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?
Well, I haven't played the game. I actually did just after reading your post look up this Miles NPC, which people are calling Reddit, as my first foray into the game after having the original series be quite a childhood memory for me. So I apologize if that biases me a bit, versus your gamergate centric aggravations. In Prime 3, you did have a couple nods towards a wider universe of hunters. Other exceptional individuals (you could call them future petit boug hah hah) like Samus, who of course has a very unique backstory as a human enhanced by the Chozo and whatnot, I'm not a lore fiend. The last time we saw somebody act like Miles, I believe it was the Sub Zero type guy, Rundas, of I'm not really sure what type of alien he is. He just sort of goes, wow, when he sees you, and then the next time he gets possessed by evil ghost version of you empowered by phazon, you know the deal. The shapeshifter lady does the same thing, and even when I was like 5 years old I was going what the hell, that's it? You don't even need to have actual words exchanged between you and the hunters because you can use them to provide surprise environmental changes by blowing something up or destroying an obstacle you thought was impassable. They didn't even really do that though. There's only like four or five moments where you even remember they exist. Now there are myriad development reasons why whatever concept version of the hunters' storylines never came to fruition, but it's been many years since then. We've had plenty of time for people to literally grow up thinking about this universe and come up with lots of ideas. What has Nintendo done with that? It's Cape shit. People were pretty pissed off at other M because the narrative elements were placed directly between them and the gameplay logic saying you can't use this item you already acquired yet because daddy won't allow you to.
So, is Samus a proletarian because she gets paid in "piecewise" wages by the Galactic Federation? Or is Samus petite bourgeoisie because she owns her own small (bounty hunting) business, owns her ship, and owns her power armor, etc.? I guess she's part of the labor aristocracy, being a high-priced contractor, or even worse, part of the military-industrial complex...
😮💨
She truly is the Graham Platner of video game characters.