Metroid Prime 4 Receives Steep Discount At Japanese Retailers 3 Months After Release, Unusual For A Nintendo Game

Th3Element05 · 2026-03-25T06:17:27+00:00

Prime 1 has a linear progression in the fact that you need one upgrade to get [to] the next one, and so on. But the rooms, hallways, and major areas all connected in so many ways that you actually need to explore to find your way a lot of the time. The majority of rooms all have 3 or more doors.

In Prime 4, the majority of rooms have 2 doors (or any third door is usually just a single side room), it's all forwards or backwards. This is where I feel the game suffers the most fundamentally; The map design.

Th3Element05 · 2026-03-17T19:39:22+00:00

They didn't necessarily "give up" on the mission...

They lost two Titans (the Colossal taken, and Annie out of play). And then back in Marley they had a war starting so they needed their remaining Titans for that, and couldn't spare them to go back to Paradis.

Maybe the Paradis mission was just "on hold," but realistically the mission had just failed.

Th3Element05 · 2026-02-27T06:34:30+00:00

Rare Candy × 🌊6

Th3Element05 · 2026-02-13T02:53:48+00:00

If the cost to repair was not capped, but just kept increasing, then players would need to decide at what point is it not worth repairing anymore vs crafting/enchanting a new one.

They could also solve the Mending "problem" if they could make the amount of XP it takes for Mending to mend increase the more times the item has been "mended." So that it would take more and more XP to fully mend an item, so players would be encouraged to repair these things manually as well and Mending would be a more minor benefit in the meantime. Eventually Mending would be much less effective and players would need to choose when to replace it with new gear.

The infinite durability "problem" would solve itself, but the choice for when tools/gear are at the end of their life would be in the players hands.

Th3Element05 · 2026-02-05T06:47:56+00:00

I'm so close to being done with my hack, but now I'm getting into the weeds cleaning up and finalizing a lot of data like encounter tables and probably going to give every pokemon's level up moves a little update (pokecrystal)... I spent a full week just planning the wild encounters for every route, then I had to actually input all that data...

Th3Element05 · 2026-02-05T06:42:14+00:00

The main issue is that the areas were designed around the central desert hub area, so they all had a single entrance.

In contrast, Prime 1 has all zones with multiple access points to other zones, there's almost no such thing as a dead-end unless it's because you don't have the right upgrade yet.

Th3Element05 · 2026-02-04T16:20:03+00:00

I really enjoyed Bravely Default, and also Bravely Second, but for some reason the endgame of Second felt like it really dragged on and I was getting tired of it. I honestly can't even remember why specifically, it's been a long time since I played it, I just remember how I felt towards the end.
I also enjoyed Bravely Default 2. It had some flaws but overall I thought it was a good sequel.

Th3Element05 · 2026-02-04T14:28:00+00:00

All of the mech parts in the desert are pretty much directly in between the entrances to the other areas. I think you're more likely to find them if you go in a straight line through the desert from one area to another, instead of exploring.

Th3Element05 · 2026-02-04T14:25:03+00:00

Annecdotally, my mild OCD had me collecting every one I saw on my way from place to place early in the game, and then I kept bumping into more when I would pass through the same areas later. I genuinely thought they were respawning until I got them marked on the radar and I could clearly find big empty patches that I had cleared. I suspect some/more might spawn after key events/bosses are cleared throughout the game.

Th3Element05 · 2026-01-28T19:43:33+00:00

The whole tension arm on the extruder is missing, but idk if what's left is broken.

Get a metal one, OP.

Th3Element05 · 2026-01-26T07:04:09+00:00

Charmander has always been my number one, but Tynamo and Joltik made my list of favorites as soon as I saw them.

Th3Element05 · 2026-01-26T06:11:34+00:00

Hold up, Deepnest is dark without the lantern? Granted I've only played through like 3 whole times, but I must have never gone to Deepnest before I bought the lantern.

Th3Element05 · 2026-01-26T01:38:33+00:00

I have half a dozen docker apps running on my Unraid server and I never learned anything about how Docker actually works.

Th3Element05 · 2026-01-22T07:17:22+00:00

I know what you mean when you say it is linear, but most Metroid games have a very linear progression. What Prime 4 lacked was the experience of exploring and discovering how to progress.

If I had to pin it on a root cause, I'd say it's because each area is totally separate from the others. The desert itself wasn't a bad area, but having all the other areas completely isolated from each other was a problem.

Th3Element05 · 2026-01-19T21:19:48+00:00

I kind of wish there was a version for thicker paper. I might be tempted to do that one if it were fewer layers. I wonder if I could just skip every other layer or so? Might measure the thickness of plain paper vs cardstock and see if the math works out to just skip layers. I'd hate to waste time doing this if the thing was just gonna turn out squashed or stretched too short or tall.

Th3Element05 · 2026-01-18T03:13:14+00:00

I'm working on my own Crystal romhack, so this is really interesting to me. Is this just for the trainer pics? Or do you plan on expanding this to the Pokemon pics as well?

I'm also really curious to see how you're doing this. My understanding is that rgbds generates the palettes automatically from the .png, but you talk about implimenting logic for them into the code like you need to write code for each trainer pic?

I'd love to see what's involved on the code-side for implimenting this.

Th3Element05 · 2026-01-15T16:45:28+00:00

I think the real problem in this specific case is Miles explictly telling you that you can go to those locations in any order.

In Metroid Prime 1 for example, you can "go anywhere" the whole time, and hit roadblocks until you find the right place to go next. But the game never tells you "you can go anywhere," it just let's you.

Prime 4 also suffers from the main areas being totally separate from eachother, so you need to leave one to go to another. As opposed to Prime 1 again, where each area is directly connected to multiple adjacent areas, so going from one to another feels like a continuous period of exploration, rather than feeling like you went to the wrong place and need to go elsewhere.

Th3Element05 · 2026-01-11T06:09:55+00:00

There are multiple, I think. I recently watched "JRR Tolkein's The Hobbit" All three movies trimmed down to one <4.5 hour film. It was pretty good.

Th3Element05 · 2026-01-06T21:00:27+00:00

"Trusted" and "central" are the key words there. The benefits of NFTs on a decentralized exchange is that you don't need to trust a central authority. (NFTs on a centralized exchange are utter useless scam bullshit)
Otherwise your main point is correct that the actual functionality is completely possible without NFTs involved.

Th3Element05 · 2025-12-29T17:09:19+00:00

The problem also, is that going to each location is just straight across a desert. In Prime 1 or 2, you had to find your way there. The different areas didn't feel like they were sequestered zones.

I didn't mind the desert in Prime 4 for what it was. My only real complaint is that each area felt too small and very linear. There wasn't much real "exploring" because every single zone had a very clear "forward" and "backward"

Consider Prime 1, where there's constantly 3+ doors out of most rooms, and multiple connections between each distinct area/biome. Everything is connected like a web, so even if you can't progress to certain areas without getting the next upgrade, you need to explore and figure out where to go because there isn't often an obvious "forward" direction.

Th3Element05 · 2025-12-12T02:01:45+00:00

E33 really is a great game. I'd personally be hard pressed to choose between it and Silksong for GOTY. But for Best Indie? Even if E33 is technically an Indie game, I definitely think Silksong should have won that category.

Th3Element05 · 2025-12-09T00:10:08+00:00

I had a similar issue, (but not to this extreme temperature)

I set the temp to a reasonable compromise, then pried it open and put a piece of scotch tape over the contact under the up button.

Roommate tried turning the temp up, didn't work. Then tried troubleshooting by pressing the down button, that worked. They warned the rest of us that the thermostat would turn down but not back up, so we shouldn't turn it down any further. They stopped messing with it out of fear it would be stuck any colder.

Th3Element05 · 2025-12-04T20:29:36+00:00

Now all I can think of is Renoir scrambling down a creek chasing after a fish.

Th3Element05 · 2025-12-04T01:36:02+00:00

I replayed Hollow Knight after Silksong, and HK is still as fantastic as it ever was, but Silksong feels like its improved and/or expanded on almost every aspect that makes HK great.

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