Metroid Prime 4: Beyond REVIEW

Gamer's Outpost LLC
Feb 21
3 min read

by Shaun Barker

I have played Metroid, Super Metroid, Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2, and Metroid Dread. The only one that I did not finish was Metroid Prime 2. For some reason, the game was very similar to part 1 but I was frustrated and couldn’t find my way around it. Tell you the truth I missed the good ol’ 2D version. Playing Metroid Dread brought back good memories of those days. So, when Nintendo announced that they were going to release another 3D Metroid game I thought “here we go again.”. Then I started to watch the previews of the game. I thought well, this could be good. I am proud to say that I recently finished Metroid Prime 4 at the normal level. It has 3 difficulty levels, casual, normal and hard. Beating normal unlocks hard. I never played casual mode.

Gameplay

The game is laid out well with your typical style of play for Metroid. Samus has some initial abilities at the beginning of the game and then some catastrophe occurs and she must start from scratch. That always gives the player a chance to see some of the powers upfront, which is always a good thing. The worlds are massive and beautifully displayed (especially when played out of handheld mode).

Music

The music in this game, just like the whole series, is fit for the occasion where it builds to a mighty crescendo when the action heats up against incoming enemies. I must give credit to the developers making this one more challenging than any other ones that I have played.

Enemies

The enemies are plentiful and smart as they can appear on walls, fly at you, spit acidic slime and just come close to you and scratch at you. In addition to those enemies each area will have a final boss that will put you to the test to see how far your skills have come. I have just started to play the hard level, and I would say that it deserves the name as the number of enemies has multiplied and the level bosses or mid-bosses seem to have raised their game as well.

Image: Nintendo Switch 2 – Metroid Prime 4 Beyond; Credit: Shaun Barker

Samus has friends

I like that the developers have put in buddies to help Samus along the way. The task of taking on so many enemies seems more realistic when there is a team. The team is a mix of your typical characters that you find in any good movie. You have a tech person, rookie, veteran and a person that is a mystery. It all meshes good with Samus’ personality as she typically nods to everything that they say. The game brings out more emotion when they are in danger of dying and it also brings another aspect of difficulty of the game because if they die on Samus’ then the game is over. You will need to try again.

New bike

The bike named Viola is fun to ride and almost indestructible. It’s a nice touch to battle in a different style as enemies come at you from the air and you can easily lock on to them and deliver a power blow via the boomerang shooter at the back of the bike. Good touch by the developers to make the gamer earn the bike as they throw in a stipulation to ride the bike which is that Samus will need a new suit to go with the new ride.

Pro Tips:

Always charge up your beam gun and deliver a big blast to tough enemies when given the chance

Remember to save often especially after winning a tough battle

Get into morph ball mode as a strategy to escape some enemies

Use “shoot and move” as a great dodge versus hard-to-beat enemies (you will see the dash animation appear when executed)

Improve the cursor speed when you need to lock on targets that Samus doesn’t automatically lock onto

Get as many green crystals as possible earlier on and that will help you in the latter part of the game so that you aren’t gathering everything up at the end (it could take a few hours)

Rating

9/10

It would be a perfect 10