After years and years of anticipation from fans around the world, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has landed on Switch and Switch 2, and Nintendo was kind enough to provide a review copy to check it out! This review is focused on theSwitch 2 edition.
Now, I love the Metroid Prime games; I believe they have a unique flavour of FPS gameplay that other games in the genre can't compete with. Does Metroid Prime 4 live up to this feeling?
Well, yeah, mostly. Don't stress, it's still a really good game!
Wow. The graphics here are absolutely gorgeous. This might just be Nintendo's best-looking game yet. With crisp shadows and visual fidelity, particle effects and vibrant colours, Metroid Prime 4 is eye candy. That opening intro... wowsers... peak Metroid right there! It does a phenomenal job of setting the tone with awesome, creepy, sci-fi stuff. It is almost like the developers were thinking, “Right, you have waited long enough for this game, let’s start with an epic battle and drop you right in it!” If that is the case… thanks almighty devs!
After all these years and development issues, I can see why people are divided by this game. On the one hand, they could've been expecting it to totally flip theMetroid formula on its head, but in reality, it definitely feels like Metroid and doesn't do anything that hugely reinvents the wheel. It still feels like a Prime game at its core. Samus loses her gadgets, gets stuck on a planet, and you need to explore and find your upgrades.
Overall, the game does a really great job of making you feel excited to embark on a space adventure through some super interesting environments.
Like I said, this game is eye candy, and I'm not gonna stop indulging until I get diabetes. Upon boot up, you're given a choice between quality and performance. Quality mode favours higher resolutions and textures, offering 4K resolution and 60 FPS. Performance mode favours frame rate, dropping the visuals to 1080p, but increasing the frame rate to a whopping 120 FPS. But just keep in mind that to get those super-high frames, your screen needs to support enough Hertz to allow this. Personally, because I don't have a screen capable of 120 FPS, I stuck with quality mode and was not disappointed at all. The trailers don't do this justice. Keep in mind, this is all for playing docked. What about in handheld mode?
Handheld offers a quality mode that offers 1080p visuals with 60 FPS. Performance mode offers 720p visuals but still hits 120 FPS.
And I get it, you might be thinking, "Wow 720p and 1080p in 2025?" It's a valid point, but I believe the image quality still looks good. I mean, in handheld in particular, the screen is so much smaller, so it's not really slapping you in the face and being noticeable.
You can change these settings, so feel free to play around with them and see what you prefer! In my opinion, you can't go wrong with either option.
Now, are there any frame rate dips? I don't think so; I suspect there may be some extremely minor dips when in the open hub desert, but it's really not noticeable.
Gameplay feels like a Metroid Prime game in the best way. It still has the feature where you lock on to enemies while also moving your cursor around and strafing at the same time, and Samus still has morph ball, grapple beam and missiles, pretty much all the usual bells and whistles. Samus does gain psychic powers pretty early in the game, and they're actually not bad. At first, I was hesitant as I thought they would come off as gimmicky. Luckily, that's not the case, and they add a different layer of play that I didn't expect here. The powers let you move things from a distance, remotely, throw morph ball bombs at enemies and more! The early Psychic Control Beam, where you have to fire a shot from your cannon and control the shot to its destination, really reminded me of the remote control batarangs in the Batman Arkham games. Not necessarily a bad thing, more so just something I observed.
The core gameplay of exploring and puzzle-solving with your gadgets found along the way, then backtracking to use new gadgets and abilities, all works really well here and is definitely still the strongest aspect of Prime 4. Through superb game design, it never makes the player feel lost or dumb; rather, it's always giving them that “ahh huh!” moment…well, at least in my experience anyway.
You get new weapons here; you still maintain your power beam like normal, but you get elemental beams like fire and ice. This was handled differently from other games, though, as they are mapped to the missile input and require their own ammunition. So, as well as missile expansions, you're also looking for thesepower beam elemental expansions. Basically, multiple missile expansions.
Now, while gameplay and fighting feel great, boss battles felt fantastic. To put it into words, I'd say engaging. They constantly required me to change my weapons and use the abilities that I had just gained, which gave it a fresh feeling that never got dull; it never felt like a chore.
And finally, Vi-O-La. That's the name of Samus' motorbike you've probably seen in footage online. It is really cool and feels so incredibly sci-fi. She gets this bike to traverse the open hub desert area. This area serves as an in-between for the dungeons you explore to find keys. While riding the bike is cool, that's about where it stops. The open hub desert feels unnecessary. For one, it feels boring and lacklustre as there isn't much to explore, and for two, it really makes backtracking feel tedious. Metroid is known for backtracking, but in Prime 4, it feels way more tedious than it needs to be because it adds a layer of repetitive traversal just to reach the credits, which is totally different to the deep and focused exploration of previous Prime games. You can find upgrades for your bike and shards, but that's it. I didn't feel the need to go searching.
I must add, in contained dungeon areas, Metroid Prime 4 shines as it nails that feeling of exploration we have all come to love over the years.
The story here is interesting, and without spoilers, I quite like it. Sylux feels a little tacked on as a villain. Maybe I missed something, but why does he hate Samus??
The Story will run you about 10-12 hours depending on your play style. Without spoilers, it takes its time, and for me, at about the 5-hour mark, it felt a bit convoluted, but it irons itself out later. Prime 4 is designed as the beginning of a new trilogy/arc, separate from the original Dark Samus story of Prime 1-3. You should be able to understand the main plot of Prime 4 without extensive prior knowledge. Maybe just play Prime 1 at least, or read up on it. This is smart because it brings returning players back while also being enticing for newcomers.
Would it even be a Prime game without scanning? Prime 4 still heavily relies on its environments and scanning everything in sight to provide hints about the world and cultures Samus explores. It's a nice added level of storytelling that keeps you wanting to explore more.
Miles Mackenzie, the infamous companion. This dude has gotten so much internet hate, but honestly, I didn't mind him. I understand why people don't like him and find him to be a bumbling, annoying dude, but I didn't see the issue. He's not with us for the whole game either! That being said, in new biomes you will find stranded soldiers to interact with, which I enjoyed... for some reason it gave me Halo vibes. I understand that the original Prime games focused on that feeling of being alone on a planet, figuring it out by yourself. But, for me, I liked this change here.
This game controls smoothly and easily; literally anyone could pick it up and start having a good time. Whether you are using the Joy-Cons or the Pro Controller, Prime 4 feels great. Where Prime 4 shines, though, is with the Joy-Con mouse controls. It has no business feeling so natural and fun. Mouse controls here allow the game to feel like a PC master-race game with smooth frame rates that are especially noticeable when gliding your Joy-Con in mouse mode; it is definitely something to experience. You can go from playing with your Joy-Cons normally to instantly using them in mouse mode on the fly. It is really cool and feels so futuristic, adding to the already fun experience.
That's what the kids call it nowadays, isn't it? Because this game does exactly that. It has such a vibe and distinct style that it's hard not to enjoy it. Character voice acting is fun, and it is really cool listening to the characters talk during battles. The music here is on point, adding to the otherworldly and intriguing atmosphere and tone.
Even enemies you find have so much style to them. For instance, there have been enemies I've found that have been wounded in battle before I've gotten to them and by the time I stumble upon them, they are lying wounded on the floor but still shooting at me… how cool! I can't think of a sci-fi shooter to do that in recent memory!
This last point shows my age as a gamer and proves that I have, in fact, reached unc status, but I loved seeing physical save stations here. I'm not sure how the youngins will find them, but for me, it was like a wave of nostalgia hitting me. Manual saving is a lost form in the modern gaming world. I missed it, weirdly enough!
Metroid Prime 4 is a fantastic experience for established Metroid fans and newcomers alike. It is one of the best-looking games on the market and is extremely fun, with many hours to play through and explore, giving the player lots of bang for their buck. While it doesn't reinvent the wheel, that is ok, it is comfort food, and it tastes darn good! There is a fun factor here that feels familiar yet new.
