Metroid Prime 4: It Could Have Been Incredible.

Note: I originally wrote this and posted it on my Ko-fi page on December 15th, 2025. I'm also making some edits to make it more good and less bad. Yes, I am a wordsmith and jealousy is erupting from every pore on your filthy body.

There was a time, long ago, when I would write game reviews. I either praised a game like it was the second coming, or I would trash it like it was... the third coming? I dunno. Your dirty mind can go where it needs to. Mine certainly did.

Anyway, I stopped mostly because:

1. It was getting me nowhere and I didn't know how to do anything with great consistency. This was before YouTube and the advent of attention-destroying platforms like TikTok. Turns out people hate reading words these days. If you're reading this, congrats! You're one of the few! 🎉 (No, I'm no cynical, you are!)
2. I felt bad trashing someone's hard work because it soon became my job to be a creator. Not a content creator where you post videos about someone else's work or whatever (which is actually totally fine, I hope that didn't come across crass), but actually creating something from nothing. You know, song writing. Art. That sort of thing. That shit is HARD, and it's especially discouraging when you pour yourself into something and people go, "Meh."

But, I'm coming out of "retirement" for a minute to deliver my unimportant thoughts on Metroid Prime 4.

Small spoilers ahead. Nothing huge though.

There are many great things about this game that I don't want to overlook. It's easily the most visually impressive entry in the series, for both vanilla Metroid games and Prime. The engine that Retro Studios put together looks really shiny. Not quite Unreal Engine shiny, or mind-blowing like Cyberpunk 2077, but it looks great. 

The facial animations, world, character design, shaders, special effects - they all look fantastic on the Switch 2. I didn't try things on the Switch 1, but I heard that port is perfectly playable and enjoyable. I mean, how old is that console now? Ten years? What IS time anyway? It's bullshit, that's what it is.

The game controls just as you'd expect, now with the modern dual-stick setup that we're all used to. You CAN play in mouse mode if you want using the Switch 2 Joycons, but I didn't mess with that. I don't like how the Joycons feel in my hands, even with the larger format and tweaked layout that the Switch 2 provides. I used the Pro Controller, which feels like silk on butter.

(That's supposed to be a compliment, but sounds gross and slimy. Oh well, I'm stickin' with it.)

I found that the music had its ups and downs. The first area you get to, the "Jungle" or whatever, had some good compositions. Volt Forge was pretty good. However, as I progressed through the game, most of the music was forgettable, and at times, was downright annoying, to the point where I had to turn the volume down. I like...  never do that.

For example, in the lava world (I think), when you enter a room with enemies, the game dynamically adds this farting sound like they're rubbing Nickelodeon Gak on a microphone. Or in the mine, there's some dissonant violin string glissando sounds that's supposed to sound tense (think Dead Space), but instead it just signals that annoying enemies are in the room.

And that dovetails nicely with my next issue.

Remember in Super Metroid when you'd get a beam upgrade, you felt more powerful? By the time you got the plasma beam, most enemies just melted. By the time you were fully upgraded, you were easily the most powerful being in the known universe. That felt GOOD. And it was fun.

In Prime 4 (and, in actuality, all of the Prime games), when you get a beam "upgrade", you just have a different weapon. Not a better one, just a different color that would do something different. "Now I can open the purple doors! WOW!"

When you get a "Psychic Beam Upgrade", the little purple balls shoot faster. That's it. So, as you gain more abilities and weapons, and you want to backtrack through other areas to collect items, the enemies you faced hours ago are just as powerful and don't melt like they're "supposed" to. You don't ever FEEL more powerful. EVER.

Even with armor upgrades, some enemies you've faced hours prior can still melt several energy tanks off of your life bar in seconds and without effort. In Super Metroid, arguably one of the greatest games ever made, when you're fully upgraded, older enemies can barely scratch you.

I don't know if the developers are trying to inject more modern "Dark Souls" like challenge here, but it's more annoying than fun. Come to think of it, the Metroid 2 remake on the 3DS and Metroid: Dread did the same shit. It was super annoying, and trying to get through a room quickly meant, "Oh, I have to take extra time to fight an enemy I fought already that SHOULD be a couple of beam blasts, but instead I have to shoot them a dozen times to actually destroy them."

That made one of my favorite aspects of the Metroid series, backtracking and collecting stuff, far more tedious than it should have been.

The game is work. It makes you work. I didn't even mind the desert motorcycle hub world. That was fine. But going back into an area to collect stuff you missed just... ugh.

Finally, the characters. Oh yes, you're not exploring a world on your own. You make some friends from the Galactic Federation! Don't worry though, it's not like Metroid: Other M. It's far better. I mean, that's a low bar to clear, but they cleared it.

I honestly thought the dialogue and writing for these characters was the best delivery that Nintendo has ever cranked out for a Metroid game. The facial animations were good. The personalities were decent. The actual delivery was, uh, mostly good.

The sniper guy's voice actor felt like he woke up hung over and came into the studio and did one take off of the script. Sorry man, whomever you are. I don't think it's your fault. You just needed better coaching and direction. I found his character to be the most forgettable and flat.

For the rest, there's a base camp area where these characters all end up. Every time you enter the room, one of them greets you. That's okay, I guess. But every time you leave, they have to say something. It feels forced and unnatural. It's a small thing, but it kind of irritated me.

They also say, "Samus" too much. Like, "Hey Samus! Good to see you Samus. Samus, did you do Samus stuff today, Samus? I like how you're Samus, Samus." Fucking hell. Nobody says another person's name this much when they talk to them. It feels so forced. Maybe it's just me though.

There's one more thing I have to address before I wrap this up.

Mackenzie.

So this is the first guy you run into. He's a nerdy engineer. His introduction was good. I liked him at first. You help him out and establish the base camp with him. Then he restores communications with you, and from there, Makenzie never shuts up. He becomes Navi from Ocarina of Time. Actually, it's worse.

Oh, let me give you an example.

Let's say you leave the base camp area, and now you're in the desert hub area. He'll call you up, "Hey Samus! Samus, let me know if you need help. Have you checked Volt Forge out with your new upgrade, Samus?" Then, a notification appears pushing you to press the "-" button to bring up the map, telling you where to go even though you've already been there.

IF YOU DON'T PRESS "-" THE NOTIFICATION STAYS ON THE SCREEN UNTIL YOU PRESS IT.

If you do some exploring, after a little while, Mackenzie calls you AGAIN, pointing you in the same direction.

"Fucking hell, FINE, I'll go to Volt Forge! Just SHUT UP!" said Rawrb, out loud, to the game.

When you're in a level, Mackenzie typically doesn't call you. That's nice.

But the SECOND you enter the desert hub world, he blows up your comms. "Samus! Looks like you got that item! Bring it back here so I can install it, Samus!"

Remember in past Metroid games when you got a beam upgrade and you just... got it? And it worked immediately? Not here. Mackenzie has to install it for you! You have to backtrack all the way to your base camp and watch the cutscene where he tried to nerdily quip about stuff, then install the chip.

Then you go back out to the desert hub. "Samus! Have you tried your new beam at this location yet? Samus? You should try it, Samus! I'll call you in five minutes to make sure you don't forget. ...Samus."

When in the world wrestling federation did I need handholding in a Metroid title? They started doing this stuff in Metroid Fusion, and they kept making it worse. This is easily the lamest, most annoying hand-holding in any game I've ever played. Well, maybe not the worst. Skyward Sword was pretty bad.

I looked in the menu to turn Mackenzie off. You can turn off tutorial messages, but I left those on in case I got a new thing and didn't know how to use it, which I think it pretty important for a first playthrough. Like, laying a bomb and picking it up and tossing it. That's not a simple series of inputs.

Anyway, I don't WANT Metroid games to not have other characters. I just want them to not be part of the gameplay. Write them better. Get them out of the way. 

And, Samus doesn't HAVE to be a completely silent protagonist. Just make sure her voice actor and dialogue are on point. If she speaks, it's going to move mountains. That might've been a overcorrection from Metroid: Other M, which I don't blame them for, but still.

Look, I'm raggin' hard on this game. There's plenty of great stuff, but it's hard to enjoy that when these other aspects just take you out of it. I'm not a game designer, nor do I claim to know how to fix stuff like this, but... man, I couldn't even finish the game. I got to the last boss and just had no desire to continue, which sucks, because I know a lot of people worked really hard to bring this game to us. Apologies my harsh words. Just... please, do better. I know you can.

Would I recommend Prime 4? I mean, if you're a die-hard Metroid fan, sure. It's worth playing, but only once. More than that if you can tolerate Mackenzie and all the stuff I whined about. Or if you're a speedrunner. I'd watch that!

6.5/10 Disemboweled Mackenzies.

PS: Sorry, this review is better than mine: