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Join us for a deep dive into our hands-on experience with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. From its classic, retro-inspired controls to its stunning graphics, we're breaking down everything we discovered about this highly anticipated title.
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00:00Pinch me, because I've played Metroid Prime 4 Beyond.
00:03Nintendo recently invited me down to their offices to get hands-on with the game,
00:07which was a very surreal experience for numerous reasons,
00:11not least because this is a game we Metroid fans have been waiting for
00:15since its reveal in 2017.
00:18And oh, I have thoughts.
00:20I also have theories.
00:22So, I'm Sai, this is WhatCultureGaming,
00:24and here are seven things I learned playing Metroid Prime 4 Beyond.
00:29This feels like a sequel to Prime 3.
00:32Metroid Prime 4 Beyond is one of the most anticipated releases
00:36of the last however many decades.
00:38It's releasing in the same year as Silksong and Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2,
00:43so it's a good year for it, I guess.
00:45And with so much wait time between Prime 3 and 4,
00:49it would be easy to let your imagination get away from you.
00:52Suffice to say, I have a lot of positive things to say about my Metroid Prime 4 experience,
00:56but stating up front, it's worth pointing out this isn't a game
00:59that's necessarily going to leave you dumbfounded.
01:02It's not a revolution,
01:04it's a sequel to 2007's Metroid Prime 3 Corruption
01:07that just so happens to be coming nearly 20 years later.
01:10As such, it feels exactly like that.
01:13The controls are comfortable,
01:14old school even,
01:15and incredibly familiar.
01:17All the elements are here,
01:18the targeting,
01:19the scanning,
01:20the moving in and out of Morph Ball,
01:22the lot.
01:22Heck, the game uses all of the same familiar sound effects you remember,
01:26and I found myself smiling at every last one.
01:28I think whilst I was surprised at how,
01:30pun unintended,
01:31retro it sort of felt,
01:33it was kind of refreshing.
01:34Maybe a part of my brain was worried
01:36that they were going to attempt to modernize things,
01:38not necessarily chase trends,
01:40but tweak things and go too far with it,
01:42but that doesn't appear to be the case.
01:44Beyond starts with that attack on the Galactic Federation base,
01:47as seen in the announcement trailer,
01:49which is a hell of an opening,
01:50and when you touch down in Fury Green,
01:52the lush forested first area of the game,
01:54the pace grinds down to a halt,
01:56in a good way.
01:58You're incentivized to take your time,
02:00drink it all in,
02:01and get back to grips with things.
02:03And I was sort of stunned by how I was simply playing
02:05a new Metroid Prime game.
02:08Obviously there's definitely more to come,
02:10like the bike,
02:11we'll get there,
02:12and probably some surprises up retro sleeves as well.
02:15But it really did feel like we were playing something
02:17that had been unearthed and released by the studios
02:20that we should have gotten years ago.
02:22And when I got my sea legs back under me,
02:24I was really grateful for that.
02:26The game looks great.
02:27Whilst it's still stylized to some degree,
02:30Metroid is definitely the Nintendo first party IP
02:33that gets the closest to realism.
02:35Therefore,
02:35it's easy to make the case
02:36that it has a tougher challenge being visually impressive.
02:40Serialization does a hell of a lot
02:41for games like Tears of the Kingdom,
02:43but it's so much easier for the cracks to show in Metroid,
02:46and for it to be unfairly compared to other games of its ilk
02:49running on more powerful hardware.
02:51I'm very confident in reaffirming though
02:53that Metroid Prime 4
02:54is one of the best looking Nintendo games ever.
02:58And so it should be.
02:59After all,
03:00it's one of the very few Switch 2 games
03:01released by the company themselves so far,
03:04and it's reportedly the most expensive Nintendo game ever.
03:08Of course,
03:08Beyond is also being released on the original Switch,
03:11so I'm very intrigued to see how that compares.
03:13Metroid Prime 4 never completely shocked me
03:16with its graphical fidelity,
03:17but it was nice to see Nintendo hit this here
03:19to otherwise unreached threshold,
03:21and to do so with my beloved Metroid.
03:24I largely played in quality mode,
03:26so experiencing 4K Metroid was a joy.
03:29The game also makes great use of scope,
03:30both horizontally and vertically.
03:32I found myself looking up at huge trees overhead
03:35and out into the horizon
03:36into a mysterious forested vista.
03:39Special mention needs to be made
03:40to the Galactic Base Assault though,
03:42because it is designed to wow you
03:44and does so spectacularly.
03:46Getting to play through this as a kind of tutorial
03:48is a really great way to start the game.
03:51Rain runs down Samus's visor,
03:53buildings explode in the distance,
03:54and the whole thing feels like a statement of intent.
03:57The game also features a 120 frames per second performance mode,
04:00but honestly, cards on the table,
04:03I couldn't see a difference.
04:04I'm not particularly good at seeing a difference with these things,
04:07so I'm not going to talk about it.
04:08I'll leave that for someone who does know
04:10what they're talking about to get into,
04:12rather than waste your time.
04:13That said, something I definitely know about
04:16is the atmosphere.
04:18For my money, one of the most important things
04:19Metroid Prime 4 needs to get right
04:21is the series' signature sense of atmosphere.
04:24A mix of wonder and unease
04:26as you explore an alien world
04:28and make sense of it.
04:29That isolated journey through the unknown,
04:32piecing together the story
04:33and the rules for the world
04:35is central to what makes Metroid great.
04:38And Prime 4 absolutely nails it.
04:41My biggest takeaway of the whole experience
04:43was not just the game feel,
04:45but hitting those tonal cues.
04:47Fury Green is much grander
04:49than any Prime location before it,
04:51but it's also got so much detail.
04:53Spores and dust float through the air,
04:55light pours through the trees,
04:56local insects walk by Samus
04:58as she scours through the undergrowth
05:00in gorgeous 4K,
05:02all whilst a wonderful melancholic track plays.
05:05For context, I'm recording this
05:07almost a week after the event
05:09and I can still recall the theme
05:11for Fury Green in my head.
05:12It's really familiar,
05:14not just tonally,
05:15but also instrumentally,
05:17and it feels like it's designed
05:18to generate those warm and fuzzy
05:20nostalgic feelings.
05:21It's really good.
05:23And of course,
05:24it's just the beginning.
05:25If this is an indication
05:26of what the soundtrack has overall,
05:28it's going to be another great addition
05:30to your Metroid Ambience playlist.
05:32The psychic powers are a catch-all feature.
05:35One of the new gimmicks
05:36for Metroid Prime 4
05:37are Samus's mysterious psychic powers.
05:40The trailers shown so far
05:41hint at it,
05:42but essentially every puzzle
05:43in the opening area
05:44relied on Samus's new psychic abilities.
05:47The most simple of these
05:48are moving objects to open doors,
05:50be that like a lever
05:51or grabbing a nearby psychic orb
05:53to plug into an activation node.
05:55The most interesting though
05:56is the new psychic control beam
05:58that slows down time when fired.
06:00If you've played Skyward Sword,
06:02you'll remember the flying beetle mechanic
06:03and it's not really unlike that at all.
06:06You take command of the charge beam
06:08and sort of pilot it to its destination,
06:10whether that's solving a puzzle
06:12or indeed in combats.
06:14The boss fight towards the end of Fury Green
06:15forces players to get to grips with this ability,
06:18a plant monster that requires
06:19synchronized destruction of its tentacles
06:21to expose the weak points.
06:23This means breaking off the armor
06:25with blaster and missiles
06:26and then using the control beam
06:28to weave around the vines
06:29and hit its vulnerable points.
06:30It was pleasantly challenging.
06:32It feels as though
06:33the psychic powers Samus possess
06:35could be explored in a myriad of ways
06:37and it's just a handy way
06:38to pull a bunch of different ideas together.
06:40The general theme
06:41is definitely kinetic so far,
06:43but just these three
06:45are kind of entirely separate from each other.
06:47Of course, in classic Metroidvania fashion,
06:50there were things to do in Fury Green
06:51that I couldn't interact with yet,
06:53so presumably you'll be coming back later
06:55with psychic powers
06:56to figure these things out.
06:58Samus' new companion
06:59is going to be divisive.
07:01Yes, she has a new companion.
07:04Actually, she might have more than one.
07:06Midway through exploring Fury Green,
07:08Samus comes across Miles McKenzie,
07:10a Galactic Federation engineer
07:11who's in need of saving
07:13from aggressive local wildlife.
07:15Prime 4 follows the lead of 3 and Dread,
07:18you'll be glad to hear,
07:19with characters talking at Samus
07:21rather than engaging in a two-way conversation.
07:24That is to say,
07:24I didn't hear her speaking in the game.
07:26She was just kind of motioning to things
07:28and taking direct action.
07:30That means that Miles
07:31just kind of speaks uninterrupted sometimes.
07:33He can check in on you
07:34as you make progress
07:35and the two establish a home base
07:37in Fury Green.
07:38As with Adam in previous games,
07:40he's essentially a guide for the player.
07:42Unlike Adam,
07:43he partakes in slapstick humour
07:45by falling off of things
07:46and slots into the amusing coward character archetype.
07:50Expect a wave of hatred
07:52to come for this character
07:53when the game drops.
07:54The writing feels really out of place.
07:56I mean, in his first appearance,
07:57he describes something as win,
07:59which is very 2007 coded,
08:01but he did get a few
08:04sort of wry laughs out of me
08:05at the same time.
08:06So it's going to be a Marmite-y one for sure.
08:09I think most interestingly though,
08:11there's a section
08:11where you have to defend him
08:12from taking too much damage
08:14and he has an engineer symbol
08:15next to his life bar,
08:17which to me feels like it implies
08:18saving multiple soldiers
08:20all over the game's world,
08:21which might at least mean
08:23we don't have to listen
08:24to this one guy non-stop
08:25for the whole game.
08:26Nintendo are hesitant
08:27to show Viola.
08:29I think everyone had
08:30a pretty similar reaction
08:31to Samus getting on a motorbike
08:33in one of the trailers
08:34for Metroid Prime 4,
08:35which even if you thought was cool,
08:37you surely were also thinking,
08:39wait, what?
08:41And to a certain extent,
08:42we're still asking that question.
08:44The best guesses about it
08:45being used to traverse
08:46an open world segment
08:47are pretty much a sure thing,
08:49but we have very little else
08:50to go on beyond that.
08:52And what we've seen in it
08:53from pre-release trailers
08:54have left many people concerned.
08:56And I can't help but wonder
08:58how Nintendo feels
08:59about it too
08:59because our time with the game
09:01seemed to deliberately avoid it.
09:03A rep at the event, however,
09:04did interestingly describe
09:06the Viola portion of the game
09:07as being like
09:08Ocarina of Time's Hyrule Field.
09:10The game has a series of dungeons
09:12where most of the action takes place
09:13and then there's the field between them,
09:15which is an interesting choice
09:17of comparison, certainly.
09:18So yes, suffice to say,
09:19I'm as curious as all of you
09:21to know more about it
09:23considering I now own an amiibo
09:24of the dang thing
09:25and we've seen, what,
09:2620 seconds of footage
09:28in trailers of it,
09:29I have a feeling it's either
09:30going to be great or terrible.
09:32And finally, we might be getting a mech.
09:35Now, this one is purely theory.
09:38In the game's opening area,
09:39the Galactic Federation
09:40deploy a Golem-class mech
09:42to fight off the attack.
09:43It's a high-octane moment
09:45in a high-octane set piece.
09:47I remember this well
09:48because they stop
09:49and it became my surface of choice
09:51for going up to
09:52and firing at
09:53to see if I could see
09:54Samus's reflection
09:55in her visor
09:56like the old games.
09:57You totally can, by the way.
09:59So that's good.
09:59And whilst exploring Fury Green
10:01with Miles,
10:01you come across one of the,
10:03if not the very same mech,
10:05just randomly plonked
10:06in the forest.
10:07Miles makes a very big deal
10:08of this,
10:09recognising it instantly
10:10as Betsy
10:12and he starts nerding out over it.
10:14He, and this whole scene,
10:16definitely seems to imply
10:17that the machine
10:18can be repaired.
10:20What this means exactly,
10:21I don't know.
10:22Is this a different vehicle
10:24for the so-called
10:24open world segments?
10:26Is this just a device
10:27to get us from point A
10:28to point B in a cutscene?
10:29Or are there
10:30fully playable mech levels?
10:32Considering the level
10:33of breakneck energy
10:34in the game's opening
10:35that slows down
10:36when you get to
10:37the exploration side of things,
10:39it wouldn't be terribly surprising
10:40if these are one way
10:41for the game's action
10:42to ramp up
10:43and to offer some variety.
10:45Perhaps you'll find a pilot
10:47out in the field
10:47to assist you in some fashion,
10:49or indeed,
10:50Samus will get
10:51in the mech herself.
10:52But I think it goes
10:53without saying
10:54that there's no way
10:55that this is just
10:55in the game's opening
10:56like this
10:57and that's the last
10:58we see of it.
10:59How are you feeling
11:00about Metroid Prime 4 Beyond?
11:01I hope it came across
11:02in this video
11:03that I'm really excited
11:04about it.
11:05I certainly had my
11:06expectations put into check,
11:08probably in a good way,
11:09and now I can't wait
11:10to play more.
11:11If you like this video,
11:12you might enjoy
11:13my sort of hands-on
11:14impressions to Kirby Air Riders.
11:16Spoiler alert,
11:16they're not quite as positive
11:17as this.
11:18Other than that,
11:19get down in the comments below,
11:20let me know how you're feeling,
11:21and have a good week.
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