Review
Played on: Switch 2
Released: 2025
Patiently, fans of the Metroid franchise have waited for their beloved Prime sub-series to resurface. With the excellent remaster of the first Metroid Prime released in 2023, review here, the hype towards Prime 4 just increased further. With a long development cycle, outliving both the Wii U and Switch 1's active years, and its developer Retro Studios focusing on contributing on other Nintendo projects, Prime 4 finally hit Switch 1 & 2 late last year.
What can we expect from what many consider to be some of the best Metroid titles made, when it now comes around to making a fourth release. Time has indeed gone by since the last release on the Wii.
A lot of first person shooter development has taken place too, somehow Prime 4 seems little affected by it. On the surface that might seem like a good idea, considering the Prime series is more of a first person adventure than a shooter, a thing of its own, but being this unaffected by change and then forcing in an open world is perhaps not the smartest decision?
Let’s roll into a ball and take a closer look!
There’s no shame in rejecting change, but there needs to be a plan behind the decision. The Metroid series in general has very much its own style, with Prime taking a section of its own within this franchise. Rather than just make it a modern shooter, the developers have gone back to what made the Prime trilogy loved by so many in the first place. This is platforming, exploring, storytelling and predictable enemies with each their strategy to take down, not a modern war styled shooter.
For better or worse, Retro Studios are not completely unaffected by modernism and have decided to embrace an open world strategy. At least to some degree.
While each biome has the typical Metroid Prime design; with hidden items and, to a degree, various paths and doors that require upgrades. However, what they lack compared to the older Prime titles is verticality. Level design doesn't use the height as clever as earlier entries, or complexity of the level layouts for that matter, it feels like a lot of unlockable locked rooms that try to build around the Metroidvania aspect of the genre.
All these biomes are separated by a massive desert in the middle of the map. Here you can use a motorcycle, of all things, to traverse back and forth. Within this desert you can find a green resource, which feels like a shallow collect-a-thon, needed to unlock a couple of upgrades and a better suit. More interestingly, you can discover some stranded vehicles and ruins in the desert, as well as crypts beneath the surface, all which require certain abilities to open and get your hands on some rocket upgrades or health tanks.
Sadly, this open world feels a little meaningless and rather empty. Although Gears of War 5, review here, did something remarkably similar back in 2019 to much of its fanbase critique; it kinda served a purpose to break up the heavy firefights. A calm between the storms. In Prime 4, on the other hand, I’m not so sure it’s needed. Seldom does it reach the action intensity, and it really has an almost lack of enemy numbers to justify an empty space to change the pace.
In addition, outside the typical pattern-based boss fights, the enemies feel like they completely abandoned for any form of A.I. They seemingly only attack when close and even then, it's a lacklustre affair compared to the more aggressive enemies in the first Metroid Prime. Worse yet, they're so few in number within each room they end up barely being a threat at all. I can't recall dying even once against normal enemies, compare do the boss fights.
Gameplay is instantly familiar ground. I’ve moved directly from Metroid Prime Remastered to Prime 4 and had zero problems jumping straight into combat and platforming. Granted, I’m a dual stick shooter fan and chose this control method in both 1 and 4. The lock-on mechanic is still present, and works well, but you can also get along fine by playing it like a regular shooter. Boss fights are designed somewhat more around the lock-on mechanic, though. You can also play with motion controls or even a mouse option for the new Switch 2 Joy-Con, if you play that version.
This time around Samus has some extra psychic abilities, gained from what must be some of the most plain and boring alien designs I've seen since Halo 4s Prometheans, which allows her to see a psychic world within our own. This allows for some cool ways of opening doors and an ability which can fire projectiles while time slows down.
Performance is impressively rock solid framerate. On Switch 2 it resides at 1440p@60fps, and there's even a smoother option available too; 1080p@120fps! It’s nice with alternatives on consoles and seeing a 120fps mode added is a welcome addition, even though it means losing some of the clarity in the distance with a lower resolution. I'm happy to see that performance is aimed at a responsive, incredibly optimised and stable framerate.
Having 60fps for a shooter is important and it does so even on the Switch 1 version, although I can't speak for how solid the framerate is there. That said on the Switch 2 I kind of expected it to run well considering it being designed to run on a Switch 1. It gives the Switch 2 bigger legroom for some added visual effects and sharper textures, nevertheless the result is some pretty albeit fairly average visuals.
While areas are in general larger than the confined ones in the Metroid Prime Remaster, it’s not exactly anything more advanced graphically. There’s a unique Prime design to it all, but it also lacks tons of foliage, has extremely sparse enemy counts on screen and has lack of overall advanced geometry in the environments. Somehow, the higher resolution makes it more apparent that the visuals can look sparse. Maybe even more objects and detail could’ve been added to spice the Switch 2 version up further?
This goes for the textures close up too, they lack sharp detail. I understand that the Switch 2 version I played has a higher texture setting, but it's hardly anything incredible compared to similar titles these days.
That said, this is clearly a Metroid Prime aesthetic; going for a more minimalist, stylistic approach than typical shooters and it works well. It falls in line with the other Prime titles and sports some eye-catching environmental designs. There's lots of colour and clever usage of weather and lighting effects. The HDR usage is top of the line and really makes the Switch 2 version stand out on a modern screen.
Whereas the first hour of the jungle like environment seem tightly designed, reminiscent of the first Metroid Prime, the following area at the factory where you build the motorcycle feels sluggish. Do we need a long segment of learning to drive the bike on a test track? When you finally reach the open world, it feels a little underwhelming. Furthermore, the design of each main area, be it ice, lava, jungle or a mining facility underground, just don't have the intricate labyrinth feel of the original Prime.
There's just too much linearity here, and the few select places you don't have access to feel mostly like locked rooms. Not as incredible as when you gained a new power in the older titles.
That said, all this was fine by me as it made the playthrough easy manageable and breezy difficulty throughout. It looks clean and sharp, plays well and I don't mind repetition or open areas to traverse, but where the experience loses me is towards the end.
The final part is where the whole experience falls apart. You're asked to gather the team and attack the main centre structure in the open world desert, followed by lots of uninformative cutscenes and then an incredibly frustrating boss fight with a helmet guy I still don't really know who is, or what grudge he holds against Samus.
It's an unimaginative boss fight of tentacles weaving about, cheap attack moves with scripted movements and massive damage. Followed by a part where you're flying through a void in a psychedelic pipe avoiding crap thrown at you, finally arriving at a third fight which is tough and generic. The result is a boss fight which just feels uninspired, yet annoyingly hard. I ended up by throwing in the towel, lowering the difficulty and just powering through the crap.
Only to be met with an ending sequence which I can only describe as meaningless and underwhelming. At best. What even did I accomplish?
A shame then, that integrating some level of open world would break the rest of the intricate Prime design this sub-series is famous of. Resulting it a linear affair, but a story which is just some generic space helmet guy, with aggression problems, harassing Samus at various points.
At the end of the day Metroid Prime 4 has been a long wait, and while it charmingly retains the uniqueness of the series, it seems like it's lost itself along the way. It lacks the dense and clever level design of the original, tries to take on some modern ideas but seems at the same time stuck in earlier generation and doesn't know how to utilise advancements.
Even as a Prime title it trips in making its structure to, the possibility for bigger rooms is wasted on empty space and spare enemy counts with shallow AI.
I'm not denying that I enjoyed the visual side of some of the areas and it's a wonderful showcase for your Switch 2 at first glance, but once you spend hours with it, it's simpler side shows through rather empty and simple level design.
I've seen complaints about the NPCs talking to Samus and tagging along her a few select areas, but I had no problem with that and I would've even preferred she spoke in addition. As it stands, her silent protagonist style is a little weird when surrounded by talking NPCs versus being alone on a planet.
It's in no way a bad title, there are lots of solid parts and some pretty areas to gaze upon, but it just falls apart with its mediocre plot, bad ending, barren open world and the simplified Metroidvania layout. Prime fans should, and most likely will, play it but just don't expect it to blow you away or add anything significant. It does a take on the Prime formula with an enjoyable ride, but leaves with nothing outstanding to remember it by.
