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    Metroid Prime 4

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    A new First Person Adventure entry in the series focused on isolation and exploration developed by Retro Studios (after a development reboot), set to be released on Nintendo Switch.

    What do you think the Metroid Prime series is, or should be, at this point?

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    BisonHero

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    #1  Edited By BisonHero

    Just curious to hear your thoughts on what that label even means, between Retro seemingly not working on the title, and the Metroid Prime 1-3 trilogy pretty much concluding its story arc. What do you think a "Metroid Prime 4" should be at this point, almost a decade since the last Metroid Prime game? I have some thoughts, but I'd love to hear what others think.

    We know that it's not Retro, but that's about all we know, right? Is it "Prime" in that it's simply going to have a first-person camera like Metroid Prime 1-3? Is that even necessary again?

    I would also be perfectly fine with seeing the devs taking another crack at doing some kind of third-person action-adventure Metroid like Other M, just don't make the design mistakes Other M had. Other M's gameplay was ridiculously easy, since it had a really OP dodge move with an absurdly generous timing window, and any time you were out of combat you could just hold down a button to full recharge all of your missiles. Health was kinda hard to come by other than when you healed at save points, but you could spam missiles and auto-dodge your way through the whole game so it was rarely an issue. Still, I think the overall idea of a third-person Metroid has merit, as long as the game doesn't have as many broad, top-level problems as Other M did.

    From the story side of things, will Metroid Prime 4 have anything to do with Metroid Prime 1-3 fiction? Allow me to briefly summarize the previous games:

    We have:

    • Metroid Prime, where a meteor hits a planet of the Chozo, and you find out the meteor is actually a big hunk of Phazon, this magical substance/ore/viscous goo, crackling with radioactivity/energy/science-fiction, that corrupts/empowers things it touches. The Chozo contained the meteor impact crater, preventing spread of the corruption, then the Chozo all either left the planet or died because the Phazon was still kinda slowly fucking shit up. Space Pirates find the planet and seek to exploit the Phazon to empower their own troops (surprise, they get corrupted and it's very unhealthy). Samus ventures into the crater, faces down a thing literally named Metroid Prime that was supposedly maybe a Metroid empowered by Phazon but I think is later retconned into something else in the third game. In its death throes, the thing reaches into Samus and sorta extracts her final suit upgrade that made her look all black (Phazon Suit), leaving her with the purple Gravity Suit. This extraction somehow leads to the birth of the black-suited Dark Samus, running on Phazon energy or something, arising from the corpse of Metroid Prime. All the skills of Samus, but evil and Phazon powers! She's basically Venom.
    • Metroid Prime Hunters: the DS game where Samus is given a job along with a bunch of other bounty hunters, whom Samus generally has to fight because they're dicks or something. I didn't play it, but my understanding is that the Federation wants her to investigate some star system where some peaceful, Chozo-like race was wiped out, and there is some alien threat, and Samus beats it. It appears to have basically nothing to do with the 3 Prime console games' storyline.
    • Metroid Prime 2: this is the gaiden of the trilogy. Samus goes to a different planet (inhabited by moth people) hit by a Phazon meteor, but this one wasn't contained. The effect of the Phazon meteor is that it creates a shadow version of that planet in a parallel dimension, leading to a light world/dark world thing. Monsters called The Ing invade the normal, light world from the dark world, nearly wiping out the moth people. Samus arrives, and generally saves the day, beating up the Ing Emperor and Dark Samus at the end, and I think somehow causing the entire dark dimension to collapse, removing the Phazon influence on the planet (the Phazon meteor somehow transferred into the dark dimension when it hit the planet, so the meteor is presumed destroyed when the dark dimension collapses). This whole light world/dark world effect of the Phazon meteor is absolutely not explained in Metroid Prime 1 or 3 and seemingly never happens anywhere but in this game. Also, after you kill Dark Samus, she just rematerializes out in space after the credits of this game.
    • Metroid Prime 3: a whole bunch of story with other friendly-but-then-corrupted-now-cue-boss-fight bounty hunters happens, the Federation thinks it can safely tame Phazon to empower its troops but surprise it ultimately still corrupts them, Samus gets Phazon infusion but surprise it also corrupts her. Samus is tasked with going to multiple planets hit by Phazon meteors in this one. The short version is that it turns out all of the Phazon meteors are actually originating from a living, sentient planet called Phaaze made entirely out of Phazon, which I think goes from sentient to sapient when it somehow gets a hold of a Federation, Mother-Brain-like AI mainframe when the Space Pirates or Dark Samus or something bring the AI back to Phaaze. Phaaze is flinging bits of itself at planets, trying to corrupt them, and these Phazon meteors are also alive, and are likened to leviathans. Anyway, a meteor/leviathan infests the Space Pirate homeworld and literally all of the Space Pirates are basically thralls of Dark Samus/Phaaze. Samus goes to Phaaze, and there's a big old boss fight against Dark Samus and the Mother-Brain-ish AI, Samus wins, Phaaze implodes out of existence and all Phazon is gone and everything is fine or whatever.

    So yeah. They kinda closed the book on that one.

    So that's kinda it and the whole thing is wrapped up, in an even more final way than Halo 3. Like, literally all of Phazon and Dark Samus is gone. If they pull a Halo 4 and say "In Metroid Prime 4, somehow Phazon and Dark Samus are back, baby! It's the same threat from before, with a lazy new twist on it!", I'll be mildly pissed off, because it's so needless. I'm really hoping they write a new scenario. I don't even have any real preference, just not a really pandering retread of Metroid Prime 1-3 territory.

    Anyway, those are my thoughts on this announcement and what the resulting game might be. What do you guys think? Let me know!

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    ll_Exile_ll

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    I think people get unnecessarily hung up on the fact that the Prime games were first person. They weren't what you'd think of first person shooters by any means. The combat really had more in common with 3D Zelda (lock on, side hops, circle strafing) than it does with the FPS genre.

    The core of the Metroid Prime series is the near perfect adaptation of classic Metroid's level design, progression structure, and overall feel into a 3D environment. The first person perspective is more an aesthetic choice than anything else. You could take any one of those games and make third person and not much would change in terms of gameplay, you'd just lose out on some the cool immersive elements they really leaned into with first person camera.

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    nicksmi56

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    #3  Edited By nicksmi56

    Well Prime 4 should obviously have something to do with 3's stinger first off.

    Design wise, don't change it. First person went with those games like cheese on macaroni. Just give us a new world/worlds, new enemies, and all those sweet, sweet power-ups. And if they could get Switch to have pointer controls like the Trilogy, jump on it. Playing Prime with Wii's controls was a revelation. Include the option for traditional for the people that want it though. Oh, and being able to mark items on the map ala Samus Returns wouldn't go amiss.

    Basically, just give me a Prime game with new stuff in it. I don't want to see a drastic change to the core design. We already have a 2D Metroid coming out.

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    Relkin

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    I think Prime 4 should stick fairly closely to the previous Prime games, but I do want one thing to change dramatically: the speed of the game. We've had a bit of a resurgence with fast FPS lately, and I wouldn't mind seeing that applied to a first-person Metroid. As much as I love the original trilogy, I wouldn't mind seeing those games move at a faster pace.

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    ll_Exile_ll

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    @relkin said:

    I think Prime 4 should stick fairly closely to the previous Prime games, but I do want one thing to change dramatically: the speed of the game. We've had a bit of a resurgence with fast FPS lately, and I wouldn't mind seeing that applied to a first-person Metroid. As much as I love the original trilogy, I wouldn't mind seeing those games move at a faster pace.

    Metroid has never been about speed. This request is akin to wanting 2D Metroid to play more like Contra.

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    Relkin

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    @relkin said:

    I think Prime 4 should stick fairly closely to the previous Prime games, but I do want one thing to change dramatically: the speed of the game. We've had a bit of a resurgence with fast FPS lately, and I wouldn't mind seeing that applied to a first-person Metroid. As much as I love the original trilogy, I wouldn't mind seeing those games move at a faster pace.

    Metroid has never been about speed. This request is akin to wanting 2D Metroid to play more like Contra.

    You don't have to tell me what Metroid is; I've played all of them. With a fourth, arguably unnecessary entry into a series, why not try something new?

    I've reached a point with this franchise that everybody reaches with one long-running series or another eventually. Whether it be people complaining about the "formulaic" Zelda experience over the last fifteen years or so, or the current fatigue some have expressed with the Far Cry series, people want to see something different. Maybe the changes work out, and maybe they don't. The point is that I'd like to see them mix things up.

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    ll_Exile_ll

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    @relkin said:
    @ll_exile_ll said:
    @relkin said:

    I think Prime 4 should stick fairly closely to the previous Prime games, but I do want one thing to change dramatically: the speed of the game. We've had a bit of a resurgence with fast FPS lately, and I wouldn't mind seeing that applied to a first-person Metroid. As much as I love the original trilogy, I wouldn't mind seeing those games move at a faster pace.

    Metroid has never been about speed. This request is akin to wanting 2D Metroid to play more like Contra.

    You don't have to tell me what Metroid is; I've played all of them. With a fourth, arguably unnecessary entry into a series, why not try something new?

    I've reached a point with this franchise that everybody reaches with one long-running series or another eventually. Whether it be people complaining about the "formulaic" Zelda experience over the last fifteen years or so, or the current fatigue some have expressed with the Far Cry series, people want to see something different. Maybe the changes work out, and maybe they don't. The point is that I'd like to see them mix things up.

    I get where you're coming from, but we're not talking about a yearly franchise or even something like Zelda where they put one of those out every 2 or 3 years between console and handheld. The last entry in the series was Other M in 2010, the last great game in the series was Prime 3 in 2007 (10 years!). It's not like the series in a state of stagnation.

    Prime 4 needs to be nothing more than solid Metroid game with modern presentation and production values as far as I'm concerned. The Metroid "formula" is the opposite of stale. We're in a Metroid drought.

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    katpottz

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    I would like a new metroid to be like the new zelda in that it get's back to the roots of metroid. Exploring a giant, alien environment with no map and no directions AT ALL. And if you die you have to start at the beginning, make video games have stakes again goddammit.

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    nicksmi56

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    @katpottz said:

    I would like a new metroid to be like the new zelda in that it get's back to the roots of metroid. Exploring a giant, alien environment with no map and no directions AT ALL. And if you die you have to start at the beginning, make video games have stakes again goddammit.

    GOD no. Sorry, but there's a reason why everyone recommends against playing the original Metroid. There's a difference between going back to your roots and being frustratingly archaic.

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    BisonHero

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    Well Prime 4 should obviously have something to do with 3's stinger first off.

    3's stinger meant less than nothing at the time, and it still means less than nothing. "And then Sylux's ship tails Samus for 6 seconds!" Like, ok, what? He had absolutely no involvement in Prime 1-3. And he's just a bounty hunter, so who cares. Samus whips the ass of like a dozen different bounty between Prime 3 and Hunters. It was such an uninteresting stinger.

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    katpottz

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    #11  Edited By katpottz

    @nicksmi56: too each his own, personally I like metroid 1 the best for it's challenge. explains my souls addiction allot.

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    nicksmi56

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    #12  Edited By nicksmi56

    @bisonhero said:
    @nicksmi56 said:

    Well Prime 4 should obviously have something to do with 3's stinger first off.

    3's stinger meant less than nothing at the time, and it still means less than nothing. "And then Sylux's ship tails Samus for 6 seconds!" Like, ok, what? He had absolutely no involvement in Prime 1-3. And he's just a bounty hunter, so who cares. Samus whips the ass of like a dozen different bounty between Prime 3 and Hunters. It was such an uninteresting stinger.

    But I would totally love a rival tailing you throughout the game, like Dark Samus constantly popping up being the best part of Prime 2. Just give him some upgrades. Imagine you having just polished off a boss and then bang! He comes in and you have to fight him off with your limited resources. Or maybe you're exhausted from the boss and you just have to run for your life like Fusion. Or maybe you walk in on him fighting a boss that's too much for either of you at that point and you have to work together to take it down. There's so much they could do with it!

    Plus they might as well use it. It's in the game. I'd rather have something cool come out of that than nothing at all. It's not like it was offensive.

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    Relkin

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    I get where you're coming from, but we're not talking about a yearly franchise or even something like Zelda where they put one of those out every 2 or 3 years between console and handheld. The last entry in the series was Other M in 2010, the last great game in the series was Prime 3 in 2007 (10 years!). It's not like the series in a state of stagnation.

    Prime 4 needs to be nothing more than solid Metroid game with modern presentation and production values as far as I'm concerned. The Metroid "formula" is the opposite of stale. We're in a Metroid drought.

    Yeah, I hear you. You make a good point about how distant releases have been from one another. Discussions like this are difficult for everyone involved to come to any agreed conclusions, due to how everyone's experience with the franchise in question varies so much. Aside from playing the games around each of their respective launch windows, I've replayed the whole Prime trilogy within the last five years. I've beaten Zero Mission twice in that time, Fusion several times, and AM2R three times in the relatively short time it's been out. The variety of other types of Metroid style games (anything from Axiom Verge to Dust: An Elysian Tale) also help scratch that itch.

    So while I totally agree that we are in a Metroid drought, it just hasn't felt that way to me.

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    BisonHero

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    @bisonhero said:
    @nicksmi56 said:

    Well Prime 4 should obviously have something to do with 3's stinger first off.

    3's stinger meant less than nothing at the time, and it still means less than nothing. "And then Sylux's ship tails Samus for 6 seconds!" Like, ok, what? He had absolutely no involvement in Prime 1-3. And he's just a bounty hunter, so who cares. Samus whips the ass of like a dozen different bounty between Prime 3 and Hunters. It was such an uninteresting stinger.

    But I would totally love a rival tailing you throughout the game, like Dark Samus constantly popping up being the best part of Prime 2. Just give him some upgrades. Imagine you having just polished off a boss and then bang! He comes in and you have to fight him off with your limited resources. Or maybe you're exhausted from the boss and you just have to run for your life like Fusion. Or maybe you walk in on him fighting a boss that's too much for either of you at that point and you have to work together to take it down. There's so much they could do with it!

    Plus they might as well use it. It's in the game. I'd rather have something cool come out of that than nothing at all. It's not like it was offensive.

    I'm fine with that premise, but I'd rather they just invent a new character for that role. I don't see the advantage of "actually your rival is some fucko from Hunters that nobody remembers, and those that do remember he was a chump whose ass you could easily whoop."

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    nicksmi56

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    @bisonhero: That's why I said give him some upgrades ^_^ seeing another bounty hunter grow alongside Samus would be pretty cool. The Metroid series thrives on interconnectivity like that. That's part of why Dark Samus' story is so loved.

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    MudKatt

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    I played 1 recently, though it has been years since I played 2 and I haven't played 3. With MP1, I find the atmosphere, exploration, story and the sorta oppresive world you are thrown into be a big part of why I like the game. Exploring these ruins that have been kinda mixed in with space pirate technology or areas that have resulted from pirate interference was really awesome. In particular the sunken ship that you started the game on was a really interesting level. Checking the computers and seeing that the pirates actually feared you, or getting backstory on the Chozo...It drew me in and built up very well to the finale.

    With that said, I find the gameplay itself has not held up terribly well. I was frustrated at times with the way things controlled, and especially the platforming became somewhat of a chore. I fumbled my way through only to completely give up on the last boss, if only because I felt that it was no longer fun.

    So to answer the question, if they go the 1st person route I guess what I would like to see is more fluid and better controlling gameplay. I'm picturing the smoothness of a more modern fps and I could see this actually being really cool. I hope they distance themselves from all of the federation bs and the evil samus, and maybe get back to the things I personally loved about the old metroids. I think it needs the sense of isolation and wonder, and that thrill of exploring.

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    FrostyRyan

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    What will change is probably level design. World design.

    Here's what I know I want for sure- First person perspective OBVIOUSLY needs to stay. I don't know how you can argue otherwise.

    The world- It needs to be at least as open as the first game. Play those games again, 2 and 3 make things a bit linear. Especially 3. Fantastic game, but that aspect was a bit disappointing. I'm not looking for a traditional open world game like literally everything becomes nowadays, but it needs to be pretty open.

    That's really what I got so far. The atmosphere I trust will be excellent just as the others were. The zelda-esque gameplay will be fantastic...well, I guess that might change a bit too? Christ I don't know. I have a feeling they won't halo4/gears4 it where it's just...the same shit we've played before and it's gotten stale. So who knows. fuck.

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    BisonHero

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    @frostyryan said:

    The world- It needs to be at least as open as the first game. Play those games again, 2 and 3 make things a bit linear. Especially 3. Fantastic game, but that aspect was a bit disappointing. I'm not looking for a traditional open world game like literally everything becomes nowadays, but it needs to be pretty open.

    fwiw, I appreciate that people like it when Metroid games are open-ended and you can go kinda anywhere at any time as long as your abilities permit, but A) that led people to shit on games like Fusion and Prime 3 even though they're still really polished experiences that are enjoyable, and B) even Metroid Prime 1 didn't have that open-ended exploration.

    Like, sure, Prime 2 and 3 felt REALLY linear, because in 2 you basically explore all of the desert zone, then do all of the bog zone, then do all of the technofortress zone, and in 3 you pretty much just bang out the prologue planet, lava planet, cloud city planet, and space pirate planet, in that exact order. But Prime 1 isn't much better; it hops you from zone to zone more more frenetically, often without "finishing" that zone so it feels like you're just exploring wherever the wind takes you and eventually you come back to zones and you're like "oh shit there's still all of this to do", but the progression through the game is still quite linear and it even has the "anomaly detected" thing that is basically an objective indicator just like Fusion had yet nobody rips on Prime for having it.

    Just about everyone who picks up the game is gonna go Chozo Ruins -> Magmoor Caverns -> Phendrana Drifts -> back to do Chozo Ruins boss -> then fuck around some more on the Magmoor caverns and Phendrana Drifts and kill that giant stone golem -> then go to the jungle overworld and do some underwater nonsense with the crashed ship and get the gravity suit and then the water area of Phendrana drifts -> then nonstop Phazon Mines for the last 20% of the game -> then the crater and final boss (someone in there you go back to Chozo Ruins for some upgrade and they add in the Chozo ghosts). It feels structurally like Super Metroid because it has that rainy jungle overworld and the jumping around from biome to biome, but I think it captures the feeling and mood more than it captures the design of Super Metroid.

    Anyway, I do agree that it would be swell if Prime 4 is legitimately open-ended like Metroid and Super Metroid and you're more free to roam. Hell, I hope it's a real game changer like Breath of the Wild and really ups the ante on what's even possible in this kind of explorationy game. But I just want to point out that as much as I love it, people give Metroid Prime 1 a free pass on having free exploration like Super Metroid when you're actually gated really heavily and experience things in a very predetermined order (barring genuinely glitchy sequence breaks that speedrunners use). They just mask the linearity much better in Prime 1 than in 2 and 3.

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    FrostyRyan

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    @bisonhero: I literally just started playing 2D metroid games yesterday, starting with Zero Mission, so I'll have more perspective on this series' openness soon.

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    BisonHero

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    @frostyryan: Yeah, I saw your thread. Good luck! I'll be interested to hear what you think of the 2D entries.

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    Justin258

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    It needs to be what Prime 1 was. Basically, anyway.

    That's not to say that I won't welcome any changes to the formula, although frankly I would be happy with a game that is Prime 1 with a fresh coat of paint (seriously, I would pay $60 for a completely redone Prime 1). But the key parts need to be there - exploring the ruins of a dead alien society, finding new abilities to access new areas to find new abilities, and isolation. That last one is one that Nintendo seems to have forgotten about since Zero Mission/Prime 2, and even then we had Fusion's overly talkative AI guiding you through the game. I don't want to talk to anybody or anything - Prime 2 had you talk to a single friendly alien and see the recordings of several others and that's about as far as I'd like to see them take it. Drop me on a completely hostile alien planet and let me piece it all together.

    @relkin said:
    @ll_exile_ll said:
    @relkin said:

    I think Prime 4 should stick fairly closely to the previous Prime games, but I do want one thing to change dramatically: the speed of the game. We've had a bit of a resurgence with fast FPS lately, and I wouldn't mind seeing that applied to a first-person Metroid. As much as I love the original trilogy, I wouldn't mind seeing those games move at a faster pace.

    Metroid has never been about speed. This request is akin to wanting 2D Metroid to play more like Contra.

    You don't have to tell me what Metroid is; I've played all of them. With a fourth, arguably unnecessary entry into a series, why not try something new?

    I've reached a point with this franchise that everybody reaches with one long-running series or another eventually. Whether it be people complaining about the "formulaic" Zelda experience over the last fifteen years or so, or the current fatigue some have expressed with the Far Cry series, people want to see something different. Maybe the changes work out, and maybe they don't. The point is that I'd like to see them mix things up.

    I'm fine with them trying something new, but making Metroid more like Doom is the opposite of what I want. Metroid has always been slow and methodical and atmospheric, especially the Prime games - making Samus move like a more traditional FPS isn't what I want.

    I'm also the kind of guy who prefers not to call the Prime games first person shooters. They're not shooters - you're in first person, and you're shooting things, but you're also in first person and shooting things in Portal. They're action adventure games not too far off from the 3D Zelda games, they're just played in a first person perspective. You don't even have to aim yourself, you just lock on - except in Metroid Prime 3, which did try to be more of a shooter in places and it's also the one I've never finished.

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    nickhead

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    I'm not sure what I want narratively since yeah, the Prime trilogy is basically wrapped up. I've just been under the assumption they wanted a recognizable name more than anything in terms of story (which is weird with a numbered entry etc etc).

    I'm just thrilled they're returning to it somehow. If it were just a rehash of mechanics from 1-3 with pretty graphics and new setting to explore, I'd be fine. I'm quick to crap on sequels for doing the same thing but I'm a Metroid fanboy so I don't need much to be satisfied.

    I'm with @justin258 in that I don't want it to become a 'shooter' and I'd prefer little character interaction.

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    Teddie

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    No wiimote controls.

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    Jonny_Anonymous

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    #24  Edited By Jonny_Anonymous

    I want them to do to Metroid what Breath of the Wild did do Zelda and what Odyssey is doing to Mario.

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    Sinusoidal

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    Not even sure. I burnt out on Metroid Prime. I loved 1 and 2 and played through them multiple times on different platforms, but I never finished 3 because I never got the same sensawunda off it and it forces you into not-terrible-but-clearly-inferior Wii controls. I really hope it does return Metroid to its nearly silent, lone protagonist, against all odds roots. Other: M was awful, just awful.

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    deactivated-5e6e407163fd7

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    @katpottz: Are there stakes in the new Zelda? Death comes fast but doesn't seem to change your place in the world much (haven't played it, this is just what I've gathered).

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    deactivated-5e6e407163fd7

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    The_Nubster

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    @justin258: It always surprises me to hear how positively people treat Prime 3. To me, it was so lost in its "friendlies" and bombarding you with NPCs and dialogue that it never felt like I was exploring or discovering anything on my own. It suffered from poor voice acting, poorly-written characters, and a world that felt leagues smaller than the previous two games despite being about multiple worlds. It's hard to say for sure, but it also felt as if all of the upgrades were just sort of laying around the world instead of testing your grasp of Samus' abilities. Some of my fondest Metroid memories are spending 45 minutes trying to get a single missile tank using some weird spark-dash directional jump that wasn't used in any other part of the game or something equally involved, and I just don't recall any of that in Prime 3.

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    BisonHero

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    @sloppydetective said:

    @jonny_anonymous: what is that though?

    It's hard to say what it would look like for Metroid, but I agree with his sentiment hoping that Metroid pulls a Breath of the Wild. Looking back on Zelda, they had 2D games, then they went to 3D with Ocarina of Time, but every game following that was a pretty formulaic take on the game design of Ocarina of Time, until Breath of the Wild which retains a lot of the combat controls but adds a lot of new movement mechanics and upgrade mechanics and a vastly different kind of world and dungeons to explore compared to the Ocarina of Time to Skyward Sword entries.

    Similarly, Metroid had 2D games, went to 3D with Metroid Prime, and then Prime 2 and 3 are very much just iterating on the formula set out by Prime 1. Instead of making a Prime 4 that is just the formula of Prime 1 with a new coat of paint, I'd rather they make some big departures in some aspect of it, like Breath of the Wild did. So even though it's called Prime 4, I hope they do something as different as Other M, just make it actually a good game, unlike Other M.

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    ripelivejam

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    #30  Edited By ripelivejam

    @katpottz: thankfully not everything has to be like souls games. that's a trend i wouldn't mind seeing the tail end of...

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    BisonHero

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    @the_nubster said:

    @justin258: It always surprises me to hear how positively people treat Prime 3. To me, it was so lost in its "friendlies" and bombarding you with NPCs and dialogue that it never felt like I was exploring or discovering anything on my own. It suffered from poor voice acting, poorly-written characters, and a world that felt leagues smaller than the previous two games despite being about multiple worlds. It's hard to say for sure, but it also felt as if all of the upgrades were just sort of laying around the world instead of testing your grasp of Samus' abilities. Some of my fondest Metroid memories are spending 45 minutes trying to get a single missile tank using some weird spark-dash directional jump that wasn't used in any other part of the game or something equally involved, and I just don't recall any of that in Prime 3.

    For me, I just never had that much of a problem with the NPCs in three? There's a lot of dialogue in the prologue Federation planet, but on each of the proper planets you interact with the bounty hunters very little and then there's a miniboss fight and you kill them. Sure, not great characters and not stellar voice acting, but that's a complaint I could also level at the characters with speaking roles in Breath of the Wild. Prime 3 and Breath of the Wild both have not the greatest speaking characters, but they make up like 0.1% of your time with the game in both games, so they just don't really bring down my enjoyment of the game. Also, I still thought Prime 3 had exceptionally good lore when you read all of the archival logs on each planet of how their civilizations declined.

    Agreed that Prime 3 felt smaller just because it doesn't feel like you actually explore much of each planet before moving on to the next one. The Cloud City one had a good sense of scale, though.

    I don't remember any upgrades being lame and unchallenging, but it has been a while since I played it. In general, I don't think Prime 1-3 had upgrades as hard to get as some of the sparkdash/shinedash whatever kinda puzzles in Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. The hardest Prime 1-3 got was some kind of tricky morph ball puzzles with bomb jumps and the like. I will say that the handful of times you use Samus' ship to like, cargo lift something, or blow up some big gun emplacements, felt pretty lame and really obvious and also you only do it like, 6 or 7 times in the whole game so I barely even see why they bothered putting that feature in the game. Notably, Prime 3 had an observatory on one of the planets that literally just highlights where all of the upgrades are in the game, which is much more generous than previous games.

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    The_Nubster

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    #32  Edited By The_Nubster

    @bisonhero: The NPCs in Breath of the Wild really bothered me, too. The difference is that Zelda has almost always had NPCs so the only change was that bad VO was added. Metroid has never been much about anyone other than Samus, and all of their attempts hurt the series two-fold: 1) they remove the sense of isolation and loneliness that permeates so much of the Metroid canon and 2) it's a brand-new element that is doubly-bad and not something that anyone has ever asked for from a Metroid game. It always feels weird to have Samus be a part of something larger, like an employee rather than a revered space-badass. Fusion came the closest to doing that properly, with only one NPC who serves as a touch-base as the station becomes more and more cut off from the outside world, but even then most of the story comes from elevator monologue.

    Prime 3 just felt like a showpiece for new controls rather than a 3D adaption of Metroid. It didn't feel as involved and it didn't evoke the same feelings on the planets. It wasn't a bad game by any stretch, but it felt like a departure from Prime 1 and 2, rather than a sequel. More of a linear shooter than an exploration-based adventure.

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    blackmagicwolf

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    #33  Edited By blackmagicwolf

    With Metroid Prime 4, I think it should aim to be a faithful recreation of what the original trilogy had, but then put with it a story that shows off who Samus Aran is.

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    Justin258

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    #34  Edited By Justin258

    I should make it clear that I'm going to play this game and I am open to new ideas, but isolation, atmosphere, and exploration are what I'm looking for in a Metroid game. I don't care who Samus Aran is, I don't care about the Federation or how the society in Metroid works or anything. I have never come to Metroid for any of those things - we're not short on video games with extremely detailed universes. I can't really think of anything else that has ever really done isolation like some of the best Metroid games and later entries in the series - Fusion, Prime 3, and Other M - all pale in comparison to their predecessors at least in large part because they tried to be less about isolation. I don't mean that those are bad games, necessarily, but they aren't what I want from Metroid.

    Nintendo can change the gameplay and mechanics but don't change the isolation, atmosphere, and exploration.

    Just judging from this thread, I'm not the only one that thinks this way but there are people that are completely the opposite of me.

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    Shindig

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    @relkin said:

    I think Prime 4 should stick fairly closely to the previous Prime games, but I do want one thing to change dramatically: the speed of the game. We've had a bit of a resurgence with fast FPS lately, and I wouldn't mind seeing that applied to a first-person Metroid. As much as I love the original trilogy, I wouldn't mind seeing those games move at a faster pace.

    Metroid has never been about speed. This request is akin to wanting 2D Metroid to play more like Contra.

    Yet speed has been a by-product. That's why all the indie ones have speedrun modes. Prime's a slower beast, I'll give it that. To be honest, the 3D Metroidvanias are still think on the ground, despite Arkham Asylum hitting big.

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    jaxmacx

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    Like many others here, I have been wondering what would Metroid look like if it were given the Breath of the Wild treatment. Is it possible to throw out mechanics that we've all come to expect from the genre and come out as something fresh yet familiar?

    I'm not saying this is how Nintendo should make Prime 4 but here are just a few possible directions the series could take if you messed with the traditional formula...

    All Abilities from the start:

    Classifying The Witnesses as a metroidvania might be a stretch but I think there are some parallels to be drawn. You have all the abilities from the start of the game (drawing lines) but you have to figure out the systems and mechanics in order to progress. This type of "player discovery design" is also seen in Fez with the Rosetta Stone and language puzzles. Take the fore mentioned ideas as inspiration and combine it with all of Samus' gear and there's an infinite number of ways the devs could cook up progression gating challenges.

    Nonlinear (semi?) Open World:

    The semi-open world design in Dark Souls 1 is a good reference point. The level design is like a 3D ant farm; complete with hidden shortcuts and sequence breaking. It also lends to the feeling of isolation more than a true open world. Yes Prime 1 had this kind of level design but what if it was even more interconnected and only gated you based on the game mechanics that you as a player learned (not solely based on suit upgrades)?

    Make it hard:

    BotW got this right: let the player go anywhere but ramp up the difficulty in later areas to force him/her to explore and "power up". This gives us the item collectathon that we've all come to expect but none of the power ups are actually required to complete the game.

    tldr; Prime 4 is the Dark Souls of Metroid

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    FrostyRyan

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    I dislike the phrase "the breath of the wild treatment" being thrown around. I think it puts the wrong ideas in people's heads.

    Metroid is NOT Zelda. Zelda is this backyard sandbox type of exploration. What's that over there? I'll go look because fuck it.

    I don't think this is necessarily metroid at the core. Not exactly that. But what do I know, I'm a prime trilogy normie

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    GrizzlyButts

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    #38  Edited By GrizzlyButts

    The Nin-trend-o of late has been open world with detailed areas to explore at every turn (I can only assume my impressions of Odyssey are at least half correct). Breath of the Wild gave you something to do at least every 3-5 minutes depending on how observant you were and I think Prime 4 will follow suit. Parts of the open world will be gated by abilities. Suit upgrades can work like BotW's weather resistances. Can't get to the frozen caves without the frost armor, torch fist, or morph ball etc. All of the old metroid tricks can still apply in a more open world. I would like controls to build upon recent Deus Ex games and offer a dynamic cover shooting option and stealth options in general.

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    Torrim

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    Just don't put a dumb anime story in it. Please.

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    BisonHero

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    @torrim said:

    Just don't put a dumb anime story in it. Please.

    Yeah, people in this thread have differing opinions on how much story or characterization there should be, but seemingly we can all agree that Metroid doesn't need another dumb anime story after Other M. One was enough.

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    pkmnfrk

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    @torrim said:

    Just don't put a dumb anime story in it. Please.

    Yeah, people in this thread have differing opinions on how much story or characterization there should be, but seemingly we can all agree that Metroid doesn't need another dumb anime story after Other M. One was enough.

    Here's a controversial statement: M:OM's story was actually alright. Not for Metroid, sure. But, if you pretended it wasn't Samus, then it was decent.

    @teddie said:

    No wiimote controls.

    I hope there are bitchin' wiimote controls!

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    s10129107

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    If you're not going to push the genre forward then why even bother making the game imo. They have to take a bold creative direction with it.

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    BisonHero

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    #43  Edited By BisonHero
    @pkmnfrk said:
    @bisonhero said:

    @torrim said:

    Just don't put a dumb anime story in it. Please.

    Yeah, people in this thread have differing opinions on how much story or characterization there should be, but seemingly we can all agree that Metroid doesn't need another dumb anime story after Other M. One was enough.

    Here's a controversial statement: M:OM's story was actually alright. Not for Metroid, sure. But, if you pretended it wasn't Samus, then it was decent.

    Oh man, let's dive in. Even were it not Metroid, Other M has got issues.

    Like, I just don't think Adam is a well developed character that the player has any reason to care about at all, and the whole dynamic between Samus and him just felt unearned. We just aren't given very much to go on for why Samus has all of this admiration and respect for him and his judgment. Even if people didn't have strong opinions about the kind of mood and tone Metroid should be going for it and say this were an entirely new game, it's just lame and stereotypical that Adam is stoic commander father dude in most scenes and key story moments, and Samus is overly emotional in thinking she can save the day in those same scenes, so Adam gets to father-knows-best his way through the scenes and say "trust my judgment on this one" and that's what happens. Like, I dunno, Samus is pretty badass, and the main character, maybe she could actually do the crazy thing she thinks she should do to address the situation. If we had some flashback example of Adam telling her to trust his judgment, she ignores him, and sure enough she pushes herself too hard and he was right all along, then fine, I'd buy that maybe Adam is an exceptional leader that knows Samus' limits, but that is never shown in the story. He just comes off as a bossy asshole and then he dies.

    Also, the whole thing where Adam would ask his squad whether they were OK with the plan, and they gave a thumbs up or thumbs down was just cringey and goofy looking and not believable even in a futuristic space military, as was the part where Adam always called Samus "Lady" (instead of "Miss" or "Ma'am"??????). Maybe it was just unlocalizable yet makes complete sense to a Japanese audience, but I sincerely doubt it.

    Lots of other parts were really amateur hour, like the whole "deleter" subplot (which smacks of a Japanese-chosen English turn of phrase that they insisted stay in the localization despite being a really unnatural way to refer to a traitor; I honestly refuse to believe good English localizers would've left it with that dumb name). The whole subplot seems to exist as a cheap way to make you temporarily think Anthony or Adam might betray Samus, but no, it's one of the other fuckos in the squad that you know nothing about, James, and he is unceremoniously killed offscreen by MB, and Samus doesn't even acknowledge it when she comes across the guy's corpse near the end of the game, she's just like "Oh, James is dead" and the player is left to surmise on their own that (by process of elimination) he was the traitor, he failed to kill MB, and somehow she killed him instead. And like, the entire middle act of the game is focused around being spooked by who this traitor is, and then it just gets tossed away when the game is done with most of the Anthony and Adam scenes and you're pretty sure if they were the traitor they had ample opportunities to shoot or sabotage Samus but didn't.

    And hey, I guess the game is about motherhood or something, but like, not really at all? The baby Metroid Samus maybe cares for has no real bearing on the story since that already played out in Super Metroid. Various objects have baby-centric names like the "baby's call" distress beacon (ya know, unlike those other types of distress beacons that aren't really trying to get your attention), and the Bottle Ship. You meet an infant Ridley which is cute for all of 5 seconds and then rapidly/nonsensically evolves from a fuzzy chicken Pokemon into a wingless pterosaur into a winged pterosaur. And then the MB story which all gets dumped on you in a like 25 minute cutscene at the very end is kinda about motherhood, but it's more like a Frankenstein's monster situation where the creator is trying to give their creation some sense of humanity.

    The story is functional, but its poor writing is some real D-grade sci-fi anime stuff.

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    selbie

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    #44  Edited By selbie

    By using 4 so prominently I can only assume it will be a direct sequel to 3. Or, perhaps a clue is the fact they remade Metroid II and it will occur between II and Super.

    As others said, it needs to have a strong sense of isolation and sinister foreboding. I don't want another affected teen monologuing her way through the plot. Give me the HBIC Samus with zero fucks to give!

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    BoOzak

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    @bisonhero: I think videogame standards for "decent" stories are a lot lower. I know they've gotten better over the years but most videogame stories, especially action orientated ones tend to be pretty bad. I agree with your thoughts about the story in Other M but i'd still say it's no worse than most action games.

    Thankfully the Prime games dont need a decent story though. (or most Nintendo games for that matter)

    As for what i'd want out of Metroid Prime 4.

    • No stupid 'Dark World'
    • One big planet that changes over time. (new enemies, weather etc.)
    • Very little dialog.

    So basically like the first game, but maybe make it control better? Oh right.

    • No needless gimmicks

    I mostly mean motion control mini games or waggle attacks, the Wii one controlled fine for the most part.

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    BrunoTheThird

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    #46  Edited By BrunoTheThird
    • Sections with waves and waves of enemies -- so many that your jaw drops. Thousands. Turn it into a first-person bullet-hell game now and then with glitch beats and crazy synths accenting the battles.
    • A robot side-kick/weapon. Mute, though. It could flash certain colours or beep certain ways to indicate incoming enemies, a nearby secret, etc. You could upgrade it by printing out components from blueprints you find at 3D printing stations (stuff like: scan enemies automatically for Samus, 10% chance to instantly heal her if she drops below 5% health, etc.)
    • I'd have one whole section actually be the boss, the shape of it, an area that you revisited a bunch and never noticed a hand in the background, an eye high above, something cool like that. Also after you beat it, it would disappear from your map, showing you that you'd been running around on top of a giant thing without knowing *giggles*.
    • NG+.
    • Weapon enhancers that Samus finds to attach to her main gun-arm, so you can choose between seven effects on the fly -- electric, acid, dark matter, etc. It would help with certain bosses, too, but only on weak points you'd scanned after getting a certain upgrade. That would change on each NG+, though, so it would feel different each time.

    I'd love little things like that.

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