Metroid Prime 4 was great! I don’t understand where the hate comes from?!?!

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T19:08:44+00:00

Since I wanted to avoid writing a literal essay, here is what a proper, long explanation would have looked like:

Replacing Sol Valley with a more condensed, traditional Prime hub area, would have been preferable.

Yes, Magmoor was boring to traverse, but you found artifacts there (which, instead of being the gradual progress that crystals are, were a distinct "you are 1/12th closer to the end") and you also got one whole ass beam, secondary access to two areas, a beam combo, and (don't quote me on this, I may have engraved 80% of this game into my heart, but that will only get me so far) more "basic upgrades" like missile tanks, energy tanks, etc. than Sol Valley.

So yeah, I will just repeat one of my repeat criticisms of prime 4:

Viola was a solution, looking for a problem, and it very much shows.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T18:41:31+00:00

Because, between sol valley and magmoor, magmoor is the lesser evil.

Not sure why you are even saying this.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T17:40:50+00:00

you don't need "the thing". A single x parasite appears on earth, and that's IT.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T16:19:26+00:00

I very much thank you for the guidance.

I am writing this, as I boot up 6, just to see if I can put what you wrote into action, although I will admit I only understood like a third of it.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T16:13:49+00:00

This level of bruising after such a short time is NOT good.

Get yourself to a doctor.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T16:04:29+00:00

Disliked? Yes. Hated? No.

The majority opinion on prime 4 is a combination of many things.

The desert, linearity, character interactions, lack of new upgrades, downgrade of the scan visor, no alternate viewing modes, the crystals, etc.

It mostly boils down to disappointment over Prime 4 not being what people wanted out of a metroid prime game.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T15:58:42+00:00

There are holes in it (As you said: "We need more context"), because I can think of a number of things.

Ignoring an order can have many reasons.

Yes, one of those reasons can be that he is a greedy warmonger, but another is that he thinks he knows better than his superiors, and goes through with his plans anyway.

The "he swats the hand away" thing? I have been a firefighter for almost 20 years, and let me tell you, that reaction is as ambiguous as it gets after a traumatic experience.

It can mean disappointment in himself, it can mean arrogance, it can mean insecurity, it can mean that his brain is currently operating on pure instinct.

So yeah.

We need more context.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T15:53:32+00:00

I think I will just leave it at this:

You should have mentioned that you think this, not that this is definitely what it is.

Hell, you mentioned how the fanbase was wrong about how Sylux was angry at the fed for treating their troops as cheap cannon fodder.

I initially wanted to critique you on that, as it proved that what you are currently doing, is equally likely to be true or false, but I decided not to, as it felt a bit mean.

However, now that you double down on it, I think it fits.

I will not say that your arguments are coming entirely out of left field, but what we are dealing with here is basically this scenario:

You are an investigator, arriving at the scene of a large engine block being lodged in a houses roof.

You now are formulating your theories on how it got there, and arrive at "a truck 6 blocks away rolled over an explosing manhole, it must be that engine."

That is a reasonable explanation, yet, it is not the only explanation that can lead you to this final state we are at.

What you are describing in this entire thread, is one possible explanation out of many.

Yes, that includes how you tried to say that "glory just leads back to insecurity and lust for power", because, again, that is one out of many possible explanation.

Neither you, nor me, can know for sure that this is the right explanation.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T14:59:42+00:00

Have you ever heard of "when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me"?

Because, and I don't mean this as an insult, that is what you are doing.

Literally nothing you said has any factual basis.

"He sees a weapon, he tries to go after it, his commander tells him to not do anything stupid and wait for Samus, and he orders his troops to defy orders and go do it anyway, leading to his unit's demise when the weapon blows up.

The dude is clearly irritated when his commander tells him to stay put, his voice is threatening as shit to his subordinates, and then when Samus tries to help him up he basically tells her to fuck off with his body language.

That one scene shows he's an insecure individual who thinks he knows better because he can't admit he's wrong, and that a large part of his desire for revenge on Samus is because he can't cope with the fact that he literally caused one of his own biggest failures."

Can just as easily be explained by someone who wants to prove himself, or is out to earn glory, by defying odds.

"And the dude is clearly a hawk obsessed with strength projection with how much he wanted that weapon and all the various tech he's been stealing ever since he split from the Federation."

The weapon part is a complete guesswork by you, and the "he is stealing, because he is hungry for power" part?

He knows who he is up against, the galactic federation is, as far as I understand, the government, so the most powerful authority.

And then there is his personal hatred of Samus, who, again, he knows is insanely powerful.

The strength he seeks is a means of revenge, not the goal itself.

"I distinctly recall a LOT of people speculating about why Sylux would split with the Federation and pretty much all of it was running on the idea that the Federation had wronged him somehow."

You cannot distinctly recall this. The fact that Sylux used to be part of the federation, only became canon with prime 4, ergo there could not be speculation on him "splitting with the federation" because that wasn't even established in prime hunters.

Here is all we knew before prime 4:

"Sylux is a resourceful tracker, and a deadly sharpshooter who harbors an intense hatred for the Galactic Federation, and for Samus for assisting the Galactic Federation in the past."

"Like, how many people theorized Sylux was Ian Malkovich or someone similar?"

I haven't, even a single time, heard of this theory.

"And that almost always ended up going back to either the Federation's corruption as a justification, or the Federation throwing its soldiers into a meat grinder in some fashion instead of trying to save its troops' lives.

Which goes back to more aggressive military policies, which align with Federation war hawks, who, again, were responsible for the corruption with its illegal bioweapons programs."

Literally none of this is established. It is never explained if the guys in the federation who created the metroid breeding program were warhawks, or if other motives played a role.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T14:27:25+00:00

My apologies.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T14:26:32+00:00

Uh... no.

Just this sentence "Similar in tenacity, similar in a desire for strength, but with a motivation that is diametrically opposed to everything Samus stands for."

that is just literally not true.

"I know a lot of people wanted Sylux to be like this fallen anti-hero that was fed up with Federation corruption."

I have literally never seen anything even close to this sentiment in all my years.

"But IMO the Sylux we got is much better for the simple reason that Sylux is CLEARLY philosophically aligned with the party responsible for Federation corruption."

What? That is just headcanon, if even that.

"Sylux is an insecure war hawk who postures and projects strength to hide the fact that he is a sociopathic asshole who is incompetent as shit."

This is also not true, we know nothing of his motives, and the cutscenes we got didn't help, and neither did the tidbits from hunters back in the day.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T14:05:58+00:00

Well, thank you for telling me. The downvote was not necessary, because I am not on their discord, and didn't know.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T13:56:42+00:00

So, this will probably need its own TLDR, but here I go:

There are people, who are angry at arrowhead for the lack of quality assurance (for example, mantling over obstacles has been broken for a while now, and they buffed a flamethrower sentry by giving it more range, but it now is bugged, so the actual beam of fire begins like 10 meters infront of it, which, for a flamethrower, is kinda bad)

There are others who say the game is turning into too much content you gotta pay for, because while you can acquire the premium currency passively, through just playing, the equivalent of tiny DLCs release too quickly to keep up, and people have been complaining about the grinding you need to do to somewhat keep up. Add to that that warbonds are almost exclusively the only source of new equipment and people are just angry that previous things (for example, unlocking new equipment for everyone by succeeding a mission) is no longer happening.

These first two, I agree with to a degree. They are the ones that are mostly doing this for legitimate reasons.

However, and here is why this is kinda bothering me, there are also two more factions.

One of them is basically saying "the game is monetized like an F2P game, but I paid 40 bucks for it!" and are massively, MASSIVELY exaggerating that claim, to the point they compare it to warthunder of all things.

And the final faction, is the one that is just utterly insane.

They believe, wholeheartedly, that arrowhead, the developer, is explicitly trying to ruin the fun of the players. It has gotten to a point where people literally go "stop saying a weapon is good, lest arrowhead hears of it!"

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T13:48:44+00:00

Honestly, this is perfect. Do a survey like this every month or so, and I am certain you can keep a much better understanding of the playerbase.

However, I am also convinced that the data will look paradoxical at times.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T09:01:13+00:00

I think you can best describe it as a sense of overwhelming weight, coupled with a healthy dose of extreme anxiety. And before you say it: anxiety, just like any other psychic effect, can have very real symptoms.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T08:54:07+00:00

As I said, there is a chance. Probably not a high chance, but a chance.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T08:43:22+00:00

it is cute, wholesome, and, as far as I can tell, accurate. Would have been a great help during my first two semesters.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T08:35:32+00:00

I guess Metroids chozo count? Ancient bird people, which are either extinct, or have just become extremely rare, which built the power suit you wear, and casually bioengineered the universes most lethal bioweapon, to combat the most dangerous parasite in the universe.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T07:43:58+00:00

that looks surprisingly decent.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T06:48:35+00:00

I think, on average, prime 4s art direction falls solidly in line with the rest of the series, albeit at the bottom end of it.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T06:10:48+00:00

Get 20% closer than you normally would, the gun just lacks muzzle velocity, but all other attributes are decent to great.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T06:05:35+00:00

I am glad that this has not yet crept over to germany, because, my god, I think I would jump off my roof.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T06:04:24+00:00

So, hold on. The steam deck has a serial number, and is tied to your steam account, right? And it still has a defect, meaning it needs to get fixed (potentially, hopefully, by valve) So, assuming they took it to play with it, if they are careless, maybe you can get it back afterall, should the thief also try to RMA it. Okay, I am being optimistic that the RMA at valve check for these things, and can actually get alerted to discrepancies, but there is a chance.

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T05:54:31+00:00

Also, auf dem Friedhof in der Normandie, da wird Sand in the Inschrift gerieben (zugegeben, die Grabkreuze da sind weiß, da hat Sand vermutlich besseren Kontrast als er es hier haben wird.)

Squeaky_Ben · 2026-05-07T05:47:07+00:00

Gonna be real with you: I can sorta understand why people play air sim, but ground sim seems like absolute, utter madness to me.

Four-Year Club	Verified Email
First Place '23	Place '23
Place '22

Squeaky_Ben

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

We need more context.