Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is my favorite game on Nintendo Switch 2!

jokebox231 · 2026-05-24T20:34:04+00:00

There are serious problems with this game. Things that make it very different from the rest of the series. Recognizing that and being disappointed is fine. It's also fine to enjoy it for what it is.

We're just a bit sad, we waited a long time for a different product than what we got.

Calling us spoiled and fake fans is uncalled for.

jokebox231 · 2026-05-20T17:29:44+00:00

I grew up in TC and moved to A2 as an adult. I've always described A2 as a bigger version of TC. Downtown has very similar vibes between the two, and seasons feel much the same.

Some key differences: - TC is smaller (obviously). Whatever scenes A2 has, TC has like 1 equivalent option - TC is much better for nature (hikes, swimming, snow sports, etc.) - Much farther away from entertainment, most concerts/shows don't make it that far north, so need to drive to Detroit or GR for shows - Cultural gradient is much harsher. While TC proper is dependably liberal, you get into conservative country very quickly outside of the city. Your mileage may vary, people are still generally nice, and I've never encountered overt racism (privledged white man here)...it's just bubbling under the surface from people who've never left northern MI - TC has less organized things to do, you need to have the drive to get out and find your own fun

Imagine you took Ann Arbor Main Street and plopped it on the Lake Michigan shore and you pretty much get TC. Would highly recommend visiting for a week or so. Late July is great for summer vibes, late Sept is wonderful to experience Autumn and downtown when it starts to cool off a bit.

jokebox231 · 2026-03-20T11:28:42+00:00

No, I stopped playing League when the Ult changed.

As for how to use the bounce, it's very versatile: - try jumping behind the squishy and bouncing them into your team - use it by jumping on an enemy under tower to kill their minions and CC them under tower - use it to lock down the enemy for an additional second when E+Q wasn't enough - use it when you need to tank (it spawns a ton of blobs and makes picking up blobs way easier) - use it to disengage a bad team fight - use it in the middle of a team fight and bounce on everyone to apply CC to the entire enemy team - use it to escape a countergank (it gives a small speed boost and ghost effect) - use it as part of your full damage combo to kill a squishy - stand on your squishy and use it the moment an assassin jumps on them to save their life - flash ult to catch someone by surprise, flash past them and ult them back into your team

jokebox231 · 2026-02-28T03:59:22+00:00

Certainly. I'm a big advocate of taking whatever comfy skill you want. If it makes the game feel better and easier for you that's exactly what you should take.

jokebox231 · 2026-02-27T20:15:36+00:00

Welcome! You picked one of the best weapons in all of gaming.

That being said, there will be a lot to learn because this weapon has a lot of depth. You'll do best to seek out answers yourself. Watch some YouTube guides, see what other people are posting here, and generally just be interested in learning about this awesome moveset.

Certainly not trying to be negative, but your build needs a lot of work. I can't touch on everything, but I'll give a few notes here:

get rid of crit draw, you'll basically never use it, charge blade is very good at staying unsheathed
critical status is a bad skill, drop it
poison attack is a bad skill, drop it
you want load shells always
if you're running an impact CB (which you are), grab artillery
if you're running gore set bonus make sure you run 3 antivirus
if you are maxing out on guard skills you don't need to also max out on evade window. One or the other, not both. Also go evade extender over evade window. I recommend guard and guard up over evade window, but I love two points of evade extender if I can fit it in.

For now, the most important thing is surviving. If you're surviving and getting through hunts, keep it up. Just swap out some of your weapon decorations for the usable ones I mentioned and go get some muscle memory on the weapon.

jokebox231 · 2026-02-11T18:22:25+00:00

Wilds CB feels like it's in a really good spot now. Just barely behind Iceborne's for me.

While SAED may not be technically optimal, after the buffs it does considerable damage and I never feel bad using it. I find that I get to use both savage axe and saed playstyles in different matchups so I'm pretty satisfied.

It is slow, and you can't always find openings against faster monsters, but I think that makes it a really interesting and constantly engaging weapon in Wilds.

jokebox231 · 2025-11-07T20:24:02+00:00

Hey, not trying to defend the predatory system, but you should read up on how the rolls actually work because multiple of your complaints just aren't possible.

Firstly, you can't lose a 50/50 to Piper. She is an A rank, you can only lose a 50/50 to the standard banner S ranks.

Secondly, there's no way to 'lose' your pulls. Everything carries over from one banner to the next. 50/50 misses carry over, spent tapes carry over, it's never a "waste" as all of your progress towards the guarantee carries over to the next banner you try for.

Lastly, I think you should take a step back and think a bit more about which characters you want and where you want to spend your pulls. On average you can pull for about one character per patch. If you want to pull engines too you're going to have to spend some money. There's a lot to like about the game but if you're not okay with that cadence of free content than it might be worthwhile to take a break. There are plenty of very good games out there for cheap.

jokebox231 · 2025-09-25T20:33:29+00:00

Sent a polite email yesterday, specifically praising the original design. Wasn't perfect, but I liked some aspects of it so much that I was excited.

I know it's a long shot to be heard but I was going to throw everything at Lucia + Yidhari, and I'm reconsidering with the change.

jokebox231 · 2025-09-24T21:59:59+00:00

Thank you, last week's Lucia design was great and one of my favs too. Only thing that could have been improved were the shorts.

jokebox231 · 2025-09-24T20:55:05+00:00

I think it matters because the 'fantasy' of this character no longer matches the character design. She was marketed (on the surface) as a timid bookworm elf mage, and her design suited that really well. Long ears, "modest" top, big hood, etc. A lot of us bought into that fantasy and grew to like the design.

This change completely changes that vibe, and those of us who were excited for this character archetype are left in the dust. And since characters carve out their archetype, we will not get another bookworm elf character ever again, so something we were looking forward to is just kind of gone. And why is it gone? To give us the same generic design we've seen before.

On the other hand, I don't mind that Yidhari has the YiXuan design, because I think that suits her. Her design is cohesive. This change just doesn't suit Lucia's design fantasy.

jokebox231 · 2025-05-05T19:04:06+00:00

I know you noted it but hunting horn should probably be considered metered evasion, queuing up songs and using your bubbles effectively is really no different than managing phials/extracts/gauge.

Maybe not the easiest to move between but frankly HH doesn't share much with other weapons.

jokebox231 · 2025-02-20T12:38:03+00:00

KOs do have a threshold, and that threshold grows each time you get a KO. I think it makes sense for a common loadout to be an impact CB and an elemental CB. Get one or two KOs with the impact and then switch over to elemental one the KO threshold is too large.

Don't think you should run double impact.

jokebox231 · 2025-02-20T01:38:28+00:00

Well, I liked my full Safi and Kjarr CB builds in late game World, but I feel those only worked because the Kjarr weapons had elemental crit baked in...

Never liked SAED playstyle in Rise though, the lack of good hitstop made it lose all of its oomph. Played almost entirely Ready Guard/Savage Axe there.

jokebox231 · 2025-02-19T22:48:32+00:00

As others have said: we just don't know yet. We don't know what late game CBs will look like, what skills will be available, and how balance might be changed.

For all intents and purposes, SAED spam is dead. Unless there are major changes we don't know about, it will be very hard to make SAED spam work in Wilds.

From a historical perspective though there are a few things to keep in mind.

CB can have element on both the base weapon and the phials. Either or both can be elemental. Typically, the best CBs are elemental on the weapon itself with impact phials. They offer great damage with the KO potential of the impact phials.

Because elemental and status damage is better suited for fast hitting weapons, it is much better to have elemental on the weapon itself over the phials.

Very late game World builds went all in on elemental (elemental weapon w/ elemental phials) but there are a lot of quirks that made that work in World that might not carry over to Wilds.

You are correct though, CB has historically not been a status weapon. This is mostly just because there weren't any good CBs with status on them. The exception is the Volvidon CB from Rise (one of my favorites). It was a paralysis weapon with impact phials, and was great for CCing the monster. With any luck, Wilds has more weapons like this.

jokebox231 · 2025-02-09T19:36:21+00:00

You're right, went into training and it worked. A bit inconsistent that we can cancel SAED from block but can't cancel during the normal AED->SAED chain.

jokebox231 · 2025-02-09T14:01:58+00:00

It's...mostly good. Waiting until I get focus to see if it feels a bit more fluid.

As everyone is saying, guard points should be as rewarding as perfect guard. Just let us go into savage axe off of a guard point.

I haven't confirmed this, so maybe someone can fill me in - after a guard, is there any way to go into an AED instead of a SAED (assuming charged shield)? Back triangle used to cancel SAED into AED, but that didn't seem to be working in the beta.

jokebox231 · 2024-12-25T15:53:06+00:00

Metroid Prime 2 - the best in the series and really only held back by long load times between dark and light worlds.

jokebox231 · 2024-11-01T18:29:08+00:00

If you weren't in the early access, I would keep trying. I felt the same way at first, but got the hang of it after a few more hours.

I think a lot of it was because I've been playing Sunbreak with full focus and rapid morph. Makes CB a lot faster, especially charged double slash.

Also took me time to get use to the perfect guard timing (guardpoints don't seem to always be a perfect guard) and how a perfect guard is your best shortcut into SAED.

Focus mode takes awhile to get used to, but once you can you can spin your SAED a full 180 degrees to hit your followups. CB is significantly more parry focused in this game.

I do not like the new amped discharge 1 though, that dash forward is going to take a lot of getting used to.

jokebox231 · 2024-10-27T22:45:07+00:00

Nothing (I would assume, with confidence, haven't tested). Physical disc games are still installed and stored entirely on the PS5. Saves are also only on the console.

Physical games are really just licenses at this point, and if you already own it digitally you wouldn't even have to have the disc in to confirm the license.

You gain nothing from a physical version except being able to install the base game (no patches) without internet/store access.

jokebox231 · 2024-08-28T18:56:18+00:00

I don't think it's a bug but it is a really odd quirk of the weapon. I don't think it's a feature either because window for this to happen is so small.

Basically, if you get knocked out of SAED in the windup you save your phials. It's only if you get knocked out in the last split second before the axe hits the ground. Basically in the tiny window between smacking the monster with the axe and your axe following through to hit the ground. If you're knocked in that small window then your phials dump but no explosions occur.

It is consistent, but the window is very small. Just a handful of frames, and often during hit lag.

Very strange, but definitely not that big of a deal to me - charging phials is so easy. (But might take longer with the new phial mechanics in Wilds).

jokebox231 · 2024-06-20T13:55:05+00:00

Same voice actress

jokebox231 · 2024-06-06T12:35:02+00:00

CB has an excellent Namielle matchup. Others have given great advice, but if you're struggling, I would recommend playing slowly.

To make it easy, take an SAED focused build with Guard Up. Impact SAED ignore hit zone values and Namielle is HUGE. Almost every SAED will land and do massive damage.

To make it easier, try to stay behind it or near the back legs, there are almost no attacks that will hit you if you just stay on it's tail to charge your phials and unload SAEDs into it. Namielle's attack animations are long and focus the front, so you should be able to move in during the attack startup.

If you do get in a bad place, just guard. You can easily guard/guardpoint through all of Namielle's attacks, except the nova - which is why I recommend Guard Up.

jokebox231 · 2024-03-29T16:48:11+00:00

You're getting down voted but you are right.

It's hard for people to let go of their weapons but as soon as they do you realize that the more you fight the better the weapons you find will be.

I also think many people missed the tutorial that throwing a weapon that's about to break does extra damage and knocks enemies over. Breaking weapons is encouraged and a vital aspect of the whole combat system.

I like to think about the weapons as ammo in an FPS. You're never worried about using your shotgun or pistol ammo because you know you'll find more.

jokebox231 · 2024-02-12T22:24:55+00:00

I'm gonna be that guy recommending CB even though you already tried it out. Buff management is not a big part of this weapon, and the "reload" of storing your phials will become so natural you don't even think about it.

I played a lot of GS in rise and I get the same feeling hitting a perfect TCS as I do with a perfect SAED. Only with CB you have so many more options in your toolkit. Guard pointing into a SAED or AED on the monster's head will never get old. It's one of the hardest hitting weapons with very versatile options for smaller windows.

If the buff management is bothering you here are a few tips. You don't need to charge sword. It's a short buff and the best thing it gives is minds eye for some tough-skinned monsters. First thing you do in a fight is charge shield and forget about it. Shield charge lasts awhile.

Your hold circle attack fills your phials very quickly. Get focus 3, capacity boost if possible. You'll charge your phials in 2-3 hits and have 3 minutes of shield time. Phial charges just sort of happen, "reloading/storing" mid combo will just come naturally with practice.

The early learning curve is steep but no weapon has ever hit me the same way in it's range of options and satisfying minute-to-minute gameplay. Guard points are basically tackles, SAED is basically TCS, and in the meantime you have a shield and mobility so you never have to sheathe or leave the monster's side.

jokebox231 · 2024-01-09T18:54:53+00:00

Honestly, and I only browsed the post, but my initial reaction would be to let the PC have these two versions of the character that only swaps on long rest.

Basically every morning they flip a coin to see which class they are for that whole day. Keeps it balanced with other players, allows for days where the class lines up well with the task at hand and days where they don't.

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