Was Metroid Prime 4 Worth the Wait? - NVC 791

You can breathe a sigh of relief because Metroid Prime 4 Beyond is great. We'll talk all about my review of Prime 4 Beyond right now on Nintendo Voice Chat. Beyond and hello, welcome to Nintendo Voice Chat IGN's all-Nintendo podcast for the week of December 4th, 2025. I'm your host Logan Plant, and it's about to get real nerdy in here because we're talking all about Metroid Prime 4 Beyond. Finally, I'm joined by Brendan Graber. Hey, Brendan. DB Time. Rebecca Valentine. It's an honor to be here for this illustrious episode. And Seth Macy. Shout out to the OG Justin Bailey, wherever you are. You know, it is, it's crazy, man. It's been eight years since Metroid Prime 4 was announced at E3 2017. It's a real game. Brendan and I have finished it. There's a review up. People are playing it now, and it still feels surreal. I'm so excited to talk about all of it. Let's get into it. The review is up right now on IGN. I gave it an eight out of 10. I think Metroid Prime 4 Beyond is a great game. I think it has some of the highest highs in the entire Metroid series and some of the lowest lows in the entire Metroid series. This is a very uneven game, but when you balance it all out, it's great. This is a really awesome return for Metroid Prime that I think fans are going to be very, very happy with. For the most part, we'll talk about everything from the desert to the companions to the psychic abilities. You finished it. You are working very hard on the walkthrough over on IGN. What are your overall impressions of Prime 4? I think I'd probably land around where you did. I also think it's very great. It's kind of hard to not look at like, oh, I waited so long for this. It has to be perfect. I wish it was perfect. There were a lot of things I'm like this. I wish some things could have been better. Overall, I'm really happy with what we got. There are just some things that made me scratch my head. The visuals look great. The music is superb. I don't mind the companions, which is something I didn't think I would say. Same. And it's a very Metroid adventure. It's a very prime game. Yeah. And I think I totally agree. There's a lot that made me scratch my head. I think that this is probably Retro Studios' worst game, but they make amazing games. They made the Metroid Prime trilogy and they made Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze. They make games that are, to me, all nine out of 10 or higher. I think this one's an eight out of 10. I think this is one of the worst things that this studio could have really shipped because they're just that talented that even in a really incohesive game with a lot of warts and a lot of ideas that are not fully fleshed out, what works still works so freaking well that overall, when it all settles down, the highs you walk away with and what I'm going to remember from Prime 4, way outshine the stumbles. And what's interesting about this one is that its issues are really self-contained from its high points, like the desert. The desert sucks. It is not a good part of this game. But when you are finally in one of its dedicated areas, it's like a classic Metroid Prime area mixed with 3D Zelda Dungeon, a comparison that we'll talk about, it's as good as Prime has kind of ever been. So its issues don't bleed into its flaws, which means that overall there's still moments that are really going to be really, really great throughout. And who could have guessed that the desert was bad? Oh, other than everybody, except for these random people who are like, we haven't seen it, guys. They've shown us nothing. Like, because that's what you do when you're previewing a game, you show the least interesting parts because that's how you build hype. So it was just so weird and so out of character from Metroid. I think people wanted to believe that there was something to it, like something that we weren't seeing that was really cool or meaningful or purposeful. And it's kind of a bummer to know, nope, it was just a desert. This could have been an email of zones. You see it totally is. That's really good. Yeah, Brendan, you were my superhero through this review period, which was the most stressful review period of my life because it was super truncated being around the Thanksgiving holiday and a hotly anticipated game. Like it's Metroid. We had to make sure we got this one right. And so it was awesome talking to you about this one. And I'm excited to get into the whole game now. Let's start with the dedicated areas, which I think are the biggest strength of Metroid Prime 4. There are several of them and they are self-contained this time around. It is not like Metroid Prime 1 where there are elevators that connect each one. And this one goes to Fanatrona Drift. And this one goes to Talon Overworld. It is Soul Valley is the desert. And on its edges is one dedicated entrance to each self-contained area. It is Hyrule Field from Ocarina of Time. There's Death Mountain in the distance. You enter it. You're there now. You're in that zone. Really there. Exactly. It's exactly. It's like totally reminds you of that. You see it like over the hills exactly like you do in Zelda. So Brendan, what do you think of the areas overall? I think like you said, like those are like the high points for me. I do miss the interconnectivity of it all. Like something that I really enjoyed about Prime was, you know, going to Pendrona Drifts and then going like, oh, where is this path lead? Oh, wow. This connects back to the Chozo ruins. Oh, wow. The frigate from space crashed down. And now that's an underwater section that connects to this area. I loved finding those like little new secret paths to like find different ways to explore that I didn't think would actually be happening. And this, it does like people would say there is like a very Zelda comparison of like, we have these dungeon areas. And sometimes you go back to them over the course of the story. We'll have you like, hey, you should go back and check this area now. But for the most part, you usually won and done a lot of it besides like some power ups or collectibles. But I do think what they present there is very slick. It, they look great. I really like the sound design that they've done with these areas. The way like the music kind of like starts off very moody. And then there are like, there are just like cinematic moments where like you, oh, you power up a generator. And then the music just floods to life and kind of gives you that like, whoa, this place is transforming around my eyes. I really like them. Yeah. It's and each one, what I think really works in Prime Force favor, and by the way, we're making Zelda comparisons. It's also very much what Prime two and three already did. Like Prime two, it had the temple grounds in the middle and then three main areas like the Torvus bog that you traveled to. And they were a little bit more Metroid-y and how they interconnected and the backtracking. But it was still heading that direction. And then Prime three leaned in even more with the planets that you land Samus's gunship on. And then that is very kind of a self-contained area there as well, that don't connect to each other at all because you fly from planet to planet in your ship. So Prime four is very much in line with the prime sequels. Like the something I think about this game is that if besides how it looks visually, which it is amazing, I think this is probably the best looking game that Nintendo has ever published in its dedicated areas. The desert isn't all too hot, but in those areas, it just is stunning. But otherwise, if this game came out four years after Prime three and was just the next Prime sequel, people wouldn't blink. They'd be like, yep, this is Prime four. This is a logical progression of where Retro was heading with the Prime trilogy. So it makes a lot of sense in that way. But I think the areas do double back on themselves in smart ways. It's not like Brendan was saying this is flooded now and it does this now. But as you unlock more abilities, you will unlock shortcuts that make the collectible cleanup faster. Here's an elevator you can only activate kind of at the end of the game because of a power you have. And now you can get down to the bottom of this area really, really fast. And I think that they're still, they close in on each other in very smart ways still. How do you feel just in principle about the gradual moving away from Metroid as, I mean, there's like a mini genre named after it, right? Like they're Metroid vainies. We call them that for a reason. And I understand that the Prime games have gradually been moving away from that, but it seems like this is like the real clean break. And that if we're coming from the outside, that sounds so odd to me, but it sounds like it maybe doesn't matter. What do you think, Brendan? Yeah. And in a lot of ways, like the Prime series kind of does its own thing. Like there are, there are still the hints of, oh, you got this upgrade. Now you can go back to the Fury Green and use that new ability to unlock this missile expansion. But like beyond that, you don't really see that kind of double backing and exploring new areas or new things in areas you've already explored the way that like, you know, Hollow Knight or Silk Song does. But I think that in taking a more Zelda dungeon like approach, they kind of like strike on their own territory. If we don't really need to do this constant going back to repurpose old areas, when we can just have these self-contained little adventures that culminate in a big boss fight and then you're kind of done with this area for now. Yeah, I think it works well. I think that it is really incredibly difficult to pull off a classic Metroidvania labyrinth in 3D. Prime 1 did it. That came as a 10 out of 10 miracle that it exists. Games haven't really done it again. And I think that Prime doing its own thing and more being Metroid as a vibe and just kind of a general flavor than a straight genre, I think it works for Prime because Dread is still a Metroidvania. We're still getting that on the 2D side of things. This being kind of we're going to have these vignettes like Brendan said. And something I was starting to say earlier is that because these dungeons are so self-contained, they genre shift all the time in ways that I think really benefit Prime for in cool ways. Like one area you go to is straight up Metroid Prime. Your radio has no signal. Nobody's in your ear. You are left alone. It is this awesome exploration as you scan everything and learn about all the functions of these machines that you're surrounded by and then you see it in motion. Fantastic. Incredible area. Then another area you're traveling with companions and there's Firefights and it feels like Aliens. And it's just this sci-fi action movie dungeon. And some I like more than others, but they all try their own thing. And I think for the most part they succeed. There's one dungeon I'm not as hot on, but I think that's going to be natural in a game where they all try to do different things. But overall, I think they're all really good. I actually like that one. I had the one you're talking about just like the series of like the aliens thing where like if you make too much noise, you trigger more enemies to come at you. That was like a clever twist. I'm like, you kind of need to be very careful what moves you're using. Yeah. Yeah, it is cool. It's trying different things. And that is something that I think it is trying to experiment with what Metroid is. And some ways it doesn't work. Like the open world, which we'll talk about, or the companions, which are kid or miss. They're not fantastic, but I don't hate them. But I like seeing them kind of mess with this series and this genre in Prime 4. I do want to shout out my favorite area of them all, which is called Volt Forge. It is the one we're seeing on screen right now. It is the first main area that you go to after the introductory area of Fury Green. And it's just phenomenal. Like it is this factory and the way it kind of lays itself out to you. And you see these claw arms doing different things with these different parts. And then you scan them and you learn why they're doing these things. And then that worldbuilding plays into its puzzle design, because you have to use your knowledge of this factory to solve puzzles within it. That's what Metroid Prime is. And in that moment, I'm like, this could be the best Metroid Prime game. It doesn't end up being that I think overall, it might be the weakest of the four Metroid Prime games as a whole product. But there are moments that I'm like, I haven't felt this since Prime 1. And I'm super impressed. That's a wonderful thing to be able to say like about something because that thing is so good. Like I remember seeing Boy in the Heron and I was like, this is like maybe one of my least favorite Mizaki movies. But the bar is so high just generally, like it's still an incredible movie. And it's really cool to hear that about Metroid that it's just, it's so good that even at its worst, it's great. I have to go back and play Prime 3 again, because I remember that being when I was like, OK, I feel like there's a little too many things I don't like with this one. But not to go back and like, do I like it more than Prime 4? Yeah, so much of this, it's been so long. It's been so long, like so much of the series is like in memory. It's not like fresh. Yeah. Yeah, I replayed the whole trilogy this year just in anticipation of Prime 4 and Prime 4 and 3 are basically tied for me. I think they're very equal. It's just Prime 3, I think as a whole package is a little bit more cohesive. Prime 4 has maybe higher highs, but it's messy. So let's talk about some of the messier parts now. The desert, the desert and the bike. It's called Soul Valley and it is this open world Hyrule Field S Hub that connects all its areas. And Brendan, my biggest issue with it as we talked about is this green crystal quest, this main quest that has you crashing into these randomly placed crystals to fill this huge meter that just feels like padding to me. Yeah. Yeah. This is mandatory. Yeah, this is not negotiable. They tell you early on like, oh, hey, I know you need to get off this planet, but before you go, could you like transfer the knowledge of our species to some other planet? And we need green crystals to do that. So if you can do that before you leave, you're not doing anything else, right? Tell me it doesn't actually take three hours and you're exaggerating. It's hard to pin down exactly how long it takes because thankfully they give you this quest at the beginning of the game. This is before you even see the desert you're given this quest. So as you are driving across areas across the whole campaign, you can swerve and crash into some crystals that you spot as you're going, it's ridiculous. It's the dumbest thing retro has ever made us do. I highly recommend if you're playing like as you go from point A to point B, cross desert, just smash their crystals and then take a different route back so that you're always going through a new area to find more crystals. And then eventually when you get towards like the end of it, they'll give you like a radar to find the last couple of ones. Oh, yeah. You don't have to get literally every single crystal ever, but you do have to get a large number. You get a lot of them. And yeah, I do think like the crystals ties into the desert, ties into the bike where I think the bike was kind of a letdown because they don't really give you much to do with it besides to ride through this desert. And it really like there are points from just like there could have been something cool here. Like there's a lot of comparisons to Hyrofield and I think it's Hyrofield from Twilight Princess where it is a very big field. You get a Pona and you make use of a Pona by not just going through point A to point B, but like there are escort quests you do during the main story on a Pona. There are the horseback archery and like, you know, those training courses. There are little secrets to find. There's a couple secrets to find in this desert, but not as nearly as much. And I think like there could have been a lot to do with the bike that could have made it fun and having this desert have more to do with than just like six little tiny shrines that don't really have much. Besides like one little puzzle that, you know, they're not really that inventive, which is kind of a letdown. And like I mentioned to Logan also that there is no music when you're driving through. And apparently this is unlocked by an amiibo. It is. It's $30 amiibo. That is insane. And that like that is so like aside from the like antithetical because you're not really exploring this dense thing, not having music tied to an amiibo unlock is also very antithetical to Metroid because like Metroid's biggest strength is the immersion you get through that music. And just having like this like cool alien noise that you're transporting, would have made things so much more interesting. If you look at like Twilight Princess when you're running around on foot and you get the music playing like dun dun dun dun dun and you get on a pona and suddenly there's like a swell of music. If they had that in this desert, I would have loved it. Same. But it's not there. Yeah. This is if N64 Hyrule Field thinks it's the Great Plateau from Breath of the Wild. Like that is it has this ambition to be something greater. And you mentioned it, right? And it has literal Breath of the Wild shrines sprinkled throughout, but so few, almost none. But like I say literal, like actually here's one, you go up to it, you go down an elevator exactly like Link does, you solve a little puzzle in this sacred shrine, you see like a statue of a god at the end who warps you out back to the entrance. It is just straight ripped from Breath of the Wild. Reptiles a shrine based gameplay. That's what it is. Shrine based gameplay. They did it in your tier. I don't think I can take credit for coining that, but I don't remember who did. But yeah, I just remember saying it about Bonanza on this show. Yeah, does every Nintendo studio just decide that that's what they're adopting? This game started development in 2017 the first time. That's true. When everything was looking at. We'll never hear from Nintendo employees ever because I'm not paying the debt. I would love to hear the cycle of this thing because I was just going to say that beyond the desert too, there are points where I'm like, I feel like this came from a different game. Especially like the tutorial stuff and the cinematics of and also we don't talk about much, but like the main antagonist is largely absent from the entire game. And they set up this like even like in the promotional like, oh, Samus is big rival silo. So I'm like, A, literally who unless you play like the hundred or three fours, hunters, which no one really liked. I'm sorry. But like the you go to the planet and then you don't really hear from him. And I'm like, this had to have been like Bandai Namco story before they just went like, okay, we're going to Veros now, whatever we had with silo Samus, scrap it, we'll keep some pieces of it. But I feel like there was like an actual storyline that kind of just got shoved aside. And then at the end they're like, well, wait, we need a bad guy again. Oh, well, we still have this guy. Well, the good news is you don't have to 100 percent it. You can spend $30 on a silo Samus and unlock the two minute video. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding? No, no, that's true. That's true. What? Yeah, yeah. 100 percent it or a game in skinly Amiibo. The all these things feel so incongruent with the game that Logan was describing at the top of this episode. Like what? And that was the highest highs and the lowest lows. What? That's why this was such a difficult game to review and why I lost sleep and literally had dreams behind Samus. Oh my god. Absolutely. I had dreams. Oh, what a life. I had dreams and things to critique. Yeah, I'm going to give it to you, dude. This feels like, this feels, go ahead. I just like Logan like for taking this one on, man. I was terrified. I've never been more happy that Black Friday was pulling me away from playing a video game because I was so stressed like, what if this game sucks or like, what if I hate this game? And then, you know, I'm really looking forward to playing it now after hearing like after your review and then like Dan Reichert thinks it's the best Metroid ever. I don't know if that's, I generally agree with your opinion and Dan Reichert's opinion on things. So we'll see. But yeah, good one. Good, good taking this one on and then like turning it around. In like the holiday weekend. Thanks, man, especially after people were mad at me about the companions in the preview, which we should talk about a little bit now. But just to wrap up the Silux point, I totally agree, Brendan. It feels like you could just see the scars on this game. You can just see that it was canceled and rebooted and went through hell to finally come out. You can totally tell in so many different ways with the desert being as underdeveloped as it is, with Silux being an afterthought in this game. But his boss fight is really good. Yeah, it's great. But yeah, they teased him 18 years ago and then what? Okay, he's barely in this game. And then just the companions feeling as mixed as they do to. Rob. I was just going to say that your experience for viewing this sounds very similar to my experience of viewing Pokemon, Scarlet and Violet a couple of years ago, except where there were just these incredible high highs and then these terrible low lows, except with Scarlet and Violet, I came away with this game's kind of, hmm. Yeah. Whereas the sum of this one's parts is significantly better, which is nice to hear. But I can very much relate to what you're describing. Yeah, it's stressful and it's something that people who just get to play it and pick it up and see, oh, the companions are actually aren't that bad. What was Logan freaking out about? Well, let's talk about the companions now because there are several of them throughout the game. And I think they're largely fine. I think the word I used in my review was tolerable. I don't think they make the game better, but they don't ruin it. I feel very neutral overall about them, mostly because you're still alone for well over half the game. Like they are not by your side the entire time. When they are, they're a little bit annoying sometimes. It's never as bad as it is with Miles in that very first segment where he's telling you absolutely everything you need to do and need to scan and protecting him and all this stuff. But they still do sometimes be like, check the map, Samus. Or something that bugs me is when you're on the motorcycle and you're doing the green crystal stuff and you're just farming for green crystals because I don't want to have to do this all at the end. So I'm going to chip away at it as I'm making my way through this campaign. And then eventually they assume you're lost because you've been driving on the desert for so long. So Miles calls you and he's like, hey, Samus, have you tried going here with this new ability yet? Because there might be something you can get. I'm like, bro, I'm doing your fetch quest right now. Let me turn that off. It's not a deal breaker. You can turn off on-screen tutorials that will tell you, hold A to do a charge shot. And that's kind of hinting you if there's something in this room you need to do a charge shot on. You can turn that off. So I just wish they'd gone the extra step and would have let me turn off companion hints off as well. Not companion dialogue. Imagine if he was like, Samus, you missed a crystal back there. Samus, you just missed Miles. I want to say though, to defend Logan, everyone going like, oh, your preview was so bad about the companions. I watched all of his footage that he got from the preview event before we started playing the game. Literally a minute after he had to stop recording when you leave Fury Green and get to the desert, that's when his recording stopped. A minute later, Miles says, oh, you could just talk to me if you want on the map screen. Otherwise, I'll be quiet. If they had included that extra minute, their preview would have been totally different. I mean, like, oh, he shuts up. Yeah, I know. I was stunned by that. And not to harp on this too long, but it's like, yeah, we judged what we saw. And what we saw was entirely companion focus. We didn't even see the overview trailer before we played that segment. And so it's like, when you have the worst bite of the meal to go off, that's all you can judge. And that's what we did. So I'm very grateful that it didn't turn out to be like that the whole time. I might actually go a bit higher than tolerable. I think there was some interactions that I was like, okay, this is actually kind of nice. Like, I do like the juxtaposition of it did get a little weird when Sam's wouldn't talk at all, but how different people in this universe view her from like, you know, hero worship to like, oh, I respect you because I'm also a lone wolf kind of person. And we can actually like, you know, we're on a similar level. I kind of like that. They're like, and one of them like just fangirling out. And like, honestly, I can see that that that is believable to me that somebody be like, oh my God, it's Samus. Oh my God. But like, barely containing that kind of joy. Like, I like that. And like, there was some missions where you're all working together and then it's like, okay. But I think the problem for me is that this is a relatively short game. And it tries to juggle those alone segments with those. So, hey, let's team up for a bit before you go off on your own again. And because of that, you don't really have enough time to connect with these people before the end of the story. And I think if there was, if this would have been longer, or if there was, you know, more sequences where you were together, which is hard because you don't want to be saddled with people all the time. You want to have that silent exploration that like, you know, methodical looking around without people yelling your ear to take cover or find something for you. So it's hard. And I think they did a pretty admirable job of trying to balance that. I just don't think it went on long enough to justify me caring about them as much as I could have. I love to hang out with slightly better than tolerable people. Right. That sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with what you're saying, Brendan. They do try to have it both ways, which is what we talked about during the review period. I ultimately don't mind because I'd rather have it this way where you leave feeling like, these characters aren't that developed. Yeah. Because I played 75% of the game alone. Thank God. Like that is by far my preferred outcome for this. And I think they're they're charming enough. Like I think people are really, really like drilling some of these lines on social media right now in context. They work fine. It's so it's like so infrequent that it works fine. And the characters almost outside of that tutorial section, which now has been in context of the whole game reframed as a tutorial section only, they don't spoil outright puzzle solutions for you. They don't tell you scan that open this morph ball here. They don't. They say, Sam is going to figure this out. She's got it. And then you do it. I'm like, okay, that's all I want. Looking at comparisons, trying to think of like who like people like Miles are like, it's not like a a Navi or an Atreus or a Minna. Miles is more like a Professor EGAD. You kind of just chose that and based on this, like, oh, you got an upgrade. Come back to base and we'll talk about it. Otherwise, like it was funny because going through and trying to mark like collectibles on the map, I kept mixing the button with mark the map and call for help. And honestly, most of the times I accidentally hit that button. I couldn't even contact Miles. So just like, oh, okay. Which is, which is what's awesome is that when you're in these dungeons, like in vault forge, which is has all these lightning strikes going on. Miles says, oh, we're losing contact, Samus. I can't hear you anymore. And then you're alone. And it's just like, you know, it's turned it off. Yeah, I know. I know. Sorry. Can't hear you. Flip it off and go on with her day. What do you think about her not talking at all? It's weird. In one of my drafts of my review, I had a paragraph about this, but decided it's too much of a nitpick. We'll talk about it on the show. It is. It's just part of this game's overall misguided tone that everyone's afraid to make Samus talk because in other M what she has to say is so bad. And so everyone now forever is afraid to not just have her be this silent stoic hero. But now we have a situation where you're trying to develop characters and tell a bigger story and Samus just literally stares at them. And it's weird. She doesn't respond like link is responding. You just don't hear what he is saying, but he is talking. Samus doesn't. She is silent the entire game except for her like grunts when she gets shot in combat. And I think like they got to pick a lane here because they're trying to get both right now. And it's a little awkward. It almost circles around to be funny and like a Nicholas Cage from Willie's Wonderland movie thing where he's just like has nothing to say to any of the other cast. I'm just killing monsters. It's all I care about. But I also go ahead, Rob. No, you. I have an idea. Feel free to take this one next game retro. You know how I think like a movie's of a certain rating, you're allowed like one swear and still have that rating. Let Samus swear. Yeah, sure. I want a button prompt. You can use it once in the game and Samus will say something in the context of whatever you're doing. And that is it. One time. It can be just like an interjection or curse word or like, you know, if someone's like, hey, Samus, you go, hey, girl. And then that's it. You know what? Yeah. You want to make him do that for sure? Lock it behind an Amiibo. Samus voice lines behind the Amiibo. It's me, Samus. I do that. Hi. Yeah. Right behind you. If you spend $30 on an Amiibo, you can get Samus to say, Dagnabbit. Yeah, I know exactly when I would have used it in this game, Brendan. I know when I was like, Samus should be responding right now, but she just didn't. Yeah. But I think I had the same spot as you. Yeah. But again, it's the same thing where I'm like, well, if I had to choose no talking or too much talking, I'll pick no talking every time. So it's okay. Like it's not the best it could be. I think it's made better by the fact that she's behind the helmet every time I see this. And so you can't even really get a read on an expression. It reminds me of when Pokemon first went into 3D and we were like sun and moon and stuff. And so you had these customizable outfits, but we weren't really playing with character expressions. And so in every cut scene, you could wear these giant sunglasses to just totally hide your eyes and have just a blank slight smile. And horrible explosions were happening and Pokemon were refining each other and you're just like, cool. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Nintendo needs to choose if they want their protagonist to talk and actually have a full story with them or not because they're a little too in the middle these days sometimes. Well, let's talk about some more of the good stuff. I just want to talk about the graphics and a little bit and just the music and performance because man, Retro still has it. And this is still one of the once again, they've made the benchmark for this is the best looking Nintendo game we've ever seen. That was Metroid Prime 1 and now it's Metroid Prime 4 23 years later. It is just stunning at times and it still has all those iconic things that make Prime stand out like rain trickling onto Samus's visor or if you're in a frozen area and Samus's arm cannon is frozen over, but then you fire a fire shot, a hot elemental beam shot, you see the ice melt off of her arm cannon. It's just these little tiny things that are so prime and so gorgeous that this game is just often stunning to me. There's a really good detail and when you're in the ice area and everything's frosted over and frozen and then you finally are able to find a generator, bring the power back on. And as I'm walking out of there, suddenly there's like trickling water down my visor. I'm like, oh, I'm starting to melt this place, aren't I? Oh, and that kind of leads into like a story beat and you're like, well, what else is getting thought out now? And like, I was like, oh, I really like how it sets it up with like its technical prowess of making you aware of these things are changing around you. Like the lighting changes, the volumetric changes, like effects that are change on your visor. It's really good. It really works well with the story. Yeah. And that's what Metroid has always done well, which is why it was just so shocking to have somebody just explicitly stating things to you. But it does still have that language that it is always really, really nailed. And yeah, like I already mentioned, Volt Forge, just how beautiful I think that area is with these stormy clouds in the background and the lighting. It's just breathtaking at times and I'm so impressed with it. And on Switch One, it looks awesome. Like it is 720p, which is a shame. It is a little bit blurry, but it's a locked 60 FPS on Switch One. Oh, that's really a top five looking Switch One game. On Switch One? Yeah, locked 60 on Switch One. I mean, it started development in 2017. Oh, that's true. Before that even, but. 2019 for the current version. Yeah, 2019. It had to have always been made with the Switch One in mind. Yeah. And it delivers there. Obviously recommend the Switch Two version over it any day, but if you have not upgraded yet, you shouldn't feel like you have to miss out on Prime Four because you can absolutely play this here. It's 120 FPS, right? Switch Two is 4K 60 or 1080 120 on the TV or 1080 60, 720 120 on the handheld. Yeah, I played it in the handheld too and it was perfect. Yeah. No complaints at all. Yeah. So did you play with the controller or Joy-Cons? Yeah, we should talk about the controls. Good shout out because there is the mouse controls we haven't touched on yet. I played with Pro Controller, Twin Stick controls with subtle motion aiming like Splatoon for fine tuned adjustments to aim at specific targets and that worked great for me. I did the Joy-Cons and I did the motion pointer like a Metropine 3. Like Prime 3. Yeah. That worked great for me. I was just like, let's go ahead. Did you mess with mouse controls at all? A little bit. I honestly, there were fun novelty, but my hand got tired after a while and I just kind of being able to just lay back and swish over. Like you can reorient at any time but pressing the plus button I think it was. Yeah. It just automatically resented your aim and it was like, especially for the free aiming part where you're locked on, but you need to aim at other targets while you're strafing. The motion controls just felt perfect for what I wanted. Yes. Yeah, mouse controls, they're functional, but the Joy-Cons is just uncomfortable as it is to use as a mouse. So if you have a grip, maybe you can try it and use them there, but the game controls so dang well with a pro controller or split joy-con. I don't care that the mouse controls aren't good because it functionally, traditionally controls outstanding. It still worked. It just wasn't comfortable for long periods, but I was like, oh, I can do this just fine. Yeah, for sure. Last thing for me here, Brendan, what did you think of the psychic powers and actually the puzzle design? That's the main thing that's new that we haven't really touched on yet. I think it was also a bit hit or miss. Like a lot of the things just felt like a new fancy word on the same old stuff. Now your bombs are psychic. Does that change in any meaningful way? Well, sometimes you throw them. Do I do that often? No, not really. Yeah, like three times. I feel like I'm crossing the entire game. And now your power bombs are psychic too. What does that change? Nothing. Boy, you can maybe toss that too. I don't know. It doesn't really matter. But yeah, there were some things which were like, okay, this isn't just kind of the same thing I've seen before. I was hoping there would be something kind of like, there was some motion stuff. But again, with the grapples and Metroid Prime 3, still kind of not huge. There was some interesting puzzle designs by the end. But most of the time, it was just like, oh, if you have this upgrade, you just point and click and then things kind of done for you. Even some of the shrines where you can unlock elemental charged weapons, they were kind of like, I think three of them were just kind of like, you just psychicly do a thing and then you hit it with the power and things kind of done for you. So, and those parts was kind of like, it's fine of like, okay, I'm going through the motions. It's serviceable. I kind of wish because they had shrines, again, I felt like they weren't going as far as they could have. It would have been fun to explore the desert and find actual engaging puzzles to make you actually stop and go, oh, I need to actually think for a couple minutes here to solve this thing and going forward. Yeah, I think that I agree with you. It's safe. I think that this is really, I liken it to Star Wars, The Force Awakens, where it's, okay, this is Metroid Prime again. It's very similar, power wise. You're, it's very similar story wise. It's very safe. This is a reintroduction into the series after 18 years away. I don't think that's bad. I think that's perfectly fine. And I think people like me and Brendan, who have played every single Metroid game, this is the same problem Zelda ran into by the end before it switched to Breath of the Wild. You see a hookshot thing, you know, you're going to get a hookshot. Metroid is in that stage right now where you see that, okay, I'm going to get the bomb. And I actually think that Prime 4 does it in a smart way where a lot of its obstacles are more organic. It's not, there's some missile doors, but it's not just like, this is a thing you need to shoot with the missile. It's like hardened fossil. And then you scan it and it's like, could be broken with a concussive blast. And then you know, oh, I can shoot my missile with this. So it, it tries to remix it a little bit, but it does feel safe. And as you were saying, Brendan, I think if you do that post game item cleanup and go for 100% items, you'll run into some very clever puzzles that are more satisfying and turn me around a little bit by the end. Because it's never bad. It is just a little bit by the numbers for the base game, but there's some good stuff tucked in there. And I'm really happy that they included Matt Markers, which is I think Metroid's needed for a long time, is being able to go like, there's something here. I don't know when I'll be back, but I know I have to come back. So I'm going to put a little missile icon here and then I like it kind of just has the entire room, like with the green highlight so that you know, even leave in the open world, little quadrants, you can just put individual markers. If you know that there's like, like a giant like ore thing of green crystals to come back to later and blow up. Okay. I'm going to put a Matt Marker in that little quadrant. It was, it was really useful. I liked it. Yeah. Yeah. How long does it take? Anything else? Well, I wanted to, I mean, I too far away to go to howlongtobeat.com, one of our sister sites. How long does it take to 100% this game? Could I 100% this over a long weekend? Yeah. I'm going to look at my completion thing right now actually. So I 100% the game before, I guess 98% it because you have to scan the final boss to get 100% scan completion. And I beat it in 13 hours and 44 minutes. Yeah. But you're also Brendan Graber, like your professional video game. Is that also game clock time, like the file save time? That was the ending screen. Like this is your final time. Yeah. I don't think that counts. For 100% that's crazy. That is so fast. I don't think that counts cut scenes or loading or pause or map time. I think it's more like 15 hours probably. Yeah. Yeah. Some of that might be driving around in a circle for a while. Yeah. Probably like two hours total to get all the green crystals that you need. Yeah. Spread across the entire game. Spread across the game. If you wait until the very end, you just put a podcast on or buy $50 Mubile to listen to some music. Oh, this sounds like Legend's Arche is collecting all the bits of spirit to him. Yeah. I'm going to do a, I'm going to keep an eye out to our IGN YouTube channel for my two hour super cut of just the motorcycle part. It's the motorcycle. No music. Just that's not really. So there's part in my, in my video preview. This is a shout out to Tristan over in Australia who edited this, that are in my video review that I just love because it's talking about, I had already covered all the green crystals. And then I didn't even ask for this. He just did it and it's hilarious. And then I'm talking about Miles and how he chimes in on the radio when you're driving around. And then Tristan just left it and put the natural sound up for like five seconds and Sam is just like, smashes into crystals for like five seconds and then cuts to the next thing. I'm like, yeah, that is what this game looks like. It's a very accurate and funny. So shout out to Tristan for that. Areb, you said you had something to say about if you're going to play Prime 4 or not. Yeah. So this game again announced in 2017 and at the time, so I've never, I had never played a Metroid game at that time. I've played Super Metroid now and I had never played a Prime game. And so I thought, okay, great, well, they're going to make Metroid Prime 4. I'll get into it then. And then so many years passed and so many things happened in those years. And over time, my interest in it waned because as we've sort of, you know, we've talked about on the show before, the marketing around this game has been bizarre. Like I really don't think based on what you're saying, it doesn't sound like they put this game's best foot forward in things like the preview offerings and some of its trailers and things like that. And this game is actually a lot better than a lot of its marketing has led people to believe. And but it really sort of tested my interest in actually playing it. And then I read your review, Logan, and I read a lot of other reviews when they all came out. And where I have landed on Metroid Prime 4 is that I don't want to play Metroid Prime 4. I want to play Metroid Prime. Like I think that's just what I want to do. There you go. The way everybody speaks so lovingly of Metroid Prime. Like, I mean, I know, I've known for a long time that it's a great game and like, like incredible and one of the like, like canon of Nintendo, whatever. But like actually hearing people relate the best parts of this game to the things they loved about the first Metroid Prime, like really kind of sold me on, OK, maybe I need to go, like actually really make time to go back and do that. So I'm not going to do it like soon because I have a backlog of games I need to work through. And I've sworn to play Ocarina of Time over Christmas break and give that game another chance. But I really do think I will go play the first Prime in the new year because of hearing everybody talk about four. So I'm going to you. You brought this over to that. Because I think if someone like you is like, I'm not sure if I'm going to enjoy Prime 4. I haven't played the Prime ones. I don't know if I want to spend money on a brand new game that I may or may not enjoy. Play Prime one. And if you beat that and you're like, wow, I really like this world that Samus inhabits. I really want more of this fun exploration. I think you will like Prime 4 more than you dislike it if you if you really enjoy what you like in Prime one. Yeah. I land totally on the opposite side of the fence. I think that's a yeah. It depends on you. I think that's a very valid recommendation. If you already like Metroid Vanias, like, Rev, you love Metroid Vanias. Yeah, I think Prime is the one for me. Yeah, you can pick up Prime one and play it and get it and love it. But to me, if you are listening to this and you have never played a Metroidvania game, Prime 4 is the training wheels Metroid Prime. Some people will hate that. Some people will love it. I think that this is an outstanding first Metroid game because it's it's like a California role. And then Metroid Prime is like the Sashimi and you can't just give somebody raw fish right away and say, this is sushi and you'll love it. You got to you know, you ease people into this. And I think that Prime 4 really eases you in in the same way that Dred does for the 2D Metroids. Like Dred is way more handholdy than it appears. It's way more linear than it appears, but it gives the impression of a Metroidvania. So then you're ready for Super Metroid. Prime 4 to Prime one is the same thing. So I think if you I don't know people play Prime one, they bounce off it because it's confusing and it's a labyrinth and it's maze like Prime 4 isn't Prime 4 is very linear. It offers the illusion of choice, but there's always one right answer. I don't want that. No, you don't. You're a Metroidvania fan. But I'm talking to the people who have never played games. I think Prime 4, you should start here if you've never played one of these games ever. So which is it will give you that flavor is fans of the genre don't rejoice because this isn't second. Yeah, I jean. I think you should play Metroid Prime 3 first and go, what the heck is going on? I don't think that's a good piece of advice. Don't do that. I'll also be funny to play Metroid Prime 4 first and then go, where are all the Metroids because there's not really that. There aren't. There are barely any. Yeah, you see them at the start and they're kind of just like somewhere else. Yeah, they're like, you know, in the boss. I think the weirdest thing about the just the Metroid franchise as a whole is that it very rarely sells very well. In fact, it never sells well. But like Samus is like one of the coolest characters ever. Like in maybe sci-fi, she's just awesome in every way. Like her armor is so freaking badass and iconic and everything about the design and aesthetic of Metroid is just so freaking amazing. And then like nobody ends up liking it. I kind of wonder if that's what the companions are in the linearness of this one is, is to sort of make this into a bigger thing. So that in, you know, 2035, Mr. Miyamoto is introducing the Metroid movie in 4D. You actually travel through time. And the role of Miles McKenzie will play by Chris Pratt. Oh my gosh. It's funny because I don't think that like the classic Metroid games are that tonally dissonant from the rest of Nintendo's portfolio of the time. But I do think that the direction that that series has gone is very tonally dissonant from the rest of Nintendo's portfolio now. And I think that puts people off and that is a shame because again, like I thought Super Metroid was wonderful. And so I think anything that follows in that tradition probably is at minimum very interesting. And yeah, that's I hope this does well because I would love to see more Metroid games happen. I hope it does too. It is a great game that you can appreciate despite its flaws. And I love games like that that aren't just like, oh, it's either a 10 or it's a zero. Like I appreciate that this game tries things and it doesn't always work out. And yeah, I had guys, but I've never like I was never mad at this game. I was never like, oh, I don't want to play anymore. Like when I was playing, I did not want to stop playing. I really enjoy my time with it. I want to go play hard mode. I got to write the guide first, but I want to go back and play hard mode. Yeah, I'm playing hard mode now because I just want to experience it again now that the pressure and stress of this review is off and I could just play it with everybody else. So I'm playing again on hard mode. And yeah, I totally agree, but it is great. It is one of the lesser Metroid games in a franchise full of nines and tens. So that is by no means a bad thing. This is still very, very great. People were panicking over the score. Now, I think people are going to really, really like this game. Brendan, was it worth the wait 18 years since Prime 3? How do you feel? That's a it's a hard to struggle with because I feel like, especially in the switch and switch to era, we always were like, oh, which which could be the next part because the big like the breath of the wild vacation, the big open openness like Mario Odyssey gets bigger. Donkey Kong gets bigger. Even Pokemon gets tries to get bigger. And this still is a very kind of short end. The open world is not very that big or interesting. So it's like, you're kind of like, oh man, I waited all this time for this. It's hard to reconcile that like it doesn't have to have its big jump to like a open world with a million things to do. It is a fun self contained adventure. So I'm still happy we got it. And I'm still happy with what I played. Yeah, I do kind of wish there were things that were better with regards to it expanding its regions. But for the stuff we got and the self contained areas, I loved it. Yes, as someone who complains all the time about not having that classic 3D Zelda style game anymore to get this feels like that. So if you love our time or Twilight Princess play this game because it isn't the modern Nintendo, everything has to be open world and you can break anything and you can build anything and all this stuff, that stuff's amazing. It's transcendent. This isn't that this is such a classic game and Rev, you made a really good point. Metroid is never straight from its original formula. That's still what it is. And I like that a lot. And I think there was room for that in Nintendo's catalog. Is anything worth waiting 18 years for? I don't know. I think that there's always going to be unrealistic hype. Silk song was the same way. But this is it's a great game. And yeah, I'm excited to talk to more Metroid fans as people dive into it over the coming weeks. And last thing I'll close out on here, I think it's lame to talk about Prime Five the day Prime Four comes out, but I'm going to do it because I think I think that retro still has the stuff and Metroids in very good hands and that if they get the chance to make a sequel to this game without whatever baggage was attached to Prime Four of it being rebooted after being at a different studio and they had to put in this open world, this motorcycle, silo, loose threads, whatever from Prime Three, fresh start, Prime Five retro studios in 2025 starting. It could be awesome. No, no, no. I want a 2D Donkey Kong first. No, I'm fine with either one. I'm fine with whatever route they go because they deserve another crack at either one of those franchises. I agree. It's still in great hands. Yeah, good. Yeah. Awesome. That's Prime Four beyond. We'll talk more Metroid next week when Seth will have a ton of time in it and Brian El Tano is playing it now. We've been texting about it all morning and he is loving it so far as well. So we'll talk more about it next week. That makes me even more excited. That's like three people who I generally vibe with in game opinions. Hell yeah. Yeah. Hope you enjoyed out there, Nintendo Voice chat fans, because it's a really good one. Here's a quick piece of housekeeping before we move on to Kirby Airwriters and let us follow up fans. This is one you've been waiting for. The Wands Company has created a one to one screen accurate replica of the PipBoy 3000 Mark V built using the actual geometry from the Fallout TV series. This thing is gorgeous. A die cast metal faceplate, hand weathered finish, memory foam cuff and a working TFT LCD screen that plays over 45 in universe screens. It's also a fully functional clock. You can put it next to your alarm. With an alarm mode FM radio and a premium display stand that turns it into the ultimate desk or nightstand centerpiece. Whether you're cosplaying, collecting or just living your best wasteland life, this is the perfect PipBoy. Grab yours now at store.ign.com before they're gone. And Nintendo is getting a Fallout game. We're getting Fallout 4 next year. So it's slightly later. Arm can replica next. Yeah, I would wear that on the show. Mega Man on one arm, Samus on the other. I used to put like roll up sleeping bags on my arm. Ten hours, Samus. Oh, that's you. You gotta dig up pictures of that if you have it. Please. I want to see that. Oh, that's my parents. Yeah, cool. Well, let's move on to what we're playing. It's been a few weeks, a very Metroid focused few weeks, but we don't want to overshadow Kirby Airwriters, the last big switch to exclusive that came out. Seth, you've been playing it and you said you would either hate it or you would love it. Where did you fall? I want to give my little personal anecdote leading up to what made me, as you may know, I reviewed Call of Duty. This is not a Call of Duty show. So I did 18 and a half hours of the multiplayer at a chair that was about two inches too low for the desk where my PC is. And so what ended up happening was I irritated my previously injured elbow to the point where I, excuse me, my shoulder like where I was losing sleep and in agony all the time. And I couldn't play. I had to go to the clinic to get like, I go to an orthopedist to have this all looked at. But because of that, I decided, you know what, I'll start playing Kirby Airwriters wide. And I started playing it and I freaking ended up loving it. Awesome. I love it so much. It is everything I like about video games. Unfortunately, I haven't played it nearly as much as I want to because even just sitting on a couch playing with a controller was actually causing me a lot of pain. I was going to say, did you heal your shoulder because that would be an excellent accolade? Yeah, I wish Kirby Kirby my shoulder. I want my shoulder to be healed because of this game because I want to play this again because I was making some pretty good progress. I was fighting through the pain. I was playing in a considerable amount of discomfort because I was having so much fun because everything about this is wonderful. It's like right down to the fact that when you start a race, it doesn't go three, two, one, it goes three, two, one, go. Like I don't know why I love that it says three, two, one in one second. I love top down mode. I know Logan, that was your least favorite. That might be my most favorite. I love unlocking things. I love how there's a million random things that you're unlocking every time you finish a race. I love the sound of when you finish a race and everything is shown and it's so much fun and it's so, I don't even know what the word is. None of it needs to exist. This is a game that didn't do well on GameCube that doesn't seem like anybody was clamoring for like, we need some more Kirby racing games and then Sakurai. Now as I'm saying it out loud, I'm realizing what it is. It's like, I've always appreciated when somebody is the best at what they do no matter what that is. So it's like, everybody hates LeBron, but I think this guy is the greatest of our era since we don't have Michael Jordan anymore. Same with Tom Brady. Same with just when I used to work as an electrician and I'd go on a job site and I'd see like, perfectly bent conduit that was run in this expertly wonderful way. I just love craftsmanship and everything about this is Sakurai's craftsmanship and like love for just doing things amazingly well and perfectly well and in a way that just absolutely captures what it means to be a video game. This is the most gamey ass game maybe ever that I can think of and we kind of talked about this in our planning mini, but this makes me feel like the GameCube era kind of never ended. And this is what the GameCube era would have built to if the Wii hadn't taken off with motion controls. This just feels like early 2000s, but in the best possible way. We have monster energy drinks now. We didn't have those back then in spite of what you made of thought. So this is, yeah, I can't explain what- It's the Sakurai Sikko mode. It's Sakurai Sikko mode. Exactly. They just let him loose. They took the shackles off him. They're like, go do what you want, man. You worked so well for us making Smash Brothers. Everybody loves it. Just go have fun and he's like, I'm going to do one better. Not only am I going to have fun, I'm going to make one of the most inventive, fun and ridiculous games ever made that's probably not going to appeal to very many people, but it appeals to me personally. And I have many times mentioned as the protagonist of the universe, that is all I could ask for. Just make something that I like the end. Yeah, I'm so happy to hear that, man. I feel like this is a game that people who click with it, it's one of their favorite games like on Switch 2. It's just incredible. It's so crazy. And people who don't just don't get it at all. And I think that is awesome to have stuff like that in a library. And there's more conversation on this to be had as we kind of wrap up the year over the next few weeks, but the Switch 2 totally feels like the GameCube 2 so far with its library. Got a Metroid Prime and a Kirby Air Ride. That is so GameCube and it's just awesome. Another thing I like as I was realizing as I was playing like big game companies don't take risks like this anymore. This feels completely experimental, but everything that he's experimenting with works and you just don't see that anymore. Every kind of game has a sameness to it now. I think was it Max that wrote an opinion piece about he's like tired of playing the same like PlayStation plot over and over again. Oh, it's Cardi. Oh, it's Cardi. Yeah. Simon Cardi wrote an opinion piece about how like that revenge plot. Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of like what it is. And so you get, you know, 500 people to build a beautiful game engine and have wonderful animations and incredible systems that is just kind of the same as everything else. And this game is nothing like that. This game takes every chance it can and doesn't care. It doesn't feel like it cares whether or not it succeeds. And then it does. It succeeds in every possible way of setting out what it's trying to do, which is just be this weird, fun, experimental game that like hooks you constantly with all these weird mechanics, a thousand different modes, tons of collectibles, checkmarks. So if you're into checkmarks or checklists, rather, like there's a billion of those, it's just it's so bizarre. And I love it almost as much for like the concept of it that it is just this is Nintendo, which is the biggest video game company in the world right now, making a game that is just not a 2025 game at all. This is a 2000s game. Like let's see what, let's, we're still trying to figure this out. And then this comes along and it's just beautiful and perfect. And I love it. And I want to pat Sackle on the head and just like maybe just give him a little, just a little pat right on the forehead. Like, thank you. I've always lost back into the Smash Brothers minds. Yeah. Before they reshackle it. You know, he's already there. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to release a video. We actually started Smash 6 before Ultimate even came out. I've been working for 15 years. Yeah. Something like that. Brendan, have you tried Kirby or Idors yet? No, I really need to, but I've been on my backlog too. I did check out the other end of the spectrum since Mario Kart World got a quick update. Oh, yeah. They added a custom items mode, which people have been asking for for a while. And you can just set it to only Chemics so that there are just raining monsters and explosions everywhere. Everyone's transformed every five seconds. It is pure chaos. And like, I kind of missed that about Mario Kart. Yeah. So I'm like, yeah, please let us go. Let us go crazy with this. Then I got mad about the audio changes. Yeah. The audio changes are so funny. Six months down the line, they like, hey, we finally added a sound option in the menu for music. And everyone's like, awesome, we finally get audio sliders. No. No. You get an option for music that says normal or loud. Loud being 5% more than normal. It is bizarre. How is this? I love you, Mario Kart. I try. How is it in 2025 that this has some of the worst menuing and options I have ever seen in a video game between this and the here is a million different outfits with no discernible order. Yeah. And like having to go to free room is pressing plus button on the main menu, but not going down to the single player like make it make sense. And then you have Sakurai on the other end who's just like, I make the most delicious looking menus that are also informative possible. What happened guys? Yeah, it's bizarre. So that is the Mario Kart World new update that is out now dropped out of nowhere is Nintendo like is dropping all these non-metroid things. Just talk about Metroid. Don't talk about anything else, please. But yeah, Brendan mentioned it, custom items, you can toggle off anything you want. Music can be normal or loud. There it is. And then this is the biggest change. They change the routes surrounding Koopa Troopa Beach. There's eight different tracks that can connect to Koopa Troopa Beach in the intermission segments. And they updated the level design of a Mario Kart game six months after launch, which is crazy to me. Like this is a retail $80 Nintendo game. This isn't like a live service Fortnite or just like a balance change or something. They Nintendo has changed their level design in a game they shipped six months ago, which is just really interesting. What if they Fortnite this game to the point of like just be a bullet in the world? Like what if we just like launch like a Bowser bomb at the world and then suddenly all your courses are different? I don't know how I feel about that. I might like I don't either. Logan, I heard the track changes were to help get rid of some of the really boring straightaways, right? They are. Yeah, I played some of them. The track changes are cool. Like you before it was just this straightaway in ocean and now they've made it like a Wave Race 64 course where you are serving through like boolees that they've set up and stuff. It's neat. Like it's good changes. I'm happy they're doing it and making like putting some band-aids on these parts that a lot of the people just don't like that are still playing this game. I just don't know if we've ever seen this before where Nintendo has like taken levels away basically and put in new ones. It's just it's really fascinating to me. It's going to be a lot of people playing this in Christmas. It actually the bundle went on sale. It's like $50. It's as we're recording this, it's on sale still at Amazon for $449 for the bundle and like everyone's buying it. And I don't I mean, again, that still doesn't explain because Nintendo doesn't generally care to do that sort of thing. But that may kind of explain the timing because this is just like Christmas morning. The servers are going to just crash for Mario Kart because so many kids are going to be getting this on Christmas morning and playing it. But man, it is I really never had a problem with the intermission. Yeah. I did. I mean, I'm very much in the minority. So I like these a lot more than the old ones. Yeah, I'll say that much. Yeah. And then last thing they updated the online lobby system again. Now you can group up with four friends before you start matchmaking for like a knockout tour. Awesome change. But then again, if you hit next race, you're all split up. So you have to back out, regroup into four and go back in. So close. Just inching its way towards the game. It should have been at launch. It is just hilarious to see these slow updates. Great. They're doing it. Like this is all good news. But some of this stuff should have been here, like the custom items. And yeah, it's tough to reconcile like the way we paid $80 and you're still fixing what should have been there. I get that. So it's tough to be like, I want the best for this game. And I hope it gets to a point where everyone's happy. But it is kind of sad that it had to take six months to get a sound option for loud. Yes. Yeah, multiple Nintendo games that had an open world that maybe didn't need to have an open world. And this was one of them. That's Mario Kart World. That's enough AAA nonsense. So we got to hear about the indie games that Rev has been playing. You've got a couple to shout out. Need anything from Tesco? Like Nescafe Azir and 90 Grams Instant Coffee? For just £3.50 this Easter with your Tesco Club Card. Because every little helps. Majority of larger stores Azir and 90 Grams ends 14th April. Club card or app required. Yeah, I have two actually that I've been playing. One I've been playing on Nintendo Switch. And the other one I've not been, but it's also available on Nintendo Switch. So the first one is a game called Indica. And Indica has been out for a little while, but it came out on Switch fairly recently. And if you've never heard of Indica, it's very dark game. It's very short. It follows a nun in Russia who hears the devil. The devil speaks to her. And she ends up sort of being sent on a journey to deliver a letter with the devil voice sort of accompanying her. And that journey goes wrong in various ways. It's really interesting. And I think the game itself is fantastic. It is phenomenal. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to think philosophical thoughts or has a relationship of some sort with faith. It has some really interesting meditations on what it means to be a person of faith and what it means to go against that in certain scenarios. And what morality means. It's really cool. It's real thinky. I love it a lot. The cautionary tale I want to provide is I played this on Switch. The Switch version is not very good. It is apparently totally fine on PC or wherever else. I don't know what other platforms it's on. But the Switch version, unfortunately, visually, it doesn't have a dedicated Switch 2 version. It's just the Switch. And visually, it's real rough. There's a lot of weird pop in. There's a lot of things that don't like textures that don't fully load in. So you're seeing like these weird like blurry versions of objects that are very up close. I had the game crash on me a couple times. One time, one time I lost a significant amount of progress. There's a moment in the very beginning of the game where you have to draw water out of a well. And you have to do and pour it into a bucket and it's like across the courtyard. And if you do this five times, and it's intended to be a very tedious, frustrating endeavor, like that's the Ludo narrative of it. I did this. I got to the end of this little quest. A nun took my bucket, dumped all my water on the floor, and then the game crashed. And then I had to do it all over again. Perhaps this was the real Ludo narrative. I know. I made a joke about it basically being a really meta way to hammer home the point, but it was not intended. And so that just made me extra frustrated. But I really want to recommend this game. And so what I'm recommending is for anyone who that sounds cool to you, I recommend watching Indica for a patch on Switch, because I think the idea of playing it on Switch was great. It's just in its current release format. It's a little rough. I don't know if it's still after, but I played the demo for the Steam Next Fest for Indica like a couple of years back. What did you think? I really liked it. It was the kind of demo where it makes you go like, whoa, there's more to this game than meets the eye. Oh, yeah. And I love how it's not trying to like pigeonhole itself. Like it's like, oh, what if we just change up the genre we're kind of doing now? What if we add some really weird, like, video gamey things that like, wait, why is this here? Where is this all leading to? It's a very good hook. And I really want to go back and play that because I was, I came away going like, oh, I really want to know where this is going now. Yeah, it's very short. You can do it in afternoon. It's very, very, very quick. If it doesn't crash on you while you're pouring water. Cool. Yeah, this one was in my inbox for months before it came out. And I always thought it looked really, really interesting, but I haven't played it yet. Well, I recommend it. I really liked it. Nintendo's finally done releasing a game every two weeks. So maybe I can play some other stuff now for the first time this year. It has a really phenomenal ending, I'll say. I don't want to talk about it because I don't want to spoil it for people. But the last 20 minutes of this game are unhinged in the best possible way. Like it was really, really good. It stuck the landing so perfectly. I was just, I was very blown away. Nice. The other game is Stray Children, which I am notive. I was notably excited about on the show when it got announced and several other times since as we've approached release. Stray Children, I finished last night and it had it really emotionally got me because the subject matter is something that I've had some close personal experience with this last year. And so it really got me in a really interesting way. But I come on the show to present Stray Children to you and to both recommend it and again, not recommend it. So Stray Children is of the Undertale Earthbound tradition in that it's a very quirky, I believe the creator, Kimera, refers to it as an oddball RPG. It's very weird. It has this like very humorous and kind of unusual offbeat dialogue. The writing is really good. The music is really good. And then it follows in the Undertale tradition of having a system where when you get into an encounter with a monster or in this case an older is what they're referred to, you can either fight it and defeat it through violence or you can in this case talk to it to and basically try to figure out what the right dialogue options are to ultimately, it doesn't really use the word sparing in this case, but you're basically opening up their heart in order to kind of free their souls or something. And so you have those options in each battle. It's a really strange game in like a lot of wonderful ways. And I think if you're really into those types of games, if you're if you really liked Undertale, if you really liked Earthbound, if you've played like Omori or I don't know, like Contact, if you really liked Moon, Moon is one of my favorite games of all time. And if you really liked Moon, this is as close to a sequel or spiritual successor to Moon as you are ever going to get. It has so many winks and nods towards the things that were in Moon. It's obviously this many of the same developers. And the reason why I hesitate to recommend this is because if all of this sounds appealing, but you haven't played Moon, I recommend playing Moon first, because this game has a true ending that I think is maybe almost impossible to find on your own without either a guide or having played Moon and knowing the conceit of it. It's crazy. It is a fascinating choice. And Logan, I'm dying to tell you how weird it how weird the end of this game is after we get off this because I want to spoil it for people, but it is it is legitimately bizarre. But but I love it. Like I was telling I was telling my partner last night, if I had to score this game, if I'd like write a scored review for IGN, I think I wouldn't score it super high. Mechanically, this game has a lot of issues. The biggest issue I have with it is the battle system is really cool. And I think the bullet hells are really awesome. But when you're trying to spare an enemy, you have to get certain dialogue options in the right order. Some of the puzzle solutions are really obtuse. And if you fail one, you have to start all the way over from the beginning. And there it can be it can make some of these fights just so tedious and frustrating. There's tons of points of no return in this game, where if you miss an item, it's just you've missed it. And you might not be able to spare all of the olders. If you don't have there's a there's a couple items you get in the first sequence of the game, that if you don't go find them, you can't spare olders later in the game, like you just fully can't and you have to kill them. I didn't I didn't finish it pacifist. There was one older that I missed because I just didn't encounter him. And then another one that I didn't have the item for. So I had to kill her like it's it's really interesting. And then it also it's very classic. Sorry, I feel that she's the last enemy in the game for the final boss. So I had spared everybody up to that point. And then I just get up to her. I'm like, well, gotta die. The battle system fighting works. I've never done this before. Um, things like that. It also has a save system that's very retro and that you can only save at campfires. And like some campfires are very far apart, there's no auto saving. So you I did multiple times died, or or had something happen where I had to go back and I lost a ton of progress. So there's a lot of like gameplay friction. But if you're the kind of person who's already bought into games like this, you're going to love it. And that's that's like the other side of what I was telling my partners that if I had to score this, I probably wouldn't score it super high. But if I had to just write an unscored like review about how it made me personally feel glowing gushing praise, like I loved this. I think it succeeds so well at the story it's trying to tell, which is this interesting story about like, like children and their relationship with adults and the expectations that we place upon children to be good and live up to who we want them to be and how children experience trauma, both both big traumas and also like the little traumas of just having adults be disappointed in you. It's really, really good. It's really, really emotional. And it like broke my heart in a really good way. And I loved it. And also if you haven't played Moon, go play that first. Is Moon available on modern places? It's on Switch. Okay, I played it for the first time on Switch when it came out a couple of years ago and it is genuinely one of my favorite games of all time. I love it with all my heart. It is also very weird and full of friction. So you really do have to be bought into the style of thing. But like if you are, if you like this kind of thing, wholeheartedly recommend this. It's so good. It hurts me if I'm wrong. Is this the one where the developer said that they were inspired by Undertale to make this? Yes, absolutely. I love that. It's beautiful. And actually, I'll throw this out there. I interviewed Kimura when I was in Japan for Tokyo Game Show and I haven't published that interview yet because a bunch of other things have happened. But I intend to get that interview up before the end of the year and we talked about like the ways in which Undertale sort of prompted him to make this and also the ways in which he like, he talked a little bit about how sort of the legacies of Moon and Undertale and now straight children are sort of intertwined and how they influence one another. And it was a really, really cool conversation. It's a delightful man. Awesome. Cool. And that's straight children out on Switch One, Two. Do you know if it has a Switch Two version? I played on Steam Deck. I actually don't know. I don't think it's on Switch. That's just the code they sent me. I think it is on Switch for sure. Okay. Cool. Yeah, it looks great. Awesome. I have been playing a bunch of old games. I just want to shout out really quick. Seth, I got my analog 3D and I have been playing so much of it. What do you think? Awesome. What a cool machine. I love it so much. I think I'm not like a super tech savvy person. I play consoles, plug and play stuff. So all the choices in there of the different CRT filters and all the different modes, I don't really know what any of it means, but I found something that I think looks pretty good. And I would say it sounds amazing. I love how these games sound on the analog 3D. It comes through super clear and F-Zero X's butt metal soundtrack just sounds awesome. It's really fantastic. I love it very much. You sent me a photo of playing Donkey Kong 64 and it was incredible. I was so happy. Which that were me. Have you updated the latest firmware? I have not. No, I didn't. Yeah, I was like, I just want to play right now. I'll plug in my SD card later and update it later. Yeah. It's a wonderful machine. And it's just so sleek looking too. I just love how the hardware looks. It's just beautiful. Yeah, analog does not miss when it comes to industrial design. I think I talk about it in my review. I mean, everything that they make is just gorgeous. The first thing that they ever made was like the, I don't remember exactly what it, I think it was just called the analog, the analog. It was an NES that was like milled out of aircraft aluminum. And so they've carried that through. I 100% predict that next year we're going to get an email being like, hey guys, we got a new thing coming out and it's going to be like an aircraft aluminum version of this analog 3D, which I am in favor of because it is, it's wonderful. We hit Thanksgiving. We had my family over. So we played GoldenEye with me, my oldest son, my nephew and my brother. So it was like two, Jen, whatever they are, like two 17 year old kids and then two like very old men playing GoldenEye. And it was, it was awesome. And it turns out, you know what I forgot about? That, Audjab is unlockable. You have to unlock your characters and GoldenEye completely forgot about that because I was trying to get Audjab. I was like, wait a second here. This isn't right. But yeah, it turns out my son is very good at GoldenEye. And I don't know how to feel about that. I guess pride. But yeah, you pass it on. It doesn't make sense to a kid how to control that game. It doesn't really make sense to me. You have the analog 3D control scheme, 1.3 kissy, I think, works amazing with the 8 bit do controller that you can get for it. Yeah, I ordered one of those controllers. I'm still just using my old N64 controllers plugged in with the extension cables. You remember those original chords very short. Yeah, it's just been a blast to revisit some of these. I've been playing a lot of Kirby 64, the Crystal Shards also. Just air riders put me in a Kirby moods to revisiting that and DK64, which I'm not super hot on yet. I'm going to keep playing. It's not a good game. I love it with all my heart. It's I have deep nostalgia for it. I won it so badly on Switch Online. I'm a huge fan. It's terrible. It's a good kind of terrible. It is. It is the good kind of terrible to me. I also will say Kirby 64. I think it's my favorite Kirby game. I'm sorry to everyone who loves the 2D ones. Interesting. I adore that game so much. I adore the music. I adore zero two. I adore everything. It's cool. Yeah. Mixing powers is a cool thing. So cool. Yeah, it is a cool one. It's fun. I just think it's a little slow, which is yeah, what holds it back for me, but it's really pretty still on the analog. It looks really, really nice. Yes, really fun, though, really cool device. I'm going to play a bunch of N64 over the holidays and I can't wait. Let's hit a couple of news stories and then get out of here. We already talked about the Mario Kart World update, but Nintendo made an acquisition this week. They acquired a Bandai Namco Singapore. They don't acquire studios very often when they do. It's not usually a huge splash. It's usually someone they've been working with for many years before on Nintendo projects. That's the case here. Bandai Namco Singapore contributed to Splatoon 3 in 2022 and they were the lead developer on 2021's new Pokemon Snap and rumor has it, this was the team making Metroid Prime 4 before Retro Studios was, which is fascinating. What does that mean? What have we intended to take from that? Mission failed successfully. Yeah, okay, we'll bring it in now. They'll get to work on Prime 5. Interesting. Maybe they made those cutscenes for the cinematics of the intro to Metroid like, hey, those are cool. You can stick around. You made some good cutscenes for Metroid in 2017. They do look amazing. The cutscenes look awesome in Prime 4. The Pokemon Snap was great. Yeah, that's a great game. I think this is a smart one. They acquire studios that really make sense for them like they have next level, I think it's Luigi's Mansion or even Retro Studios has been around for a very long time now, but they don't go out and buy studios already making big games. They buy studios to work on Nintendo games and it works for them. Let's be honest, if they worked on Metroid, even if they came away and didn't work out, if they learned something, if they can grow within Nintendo now to come back and go, okay, we learned from our mistakes, here's what we're going to do going forward. That's a smart pick. Yeah. What non-Nintendo stuff have they done that we would know? They made that Hirogami game that came out this year that nobody knows about. It's like an origami based 3D platformer action game. Sounds awesome. People think that the team that worked on Metroid Prime 4 made that after Metroid Prime 4 got taken away and moved away. Wow. Yeah. Turned out fine, apparently. I did not hear super great things, but it's a unique style of game. Yeah, that's pretty. I like that. Fascinating. Yeah, Nintendo, there's a couple of them. I'm never on the big companies need to scoop everyone these acquisition wars between Xbox, Sony, Nintendo or whatever, but there's a couple that Nintendo would make sense for Nintendo to just scoop up and have. Mercury Steam should make 2D Metroids forever. Instead, they made some action game that Jada didn't like this year. Why wasn't that Metroid 6? That should be Metroid 6. I think the difference is when, yeah, like you said, Nintendo makes acquisitions is because it's like, well, this works so well with us, we want them forever. Whereas it feels like everybody else is just scooping them up to just pat out their portfolio and say, Call of Duty is on game pass now. It's very cynical and corporate-born. Developers and make perfect dark and then cancel it and then destroy them. Now, Nintendo dates studios for a while before it proposes and it usually works out. Nintendo is trying to build a meaningful relationship with the studios that it's courting and Xbox seems like it has a harem system from the 1300s. It's just horrible. Just very abusive. I don't know if that's true. But that is the new Nintendo studio Bandai Namco Singapore. They have 80% right now and they're going to buy the 20 remaining percent of their shares after the transition is complete. And yeah, Nintendo works with Bandai Namco a ton. Smash Ultimate Kirby. The writers, like, they've been soccerized, not Singapore, but Bandai Namco in general has been soccerized, go-to partner on his most recent game. So they work with them quite a lot. Seth, you wanted to talk about ball pits, free update. It's sold a million copies and there's three updates coming next year. Yes, indeed. There is an update coming to they're going to add more players or not players, but characters to the game, which is probably the biggest one that springs to mind because right now you have 12, 13. I can't remember. I haven't played it in in a little bit. But yeah, I'm very much looking forward to it. And I said that I was going to look up the other two and I completely forgot and I'm sorry, but I was busy this morning trying to do things. And that was all good. However, yeah, no, having new characters is awesome because if you don't know, if you haven't played ball pit, first of all, it's my favorite game of the year. Second of all, it's not just about bouncing balls back and forth. Every character has a different way that they do it and they start with different, you know, like, I guess, powers and different ways that they bounce the balls. Some of them start from the back and some of them like launch on an arc and some of them bounce, you know, two at a time and some of them throw this stuff everywhere. So just having more variety to that is going to change how you can approach this game, which I already love anyway. And I shouldn't be watching the footage because now I'm like, maybe after work today, I won't play Metroid. Maybe I'll start playing Metroid. I know I got to play. But yeah, so this is like I said, my favorite game of the year. And it's any game. It's published by Devolver Digital. Shout out to Devolver and three free updates for, I think it's like a $15 game. That's pretty, that's pretty awesome. And I appreciate, I appreciate the hell out of out of them for doing that. And also there was a switch update that removed a white pixel, which I never noticed. That was a thing. But yeah, so dead pixel somewhere on the screen. I don't even know because I never I never saw it, but these are coming out next year. They're kind of rolling them out. That's not three updates at once. It's like one every two or three months or so. But yeah, Ball Pit is amazing. There's a switch to version that you should play. If you have a switch version, I think it upgrades automatically. Don't quote me on that. But yeah, my favorite game. And I'm, I ruined a lot of people's lives with this game. Like no joke, people who I recommended this game to, I'd be like, it would text me and be like, yeah, I mean, my life is ruined. I'd be like, I want to hit some devil. Oh, also, one of my favorite reviews of all time. You should check it out. I did something different from my couch. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. It's such a good game. So good. Well, Ball Pit has a silent X in the middle of it and Dragon Drive has an X in the middle of it, but it's not silent. It's and and Nintendo randomly four months after launch posted a Dragon Drive ask the developer up on Nintendo.com. It's really, really fascinating. And it's a fun read. We learn about the team that was assembled to make Dragon Drive. It was pulled from all different parts of Nintendo internally. It's a new team constructed to make a game to experiment with the switch to hardware before it came out. And this is what they made Dragon Drive. And I loved reading this because they talk about the team going to a wheelchair basketball tournament in Osaka and sticking around until after the tournament was over and saying, hey, can we play? And then they all played wheelchair basketball against each other to get a feel for how it actually works. They had a wheelchair in the office in Kyoto at Nintendo that they were riding down the halls to just get a feel for these controls to map it to their joy con. And they said that they could only do it after work when everyone else had gone home, because this project was so secretive, because it wasn't public that there were going to be mouse controls in the joy con too. Just wheeling this wheelchair down the hall at 9pm at Nintendo HQ when they were making Dragon Drive. It's just, I love hearing these stories. It's very, very good. And they invited professional wheelchair basketball players in Japan to try Dragon Drive. And all of them were apparently extremely good at it right away. And that made Nintendo feel like, hey, we did pretty good at replicating this with this motion mouse control hybrid. So highly recommend you read it. The game obviously only turned out to be okay, but this is super cool insight into the development with even prototype video images of the blocky polygonal look this game had before they finalized their art style. By the dev team, we've just broken their other legs like, oh no, we all got to have wheelchairs in the office now. Oh no. Yeah, we're wheeling around. I know we talked about the, I've already forgotten the name of it. Logan, what was the tech demo game for the Switch 2? Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. We talked about how Welcome Tour should have been a pack-in instead of a purchase. Dragon Drive should have just been a pack-in, honestly. Like this, like it's, it's not a bad game inherently. It's just, it's sort of weird for what they were trying to make it out to be. And I feel like if this were just a free pack-in game with the Switch 2 to show off the mouse controls, probably would have gotten a much better reception. Yeah, I think especially for games of the experimental tech nature of, we want to showcase all the weird things we can do with these new joy-cons. Like, that's a perfect scenario for a pack-in game. I think it's so funny that, well, first of all, there is a, I believe a free demo. So if you want, if you really want to try, you want to be part of Dragon Drive Nation, you can test it out. But I think it's so funny that during the entire demo period, and then when this came out, like, don't, it's not wheelchair basketball. Don't mention wheelchair basketball. Oh, by the way, this is weird. Wheelchair basketball, and we went to wheelchair basketball tournaments and had professional wheelchair basketball people help us with this game. So I guess it is okay to call it a wheelchair basketball. Is there like a trademark on that term or something that they just didn't want to say? No. No. It's just strange. It was strange marketing here. I, yeah, I don't really understand what happened there because it could have been a much cooler story than it was. And this, if this Ask the Developer had come out a week before launch, like they always do, that would have been great. I have no idea like came out the week of Metroid Prime instead of the week of Dragon Drive. It was very strange timing. I feel like all, a lot of Nintendo, not all, but a lot of Nintendo's marketing this year, the Switch 2 year has been really weird. Dragon Drive was really weird. Metroid Prime 4 was really weird. Donkey Kong, Bonanza had some weird lead up where people, like, especially in the early bits when they first revealed the game, like later on, I think they started to show what made that game special. But remember, like Logan, when everybody first saw Donkey Kong, Bonanza, they were just enamored with Mario Kart and were like, what even is this? And nobody really was interested in it. And me and Brian being the only people that had actually played it were like, no, this game is going to be amazing. Like, stop. But yeah, it took them a while to prove that with that 15 minute direct that really kind of blew the doors off and showed everyone that that game was like Mario Odyssey. Yeah. It's just very weird this year. I don't know what's going on. Yeah. Now that I'm thinking about it, they are doing horrible actually with marketing. Like PlayStation is probably the best edit of the three consoles as far as, you know, like play has no limits and that kind of thing. And you just sort of, you can see the commercials for PlayStation when you think of PlayStation. You can see like X, this is an Xbox. Like Xbox is not doing great, but their marketing is everywhere. It's become a meme. But with like Nintendo Switch, like what's kind of the hook of the marketing for Nintendo Switch 2? I don't, at the start it was Game Chat and they have quietly dropped that. That was really like their slogan was like altogether anytime, anywhere. I don't hear that as much anymore. Oh yeah. That's, there it is. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's marketing itself. It's like the biggest console obviously ever as far as sales pace. And it's not hurting this Christmas. But it is weird that they're not, bring back, here's what I'm saying is bring back, play it loud. Let's see. Play it loud or play it normal. We have two options. That's all you get to choose from. Nicely done. That's, that's the note we're going to end on. That is another episode of Nintendo Voice Chat. In the books, we're here every Friday with audio on your favorite podcast app and a video on the IGN Games channel on YouTube. If you like the show, please tell a friend or leave us a review rating or nice comment wherever you're listening or watching. It helps us out so much. Next week on NBC, Seth and Brian's extended thoughts on Metroid Prime 4 Beyond. And we only have two episodes left for the year. So we're going to start putting a bow on Nintendo in 2025. Thank you so much, Brendan, Reb, and Seth for joining me. Thank you to Tio for working behind the scenes and thank you so much for listening. But for now, that is all the time I've got. I got to get back to playing Animal Crossing New Leaf on my Nintendo 3DS. Have a great week. We'll be back next time with more Nintendo Voice Chat. The only place you can get the thing.