It's always a fascinating exercise to look at what Nintendo has lined up for a season in terms of first-party releases. The gaming giant is studious when it comes to releasing things in its own time, and with the Switch 2 still in its first year, it clearly wants to keep the big games coming.
The latest to arrive is probably the most long-awaited of them all, though: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. First announced literally eight years ago but since delayed repeatedly and reportedly completely rebooted internally, it now comes to both Switch 1 and 2, and I've played the whole thing through to the credits.
It's a game that threatened to upset longtime fans when the first previews dropped after some of us were able to play the start of the game a few weeks ago, and some of the fears raised there do bear fruit in the full game. Still, I also think it's closer to the original feeling of a Metroid game than some worried it would be.
Beyond opens with Samus rushing to a Federation base that's been attacked by Space Raiders, led by Sylux, a spiky-suited mercenary previously seen in Metroid Prime: Hunters on the DS. He's trying to steal a mysterious artefact, but said doohicky ends up instead teleporting him, Samus and a few unlucky footsoldiers to an unknown planet called Viewros.
There, Samus (stripped of all her powers and upgrades, of course) encounters technological ghosts of the higher beings that used to occupy Viewros, who tell her she needs five teleporter keys from five world zones if she wants to get off-world and home.
From there, it's classic Metroid Prime – visit each zone, exploring and generally puzzling your way to a new power unlock. That unlock will let you go to another zone and get a little further than last time, before unlocking another little something to repeat the process.
The major change this time is the addition of a central hub area, which is a large desert expanse. You drive around this with a motorbike that you unlock after two or three hours, and it's probably the game's weakest element. The desert is huge and largely empty, except for a few puzzle rooms that you can only open when you have the right tools, which can be frustrating to work out in the first place.
Still, inside each of the zones, things are a little more normal – with winding maps that generally feature additional routes and rooms you can't access the first time through. The downside is that each of these areas features at least one NPC companion to talk to while you explore. The first of these, Myles, is by far the most annoying, and later ones do keep quiet a little more, but there's really no escaping the fact that I'd enjoy the game more without any of them in it.
These NPCs are plot-critical, though, so there's no real getting around them. I think, after playing the preview, the final result is actually better than expected in terms of how annoying they can be. For one thing, a radio call from Myles is often the only way to know where to head next, since the backtracking can be as obtuse as ever at times. Still, there's no doubt that some people will rage at their inclusion.
What's more positive is the game's presentation, largely. I played the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, and it was a fluid and sharp experience. It's a 4K 60fps game when docked in quality mode (1080p in handheld), while you can also go for 1080p and 120fps (720p in handheld) if you prefer. I found the 60fps mode perfectly fluid enough, though, and didn't love the visual tradeoffs that a higher frame rate brought.
The game's environments are fun and detailed enough to hold up to decent scrutiny, although the screenshot below highlights one visual disappointment. The static skyboxes and distant terrain are generally just images that look okay at first glance but are in fact pretty pixelated and old-fashioned, which doesn't impress much.
Still, I found these visual letdowns to be the exception, not the rule. For the most part, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is a really slick visual experience on the Switch 2, and underlines the added power that Nintendo's console boasts over its predecessor. You can even play in mouse mode, if you like, although I found a gamepad preferable given the inclusion of lock-on.
When I got through to bits where NPCs weren't bothering me, the silence they left behind did indeed allow some of that trademark eerie melancholy solitude to seep in, and scanning everything and anything I saw never really got old (I finished with 91% of scans completed after around 12 hours).
I'm not the sort of die-hard fan to demand a series stick to what it's done before, but it's fair to say that I think the experiments with added characters and a sort of open world don't really work in Beyond. The good news for the game is that the underlying formula it retains is strong enough to leave the game feeling good despite those missteps.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.