feels like every time I check a thread about Metroid Prime 4, the conversation has completely fallen off the rails. People are taking one minor flaw or one disliked choice and acting like it single-handedly makes the entire game “0/10 Concord-level trash.” It’s wild how fast things get exaggerated.
The best example is the NPC discourse. He says, what, two lines where he tries to joke about his situation, gets excited when he sees Samus, and occasionally gives a one-sentence hint if you go out of your way to talk to him. That’s it. But somehow this tiny thing has become the meme of the game as if he’s narrating every five seconds or turning the whole atmosphere into Borderlands or something.
And look, I get why people are sensitive about tone. Metroid is known for its environmental storytelling, isolation, and meditative pacing. After Other M and the long gap before Dread, people are defensive about anything that feels out of place. But turning a few minor NPC moments into “the downfall of Prime 4” is an insane leap.
What makes it worse is the idea floating around that “we have to support it even if it’s bad, because maybe we’ll get more Metroid.” No. Blindly supporting bad decisions just signals that those decisions were good. That’s how you get more of the same problems. Criticism is necessary.
But at the same time…
Telling a dev “you’re cancer” or “you’re the reason Metroid sucks” isn’t criticism, It’s harassment. And it makes the whole fandom look unhinged.
I’m just tired. The conversation around this game has become so warped and polarized that it barely resembles actual discussion anymore. I just want to enjoy Metroid or ANYTHING without sifting through meltdown posts, doom predictions, and people reviewing the game based on a few NPCs
Can we please chill?
My life got so much better when i stopped looking at any and all gamer discourse. I dont even read reviews anymore I buy games based on the box art like god intended
I think vinesauce put it best when he said it feels wrong to have someone talk in a contemporary manner in a sci-fi game. Especially a game series known for its isolated atmosphere. But, and I’m not too far in the game, there are still some incredible atmospheric moments. I wish Myles wasn’t in the game but I’m not going to let him ruin it for me.
it feels wrong to have someone talk in a contemporary manner in a sci-fi game.
New Star Trek 🇺🇸
“Ahead Warp six-seven Mr. Sulu.”
“Ayo, pause captain Kirk, are you cappin’?”
“No cap on a stack Mr. Sulu, I’m cheesing for some alien huzz.”
Honestly I get how this kind lf things just kill the vibe. I just watched said NPC and I’m my instantaneous reaction was siding with the haters. Marvel/Reddit writing gives me the same sensation as looking at AI slop, some kind of moral degradation, a denial of your own sensitivity and intelligence.
I know it sounds super exaggerated but cultural products are things we engage with in a ritualistic manner. Even big products of profit-driven companies have been (supposedly) made by fellow humans for a reason beyond mere survival, which is powerful. We all crave for a semblance of authenticity and slop eaters are no exception they just don’t know any better.
There’s immense frustration in knowing that a product of a thousands people could be a beautiful thing except for the fact that they collectively disregarded the part where people feel the slightest bit of emotion aka writing and acting
They put Marvel writing in Metroid? Good god
There’s a guy that follows you around for like 20 minutes who does not shut up and is really annoying but then you leave him behind. He still contacts you over radio occasionally after that but far less frequently. People are talking like he ruins the game and I’d rather he not be there, sure, but it’s really only a minor part of the game as far as I’ve seen (which is not that much to be fair so I might not know the worst of it yet).
Something I learned as a 40 something who is privileged enough to still have time to enjoy video games on occasion is that the people who enjoy playing video games play them then move on. Gaming discourse has a selection bias towards people who don’t like games and have enough time to spend on line raging.
I think you can just not care about what people say about a video game and just enjoy it. It won’t hurt to just accept people will just say bad things online about things you like that upset you but you can just like shut that off and enjoy the thing you like without caring.
Harassing devs obviously crosses a line, and I also often find myself annoyed by chuds crying woke and DEI at anything they dislike about media.
That being said, western devs should be legally prohibited from touching japanese IPs.tips fedora
I imagine these toxic people treat gaming like their dating or relationship lives where I imagine they persist and persist until one gets tired, worn down and humors them out of pity or to get rid of them. Neither is fulfilling
Nintendo can’t find the sliding scale between fash Samus gleefully participating in ultraviolence in Metroid Dread and Samus having having to ask her father for permission to wear the Varia suit after being melted half to death in a lava filled cave
Sorry I’m going to be the annoying Internet pedant. It’s fine to dislike Dread if it’s not your cup of tea, but doing ultraviolence doesn’t make Samus a fascist. There’s no society or people who she’s subjugating
I hated Dread for the right reasons. It doubled down on everything I didn’t like about Samus Returns: melee counters, QTEs, linearity, and limited backtracking.
The game feel was really good in dread but the level design was ass
“Let’s take those annoying little bat things that you have to QTE parry or take damage, but instead of a little chunk of health, let’s make it an instant death!”
The point where I gave up on Dread completely was when I got insta-gibbed by one of the identical insta-gib bosses, then respawned not back in the last save room I used, but at an autosave point a few rooms back. It felt like the game admitting that its own mechanics were so bad they couldn’t work with normal Metroid saves.
In a general sense, I think Nintendo has forgotten what made their classics good
I liked Metroid Dread I just thought it was funny when she went Warhammer 40K on the rogue Chozo leader’s QTEs
A lot of my favorite games get hosed by the internet because it’s easier to latch onto a sentence fragment than it is to explain why you like something. Disco Elysium has “too many communist leanings”. Death Stranding is a “walking simulator”. Dorfromantic is “just plain boring”. Civ 6 “broke too many things that were good about Civ 5”. I don’t care. I enjoyed the shit out of them.
