Metroid Prime 4: Beyond - Review

Beyond reasonable expectations

Console: Nintendo Switch 2

Eighteen years after the last game, eight years after it was announced and two developers later, the 4^th Metroid Prime game is out at last. With the game once again developed by Retro Studios, who made the original 3 games, certainly Beyond would be nothing short of great, right? It was this thought that filled the Metroid fanbase with hope for all those long years this game was quietly in development.

And then the previews hit. With the same energy they had once picked apart a LinkedIn banner the hardcore fans were now picking apart everything that was shown and said and not because they liked what they saw. I was on the sidelines when all of this went down. I like Metroid but am very much a casual enjoyer of Samus’s adventures. I’m not as attached to the conventions of the series as others and didn’t see any inherent issues with the new ideas this game introduced. I’d play Prime 4 eventually and would make up my own mind about it.

Now that I have played Metroid Prime 4 Beyond, I can say those previews were pretty accurate in highlighting the issues at play here. Beneath those flaws though, there is still a good and enjoyable, albeit underwhelming, game.
Let’s talk about it.

Bounty hunter Samus Aran arrives at the planet Tanamaar to assist the Galactic Federation in stopping Space Pirates from stealing a mysterious artifact. Leading the Pirates is Sylux, a rogue hunter with whom Samus shares a past. During the fight, a stray blast hits the artifact resulting in an explosion that sends Samus to the faraway planet of Viewros.

Learning from a recording by the Lamorn, the old inhabitants of Viewros, that she needs to find 5 keys in order to activate the teleporter to get back home, she sets out to do just that. Along the way she runs into a handful of stranded Galactic Federation troopers and starts to uncover the history and legacy of the Lamorn.

The story of Metroid Prime 4 Beyond is a mixed bag. What I liked the best is the mystery of Viewros and the Lamorn, told in typical Metroid fashion: environmental storytelling. Through what you come across, from old recordings and diaries to statues and pottery you learn about their rise and fall. It’s an approach that is both effective and enjoyable. It allows you, the player, to discover things while keeping, and even enhancing, the tense atmosphere and sense of isolation. It’s just that Beyond is a tad heavier on cinematics and cutscenes, spells things out more clearly than what you may be used to from the series that might not sit well with some.

The Galactic Federation Troopers, your buddies, were not an instant success like this. First impressions are everything, I very much believe that if they hadn’t chosen McKenzie as the one to introduce this aspect of the game to the world with, reactions wouldn’t have been so venomous. He’s the comic relief one of the group which does not mix well with Metroid’s serious and tense filled tone. I think it’s fair to say that the game doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with these companions at first, quickly falling into a pattern of repetition. Give it some time, however, as the longer the game goes on the more it finds its groove with these characters.

As they start attributing to the story and gameplay more, they become more than just ‘the noise’ for a specific zone. I had grown fond of them enough that the game’s ending, if you like the direction longtime Metroid producer Tanabe takes it in or not, affected me.
There’s still a lot of room to grow should they want to bring them back in future games, like more smaller interactions like what was originally planned, but what is here is decent at the end of the day.

And then there's the big disappointment that is Sylux. A cool looking guy with zero personality that shows up in the opening, the end and nothing more. They don’t tell or show you anything about him except that he’s one angry dude. Tanabe wanted this game to establish Sylux as the next big bad for Samus to face but what is here does nothing to make that a propelling prospect. There is a very well made cinematic explaining his backstory, but it’s locked away as a 100% completion bonus. That shouldn’t be a reward, it should’ve been in the campaign itself for everyone to see!  

This game might’ve changed studios but the vision of longtime Metroid producer Tanabe for Beyond stayed the same. After Breath of the Wild hit, Tanabe saw many requests for an open-world Metroid title. Granted, people requested that of every Nintendo series, but Tanabe nonetheless gave it some serious thought.

The ‘go anywhere you want, anytime’ core of open world titles and the ‘slowly but surely acquiring new abilities to explore more of the map’ from Metroid don’t really work well together though. Thus, Tanabe settled on making one big open area, Soll Valley, that connects to different zones that are designed as the traditional Metroid Prime levels.  

With how much back and forth there is in a Metroid game you’ll be spending a lot of time in Sol Valley. The problem, however, is that Sol Valley is a large desert filled with a whole lot of nothing. A place you just zoom around in on your bike called the Vi-O-La to get from point A to point B. There are a few ‘shrine-like’ places in which you can find things like energy tanks and missile upgrades but that’s about it. Retro Studios actually planned Sol Valley to be a lot more densely packed with landmarks and activities, but Tanabe shot this down. He didn’t want the player to become ‘distracted’.

Sol Valley doesn't get much more interesting than this.

Speaking of poor decisions, I have a tip for you all: collect as many green crystals as you can, as early as you can. You need a certain amount to unlock the final zone and, if you haven’t kept up, you are in for one very long grind.

A question that many, including myself, had when it was announced that Prime 4 restarted development under Retro Studios was: why? What was it that caused Nintendo to make the costly decision to pull the game away from Bandai Namco and start over? Well, they did it because they failed to come up with level design that satisfied them. So, back to the original developers, who just worked on another Metroid game with Metroid Prime Remastered to boot, they went.

Nobody can tell how Prime 4 under Bandai Namco would’ve ultimately ended up but I can say that when it comes to the level design of these zones, Retro Studios brought their A-game. All right, let’s balance out all this talk of what this game does poorly by talking about something it does right.

I’m talking about that ‘slowly but surely acquiring new abilities to explore more of the map’ thing. Sol Valley might segment things, but each zone is this big puzzle that you have to not just solve, but survive. Part of the time you’re blasting away enemies, mostly the four-armed Grievers, with energy blasts and missiles in an overrun mine. The other part you’re rolled up into the morph ball, making your way through an air duct to get to the centre of a frozen research station.

It’s this interplay of combat and puzzle solving, together with finding out all you can about your surroundings, that makes Metroid so much fun to play. You never really know what’s around the corner or when you’re able to open that specific door and combined with its tense atmosphere, that creates an experience that is hard to match when done right.

All of this is classic Metroid fare but what is now here are the psychic abilities. Given to her by the Lamorn, these abilities allow Samus to grab energy orbs from faraway or use a whip to swing across large gaps. Well, I say new but many of these psychic abilities are things Samus has done before. It’s just that now there’s a purple tint to it all.

The only one that is truly new here is a beam that you can freely control and shoot around corners with: the psychic beam. I’ll be honest here; I spent most of my time with this game forgetting it existed. There are at least 5 instances in which I got stuck on a puzzle only to realize 10 minutes later you have to use the psychic beam to hit something you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Why? Because it’s very slow to use and thus not something you’ll just whip out willy-nilly. It’s best to stick with the basics of just blasting things quick and easy, but with some strategy behind it. For example, a fully charged electric shot turns into a continuous beam for a few seconds that can shred through the health bar of certain bosses.

Before moving on, there’s one small thing about these elemental beams that I want to mention. Previously, the icons for the different beams were stylized version of how Samus has to position her fingers to activate that beam type. Here, they are presented with just simple ‘fire, ice and lightning’ icons. Easy to understand, yes, but the old icons had a certain flair and world building aspect to them that I do miss.

Back to the topic at hand. Building on Prime 3’s free aiming system, in Beyond all big enemies and bosses have weak spots you have to aim for using either the gyro of the Joy-Cons or the spiffy mouse mode when you play on the Switch 2. After some experimentation, I chose the standard control scheme alongside the Pro Controller for my time with the game. That felt the best to me, even if I had to twist and turn the controller in some uncomfortable positions to hit those specific weak spots.  

Speaking of boss fights: I really enjoyed them. They are nice and varied with each one bringing a different kind of challenge to the table. They were bits of pure fun for me, even those that dragged a bit (looking at you, Phenoros!) that may or may not stick with me longer than the bosses of Prime 1 did. The big exception here is, of course, the climactic Sylux fight. Too tedious and long for my tastes. And no, the fact that I died 5 times during this fight, exactly half my game-over count, is not the sole reason I disliked it.

You can't tell me that this isn't pretty darn cool!

Speaking of my game-over count, Prime 4’s difficulty is well handled if you ask me. Normal mode is a rather good mix between something that can challenge veterans of the casual kind and newcomers alike. It might be a little too easy at times but there are always the other difficulty options to choose from if this game is too easy (or even hard) for you.

Safe to say, as the first Metroid Prime game built from the ground up for an HD console looks stellar. The Prime games have always been something of a visual showcase for the consoles it has been on. The Horizon Forbidden West of Nintendo if you will, and Prime 4 keeps that tradition going. On the technical side of things, Beyond runs at either a stable 60fps and 4K or a, to me, an unheard of 120fps for a butter smooth experience on the Switch 2.

That is all well and good but what I’m more impressed by is the attention to detail. From seeing Samus’ eyes flashing on screen when a blast of light hits you to a layer of frost forming on her cannon in Ice Belt. From all the little creatures scuttling around on the ground to loose wires dangling because of some draught. It makes these environments feel more real and helps visualize more than a few hints and story details should you take the time to look for them.

Last but not least: the music. From the scanning sound, to the sound of the beam, everything is how you remember it. The sounds are perhaps a bit too much like what has come before though. The music in Flare Pool sounds just like that of the lava caverns in the original Prime, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. The soundtrack is well done, atmospheric and some tunes still pop into my head from time to time. If that’s not a good sign of a memorable soundtrack, I don’t know what is.

Conclusion

There is a lot to say about Metroid Prime 4 Beyond. It’s a game with a long and troubled development that made a bad first impression on fans when it was finally shown. That, and some genuine bad calls during development, made this a compromised game from the start. The story is a mixed bag thanks to its underwhelming villain and the open zone that is Sol Valley is just plain boring.

If you can look past all its issues though, you find that this is a good game. The traditional Metroid levels are crafted with care and bring that eerie atmosphere and tension-filled moments you want out of it. It looks great, runs great and when it hits its stride it’s a very enjoyable game to just play. Just wait for a discount before picking it up.