‘Metroid Prime 4’ looks and feels great, but I’m nervous about one little thing

It’s great to have my amazing friend Samus Aran back.

Possibly Nintendo’s best character, Samus and she Metroid The series has been largely in the wild since 2007. metroid prime 3 Came out. i enjoyed metroid fear A big deal a few years ago, but this is really the only game starring Samus in almost 20 years that I’ve cared about. Hopefully this trend will end with the launch on December 4th Metroid Prime 4: Beyond On Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.

Courtesy of Nintendo, I recently had a chance to play about an hour of the game at a preview event, and boy do I have some thoughts. For the most part, at least based on the early parts prime 4it is still metroid prime You know and love. But, I have a big concern. Let’s join in.

It feels good to be back in the power suit

Aliens are very mean.
Credit: Nintendo

my demo prime 4 Happened in two separate parts: a short, 10-minute glimpse at the beginning of the game (a demo I already played in April), and a longer look at the point when it looks like the game is running properly. will startAs in, Samus finds herself on a mysterious, seemingly abandoned alien planet full of wonder and mystery, and she must figure out what to do about it, classic Metroid Material.

A long portion of the demo took place in a jungle-themed area called Fury Green. this is the place Very reminds of the past Metroid game; Gross bug monsters and alien plants attack Samus every few minutes, and strange alien artifacts litter the landscape, just waiting for Samus to find the right object or ability to use them on or around them. Although this part of the game was fairly linear and straightforward, there were definitely doors and paths that I couldn’t open yet because I didn’t have the proper abilities, which is what you want to see in a Metroid game. This was also, seemingly, the first hour of the game, so I’m not condemning that part of it for being linear.

Despite starting life as a Switch 1 game (and still having a Switch 1 release), prime 4 This might be the best looking game I’ve ever seen running on the Switch 2. The demo was running in 4K/60FPS configuration, although the 1080p/120FPS version looks great too. Beyond the raw technical specifications, Fury Green is an extremely gorgeous area, and the art direction is also prime 4 It seems to be on par with the rest of the series.

Series developer Retro Studios has also captured the experience of wandering through this ancient, unknown world and shooting everything in it with a gun. The combat is fast, intuitive, and fun, and as a bonus, it’s the first metroid prime The game will launch with normal, dual-analog stick controls. It looks great, and Samus’s new mental abilities add some interesting variety to both puzzle solving and combat. She can use small balls of energy to power alien devices, as well as fire a beam that stops time and allows you to manually fly it around the environment for a few seconds. I did a major boss fight at the end of the demo where I had to kill three targets at once using that last ability, and it felt like a classic. metroid prime Material.

So, yeah, I’m not really worried about the parts where you watch and play. metroid prime 4Even in my demo, heartbreakingly, there was no motorcycle related stuff included,

But I was kind of hoping I’d be alone here

Oh yes.
Credit: Nintendo

This demo of prime 4 I would have been excited for the game with zero reservations if it weren’t for one small thing: at one point in Fury Green, Samus meets another stranded human, a dark Galactic Federation engineer man who is completely voice acted. He accompanied me throughout most of the demo, partly as the guy guarding a brief Escort Quest-like section, but mostly as the guy who pops in from time to time to chat with Samus (who doesn’t talk at all).

This is not the first time a Metroid The game has brought Samus closer to other people, with or without voice acting. To say the least, the results of past games have been…mixed. Metroid This has always worked best when Samus is alone in a dark and preferably enigmatic alien world. initial main Games, in particular, have a completely flawless sense of atmosphere. Before you meet this engineer doofus, prime 4 miss her. After meeting him, it’s still a fun game with pretty visuals and good combat, but it’s not the same.

It also doesn’t help that he’s really annoying, and from what I played it’s hard to tell whether the game is in joke or not.

I’m not going to pass any judgment on this prime 4 For this yet. As far as I know, this guy is only a small part of the game and won’t whisper a word into Samus’s ear throughout the entire adventure. I don’t want to spend it all metroid prime It’s thrilling to me to hear a strange man’s conversation in a pseudo-Marvel Cinematic Universe.

after seeing that part of metroid prime 4i’m officially Little Worried about a game that has given me no reason to feel that way so far. I think Nintendo has earned the benefit of the doubt here, but I can’t lie: I’m a little more nervous than I expected. we’ll see what happens when Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Will launch on Switch and Switch 2 on December 4th.

In the meantime, you can pre-order Metroid Prime 4: Beyond For $69.