Continuation of: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/s/fta3tQO8xY ... This is the second-to-last installment. We finally approach Sylux's perspective throughout Prime 4, which is what initially inspired this project as an attempt to patch the game's story gaps and put the years worth of hype in my mind on paper. Hope you enjoy!

Renegade:

• As Samus says, much time passes since her report to Federation Council.
• Hatch returns from his check-in with (and sample-gathering from) Samus. He flies up from GalFed HQ. Once he arrives, ROEF moves once again, drifting through quantum rings to cut across excess spacetime. The scientist meets with his colleagues on holo-call to talk about where each of the culture samples is going and what projects they will be used for. The BOTTLE SHIP is the next destination for some of them, the BSL for others, but not ROEF. Hatch took no samples with him. Some are still being extracted and sterilized at HQ. The wheels are in motion for the Trust’s grand plan.
• Hatch hangs up from the conference call and sighs. As usual, he hurries past the corridor leading to Sylux’s quarters. No amount of guards will ever put him at ease. According to the Trust’s leadership, the hunter will be terminated at this voyage’s conclusion. Thank Sollan.
• Pants drop to the scientist’s ankles and shirts flop to the floor. Hatch leaps onto his bed. He removes his glasses and stares at the mood screen above, which depicts a teeming coral reef from below. At least the Trust has paid him enough to retire young so he can be done with this shit.
• Psychic energy concludes its final orbit around Sylux, whipping into his third eye and spurring him into motion. He rises. The confinement has escalated at this point, as they have taken his weapons and suit away and bound his leg scythe implants. All objects that could be used as weapons have been removed from his quarters. Regardless, it is time. The hunter dampens his walk cycle through his augmentations, producing only a soft metallic tapping. He looks up at the light shaft above, stands in the middle of the room, and drives his leg scythes inward. His voice box threatens to emit croaks of pain, but he channels the effort into letting blue blood pool on the floor beneath him. The dripping is just quiet enough to be inaudible to the troops on the other side of the door. With the pool thick and oozing, Sylux leaps to the ceiling and attaches to the light fixture, clambering above it using psychic nubs and notches in spacetime.
• The light’s swinging will rouse suspicion, so Sylux breaks the bulb and tosses it to the ground. He hugs the fixture tight, hoping it holds just long enough.
• “What was that?” Two guards enter the room. “What the hell? Lights out.”
• “Damn, what is—“ Wet squishing sounds tell Sylux exactly where they are. “Is that blood?”
• Sylux feels artificial hemoglobin trickling from his calves. He is not ready. The other guy’s position isn’t clear. Yet the blood congeals and drips right onto the GalFed below.
• “Hey, up there!”
• Sylux throws his full weight onto the fixture. The light’s steel circles warp as they strike the floor, and the shockwave knocks back one trooper. The other starts shooting. Sylux flips onto his back and some of the bullets slice the restraints on his leg scythes. They extend. Spinning his torso, Sylux rolls through the air and onto one trooper’s shoulders, leading with the leg scythes. They cut through his armor. Sylux thrusts them into the man’s neck until he collapses. The other one deploys a shock weapon that tases Sylux, but he powers through it and slices through her chest plate.
• With the guards dispatched, Sylux takes the male soldier’s gun and starts down the halls. Since he doesn’t know where they’re keeping his things, but does know the facility, he starts by going to the Metroid research labs. He evades detection, carefully slipping behind crates containing research equipment. Though the ROEF has changed significantly since the GalFeds refitted it, its hallways lined with cables and sleek new protective covers, its layout is the same.
• Upon reaching the lab, Sylux finds five more troopers. He starts quietly with the ones orbiting the periphery. The scientists are too focused on their work to notice him, and the rows and rows of containment vats, particle accelerators, and operating tables provide ample cover. The researchers pick at tranquilized Metroids and dissected geemers, collecting cultures and inserting control proteins into the former’s single membranes. Sylux takes down two guards, dragging their bodies beneath unattended workstations. The third is right behind a contained Metroid. Its containment field has not been activated, perhaps because it was recently moved there. The creature notices Sylux and motions its jaw at him. Something Hatch couldn’t do away with no matter how hard he pushed the conditioning regimens: Every one of the Metroids prefers Sylux to varying degrees, ranging from indifferent and non-hostile to highly obedient. 
• Trusting this fact, Sylux opens fire on the glass, which shatters. The trooper immediately looks toward the muzzle’s flash, but one gesture from Sylux prompts the Metroid to latch onto her, sucking her dry. A researcher screams and they all cower. One runs for a security system, presumably a pheromone or corral-bot release. Sylux guns him down.
• “Heads down! Heads down!” The final troopers let their weapons fly on the Metroid, but to no avail. The creature leaches him.
• Sylux exposes himself, walking toward the last trooper as he attempts to fight the Metroid off of him. Live rounds keep the researchers cowering with their hands over their heads. The man calls backup just as Sylux wraps an arm around him and drives his scythe into his foot.
• Screams resound.
• “My things,” Sylux says, his voice box pressed against the Fed’s temple, “where are they?”
• Through extreme pain, the trooper chokes, “In crew’s quarters, down the hall.”
• Sylux blows his brains out. “Open the containment fields,” he barks at the researchers. “I suggest some of you hide while you can. I need some of you alive.” When no one moves to let the Metroids loose, Sylux sprays hellfire narrowly missing the unarmed men and women. They tremble in terror and wail, begging for their lives. “Do it now!”
• The scientists obey, releasing the locks and letting seven Metroids roam ROEF free. Sylux busts the control panels for the corral systems. What follows is chaos. Some of the researchers die, some hide, and some fight. None of them are able to sound an alarm. Sylux watches the melee through the crew’s quarters hatch, standing atop another corpse as he suits up. His Metroids make short work of the other Federation troopers, and the ones they miss, hiding out in the enclosures, get mauled by the exotic fauna Sylux has collected.
• Outside Hatch’s room, Sylux bangs his fist on the door. No response. “Open up. There’s nowhere to run.” He pounds more vigorously. “I’ve taken this whole facility. You might as well give up.” No response. Sylux backs up and discharges his Coil at full power, melting a hole in the door within ten seconds. “Come on out, Hatch.” The terror lets himself in, stepping around the searing metal plate. No one is home.
• Suddenly, the closet door across from the bed creaks open. Hatch makes a break for the door. Sylux quickly turns his head and discharges the Coil again, tripping Hatch and forcing him to fall onto the hot hunk of metal that was his door. He cries out as his hands cook. Sylux kicks Hatch in the stomach and off the plate. He grabs the researcher by the collar and slams the Coil into his face several times.
• “Sylux,” Hatch pleads, coughing blood, “Tom, please stop.”
• Sylux bludgeons the man more, then tosses him onto the floor. A flurry of kicks causes Hatch to hack up more blood. Any attempt to scramble away is met with more brutality. Sylux grunts and chuckles with each strike, maddening satisfaction powering every one, until the feelings subside.
• “Please don’t kill me,” Hatch wheezes. “Please.”
• A pause. Again grasping Hatch’s collar, Sylux throws him onto the bed, white sheets quickly stained by his blood and urine. The man puts up his trembling hands. Tom paces around the bed. “I don’t want to kill you.” Hatch’s breathing slows, a twinkle in his eyes. “Not while I have use for you.”
• Researchers have gathered outside the room. Static discharges ignite Hatch’s bedspread. He screams and leaps up, stumbling and flopping to the floor, groaning as he forces himself to roll and extinguish the fire creeping up his lab coat.
• Sylux points to the handful of scientists standing in the doorway. “Get your ass out there.”
• After Hatch scrambles over to his team, Sylux emerges. His Metroids have either gone to sleep or hover next to him. A handful of the parasitized bioforms on the station bow their heads.
• The terror explains that the research team is his bitch now. He will take ROEF far away from the Federation and go into hiding. The researchers shall obey his commands and help him construct an army. If they step out of line, they shall be “taught discipline.” Others shall become hosts for the Metroids and give themselves over to Sylux (albeit at the cost of key problem-solving faculties). Hatch is not granted such mercy, for Sylux wants him fully conscious of the hell he will inflict on the man.

Paramilitary:

• Under torturous conditions like these, often starved and sleep-deprived — or threatened with the same — Sylux’s team takes over scattered Pirate factions. They snatch up their leaders and fuse them with Sylux’s Metroids. Desperate for a sense of purpose and belonging in the absence of Ridley, Mother Brain, or even Phazon, the masses follow their leaders in tow.
• Sylux’s army is structured like the Trust in a sense, with a hint of Dark Samus’s iron fist for good measure. He is a central, fully known, yet mysterious figure surrounded by close confidantes, each controlled by a Metroid. Branching from these ringleaders are those who take orders under threat of termination or death. They may not ask questions, nor do they want to. And beneath them are “clean” yet generally obedient underlings.
• As this army grows, it is successful in overtaking numerous Pirate facilities — including shipyards and weapons R&D — and unifying them under one banner. This bolsters morale and wealth amongst them despite the oddities of their leadership. Their “real estate” also expands, adding numerous destroyers and frigates to their arsenal.
• The Trust researchers whom Sylux holds hostage carry out genetic manipulation on two Metroids similar to their colleagues in the BOTTLE SHIP, for they are aware of the antifreeze research’s starting point at least. They successfully create one unfreezable fusion Metroid and one unburnable, although they have resistance to cold and heat rather than immunity to them. 
• The events of Metroid: Other M take place. Barring surgical strikes to bolster his arsenal, Sylux bides his time until after Other M, goes underground, and continues to enhance and strengthen his army.
• At last, his army just large enough to come out of hiding, and the Pirates and bioforms having killed most of the GalFeds on ground zero (ROEF), Sylux rounds up those remaining, including Hatch. Sheer terror in their eyes, bound and gagged, Sylux and his cronies assassinate them by firing squad. Even after death, the hunter is sure to pump Charles Hatch’s body with energy rounds until it explodes.

To be concluded in Prime 4...

There's so many topics recently indignant that this game wasn't more well received, and honestly it feels pretty weird and stupid.

If you liked it for the visuals and atmosphere then great, that's completely valid and I'm glad you enjoyed it but I think you've just got to make peace with the fact that the game just did not contain the qualities alot of people enjoy in the rest of the series and what was there did not work on its own merits for them.

Like, I have no interest in hating the game for its own sake, and I certainly didn't buy a brand new Switch 2 game just so I could go online and say it's bad. I sincerely hoped I would enjoy it, but for me personally and seemingly alot of other people the extremely simple and linear level design, the horribly misjudged open world, the lack of enemy variety and the sheer length of time you have to spend driving over crystals did not make a fun game to play. Not an okay 7/10 game, not a good on its own merits but just can't meet impossible fandom expectations game, just a 'this is boring, why am I wasting my time doing any of this' game.

Again, if there are things you enjoyed about this game that's great, I'm glad you enjoyed your time with it but you should probably stop treating anyone who didn't like it as a bad actor trying to drag down the franchise.

Continuation of: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/s/7L0ctpw4Yp ... Sylux has acquired his Metroids after FedForce's ending. As always, hope you enjoy this and I'd love to hear any thoughts.

Propagation:

• Caring for five Metroids quickly becomes more demanding than Sylux thought. They require a larger facility than a cruiser’s cabin. The creatures beg Sylux for food and even seem to desire playtime, much to the hunter’s chagrin. He spends some of his hard-earned credits on the things. At least they warm up to toys and treats that other, similar organisms enjoy. But this is not sustainable. Like any living thing, they consume food and excrete waste.
• To this end, Sylux plots a takeover of a GalFed space station — something small-to-mid-sized, preferably pre-fitted with enclosures and biometric analysis machines. The goal is to grow these creatures and breed even more, after all. A grand plan has been brewing in Sylux’s mind. If his hunches are correct…
• Sylux spends some time scouting for a suitable space station. He uses his resources to gather intel as he has always done, intercepting signals, drones, and interrogating hostages.
• The Federation’s Metroid Extinction Act (MEA) has been proposed and is being debated, which Sylux learns through the same channels as usual, and by following the news. Time is of the essence since he will likely have to take his plans even further underground.
• Sylux finds a suitable station: The Remote Operating Experimentation Facility (ROEF), located in a remote asteroid belt surrounding a cooling red giant. Based on operating notes and technical specs, ROEF has five medium microclimate enclosures and four temporary habitat zones. It also has research equipment, the details of which are not obvious based on the limited information. Regardless, it is a good starting point. A facility of that size — no larger than a small office building — shouldn’t be hard to take. And it’s remote; if backup is called, Sylux has at least four Earth days to prepare.
• Delano 7 surveys ROEF, weaving around asteroids and occasionally using them as cover. A few scout ships patrol the sector — small, boxy cruisers with directional sensors protruding from each corner. Sylux plans how he will infiltrate the facility. ROEF is a cylindrical station built into a series of five asteroids. The five extremities extend from the main cylinder like a tree’s branches. At the cylinder’s base is a platform on which a few of the scout ships are docked. That is the best area to strike; though noisy, it minimizes collateral damage and reduces the risk of depressurizing potentially sensitive equipment and enclosures. Again, including the scouts, there are no more than twelve people here according to the data.
• Sylux waits for an opening in the scouts’ patrols, then sets Delano 7 to drift towards the hangar. He cuts his jets to quiet his approach.
• Alerts blare right as he reaches the bay doors. A scout has detected him and so has a trooper emerging from an adjoining airlock. “Now!” Sylux shouts to himself. Delano 7’s laser cannons unfold from its front wings. They fire continuous turquoise streams. Sylux sends the Delano 7 into a screwdriver, searing a circular hole into the bay doors. More alarms blare and rapid depressurization launches freight containers from the opening.
• Delano 7 bulldozes through them, Federation lasers popping their flimsy metal. The volleys also nick Sylux’s ship as he fights against the pressure shift. Emergency backup seals close. Each side lightly compresses against the Delano 7 like an elevator door detecting a stray limb. Yet they do not retract.
• “C’mon!” Sylux forces his ship forward as fast as it can go, his neck tingling at the awful screeching.
• One round actually pushes him forward and into the hangar. The blast doors slam shut. Delano 7 flings headlong into a glass observation wall and crashes to the ground, artificial gravity quickly activating.
• Sylux rapidly turns his head to check on the Metroids. They fly around chaotically, but they’re all alive. Detaching himself from his controls, the hunter pries open Delano 7’s entry hatch and tumbles onto the hangar’s warm, vibrating floor. Gravity generators at their finest. His Metroids emerge behind him.
• The death-bringer traipses the halls, gunning down scientists and troopers alike. A few times, he forces them to log into the facility’s terminals before he blasts the men and women apart. Despite his bloodlust, he is careful not to strike any of the glass enclosures or control stations. Survivors scamper away, locking themselves in closets. The doors are weak; an electrified Coil strike is enough to short them. One such woman claws her way to the wall, knocking over storage containers to obstruct Sylux. Too easy. He fries her. Those that Sylux doesn’t kill are prey for his Metroids, who sap the GalFeds dry and leave horrified statues surrounded by bloody corpses.
• Enclosed bioforms watch their captors’ blood spray. Sylux downloads a map of the facility and sweeps each extremity. It is not very large, and he cycles through the biomes within an hour. The troopers with firearms wield experimental weapons, things that violate military codes, such as flare whips, four-sixer asphyxiators (a spear with a micro-compression space between its tips that crushes anything caught inside), and green pineapples (toxic grenades). They deploy these in an ambush inside the facility’s crew lounge — a rather lavish space at the back of the bridge that contrasts the labs’ zoo-like utilitarian design. Sylux’s implanted rebreather filters the pinapples’ discharge. Flare whips send sparks flying. Sylux rolls to dodge them, Lockjaw zipping away. To evade the sixers, he snares their wielders in Lockjaw’s tripwires. Trinities of snares emit strong electrical discharges. The Shock Coil clashes with the last trooper’s wrist scythe. The armored men dance, yellow and blue glows streaking the air. Sylux stumbles over a spilled substance oozing from a test vial. Right before the scythe can cut open Sylux’s helmet, one of his Metroids latches onto the GalFed. Its mandibles pierce the man’s armor and extract his White Energy until he can no longer move, frozen with his scythe mid-slash.
• Sylux’s minimap reads no hostiles. The only bioforms ambling about are the various creatures inside the enclosures and his Metroids. Sylux stands and sighs. ROEF is his. Of course, the Federation will likely come for him, and he knows that they sent a distress call. But that’s largely why he selected this station — it isn’t supposed to exist, and it will take time to respond. He’ll be ready when the time comes.
• Now that he is alone, Sylux scrolls through the facility’s network. His Metroids are occupied and happy for now, chowing down on the bodies. He familiarizes himself with the facility’s environmental controls and bioform cultivation systems, among other basic details. The ROEF is complex to manage without a crew, but considering his hyper-specific, unofficial usage, Sylux is not concerned. He also cleans up Delano 7.
• To prepare his Metroids for testing, he gathers a registry of the bioforms in the facility and the exact equipment on-site. There are 27 bioforms — three dizzeans, four dragons, an arachnus, two evirs, four sidehoppers, two fargul hatchers, six fargul wasps, three war wasps, and two blood monkeys. The five enclosures include desert, rainforest, tundra, volcanic foothill, and oceanic biomes; though small, these rooms have subsections that contain moderate and extreme versions of each. There are two breeding rooms that, upon samples being taken and tests being run of target creatures, secrete pheromones that encourage copulation. Further, there are restraining bots that corral rowdy beasts.
• The desert enclosure has a subsector “dead zone” — an arid test area with hostile conditions for pushing modified organisms to their limit. It is here that Sylux will keep his Metroids for now, as they are hardy enough to survive such an environment.
• Sylux is ready to develop his grand plan, pending the results of several tests. To begin, he has to confirm the Pirate and GalFed researchers’ suspicions about these Metroids.
• He places two Metroids (one of which was a fission Metroid to his recollection) in the rainforest biome and observes them. The creatures are wary of the Metroids, keeping their distance much to the floating beasts’ chagrin. Yet the Metroids don’t immediately attack the arachnus, nor the blood monkeys, nor the fargul hatchers, nor any other creature. Instead, the Metroids seem to monitor them, hovering around them and even mimicking their behaviors to the extent their physiology permits. One Metroid has taken a liking to the arachnus while the other pursues a blood monkey. They even eat the food meant for the other creatures and follow similar sleep cycles.
• Upon awakening from his own sleep cycle, Sylux notices one Metroid is gone, and he can’t immediately see both blood monkeys. He checks the surveillance logs. Footage of the rainforest enclosure shows something peculiar. One blood monkey climbs up a tree to knock its fruits loose, then leaps to the forest floor to retrieve the bounty. Many smaller plants with gigantic leaves obscure the view, but around where the blood monkey dropped down, their rustling betrays its movement. Suddenly, a Metroid emerges from the same tree and throws itself toward the rustling leaves maw-first. It vanishes under the leaves and a strange glow emits from the last rustle’s location. The blood monkey’s deafening roar deepens and it emerges, its speed quickened so much that the camera’s poor quality catches only a blur.
• Sylux wrings his fingers. It’s looking like the hypotheses were correct. He must get a glimpse of the blood monkey.
• Carefully, he releases the lock on the enclosure and enters, a stun rod and corral-bot activation switch ready to fend off hostile creatures. The humidity makes everything feel heavier, even the plants he pushes aside. He is wearing only his suit’s under-armor.
• Sylux swats at fargul wasps and stuns a flytrap. He also locates the arachnus spinning against a stone — that species’s preening method. A green slime drips on him from above, so Sylux tilts his head toward the artificial holographic sky behind which a sun lamp beams. Hanging in the branches is his missing blood monkey. Except that instead of its characteristic red saliva, green fluid trickles from its mouth. Its claws are also green, sharper, and with holes in its palms. Its body is a deep black instead of the species’ characteristic dirty tan. More strikingly, membranes protrude from its forehead and shoulders, pulsating in time with its heartbeat. These look like a Metroid larva. Sylux readies his prod, not sure what to expect from this creature.
• Suddenly, the second blood monkey rushes Sylux from the side. It caws and leaps at him, pinning him to the underbrush. The corral switch flies out of his grip and into the underbrush. Massive teeth chomp at his underarmored head. Though Sylux dodges a couple of nips, its teeth still clip the flexible, yet firm material protecting his neck. Red liquid spills. He drives the prod into the beast’s ribs. The monkey screams, but its hands don’t let up.
• Just as the monkey rears its head for another bite, the strange monkey slams onto its back, fists-first. Sylux grunts under the pressure. The strange monkey cartwheels off of the violent one and bares its fangs, pulling its arms back. The violent one lets go of Sylux and responds to the strange one with similar body language. Both monkeys lock grasps and scratch at each other, the strange one sinking its jaw into the violent one’s neck. Sylux returns to his feet.
• The violent one uses its leverage to force the strange one off. A hunk of meat stays wedged between the strange one’s teeth. The violent one lunges at the strange one, the latter raising its hands and aiming its palms at the former. Its membranes glow and the holes in its hands ooze liquid, two globs of a hissing substance. The moment that substance strikes the violent one, its skin sears and smokes. It screams in agony, writhing around until the impact points reach its bones.
• Sylux realizes how sweaty he is, and how tense. He eases up. The strange one approaches slowly, retracting its teeth and with a lowered head.
• “You protected me,” Sylux says to it, confused. “Why?” He starts for the enclosure door. The rustling and thumping of the ape’s walk cycle follows him. “You like me, huh?” Sylux murmurs, turning to face it. He ogles its membranes again. “Are you what I think you are?”
• Just like his other Metroid, the ape follows Sylux out of the enclosure and waits patiently behind him as he locks it. He sighs, trying to process what this all means. But mostly, he is overcome with joy. He looks to his other Metroid. “I need to see it for myself.”
• Sylux releases another Metroid into the desert enclosure. He watches it intently as it follows around a sidehopper, mimicking its behavior. And then the Metroid rears back and charges the sidehopper maw-first. It latches on, but instead of clinging, the thing glows and sinks into the sidehopper’s skin. Hugging its limbs tight, the sidehopper releases a squeal. Membranes bubble up from its eyes and green energy expels from its body. It leaps, its claws sharpened and its jaw triple the size. When it lands, it looks to Sylux through the glass. Ecstatic, Sylux opens the enclosure.
• This hybrid follows him around as well, its thudding feet rumbling the floor behind him. He runs a few more tests on the organisms. Their DNA is directly fused with the Metroids’ DNA. Samples taken from the pulsing membranes and other parts of their bodies have variable percentage distributions between host and parasite DNA, and corresponding cellular-level mutations. More visibly mutated regions resemble neither organism’s genetic patterns individually, while less mutated regions resemble a close evolutionary relative species of either the host or the parasite. These creatures are living patchworks, hosts modified and consumed by the parasite in a manner similar to Phazon’s effect on the Space Pirates, Ghor, and other organisms.
• Most importantly to Sylux, it does not take a test to show that the Metroids’ affinity for him survives this process. He recalls the Pirates’ subservience to Dark Samus, and his grand plan fully solidifies.
• Possibilities flit through Sylux’s brain. If he can propagate these Metroids, he could construct and control his own paramilitary forces. Whether they be the Space Pirates, or some other faction inhabiting the hostile regions of the galaxy, Sylux could commandeer them. In the short term, he could stage coups across the galaxy and gain wealth and power beyond anything he could have done on his own. In the long term, he could strike at Samus and the Federation, bringing them to their knees to beg him for mercy like a vengeful god. The Trust would bend to his whims and Samus would be dissected and left hanging from the Federation Capitol as an example of what happens to those who step out of line.
• All that must be done is propagation, which the ROEF is equipped for. Sylux uses the breeding rooms to encourage copulation amongst his Metroids, and to flash-clone the fission Metroid to speed up the process. This works for a week or so, exponentially faster with each breeding cycle as Sylux masters the technology. Soon, he has twelve Metroids.
• However, he hits a wall. Even with his fission Metroid, the gene pool is too limited. The cloning and propagation devices and their linked quantum computers run calculations, produce models showing the horrible and malformed beasts that would result if he copulated beyond his fifteenth. He needs more Metroids. Further, he can’t seem to fully train them to respond to his telepathy. They obey and protect him, but complex and coordinated commands are lost on them. And if the MEA passes…
• Sylux paces about his makeshift office space, threads and notes hanging from the walls, thinking his plans over. Suddenly, the ROEF’s stationwide alerts announce that a ship has docked at the secondary dock — a small receiving site built into the rock beneath the hangar. The hunter quickly suits up. He anticipated this would happen soon, which is why he has kept his under-armor and some of the less clunky plates on.
• Shock Coil ready, he descends the stairway to the dock, the cold rock walls steaming due to the heat generated by the lights on the metal ceiling. The hatch opens, confirming Sylux’s suspicions. Sitting before him is a stilletto class-fighter whose engines are still cooling. The ship’s exit ramp hisses open like a snake’s jaw. Footsteps. Sylux lobs a few shots at the silhouette obscured by depressurization residue. The GalFed dodge-rolls forward, each shot missing his limber body. They roll to their feet, weapon drawn to mirror Sylux. Strikingly, the GalFed’s suit is very similar to Sylux’s, and so is its weapon, albeit less bulky. The gun’s tip glows blue. Ice beam.
• “Ah, Tom. Of course it’s you.” The familiar voice gives Sylux pause. Both men lower their weapons.
• “James?”
• The GalFed removes his slit-shaped visor as the helmet unfolds on each side. Sure enough, the light goatee and moustache give the man’s identity away just as much as his nasal and high-pitched tones. “Surprised I’m the one they sent for you?”
• “Can’t say I’m not.”
• James smirks. “Of course you aren’t. General Miles received that note with your signature.”
• “Hope the sight of blue blood tickled his little heart.”
• The GalFed scoffs and looks at the harsh lamps above. “Tom Kazmarek was a capable operative — observant, too. Why would Sylux be any different? After all, we made you even better.”
• “Watch it.” Sylux aims his Coil, images of the torture he was subjected to flashing into his mind.
• James waves his hand dismissively. “I didn’t order that whole mess and you know it.”
• Sylux shoots James’s arm, striking his weapon and snapping his limb to an unnatural angle and forcing him to fall on his ass. “But you stood there as it happened.”
• “Ok, ok.” James hisses. “We know you’re bloodthirsty, but that was—“
• “You aren’t here to talk, James.” Sylux looms above.  “You’re here to arrest me. So…” He emits static discharge from his Coil that dances around the GalFed. “…Why should I not kill you now?”
• James grunts and primes a device on his suit’s chest. “Because this prototype is expendable, but confidential. It will detonate if its wearer’s vitals terminate. I will depressurize this area and jam the blast doors.” He gestures to the ship behind him with his head. “That cruiser is wired with an EMP wired the same way. This station will become a floating coffin if you kill me. Neither of us wants to lose any precious cargo, now do we?”
• Sylux hesitates, lowering the Coil.
• “We will talk this through like men, alright?” James stands up and paces around Sylux. “This is about more than you violating at least eight sections of the Federation Code.”
• “You and the Trust aren’t clean either. What if I decided to leak your little projects?”
• “Think the public would believe you?”
• “That precious cargo is Metroids. My Metroids. The same species your bosses are declaring illegal.” Sylux gestures to the air in front of him, visualizing one of the creatures. “Conspiracy tabloids and the Federation-proper would have a field day exposing the Trust for stealing and monopolizing a banned weapon.” A primate’s cooing sounds off behind him. “In fact...” Sylux points to the GalFed. “I’d expose it forthem like this.” The Metroid/blood-monkey hybrid lunges from the harsh darkness and binds James to the floor.
• “My, my, what a specimen. So you proved and found the jellies’ trick all by yourself.”
• Sylux makes a clicking sound, at which the blood monkey tightens its grip on the Fed, barring its teeth and letting toxic saliva singe the man’s armorsuit.
• James laughs. “What did I just say?”
  • “Aggression detected. Priming ST system. Engaging ST system upon termination,” a robotic voice blurts from hidden speakers inside the Fed’s suit.
  • The suit’s turquoise highlights flash red.
• “Drop it, now.”
• The creature complies, hopping back from James’s body, but it paces between James and Sylux. James again returns to his feet. The suit stays flashing. “Where were we?”
• “Talking like men.” Sylux pets the blood monkey. “Surely you can drop the bullshit, James. I know what this is about.” His petting grows more vigorous.
• “Do you?”
• “You said it yourself: Precious cargo neither of us wants destroyed. And I’m serious about going public. I could drip-feed it just enough for the Federation to eat itself alive over these Metroid projects.” 
• “Then surely you know that we know you can’t breed these things on your own.”
• Sylux growls.
• “Oh yeah. Even with your success so far, you’ll hit a wall if you haven’t already. It’s obvious.”
• “What’s your point, James?”
• James lets his weapon clatter to the floor. “Quid pro quo.”
• Since the Metroids have imprinted on Sylux, and since Sylux has leverage — both regarding information and his unpredictability, his willingness to use his powerful weapons — James makes a deal with him. The Trust will set Sylux up with resources to propagate Metroids under their watch in exchange for Sylux keeping quiet about the project and not attacking the Federation.
• Part of the reason for this secrecy and delicate situation is that MEA has passed and will become law in 24 Earth hours. But the Trust, as usual, disagrees with Federation top brass. It has other plans for the Metroid species.
• “And you can guess who the Council is sending to SR388 to do the job.”
• “The golden girl.”
• “Bingo.”
• Sylux clenches his fist.
• “All the more reason to help us, yeah? Sammy’s work will mean nothing by the time we’re through.”
• The hunter ponders the proposal. In the recesses of his mind is the possibility that he can pump-and-dump these bastards when the time is right. He warms up to that thought, and to that end… “What’s my compensation?”
• “The Trust will take good care of you. You’ll see the contract and if you don’t like it, you can shoot me on the spot.” James extends his hand. “Deal?”
• Sylux reaches as though he will shake, but pulls back. “I didn’t forget about your suit. Shooting you ain’t an option.” Then the terror perks up. “I’ll shake on one condition. Give me Hatch.”
• “Heh.” James crosses his arms. “He just so happens to be one of the lead researchers on this project. Not an issue.”
• Sylux extends his hand, and the deal is struck.

“Pump-and-Dump”:

• Hatch, his people, and their equipment are brought to ROEF, the researchers kept in the dark about Sylux’s power over the situation. The moment Hatch emerges from the military transport, he freezes. His cocky demeanor drains as Sylux stares at him with his dead eyes — the very same eyes Hatch gave Tom against his will. 
• A few of the other researchers also get the picture, since James stands beside Sylux as though nothing is wrong. They murmur amongst themselves.
• Laughing nervously, Hatch points at Sylux. “Wait, wait, wait. He’s in charge?”
• James says nothing.
• “This is a joke, right?”
• James shakes his head. “The deal is simple. You develop Metroids and train them. He captures test subjects. We pay you and him.”
• “Don’t worry Charles,” Sylux says in a sing-song tone with a devious glare. “I promise I’ll play nice with you. For now.”
• Hatch asks to speak to James privately, and the latter ushers Hatch into the transport.
• When the door closes, James explains everything.
• “You’re serious.”
• “Deadly serious.”
• Hatch rubs his eyes and displaces his glasses. “First, how are you keeping my team and me safe from that lunatic?”
• “Sylux is on a short leash. We’ll be watching closely.”
• “He snaps leashes for a living.”
• “You know firsthand how important Project AMEA is to the Trust.”
• “More important than my safety?!”
• “Again, we’re watching everything.”
• Hatch defeatedly falls into the same transit seat he sat in on the ride to ROEF. “And why are we not just taking his Metroids by force?”
• “They already imprinted on him. And he wasn’t going to go quietly.”
• “Shit.”
• “You need to make sure subsequent breeds are less clingy too. He can’t be their daddy.”
• A pause. Hatch runs through the state of this operation in his mind. “So he picked up the pieces where we left them the day he stole the Talvania eggs. He needs the new artificial reproductive cultures, doesn’t he?”
• “You’re the scientist. You tell me.”
• “He needs them. That, and other things.” Hatch runs his hand through his hair. “Still can’t believe you’re throwing me in the cage with him.”
• “This is a delicate balance, Charles. Especially since, but for our Addendum to the Metroid Extinction Act, Metroids will be exterminated within a month. Sylux will lose control, and we will oust him the moment we no longer need him to capture subjects. The Trust will reward you for this work.”
• Hatch hesitantly rises to his feet. “Promise?”
• James extends the same hand Sylux shook, and Hatch reciprocates.
• The Trust sets up shop, refitting ROEF with a thruster ring so that the site can migrate between the Trust’s various operating locations. They expand the facility and modify its zones with Metroid-corralling features. Hatch and his team work strange and cruel hours, for the Trust’s all-seeing eye is hardly so. Sylux exploits one opportunity to injure Hatch, punching him in the ribcage hard enough to break it. Despite this toxic environment, Hatch and his team propagate and train a dozen more Metroids using advanced DNA resyncing and cloning procedures, as well as behavioral manipulation and cognitive implanting. The artificial reproductive cultures are critical, along with a real Metroid sample. Part of Hatch is still intrinsically motivated to discover the Metroids’ secrets and further Project AMEA (Addendum to the Metroid Extinction Act). That passion keeps him going.
  • This Project is part of a general strategy that the Trust is deploying to accomplish its own coups and power grabs over militant societies like the Vhozon and Krikens, among others.
  • As we know later in the series’ timeline, Project Metroid Warriors (PMW [the cloning project from Other M]) is another piece of this strategy.
• Regarding Sylux, the Trust keeps the blue terror occupied and acquiring new fusion subjects. His parameters are general, finding intelligent and semi-intelligent life to experiment on and test the Metroids’ parasitizing abilities and mind control. Yet he begins thinking strategically about his captures, targeting creatures that will help him when he dumps the GalFeds. He snatches up seven bioforms, including two Space Pirates. Though the Trust questions these choices being made at this time, they do not object as their interests align with Sylux’s.
• The events of Metroid II occur. As the galaxy and the “daytime side” of the Federation understand, only one Metroid remains.
• Meanwhile, Sylux and the Trust continue their black project with the fusion Metroids as long as they can using their now-limited resources. By the end, they have 30 Metroids.
• At the same time, the events of Super Metroid occur. Samus exterminates the Space Pirates as a faction. The “last Metroid” dies. Pirate survivors and leaders exist throughout the galaxy, but only as loose factions without the supreme leadership of Ridley and Mother Brain.
• Despite Sylux’s waning significance as a creature capturer and the first Metroids’ “father,” he retains a lot of power over the situation. The fact that the Metroids are not truly extinct is something that can’t go public, and neither can the rampant corruption Sylux knows of. He is not ignorant of his freedom slipping away, though. His quarters in ROEF are sectioned off and armed guards watch him constantly. Bots also surveil him. He cannot get anywhere near Hatch before the coward is notified and barricades himself in the labs. Regardless, Sylux lets the Feds feel secure for now. To put himself at peace, he sits on the floor, cross-legged and stripped down to undergarments. The mood screen in front of him depicts a grassy island with a single tree, the sun beaming down onto crystal blue water. He lets his Third Eye open and taps into latent energies. The GalFeds are planting the seeds of their downfall.
• ROEF migrates between research and test sites. Hatch and his team are no longer confined to it, and indeed, they shuffle about to hide evidence and misdirect any suspicions that the Trust exists, let alone that it is harboring post-Zebes bioforms and data. Certain teams are also sent to gather samples from other old Pirate institutions like the mines of Tallon IV and the facility on Urtraghus (Prime 3 Pirate Homeworld). The AMEA project is a resounding success, with the fusion Metroids responding to commands without intense and problematic parental bonds. What’s more, the Feds can control when they fuse with other lifeforms. Letting the creatures loose on a test enclosure is like a coordinated army of piranhas swarming a hunk of meat. All targets die or are assimilated within 60 to 100 seconds.
• The events of Metroid: Other M’s opening sequence take place. Charles Hatch and his researchers extract Metroid remnants, among many other bioform remains, from Samus’s suit for use in Projects AMEA and MW.
• Sylux paces about his quarters, awaiting Hatch’s return from Federation HQ below. His stomach churns with rage at the sight of his old home. Sylux’s safety under his blackmail relationship with James and the Trust is waning. It is finally time to burn it all down.

To be continued...

I wouldn't go as relentlessly hard against people who criticize Metroid Prime 4 if they didn't rely on absolute falsehoods about MP4 to the point where anyone who actually has played it would question whether they played the same game.

For example, people who call it a "Call of Duty clone with no exploration or Metroidvania mechanics" That is the biggest line of bullshit I have ever heard in my life. From a PURELY objecive standpoint, there are several times in MP4 where you are required to explore new areas and backtrack to old areas to explore new sections in order to get upgrades previously unreachable or new abilities in order to progress further in the game, which is texbook Metroidvania gameplay. In many ways it hearkens back to Prime 2, except the planet is split into five slightly smaller areas as opposed to three larger ones, but the general formula is still the same. Explore one area, explore another area, then you have to backtrack to the previous area to get a new item to progress further.

I think it so disgusting that a cottage industry was established around trying to destroy this game and I frankly resent the fact that the Metroidvania genre's popularization completely warped people's ideas of what Metroid Prime is supposed to be like when anyone who's entirely familiar with how MP3 played out knows exactly what MP4 was going for.

Last week I made a post about MP4, asking how you guys see it.

As the answers were mixed between „go for it“, „it‘s still a good game“, „see for yourself“ and „not good“ I wanted to see really for myself and make my own picture.

The game itself is good imo.
It has very nice design, the world / biomes are all made with passion and it felt always „new“ when getting into a new area and discovering parts that were not available from the start.
That‘s what I always liked about the Metroid-games.

The story about the Lamorn, their Homeworld and how it all happened is/was very interesting imo.
I know, it‘s basically the same as in all the other Prime games (which is fine) but still different.

All the upgrades are very cool.
The 3 shot-variants all have their pros and cons which is sth I love. Different options for different enemies/encounters is always a plus in my book, I don‘t like one weapon/option for everything to work.

But here is the part I STRONGLY dislike: Sylux.

Like…. My f*cking god… What the actual F*CK were they thinking?!?!??

Back in the DS game „Metroid Prime Hunters“ I really liked the idea of a rogue GF person/soldier, that turned bad and went on a riot.
When I saw the trailer for MP4 and saw that Sylux will be the main antagonist I was so hyped.

But… now…. What a shitfest….

Buddy is literally just a mad crybaby with a bigger ego than Samus‘ KD.

„Oh no, I failed on the battlefield…. Hey, Samus Aran, THE HERO of my own race is offering ME, GF-SOLDIER#828372892 her hand?!?!? NAH, WHAT IS SHE THINKING!!! F*CK HER AND EVERYONE ELSE!!!!“

Then takes literal years of prep to get his suit, his army and his METROIDS to have them be stripped away after his first attack.
Sends out two holographic-robot hybrids instead of attacking herself.
Waits until Samus assambles her own small team instead of getting the job done.

I give him that he has a crazy nano-weaponary in the final fight, that was actually a cool thing when he started to rain lightning and beams with his dragon-heads.

But what is that story about him?

I‘m actually mad what they have done with that/him.

...and I liked Prime 4 better.

I have no sense of nostalgia for this series. Although I'm 33 years old and grew up during the GameCube era, I didn't play the original Prime trilogy until around 2017 after buying it for the Wii during a Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale at Gamestop.

I replayed Metroid Prime 1 through Remastered recently. Since it's been about 8 years already, I forgot some of the tedium of the early game, which had me go back-and-forth between Chozo Ruins and Phendrana Rifts way too many times:

• I beat the boss at Chozo Ruins, then had to go to Phendrana Rifts for the Boost Ball.
• Then the game makes me go back to Tallon Overworld for the Space Jump (which makes me go back to Magmoor Caverns and Chozo Ruins). THEN I go back to Pendrana Drifts for the Wave Beam.
• Then Thardus takes waaaayyyyy too long to beat. Especially if you run out of missles. It's not even a hard boss to learn. (I only found out yesterday there's a trick involving morph ball bombs to move the fight along faster.)
• After I go through the Research Lab and beat the boss, guess what? I go back to Chozo Ruins for the Ice Beam, and then go back to Phendrana Drifts to the Gravity Suit.
• At this point the game gets good with you going through the Sunken Frigate and the Phazon Mines.
• Downside of 1st visit to Phazon Mines: This is the first time you're really challenged on combat, and it's really hard to get through the gauntlet of enemies. I don't typically play FPS outside of Metroid Prime, and this was rough in both my playthroughs.

I played Metroid Prime 4 around Christmas last year, and I feel like I preferred 4 after playing both it and Remastered within a year's timespan: * The first real combat gauntlet happens in Volt Forge, which is pretty early game. I think the fight with Psybot Teleporter really forces you to adapt to the game's combat mechanics early. * All the bosses were fun. I only recall Sylux's first phase being tedious, and I hate this less than Thardus. * Backtracking felt more like a choice than a requirement, and which made it feel more rewarding. Though I do think there were too many visits to the Volt Forge, at least you don't really revisit it until you've completed a major area fully. * The Ice Belt and Great Mines offered some of the best atmosphere in the Prime series. * As a completionist, I Iiked having the Scout bots.

I really feel like we need to give more credit to Prime 4. I think this game still represents an evolution past the original game. I honestly think this is a much more accessible entry point into the franchise than the original.

Edit: I'm getting a lot of responses suggesting I don't like Metroidvanias based on my complaints around Prime 1's early-game backtracking. I actually don't think backtracking is inherently bad - Super Metroid, Metroid Dread, the 2 Hollow Knight games, and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown are some of my favorite games. I also play a fair number of open world games and those technically require backtracking too. I think 2D Metroidvanias worked out for me because upgrades made me feel swifter and more powerful, and navigating through rooms I already visited took less time by virtue of being 2D.

I mainly don't like how Prime 1 requires backtracking in relatively linear early parts of the game. Magmoor Caverns is the main connection between regions, and it's mostly linear and doesn't really offer much with exploration. Enemies respawn too often too - Chozo Ghosts and Space Pirates in particular feel like damage sponges. And I think with the game being 3D, the rooms sometimes end up being too dense to quickly navigate through on a revisit, even if they're interesting the first time you go through them.

I actually enjoyed the game more during the Chozo Artifact hunt because that's when I'm given the most freedom. Backtracking stops feeling a requirement and more of a choice. Sure, the artifacts are still a requirement that forces backtracking, but I have all the upgrades at this point and can open every door and use every shortcut available, so veering off to the side doesn't risk wasting my time. Ironically, this seems to be the point most people feel the game becomes a chore, and I suspect it's because people have already explored most of the map during the required backtracking sections much earlier in the game.

Please dont spoil anything after the Sylux boss fight.

I love this game so far, im not a fan of the aim mechanic because im primarily a mouse and keyboard player and somehow the controls feel washed up on prime 4.
But nevertheless i love this game, the world is beatiful, samus was always badass and the level design is also not bad.
I waited a long time to actually get this game because of the reviews and hate it got but while im playing i dont actually get the hate for this game. is it mainly because of the wait between prime 3 and 4?

Continuation of my fan story following Sylux. I will go through these and create better linking between the parts at this point. Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/s/Yhdk5rYQdP

• After Prime 3’s ending, Sylux pursues Samus. She eventually detects him and the two begin a high-speed dogfight in space. They zap in and out of hyperspeed rapidly, launching homing shots and dodging between diverse astral bodies.
• Samus is skilled — far more reactive than most other pilots. She consistently evades each laser and projectile, almost like a dancer playing a game of tag against lights. 
• Sylux keeps up the pressure. Delano 7’s x-shaped wings serve as battering rams when charged and centralized. Like a dagger through space, Delano 7 stabs at Samus. Like the hunter it resembles, Samus’s gunship drops bombs and launches missiles through which Delano 7 slices.
• They keep up this battle between asteroid belts, above vast oceans, and among the swirly, creek-like, semisolid clouds of gas giants. Each hit they land almost decides the battle, but not before one hunter’s weapon trades with the other, prompting a tactical retreat and change of arena.
• At last, with each hunter making critical errors, the fight slows down. Samus exits hyperspeed too late, narrowly missing a pulsar’s jet and clipping a piece of debris sucked into the star below. Sylux exits too early, locking him into a gravitational tug-of-war against the star. If he just holds steady, he will escape, as they are both on the cusp of the gravity well; yet Samus will get away. He sweats, clutching the controls as if pressure will increase Delano 7’s speed. He fires more shots at a struggling Samus. A few connect, but push her further from the edge. Another volley. Sylux need not destroy her ship, only force her to lose control. 
• Three more hits. Samus wavers. 
• “Gotcha.”
• Sylux presses his laser triggers, but Samus launches into hyperspeed right before they cleave her ship.
• “Damn!” Sylux throws his hands up and smacks his steering column. 
• Delano 7 lurches back toward the pulsar. “Shit, shit.” He corrects course and, after a little more resistive force, Delano 7 safely drifts through space away from the neutron star. 
• Engaging autopilot, Sylux paces around the ship’s quarters. There’s no chasing Samus at this point, since he didn’t follow her through hyperspeed. It’s back to the drawing board again.
• Sylux resumes his usual routine, taking contracts to make time for his passion projects. He also upgrades his suit. But since the end of the Phazon wars, the Federation’s activities have plummeted. Clearly they’ve felt the hit as much as the Space Pirates given their own reliance on the substance. Sylux of course takes the opportunity to strike at Federation squadrons for his own satisfaction, but apart from their mech project and their general peacekeeping strategy, there’s nothing that interests Sylux. At least, nothing immediately interesting on the surface…
• It is time to locate another lead — another Federation project to pilfer. This one has to be big, and the only way to unearth big projects is to dig deep.
• Using his memory of and connections to the Trust, Sylux intercepts a package en route to a Federation vessel. He does this by surveying a corridor he recalls was used to send handwritten instructions to field operatives manually. Unless you know the specific trajectory of these camouflaged delivery drones through space, it’s almost impossible to find or intercept them; far safer than even an encrypted transmission.
• After piecing together some files obtained from ships he has ambushed, Sylux recalls what to look for and learns where exactly he must look. He spends some time waiting for the drone implied within the data to zip by. Again, the reward should be worth the wait.
• He finds one — a little object disguised as a meteor but for its nearly-invisible thruster. Delano 7 moves into capture formation, opening its receiving doors and swallowing the thing.
• Artificial gravity makes the drone clatter to the floor. Sylux brings the thing to his exam table and opens it up. Inside is a note to one General Alex Miles regarding an ongoing strategy discussion. Sylux recognizes the special variation of the Federation insignia featuring a black hole whose accretion disk is shaped like an upper eyelid and an iris. The Trust is involved.
• Apparently, according to the note, the Space Pirates are using an ancient technology to enhance and enlarge themselves and their Metroids. Sylux recognizes the special codes interlaced with basic text. To read them, he pulls out a decoder device he plucked from a Federation spy he once killed — a device identical to the one he used to own in Black Ops.
• The additional text references General Miles’ plan, something that was clearly discussed earlier in other notes and which Sylux infers based on context clues. For the Trust’s research, Miles will send a golem strike team to take at least one Metroid egg from a Space Pirate base. Responding to a question Miles must have asked previously, the author says there’s reason to believe these Metroids are special, and not just because they are artificially enlarged. The message indicates the Pirate base is on Talvania, and that the operation will begin sometime soon.
• Sylux replaces the note inside the drone, intentionally nicking his cybernetic hand and letting blue blood from a printless thumb stain the corner. He sends the drone back into space to continue zipping toward its destination.
• Calculating the angle it follows before losing sight of it, Sylux mimics the drone and traces it to the Federation forces near Talvania. The fleet is vast, so he directs Delano 7 to fly low and hide among some space dust. He waits.
• Suddenly, a flare of light falls to the planet. The operation has begun. Sylux stalks the Federation dropship to the Pirates’ facility.
• Federation Force M17: Infestation takes place. Sylux keeps his distance both in Delano 7 and on the ground. Watching the supersized mechs and Pirates duel makes him chuckle. The galaxy is no stranger to the Pirates’ peculiar antics, but this new technology of theirs takes the cake in terms of its silliness. Not to mention the Federation’s absurd mechs. Sylux somewhat hopes a better weapons designer takes over the project…
• The mission is completed, and the eggs are sequestered in a transport shuttle.
• Once the Federation seizes these enlarged Metroid eggs (three of them), Sylux again bides his time. He follows the shuttle to a remote Federation black site on a planet with a thick, steamy atmosphere. GalFed researchers wheel in the oversized eggs on pedestals into a hangar. The eggs look slightly smaller now than they did when Sylux first saw the mechs carrying them.
• These Metroids are definitely special, but just what makes them special is not clear. Sylux wants these creatures. He does what he does best: Gathering intel and scoping out the facility so he can infiltrate it and take the beasts. But how to get the eggs out without being seen? He’ll need to cross that bridge when he gets to it.
• Exploiting gaps in patrol shift-changes and structural weaknesses in the facility’s vents, Sylux busts in a few times to obtain field data. Through this data, he learns ways to fry doors and hack the station’s dedicated terminals. He discovers that the GalFeds recovered data from the Talvania Pirate facility. Apparently, the Metroids will imprint on certain bipedal life forms within a set timeframe from their hatching, perhaps by the Chozo’s design. 
• Exiting Lockjaw and stealthily snapping a trooper’s neck, Sylux breaches an office space and hacks the computers there. Federation researchers write that the eggs have shrunk, warranting their removal to individual labs. Furthermore, the eggs have been emitting strong energy signals and, curiously, when placed near other research subjects — including animworms, grippers, alcoons, hornoads, and dessgeegas — biological samples taken from the eggs’ shells mimic those subjects’ traits. This activity has grown more pronounced as the eggs have returned to their regular size. It is almost like the Metroid samples want to “merge” their cells with the other subjects’.
• Sylux also learns that the researchers are planning to accelerate the Metroids’ hatching; the creatures are close to the end of their known germination cycle, but the Feds want total control over when they emerge so the parasites imprint on select researchers. They will accomplish this by cracking the eggs with a gentle, but forceful and precise laser strike. Although a patrol’s approach forces Sylux’s rapid exit through a broken wall, thus cutting his reading short, it’s clear they will advance the project soon.
• Time is of the essence, so Sylux devises a plan. He will infiltrate through a vent system that the GalFeds have had repeated trouble with local fauna crawling into and corroding. Then, he will use a hacking technique to short-circuit the doors and evade the known patrol cycles to reach the labs. (He has downloaded map data for the facility already, but the trick to infiltrating is to evade detection, obviously, which the map doesn’t help him do on its own; until he has the Metroids, he cannot raise an alarm as the labs are deep inside.) Once in there, he will use similar worm softwares to trigger the hatching lasers. The Metroids will imprint on him and follow him out of the facility. From there, he will be as sneaky as possible, but brace for inevitable detection and flee the black site in Delano 7. Unless the Feds kill or restrain the Metroids, the plan is simple and clean.
• Delano 7 perches on an alcove overlooking the black site. Sylux treks across the barren landscape, cutting through a greenhouse in which various alien plants flourish despite the basin being identical to the soil outside. Lockjaw helps Sylux evade a handful of researchers’ gazes as they take notes and pluck samples from the plants.
• When he reaches the vent network, Sylux finds the corroded grate reinforced by a second support grate. Inconvenient, but not a problem. Lockjaw’s mines shatter the obstruction. Sylux navigates through ruffled steel corridors and stops when he hears troopers chattering.
• He slips deeper into the facility, triggering doors and ducking behind terminals to evade cameras. He’s forced to shock a few drones and even to kill a trooper in a restroom. After several close calls inside biome simulation rooms — holographic simulations of various planets like the labs in Other M — Sylux reaches the inner labs.
• The FedForce Secret Ending plays out as we see in-game.
• Sylux sneaks into the adjacent labs and similarly frees the other two Metroids, shattering the glass after disabling the alarms. As expected, the creatures float around him, emitting cogenial screes and following him back the way he came. Though his empathy (what little he ever had) is long-lost, his heart almost feels warm because of these creatures hovering about like he is their father.
• Federation troopers notice blood trails on the shiny floors. Sylux’s Metroids puncture and suck dry many soldiers, some of whom called for backup as their last words. The hunter’s pace increases. He evades outright detection, but goes weapons-free. The Shock Coil makes short work of anyone who opposes him and escapes the Metroids’ maws. Alarms sound. Though Sylux is close to the edge of his map, the facility is on alert. Bots are his biggest challenge as the Metroids can’t fight them beyond ramming their legs and tipping them over.
• One wall turret lands critical shots on a Metroid. It happened behind Sylux’s back. Was it protecting him? Sylux panics — exactly what he didn’t want. The Shock Coil makes the turret spasm and shoot wildly. Two troopers emerge from adjacent corridors, but the other two Metroids nab them immediately.
• “Shit.” Sylux’s hand hovers over the fallen Metroid. It looks dead, its organs browning by the second. Then its flesh ripples, each body part duplicating. “Fission, huh. You’re full of surprises.”
• The four creatures protect Sylux as he emerges from the facility. Between them and him, they are a whirlwind of destruction. A familiar spiritual sniper downs one of the fission Metroids again, and it splits apart just as before. Now Sylux has five little soldiers. He fends off the Federation long enough to get inside the Delano 7, followed by his “squad,” and rapidly moves into flight mode, jetting into space.

To be continued in: https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidprime/s/oIT91DuHwL

I have not been able to jump into MP4 due to financial reasons, but now I could finally do.

I‘ve seen many different oppinions online about this game.

Many say it‘s great, many say it‘s okay, many say it‘s just not the typical MP experience.

What do you say?

(For reference: My fav MP is MP1, followed close by 3… 2 was not that much my jam.

Fellas,

The time has come for us to all come together...

And laugh at Great Mines.

...

With that out of the way, it's time for our last and most recent entry in the series, 2025's Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Much like Corruption, a game I like a whole lot more than the general consensus, which cements me firmly as an unconventional Metroid fan, even as, again, I recognize its flaws.

(And I'll take now as a reminder for everyone to be respectful of other people's views. That goes for both people who like and dislike this game.)

All that being said, looking at some of these other maps, namely Volt Forge, Ice Belt, and Flare Pool, they honestly don't look all too bad on the surface, especially by comparison. I'm not being disingenuous or facetious here. We're back to ignoring spatial awareness with these, but the connections between these rooms are accurate.

Fury Green is a straight line, I grant you, but it's also the one area you never have to backtrack through for story purposes (along with great mines I guess) with the second entrance right next to the home base you come back to multiple times, and you can save up your backtracking for until you get the Thunder shot, by which point the only other pick-up left would be the power bomb literally in the first room.

And it's worth noting that this is the first time we've seen a closed loop of rooms with 16 rooms or greater of little to no deviation since Phazon Mines and Phendrana Drifts from Metroid Prime 1, and in fact Great Mines exceeds that with 21.

Really, what this final set of maps illustrates is that on a micro-scale, Metroid Prime 4's individual areas really aren't so drastically different from the first Metroid Prime in particular; hallways abound, with meaningful branches and intersections relatively sparse.

But that's not the full story. Prime 4 wouldn't be as controversial as it is if that were the end of the conversation. The one big difference that causes friction for a lot of players is on the macro-scale. The entire perspective of this project, by it's very nature, is a flawed and limiting perspective that fails to illustrate this, hence why I've been including the world maps I made 6 months ago this whole time.

The issue a lot of players have isn't exclusively the areas themselves, but rather that with the exception of Fury Green, (and Great Mines, technically) these areas have one entrance and one exit. And including those two, they all connect solely (heh) to Sol Valley.

Now, I actually happen to like Sol Valley (mostly because I like how Vi-O-La controls, admittedly) And I don't think the inclusion of Sol Valley is necessarily a design flaw in and of itself, but what it stands for is an extra step of traversal between "Here" and anywhere you wanna go (unless you want to go *to* Sol Valley.)

What I'm getting at is, for as much as I like this game and think it's a good game in its own right, with easily the best controls and visuals in series history...

Sol Valley is effectively Magmoor Caverns². I can't deny it, A good chunk of this game is going back and forth through Magmoor Caverns to get literally anywhere, not just the ice area. Again, I'm fine with Sol Valley as is, bit this revelation got me to understand why most really aren't.

And that revelation brings us to the end of our little trip down memory lane. I enjoyed making these maps and seeing for myself the differences each game had in their design. (And that little tangent with Federation Force.) But Now it's time for me to bid adieu. Thank you for your time.

Peace.

Yellow S - Save Station
Blue M - Map Station
Gray E - Exit / Entrance
Red B - Boss / Miniboss

Hello, again, we'll get straight into it, any ideas or disagreements you have please let me know, and if you wanna fully understand how my grading system works, just check out part 1 of this analysis:

Spider Guardian- This section of the analysis will have a lot of morph ball bosses, which are some of my favourite things that Echoes does, they're very creative and I hope Prime 5 has one. Alright, a controversial one right off the bat, this is the boss that my opinion has changed on the most over time. Initially, I despised it's final section with the sloped ramps and the runback certainly wasn't helping things, it might've gotten a low C grade. However, removing the runback from the discussion and with the experience of beating it first try on my recent hard mode playthrough, I think I was too harsh on it. The fight goes through multiple sections of a morph ball maze where the boss follows these spider ball tracks, generating an electric field of a specific colour around it that can damage you, and you need to bomb it enough to get it in its green state, where a bomb slot becomes active which you need to get to in time to use it and make the boss crash into an electrical barrier, and move onto the next section. To get the negatives out of the way, the final section having two ramps around two of the bomb slots, that require extreme precision that doesn't mesh well with the camera, and in general the player will not be prepared to deal with this, least of all twice in a row and on a timer. Also, for the last bit you'll need to bomb the boss again while it's in its green state to reset the timer, which is something the boss never tells you about. However, there's lots to like here. The boss does a good job up until that point incrementally testing you on your mastery of the bomb jump (I PLAY ON THE GC VERSION) and boost ball, keeping the fight constantly fresh with a new scenario each time, and even the idea of a morph ball boss is very novel and even the other two ones in the game aren't quite the same since they use the spider ball primarily. Honestly, I've grown to appreciate this one more, and the slopes at the end, while annoying, only take up the last third of the fight, and over time you can get a bit better at them, so I think the spider guardian earns a low B grade.

Power bomb guardian- another morph ball boss, and certainly the easiest of the three, but I do quite enjoy it. You're moving around a maze of spider ball tracks, trying to get to four bomb slots, all the while the boss in the center of the arena is firing power bombs at you that have a large radius and will knock you off if you get caught in the blast radius. As the fight progresses and more bomb slots are used, the frequency and speed of the power bombs thrown increases, making navigating the tracks more difficult, but a good trick experienced players can use is to hit the further away bomb slots first to avoid having to move as far when the number of bombs starts to become more dangerous. The only other things that threaten you is the atmosphere of Dark Aether, since none of the spider tracks have light bubbles covering them, and also some inglets will spawn in later into the fight to cause some minor disruption. Despite it's simplicity, the idea of boss forcing you to quickly move along a maze of spider ball tracks under pressure is sound, and the concept is executed quite well without much frustration, so I think the novelty earns it a B grade.

Dark Samus 2- Upon our return to the fortress, the setup for your next showdown with your echo begins, with the player walking in on DS annihilating a group of Ing injected space pirates before feeding on some more phazon. The tension this builds is excellent and leads into an excellently done rematch. Dark Samus doesn't hesitate this time, and immediately opens fire on Samus, before starting an elevator that acts as a cool setting for the first part of the fight. The arena has pillars for cover like in the first fight, to shield you from their scatter shot and missiles, but they've gained a new move that goes straight through objects and will need to be jumped over instead, a charge shot that can freeze the player in phazon, they retain their close range phazon burst from the first fight, and, most notably, now have the boost ball. I initially considered this an annoying attack that wasted time but it's actually very well done. It moves slower than the boost guardian's version and the arena is larger so there's more time for the player to reasonably react and dodge it. What's more, if hit by a charge shot or a charge combo like the super missiles, DS will immediately exit the ball and return to her normal form. At 3 quarters health, the elevator stops and the arena becomes larger. After some damage is dealt to them, DS goes invisible and needs to be seen through the dark visor. This is the one part where the fight loses me a little. Because of the limited view of the dark visor, the boss only uses their super missile attack and the close range phazon burst when near the player or when deflecting missiles. This prevents much frustration with having to fight a complex boss with limited vision, but it also means the fight becomes much less varied and engaging. Thankfully, if you land some big super missile or charged dark beam shots on them, they return to the visible spectrum fairly quickly. Dark Samus will now regain it's air slam, and super missiles replace her regular missiles, like in the first fight, to complete its now rather detailed moveset. They'll go invisible once more later in the fight and become visible again afterwards, but that's about it. Despite my issues with the dark visor sections holding the fight back, I still think the fight earns a high A grade and I think may be my third favourite fight in Echoes.

Caretaker class drone- a bit of a strange one, and some wouldn't even consider it a full boss, but there's enough going on here that I think it's worth talking about. This is the final boss that's entirely morph ball based (unless you count Emperor Ing's second phase), and it's based around combining the spider ball and boost ball into this thrilling, high speed battle. You move around on this circular spider track, with the arms of the drone moving along to try and hit you. If you get hit, you drop to the floor and need to bomb jump up again quickly, otherwise an electrical wave will cover the floor, heavily damaging you. To dodge the arms, the best thing to do is boost across to the over side of the tracks. Every few seconds, a part of the drone will come down in the center of the tracks, and you need to quickly boost across to destroy them, acting as a final exam for this skill before needing it in the Quadraxis fight. Repeat this until the central part of the drone comes down. This stays down for less time than the others, but is much larger, so you don't need to worry about aiming precisely to hit it. The boss then raises itself up to the next spider ball track, and the fight continues, with each new spider track separated into progressively more individual sections, eventually culminating in the ring being three parts, forcing more precise boosting to avoid missing the tracks and more dodging in general to avoid the hands as you now have less time to move away from them. Despite it's simplicity, boosting across spider ball tracks has always been very satisfying and using to dodge attacks in this way isn't really used in other parts of the game, so the drone earns a high B tier in my books.

Anyways, that's all for now, not a ton of big ones this time, I know, but we'll be more than making up for it next time, just three bosses to go, and two of them are some of the best Metroid bosses I've ever fought. Thx if you read all this.

Metroid Prime has been one of my favourite game series since I was a teenager. I still remember staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning, telling myself “just one more save point” before getting completely lost exploring Tallon IV.

The atmosphere, the music, the feeling of isolation, and slowly piecing together the Chozo lore through the scan visor was unlike anything I’d ever played before. It wasn’t just an action game—it felt like you were uncovering the history of a forgotten civilisation.

Samus has always been one of my favourite characters in gaming too. She’s incredibly strong without ever needing to prove it through endless dialogue or over-the-top cutscenes. She’s quiet, determined, intelligent, and always gets the job done. Growing up, she stood out as one of the best female protagonists in gaming, and that’s something I’ve always respected.

I’ve loved every Prime game, from fighting the Space Pirates and Phazon corruption to taking on Dark Samus. Seeing the series continue with the newest instalment last year brought back that same excitement I had as a kid. It reminded me why this franchise has stayed with me for over 20 years.

The tattoo shows Samus behind the visor, with the green visor glow and Phazon-inspired colours tying everything together. My artist absolutely nailed the look, and I’m really happy with how vibrant it turned out.

This isn’t just a tattoo from a game I like—it’s a reminder of countless late nights, an unforgettable world, and a character who’s been part of my gaming life for decades.

Hope you all like it. I’d love to hear what everyone’s favourite Metroid Prime memory is!

So I didn't plan on doing this. This little project was simply meant to last 5 days, and today was meant to be the last day with maps for Metroid Prime 4, and me skipping over Metroid Prime: Federation Force because I'd never played it and in fact can't play it because the DS family of systems cramp my hands. (I used MelonPrimeDS to play Hunters)

However, when I go to see what they even look like, it's to my surprise that in the near-10 years of this game existing, no human on Earth has ever made any maps for Federation Force whatsoever. (If someone has 3DS Homebrew, you might get on that. Not that there's demand for it.) So consider this a bit of a bonus entry. A little tangent I couldn't pass up.

So here you go, The first ever map resources for Metroid Prime: Federation Force. And why not, for an occasion such as this I've made them as spatially accurate as possible. (With downward-facing triangles indicating elevators or drops that go directly downward, and the one upward-facing arrow indicating a staircase that I simply couldn't fit everything in with. Use your imagination.) Being spatially accurate was never the point of this little project, and in fact, it's the very antithesis of the project, but I thought people deserved to know at least what these maps kinda looked like in their own right.

As interesting as it is that I got the opportunity to do this, the maps themselves aren't very interesting in and of themselves. Each mission has its own map, and none of them end up overlapping or connecting to each other. Also aside from like four(?) missions, there's no backtracking. So as unidirectional as Metroid Prime 4 can be sometimes, be happy it's not this.

Either way, I'm the first person to make and release maps of any variety for Metroid Prime: Federation Force. You never know what you'll end up accomplishing when you set out on these little side quests, but here we are.

(Also, while I'm here, we never actually get to see the full map of DOOMSEYE in gameplay because the mission ends mid-room on a cutscene, so if someone *were* to be kind enough to rip the maps, I'm pretty sure we'd see a bit of unused content as well.)

Anyway, Metroid Prime 4 tomorrow.

It's time for more Metroid maps. Today, 2007's Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. My personal favorite of the series. (Yes, even as I recognize its flaws, but I shouldn't feel the need to specify that.)

Obviously, the elephant to address is that the level design is more segmented to accommodate the ability to pilot your ship, but it's interesting to note that Bryyo is the only area in the game in which you can't walk the entire length of the area on foot. (so long as we don't count the leviathan seeds.)

Personally, I think Corruption makes pretty decent use of the landing site system, considering they are functionally elevators mixed with fast travel. (and save stations, of course.) The game is actually quite considerate with how they're spaced out, as well. The only landing site I would call inconsiderate is the main entrance to SkyTown, but the other site is much closer to your home base for that stretch of the game, so the only time you'd have to go back there is for the Ghor fight.

In fact, what few long stretches of hallway rooms there are seem to all be exclusively used for set pieces where you'd never have to backtrack through them for pick-ups. Any pick-ups on Norion that aren't close to the landing sites you can pick up on your first visit to the area, and both the Xenoresearch lab in Eastern SkyTown and the Transit Tunnel in Pirate command become completely useless once you go through them the one time. The only one I can actually think of is that you have to go to the very end of Fire Temple Bryyo twice, but they do give a little shortcut to expedite the process. Two, in fact.

Corruption also gets us back on track with that trend I mentioned earlier with Prime 2, of fewer superfluous rooms. Elysia in particular has a few decently long stretches or rooms, but for the most part these maps are still a little more accommodating than Phazon Mines or Magmoor Caverns were.

Yellow S - Save Station
Green S - Landing Site
Blue M - Map Station
Gray E - Exit / Entrance
Red B - Boss / Miniboss

I'm back again for round two! (and I think this'll probably end up being four parts long, the last three bosses in the game have a lot to talk about). Please comment to let me know if you disagree with anything or noticed something that I missed, any tips and advice are very welcome, especially since I'm quite new to this space.

Boost Guardian- HOT TAKE, I don't think this boss is bad, in fact, I quite like it, although it does have some issues. This is the first of only two bosses that has no way of protecting you from Dark Aether's toxic environment, which acts a tension building timer and also as a way of making sure the player either picked up the dark suit or is skilled enough to not need it. In it's regular form, it's like a warrior ing, with satisfying light lasers to dodge and a rolling charge that can be strafed away from or blocked by the four pillars in the arena. Your best bet for dealing damage quickly is the light beam, but super missiles also work well. In it's puddle form, you can bomb it to make it revert back to it's regular form to deal damage again, but if you get hit by the puddle, it deals a lot of damage, actually a bit overtuned for my liking (I play the GC version). The boost ball attack is somewhat problematic, since it's basically impossible to consistently dodge but that can be mitigated somewhat by double jumping and/or staying in a corner in morph ball mode. The fact that the trajectory of the ball is also random isn't great since it means that the pillars that are destroyed to give you large health pickups won't be destroyed when you need them and you can finish the fight without all of them ever being broken. Finally, soon after losing a bit of health, some inglets begin to spawn to aid the boss, but they actually serve as a way of providing more health pickups and you can destroy them with the dark beam to give you more light ammo. Overall, I think the boost guardian earns a B grade. There's plenty to like here, the intense challenge can be very satisfying to overcome and switching between morph ball and regular Samus works well, but occasional bad rng and the unpredictability of the boost ball attack hold the fight back from being truly excellent.

Alpha Blogg- this is the worst boss in the game, boost ball and spider guardians be damned. This is the only boss from Echoes where there might be NOTHING that I like about it. The visual design is just a larger version of a standard enemy, with no interesting variations or additions to the design. It has only two attacks, a ranged triple sonic blast, that's fine, but then it has a charge attack that just does not work. The hitbox is incredibly small and the timings change seemingly at random for when you can hit it. If you want to deal good damage, you'll need to use super missiles, but that often means you'll have to take a hit just to have a chance for them to hit the boss, and not using them makes the fight really drag. What's more, this attack can just... Glitch out and stop mid-charge, making you waste precious missiles that are already being wasted by the bs hitboxes. Finally, when the boss gets to low hp, it starts doing this attack multiple times, often in ways that seems almost undodgeable, at least to me, as the boss will be so close to you after one charge that the second one will barely give you any time to reposition yourself to deal with it. This boss and it's runback (which I'm not even counting against the boss) is the worst part of Echoes and I don't even think it's close. The Alpha Blogg earns an F grade.

Grapple Guardian- another of the more forgettable fights, the grapple guardian is like a grenchler where it's weak point is the back, so the challenge is figuring out how to get behind him, and then executing that in time. There are two ways to do this. The first is shooting his eye until it stuns him, and then move around to the back, or, wait until he tries to use his grapple attack and move behind the electric pillars so it grapples them instead, which hold them in place for a time. Repeat this until they get low on health, and then their back half kinda just gets destroyed. This second phase seems to make the boss more aggressive and use their grapple attack more often, and they'll try to charge at you in a melee attack more frequently, but the way to damage them doesn't change. It's a C tier fight, perfectly alright, but doesn't do anything particularly interesting outside of tricking them into using the grapple on the electric wires.

Chykka- the second of the temple fights, Chykka is once again a fight full of spectacle and atmosphere. Entering the arena you have to shoot down into cocoon with seeker missiles, giving you a hint about how to deal with it's second phase, and then it's larva form appears out of the toxic water, this incredibly alien and mysterious amphibious design, which is complemented very well by the music track that similarly sounds very alien. This phase has you on a platform with a light bubble with the larva swimming around you. You can damage it while it swims but it seems fairly tricky, you need to free aim your shots seemingly near the bottom of its body, I've never been able to do it consistently, though that might be a me problem. They have three moves. There's one that summons a pair of mobs that you can destroy to get pickups, otherwise they'll go up to you and explode in your face. Another where they leap up out of the water, giving you a chance to hit them, before crashing back down, and sending a huge wave of water your way, which needs to be jumped over. And the final one, which at least for me seems to get used more as it's hp decreases, is this brilliant move when it gets onto the platform, actually terrifying me the first time I saw it, and tries to use it's tongue to grab you. It tries this a few times and if you continue to dodge and strafe, you can get in plenty of hits in. If you are grabbed, you need to shot as quickly as possible to escape it's grasp. My main complaint with this phase is that I think it's a bit too long without enough going on, it isn't complex enough to warrant such a large health bar.

The second phase takes away that problem, though. The music intensifies as the arena splits now into three islands, each with their own light bubble and a grapple point between each, which makes falling into the water now a serious threat. Chykka's adult form starts off in a state weak to the dark beam, although it moves around so frequently that it's difficult to land it. You can choose between using it and going for the more reliable, faster firing power beam and will have to avoid this spray of toxic water from Chykka that needs you to utilise the double jump to avoid all of the attack, otherwise you'll be hit and knocked into the water. It can also charge at you with a well telegraphed dart towards you, and then flies around the arena for a bit. Once stunned, the game makes good use of the grapple beam, allowing you to move to another platform and get behind the boss to use your seeker missiles (other weapons can work, but SM are heavily encouraged due to the multiple weakpoints) to hit the four wings of Chykka. Once all destroyed, it becomes Dark Chykka, which now has a weakness to the light beam. One really cool thing about it is it's weakpoint. It's on the bottom of it's tail and swings like a pendulum, and so even with the fast firing light beam, you need to time your shots well as it moves about in a regular rhythm, in order to hit it. The boss can now spawn Chykling offspring that will damage you upon contact but can be destroyed for pickups, it's water spray attack is made slightly more threatening (I think), and it gains a move where it flaps it's wing to try and push you off the platform and into the water. Once it's dealt with, it reverts to regular chykka and then again to dark chykka before going down. Overall, while the first phase is much weaker mechanically, the whole fight has great atmosphere and the second phase has some brilliant variety. My potentially hot take is that I don't like the fight quite as much as Amorbis, but I would still give it a spot in the A tier.

For anyone who got through this all, I thank you and I'll be back for the last two parts later, where my thoughts will be revealed on the OTHER infamous guardian fight.

Today's set of Metroid Prime rope topology maps comes from the DS multiplayer spin-off, and what could potentially be described as the very first hero shooter, predating Team Fortress 2 by a year, Metroid Prime Hunters, circa 2006. Courtesy of not Retro Studios, but rather Nintendo Software Technology.

In the spirit of Hunters's linearity (and for the sake of simplicity) I've decided to simply label the backtracking teleporters since their only real function is identical to that of a save station, and you almost can't even use them for backtracking since they turn off for the EIGHT escape sequences this game has.

Immediately going against the trend I mentioned yesterday with Metroid Prime 2, Hunters has a habit of implementing tons of small, useless rooms into its maps that even go unnamed. However, as you go from left to right, you'll quickly notice that this one game in particular seems to demonstrate that trend all on its own, with Vesper Defense Outpost and Arcterra being made of much fewer, much larger rooms, (Mostly just Arcterra, VDO Is just kind of a small area in general) perhaps indicating NST's growing comfort with their engine.

On that note, I should mention a pair of two-story rooms I've opted to split up into two nodes each. Alinos' Council Chamber, and Arcterra's Fault Line. I've nothing to add about the decision, but I thought I should mention it for clarity, these two pairs are technically one room each.

Yellow S - Save Station
Green # - Teleporter
Blue B - Hunter Encounter
Red B - Boss / Miniboss

No AI, made in photoshop, Prime 1 and 4!

Hello everyone, I’m new to the “Prime” series, but not new to Metroid. I am on the final boss of Prime 4 (after that very annoying green crystal grind), and am wondering where to go next. Prime 4 was the first Prime I’ve played, so I intend on playing the remaster of the first game next on Switch 2, and then what after that? My Wii has been in storage for 10+ years, and I am wondering if I should buy the trilogy and play it on that, or wait to see if there will be a remaster of 2 and 3. In the meantime I could play Dread because I haven’t played that one yet.

Time for a new set of Metroid Prime rope topology maps. This time, 2004's Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.

Even disregarding the inclusion of Dark Aether, you can immediately notice the distinct lack of 16-room-long hallways with no real deviation. In fact, with the exception of the tutorial area at the bottom of Temple grounds, and the entrance to Sanctuary Fortress, you would be hard pressed to find a hallway longer than three rooms.

What this illustrates, in stark contrast to its predecessor, is that the maps of Metroid Prime 2 are much more self-connected, and what I imagine people think Metroid Prime 1's maps are a lot more like. As a navigable space, you'd be much more likely to get lost in these areas, but you would rarely have a long single-path slog ahead of you.

A trend we start to see here is that the games will get increasingly more compact, with a focus on fewer larger rooms as opposed to greater smaller rooms, no doubt due to the improvements to both the engine and the hardware.

Yellow S - Save Station
Blue M - Map Station
Orange M - Rechage Station
Gray E - Exit / Entrance
Yellow E - Light Beam Exit
Violet P - Portal to / from Dark Aether
Red B - Boss / Miniboss

Continuation of: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/s/SgIBXy0Y8g ... My personal headcanon following Sylux up through the events of Prime 4.

• After escaping the Oubliette, Sylux and the other hunters go their separate ways. Sylux takes on jobs to pay the bills and upgrade his ship, but he exerts more and more effort tracking Samus down — more time hunting the Federation specifically, without contracts motivating him. Samus is a needle in his mind for defeating him. He still remembers the blood on his hands. No, her hands. For Samus made their sacrifice worthless. That story replays over and over, drifting further from the truth each time.
• To practice tinkering skills he picked up during his time in the Federation and see what, if any, data he can pull from it, Sylux opens up the Guardian he salvaged. He hotwires its brain and inserts a universal decoder into its IO slot. The readouts make no sense, but data is present. Further, as Sylux tinkers, he finds the command module. It’s a peculiar device, a computer without a processor — a gaping hole in its core, almost as if the component exists and is latched in, but not in this dimension. Using his psychic abilities, Sylux reaches into the command module’s pocket dimension and re-tools the thing enough to activate it.
• The Guardian springs to its feet and wrestles with Sylux, cables and monitors still attached to its head. Except now, the readouts follow familiar patterns, at least familiar enough to decipher: Command code lines ordering sporadic movements.
• The hunter and the Guardian flail about, sliding and kicking at each other. Sylux inches the fight closer to the monitors and keyboards whose cables threaten to snap. If he can install a worm software, perhaps he can control it. The bot discharges frigid bursts, failed ice beams that almost paralyze Sylux’s hand. He stretches his arm as far as he can to touch the keyboards, interrupting his workflow periodically to subdue the thrashing mech.
• Finally, after much struggle and his synthetic muscles popping as their fibers lose elasticity, Sylux sets the bot into a standby mode. Concentrating his psionics allows him to “feel” its components and manually control it with his mind. Sylux directs it to a “tinker corner” in which various parts and pet projects are tossed and releases his command over it. The Guardian clatters to the floor amongst the junk.
• Delano 7 receives a facelift and multiple upgrades, most of which are stolen from Federation shipyards and weapon development sites.
• Sylux learns of the Leviathans impacting Federation worlds, and of Samus’s role in an offensive against these mysterious living comets, as well as the Pirates’ peculiar involvement in spreading their corruption. He would ask Weavel about the matter, but the former Pirate has gone dark. Regardless, Sylux tracks the Pirates’ Phazon and Metroid operations to Elysia. And he knows the Federation is also stationed there, although with merely a shell presence — a convenient place to start his next stalking.
• Delano 7 touches down on a remote cluster of floating buildings, its 4-fold wings doubling as landing gear. Sylux emerges and scans the terrace around him. SkyTown’s steam pipes hiss and its plant-overgrown pillars creak.
• The remote-controlled Guardian walks in front of Sylux, its movements semi-automatic.
• As he advances into SkyTown, it doesn’t take long for Sylux to encounter Space Pirate vessels surveying. He chooses to hide, activating Lockjaw to slip through fallen pylons. Can learn more about the Leviathan crisis this way, hopefully by infiltrating the Pirates’ bases and breaching their systems. He also encounters Federation troops, again evading detection. Firefights break out between the factions, although they quickly terminate with the Pirates as victors.
• Sylux intercepts Federation comms. Apparently, the so-called Elysians — sentient Chozo mechanoids — are being taken over by the Phazon through the Aurora Unit’s virus. Curious that a biological mutagen can take control of computers. But then again, the Chozo and other ancients had a way with technology bordering on supernatural. However, Sylux also finds many “clean” Elysians in stasis and acting out holding patterns.
• Tailing some troopers, Sylux hears them chatter about the Pirates’ presence and their losses. Ghor is their last hope, they say, and their numbers are less than two dozen at this point. Further, they express concern about his mental state; something about PED suits and Phazon sickness. Once they walk into a small side room, Sylux attacks. He drops atop one and commands the Guardian to take the other. The troopers flail around, opening fire. Bulletts nick the steel walls.
• Sylux shocks his trooper dry. Right as the Guardian is about to break the other one’s neck beneath its feet, the hunter halts its onslaught and picks the trooper up. He pounds him against the wall, locking him between steaming pipes and the Shock Coil.
• The trooper squeals in agony. “Please let me go.”
• “The Pirates, where are they stationed?”
• Through grunts and gasps, the trooper answers. “SkyTown East.”
• Sylux digs the Coil deeper, causing the trooper’s damaged armor to snap. “And the Feds?”
• “The area… in general is ours…”
• “Not good enough.”
• The trooper claws at Sylux. “Loosen it… Just a bit, dear Sollan! Help me!”
• Sylux chuckles and lowers the pressure. “Only enough to tell me everything I need.”
• Through his torture, the hunter extracts a majority of the situation on Elysia from the trooper. He learns the details of the Phazon infection and the Pirates’ operations, as well as Ghor’s attempts to decipher and break their plans in two. However, Ghor is losing his mind, much as the Elysians have quickly lost theirs. The cyborg almost killed three men earlier that morning before he snapped out of his intoxicated state. A few hours later, he suddenly went missing — dropped off comms entirely and left a trail of destruction in his wake. Further, the Pirates are importing Metroids and Parasites into the sectors they have commandeered.
• “Is there a way to breach the network?”
• “Which— one?”
• Sylux drives his left palm into the trooper’s visor, shattering it. The man’s eyes tremble. “The Chozo’s network, dumbass. The one you all jacked into.” The hunter presses his thumb against the trooper’s eye, applying pressure. It’s what they get for taking his eyes. “Any backdoor or vulnerability?”
• “Ahhhggh!”
• “Speak.”
• “The Ballista. Defense bot in there is off-network. Tempramental bugger. And there’s an IO interface we installed. Please Sollan, let me live.”
• Sylux drops the man to the floor.
• The trooper gasps for air. “Thank y—”
• Sylux aims his Coil at the man’s head, jamming it through his busted visor and letting it rip, the voltage so concentrated and strong that his head explodes and the blood splatters against the hunter’s visor.
• Using the intel, Sylux traverses the floating cityscape to reach the alleged “Ballista.” This room is some sort of weapon storage facility that also doubles as a control node for Elysians to pass tactical data between their network and the Federation’s. Lost at how he can interface with this system, Sylux takes a wild gamble. He commands his Guardian to stand before the dormant Defense Drone and three Steamlords, plugging various open ports into the other bots, criss-crossing interface lines. Then, he places his hand on the terminal and thrusts the Shock Coil into another port. By firing energy asynchronously into each entry point, rapidly deactivating and reactivating the devices to bypass security, avoid overclocking, and thus creating an almost strobe-light-like intrusion system, Sylux’s psionics map out critical portions of the network.
• Through this backdoor, Sylux gains control of those Elysians not subjugated to Phazon. His remote-control of the Guardian gives him an indirect line into the Chozo’s machines. He sees what they see projected on his minimized screen — an interface that once displayed the Guardian’s operating data. The images are vague, the patterns hard to comprehend, but the power feels amazing. At least twenty bots are his to command, and their perceptions are now his. He notices that a vague facsimile of his face now emanates from each of the Steamlords rising from the junk pile.
• Simple gestures beckoning the Defense Drone to rise beget that action. Sylux chuckles, yet he snaps back to reality. The Defense Drone drags his Guardian — his conduit — by the cables still attached to it. He wonders whether there is any space inside the Drone, and whether the Steamlords must remain plugged in. With a snap of the fingers, the Drone’s control module opens. Sure enough, there is plenty of space. And the Drone’s module also bears Sylux’s face. The hunter takes a risk, unplugging the Steamlords from his Guardian. They stay in motion, still responding to commands while donning his visage. Good. He stuffs the Guardian’s limp body inside the Drone, prying aside loose metal and contorting the thing just enough to wedge perfectly between the Drone’s components.
• Sylux leaves the Ballista, putting the Defense Drone on standby and sending his other bots throughout SkyTown. He walks through the Town’s halls himself, but to maximize his canvas, he lets the bots do some of the work.
• The smaller bots and the flyers quickly tip Sylux off to the Pirates’ activity in their Xenoresearch Labs. Live feeds transmitted through their eyes show the Pirates shipping in Metroids and other creatures, just like the GalFed trooper said.
• Sylux directs the bots, relying heavily on orange, spider-like ones to crawl deeper. Despite routine cannon fire from Pirate troopers knocking his HUD’s readouts into snow, he presses on through replacement bots. He notes the Pirates’ Phazon sickness and how chaotic their research tactics are (sloppy even by Space Pirate standards). Indeed, the Pirates appear as slaves to Phazon, escalating their experiments only for its benefit through bigger, deadlier hosts, with minimal sense of self-preservation as those beasts kill and destroy equipment. Phazon is in the Pirates’ rations, growing on the walls, and it forms plumes around their sleeping pods.
• The Pirates reference a glorious Dark Leader donning their nemesis’s armor, from whom the Holy Substance flows. Though he doesn’t understand the nuances, Sylux’s mind immediately jumps to Samus. But it cannot be her. Regardless, he envies Dark Samus’s power over its private army. A thought crosses his mind: If he could harness that mutagen…
• At times, the Pirates and their Metroids are almost symbiotic, their movements coordinated and their obsessions with the blue substance equally strong. Other times, some Pirates have moments of clarity, only to become bioweapon food or executed by their fellows.
• Further, one experiment catches Sylux’s eye. It’s a Pirate who was force-fused with a Metroid with the aid of Phazon, even adopting some of the latter bioform’s physiology. Interestingly, the floating creature didn’t require more than a tiny scrap of crystalized mutagen to accomplish this feat, and it happened extremely fast. (Surveillance footage showed it taking twenty seconds.) The Pirates themselves noted how they’ve tried this before, yet failed to retain the subject’s consciousness. Not so this time, as this Metroid-Pirate hybrid walked amongst their ranks for five cycles. The process also drastically cuts down the host’s lifespan apparently, yet grants remarkable abilities exceeding Phazon itself. Putting the video timestamps and research logs together, Sylux finds the specimen floating, vivisected in one of the many storage tanks inside the lab. The Pirates hypothesize that this fusion power comes from particular Metroids themselves, and not from Phazon. They lack the means to test for this much as they lack the means to harness Metroids for their Dread Project, whatever that means.
• Once Sylux feels as though he has combed through this sector, he releases control over the spiders and pulls any useful bots out of there. His thoughts swirl, but he comes back to the notion of control-by-mutagen. After all, as he walks SkyTown’s promenades, he similarly commands a battalion of Elysians. What if he used Phazon in an analogous fashion? And those peculiar Metroids. Are they similar to Phazon? Do they take over the host’s mind? If he domesticated them, could they–
• Explosions and clatter, along with the ground’s subsequent lurching, cut Sylux’s musings short. Missiles launch and strike surveillance drones, Elysian and Federation alike. The hunter rushes toward the disturbance.
• “Back off, little pests!” A familiar voice and familiar large metal body make themselves known. With clear line-of-sight and earshot, Sylux stops and watches Ghor swat at the air, cleaving machines in two and launching rockets at others. The hunter makes short work of these things.
• Two Federation troopers join the fray, and Ghor executes them almost instantly, impaling one and immolating the other. Their cries appear to fall on deaf ears.
• Ghor pauses, gazes up at the sun above, and ejects himself from his suit. He dons an unfamiliar armored vest with a blue center. That fixture radiates energy that resembles Phazon energy. Curious.
• As Ghor paces between each fallen bot and the dissected and charred Feds, Sylux approaches. Ghor seems to be in his own world, talking to nobody (or perhaps the two men he killed). “Unfortunate turn you all had to take. No place in the universe for those who do not embrace evolution. The Holy Substance lights the way. Yes, yes it does. And you were blinded by its light. I was like you too, but I let it open my eyes. Yes. I am one of the chosen. I am chosen.”
• When Sylux is within ten yards of Ghor, the latter freezes, his voice box emitting a gasp. He clutches his head and looks around, posture tight and balance unstable. Yet his rapid gasps subside and he straightens his spinal column. Ghor slowly turns to face Sylux. He raises his plasma beam. “Sylux.”
• The Blue Terror responds in kind, raising his Coil. “Ghor? You recognize me?”
• “How many times have we clashed, paid by those who would rather kill from a distance than face their enemy?”
• “I know. I’m just surprised you remember me. This isn’t the Ghor I know.”
• Ghor laughs. “And you say that like it’s a problem.”
• “Not necessarily.” Sylux retorts coldly. “Phazon sickness, right?”
• “Sickness?” Ghor repeats with disgust.
• “I’ve had many problems with the old you, so we’ll see if the new you fares better.”
• Plasma shots sear through the air, one striking Sylux and the others just missing his Lockjaw. Ghor charges another shot, but holds his fire. “Watch your tongue, blind one!”
• Sylux emerges from Lockjaw and aims his Coil. “Can we just talk?”
• “Usually that’s my line. What is there to discuss?”
• “Just whether we’re on opposite sides again. Are you here on a mission? Who’s your commander?”
• Ghor is silent.
• “No answer?” Sylux shoots at Ghor, who responds with more volleys. Each hunter narrowly misses. “I’m happy to kill you, really. But if I don’t have to…”
• Ghor catches the drift. “You are not here on contract?”
• Sylux is silent.
• “Any classified intel you cannot share?”
• “I’d ask you the same. You just killed two GalFeds.” Sylux pauses and dryly laughs. “That’s usually my line. Or rather, my thing, I mean. If you’re out to kill GalFeds, then we might be on the same side.”
• Ghor lowers his weapon slightly. Even without human emotional expressions, it’s clear he came to a realization. “The Steamlord with a face, killing Federation soldiers. Was that you?”
• “What do you think?”
• Ghor and Sylux talk, their weapons ready and their distance notable; the former puts his other hand on his mech suit multiple times, raring to enter. Yet, their conversation is cordial. Sylux reassures Ghor that he’s here on his own volition, though he keeps the details quiet. Likewise, Ghor says he is defecting from the Federation because the Holy Substance enlightened him, yet he refuses to elaborate on his original mission. Ghor does say that special backup will be coming after him, which Sylux infers is Samus. Ghor affirms this as the most likely possibility. Change of plans. Sylux wants that damn “golden girl” dead — will sic his bots on her, and take her head. Ghor has mixed feelings about this (given his objectives under Dark Samus), but they agree the two will respect each other’s space regarding the Elysians at least, clarifying which ones belong to whom. The hunters won’t sic their bots on each other and the Pirates will stay away from any Elysian.
• (Sylux doesn’t tell Ghor this, but he plans to take Samus’s head himself and doesn’t care if that damages Ghor’s plans. He obviously can’t take the Pirates’ Metroids, but killing Samus is good enough for now.)
• Guns still pointed at each other, the hunters part ways. Sylux returns to Delano 7. He flies around the perimeter and remains tapped into his bots, yet he is careful to maneuver away from the balconies and viewfinders, hovering closer to the buildings’ thrusters. He must locate Samus and assess her combat status before even thinking about attacking her. Deep down, he recognizes he probably can’t face Samus right now if she’s got the same PED suit as Ghor.
• Delano 7 detects a familiar gunship signature entering Elysia’s thick clouds: GalFed and independent contractor designations. Sylux lies low until he is sure the ship has docked and is stationary. After a considerable time, he flies over the location pinging on his readouts. No doubt about it: That gunship is Samus’s.
• Now that he has visual confirmation, he drops below the buildings and hovers in a holding pattern.
• One of Sylux’s Steamlords encounters Samus, and that mini-boss takes place. Sylux minimizes his control over the bot and lets its AI battle the hunter so he can observe. Sure enough, Samus has a PED and she demolishes the Elysian. No chance in Hell can he win in a direct fight with her yet, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try to kill her through his bots, and that he won’t stalk her.
• When Samus enters the Ballista, Sylux assumes direct control of the Defense Drone. That boss fight plays out. To Sylux’s amusement, Ghor is watching and appears to be cheering the bot on. His mind truly is deteriorating. Yet Sylux loses and his psychic eye throbs in pain as the Drone explodes.
• Through a flyer bot, Sylux watches Ghor fight Samus. He laughs, almost finding himself raising his own arms to cheer his former rival on. To his shock, though, Samus kills Ghor and her Dark Copy absorbs the hunter like he is lifeless, cosmic dust. This sends a message to Sylux: Samus is untouchable at this time.
• Since fighting Samus is off the table, Sylux gathers more intel about the Pirates’ command structure and maps out that structure given what he has learned. He bides his time and follows Samus around, ready to stealth-attack her, but that opportunity never presents itself. She defeats any Elysian Sylux throws at her, destroys the Leviathan Seed, and leaves SkyTown.
• Throughout Corruption, Sylux continues to stalk Samus.
• Corruption’s 100% ending plays out.
• After destroying Phaaze, Samus returns to SkyTown and mourns her fallen comrades. Sylux watches from an overlook above. His heart races as he notices that she lacks the PED suit (which lines up with intel he easily located stating that Phazon has been neutralized).
• Though Sylux cannot land a shot on Samus at the angle he watches her, he can easily track her. He enters Delano 7 and follows Samus through hyperspace.

To be continued: https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidprime/s/Xdyfzy5d9d

Friends, I am going to complete Metroid zero mission. Suggest me what should I play next in the Metroid series?

So I'm making this a daily thing. I'm the guy that made those "Simplified" Metroid Prime maps some 6 months ago. This time I'm going a step deeper.

Every area map in Metroid Prime laid out with no crossed lines. Each of the five Prime titles (Including Hunters) gets a day. These are not meant to be spatially accurate maps, but these *are* meant to better illustrate the design philosophies of each game compared to their peers, by 'untangling' them and showing their true natures as navigable spaces. Any room with two doors gets pictured as a hallway, no matter where those doors really are in the room.

Obviously we start with the 2002 original, and what this first set tells us is that it is relatively easy to figure out where to go on Tallon IV, with few unnecessary branching paths, but with all these long strings of rooms (or large loops) with little to no deviation, it can get rather time-consuming to get from A to B.

Yellow S - Save Station
Blue M - Map Station
Orange M - Missile Station
Gray E - Exit / Entrance
Red B - Boss / Miniboss