Metroid Prime 4 Thoughts

Metroid Prime 4 Thoughts

There will be spoilers. IF YOU WANT A SPOILER-FREE TL;DR, THEN 7/10 GAME FIRST HALF, SHIT GAME SECOND HALF

Context: I was a former active speedrunner of all three metroid prime games, alongside many others, before moving on to other series. However, I still lurk around metroid communities, and am part of the randomizers. I've been waiting for a prime 4 for 18 years, though before coming into this game a month after its release, I am aware that its reception has been overall, very mixed - some negative, some positive, some "eh". I did my best to come into this game with reasonable expectations - not over hyped, but not assuming it's the worst thing in the world. I also came into this with an open mind, though knowing that it's Metroid Prime 4, that I would expect it to be made as a game that someone who loves Metroid Prime 1/2/3 would also love Metroid Prime 4.

This is not that game unfortunately. But I don't think it's the worst thing in the world either - it's far from shovelware. At its core, this game doesn't know what to do - it tries to be a little metroid, a little botw, a little "alien syndrome" but fails at all of them IMO. Add on top of that a ton of fundamental design/QoL issues, and you just get an aggravating experience. I can't quite honestly recommend anyone play this game at all, even if you're not a metroid fan (though someone who hasn't played mp1-3 would have less issues with mp4 - but that still doesn't excuse all of the issues it has)

If you want a general idea of how I rate this game compared to the others:

MP1 - 10/10
MP2 - 10/10
MP3 - 8/10
MP4 - 5/10










POSITIVES

- This is one of the most beautiful games I've played. It's a really nice balance of artistic but also being a bit more realistic mixed with alien world? It doesn't try to go too hard on hyper realism like modern AAA games on other platforms (and well, switch 1/2, so that probably helps mask its technological limitations). Mostly a consistent 60 fps in quality mode (my TV didn't support 120 fps).

- I personally like the design of the suits a lot, especially the final suit. Though I also think this game is the game where Varia Suit Samus looks the best in the entire series <3

- Love the music in the non-hallway-halo simulator areas (soooo Fury Green, Volt Forge, and Ice Belt). The change in music in Volt Forge and Ice Belt was really neat after re-activating the entire area too.

- This game's control scheme is (mostly) very customizable. I started playing with a switch 2 pro controller with both dual stick and gyro (stick for turning, gyro for aiming), but I eventually settled on double joycon (mp3-style), which was what I was most comfortable with. But this game gives a lot of controls options overall, including the ability to hyper-adjust your motion sensitivity. It also has options for toggling motion controls for spring ball and PSYCHIC lasso - I opted to include it for the latter, as using my left arm to yank stuff has always been really fun to me, coming from mp3.

- To add on top of that, Ice Belt has been one of my favorite areas in the entire series. Yeah, it's linear, but there was a lot to explore in these linear areas, and it was also the only major area in the game that had a lot of scans to share the lore of the labs. I liked this area's layout of slowly exploring stuff on the way down, finding these keys and upgrades, and then after re-activating the entire area, having to fight your way out.

- There are notable load screens in between areas, but there was very minimal waiting on loads at doors. I played on a physical switch 2 cartridge, so perhaps it's there in switch 1, but this is one of few positive things helped the flow of the game a lot (contrary to, well, lots of other things that exist to waste your time - but I'll get to that later). Compared to metroid prime 3, where doors can often take upwards to 15-20 seconds to open to the next room - not area. R o o m.

- Most bosses have been very fun and engaging. While they usually don't implement your upgrades very well (like mp1-3 do, especially mp2), these bosses do have a lot of neat attacks they have that require thought on dodging, and a few control beam uses are neat too.

- As another plus, a lot of the weapons felt very good to use. The fire/ice/thunder shots all stand out on their own, their charge shots are unique, and super missiles have a beautiful OOMF to them.

- I also appreciate that this game "buffers" multiple uncharge shots when you tap the fire button. You don't have to really give yourself carpal tunnel to fire a lot - if you just lightly mash, the game will hit that firing rate cap for you.

- A minor thing, but you have full control over Samus while she unmorphs. In mp1-3, you're generally forced to keep going straight for a full second, but in this game, you can move laterally during the animation, or even go fully backwards! This helps the morph ball much more streamlined, and is super nice. Big nice plus here.

- Spider tether nodes are super cool. The prime games always had a ton of fun spider track stuff (especially mp2/3), and this game doesn't disappoint much thanks to the tether nodes. Sadly, PSYCHIC spider ball is such a lategame item that there's really not much room for spider ball to stand out in mp4, so it is a bit of wasted potential IMO.

- Most puzzles are neat. Of course, it being metroid, they're generally straightforward, but they generally have a satisfying feel to them. I particularly like the little shrine puzzles in Sol Valley. They've also generally been rewarding - it was a super pleasant surprise to stumble upon a shrine that had an outright charge upgrade for my elemental shots. Big plus for this!

- I generally like the NPC dialogue. Decent variety with it, and interacting with them in the base camp is nice. Often times when they're all congregated there in endgame, they had different little interactions that just lets me care a bit more about them - it's pretty wholesome. I particularly liked the little stories Tokabi had when you met with him in the desert. Unfortunately (And I'll point this out), this all kinda falls flat on its face as by the time you get these moments, Great Mines already happened, which... yeah. I've lost all desire to care.

- Scans make lots of throwbacks to METROID FUSION











MAJOR DESIGN ISSUES

- Sol Valley was clearly a product of "the hot thing to jerk off to is open world! We must have it after the success of zelda botw/totk!" (This was confirmed in interviews). But like... metroid's core design of "progressively unlock areas with upgrades" is just paradoxical with botw's design of "let you go anywhere you want any time". It fundamentally does not work. I'm sure there can be some nuance to it, but at the end of the day, "OPEN WORLD!!!!!" does not mesh well with metroid. "Yeah but don't you want a hub that connects the major areas"? Yeah, I do. It's called Temple Grounds in MP2, which is a very detailed area with lots to explore, isn't completely empty, isn't a chore and un-interactive to traverse, and has music. Alternatively, just don't have a hub at all and make traveling very streamlined - like MP3. While I think this is a bit of a "lazy" approach and strongly prefer MP2's hub over MP3's ship, at least it's streamlined in MP3's case and doesn't really act like there's much going on. None of that apply to Sol Valley - it's giant, mostly empty, little to do, and is very time-consuming.

- On top of that, this game is filled with annoying backtracking through Sol Valley. No, I'm not strictly opposed to backtracking especially in a metroid game - backtracking can be fun! I like being incentivized to go back to an area with a few new upgrades, to find more stuff on top of new major upgrades. But if all you're doing is crossing the entire desert to go into an area for 1 thing then crossing the entire desert to go into another area for 1 thing, then... yeah. Which I'm pretty confident this is, quite literally, half of the main progression of this game. This is further exacerbated by having to traverse Sol Valley every time you have one of these mandatory backtracks. Oh, and I'm not going to say this doesn't exist in the other prime games, because unlike many folks, I don't hold double standards - Metroid Prime 1's backtrack for space jump and only that is tedious casually, and Metroid Prime 3's backtrack for Screw Attack also feels bad - BUT in their defense, MP1 at least has an actual world to traverse, and MP3 has a ship you can fly in. (MP2's backtracks for seeker missiles and power bombs are very well designed and don't even take that long and also incentivize finding a lot of extra stuff, instead of hopping in for 1 thing then peacing out). In the case of MP4... just no.

- Flare Pool and Great Mines are glorified hallway halo alien shooter simulators. Especially Great Mines. While I don't mind an occasional combat gauntlet, these were just not enjoyable at all to me - when I visit a new area, I wanted to take my time to look around, explore, find different rooms, maybe find goodies, and so on, but when you enter Flare Pool / Great Mines proper, the game completely railroads you into escort/combat hallways. Great Mines was especially egregious - the most interesting part of this area was the 1 room you had to get Super Missiles, and the 2 rooms where you had to spider ball across a chasm. The rest of the area was basically "Fight 50 Grievers, see someone 'sacrifice themself lmao', repeat". If this is the kind of game you like, sure, I guess, but IMO this game sure does a half-assed job at being both a metroid game and an alien syndrome game - and if you want first-person games where you just shoot down aliens, then there are many, many other series that do a much much better (FOCUSED) job at it than this game, which tries to do a little bit of everything but fails miserably.

- There is no option to toggle hints. There is an option to toggle tutorials, but not hints. MP1/2 have a hint toggle that work. MP3 has one that's mostly useless. MP4 doesn't have one at all. It was especially irritating when Myles tells me that I can explore the major areas in any order, but then... tells me to just go to Volt Forge anyways. This is a recurring pattern - you will explicitly be told where to go next after every major area without your consent. And unlike games like mp3/fusion/mzm, where the path to that area is actually interesting, in MP4's case... it's either Sol Valley (yayyyy) or the level design just isn't interesting at all. On top of that, you just can't ping Myles most of the time. The few times I wanted to actually ping him, there's a communication error. When I got the fire chip, I figured I'd contact him to get his opinion - so I did when entering Sol Valley. No Response. Then 5 seconds later, he pinged me - in the SAME DESERT TRIP - to tell me to bring it to him. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS? WHY? THIS GAME DOESN'T GIVE ME HINTS WHEN I WANT IT, AND THIS GAME SHOVES DUMB BACKSEATING HINTS WHEN I DON'T WANT IT. FUCK THIS GAME.

- Triggering the endgame golem collectathon is awful. I probably spent over an hour just running around figuring out what the game even wants me to do.  But... MP4's seems to be triggered by hoping you stumble upon Tokabi somewhere in the desert, grabbing a teleportation chip, backtracking to Myles, having him upgrade it, then going back to every single golem part (that you've already stumbled upon, because you've been forced to cross the desert 50 times) and pressing A. But before I even triggered this, I was running around base camp, just... talking to everyone. Minimal guidance on what to do next - Myles kept telling me to get green crystals, but I clearly needed to also talk to Tokabi in the desert. Problem: he's literally, quite, right there in the base camp, but nothing happens if I talk to him. No. I have to explicitly find him in the desert. This compounds on the Myles hints issue - it is just, incredibly exhausting (if not flat out impossible) that the few times I actually want guidance/help, the game does not give it. But it forces it down my throat when I do not want it, all the time.

- The endgame collectathon itself is just... awful. Now, I know people rag on MP1/MP2 for their artifact/stk collection, but fundamentally I don't mind them - I think it's fine for these games to require you to go back to past areas with all of your major upgrades. Otherwise what's the point of MP2's Light Suit? What's the point of MP1's Phazon Suit? In MP4's case, most of the golem parts have been accessible without super missiles / power bombs?!?!?! Artifacts require a lot of major lategame items (plasma beam, grapple beam, phazon suit, x-ray), STKs require usually dark visor and light suit and some lategame upgrades like power bombs. Also, every golem part is in the desert with one exception - the aforementioned Flare Pool. So, not only have most of these golem parts been accessible for forever (you just have to trigger it then press A in postgame - yay?), but most of them are also in the desert. Not in past areas to incentivize you to re-explore with your fully upgraded suit.

- I also mentioned super missiles and power bombs. The sense of progression is really off in this game. In this example, super/power bombs progression bothered me a lot. You get both of them side by side in Great Mines. Both giant explosives. This is annoying because the game has stuff that you can only blow up with super missiles and not power bombs, and vice versa - there are some cases where it's a little more clear (e.g. "psychic hypnotic waves" or something = power bombs) but there have been countless times where I tried to blow something up with supers but it didn't work, but power bombs worked! And vice-versa! ON TOP OF THAT, the area you get super missiles in is... so aggravating. It is just incredibly dumb in a metroidvania game for it to give you a major upgrade, then actively punish you for experimenting with it. Using any missiles in Great Mines summons Grievers - infinite of them. Yay. I can't use super missiles for combat unless I want to sit around for minutes shooting off aliens nonstop. This is further exacerbated by the fact that you can't leave the area after super missiles but without power bombs, so... there is fundamentally zero point in literally anything distinguishing between being destroyable by one or the other. In your main trip to Flare Pool, you get quite literally no major upgrades until the main boss. (The fire chip doesn't count, you're not properly "exploring" flare pool - it's a backtrack tool to access Ice Belt).

- ... Speaking of Grievers, I'm pretty confident that over half of the enemies you fight are reskins of Grievers. And there are nonstop reskins of other types of enemies too. Other metroid games do this too (MP1/2/3 all have various types of shriekbats), but MP4's lazy spam of copy pasta enemies are so ridiculously numerous it's outright immersion breaking and repetitive. I guess apparently they took that note from botw to spam color reskins of the same 4 enemies over and over.

- The ending... my god. MP3's ending teased us with Sylux chasing after Samus. MP4 opened up with him and we know he has a grudge against her and the galactic federation. That's... it. We learned nothing else. We learned nothing about what the metroids are doing in the world. The "world salvation" fruit was so underwhelming and anticlimatic, the plot of the story might as well be "Samus is trying to escape the planet. Get the 5 keys."

- On a similar note, at the ending, the sacrifice of all of the GF troopers was also incredibly diminished by the fact that they all "Sacrificed themselves" in Great Mines already, but just miraculously came back alive. The game clearly wants you to have a huge attachment to them, but... I kinda didn't? By the time the game introduces more interactions with the NPCs (like the base camp and tokabi in the desert), the Great Mines "sacrifice marathon" already happened, so I just... stopped caring.

- Clear data does nothing in this game - it's fundamentally a "Delete your game save" option, since you literally can't do ANYTHING with it, not even re-explore post-game. In mp3/trilogy/mp1 remastered, it does by carrying over scans, meaning missable scans aren't really a big deal, you can skip some cutscenes you've already seen, and so on. In this game? Nope. It just does nothing. Cool. Great downgrade from past games :)

- On top of that, 100% scans is required to see the ending with Samus taking off her helmet. In a game where scans are missable. In a game where you can't carry them over in a clear-data file. In a series where the only requirement was getting enough items in MP1-3. But nope! 100% items doesn't give you that cutscene. It's 100% scans. Fuck you.




NITPICK LIST

These were all minor annoyances that were frustrating to deal with. A few here and there aren't a big deal - I have a handful for just about every game, including my favorite games! However, having many, many, many of them that waste your time, frustrates the player, and outright is a downgrade to a >2 decade series, really adds up to a pretty negative experience. And before someone goes "yEaH bUt YoUr A sPeEdRuNnEr", remember - I only played this game once! So this is all shit that bothered me on my FIRST (and probably only) playthrough! Again, these alone wouldn't necessarily ruin the game - this game, at its core, is already incredibly problematic. These just all made the game an even less enjoyable experience, lowering what could've been a 7/10 game down to a 5/10 game.


World Map / Sol Valley

- Opening the world map is incredibly annoying. Whenever the game hints at you (without your consent), when you open the map, the game directs you to that location (without your consent again!). This includes the world map! All I wanted to do is look at my map, not at the game telling me where to go next!

- On the Sol Valley world map, it is incredibly easy to tap X and ping Myles - this happens a lot because the X button is also your "remove pin" button. While this alone isn't really that big of a deal, it's incredibly infuriating when 90% of the time he isn't even reachable and the game forces you to sit there for 5 seconds, wasting your time. On top of that, the few times I actually did want to contact him, he doesn't respond - one time after getting the fire chip and entering Sol Valley, I pinged him immediately just to hear his thoughts on it, but he didn't respond. 5 seconds after I started driving, he pinged me about the fire chip. Why. Why. Why. Fuck this.

- The pins are horrible! In an individual area, you can only have one type of pin per room - and you can't pin the actual spot you want to pin. It's just an overall pin in the room. E.G. if you want to mark a pin in a specific alcove, you can't - the pin will go over the entire room. Then in the world map, you CAN pin specific locations - but only one pin per hexagonal area. And yes, there are locations where there are multiple expansions in the same hexagonal area. This is even more aggravating, as they literally confirmed that this game was "motivated" by zelda botw/totk to jerk off to open world - but they couldn't even be assed to have a proper pinning mechanic.

- Add on top of that, there is no way to set up beacons like in zelda SS/Botw/TotK. You want to go to a far away area in Sol Valley? Gotta resort to the compass every time, and/or open the world map repeatedly over and over again (and risk pinging Myles for no respond every time). Icons in your minimap only show up if you're in the general vicinity. Not on the edge, if it's outside the vicinity. Dumb.

- Green Crystals break... really inconsistently? Like, you can destroy the two biggest chunks in a group and you'll get them all. But some of them just... don't. They clearly explicitly programmed some to break all of them, but there is no consistency at all. Sometimes you break the two big ones in a cluster, and it destroys a tiny one that's now here near - but many times you can destroy 9 out of 10, and it'll miss a tiny one anyways. So you're basically forced to turn around after breaking every group, just to verify you've actually gotten them. Thanks for wasting my time.

- The cooldown meter of the viola boost is... dumb. It doesn't recharge when you're stationary. It doesn't recharge when you're moving. It seems to only recharge when you're going at max speed. This made it really annoying to grab that one missile tank that requires viola-boosting up a ramp, because if you miss it (and you will), then once you're out of boosts, you're forced to... drive around for minutes to fully recharge it again. Then you get your 2-3 attempts again. Yay for bad cooldown meter design.

- Got really screwed over when trying to collect items from Tokabi - they get marked on the map, but tokabi doesn't necessarily show up and the game doesn't really reload him / etc properly. This wasted a ton of time when I was trying to look around a specific map part, there was no indicator of an item there, then I had to leave the area then accidentally stumble upon him again. Why.

- I really wish the game gave SOME offensive upgrade for the viola. Enemies constantly harass you on the incredibly boring desert, and it takes so many shots to kill some of them - and this continues for the entire game. And you can't ignore them - they hit you like a giant truck, so you have to stop your cozy green crystal farming to kill them.



Mechanical Nitpicks

- In prime 1-3, when locked on, if you charge your beam, the game shows a meter showing you how much your beam is charged. MP4 doesn't do that. This is further hindered by the fact that partial charge shots (with your standard beam) do 2 uncharge shots of damage no matter how partially charged it is! (In the other primes, it scales linearly - so if your beam isn't fully charged, but you still charge it longer, you will do more damage). I do understand it works differently with the fire/ice/thunder shot types, but also the charge reticule is different between all the beams in mp1/2 anyways, so this was kind of really annoying.

- Double tapping to strafe sucks. This adds a huge inherent human input delay on dodging - which is a situation where you need to react quickly to dodge! And enemies hit HARD. Sure, someone might defend this by saying "well how do you make the game distinguish between jump and strafe?" Okay, by doing what prime 1-3 did - tap to strafe, hold to jump. This can also be applied to strafing forward/backwards. This was just a really bad change that did hold back this game's fun combat significantly.

- The anti-sequence breaking one bomb in air rule is back. Didn't really impact this playthrough, but mp3's version really hurt my casual playthrough, so I can believe that this would've screwed over someone else's playthrough a bit if they happen to time bombs late. Thankfully this is kinda whatever since it's incredibly rare for the game to require double bomb jumps (even for 100%).

- The anti-sequence breaking mechanic of not letting you stand on stuff is back too. Like, if it's a sloped/slanted object, I get it - it's fine that I can't stand on it. But there were so many clearly standable pillars that look like things you can platform off of, and Samus just... slides off of it. This is pretty immersion-breaking, and it gets even more irritating if you happen to stumble upon these "non-standable objects that you should be able to stand on" on accident because you're just stuck, you can't jump (or spring ball if you're in morph ball). This is just taken to a ridiculous extreme to the point where it's practically a passive-aggressive an attack on people who like exploring and messing around.

- Scanning is awful. If your scan gets cancelled/interrupted, you have to redo the entire scan (or in some cases, half of it). In the first three prime games, whatever progress you made towards scanning, stays as progress - e.g. if you finished scanning an enemy 2/3 of the way, and get interrupted, then you can scan a copy of that enemy and you'll start scanning from the 2/3 point. In this game? Nope, redo it entirely. This is especially annoying with enemies that kamikaze you.

- Compounded on top of that, that scans just... take considerably longer than in mp1-3 for no real reason? I understand making scans take longer for bosses (mp1/2 do that) since you're directly rewarded for hanging in there with info, but this is an issue that's across literally every scannable in mp4.

- Compounded further on top of that, that most scans are... just uninteresting? I think almost everything I scanned outside of ice belt is some kind of boring container or breakable object. Which they of course exist in mp1-3, but there's practically zero world-building scannable lore. So not only do scans take longer, but there's just... almost no incentive to care anymore.

- Compounded even FURTHER on top of that, there is no real indicator that whatever you scanned counts towards the logbook in this game. MP1/2 absolutely do, I THINK mp3 does? I forget. Still incredibly annoying if you're the kind of casual who wants 100% logbook.

- Compounded even MORE FURTHER on top of that, you have to scan everything that's lasso-able in order to grapple, sorry, PSYCHIC lasso it. Not only do scans just take long, the game just.. makes you do it for every lasso-able object. The icon doesn't show up until you scan it. It's not like a HUGE deal first playthrough, but there have been occasions where it's not really clear that you could lasso something you scanned, and the icon doesn't show up properly until you get right up in its face. This is a pretty significant downgrade, as in prime 3, anything you can grapple lasso is indicated by a flashing yellow light. This kind of indicator does not exist in prime 4.

- Game is pretty bad about the grapple lasso indicator - and inconsistent. In some cases, you have to be right up in the face of the object in order for the icon to show (and that's after you scan it). Also there are enemies where the icon shows up but you CAN'T actually lasso them, which almost got me killed once! For example, if you zap a turret with thunder shot, it gets stunned, but the game shows the grapple lasso icon to kill them. But after it gets un-stunned, the icon still shows, but it just flat out won't work - so the game is just, lying to you.

- This isn't necessarily an inherent flaw, but more of an inconsistency - in prime 2/3, already-scanned objects are highlighted green. In prime 4, never-scanned objects... default to green. It's nbd if this is your first prime game (or only played prime 1), but it's really annoying going into this game from prime 2/3. Which... honestly is worth pointing out because this is prime 4. This is SUPPOSED to be a game enjoyed by folks who played prime 1-3. So this is another mark.

- Your range with psychic control is annoyingly inconsistent? Some stuff you can grab from really far away, some stuff you just... can't. A good example are the alters in the sol valley - though this makes sense because the game wants you to be explicitly on the elevator platform when dragging the key down, so you can't lock onto it unless you're right by it, it's still mechanically annoying and confusing.

- Everything is psychic! Which I mean, I wouldn't have really minded if most psychic upgrades actually had a proper side upgrade to them. But... no, not really. Psychic Morph Ball Bombs and Psychic Spider Ball (and power bombs, I guess) were the only upgrades that had an innovative psychic element to them for exploration/puzzle solving, and they were really cool! But all the others - they clearly just tacked it on as an extra step. "You can Psychic Grapple! Scan a psychic point, then grapple it!" "You can Psychic Space Jump! Scan a platform and you can space jump!" These are all just... past upgrades with (sometimes) an extra tedious step. It really says a lot when the most interesting item in the entire game is the first one you get - control beam, and all the other "psychic" upgrades... just aren't. There fundamentally aren't any actual new upgrades past control beam, really.

- Compounded on top of that, the elemental shots are... incredibly uninteresting from a progression standpoint. Awesome. You got mp1 plasma, mp1 ice, and mp1 wave beam. Surely we've never seen fire/ice/thunder elements in any games before! They also even have the most uninspiring names - it's literally "fire/ice/thunder shot". (They do feel good to use in combat though, as I mentioned)

- Speaking of shots, I learned later that against 90% of enemies (including bosses), your best form of DPS is... repeatedly mashing. Your charge beam sucks compared to spamming your uncharge beam shots (btw, the game lies - charge beam doesn't do x5 more than uncharge. Uncharge does 4, full charge does 30. Thanks for lying!) - all of your elemental shots have less DPS than spamming your power beam, outside of the charged thunder shots (which are incredibly late anyways). Yeah, MP3 has the issue of "lol, hyper mode everything" but quite frankly, MP4 isn't much better about that.



Miscellaneous Nitpicks

- The skyward-sword-boss-key-like psychic puzzles in Ice Belt were obnoxious. You have to hold a stick a direction to put the pieces together, but the game really just does not communicate when it's properly completed. I was stuck on this for a good while, thinking I needed some other upgrade to solve it, but no, the game just can't communicate how it works at all.

- This game is lowkey kinda sexist? Like, out of all of the GF troops, you have the very clearly obvious token female trooper who is a fangirl (she's a cute fangirl though!) but is also the student, the baby, the naive, the inexperienced one, the noob. And there's also an explicit scan that singles out a lone female Lamorn priest. This is a series featuring one of the biggest female gaming protagonists. This game came out in 2025. We do not need a "she smurf" situation in a game with a female protagonist. Twice.

- Samus's animation when getting an upgrade is super boring. In MP2/MP3, she does the same animation when getting a new arm cannon upgrade, but you at least see her fire it. In this game? Nope, she just holds the arm cannon up and off screen, and makes a firing sound. They couldn't be assed to actually show off the animation.

- Legacy Suit's invincibility mode works... until you morph or ride your bike. Which defeats a lot of the purpose of it for me - because a lot of times I use it, I want to ignore enemies while travelling around, which is when you're morphed or riding your bike. Nope! It gets completely cancelled if you morph or ride your viola, so you just wasted missiles for no reason! Wow, fantastic design!

- In english text, every energy tank you get has an extra dialogue box telling you to open the inventory screen. This was clearly intentional for the first one, which is fine - but they couldn't be assed to code the rest of the energy tanks to... not do this every single time. Apparently japanese text has the decency to throw all of the extra text into one textbox - and no, there was plenty of space for english to throw it into one textbox too, making this just a complete waste of time. Lovely.

- This game doesn't alert you to save stations. All the other primes did. I've literally missed two save stations in my playthrough while exploring - which I mean, if I have hints on (which, well, you do, because it's prime 4, it's non-consensual, it's mandatory), then I'd at least hope it tells me if there's a nearby save station like ALL THE OTHER THREE PRIME GAMES DO. Especially in a game that doesn't checkpoint you very frequently - i.e. dying has a very real drawback to it. Nope! Continuing the trend of giving hints when the player doesn't want/need it, but not giving it when it would actually be appreciated!

- You take damage during cutscene transitions between rooms, when you've lost all control of Samus. This can kill you. :)

- Game takes place after Super Metroid. And has metroids with no explanation. :) They couldn't be assed to even verify the game's year at all, compared to the rest of the series.