Apart from ‘reviving the series in the Modern Era

At the beginning of the year, I played Metroid Prime the first time in at least a decade. Back in 2023, Nintendo released an archived version of the 2002 Classic for the Switch, and I felt like opening it when we finally got to know Prime Prime 4: Beyond will arrive this year after a decade of development. The real thing Metroid Prime It holds up surprisingly well for a 23-year-old game, but there were plenty of times when it showed its age. The speaker sometimes feels overly rigid, as direct control of Samus Aran is not the game’s strong suit. Similarly, facing large armies of metroids-sucking metroids can be frustrating, again due to the lack of accuracy.

But the main feeling that I came to that game is the joy of today’s first experience. I had a desire to see how the worlds on fire, the enemies of the person and the first person will feel on the current console, built with today’s technology and many improvements that have come to the creation of the game since 2002. I finally got a chance to play for about 90 minutes Prime Prime 4: Beyond It’s been a week and I haven’t seen anything diminish my enjoyment of the series being brought to its tenth anniversary – even if the game feels too familiar at times.

I played two parts of Prime Prime 4: Beyond. The first is the opening sequence that Nintendo made available to people to try when the demo experience was illuminated a year before the high-level day that happened where it looks like a lot of the game where it is seen. That first part is a classic “familiarize the player with the controls” level where Samus fly around to help defend a base under attack. As I had played the switch version Metroid Prime Recently, I felt at home with the controls even though a few buttons were restored. All Classic Metroid Moves, including charge blast, morph ball, mische cannon, visor scan and more have no base to scan enemies for weak points and blast.

Right from the jump, the game looks great. There is an extensive cutscene (at least in the metroid game) that shows Samus flying to save the day from the battle, and everything from the flash of fireball on the ship to samus taking out the metroid line in front.

I was playing this game on switchn 2, in both handheld mode and it flooded the TV and looked great either way. The aforementioned burst came out well in HDR and the frame rate was never as sharp as I took it. As usual, Nintendo’s art direction is top-notch, but this is the first metroid Prime game made for a console with some power behind it (remember, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption they came out with the original Wii). The game doesn’t even aim for PhotoRealistic graphics, but it’s closer than any other nintendo game I can think of. It’s a combo of unmatched style and modern resolution that finally allows the metroid world to scale so exciting, and I can’t wait to see more of the world Samus explores.

There is also a lot more voice chat than before Metroid Prime. As he descends to defend the base from an attack, many other soldiers see Samun, ask for help, tell him where to go and generally praise him for being a badass. It’s a lot more voice work than I’m used to in a metroid game, and it goes a long way toward making the journey feel more unique.

The second place I have to check out looks a lot better than some generic base where the game kicks off. It’s a classic metroid world that combines the beauty of nature with a mysterious, unknown culture. And of course, most of nature wants to kill you by invading its territory (or maybe because it is controlled by a foreign army). The main boss of the demo was cut from this cloth: a large plant is built in such a size that it pulls its large spaces to hold and shoot poisonous flowers. A classic metroid battle if ever there was one, although one that didn’t feel very different from other boss battles Metroid Prime. That said, the scale of the battle feels huge, due to the size of the field and how the plant tents make maneuvering and take away clear shots. While the boss had a body centered in the middle of the room, the tentacles made it feel like they were around me, all the time

This boss felt like an upgraded but familiar version of them from previous games, and it was the only thing that felt familiar. For example, the game still uses save stations scattered throughout the map to save your progress rather than just automatically spawning at high points. That’s a throw that I don’t really remember and I don’t expect to see in 2025. Most of the music products and sounds that you’ve heard are suged straight from other metroid primes and weapons Samus and weapons Samus and weapons are somewhere almost the same as how you start Metroid Prime. Naturally, something happens when he loses most of those abilities and he has to regain them to progress – in the demo, he had to get the power of the morph ball up to keep going, just like he did in almost every metroid game before.

At times, it felt like the game leaned too much into an already established framework rather than trying something new. But given that I was so into the game, I allow for a lot of unexpected changes to come. And I got a chance to try out the biggest gameplay change Nintendo has made so far (no, not the motorcycle): new mental abilities.

This power, at least in the case of the demo, is mainly used to solve environmental puzzles, as it provides a new way to interact with various objects and structures. But there is also a part of the fight that I had to use to beat the aforementioned boss. You can charge and release a kind of psychic beam – as soon as it leaves your blaster, the time drops to about a cannon and you can control its direction with the analog stick. While fighting the boss, I had to direct the beam around multiple obstacles to hit each of the three tents; Once I did that, the monster became vulnerable and I could charge and blast with my normal weapons. You can see some examples of this power in action in the video below.

I wish I had the chance to see how these powers play out throughout the game, and I’m definitely excited to see how they manage to break up the gameplay in Prime Prime 4: Beyond From aspects of it that just feel like an updated version of what came before. And to be honest, I’m not sorry the game feels familiar. Most people have never seen the metroid prime series before or haven’t played it in over a decade, and many of the familiar features felt like the perfect example of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And it won’t be long before we can find out Prime Prime 4: Beyond It finds a way to really come from its predecessors after all this time. The game arrives on December 5 for Switch and Switch 2.