the V of side by side columns descending to Ridley gives me a bit of a metroid 2 vibe
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this one looks aesthetically appealing
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oh yeah that’s that one hack where i wasted a couple hours going nowhere because i thought a red door was grey
pretty neat looking half-hack aside from that
it intrigues me. the environment seems more organic and layered despite being made mostly of recoloured pre-existing assets.
edit: ok, a large amount of it seems to be original; i was just responding to the chozo statues embedded in the walls in brinstar
wow, that was beautiful. brinstar is overflowing with secrets and maridia feels like a whole new place, between explosive coral outcrops and coarse, sandy ruins evocative of metroid 2’s harshness. i love how you can access most of maridia without the gravity suit even if it’s not advisable.
the sideways bomb fling is a great idea; it’s fun seeing the new kinds of passages it allows you to traverse. there’s an interesting part where you’re stuck in ball form where it comes in handy too.
putting a whole area behind the dachora and triggering the red brinstar music is such a cool move, like finding a hidden world. contrasting how limited that place is in vanilla super metroid imo draws attention to how boringly functional its design is.
most of norfair is unfortunately pretty plain, and i had to give up at the chozo statue since 300 missiles weren’t enough to take it down.
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metroid construction hosted a one-week hacking jam for halloween
i didn’t participate, but my buddy neen once again made a piece of Performance Art, which i played so you don’t have to:
yes, that is the intended and only solution to this hack
also, those x-ray scopes respawn, so you can literally collect an infinite number of them
i have been informed that the other hacks made for the jam are all of the more playable variety
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This reads like a horror novella
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every time they announce something new about this it sounds even worse
Nintendo is on a pretty good clip lately tbh, I hadn’t bought a console at launch since possibly the GameCube (is that really true? I guess I got my PS3, PS4, and Switch each a couple years in) and I’ve gotten tons of use out of my Switch 2 so I really can’t complain, but this has seemed like a total turd for its whole dev cycle
Oh my god:
Well, while playing over an hour of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond on Nintendo Switch 2, I discovered a seemingly major component that’s been completely absent from any footage we’ve seen so far: an extraordinarily talkative companion who’s constantly spewing unwanted hints, quippy jokes, and cries for help, breaking the isolated, atmospheric themes Metroid is known for.
His name is Myles MacKenzie, a specialist from the Galactic Federation stranded with Samus on the planet Viewros. Myles tagged along for a significant chunk of my play session, and the way Retro Studios has implemented this NPC companion is far and away my biggest concern about Prime 4 after my time with it. But we’ll get to him a bit later.
They really did it… they added a Joxer to Metroid Prime 4. They’re carrying on their legacy of incredible character design from Metroid Prime 3:
Appalling lack of taste from Retro, I’m always impressed.
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they’re really going the Noom route of “great revival against all odds that no one gave enough credit in the first place” (it even used the same map system after nobody else had in 15 years!) → we have no idea how we got this right in the first place and are going to make it worse than you can imagine
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After tiptoeing through an eerie, condensed part of Fury Green, I came across a crash-landed Galactic Federation ship, where I was immediately taken aback by the tonal whiplash. My way here was filled with hauntingly beautiful choral melodies and isolated exploration – it was vintage Metroid Prime. But now, it’s finally time to get to know specialist Myles MacKenzie, who introduced himself with this honestly cringey monologue (and if you don’t believe me, watch it in the video version of this preview at the top of the page):
“Oh wow! Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. What a mess. You’re alone, on a planet, with no hope of survival. But, you’re also not sitting next to Phil anymore in that cubicle… So… Win?”
OH MY GODDDD
The next 20 minutes of my demo ranged from mildly annoying to downright infuriating, as Myles constantly bombarded me with either awkward attempts at quippy humor…
“It’s about to get reeeeal nerdy in here!”
Unwelcome hints that directly defy Metroid’s spirit of exploration and discovery:
“Missiles are effective against a creature with a hard shell, you know."
He would scold me for not stopping to save my game:
“Samus, there’s something interesting over there. Are you sure we don’t need to use that?”
Comment on everything I scanned:
“Can you read that? Does that say anything about this place? They really don’t want anyone in here. Must be a sacred space.”
State the obvious:
“I can see the door, Samus! Let’s get out of here.”
He’s really Space Joxer But Worse!! This is so lame, even for the people who thought random Metroid Prime Hunters nobody Syllux was cool enough to bring back.
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really curious about the internal politics that led them to be like “ok we can’t stop them from putting this in the game but try not to tell anyone until 3 weeks before it comes out”
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unless I’m escorting a cute little baby metroid that I don’t have to worry about because it can take care of itself I don’t want to hear about escort missions
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the footage of this is really crazy. like genuinely hard to believe shit
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Maybe they’re all saying they have family back home and are two weeks away from retirement because they all die in ironic ways.
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Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Belief
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Periodic reminder that mainline Metroid and Metroid Prime are produced by two completely different guys in Japan with different sensibilities and approaches to direction.
Yoshio Sakamoto is a man who was able to whip the dullards at MercurySteam into enough shape to produce an actually decent game for once.
Kensuke Tanabe, on the other hand, seems to be harnessing the immense technical and design talent at Retro Studios to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.
One of those guys reworked his concept of a Metroid Fusion sequel after Other M’s failure. The other guy is producing a sequel to Federation Force that is a sequel to Federation Force.
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On the other hand, the GF trooper girl seems cool and I will reserve judgment on the game until I see more of her.
So it turns out companions are a major feature of this game, and you get several of them over the course of it that become Samus’s team… I’m getting the sinking feeling that this is part of Nintendo’s rapid Disney/Marvel-fication they’ve been undergoing in the past few years. You need to create a stable of Metroid characters if you want to make a Metroid movie…
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This official overview video makes it seem like they’re just remaking Metroid Prime 1 but with a few new additions like the motorcycle and the human characters lol. I was like hmm I guess Metroid Prime is back but then I come here and see Joxer shit.
Also I feel like they might be shooting themselves in the foot putting this on Switch 1 as well due to the fact they take time at the end to go out of their way to emphasize there are two different versions so make sure you buy the right one (but also you can purchase an upgrade to the Switch 2 version lol).
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