#mp4: beyond

The good:

THE ICE PLACE RULED. OH MY GODDDDD I WAS READY FOR SOMETHING TO JUMP OUT AT ME THE ENTIRE TIME AND MY HEART WAS POUNDING BY THE END. But they played it sooooo subtle it was so awesome. ALSO FOUND FOOTAGE MEDICAL HORROR?? The lore here went crazyyyyyy

LOOOVED the setup in the Volt Forge where they show you the bike at the start and even let you get on it, but then you gotta fight for it.......fabulous fabulous incentive there. Yes I Want That Bike

I liked all the companions consistently and they were awesome and I'm happy. Maybe my favorite part of the game

(^such a minute detail regarding them but I LOVED that everyone liked Mackenzie. none of that cliche "everyone makes fun of the nerd character bc they're a loser" bs)

^Also hellllll yeah the voice acting rules

Their AI also felt really good?? They never got in my way and always seemed to be where I needed them, at least from my one playthrough

Tokabi's little lore dumps were video-gamey and came out of nowhere at first but they grew on me. Ahhhh Samus connecting with another person yayyy ToT

HOLY SHITTTT THE MUSIC......KENJI YAMAMOTO AND MY GIRL MINAKO HAMANO PULLED THROUGHHHH. Turn on the generators in Volt Forge and WHAM get blasted with a sonic boom of peak that rips your dick clean off

Samus getting her driver's license was so fucking hype lol

spring ball from the very beginning!!!!! PRAISE THE LORD

sylux fights were very peak as expected and I loved the nods to his Hunters fights. I looked forward to these consistently

I liked Most of the boss fights actually. Far be these from the Prime 1 lineup

I liked the choice to have the game show you powerup locations with the Scout Bots. It's not required but it's there if you want it

The absolute height of this game to me was Samus receiving an on-screen hug. let's fucking go

The disappointing:

It felt like there was so much Less lore to actually discover than usual. I kept scanning important-looking terminals expecting them to have tons of lore like in the other games (i.e. Phendrana, Agon Pirate Base, Skytown, etc.) but it was consistently just filler text?

I Did Not Like The Mine.

That's all the context we get for Sylux??? :(

There were so many similar concepts to Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom (ex: motorcycle, Tokabi Literally being Kass, puzzle shrines and "dungeons" scattered across the open world, having helper companions who assist you in their respective dungeons, EXTREMELY Zelda-esque boss fight with the fire dragon even down to the music, etc.) that I wonder if Nintendo was pushing Retro for these...sigh

So much of this game just felt like enemy filler if I'm being real. Just Survive This Gauntlet Of Bad Guys Ok 👍

I wanted the Lamorn to be evil and manipulative so bad. Like I was just WAITING for them to snap and reveal an evil plot; I think it would've made them way cooler. Like if they were still a tragic dying civilization but ended up outright manipulating Samus for their gain....ough.

The Space Pirates and metroid stuff never came back?? Hello?? just setup for the next game i guess???

Ummm the ending??