Not really sure what possessed me to play Metroid Prime: Federation Force in 2022 other than morbid curiosity but wow, I really tried to go into this with an open mind and it is simply fucking dull. Without a doubt the worst Metroid game I've played. Other M was at least really interesting in the myriad ways it was bad and the twitchy action could be fun at times even taking into account the boneheaded decision to map everything to the sideways Wiimote.

This game takes the worst aspect of the original Metroid Prime games, the combat, and just sort of slaps it into a mission based, exploration-less, progression-less action shooter. I will say that I played this solo (as if any of my friends were buying a copy of Federation Force in 2022, lol), which I'm sure does take some enjoyment out of an experience that is clearly focused on co-op, but the way that the game is designed I don't feel like I missed much. Even Metroid Prime Hunters had the sense to give each character their own flair, in this game, you and anyone you might somehow manage to get to play with you get the basic beam/charge beam/missiles and a couple of other extremely throwaway elemental shot types to take on a grand total of around 5 basic enemy types and the occasional boss or miniboss. The level design doesn't even make for interesting shooting arenas, oftentimes enemies will be given all sorts of elevated terrain to leap around on that your stumpy jump can't reach, restricting you to a flat featureless plane on the ground to circle strafe in.

The blocky, chibi character designs obliterate any sense of atmosphere the game might try to build, though the bland, C-rate movie soundtrack was already doing a good enough job of that on its own. The final boss fight with Samus might be a bigger offense to her character even than Other M, where you get to see her brainwashed, hit with a growth ray that hilariously has been one of the main focuses of the bone dry, vapid plot up to this point, and then slowly, aimlessly roll around as a giant morph ball for 15 minutes as you try and take potshots at her with your dinky normal beam because anything else is not going to be accurate enough to hit her weak spot.

I kind of was hoping to come away with this having found a hidden gem, because I love Next Level Games. Every other game they've made has been at the very least "quite good" and Luigi's Mansion 3 is one of my favorite Switch games. Between Luigi, Punch-Out, and Mario Strikers, they seem to be genuinely passionate about the projects they choose to take on. I'm shocked so see how wrong it all went here and how soulless this entire project feels. Glad to see both Next Level and the Metroid series in a much better place now.

...If Stylux is really the main antagonist of Prime 4 hoo boy Retro is going to have to pull off a miracle to make me give a shit about what's going on with him

Saturday Morning Metroid.

It is absolutely overhated because of the timing of its release when the last game in 6 years was the godawful Metroid Other M. The game itself is okay, it's a mission based coop first person shooter on the 3DS so for what it's worth, it controls pretty well for the platform it's on. It has a lot of sphere based puzzles that often require you to push a ball toward its goal by shooting at it. Do not go in expect it to play like Metroid Prime or even Prime Hunters.

You're not missing much forgoing this game, but I don't think it deserves the hate it got. For what it's worth, it could be a fun game for four players but good luck finding anyone else wanting to play it.

I couldn’t finish this one, I’m sorry. I played this not too long after Prime Hunters, and I just couldn’t get through another game around as bad as that one. Granted, this time it was for totally different reasons; it controls worlds better, it doesn’t cause me physical pain, and its enemies aren’t quite as repetitive. It’s just that this game bored me almost to tears. I got through the first five missions and realized how little fun I was having, and that made me realize I don’t care enough to finish it. I really tried, but I have too much self-respect to continue playing.

Having not completed the game, I can’t comment in detail on most of it. Judging by what I was able to find online, I didn’t even get through a third, and the thought of playing more than three times as much as what I’ve already played makes me a bit sick. Having said that, I’ll go over what I disliked so much about the parts I did play.

The biggest problem with this game is its steadfast refusal to do anything interesting whatsoever without shooting itself in the foot. There’s a bit where you have to lure some giant monsters into cages, but they have finicky AI and it’s really irritating. The game rewards you for completing missions quickly, but it’s nigh-on impossible to do so on your first go round while also completing the bonus objective and scoring enough points for the completion time bonus to actually earn you an extra badge. There’s no way in HELL I’m replaying any of these missions, so the idea of going back to try for a better score is a bit moot. The game has a loadout system, but it rarely matters much what you take at the start because everything you need is obtainable in the level itself. There’s a perk system, but one of your perks is pretty much always taken up by the “extra stats if you’re solo” badge, the second slot didn’t feel especially impactful on its own, and the third slot isn’t obtained until incredibly late in the game, at least on a solo playthrough.

The combat here is just boring. It’s mostly the same as the console Prime games, without any of the interesting enemy design those games occasionally have, and without the atmosphere, exploration, and navigation that makes those games enjoyable in spite of their basic ass combat. It’s not even a particularly well-presented game, with a flat, generic chibi visual style, and a forgettable soundtrack.

Exploration is pretty much nonexistent thanks to the generous map and mission-based structure of the game. You don’t collect powerups that meaningfully change how you play as you go through the game. The world structure is as simple as it gets, and level design is super linear for the most part, with nary a shortcut to speak of.

It’s true this game is designed around co-op, but a game designed for multiple players that’s not even slightly fun when played solo isn’t a game worth playing co-op. Eventually it’ll become much harder to play co-op once online features become unavailable, so this point will also be rendered moot in time.

There’s just not much to say about this game other than that it sucks, and you probably shouldn’t bother with it. It does nothing notably right, lacks the Metroid series staples that even Hunters didn’t completely butcher, and is overall just kind of a worthless game. If it weren’t a Metroid game, I would feel the same about it, but the fact that resources were wasted on this instead of an actually interesting Metroid title stings a little extra. I don’t care at this point whether it’s better or worse than Hunters, all I know is I’m just too bored by it to even finish it, which is the most damning criticism I can give.