I needed to be, but despite that the game still prompted me with the planet I needed to go, often ruining that part of exploration. In my opinion no hints should mean absolutely no hints.

Continuing on the planet system they used in this game, I'm kinda mixed on it. On one hand it provides a nice way to give the player very different locations, each with their own lore. The easy fast travel points between locations was also very nice. On the other hand I found all the planets to be fairly self contained, they did not feel interleaved and made the game feel more linear. I'm not a big fan of that, but it might also be fixable by expanding the map for each planet.

Overall exploration was meh, the game was a tad too linear and the upgrades poorly hidden and hence not as satisfying to hunt down as they usually are.

Upgrades
Is there an actual use for the ship missiles? I never needed more than one... In general I think the ship visor was weirdly underused. It was pretty fun to actually use your ship for once instead of it being broken or something like that, but it felt like an afterthought.

The other visor was great though! The special key doors were fun and the feature were you can basically target the enemy's sweet spot with it was awesome. Was that also possible with the x-ray in earlier games? I never noticed it.

Nothing too special on the other upgrades. The grapple hand was fun and it was nice not having to worry about beam switching for once. I do want to mention the sequence were you get the storm missiles, you had to get into the Metroid research lab, turn off the electricity and get back out. I played it at night and it was legitimately creepy.

Other and verdict
Locations were great, especially Skytown, Pirate Homeworld and Phaaze. Some really unique themes and ideas there.

I don't know what people's overall stance on the motion minigames is, but I wasn't too bothered by them. It differed per minigame, but some of them I'd say really added to the immersion.

Well, that's about it. As for the final conclusion: Bosses were amazing, exploration was meh and the rest was great. Final score would be 8.5/10 for me. Will definitely replay it at some point in the future!

(That was almost an entire review if I say so myself)
 
TheSpaceBetween said:
I feel like the boost ball makes back tracking as easy as it is in the 2D games. Prime is a far bigger game than any 2D Metroid and can still be completed in under an hour.
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I guess this is viable in the Remastered since they added a jump button to the morph ball (which I only found out about in the very end of the game). Doing that with bombs, not so much lol
 
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I think a Metroid movie could work, but I'd actually prefer a series. Either way, I'd like it to see it as uniquely stylized 2D animation.
 
Zeal543 said:
prime 2 varia suit stays winning
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I like it, but I think they gotta realize they should actually maybe use some of the new designs from Metroid Dread, versus still the same Varia Suit from a 2004 game.
 
Aurc said:
I like it, but I think they gotta realize they should actually maybe use some of the new designs from Metroid Dread, versus still the same Varia Suit from a 2004 game.
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I think the issue with that is it's unlikely the dread suit returns for the next game. Prime 2 varia still works because every prime game since uses it as the core varia so they can keep selling it.
 
Luneth said:
So I have started playing Federation Force, and I think it will be the first game in my life that I will abandon. Its bullshit playing single player. I reached a mission in which I have to fight a dual snake boss and the combat goes well until it suddently instakill me and I dont know why. I tried it 3 times havint to replay the whole mission from the start, and I still dont know why it instakill me or how to avoid it, but if this is a constant in the game im not replaying several quest jus for this nonsense. The least they could have done is balance the game for the single player experience, which turns out to be the main focus of the franchise. But it seems the single player mode here is an afterthought, bosses killing you in one hit has sense if you play in a squad, but absolutely not when playing alone.

Metroid is my favourite saga of all time, so a game from the series being the first game that I abandon on my life pains me a bit.
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I kept trying and I managed to beat the instakill boss, and even completed a few levels, 11 I believe, but I finally abandoned the game. It's almost impossible to keep progressing in some missions as the game expect you to be in different places at the same time, so I decided it was not worth the effort. It's amazing how the single player mode is just the multiplayer but with one character, and the drones and the lone wolf mod can't help to balance it a bit. Also the game is boring and plain as hell, it doesn't has anything which will push me to move forward aside from the Metroid name. So I decided to watch the ending on youtube, something I have never done before and which I expect to not having to do again. And I'm glad I did because the last boss is a joke, Other M plot is a top notch story if we compare it with.... whatever this was.

I defended the game for so long as I have always thought the game wasn't bad, it just had bad timing for announcement and release. But I was wrong, the game is very, very mediocre. And I personally think it hurts Samus characterization way more than Other M. In fact I have replayed Other M several times (and I would love to have a remastered version on switch) because its fun even if the story is a bit weird, and it feels like a Metroid game. But federation force doesn't has anything which can make it feel like you are playing Metroid. Even prime hunters, despite being a single player afterthought with just a succession of multiplayer arenas linked by hallways, felt like a true portable Metroid Prime.

And as a bit of off topic , federation force has made me realize how bland the 3DS first party catalogue is, even if a lot of people I know defend it over the switch catalogue. We got great games, of course, and I enjoyed them all, but we also got mediocre games from first party IPs like yoshi's new island, hey! pikmin, triforce heroes (the comparison with four swords adventures hurts) or this federation force. So far every first party switch game have been great, or at least none of them has gave me the feeling of low budget filler game.
 
Luneth said:
I kept trying and I managed to beat the instakill boss, and even completed a few levels, 11 I believe, but I finally abandoned the game. It's almost impossible to keep progressing in some missions as the game expect you to be in different places at the same time, so I decided it was not worth the effort. It's amazing how the single player mode is just the multiplayer but with one character, and the drones and the lone wolf mod can't help to balance it a bit. Also the game is boring and plain as hell, it doesn't has anything which will push me to move forward aside from the Metroid name. So I decided to watch the ending on youtube, something I have never done before and which I expect to not having to do again. And I'm glad I did because the last boss is a joke, Other M plot is a top notch story if we compare it with.... whatever this was.

I defended the game for so long as I have always thought the game wasn't bad, it just had bad timing for announcement and release. But I was wrong, the game is very, very mediocre. And I personally think it hurts Samus characterization way more than Other M. In fact I have replayed Other M several times (and I would love to have a remastered version on switch) because its fun even if the story is a bit weird, and it feels like a Metroid game. But federation force doesn't has anything which can make it feel like you are playing Metroid. Even prime hunters, despite being a single player afterthought with just a succession of multiplayer arenas linked by hallways, felt like a true portable Metroid Prime.

And as a bit of off topic , federation force has made me realize how bland the 3DS first party catalogue is, even if a lot of people I know defend it over the switch catalogue. We got great games, of course, and I enjoyed them all, but we also got mediocre games from first party IPs like yoshi's new island, hey! pikmin, triforce heroes (the comparison with four swords adventures hurts) or this federation force. So far every first party switch game have been great, or at least none of them has gave me the feeling of low budget filler game.
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I think FF was quite bland, though I did manage to make it through solo. I would still put it above Hunters singleplayer. Everything about that game was poorly designed and never felt like a Metroid game to me.
 
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Joe said:
We will probably get sales numbers for Metroid Prime Remastered (as of March 31st) on May 9th. Any predictions?
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2.5

I think there'll be a little push from people double dipping on digital/physical. Dread did 3 million after disappearing from sales charts about a month after launch in a less competitive time frame but I think the limited physical release will hamper prime R enough to put it under dread
 
Zeal543 said:
2.5

I think there'll be a little push from people double dipping on digital/physical. Dread did 3 million after disappearing from sales charts about a month after launch in a less competitive time frame but I think the limited physical release will hamper prime R enough to put it under dread
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I think you're right, but something worth noting is that MPR is still on the best sellers page on the Switch eShop even two months later. I don't think Dread had this much momentum.
 
Joe said:
I think you're right, but something worth noting is that MPR is still on the best sellers page on the Switch eShop even two months later. I don't think Dread had this much momentum.
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it didn't, but it had a bigger launch than prime r (I think so at least due to the physical situation, we'll see on the next quarterly figures)
 
chocolate_supra said:
I actually can't believe I'm in a time where Hallmark is making an official Samus ornament and it's not the one I'm most excited about.
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The Dreamcast was the first console I ever got that was truly mine (gift for my sixth birthday) and I've always loved it. Seeing an ornament made of it is surreal. Have... Have non-Nintendo consoles ever been done before? I feel like they should have, but anytime I've seen console-themed merch it's usually Nintendo and usually the NES.
 
Sorry for the double post, but:

I'm seeing a lot of people on YouTube who got into the series with Dread and played Metroid Prime Remastered for the first time and are now dabbling in Fusion on NSO. It really warms my heart to see that new Metroid fans are being created all the time now.
 
There's now a page for Metroid Prime 4 on the Nintendo UK site, but it just requests an e-mail address for those who want to get new updates:


Not sure if this means anything as far as imminent announcements but it's something I guess.

It also still says the game is in development for Nintendo Switch so that may put to rest any "Switch 2 exclusive" thoughts.

EDIT: Please disregard this. I've learned that this is an old page. Sorry to get everyone's hopes up.
 
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Joe said:
There's now a page for Metroid Prime 4 on the Nintendo UK site, but it just requests an e-mail address for those who want to get new updates:


Not sure if this means anything as far as imminent announcements but it's something I guess.

It also still says the game is in development for Nintendo Switch so that may put to rest any "Switch 2 exclusive" thoughts.
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I am 100% confident that we're getting a trailer for this game this year. It's hard to say exactly when, but it's coming. I don't know how these marketing things work, but I feel like it would be odd to post that while knowing there won't be an update any time soon.
 
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