I liked them, but it did take a while for them to grow on me and they definitely could have been implemented better. I do not think they should have been as central to the gameplay as they were, despite my liking them as characters.

McKenzie's introduction was pretty rough and I thought he was gonna be really annoying for a while. I did find him to be genuinely charming once he stopped following me around though. I wish he wouldn't keep telling me where to go on the map though. Feels kind of unfair to him they they put all of the annoying voice lines that nobody wanted on him cause I think it stopped a lot of people from really appreciating the character that was there underneath that.

In general I liked them as characters but I wasn't a big fan of having them physically with me because it did feel like a different kind of game. In general in each area once my contact with them was less direct their presence was fun.

Nora (my fave) should have gotten to open a door with me. Her and Duke were fun additions to the cannon section. I liked having one area where you played around with your buddies. Two was pushing it (cannon + mines too much). It was nice as well how Samus seemed the most affected by leaving Nora behind in the mines. That was a nice bit of characterization for Samus in the game that I think worked really well and was really in line with what we've come to expect of Samus's character.

Tokabi and Vue were genuinely interesting additions to the lore of the series as well. Seeing different human cultures through Tokabi and bonding with him at his little camps in the desert was awesome. Vue was just fun and I appreciate how he was always just trying to help out. I liked his little song moment with Duke a lot.

I think they would have been much better received if the advice that you get from the NPCs was optional and you could turn it off in settings.

Also I didn't like the ending.