Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review

Looking out into the vastness of the desert, the isolation of space hits me. It doesn’t matter if Samus is rolling through vents or taking in a galactic sunset, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is a lonely endeavor. But out here in parts unknown, all you need is a missile launcher and a dream. Nintendo’s latest entry is undoubtedly bigger than any other before it, but it’s the more compact moments where Metroid Prime 4 really comes into its own.

Now that I have enough time with this new Switch game, I can present you with a fully formed Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review. That’s because my initial thoughts launched as a review-in-progress. While I initially said that things are shaping up spectacularly, the cracks quickly began to show in Retro Studios’ open world. More on that later. First, Samus’ journey begins with a mysterious relic and the long-awaited return of Sylux.

Things are swiftly going down the drain for Samus and the Galactic Federation. I pick up with Samus on the battlefield of Tanamaar, as a war rages on, with both sides fighting for control of the game’s MacGuffin. Sylux is leading the assault against us here, eager to take this relic home for what I’m sure is safekeeping. Naturally, things go awry when the relic is damaged, causing everything in its immediate area to warp over to Viewros. In the moments before danger calls, and despite an 18-year gap since Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the muscle memory falls into place.

With no Wii remote to rely on this time, you engage in combat with the Joy-Cons or any of the best Switch controllers available. It feels noticeably slower movement-wise than Corruption, reflecting the hulking nature of Samus’ armor. There’s the option to lock onto enemies for easier aiming, but you can still free-aim while holding down ZL. Most enemies are fodder for your canons; others require precision to target weak spots. And enemies often don’t come without backup, either.

Most battles are a dance, with my instincts deciding whether straight-up blasting them is enough to keep death at bay. Where things can heat up is if you’re using the Joy-Con 2’s mouse features. I’m still getting used to this in the limited number of Nintendo Switch 2 games that support it. Yet this is the first instance in my time with the console where it genuinely feels less like a gimmick. It isn’t quite the same as locking in a perfect shot with a mouse and keyboard on Counter-Strike, but it’s close enough.

After crash-landing onto Viewros, Beyond begins to throw in a range of new skills. Each of them features unique forms of psychic energy. The Psychic Charge Beam is like controlling the Batarang in any of the Batman: Arkham games. You steer this nifty ability into different puzzle triggers or even enemies in the right context. Psychic Bombs are purple orbs of explosive joy, dealing damage to enemies in Morph Ball mode, or giving me the option to jump in tight spaces.

Each of these tools manifests itself in different ways so far, challenging me to weave them together in a myriad of puzzles across each location I explored. At first, it feels a tad forced, coming across as a way to pad out otherwise easy areas to progress through. However, these aspects find a rhythm, making it easier to use them as if they’re second nature. Their greatest use, at least right now, is how they factor into boss fights. It makes you reconsider what the norm is in any given encounter, asking you to consider that maybe, just maybe, the blaster isn’t always the best tool for the job.

But Metroid Prime 4: Beyond doesn’t just feel great, it looks the part, too. This is the first Nintendo Switch 2 title, in my opinion, that shows how fantastic games can look on the platform. In docked mode, I can choose between 4K 60fps or 1080p 120fps settings. In handheld, the options are 1080p 60fps or 720p 120fps. While I’m typically a sucker for higher framerates, I’m using the 4K 60fps option, as I prefer sharper textures. Somehow, there hasn’t been a single frame drop yet.

This is an exceptionally optimized game for the Nintendo Switch 2. Because of the sturdy performance, it doesn’t distract me from relishing in the gorgeous art direction on display here. Early areas revel in the beauty of cavernous halls and ancient ruins. Key locations present themselves to me with a bold title card, as if it’s an act to show off just how majestic these places are. Discovering the Volt Forge for the first time gave me goosebumps. It’s an area steeped in an aesthetic not unlike Coruscant in Star Wars, but only if that city was left to rust in the halls of time itself.

Getting here, though, does draw my main flaw with Beyond: pacing. I mentioned earlier that some areas feel padded out for the sake of it, and that’s especially true of initial locations. If you’re expecting to get the Vi-O-La, the awesome motorcycle from the trailers, you’ll be waiting a few hours before you get it. It’s an odd one, because I understand piecemealing and building up the game bit by bit. But, at the same time, let’s keep the momentum going.

Once you get the Vi-O-La, though, the real issues of the game begin to take shape. You see, Beyond, despite its promising opening hours, isn’t really a Metroid game. It’s a solid shooter, there’s no doubt about that. But what you have here is a barren, interesting hub area, with nothing inhabiting it. There are lots of rocks, plenty of sand, and barely any sound to hear. Gone is the excellent score, because if you want that, you need to shell out for an Amiibo. I wish that were a joke, but no, Retro Studios locked the in-game music behind a paywall.

The best part of any Metroid game is the isolation. The feeling of every element telling you it doesn’t want you here, the odds are slim, and that the world actively hates you. You could say that the lonesome deserts of Sol Valley encapsulate this. To me, it just comes across as disconnected from what Retro Studios is really trying to accomplish. Each biome the studio crafts is near-sensational to explore when it’s right, ranging from volcanic remnants, icy mountaintops, to gloomy factories.

Adding the bike feels like something excellent on paper, but the execution isn’t really there. Yeah, it’s fun to control, but that soon fades away as the hours tick by. It’s tacked on, and when you mingle with small loading areas to bridge every biome, that becomes more apparent. Perhaps the biggest sin of Beyond is how it treats its villain, Sylux. After years of teasing their rivalry with Samus, dating back to 2006’s Metroid Prime Hunters, it’s quite a flat result. Sylux’s motivations aren’t exactly anything mind-blowing, either, landing as your generic bad-guy fodder rather than anything worth remembering.

It’s too little too late. On the other side of this, the game’s attempts to grow a band of heroes with the Galactic Federation are admirable, yet also underbaked. Thankfully, sidekicks like Miles Mackenzie fade into the background for large portions of the game. Beyond the game’s character work, there’s also the divisive nature of how Metroid treats its players.

For those of you coming into the series fresh, it’s worth noting that Beyond doesn’t take it easy when it comes to saving your progress. Save points are scarce and spread out, so if you mess up during a run through a new area, guess what? You’re going back to the start. It can be annoying, sure, but it drives home the sense of looming danger any Metroid game should aim to deliver. Beyond succeeds here, fighting back against my existence at any turn.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is a sturdy shooter and likely the best FPS game on the Nintendo Switch 2 right now. Modernized controls, slick UI, and stunning visuals ensure Samus’ return to our screens is at least worth checking out. Combat is heavy and calculated, existing in a world that values wits over pure brute force. But outside of fighting, it’s let down by a few poorly executed concepts that hold it back from true greatness.