Metroid Prime 4 impressions, part 1

05 Dec, 2025

You know, there's something beautiful about food. I'm far from the first to wax lyrical about a good meal, but to set the scene, let me describe to you one of those meals. A simple plate of spaghetti, done to perfection, perhaps with a white sauce and some bits of bacon. Put together with care, it might transport you to better times, and if there's a bit of lemon zest grated over the top, it might be like those old times but even better. Exactly what you wanted, everything you hoped for, and a fresh taste of something new: all good things.

But then for some reason, some absolute dipshit has sprinkled whole peppercorns into the fucking thing. Every bite you take might be perfect and heavenly, or it might make you wrinkle your face up with disgust. Horrible!

Anyway, I'm playing Metroid Prime 4, a game that I have been eagerly awaiting since the year 2007. This series is The Big One for me. I've gone in mostly blind; I watched the first couple of trailers but haven't watched or read any of the prerelease coverage.

On Scannables

It starts so strong. That intro cinematic is sick as fuck and the opening sequence fires on all cylinders. But at the same time, it exposes the first gap in this game's narrative design. I'm in the middle of writing a decently sized post about Metroid Prime's narrative design (which is on the backburner) but a major note from it is that the narrative choices in that game are incredibly intentional, down to (specifically) which objects are scannable with the Scan Visor. It's something that the later games in the original trilogy begin to lose sight of, a little bit, but that problem is here Big Time in Metroid Prime 4.

When you are doing narrative design, you need to know when to stop. And, when it comes to the Scan Visor, Retro Studios does not exhibit that restraint. Very little in the environment (specifically the *built* environments) is left to the imagination, and in the intro, there are several extremely interesting scannables that are hidden between a bunch of genuine nothing. It's a weird choice to set that as your standard, and it continues throughout the areas I've seen so far: every time you enter a new area, the same ammo/health crates as the last area have all new descriptions.

I'm not saying the writing is bad. I'm saying there might just be too much of it. It's fine to leave things to the player's imagination, and I would very strongly argue that that is one of the great strengths of the original Prime trilogy.

On Myles Mackenzie

Every time this guy speaks, or I am reminded of his presence, I suddenly want to play a different game. Given that I have been waiting for this one for 18 years, I hope that the depth of my distaste for this disgusting little man is conveyed appropriately. His presence in the game is a ridiculous, unbelievable fuckup that I can only assume was the result of some failson executive trying to justify their paycheck by deciding that players need to be condescended to. This series has well-established narrative design that effectively tutorialises and leads the player through the environments. I do not need some loser nerd to RUIN THIS GAME'S INCREDIBLE AND INDUSTRY-LEADING AMBIANCE by puking twee focus-tested dialogue down the radio. Suck shit, Myles. I hope this guy dies embarrassingly. They genuinely should release a version of this game in 6 months without him. Good god.

On the Rest

Banging. Having the best time. I love the motorbike, it's goofy as hell, everything is going great. Hope I can find a way to eat around these peppercorns.

Playtime: 4.5 hours

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3