Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Review

I spent the first few hours of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond huffing and guffawing at what felt like offences to the good name of the series. Riding a motorcycle around an open zone? Friendly NPCs that tag along on your mission and spout goofy lines? These were sins against Mother Samus and surely a dark omen, a sign that I was about to be in for A Bad Time. At least, that’s how I thought I was supposed to feel, having accidentally paid too much attention to the types of vocal minority fanbases that crop up around any high profile, time-in-the-making sequel.

Thing is, folks’ expectations, and preconceptions of what does and doesn’t belong in a Metroid Prime, threaten to (and probably already have) betray what is actually a very good video game.

Beyond opens in typical Metroid Prime fashion, giving you a taste of intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran’s typical potential in combat and traversal before pulling the rug out from under her with a reset to basics. This time around, it’s the arrival of Sylux – a bounty hunter with a grudge and an army of Space Pirates and Metroids at his back – that sets off a chain of events in which Samus and a full Galactic Federation unit are suddenly warped away from home base and violently dumped out onto the mysterious planet of Viewros.

Before long, Samus finds herself at the centre of events on this alien world. Once a thriving planet under the care of an axolotl-faced race known as the Lamorn, it now stands derelict and deserted, save for hostile creatures known as Grievers and some stray, robotic security. And as it turns out, the Lamorn held a prophetic belief that a Chosen One would one day arrive to pay heed to their legacy – I’ll give you one guess who that Chosen One turns out to be. Thus begins a new adventure, a trek across a region of Viewros known as Sol Valley to uncover and catalogue the history and true fate of the Lamorn, all the while collecting a series of five heavily-guarded MacGuffins teleporter keys to open up a way home.

For the most part, this results in a campaign written in the classical Metroid Prime style, with Samus exploring a number of distinct locations made of labyrinthine layouts which open up further as she gains new abilities and gadgets. As ever, your trusty arm cannon and scanning visor are your most vital tools, both equally important interfaces between you and the unfamiliar places you inhabit.

Only now, the gift of a psychic gem from the Lamorn results in a suite of fresh powers that flavour Samus’ usual suite. At the outset, a number of these are essentially just the expected upgrades in slightly different fonts, but there are some key ones that nicely shape the puzzles, enemy and boss encounters on Viewros. The Control Beam, for example, allows you to fire off a charged shot that can then be directly steered as time slows around it, allowing for Wanted-style shots around impassable corners or multi-hit attacks necessary to take out a big bad with Hydra-like tentacles.

That’s probably the most novel of the psychic bits, along with a cool grappling tether and some materialisation tricks, but there’s also a suite of elemental modifications for your arm cannon that are probably more interesting, in my eyes. Fire, ice and electric shots are doled out as you progress, each opening up new combat possibilities as well as helping navigate environmental blockers around Viewros. With later upgrades, these have some pretty devastating combat implications and fun interactions with different enemy types, and genuinely elevate the experience across the board.

Beyond plays beautifully, too, mixing up the first person lock-on action of the original Prime trilogy with the more immediate twin-stick aiming customary of a modern shooter, a la Metroid Prime: Remastered. Built into the core design, it makes for some searingly unique gameplay situations and thrilling encounters with boss creatures purpose-built for a system of locking and strafing while making granular aim adjustments to smash weak points. Combined with the optional Joy-Con 2 mouse mode controls, it’s a slightly uncomfortable but oh-so satisfying way to play – though I found myself sticking to my trust Pro Controller for the bulk of the action. Shoutout to the ease of remapping controls and mixing up mouse/gyro modes to really nail down your preferred style.

The other big change to Samus’ skillset is the introduction of Vi-O-La, a sci-fi motorcycle that facilitates traversal around Sol Valley. See, instead of being loosely connected by the implication of travel, Prime 4’s major hubs are situated at the fringes of this sizable desert – making this something of an ‘open zone’ type game. This is a pretty fundamental change, but one that mostly augments the Prime series’ cadence of exploration and backtracking, rather than outright changes it.

Sol Valley acts as a grounding point, a zone of reprieve and a crucial part of the upgrade economy. It’s not especially dense with things to see or do, but what’s here includes upgrade items obscured by ability gates, occasional robots and fauna to square off against, hidden puzzle shrines and other mysteries. It isn’t without its unique place in Metroid Prime’s well-trod cycle of progression, then, though a sparse desert certainly doesn’t make for the most compelling playground.

Had it featured a more diverse layout – perhaps multiple smaller areas that better reflected the look and feel of each major facility – this toe-dip into the ‘open zone’ concept might have fared better. A big square with a handful of landmarks around the edge just isn’t interesting, especially when a late-game quest sends you on a lengthy scavenging lap of the thing before you’re allowed to face the finale.

Thankfully, once you park up and enter any one of the handful of dungeon-like Lamorn facilities that house those elusive Teleporter Keys, things feel a lot more Metroid Prime and the game slips back into its intoxicating rhythm. It helps that each of these locations is uniquely gorgeous and terrifying, from a trio of grand towers commanding wind and lightning to lash at their exteriors, to a frozen-over research facility, tram rides through volcanic chemical stations or abandoned mines overrun with sound-sensitive, The Cave-esque ghouls. There’s a distinct flavour and tone to all of these places, and it’s where Metroid Prime 4 is at its best, serving up those familiar feelings of discovery, danger and isolation.

That is, until you start to make friends. Yes, confirming what early previews of Beyond alluded to with the introduction of hapless Galactic Federation nerd, Myles MacKenzie, Samus is far from alone on this mission. In what will no doubt go down as even more divisive than the open zone bits, Retro Studios has sprinkled a bit of that contemporary AAA seasoning on this one, with significantly more dialogue in both gameplay and numerous cutscenes.

MacKenzie isn’t the only Galactic Federation member stranded with you on Viewros either, and you’ll eventually pull together a tidy little crew to hang back at a central camp. The bad news is, yes, these folks are a presence as you explore the planet’s major facilities and their job is to exposit and explain the obvious while you escort them out to safety. But thankfully, they do tend to go dark on comms during the meaty main portions of your delves, popping back up only to bookend the action.

These Gal Fed members are as tropey as they come. The awkward genius, the quiet brooding one, the grizzled vet, the excited rookie and the burly, oddly-spoken robot with a heart of gold. Despite initial reservations, I actually grew to appreciate the occasional company, and the levity gained from watching these military fanboys excitedly engage with a completely silent and disinterested-looking Samus.

Samus’ interactions with other humans, brief and one-sided as they are, also offer her the chance to show a sincerity and warmth that you might not otherwise get. These moments of companionship only serve to deepen the sense of dread and isolation when you’re deep in a derelict alien facility with comms dark and your surroundings even darker, and the emotional impact of the game’s closing moments gains a lot from the relationships built.

I tell you what, it’s strange seeing hyper-realistic faces in a Metroid game, but for the brief moments these marines go mask-off they become the most visually impressive humans I’ve ever seen in a Nintendo joint. It’s jarring, too, because Metroid Prime 4 is kind of a mixed bag technically. Playing the Switch 2 version, everything looks slick and fluid in either TV or handheld mode – both offer 60FPS or 120FPS settings that top out at 1080p handheld and 4K on the telly – but the game’s Switch 1 roots do show in assets that regularly look last-last-gen on close inspection.

A lot of ground is made up in art direction, of course, and the nu-gen Switch’s grunt isn’t wasted on some incredibly lush atmosphere and lighting. Between wonderfully-authored environments and pitch-perfect sound design, this is exactly what you’d expect from a Prime game. I’m especially fond of the truly alien architecture and symbology across Viewros, something I look forward to from this series as I’m sure most fans do. There are rough spots, but it’s an audiovisual treat overall.

Final Thoughts

When Metroid Prime 4 hits its stride, it’s riveting stuff worthy of the rest of the series, so much so that even the attempts to stuff it into the contemporary action adventure mould are not enough to dull the sharp identity and ethos that’ve guided the Prime games since that very first entry. The presence of walking, talking companions throughout much of its runtime will no doubt be a matter of taste – I actually didn’t mind it by the end – and the half-baked open zone stuff is an objective near-miss, but this long-gestating sequel’s ability to etch itself into your thoughts and keep pulling you back in with uncompromising gravity is no less than its predecessors.

If this is the beginning of a new era of Metroid Prime, and Nintendo’s list of embargo restrictions prevents me from offering an evidence-based assumption after 20 hours spent gathering it, I’d welcome it with open palms.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2 // Review code supplied by publisher

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