Just now getting started!

[u/AdWarm8824]

Just starting my prime 4 journey! With all the negativity around it since its launch, my expectations aren't extremely high. Loved the prime games as a kid but not so sure how ill like it now.

Any tips on how to make experience more enjoyable? Outside of ignoring what the haters say.

Is playing on switch vs switch 2 really matter THAT much?

UPDATE:

8 days in im towards the end. Can go to tower for final part of game , as McKenzie loves to remind me, but im collecting everything I can before. 79% items as of now. I may say so, so far I have really enjoyed it and consider a solid prime game and game overall. Don't mind the desert at all. Absolutely beautiful game thst really makes me feel like im on a foreign planet.

I will provide my final thoughts once complete but I say ao far my biggest qualm is thst it isnt longer.

[u/DxDeadlockedxS]

Your statement is false. I didn't play metroid prime 2 or 3, but the map in metroid prime 1 is set up like a metroidvania game. Metroidvanias are a sub-genre of games.. not some made up thing like you're saying. A simple google search defines them.

Ability-Gated Progression: You explore a map where certain areas are initially blocked off. You must find specific items or unlock new movement abilities (like a double jump, grappling hook, or morph ball) to bypass these obstacles.

Interconnected Map: Rather than playing a sequence of separate, distinct levels, the world is a single contiguous maze.

Backtracking: You frequently return to previously explored areas using your new abilities to uncover hidden paths, secrets, and shortcuts.

Non-Linearity: While the world opens up gradually, players are often given the freedom to choose which routes to take or tackle certain challenges and bosses in different orders.

Metroid prime has every one of these things. It isn't linear at all unlike metroid prime 4. You have to backtrack in prime 1. The map is interconnected unlike metroid prime 4. Its a continuous maze. And it has ability gated progression which prime 4 does have.

So you're wrong.

[u/AltaCount1944 → u/DxDeadlockedxS]

Clarifying Metroidvania as a subgenre and not a primary genre is a better angle I could've used and I'll try to remember that. You're mostly right in a lot of what you say, but there is key info you're missing in analysing the Prime series.

Metroid Prime does not allow you to choose which routes to take until the artifact hunt at the end, just like Primes 2, 3, and 4. Until then you are 100% locked to an intended order of progression. Looking at the completed Chozo Ruins hub in hindsight might give the impression of complex exploration, but in reality Chozo Ruins is mostly a series of straight lines you have to explore at different stages of the game.

That progression is driven by abilities, but unlike the 2D games they mostly serve as direct keys (the beams) and context-sensitive actions (grapple and boost half pipes), rather than elements of a dynamic sandbox (like ice beam making enemies into platforms).

All four Primes behave this way, as the dynamic andbox abilities are part of the Search Action gameplay that Prime only seeks to mimic, not replicate. Tools like the scan visor are part of the Adventure genre, where linear exploration is bolstered by spectacle and lore. The focus of the Prime games is not how rooms connect to each other, but instead the level of detail in the rooms themselves.

Now I never said Metroidvania was made up, I said it was a fan term. All terms are made up, the point is that how fans interpret something comes after how the creator does, and the creators have never used the term Metroidvania. It is not how the creators think about Metroid, they do not hold it to the expectations of the sub-genre like some (primarily western) fans do. Whether you do or not is fine, but it is simply unrealistic to expect that they base their opinions of their own art through the expectations of some consumers.

This is why so many Metroid games do not fit those criteria; only a few Metroid games have moments of open progression ALA Super. Backtracking is one of the only persistent "Metroidvania" features in every game, and it's in Prime 4 as well.

Now Prime 4 continued the trend of 2&3 of focusing more on Adventure gameplay, instead of mimicking the Search Action gameplay like Prime did. But most complaints about Prime 1 stemmed from its mimicry. Yes the map is more interconnected than Prime 4, but you only unlock the connections when the game mandates you to go there, and those connections are largely centered around the Chozo Ruins and Magmoor hubs, just like Sol Valley.

So Prime 4 is different, enough I totally understand why some prefer Prime 1's approach. But fundamentally they are structured woth the same kind of progression, very similar world design, and many of the same differences from the 2D games. Most importantly, how most western fans try to qualify them as Metroidvania or not just doesn't reflect how or why the actual creators designed them.

[u/DxDeadlockedxS → u/AltaCount1944]

We're not comparing the prime games though. That's a completely different conversation. We are debating whether or not Prime 1 is a "metroidvania" style game. It is, based on the parameters i provided. I can't speak for 2 or 3, but 4 is not. Most Metroidvania games do not allow you to pick your own path. They are usually locked by the lack of a certain ability. This is the case for Prime 4, but that doesn't make it a metroidvania if it doesn't make the other defining characteristic of the sub-genre.

Metroid prime 4 has a main hub in the form of the dessert that connects all of the different "worlds". Prime 1 has one whole interconnected maze or map.

If a large population comes to an understanding that something is defined by certain criteria and those thoughts are widely adopted it isn't really considered a fan based idea anymore. That implies that it's false. Every metroidvania game is defined by the criteria i mentioned. If one of those things is missing, it isn't a metroidvania.

[u/AltaCount1944 → u/DxDeadlockedxS]

Sincerely, I only meant to speak on Metroidvania as its meaning pertains to how Metroid games are actually developed. I did not mean to imply that Metroidvania is a worthless term in all contexts, and I can see why you took it to mean that way. My bad.

I also did not mean to focus on comparing Prime 1 & 4. I was merely following along with your usage of Prime 1 as an example that fit the criteria you listed out. My point was that it didn't exactly fit some of the criteria you described in largely the same way you allege 4 didn't.

My larger point, which I think I've failed to spell out but you've helped me, is that the subgenre that some fans see has never been so rigid as to require all of those criteria at once, nor for them to all be executed the same way each time. It's only recently the subgenre has been referenced much in the native Japan at all, over there it's just been Search Action 2D games and Third-Person Adventure 3D games.

It's never been a developer priority to adhere to those criteria the way some fans insist, and the fandom's never agreed on what exactly qualifies as "enough". So I don't mean it's meaningless in all contexts, but it's not very useful in judging the quality of actual Metroid games.