For my birthday this past year, my brother Luke generously surprised me with a copy of Metroid Prime 4 for the original Switch. This is probably the 3rd the Metroid game he has gifted me, and I’m glad to have someone periodically ushering me back to Metroid, because I thoroughly enjoy these dark and mysterious shooters.

Having never played the 2nd or 3rd installments of the Prime series, I’m jumping back in with fond memories (and a bit of adolescent nostalgia) of the first Metroid Prime on GameCube. Right out the gate, the whistle-y synth music of “Fury Green” takes me back to the beginning stages of Prime 1, and I vividly recall that sense of mystery and excitement that the first game had.

My only gripe with the first Metroid Prime was how insanely difficult the final boss battle was, and I remember that being so frustrating because I knew there was no more fun gameplay to look forward to afterwards anyway. So when it came time to select a difficulty setting, I immediately and shamelessly chose “casual” mode.

I’m here for the atmosphere and the lore of this series, not the grind of surviving battles. And in my opinion, the combat in these games doesn’t really have an enough depth to make beating a grueling boss all that satisfying anyway.

The other option that helped make this play through enjoyable for me was the choice between old school single-joystick controls and a modern dual stick FPS setup.

The old control scheme was no problem in 2002, but it would really be challenging for me after years of playing modern shooters across various Xbox consoles. As it turns out, Nintendo is aware of this and took it into account. I knew they wouldn’t let me down.

Gameplay

As expected, shortly after beginning this new mission, Samus quickly loses all of her weapons and abilities. Luckily there is yet another ancient species of technologically advanced aliens with a homeworld that needs exploring, and it just so happens that their weaponry and space suit upgrades are Samus-compatible.

All the familiar upgrades await: Missiles, Super Missiles, Spider Ball, etc. Somehow, no matter how many times you’ve acquired these same abilities throughout the Metroid series, it is still fun to collect them again in a new world.

This quest has you traversing a central desert wasteland back and forth between 5 mostly elementally-themed areas. Essentially, it is Hyrule Field with a Forest, Fire, Ice, Thunder, and Underworld temple. Except instead of traveling by horse, you will ride….a motorcycle?

And not a human-made motorcycle from Samus’s Galactic Federation friends either, although that would make way more sense. This is an alien motorcycle, developed by four-armed psychic aliens with tentacles on their heads, for their personal use, and you find and acquire it as part of a suit upgrade.

And hey, this is the 4th game in this Prime series. If the developers want to mix things up, put Samus on a motorcycle, give her a suit that looks like a red sports car, that’s fine I guess. As silly as it is, it is also *kind of* cool. The motorcycle-based combat is lame and repetitive, but Samus’s new motorcycle-compatible suit actually looks pretty badass. Come to think of it, every suit upgrade in any Metroid game is always extremely cool.

Another surprise is the introduction of several Galactic Federation allies who help Samus along the way. Unfortunately these are pretty much generic stock characters: the nerdy tech guy, the grizzled veteran Sargent, the aloof lone wolf soldier, etc. They bring a sense of comedic relief and camaraderie that feels out of place in a Metroid game.

When I’m clawing my way into the forlorn depths of an alien planet (as Samus), I much prefer an eerie sense of isolation. It gives the game that authentic Metroid feel.

Conclusion

Those minor gripes aside, I really enjoyed playing through this game. In fact, I feel now I have to go back and play Prime 2 and 3 as well to see what I’ve been missing. In total I spent about 13.5 hours to play through Prime 4. If I had made a point to go collect every possible item and upgrade, I probably could have invested another 5 hours at least. The hours just melt away when you get lost in the lore and exploration of these games.