At the time of writing, I’m several hours into my Metroid Prime 4: Beyond journey on my Nintendo Switch 2, and mostly loving it. While I haven’t been waiting nearly as long as some fans for an all-new 3D adventure — I first set foot in Samus’ shoes in Metroid Dread and Metroid Prime Remastered — but since playing through both Switch titles (and racing through several of the older games via Nintendo Classics), I definitely boarded the Prime 4 hype train in the run up to the game’s release.
Fact is, the main loop — exploring, scanning, and shooting your way across another alien world— is every bit as entertaining as in the previous Metroid Prime games. Viewros is, for the most part, a very good-looking, atmospheric space to inhabit, and I’ve enjoyed expanding Samus Aran’s arsenal, unlocking new Psychic powers, solving puzzles, and doing battle with Metroid Prime 4’s enemy-filled dungeons and fearsome bosses. It’s not really a revolution of the Prime set-up, more a solid continuation.
If you’ve already read our Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review or dove in yourself, you’ll no doubt know why I’m only mostly loving the Prime 4 experience, though. That’s because Samus’ newest mission is regularly interrupted by a disappointing, drab hub environment that really hampers what for me has otherwise been a thoroughly entertaining journey so far.
Metroid Prime 4’s Sol Valley is an unforced error
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To be as up front as possible, I know that, as a player, open-world environments rarely appeal to me all that much in most games, but I really don’t think Sol Valley has enough to offer to justify its addition to the Prime formula. It’s good, in a sense, that the developers wanted to experiment with the format, but this hub’s just not up to scratch.
Yes, there are collectables to find and some hidden challenge rooms to tackle, and yes, Samus’ Vi-O-La motorcycle handles pretty well out on the dunes, but by and large, I think this sparse hub’s a pretty disappointing addition to the formula. It also doesn’t help that, save for some ambient music and the thrum of Samus’ bike, it’s mostly just sand and rocks and severely lacks the atmosphere and detail of Prime 4’s dungeons, either.
While I have spent some of my playtime roaming around the valley, hoovering up green crystals, it’s hardly what I want to be doing; if anything, it just feels like the game’s getting in its own way. I know backtracking isn’t new to the franchise, but having the additional stretch of desert to cover in between makes retracing your steps that little bit more annoying. It’s far from the biggest open world I’ve set foot in, but every time I’ve had to head out there, all I’ve wanted to do is cross the valley as fast as possible.
This next part of my argument will probably sound a little contrarian, but I’m also not suggesting that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond would have necessarily benefited from being Breath of the Wild-ified, either. I just can’t see Metroid being the kind of franchise that I really want to be spending dozens upon dozens of hours in.
I’ve had similar thoughts about other games in the past, too; bigger doesn’t always mean better. Take Mario Kart World as another example of how Nintendo’s current open-world fascination isn’t always a hit (certainly not in the way it completely revolutionised the Zelda format).
Granted, I did enjoy MKW’s map more than Sol Valley — it was at least far livelier and soundtracked with a laundry list of jazzy Nintendo jams — but the handful of hours I spent hunting down P-Switches and Peach Medallions weren’t exactly the most engaging hours of gaming I’ve ever had, either.
From my playtime so far (and having taken a look at opinions from critics and players alike who’ve already rolled credits), I can’t help but wonder whether the Metroid Prime 4: Beyond experience wouldn’t have been even better if I didn’t have to spend my time speeding across a drab desert whatsoever…
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