# [[S7E6 - Metroid Prime 4 - Beyond]] Transcript This transcription was completed on January 21, 2026 with the application MacWhisper on macOS. This was done automatically, without human input during the transcription process. The transcription used the Parakeet v3 model. My hope is that by offering this transcription – however accurate it may be done by a machine learning/AI – will help you, the listener. I’d love to offer full, proper transcription some day, but that is not feasible at this time. Thank you for listening and reading. I hope you enjoy the show and that this document was helpful. Enjoy. --- **Max Roberts**: Hello everybody and welcome to Chapter Select, a seasonal retrospective podcast where we bounce back and forth between a series exploring its evolution, design, and legacy. *00:00* **Max Roberts**: For the season seven finale, we are wrapping up the Metroid Prime franchise. *00:09* **Max Roberts**: My name is Max Roberts, and I am joined, as always, by Logan Moore. *00:16* **Max Roberts**: Hey, buddy. *00:20* **Logan Moore**: Hop on your viola and let's finish this podcast season. *00:21* **Max Roberts**: I uh every time I read it or say the name Viola out loud, I think of um *00:27* **Max Roberts**: Lola? *00:33* **Max Roberts**: The song? *00:34* **Max Roberts**: Is that how it goes? *00:35* **Max Roberts**: Which then weird out parodies into Yoda. *00:36* **Logan Moore**: Oh, the weird owl, Yoda, yeah. *00:36* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, it could be like Viola. *00:39* **Logan Moore**: My my stepson likes that song. *00:43* **Logan Moore**: He's kind of obsessed with that song right now, so I've been hearing that a lot. *00:47* **Logan Moore**: We actually uh quick aside, we j we bought him a *00:50* **Logan Moore**: stereo player and a C D player for for uh Christmas and set that up in his room. *00:53* **Logan Moore**: And my wife was so excited for him to listen to a bunch of music. *00:59* **Logan Moore**: And the only thing he has done since *01:03* **Logan Moore**: Getting this is just play Weird Owl on repeat and she is so saddened and disappointed that this is all he wants to listen to is Weird Owl. *01:05* **Max Roberts**: No, that's he's at the perfect age for it. *01:13* **Max Roberts**: You know he's on tour next year. *01:15* **Max Roberts**: You should see if he's I th I bet he's coming in your area. *01:17* **Logan Moore**: He is. *01:18* **Logan Moore**: I think he is, yeah. *01:20* **Max Roberts**: You should go. *01:20* **Logan Moore**: We should go. *01:21* **Logan Moore**: That would actually be a good like birthday present. *01:22* **Max Roberts**: I've I've been to two Weird Owl concerts and they are amazing. *01:25* **Logan Moore**: They're very fun. *01:29* **Max Roberts**: They're *01:30* **Logan Moore**: I saw him live at Bonnaroo at a show that took place at two in the morning. *01:31* **Max Roberts**: Oh bet that's something. *01:34* **Max Roberts**: I saw him *01:40* **Max Roberts**: I saw him for my birthday in like, I don't know, 2019, 2018, uh, with a symphony, a 50-piece symphony. *01:42* **Logan Moore**: That would be fun. *01:53* **Max Roberts**: Uh you have not lived until you've heard white and nerdy with an orchestra. *01:54* **Max Roberts**: And then it was called The Strings Attached to Her, which was pretty good *01:59* **Max Roberts**: And then I saw him play like all pretty much all original songs, no covers. *02:02* **Max Roberts**: Right after Eloise was born, we were supposed to go for our anniversary, but Abby was home and I went with my dad. *02:07* **Max Roberts**: And he played an even longer version of Albuquerque, which is my favorite Weirdo song. *02:13* **Max Roberts**: So I lived a very long life. *02:18* **Logan Moore**: I just I just ex I just expose my stepson to that song the other day and his question after listening to it was, why would a donut shop sell weasels? *02:20* **Max Roberts**: That's a good question. *02:32* **Max Roberts**: All right, to wrap up the weird Al tangent. *02:33* **Max Roberts**: One day Abby was telling me that she stopped at Dunkin' Donuts and she's like replaying this exchange to me where she goes up and goes, do you have any glaze donuts? *02:36* **Max Roberts**: She's a no. *02:45* **Max Roberts**: She's like, do you have any jelly dough? *02:46* **Max Roberts**: Like she just did the basically the whole bit, right? *02:48* **Logan Moore**: But she just did like basically. *02:49* **Max Roberts**: I'm like, Abby, you've gotta stop. *02:51* **Max Roberts**: Like I know what you're doing. *02:53* **Max Roberts**: She's like, what? *02:54* **Max Roberts**: I'm like *02:55* **Max Roberts**: It's Albuquerque. *02:56* **Max Roberts**: She's like, no, no, this really happened. *02:58* **Max Roberts**: And I think they went back and checked for apple fritters. *03:01* **Max Roberts**: I was like, you gotta be kidding me. *03:03* **Max Roberts**: I was I could have been living my favorite moment. *03:05* **Logan Moore**: Art imitates life. *03:10* **Max Roberts**: Oh my gosh, what a song. *03:11* **Max Roberts**: What a song indeed *03:14* **Logan Moore**: Well welcome to chapter select season nine, the weird owl season, starting with Running with Scissors, go. *03:15* **Max Roberts**: Oh my gosh, that would be a blast. *03:24* **Logan Moore**: Oh good. *03:25* **Max Roberts**: What a music season. *03:26* **Logan Moore**: That would actually be fun. *03:27* **Max Roberts**: That would be we could watch that movie, the Daniel Radcliffe movie. *03:28* **Logan Moore**: I haven't seen that yet. *03:32* **Max Roberts**: Good time. *03:32* **Logan Moore**: Uh Max, we're here not to discuss Weird Owl, even though that's very fun and is a big focal point of my life at the moment. *03:34* **Logan Moore**: We're here to discuss, as you said. *03:41* **Logan Moore**: Metroid Prime 4 Beyond, which is a video game that now exists for real. *03:43* **Max Roberts**: Beyond. *03:48* **Max Roberts**: It exists. *03:52* **Max Roberts**: It's it's out in the world it's been out in the world for a month and a half. *03:53* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *03:58* **Max Roberts**: I went to a store and picked it up. *03:59* **Logan Moore**: We've uh *04:00* **Logan Moore**: I it's it's weird. *04:03* **Max Roberts**: Like I b I bought it. *04:03* **Logan Moore**: It's it's weird that we're here. *04:04* **Logan Moore**: I never thought we would get here. *04:06* **Logan Moore**: Um, and I'm very excited to talk to you about this. *04:08* **Logan Moore**: because we still don't know how the other feels, even though I reviewed this game and have a review for it on the internet. *04:11* **Logan Moore**: We've not talked about it pretty much at all. *04:17* **Logan Moore**: So I'm very much looking forward to our discussion. *04:19* **Logan Moore**: As always though, before we dive into that, let's do the rundown for every bit of information here with Metroid Prime 4. *04:22* **Logan Moore**: Uh the game. *04:30* **Logan Moore**: released, as Max said, on december fourth, two thousand twenty five, was developed by Retro Studios, and it released across both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch too. *04:32* **Logan Moore**: The design director of the game was Be Bill Vandervoort. *04:43* **Logan Moore**: And the producers were Jeff Moreau, Kinsuke Tanabe, and Risa Tabata. *04:46* **Logan Moore**: The music was done by Kinji Yamamoto, who also you noted here in our notes, did Metroid Prime 1, 2, and 3 as well. *04:52* **Logan Moore**: And then Monako Hamano, who did Metroid Prime 3 Corruption. *04:59* **Logan Moore**: The game sits currently, I'm gonna guess this is gonna w be where it kind of sits now in perpetuity because it's *05:03* **Logan Moore**: Been long enough for, you know, yeah, a lot of the final reviews have kind of trickled in. *05:11* **Logan Moore**: See now 78 out of 100 on Metacritic, which is *05:15* **Logan Moore**: By far the lowest for a mainline game for sure. *05:20* **Logan Moore**: You know, I think Federation Force was lower and *05:25* **Max Roberts**: It's only uh only above Federation Force. *05:26* **Max Roberts**: It actually is even beaten out by Pinball by one point. *05:31* **Logan Moore**: Where's Hunters at? *05:35* **Logan Moore**: I forget. *05:36* **Max Roberts**: Hunter sits at an 85. *05:37* **Logan Moore**: Okay, okay. *05:40* **Logan Moore**: That's what I thought. *05:41* **Max Roberts**: So uh Federation forces a 64 to refresh those. *05:41* **Logan Moore**: I figured hunters would be above it. *05:41* **Logan Moore**: Um *05:43* **Max Roberts**: So it sits well above Federation Force, but well below uh the core trilogy, which um the lowest would be 90 for corruption and 97 for Prime One. *05:47* **Logan Moore**: Max, this game's a long time coming. *06:00* **Logan Moore**: Uh I *06:02* **Max Roberts**: Eighteen years, if you do the math *06:04* **Logan Moore**: Let me start here as far as our histories go with the game and you know I was in the Los Angeles Convention Center. *06:07* **Logan Moore**: when this game was announced, and I still remember that. *06:16* **Logan Moore**: This is one of my this is one of my biggest E three memories, is the entire Los Angeles Convention Center exploding in cheers and excitement at when this game was announced. *06:19* **Logan Moore**: That was probably the biggest *06:28* **Logan Moore**: like reaction of an announcement that I can remember as that direct aired in 2017 at E3. *06:31* **Logan Moore**: People lost their minds. *06:39* **Max Roberts**: Yeah *06:41* **Logan Moore**: And I remember just being like, wow, people really like themselves some Metroid out there, even though these games don't sell all that well. *06:41* **Logan Moore**: The hardcore of the hardcore who are, you know *06:51* **Logan Moore**: taking the pilgrimage to E3 really like themselves to Metroid. *06:54* **Logan Moore**: And I remember uh I I forever remember that moment. *06:58* **Logan Moore**: I'm also the guy who who wrote the Metroid Prime 4 getting delayed is a good thing artic or not a good thing is good because Metroid games suck. *07:03* **Logan Moore**: I think that was like the name title of the article. *07:12* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, now look at ya. *07:13* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *07:15* **Max Roberts**: Now who has the last laugh? *07:15* **Logan Moore**: I wrote that article and that that rustled some Jimmies on Twitter back in the day. *07:15* **Logan Moore**: I think that would have been. *07:21* **Logan Moore**: 2019 when the game got delayed indefinitely or r completely rebooted its development. *07:22* **Logan Moore**: Um and I firmly believe that at the time and I will say this, now that we've kind of gotten here to the end of it, we'll do a full *07:29* **Logan Moore**: like you know, seasonal wrap-up for this when we get to the end of this episode. *07:37* **Logan Moore**: I do still think Metroid's a little overrated. *07:40* **Logan Moore**: It's good. *07:43* **Logan Moore**: It's good. *07:44* **Logan Moore**: Not good enough to be y one of the most acclaimed video game franchises in history though. *07:44* **Logan Moore**: But it's good. *07:50* **Logan Moore**: I like Metroid. *07:51* **Logan Moore**: I have a new I have a newer appreciation for Metroid. *07:52* **Logan Moore**: A lot of things I like from about it. *07:54* **Logan Moore**: Um Other than that though, I mean I feel like the past, you know, ever since that rebooted development announcement, I feel like it's been just kind of *07:56* **Logan Moore**: The same story for everybody. *08:04* **Logan Moore**: We've just been waiting. *08:05* **Logan Moore**: Where's this game? *08:06* **Logan Moore**: What's going on, Nintendo? *08:07* **Logan Moore**: And then remerge, it's out. *08:08* **Max Roberts**: They were *08:10* **Max Roberts**: Very quiet, its entire development, um, probably for a multitude of reasons. *08:13* **Logan Moore**: Yeah *08:15* **Max Roberts**: So *08:20* **Logan Moore**: The last th the last thing I guess I'll say that's important for our discussion here is and I don't think this necessarily like matters or shape my view I did play this game in total *08:21* **Logan Moore**: Secrecy uh ahead of launch, I reviewed this for comic book, which is the site I write for. *08:33* **Logan Moore**: So I played this in advance before anybody else, and I just had to really kind of *08:39* **Logan Moore**: stew on what I thought about this game, which it's a hard game. *08:45* **Logan Moore**: Even now, us talking about it today, I think my ultimate like stance on where I landed on this is I don't know how to feel about this game. *08:49* **Logan Moore**: It is one of the strangest video games I have ever played in my entire life. *08:57* **Logan Moore**: Um I ultimately liked it and I think it's pretty good. *09:01* **Logan Moore**: But it's so weird. *09:07* **Logan Moore**: This is one of the weirdest video games that I can remember. *09:11* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, that's that sounds like Metroid to me. *09:15* **Logan Moore**: So. *09:16* **Max Roberts**: Sometimes they get a bit gets a bad rap. *09:19* **Max Roberts**: Other M out anyone out there? *09:21* **Max Roberts**: Other M, anyone? *09:22* **Max Roberts**: Anyone? *09:23* **Max Roberts**: Uh so while I was not at an E3 convention center, which I mean just to remind people, is the E3 2017. *09:24* **Max Roberts**: This is *09:35* **Max Roberts**: what three months? *09:37* **Max Roberts**: Three months after the Switch came out? *09:39* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *09:40* **Max Roberts**: After Breath of the Wild. *09:41* **Max Roberts**: I think Super Mario Odyssey was revealed at the end of this press conference. *09:43* **Logan Moore**: It was revealed at the Switch event it to start the year, but the this was like the Cappy ch the Cappy trailer where you could found out you could take over uh other beans in the game, yes. *09:47* **Max Roberts**: Right, the big trailer transform *09:51* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *10:01* **Max Roberts**: So this was basically there from the in the launch of the Switch, promised for the Switch, and we've just been waiting an entire console generation. *10:01* **Max Roberts**: Not unlike *10:10* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *10:11* **Max Roberts**: Not unlike Kingdom Hearts 3, which a lot of uh at least I at the time thought, oh, this will surely come out for PS3. *10:11* **Max Roberts**: I even wrote a blog post, uh, Kingdom Hearts skipped a console generation and why it's a good thing, I remember. *10:18* **Max Roberts**: vividly writing that one. *10:23* **Max Roberts**: We waited a long time for this and I think its development um and the Switch 2 probably helped extend that. *10:25* **Max Roberts**: But the thing I remember the most is when they announced that they were rebooting the game. *10:31* **Max Roberts**: I was at my in-laws' house watching my sister-in-law and we worked at com or not at comic book at we worked at Dual Shockers together. *10:37* **Max Roberts**: And I was like, I will write this right now. *10:47* **Max Roberts**: And I hopped on my laptop and uh wrote that article. *10:50* **Max Roberts**: And it went *10:54* **Max Roberts**: You know, s sad news, ups you know, disappointing news, that would be the word. *10:56* **Max Roberts**: Ah, we've lost two plus years of development theoretically, right? *11:01* **Max Roberts**: If they started before 2017. *11:06* **Max Roberts**: But Retro Studios is back. *11:08* **Max Roberts**: That was like the the good news that was tied to that announcement was *11:11* **Max Roberts**: Retros here. *11:17* **Max Roberts**: There was even a quote uh, you know, about Tanabe. *11:18* **Max Roberts**: Work and trust in collaboration with Retro Studios for Metroid Prime 4. *11:22* **Max Roberts**: Like it *11:26* **Max Roberts**: At the time, and I think probably overall, it was seen as a very open and honest and good thing, actually probably quite Japanese of them to publicly apologize. *11:29* **Max Roberts**: uh for the news and the delay, but retro coming back after tropical freeze, which was that 2011? *11:41* **Max Roberts**: Tropical freeze was, I think. *11:51* **Logan Moore**: Um maybe eleven or twelve. *11:54* **Max Roberts**: You know, that was their last game. *11:55* **Max Roberts**: Uh it was 2014. *11:57* **Max Roberts**: It was February 13th, 2014. *11:59* **Max Roberts**: So the last game that Retro made *12:02* **Logan Moore**: Very ahead. *12:02* **Max Roberts**: was 2014. *12:05* **Max Roberts**: They were tied to Prime Four in 2019 and the game didn't come out until 2015. *12:07* **Max Roberts**: 25. *12:16* **Max Roberts**: All you know, eleven years later. *12:17* **Max Roberts**: Now, in between that they did do the switch port of Tropical Freeze, they did do the Switchport remaster of Metroid Prime. *12:20* **Logan Moore**: Metroid Prime, yeah. *12:28* **Max Roberts**: And they've done support work on other titles, but Retro hadn't put out a game, a new title, in over a decade. *12:30* **Logan Moore**: The important thing to mention too, and we'll get into this a little bit later, uh, because we we do have one *12:39* **Logan Moore**: news source here we're gonna I know talk about in the podcast, but they had shifted themselves as a company. *12:46* **Logan Moore**: They were no longer a shooter studio or a Metroidvania studio. *12:51* **Max Roberts**: Exactly *12:55* **Logan Moore**: They did not have the infrastructure or the people *12:56* **Logan Moore**: To make a game like this. *12:59* **Logan Moore**: So it wasn't just like, hey retro, this didn't work out. *13:00* **Logan Moore**: Take this over and you know, do what you want. *13:04* **Logan Moore**: Like they had to staff up from kind of scratch to do this. *13:06* **Max Roberts**: It's not like Activision going, Hey, Infinity Awards dropping the ball here, you know, Treyarch, can you step in and put out a c like like the two of them could *13:11* **Logan Moore**: Yes. *13:18* **Max Roberts**: They share a code base, I assume they, you know, those studios could work together. *13:20* **Max Roberts**: This was retro left the first person action *13:24* **Max Roberts**: game in the Wii era after corruption. *13:28* **Max Roberts**: They made Donkey Kong Country Returns. *13:31* **Max Roberts**: And then they made Tropical Freeze for the Wii U. *13:33* **Max Roberts**: There was Mario Kart 7 in there. *13:35* **Max Roberts**: They were a huge part of that as well. *13:37* **Max Roberts**: they just weren't the same studio anymore. *13:40* **Max Roberts**: And so now they were being summoned to go back and I think the results are very, very interesting. *13:43* **Max Roberts**: But there's a lot tied up in this game from that announcement, from these expectations. *13:49* **Max Roberts**: I mean *13:54* **Max Roberts**: We've played all of the games, I guess, Sans Hunter or Sans Pinball. *13:56* **Max Roberts**: And there's a cachet, you know, with *14:02* **Max Roberts**: the word prime slapped on a metro game and Retro Studio slapped on the box with it. *14:07* **Max Roberts**: Um Federation force kind of tainted it, but *14:12* **Max Roberts**: You know, that was a 3DS co-op shooter spending. *14:16* **Logan Moore**: That was just that three D S by an off, yeah. *14:16* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, it wasn't like some big primary thing. *14:18* **Max Roberts**: And so I think there was a lot, there's a lot surrounding this game. *14:21* **Max Roberts**: Before it ever came out, right? *14:26* **Max Roberts**: From day one and then day one again when they announced the reboot. *14:28* **Max Roberts**: It's a lot riding on this one. *14:33* **Logan Moore**: Well Metroid had kind of been dragged through the mud over the past *14:35* **Logan Moore**: What however many years so Prime Prime three was what, 2007, correct? *14:40* **Max Roberts**: Seven. *14:44* **Logan Moore**: So and then other M was after that, which was poorly received. *14:46* **Max Roberts**: Yeah *14:46* **Logan Moore**: And then you had, you know, Federation Force and you had some like *14:49* **Max Roberts**: Unfortunately. *14:50* **Max Roberts**: Well, so there were Samus returns *14:53* **Logan Moore**: I was gonna say we you had some tried and true like old school Metroid games like Samus Returns I was gonna mention as well, but like *14:55* **Logan Moore**: Even Samus Returns had some it was seen as like this is this is good. *15:02* **Logan Moore**: We we could we would like to get more stuff like this, which they did with you know dread eventually came about. *15:06* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *15:09* **Max Roberts**: And dr I mean, not to get like totally lost, but Dread was also a game announced for the Nintendo DS originally, was Metroid 5, Dread, and finally seeing that logo come back. *15:11* **Logan Moore**: Yes. *15:19* **Max Roberts**: in the switch arrows like, oh, same sort of feeling, right? *15:23* **Max Roberts**: Like I don't know, Metroid just has this very troubled dev and release cycle over its entire franchise history. *15:26* **Logan Moore**: Okay, next one's *15:27* **Max Roberts**: And you have these *15:34* **Max Roberts**: different moments of like when Prime One came out, it also launched same day as Fusion, a traditional 2D, and that one actually was more hand holdy, like some may say, uh Beyond or Corruption. *15:35* **Max Roberts**: are. *15:49* **Max Roberts**: And then Prime Prime, this whole new concept, this first person Metroidvania, was actually the more traditional of the kind of game. *15:50* **Max Roberts**: And it's *16:00* **Max Roberts**: While we don't have, you know, there wasn't a Metroid Prior like a 2D Metroid game at released alongside beyond, Dread did come out *16:02* **Max Roberts**: a handful of years ago is a game I'm quite fond of. *16:12* **Max Roberts**: Actually, you're playing it right now. *16:14* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I'm playing it as we speak. *16:16* **Max Roberts**: Um I don't know. *16:16* **Logan Moore**: That that game is *16:18* **Logan Moore**: That's a slick game. *16:19* **Logan Moore**: That's the the word that keeps coming to back to my mind as I play through it is it's so fast paced, I loved it. *16:20* **Logan Moore**: Uh *16:27* **Max Roberts**: It's a great and so we're kinda in this *16:27* **Max Roberts**: Not only that, but Dread sold very well. *16:29* **Max Roberts**: Metroid Prime Remastered sold very well for the franchise. *16:32* **Logan Moore**: Mm-hmm. *16:33* **Max Roberts**: So like Metroid's on this really big upswing. *16:35* **Max Roberts**: We're finally after 18 years getting Prime 4. *16:38* **Max Roberts**: And where do we find ourselves, Logan? *16:43* **Logan Moore**: I d well where did you land? *16:46* **Logan Moore**: I like I said, I ultimately have landed with this that it's a good game. *16:48* **Logan Moore**: But it's deeply flawed. *16:53* **Logan Moore**: The headline for my review, to just because I think this best summarizes my feelings, is Metroid Prime struggles to evolve beyond its roots. *16:56* **Logan Moore**: while still offering a satisfying Metroidvania experience. *17:05* **Logan Moore**: I think the core tenets of like the Metroidvania formula and the things you want them to hit on are in this game. *17:08* **Logan Moore**: And in that sense it's enjoyable. *17:15* **Logan Moore**: And I had a good time with it. *17:18* **Logan Moore**: But it tries to like change the formula in some ways as well, you know, with a *17:20* **Logan Moore**: They've got a big open area in this game and the illusion of choice telling you you can kind of go wherever you want and oh actually that's not true at all. *17:25* **Logan Moore**: Um *17:34* **Logan Moore**: those elements where they try to push things forward or experiment a little really, really fall flat. *17:35* **Logan Moore**: Um and yeah, we we would we can talk about that stuff further. *17:43* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, I *17:46* **Max Roberts**: It's a I think it's a it's a comfortable game. *17:49* **Max Roberts**: It's a beautiful game *17:53* **Logan Moore**: Yes. *17:54* **Max Roberts**: But it can be an annoying game. *17:56* **Max Roberts**: I think like if you kind of broke it all down. *17:58* **Max Roberts**: And I think the annoying part actually comes more from baggage Um and previous decisions. *18:00* **Max Roberts**: It doesn't actually sound like *18:06* **Max Roberts**: It was a full reboot. *18:09* **Max Roberts**: It sounds like a please fix what we have. *18:10* **Max Roberts**: And we'll see how that all shakes out here. *18:13* **Max Roberts**: But where should we start? *18:16* **Logan Moore**: I mean I guess let's just start with the good then. *18:19* **Logan Moore**: Like *18:21* **Logan Moore**: Again, I think the Metroidvania elements of this are fun, you know, running around, trying to figure out puzzles in the environment, trying to *18:22* **Logan Moore**: Upgrade Samus, you know, seeing things, making mental notes, knowing to come back later to something that you can't access right now. *18:31* **Logan Moore**: All of those things are still in this game. *18:39* **Logan Moore**: And they're fun. *18:41* **Logan Moore**: And those are the enjoyable things. *18:42* **Logan Moore**: You did a lot more of the completionist stuff in this than I think I even did. *18:43* **Logan Moore**: I I want to say I ended up around like *18:47* **Logan Moore**: eighty to eighty five percent complete with the items and stuff. *18:52* **Logan Moore**: So I did quite a bit of it. *18:57* **Max Roberts**: I was around in the low nineties. *18:59* **Logan Moore**: Um Okay. *18:59* **Max Roberts**: Um, and I would have gone for a hundred percent, but I found out that I had missed *19:02* **Max Roberts**: one missable scan, and it wasn't because I didn't like I forgot to do it. *19:07* **Max Roberts**: The visor scanned the wrong creature, which is similar in sh shape and design as the creature I was trying to scan, some like *19:14* **Max Roberts**: lava squid. *19:22* **Max Roberts**: I was like, oh, I've already scanned it. *19:23* **Max Roberts**: Now I will kill it. *19:25* **Max Roberts**: So when I found that out, I was like, oh, I don't need to go get the other things I'm missing. *19:26* **Max Roberts**: Because I'm not I don't want a ninety-nine percent file. *19:32* **Max Roberts**: Like I'll just I'll live without it. *19:35* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, that would be that would be grueling. *19:37* **Logan Moore**: Like all those things work well. *19:39* **Logan Moore**: And then I think just the general gameplay. *19:41* **Logan Moore**: There are some like *19:42* **Logan Moore**: Very small refinements to the shooting in this that I loved. *19:45* **Logan Moore**: I love that you can lock and simultaneously move the cursor while you're locked in now. *19:48* **Max Roberts**: Well that's it's well that was uh what it was in well, maybe not the way you played it, corruption. *19:54* **Logan Moore**: I guess that was it was like that in c corruption, but it was with uh with uh weak controls, obviously. *19:59* **Logan Moore**: So like you you could yeah, but like now they have adapted that to, you know. *20:05* **Max Roberts**: Right. *20:06* **Logan Moore**: just modern dual stick conventions. *20:10* **Logan Moore**: And it feels really good. *20:12* **Logan Moore**: It feels really nice. *20:13* **Logan Moore**: I felt like you had great control over the shooting in this game. *20:14* **Logan Moore**: Uh which as somebody who played all of the other games on Steam Deck, it was like a night and day difference. *20:17* **Max Roberts**: It celebrates the lineage of prime shooting, right, from the GameCube controller all the way up through the Wii Remote. *20:23* **Max Roberts**: to even the switch controller uh with remastered and then introduces yet another control scheme with the mouse pointer controls and all of them felt great *20:31* **Max Roberts**: all seemed viable to me. *20:42* **Max Roberts**: I played primarily with a pro controller with slight gyro aiming for like fine-tune refinement in the moment, but it's one of the smoothest feeling *20:45* **Max Roberts**: FPS like you you wouldn't believe this came from Nintendo. *20:57* **Max Roberts**: It honestly kind of felt like *21:03* **Max Roberts**: a bungee game as far as its polish and the shooting there. *21:05* **Max Roberts**: Now, granted, it's not as fast as something like that, but it definitely has its roots kind of in that that arena. *21:08* **Logan Moore**: I think a lot of people who worked on this game, like we mentioned retro staffing up, I'm pretty sure retro *21:14* **Logan Moore**: gathered a lot of people who were like former three four three, which is a positive and a negative. *21:21* **Logan Moore**: But like that that's that's where the, you know, bungee ties, I guess, come in there with what you're talking about and how it could kind of feels like a game like that. *21:28* **Max Roberts**: It's really slick controls. *21:36* **Max Roberts**: I will say *21:40* **Max Roberts**: And we can I don't know if we want to talk fully about the psychic powers now, but there are certain psychic abilities that require probably too many button press combinations for me. *21:42* **Max Roberts**: I think primarily of *21:53* **Max Roberts**: The power bomb, where you have to go in your morph ball, drop the bomb, hold the bomb button, the bomb floats up, you have to stand back up. *21:55* **Max Roberts**: Turn your psychic visor on and then hold to grab the power bomb to then sh, you know, uh use the force to beam it somewhere. *22:05* **Max Roberts**: Like it has too many button presses for me. *22:12* **Max Roberts**: Like we should just be able to *22:14* **Max Roberts**: Do some sort of quick combo here for that. *22:16* **Max Roberts**: That one felt very cumbersome. *22:18* **Max Roberts**: So it was interesting to see where they were like, how do we fit all of this on a controller? *22:20* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *22:28* **Logan Moore**: There's definitely quite a bit like there's they they try to add a lot to Samus' arsenal in this game with the psychic abilities and stuff. *22:30* **Logan Moore**: And more often than I was gonna say more often than not though, they just slap, you know, rather than a super missile, it's a psychic missile or something like that onto it. *22:39* **Max Roberts**: It's Yeah, they just put the word psychic in front of it. *22:48* **Logan Moore**: Like *22:50* **Logan Moore**: Mm-hmm. *22:52* **Logan Moore**: They they just change the adjective there, and that's about it. *22:53* **Max Roberts**: That was probably the most disappointing element for me. *22:58* **Max Roberts**: I was quite hopeful. *23:03* **Max Roberts**: for new abilities or new power-ups, new beams, but it did feel very like *23:05* **Max Roberts**: I get that there is a core here, right? *23:14* **Max Roberts**: Like in Metroid, you get missiles, you get energy tanks. *23:17* **Max Roberts**: Like that doesn't change. *23:21* **Max Roberts**: That's always a thing. *23:22* **Max Roberts**: But I was kind of hoping for the psychic abilities to be a bit more than just *23:24* **Max Roberts**: Grapple, oh psychic grapple, spider ball, psychic spider ball. *23:28* **Max Roberts**: I was like, ah, this is a bit disappointing. *23:34* **Max Roberts**: The most psychic ability *23:37* **Max Roberts**: Besides maybe moving power bombs, which was also an ability I forgot a lot about. *23:39* **Max Roberts**: I'm like, how do I get my how do I get the morph ball up there? *23:43* **Logan Moore**: I forget about it sometimes too. *23:46* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *23:48* **Max Roberts**: But I was um the beam, which everyone kept calling the battering. *23:49* **Logan Moore**: The control beam. *23:53* **Max Roberts**: Yes, they studied *23:55* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I was gonna say that that's the most wholly new addition mechanic-wise to this game. *23:56* **Logan Moore**: And it's just a mechanic from another game for the most part. *24:04* **Logan Moore**: Which you know, that's fine. *24:09* **Logan Moore**: Games borrow from one another all the time. *24:10* **Logan Moore**: I have no issue with that. *24:12* **Logan Moore**: That's fine. *24:13* **Logan Moore**: It made sense. *24:14* **Logan Moore**: It works. *24:15* **Logan Moore**: There's some good puzzles and boss fights and stuff with it. *24:15* **Max Roberts**: It's a good mechanic. *24:16* **Max Roberts**: Yeah *24:18* **Logan Moore**: It's fine. *24:18* **Logan Moore**: In fact I don't think they used it enough sometimes. *24:19* **Logan Moore**: Uh the boss would that you fight in the lava when you get to the end of it and its mouth opens up and I'm the whole time I was like, How do I get in there? *24:23* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *24:23* **Logan Moore**: How do I get in that thing's mouth? *24:30* **Max Roberts**: I tried jumping in the lava. *24:32* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *24:33* **Logan Moore**: I totally forgot that I even had the control beam at my d disposal to shoot down into its mouth. *24:33* **Logan Moore**: I thought I was gonna have to go morph ball and go down into its gut and drop some bombs in there. *24:39* **Max Roberts**: Uh-huh. *24:42* **Max Roberts**: Blow it up. *24:43* **Logan Moore**: Like they don't *24:45* **Logan Moore**: make you use the control beam that much it and to to where you forget about it. *24:46* **Logan Moore**: So I would have actually liked to have seen it used a little bit more. *24:51* **Logan Moore**: Um *24:55* **Logan Moore**: But yes, even that it's not it's something familiar. *24:56* **Logan Moore**: Again, is that a bad thing? *24:59* **Logan Moore**: No, but it's not like a It's not something we've never seen in a game before. *25:01* **Logan Moore**: You know, it's to *25:07* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, and I I think really her power-ups in Arsenal being *25:07* **Max Roberts**: Essentially the same. *25:13* **Max Roberts**: Like full full blown the same. *25:15* **Max Roberts**: But we also didn't get certain like the screw attack didn't come back. *25:18* **Max Roberts**: The power-up the power-up I *25:23* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna mention that. *25:23* **Logan Moore**: The screw attack feels like primed to be in this game more than any of them, given how like wider the scope is in some sense. *25:25* **Max Roberts**: Well, I actually would have wanted the speed boots to run. *25:32* **Max Roberts**: I think that would have been really great. *25:38* **Max Roberts**: It would have been super fun in Soul Valley, but I also think some of the environments could have really benefited from *25:40* **Max Roberts**: like the ice belt across that field, like that just would have felt good. *25:48* **Max Roberts**: And I think it could have opened up some like jumping and in I don't know. *25:51* **Max Roberts**: I and that's never been in a prime game. *25:56* **Max Roberts**: Like that's something from Pri or Metroid's *25:58* **Max Roberts**: back catalog that we could have pulled from, but it didn't it didn't f come to fruition. *26:02* **Max Roberts**: I wanted to ask you about the beams. *26:08* **Max Roberts**: Um *26:11* **Max Roberts**: This game basically Samus turns into the Avatar, um, not James Cameron's, but Nickelodeon's, where she controls fire, ice, and lightning. *26:12* **Logan Moore**: Yes, forgot about that. *26:13* **Max Roberts**: And they bring back the ammo system from Echoes. *26:23* **Max Roberts**: And I was nervous when I saw that. *26:28* **Max Roberts**: I'm like, ugh, I do not want to be managing *26:30* **Max Roberts**: two types of ammo. *26:35* **Max Roberts**: Uh but I never ran out of it. *26:36* **Max Roberts**: It actually wasn't it was never a problem, which makes me wonder why it was there. *26:38* **Logan Moore**: I never ran out of there. *26:38* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *26:40* **Max Roberts**: Like why I needed anyway. *26:43* **Max Roberts**: But I will say I was a bit *26:45* **Max Roberts**: disappointed that it was just elemental. *26:49* **Max Roberts**: I would have preferred more like of a wave beam or more, I don't know, like f more sci-fi-y things than just fire ice and water. *26:52* **Logan Moore**: Some of the like the wave beam, I'm trying to think, like that's the one that in the other games that you use to like *27:03* **Logan Moore**: See certain things or I'm I'm trying or is that the visors I'm thinking. *27:10* **Max Roberts**: The visor, there's the X-ray visor. *27:11* **Max Roberts**: The wave beam was in one and it's the purpley wave, but I also I always think of it I always think of it in zero mission. *27:13* **Logan Moore**: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. *27:17* **Max Roberts**: Where it goes through things. *27:22* **Max Roberts**: Like it will go through a wall. *27:24* **Max Roberts**: And then what I really wanted was the beam to upgrade. *27:25* **Max Roberts**: I think this is essentially what happened in *27:30* **Max Roberts**: corruption, if I remember correctly. *27:33* **Max Roberts**: But like you didn't choose between multiple beams. *27:34* **Max Roberts**: Your beam just got better. *27:37* **Logan Moore**: It just got better over time, yeah. *27:39* **Max Roberts**: And like ability stacked. *27:39* **Logan Moore**: Yep. *27:40* **Max Roberts**: Um, but they opted for the different beams this time, which is is is good and fine, but I *27:42* **Logan Moore**: Yep. *27:42* **Logan Moore**: Well, but there are still beam upgrades as well in the game, too, that you can get if you Yeah *27:47* **Max Roberts**: Well, just power and damage, that's normal. *27:51* **Max Roberts**: That's a that's fine. *27:53* **Max Roberts**: But what did you think about like the elemental ankle, I suppose? *27:55* **Logan Moore**: It was fine. *27:59* **Logan Moore**: Um I think this is kind of *28:02* **Logan Moore**: I think it speaks to the larger issue with the game in some senses. *28:06* **Logan Moore**: Like it's very rudimentary in some regards, which is. *28:09* **Logan Moore**: Fine, like this is the first prime game in almost twenty years. *28:14* **Logan Moore**: You want to go back to the basics. *28:17* **Logan Moore**: Hey, we're gonna have a ice area. *28:19* **Logan Moore**: Hey, we're gonna have a fire area. *28:21* **Logan Moore**: Hey, we're gonna have a forested little greenery area *28:23* **Logan Moore**: Like we've got these different sort of locations in the game, and then you're going to I think the thought of you know putting different elemental *28:27* **Logan Moore**: beams that Samus can use that kind of corresponds with the environment around her. *28:35* **Logan Moore**: It makes sense, but like it was just kind of *28:39* **Logan Moore**: uninspired in some sense. *28:43* **Logan Moore**: Uh combat-wise I didn't hate them. *28:46* **Logan Moore**: I liked how they interacted with the enemies. *28:48* **Logan Moore**: They have some cool uses. *28:50* **Max Roberts**: Very rock very rock, paper, scissors with the enemy types. *28:53* **Max Roberts**: There's organisms, machines. *28:57* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *28:59* **Logan Moore**: It was fine with the boss fights and stuff like that. *29:00* **Logan Moore**: I'm trying to think of all of them. *29:02* **Logan Moore**: It was what ice, fire, and then what was was it just electricity? *29:03* **Max Roberts**: Lightning. *29:05* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *29:06* **Logan Moore**: Lightning? *29:06* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *29:07* **Logan Moore**: And then the standard beam was the other one. *29:07* **Max Roberts**: The charge the charge electric beam's pretty sick. *29:08* **Logan Moore**: I like that one too. *29:11* **Max Roberts**: Uh oh my gosh, it feels really good. *29:11* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *29:13* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I I I I like the electric one. *29:15* **Logan Moore**: I thought I felt like that was the one that felt the most like *29:17* **Logan Moore**: original Ice and Fire where it's just kind of like, okay, we've seen this before in some sense. *29:20* **Max Roberts**: Always gotta have an ice beam or an ice missile or something, yeah. *29:24* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, it it just felt very *29:28* **Logan Moore**: Safe again. *29:32* **Logan Moore**: Which is weird because so much of this game so much of this game feels safe and then other parts of it don't feel safe at all. *29:33* **Logan Moore**: And it's like, what are you doing? *29:41* **Logan Moore**: and *29:42* **Logan Moore**: Again, we'll talk about this, but even the developers kind of knew that. *29:43* **Logan Moore**: Like, yeah, we realized we couldn't go backwards, but it like it is it is what it is at this point, you know. *29:46* **Logan Moore**: Um *29:52* **Logan Moore**: So like, yeah, I I I I don't know. *29:53* **Logan Moore**: The beams were were fine though. *29:55* **Logan Moore**: I I largely I like combat in this game. *29:57* **Logan Moore**: I I think combat feels better in this game than any of the others. *30:00* **Logan Moore**: Now could there have been some *30:02* **Logan Moore**: Like could the weapons at Samus' disposal have been a little bit more unique and interesting compared to Pass Game? *30:05* **Logan Moore**: Yes, but like still I think this is the best playing prime game by far. *30:11* **Max Roberts**: Oh, absolutely. *30:16* **Logan Moore**: Um so yeah. *30:17* **Max Roberts**: Viola. *30:18* **Max Roberts**: Can we talk about Viola or Viola? *30:19* **Logan Moore**: Mm-hmm. *30:21* **Logan Moore**: I was waiting to. *30:22* **Logan Moore**: This was the I didn't know when we wanted to, because I figured we'd have a lot to say about the little motorcycle more than just about anything else mechanics-wise. *30:23* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, so okay. *30:32* **Max Roberts**: The motorcycle *30:35* **Max Roberts**: This is what they wanted the ship in Prime Three to feel like. *30:39* **Max Roberts**: Like an actual vehicle you get to use. *30:45* **Max Roberts**: But in Prime Three, obviously you just got missiles and a crane. *30:49* **Max Roberts**: This you actually use the vehicle all the time. *30:53* **Max Roberts**: And I think and you get to do the Akira slide all the time. *30:57* **Max Roberts**: I like it. *31:02* **Max Roberts**: I think it's a very fun and satisfying way of transportation. *31:03* **Max Roberts**: Um it feels good. *31:08* **Max Roberts**: It's satisfying. *31:10* **Max Roberts**: It's simple, but it's satisfying. *31:11* **Max Roberts**: And I like it. *31:15* **Max Roberts**: I do wish the speed limit wasn't used so heavily in certain areas. *31:16* **Max Roberts**: Like just crank the speed up a little bit. *31:21* **Max Roberts**: We don't need to go so slow. *31:23* **Logan Moore**: Mechanically, I think vial is fine. *31:26* **Logan Moore**: I I think it it works. *31:28* **Logan Moore**: It's good. *31:31* **Logan Moore**: The problem is that there's like nothing to do with it. *31:32* **Logan Moore**: Like there's *31:35* **Logan Moore**: There's one boss fight where they incorporate it and it and they're like, you know, this is the fight where you're gonna have to use it. *31:37* **Max Roberts**: Two. *31:42* **Max Roberts**: There's Well, there's Lava Monster, and then there's the whale in the desert. *31:43* **Logan Moore**: What's the second one? *31:44* **Logan Moore**: Oh okay, but that's like a Oh I guess that is a primary that y you need it for the mech part, that's true. *31:51* **Max Roberts**: Because the whale well, the whale eats the mech part. *31:52* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *31:57* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, so I guess two where you need to use it. *31:58* **Logan Moore**: But other than that, it's really just kind of a means for getting around, and everything in this game is spread so far apart from one another. *32:02* **Logan Moore**: And you just end up riding this motorcycle in straight lines and you look to run across some green crystals on the way to wherever you're trying to go and you know, maybe you'll hit a cool ramp too and that's fun and *32:13* **Logan Moore**: shoot some uh monsters that show up on the way, but like there's just there there's nothing much to it otherwise. *32:28* **Logan Moore**: And like I think the best *32:36* **Logan Moore**: Like I I think of when you first get it too in the what is it, Volt Forge. *32:39* **Logan Moore**: Like the first thing they make you do is they're like, hey, you got this cool motorcycle. *32:43* **Logan Moore**: You're gonna go do like races now for some reason. *32:48* **Logan Moore**: And you do like three floors of races around a track. *32:53* **Max Roberts**: That's the tutorial. *32:57* **Logan Moore**: And then it's sp it's the tutorial. *32:58* **Logan Moore**: They want you to learn how to use it. *33:00* **Logan Moore**: I get that. *33:02* **Logan Moore**: But like it's so strange. *33:02* **Max Roberts**: Do you know what it reminds me of? *33:06* **Logan Moore**: It's so out of place in the game. *33:06* **Max Roberts**: That well, I think thematically it fits. *33:09* **Max Roberts**: Like they the Lamore would have had a testing facility. *33:12* **Max Roberts**: Like that makes sense. *33:16* **Max Roberts**: But it kind of you talking about it reminds me of back in like the PS2 era where *33:17* **Max Roberts**: Like Jack Two and Three had a hoverboard mini game area. *33:22* **Max Roberts**: Like where you could just ride a hoverboard around and do tricks. *33:27* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *33:28* **Max Roberts**: Like it was like, what is the point of this? *33:29* **Max Roberts**: Honestly, Jack Two *33:32* **Max Roberts**: And three's whole hover vehicle thing where you very Grand Theft Auto inspired where you just throw people out of their cars and drive them around. *33:34* **Max Roberts**: But very of that like, oh, it's just how to get around town. *33:42* **Max Roberts**: It's not like they don't shoot guns. *33:45* **Max Roberts**: This is very simple, but it does feel satisfying. *33:48* **Max Roberts**: And I think *33:51* **Max Roberts**: Viola's a good s maybe spot to start here with is it's cool. *33:53* **Max Roberts**: And I think it's it's cool for the sake of being cool. *34:01* **Max Roberts**: And retro does that very well and very often in this game, and not just with Viola. *34:06* **Max Roberts**: Like the bike looks sick. *34:11* **Max Roberts**: The Akira slide is dope. *34:14* **Max Roberts**: The speed boost feels good. *34:17* **Max Roberts**: The shooting is super easy but satisfying. *34:19* **Max Roberts**: Like it g there's a good feedback loop and you feel cool doing it. *34:22* **Max Roberts**: And there's a lot of this game. *34:26* **Max Roberts**: That is like that. *34:28* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, yeah. *34:30* **Logan Moore**: I mean just the thought of, you know, hey, we're gonna give Samus a motorcycle in this game. *34:30* **Logan Moore**: It's like, okay, cool, totally down with that. *34:35* **Logan Moore**: Very aesthetically interesting. *34:37* **Logan Moore**: She looks cool riding this motorcycle. *34:39* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, let's let's do it. *34:42* **Logan Moore**: Um but like yeah, even in my review I wrote here, like I I've I'm having to consult my review because it's been almost a month and a half since *34:44* **Max Roberts**: Sorry, sorry, I took a long time *34:50* **Logan Moore**: No, it's it's more that I played this game before everybody else. *34:53* **Logan Moore**: I think I probably would have played it alongside you if I hadn't reviewed it. *34:57* **Logan Moore**: But yeah, like even in my root review I r talk about like, you know, it's cool, but there's just *35:00* **Logan Moore**: There's not much gameplay variety to it, which I totally stand by. *35:05* **Logan Moore**: I just think there's not a lot to do with that. *35:09* **Logan Moore**: And I don't know how they would spice like you're talking about how *35:11* **Logan Moore**: You know, like in Jack, like the vehicles were there to just kind of get around town and that was it. *35:16* **Logan Moore**: But that was in a much smaller environment. *35:19* **Logan Moore**: Like I think this is a natural point to talk about, like the design of the game. *35:23* **Logan Moore**: And the scope is just too much in this game at times. *35:27* **Logan Moore**: It is so *35:33* **Logan Moore**: So empty this world. *35:35* **Logan Moore**: Like they try to sprinkle in some things for you to do here and there. *35:36* **Logan Moore**: The main hubs are on the four corners of the map. *35:39* **Logan Moore**: And then you know the *35:42* **Logan Moore**: the f forest area or whatever, the main sort of hub that you keep going back to where your companions are at is like towards the left side of the map. *35:44* **Max Roberts**: Fairy green, yeah. *35:48* **Logan Moore**: But other than that, like everything's in the corners. *35:52* **Logan Moore**: And then there's just a huge big wasteland in the middle that you can kind of explore and find stuff. *35:54* **Logan Moore**: And obviously there's other little things that they try to sprinkle in that you can, you know, get some upgrades for your *36:00* **Logan Moore**: various beams or uh the m the mech parts that you stumble across hours prior before like *36:06* **Logan Moore**: I told I I remember messaging you when I was playing it. *36:15* **Logan Moore**: I was like, I'm pretty sure I'm nearing the end because there's something I haven't done yet that I know I'm gonna have to do probably very soon. *36:17* **Logan Moore**: And once I do that it'll probably be the end of the game. *36:25* **Logan Moore**: I mean it's just get the mech parts, yeah. *36:27* **Logan Moore**: So like they show you those things, but like that's the thing. *36:29* **Logan Moore**: Once you get the viola, your natural inclination is to be like, Oh, I wanna explore the world. *36:32* **Logan Moore**: This is this is such a huge world, like what all is there to do? *36:37* **Logan Moore**: And the answer up front is like not much. *36:40* **Max Roberts**: So that's an interesting difference for us because so when I obviously waited, I had to wait to play the game. *36:43* **Max Roberts**: And when it came, when review embargo broke, while I didn't read a ton of reviews, I saw highlights and things people were saying. *36:50* **Max Roberts**: And a very popular *36:57* **Max Roberts**: comparison, Sol Valley, which is the desert in Metro Pramphore, of popular comparison was, oh, this is Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time. *37:01* **Max Roberts**: Not a lot to do. *37:12* **Max Roberts**: Just connects all the hubs with some little stuff in the middle. *37:15* **Logan Moore**: We can mall that we're going to do that. *37:16* **Max Roberts**: And so going into the game, I knew there was nothing to do in the desert. *37:18* **Max Roberts**: Which is fine. *37:23* **Max Roberts**: So I would just drive around. *37:24* **Max Roberts**: I'd hit the crystals and and kind of go to my next destination. *37:25* **Max Roberts**: And then maybe halfway through the game when I realized I needed *37:29* **Max Roberts**: more green crystals, I just started filling out the little hexagons on the map. *37:32* **Max Roberts**: I'd be like, oh let's, you know, just follow and go get green crystals along the way, which was fun. *37:35* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *37:39* **Max Roberts**: There is *37:41* **Max Roberts**: There's something innately satisfying that I mean Ubisoft tapped into this for the last 15, 20 years, which is uh check off map make go brain go happy, you know. *37:41* **Max Roberts**: So it's just like fill in the map. *37:52* **Logan Moore**: Yes. *37:52* **Max Roberts**: Castlevania, simply unite, fill in the map. *37:54* **Max Roberts**: Metroid, fill in the map. *37:56* **Max Roberts**: It feels good to do that. *37:58* **Max Roberts**: And so that would that felt great, you know, on the hub world and riding the bike to do that. *37:59* **Max Roberts**: And *38:04* **Max Roberts**: felt good. *38:05* **Max Roberts**: But I never expected to do anything in the hub world beyond pick up those mech parts because it's very obvious early on. *38:06* **Max Roberts**: Like *38:14* **Max Roberts**: They sh make a big showcase of showing you the destroyed mechanics like, oh, here's more parts to build it. *38:14* **Max Roberts**: It's like, okay, eventually I'll get to do that. *38:19* **Max Roberts**: Um So I think that's interesting. *38:22* **Max Roberts**: I think my problem with the *38:25* **Max Roberts**: The design or using Soul Valley like that is that illusion that it gives you that you get to choose where to go. *38:28* **Logan Moore**: Mm-hmm. *38:37* **Logan Moore**: Yep, this is what I was gonna say. *38:38* **Logan Moore**: That's that's my biggest problem is when they give you the motorcycle, they also *38:40* **Logan Moore**: Kind the game kind of tells you now you can go anywhere you want and you can go, you know, there's this place over here, there's this place over here, and there's this place over here. *38:44* **Logan Moore**: You can go to wherever you want, Samus. *38:51* **Logan Moore**: Let's just *38:53* **Max Roberts**: Let's figure it out *38:54* **Logan Moore**: We just gotta, you know, complete this. *38:54* **Logan Moore**: Let's get we gotta complete this main objective. *38:56* **Logan Moore**: That to me is saying, like, oh, cool, like this game's gonna let me do whatever I want in whatever order I want. *38:58* **Logan Moore**: And that in itself is also kind of an encouragement to the player to like go explore and see what else you can stumble across because there's maybe some other secrets out there. *39:06* **Logan Moore**: Little do you know. *39:16* **Logan Moore**: And this is where like this type of idea of game design clashes with the Metroidvania el uh style of game design, which is like you need specific things to access *39:17* **Logan Moore**: specific areas. *39:29* **Logan Moore**: So like it almost has to be linear to a degree. *39:30* **Max Roberts**: So *39:31* **Logan Moore**: You can't have an open-ended game like this and have it also be *39:35* **Logan Moore**: a Metroidvania game, but this is what they have tried to kind of do or pretend to do to tell you that it was possible, but it's not *39:38* **Max Roberts**: It's a very interesting illusion. *39:47* **Max Roberts**: So before I get to one of my big *39:50* **Max Roberts**: I had quite a few big brain ideas. *39:53* **Max Roberts**: Like if I, you know, if I was sitting in a meeting at Nintendo back in 2017 or 19, like this is what I would have pitched. *39:55* **Max Roberts**: But before I do that, there's this um *40:01* **Max Roberts**: To get those shots, those different the fire shot, the ice shot, and then the thunder shot, you you get these little chips, and you are forced to take these chips all the way back to Milan McKenzie Miles Mackenzie, our favorite *40:06* **Logan Moore**: Oh, yeah. *40:16* **Max Roberts**: MPC, Miles Mackenzie. *40:20* **Logan Moore**: You gotta launch yourself in that cannon many a time. *40:22* **Max Roberts**: Yep, you got it. *40:25* **Logan Moore**: Fly through the air. *40:26* **Max Roberts**: It's good. *40:27* **Max Roberts**: You do that, he he talks and talks and talks while he pokes at a hologram screen. *40:29* **Max Roberts**: And then gives you a chip that you put in into your cannon and you unlock this ability. *40:34* **Max Roberts**: And at the beg when I first got to Soul Valley, I looked at the sky boxes and was like. *40:38* **Max Roberts**: So there's a jungle I just left, there's volt forage, which I just left, so there's ice, there's this like other thing in the corner which turned out to be the mines, and there's a volcano. *40:44* **Max Roberts**: And in my brain, I'm like, eh, they probably want me to go to the volcano because fire and metroid kind of go hand in hand. *40:53* **Max Roberts**: I'm like, I want to go to the ice place. *41:00* **Max Roberts**: Like, I'm gonna go to the ice place. *41:01* **Max Roberts**: So I go to the ice place. *41:02* **Max Roberts**: You can't, you go. *41:04* **Logan Moore**: I think I went to the ice place too, yeah. *41:04* **Max Roberts**: You go two rooms in, the wall is frozen. *41:05* **Max Roberts**: You're like, ah, dang it. *41:09* **Max Roberts**: I can't go here. *41:11* **Max Roberts**: They've lied to me. *41:12* **Max Roberts**: So I go to the other corner. *41:14* **Max Roberts**: I basically go everywhere but the volcano. *41:15* **Max Roberts**: And you can't cross the bridge to get to the mines. *41:18* **Max Roberts**: I'm like, oh my gosh. *41:21* **Max Roberts**: They're just making me go where they want me to go. *41:23* **Max Roberts**: You go to the volcano and you can only go so far into the volcano too. *41:27* **Max Roberts**: And I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting. *41:31* **Max Roberts**: And that's when they give you the fire shot and then you can go do the ice place. *41:33* **Max Roberts**: And I was like, why? *41:37* **Max Roberts**: Why do I have to take this stupid chip all the way back across the desert to get the fire shot to then go to the ice place? *41:38* **Max Roberts**: Why can't I just pick this up like a normal power-up? *41:46* **Max Roberts**: But later, as I did that the second and the third time, I realized, I'm like, oh, I I kind of see the vision a bit. *41:49* **Max Roberts**: It's kind of comforting. *41:57* **Max Roberts**: Like you get the chip and you're like, okay. *41:59* **Max Roberts**: I gotta go back to base. *42:01* **Max Roberts**: Let me drop off all the green crystals I picked up. *42:03* **Max Roberts**: Um you get to go in that room next to home base that lets you use your new shot ability to unlock eventually, I think, an energy tank. *42:05* **Max Roberts**: It's like okay, and then you have to drive through the desert, which means you're hitting more green crystals, you get to do a little bit. *42:14* **Max Roberts**: So it's like this little and there are shrines in the desert too that tie to those abilities. *42:19* **Max Roberts**: So it's like this little gameplay loop before you go back to each world. *42:24* **Max Roberts**: So I was like, oh that's that's good and interesting. *42:27* **Max Roberts**: But here's my big brain idea. *42:30* **Max Roberts**: And I think this is, again, if I was in a meeting, this is what I would have pitched. *42:32* **Max Roberts**: And I think this would have worked a lot better to give you choice about where to go, but also give you some sort of *42:36* **Logan Moore**: You think Kinsuke Tanabe would have liked this? *42:43* **Logan Moore**: You think he would have been a big fan. *42:46* **Max Roberts**: I think he would have because it came from Nintendo. *42:48* **Max Roberts**: And they should have ripped off a link between worlds. *42:51* **Max Roberts**: You should have been able to pick maybe a shot type or something, or just some whatever ability. *42:55* **Logan Moore**: You should have been able to *42:56* **Max Roberts**: But you can only carry one of them at a time. *43:04* **Logan Moore**: Okay. *43:08* **Max Roberts**: And you want to go to the ice place and it's frozen. *43:08* **Max Roberts**: So you're like, I need the fire beam. *43:11* **Max Roberts**: Very almost Mega Man-ish in a way, too. *43:13* **Max Roberts**: Like, oh, I need this element to be strong in this area. *43:15* **Max Roberts**: But as you venture through it, *43:18* **Max Roberts**: Oh, well there's like a lightning lock. *43:21* **Max Roberts**: Oh, so if I remember to come back with that, I can go explore this space. *43:23* **Max Roberts**: So you can choose *43:28* **Max Roberts**: But you're not barred off. *43:30* **Max Roberts**: You have to balance the items. *43:32* **Max Roberts**: And then later there's, you know, you do something and you can unlock a way to keep all of the beams, just like you could in a Link Between Worlds, where you would rent things. *43:33* **Max Roberts**: I think that would have fit really well with a Metroidvania, but also this like illusion of choice. *43:42* **Max Roberts**: Cause *43:50* **Max Roberts**: You can do whatever dungeon you want in that game, but you gotta carry a certain item with you. *43:51* **Max Roberts**: And then there's a cost if you die and all that other stuff. *43:56* **Max Roberts**: But I think that would have fit better than just lying to us. *43:59* **Logan Moore**: So you wanted Miles McKenzie to open a shop and sell you these upgrade chips right there in the home base. *44:04* **Max Roberts**: Essentially not even sell, but I mean, essentially that's what you're doing anyway, right? *44:10* **Max Roberts**: And it *44:15* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, basically. *44:15* **Max Roberts**: I mean, we will talk about the cast of characters in this game, but I almost I mean, I think there could have just been like a Lamorne shrine or something where you go and you *44:16* **Max Roberts**: You get the thing and you come back. *44:28* **Max Roberts**: Like you don't need miles to do it. *44:30* **Max Roberts**: It just I think that structurally would have fit a little bit better. *44:32* **Max Roberts**: So that's my one one of many big brain ideas with this particular game. *44:36* **Max Roberts**: Um *44:41* **Max Roberts**: I think that would have been a lot of fun. *44:42* **Logan Moore**: I think that potentially could have worked. *44:44* **Logan Moore**: I my big issue with like the format of this game and what you were talking about, like, you know, you go to the ice area and you find that you need this and so it makes you go here and you get a chip and you go back to the miles and then you can go unlock *44:46* **Logan Moore**: It's like first off the the backtracking process to get back to Miles every time you needed to, way too long. *44:59* **Logan Moore**: I get that they wanted you to go back and like deposit your green crystals and like you said interact with that one room and *45:05* **Max Roberts**: Mm-hmm. *45:05* **Logan Moore**: Like I get that, but like the process of getting there was a f literal five to ten minute process every time you need to go back. *45:11* **Max Roberts**: Mm-hmm. *45:17* **Logan Moore**: And I think that Metroid Prime 3 actually handled this better because there would become *45:18* **Logan Moore**: There were moments where you would be on a certain planet in that game, and it'd be like, hey, you're basically stuck now. *45:24* **Logan Moore**: The thing you need to advance further on this planet is on a planet you've previously been to. *45:31* **Logan Moore**: Metroid Prime 3 handled that better though because that game would allow you to progress much further in each area before it would send you back to another planet for starters. *45:37* **Max Roberts**: Mm-hmm. *45:49* **Logan Moore**: Um *45:50* **Logan Moore**: And I don't think that beyond always does that. *45:51* **Logan Moore**: Like you said, you get like a couple rooms in and you realize, oh, I need *45:55* **Logan Moore**: this thing and you're immediately hoofing it back to miles like or like I think of the lava area, you get the you get one of the chip upgrades pretty quickly there. *45:59* **Logan Moore**: It's not it's not too far in and then you're immediately heading back to Miles. *46:09* **Max Roberts**: That's the fire shot. *46:12* **Logan Moore**: And this is the *46:12* **Max Roberts**: That's the fire shot *46:13* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *46:14* **Logan Moore**: And this is the other problem with this game and the levels and how it's laid out and stuff is there are only *46:15* **Logan Moore**: one entry point to all of these different regions. *46:23* **Logan Moore**: Like with Metroid Prime 3, you would at least unlock new landing zones for your ship that were like *46:26* **Max Roberts**: Exactly. *46:31* **Logan Moore**: halfway through the level, so you felt like you had progressed and it's like, okay, well when I come back here I won't have to, you know, st dart from the same landing zone that I had landed at here before. *46:31* **Logan Moore**: I'm gonna immediately pick up where I left off and now I'm back on *46:41* **Logan Moore**: the sky planet or whatever from Metroid Prime 3 and I have this new ability at my disposal and I'm gonna be able to immediately start pushing forward. *46:46* **Logan Moore**: Nope, you gotta hoof it through the areas that you had already passed before. *46:53* **Logan Moore**: And there's puzzles and there's secrets and there's stuff you can find by doing that, and that's, you know, fine. *46:57* **Logan Moore**: But there's a lot of backtracking in this game. *47:03* **Logan Moore**: There's a lot of going back and forth. *47:07* **Logan Moore**: Like, I feel like that's *47:09* **Logan Moore**: Almost the majority uh maybe definitely not the majority, but like a good chunk of the how long did was this game for you? *47:10* **Logan Moore**: I'd say it took me about ten ten to twelve hours is where I landed. *47:18* **Max Roberts**: Twelve hours was my playtime. *47:19* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *47:21* **Logan Moore**: I would say *47:22* **Logan Moore**: A third is probably like wrapped up in backtracking to some degree and venturing back and forth across the planet at times. *47:25* **Max Roberts**: Well, when you *47:29* **Max Roberts**: I feel like the word backtracking has a quite the connotation with a Metroid Venia. *47:32* **Logan Moore**: Like *47:33* **Max Roberts**: This is not this is not the backtracking w where you're like finding abilities all the time and you're like *47:37* **Max Roberts**: This is just driving somewhere else *47:43* **Logan Moore**: Yes, you have to go from point A to point B and you know where you have to go, but it's still gonna take you five to seven minutes to get there or something. *47:46* **Logan Moore**: Like if you're at the if you're at the lava place *47:55* **Max Roberts**: Yeah *47:56* **Logan Moore**: And like I said, you get the magma chip or whatever and you know you gotta go back to Miles. *47:58* **Logan Moore**: You gotta leave the Miles place, you gotta hop on the violet, you gotta drive all the way across the desert, you gotta get to the forest area, you gotta launch with the cannon, you gotta watch the cannon *48:02* **Logan Moore**: cutscene. *48:10* **Logan Moore**: You gotta land then you gotta go to miles and then you gotta go all the way uh watch the canon cutscene again. *48:10* **Logan Moore**: It's like, dude, what are we doing here? *48:15* **Logan Moore**: Like this is so crazy. *48:17* **Logan Moore**: They should have had some sort of like *48:18* **Logan Moore**: Uh just add just just gamify. *48:21* **Logan Moore**: Add some sort of fast travel thing like if you uh *48:23* **Max Roberts**: It's not even it it's not even that big a stretch, Logan, because the Lamore master teleportation like literally could have just been a perk upgrade. *48:24* **Logan Moore**: All they would have had to do too is like you can't fast travel or teleport all over the map. *48:35* **Logan Moore**: You can only teleport back to the Miles McKenzie little station. *48:40* **Logan Moore**: That's it. *48:43* **Logan Moore**: You can just teleport back to home base. *48:44* **Logan Moore**: Like if they would have done something like that, it would have been like, okay, perfect, great. *48:46* **Logan Moore**: This cuts literal an hour at an hour or two off of this game. *48:51* **Logan Moore**: But like maybe that's kind of the point too. *48:57* **Logan Moore**: They didn't want it to be too short and like how the game was designed and laid out for it to, you know, be a 10 or 12 hour experience. *49:00* **Logan Moore**: They like need a lot of that. *49:07* **Logan Moore**: Travel time baked in *49:09* **Max Roberts**: I don't know. *49:09* **Max Roberts**: I I I I think there could have been a fast travel option. *49:10* **Max Roberts**: It th fast travel is very antithetical to Metroid Prime, but even then, like corruption had forms of it. *49:14* **Max Roberts**: I think it would have been beneficial, uh, at least to get around, especially just how empty the desert is overall, you know. *49:23* **Max Roberts**: They did the best they could with it, but it it is a lot of driving. *49:32* **Max Roberts**: I think just they should they they should have either made it where you could go to either one and then progress through it and then choose to come back later. *49:35* **Max Roberts**: when you have other abilities to find the other secrets or pathways or options. *49:44* **Max Roberts**: Or they should have *49:51* **Max Roberts**: shrunk the desert, got rid of the desert, and and made it one planet, which it is, and I appreciate that. *49:53* **Max Roberts**: I like I'm not galaxy hopping. *50:00* **Max Roberts**: I'm on one planet like a Talon 4 or a Zebus *50:01* **Max Roberts**: But we just we kind of opened up the middle and in interviews and things they've talked about basically it was inspired by the likes of comments in Breath of the Wild and things like that. *50:05* **Logan Moore**: I was I I was gonna bring this up right now if you just want to talk about this. *50:14* **Logan Moore**: Like this is a perfect point to talk about this because we've kind of been tiptoeing around it. *50:18* **Logan Moore**: So like after the game came out, an interesting interview came out with *50:21* **Logan Moore**: An unnamed person at Retro or Nintendo, but people have said they're pretty sure sure this is Tanabe, who's talking on behalf of uh the development team. *50:25* **Max Roberts**: It's a f it's an interview with Famitsu, so it's it's just the development team, but *50:34* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *50:39* **Logan Moore**: It's probably Tanabe who who wrote this. *50:40* **Logan Moore**: Um but yeah, basically he just he says, quote, at the start of the project, perhaps due to the influence *50:43* **Logan Moore**: of the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, we saw a lot of comments on the internet saying we want to play an open world Metroid. *50:49* **Logan Moore**: First off, who was saying that? *50:56* **Logan Moore**: Was anybody really saying that? *50:59* **Max Roberts**: I'm sure a lot of people I think I I Breath of the Wild had was very influential at the time. *50:59* **Logan Moore**: It was, yes, it was. *51:05* **Logan Moore**: I'm not denying that, but also I think that's I don't know if I've ever seen too many of those requests. *51:07* **Logan Moore**: Anyway, continuing *51:12* **Logan Moore**: However, Metroid's core element of increasing the amount of explorable areas by unlocking powers is not compatible with the freedom to go anywhere from the beginning of open worlds. *51:13* **Logan Moore**: Thus we thought to design a limited area that could be explored, freely explored, and have that be a hub that could connect to other areas. *51:24* **Logan Moore**: Then we thought if one could move around on the bike in a satisfying way in that area *51:31* **Logan Moore**: It can be a segment that mitigates the tension from exploration and paces the whole game. *51:35* **Logan Moore**: In the end, the game took I agree, it's it's it makes sense what they tried to do. *51:40* **Max Roberts**: I agree with that. *51:40* **Logan Moore**: He goes on to say, in the end, the game took much longer than expected to finish, and we realized that players' impressions toward open world games had changed. *51:45* **Logan Moore**: So basically *51:54* **Logan Moore**: From the time people started saying give us open world Metroid supposedly in 2017 to 2025, open world game design conventions have changed a lot. *51:56* **Max Roberts**: In part because of Breath of the Wild, but also I would say *52:08* **Logan Moore**: Uh *52:08* **Max Roberts**: Things like Elden Ring from software um The Witcher and Cyberpunk also are very influential over the last decade. *52:12* **Logan Moore**: Elden Rang, yeah. *52:13* **Logan Moore**: The final thing he says there, this is important, he says. *52:21* **Logan Moore**: That being said, development had already been reset once before *52:24* **Logan Moore**: when we started from scratch with retro. *52:27* **Logan Moore**: So backtracking development again was out of the question and we resolved to move forward with our original vision. *52:29* **Logan Moore**: During this time shooting games and action games went through partic went uh went through evolutions with an increase in game speed in particular, but taking in those changes would have made it difficult to construct *52:35* **Logan Moore**: the tempo of an adventure game, so we actively chose not to take them into account. *52:47* **Logan Moore**: Therefore, I think this game is pretty much divorced from the changing of the times. *52:52* **Logan Moore**: It's a fascinating, like open, blunt summarization of what happened with this game, which we all knew, but like I never expected anybody to really *52:58* **Logan Moore**: Go on the record and kinda say this *53:11* **Max Roberts**: I I would love a GDC talk about this eventually, you know. *53:11* **Max Roberts**: ten, fifteen years from now, did you know gaming will get an interview with retro staff like they have for a bunch of other stuff and we'll learn more about it. *53:18* **Logan Moore**: Yes. *53:23* **Max Roberts**: Like this game will be talked about and probably studied. *53:24* **Max Roberts**: quite a bit probably over the years and its development cycle has to be a fascinating story. *53:28* **Max Roberts**: But again, I just that question of open world Metroid and *53:34* **Max Roberts**: Uh, what was it? *53:40* **Max Roberts**: Increasing the amount of explorable areas by unlocking powers is not compatible with the freedom to go anywhere from the beginning. *53:42* **Max Roberts**: And that's where I think *53:48* **Max Roberts**: a link between world structure. *53:50* **Max Roberts**: Like I did they a like they answered it already, you know, back on the 3DS. *53:52* **Max Roberts**: Gosh, what a good game that is. *53:57* **Max Roberts**: I should play that again sometime. *53:58* **Max Roberts**: But that I think could have been a really good way to strike the balance because I do agree with them. *54:00* **Max Roberts**: Metroid is about powering up and coming back and exploring. *54:06* **Max Roberts**: And I don't necessarily want to just like *54:09* **Max Roberts**: Oh, I don't want it, Breath of the Wild, but I do like the idea of it being open to choice. *54:13* **Max Roberts**: Um, and how can you structure that sort of adventure to it? *54:19* **Max Roberts**: And that's a puzzle they didn't *54:23* **Max Roberts**: solve this go-around and I'm curio well like we'll talk at the end about this but I am curious where they go from here. *54:27* **Logan Moore**: The last thing I'll say about the open world stuff is like I feel *54:35* **Logan Moore**: Like they've talked about how you know like Breath of the Wild was influential. *54:39* **Logan Moore**: Breath of the Wild was influential though because that game really hinged on the idea of like you're just looking at the world around you and the things that you see within the world. *54:42* **Logan Moore**: are prompting you to search them out. *54:53* **Logan Moore**: Metroid Prime 4 is more like you said, kind of like a Ubisoft game where you are exploring the world to see what points of interest you find on the map that you can then. *54:56* **Logan Moore**: go to and interact with or not interact with. *55:06* **Logan Moore**: It's like almost the polar opposite of Breath of the Wild in some sense, because you can you never stumble across a shrine in Breath of the Wild that's like *55:09* **Logan Moore**: Hold up, you can't come in here yet. *55:17* **Logan Moore**: Like you might not have the right tools at your disposal to solve the puzzle that lies within, but it's gonna let you and I guess they they they *55:20* **Max Roberts**: Well that's not true actually. *55:25* **Max Roberts**: You because shrines were always solvable with the um *55:27* **Max Roberts**: the abilities, the bombs, the core, they give you everything on the Great Plateau. *55:33* **Logan Moore**: Just the core stuff. *55:33* **Logan Moore**: Oh yeah, because they gave you them all up front. *55:34* **Logan Moore**: That's right. *55:36* **Max Roberts**: You've got the bombs, the time mechanic, and I I it's been a long time. *55:38* **Logan Moore**: That's right, that's right, that's right. *55:38* **Max Roberts**: But so you always had every tool you needed to solve a puzzle in Breath of the Wild. *55:43* **Max Roberts**: And because it was all physics driven, the question is just how do you want to solve the problem? *55:48* **Max Roberts**: And that's why that *55:52* **Max Roberts**: works so well and obviously then you amplify that in Tears of the Kingdom, I think, to a better degree, but it's *55:54* **Logan Moore**: Those games also have interesting worlds to look at, whereas this is just *56:01* **Logan Moore**: A lot of sand everywhere. *56:07* **Max Roberts**: Specifically, Sol Valley is a lot of sand, yes, and there are some crashes. *56:09* **Logan Moore**: Which is the other Yeah. *56:10* **Max Roberts**: But the rest of the world, I think, is very interesting to look at. *56:15* **Logan Moore**: Yes. *56:19* **Logan Moore**: And that's what I wanted to talk about next is what do you think of the other hubs? *56:19* **Logan Moore**: Because they are all this is where it's, you know *56:24* **Logan Moore**: Classic Metroid in terms of art design, the music's great. *56:27* **Logan Moore**: I think that the art direction is top-notch. *56:31* **Logan Moore**: Like all of the locations look and sound great. *56:34* **Logan Moore**: I think I have *56:38* **Logan Moore**: They all feel much smaller than a lot of biomes in the previous Metroid games. *56:39* **Max Roberts**: I'm okay with that. *56:43* **Logan Moore**: That would be my only I was largely okay with that too, especially because of how much, you know *56:43* **Max Roberts**: I'm okay with that. *56:45* **Logan Moore**: uh I don't want to keep saying it backtracking for lack of a better word. *56:50* **Logan Moore**: How much you'd have to go back and forth across the map constantly to get to other destinations. *56:54* **Logan Moore**: I enjoyed having these locales be a little bit more tight-knit. *56:59* **Logan Moore**: Um *57:03* **Logan Moore**: But yeah, this is those elements of the game is where I ended up coming around to and thinking like, okay, this is good. *57:04* **Logan Moore**: This is Metroid. *57:10* **Logan Moore**: This is this is the Metroid Prime experience that I wanted and hoped this game would be. *57:11* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *57:17* **Max Roberts**: So there's uh we mentioned them earlier. *57:19* **Max Roberts**: There are five *57:21* **Max Roberts**: core areas, Fury Green, Volt Forge, Lava Pool, Ice Belt, Great Mines. *57:22* **Max Roberts**: Honestly, we could have we could have used better names all around, but you got a forest, you got an electricity place. *57:29* **Max Roberts**: a volcano, a frozen mountain, and underground facility. *57:35* **Max Roberts**: All of them I think are immaculately designed and themed. *57:40* **Max Roberts**: The stories within them are *57:46* **Max Roberts**: Super cool. *57:50* **Max Roberts**: Uh I don't know about you, but I thought I was getting major Resident Evil vibes in the ice belt lab where you're going down through it. *57:51* **Max Roberts**: Clearly these monsters are trying to cure them, all this stuff. *58:00* **Max Roberts**: And I did like the albeit obvious, but the twist that the the grievers are actually the Lamorne, like something happened where they turned. *58:04* **Max Roberts**: That was cool. *58:12* **Max Roberts**: And then when you turn the generator on, the place starts to thaw. *58:13* **Max Roberts**: It's a very good moment. *58:16* **Max Roberts**: Um that's another moment like where it's cool, right? *58:19* **Max Roberts**: Like *58:22* **Max Roberts**: It's all gray and frozen and icy and then the music swells and it's yellow and crackling with heat and electricity. *58:23* **Max Roberts**: And you go back up through the area that you come through and things are melting. *58:30* **Max Roberts**: The grievers are finally coming out because they're thawing. *58:34* **Max Roberts**: It's such a well-crafted s overall level, right, from beginning to end, where it's this quiet, scary-ish exploration and you're learning about these horrible experiments. *58:37* **Max Roberts**: That aren't working. *58:51* **Max Roberts**: And then you come back up and you're fighting the monsters as you get out. *58:52* **Max Roberts**: You've got this Tanabe guy up at the top with the leg and a sniper. *58:55* **Max Roberts**: He's like, I'll help you, Samus. *59:00* **Max Roberts**: Um, that's cool. *59:02* **Max Roberts**: Like the ice belt level's cool. *59:03* **Max Roberts**: Lava pool. *59:06* **Max Roberts**: We got a big cannon that's getting ready to shoot something in the sky. *59:07* **Max Roberts**: Can we stop it? *59:10* **Max Roberts**: Let's, you know, go around. *59:12* **Max Roberts**: It's getting too hot. *59:13* **Max Roberts**: Like that's cool. *59:14* **Max Roberts**: My favorite probably Great Minds thematically. *59:17* **Logan Moore**: Really? *59:22* **Max Roberts**: Like thematically *59:23* **Logan Moore**: Okay, I was gonna say that was that was my least favorite because of how linear it was. *59:23* **Logan Moore**: It was just kind of very straightforward. *59:28* **Max Roberts**: It is it is all straight. *59:29* **Max Roberts**: But I I loved this idea. *59:31* **Max Roberts**: I don't think they executed it perfectly, so maybe I just like the idea more than the actual execution. *59:35* **Max Roberts**: But *59:41* **Max Roberts**: You have these two ideas of like the the the actual mining facility, like the structures the Lamorne built, and then the natural caves. *59:42* **Max Roberts**: But then you have this split where it's like there are these creatures in the walls. *59:50* **Max Roberts**: And they're gonna get us. *59:55* **Max Roberts**: And we have to break walls and rocks. *59:57* **Max Roberts**: But when we use missiles, it attracts the monsters and they attack. *01:00:00* **Max Roberts**: Like I like the idea of this split *01:00:04* **Max Roberts**: And I like the idea of this push. *01:00:06* **Max Roberts**: Like these monsters are pushing us deeper and deeper and we can't get out. *01:00:08* **Max Roberts**: We're being picked off one by one. *01:00:11* **Max Roberts**: It's a very B-tier horror, right? *01:00:13* **Max Roberts**: Like, oh no, everyone's getting pulled away. *01:00:16* **Max Roberts**: But the execution isn't up there, right? *01:00:20* **Max Roberts**: Like it's not actually that spooky *01:00:24* **Max Roberts**: Um, it's very cheesy most of the time, especially with the cast of characters. *01:00:28* **Max Roberts**: But I like the ideas there and I'm *01:00:33* **Max Roberts**: And Volt Forge is so cool looking. *01:00:38* **Max Roberts**: Oh my gosh, all the rain and lightning. *01:00:41* **Max Roberts**: The game is just so cool. *01:00:45* **Logan Moore**: I was very glad that this was brought to Switch 2. *01:00:49* **Max Roberts**: Like. *01:00:49* **Max Roberts**: Oh my gosh. *01:00:54* **Logan Moore**: This is by far like the best looking game on Switch 2. *01:00:54* **Logan Moore**: So far, I heard there's been a lot of good games. *01:00:58* **Max Roberts**: Absolutely. *01:00:58* **Logan Moore**: But this looks very sharp on Switch 2. *01:01:00* **Logan Moore**: It performs incredibly well. *01:01:02* **Max Roberts**: I think it's the best looking game I played in twenty twenty-five. *01:01:05* **Logan Moore**: Um *01:01:05* **Logan Moore**: It looks really good. *01:01:09* **Max Roberts**: I I I don't think there's any game that came out last year that looked better. *01:01:10* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, like for for all *01:01:15* **Max Roberts**: Who needs Unreal 5? *01:01:15* **Max Roberts**: We need proprietary game engines. *01:01:17* **Logan Moore**: For all the talk, you know, that we've had this episode about the design difficulties and, you know, choices that *01:01:21* **Logan Moore**: retro made that were potentially not great ones. *01:01:27* **Logan Moore**: It's it's good to see that that studio still has the juice when it comes to the the visual side of things in the art direction. *01:01:30* **Logan Moore**: Like 'cause this *01:01:37* **Logan Moore**: Um which is ironic because the game's biggest central area is like devoid of these things that we're praising it for here. *01:01:38* **Logan Moore**: much to it, but once you get into the the main little hubs and uh there's there's a lot to like with each of them. *01:01:49* **Max Roberts**: Springfield. *01:01:50* **Max Roberts**: What was your favorite place? *01:01:58* **Max Roberts**: What was your favorite environment? *01:02:00* **Logan Moore**: I liked visually I liked the look of uh the Voltforge most I think. *01:02:02* **Max Roberts**: That's what I would have that's what I would have picked for you. *01:02:10* **Logan Moore**: I think *01:02:11* **Logan Moore**: Ice Belt felt most like classic Metroid Prime to me, and I really liked that. *01:02:14* **Logan Moore**: I feel like it greatly used all of the *01:02:21* **Logan Moore**: best mechanics within the metal because there's a lot of morph ball stuff there too, which I like and thought was cool. *01:02:25* **Logan Moore**: Um *01:02:32* **Max Roberts**: And it has that environmental storytelling. *01:02:33* **Max Roberts**: Like you can tell what's going oh my gosh, reading the logs, you're scanning everything. *01:02:35* **Logan Moore**: Yes *01:02:36* **Max Roberts**: It's it's good stuff. *01:02:41* **Max Roberts**: It's a very well designed. *01:02:43* **Logan Moore**: Lava pool is cool, but I'm soured by that boss fight because I don't love the viola. *01:02:45* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, neither do I. *01:02:52* **Logan Moore**: b boss fight there at the end of the gate. *01:02:52* **Max Roberts**: No, no, neither do I. *01:02:53* **Logan Moore**: At the end of it. *01:02:55* **Logan Moore**: That was like the one thing that I didn't like with that area is that they're like, oh now you need to turn your *01:02:56* **Logan Moore**: motorcycle into this little hover machine thing. *01:03:01* **Logan Moore**: It's like, okay, I I I would rather not, but all right, I'll do it. *01:03:04* **Logan Moore**: Um yeah, I think Ice Belt is like the most this is the tightest area in the game and feels like classic Metroid in all the right ways. *01:03:09* **Logan Moore**: So yeah, that was my favorite, but they're all good. *01:03:18* **Logan Moore**: Again, those those areas of the game are really what won me over at the end of the day. *01:03:22* **Logan Moore**: Um when it came to this game. *01:03:28* **Logan Moore**: What'd you think of *01:03:30* **Logan Moore**: The bosses. *01:03:32* **Logan Moore**: And we'll talk about, you know, the main overarching boss here at the end. *01:03:33* **Logan Moore**: Maybe when we talk more about characters and stuff like that with *01:03:38* **Max Roberts**: True. *01:03:41* **Max Roberts**: I the the bosses are are good Metroid Fair, right? *01:03:42* **Max Roberts**: Like monsters that have mutated. *01:03:46* **Max Roberts**: Um my biggest they're all fine. *01:03:49* **Max Roberts**: I don't I don't think any of them were particularly challenging, um, but they all feel cool and feel like they belong in a Metroid game. *01:03:53* **Max Roberts**: I think the most *01:04:01* **Max Roberts**: Disappointing thing is the Metroids themselves *01:04:04* **Max Roberts**: uh and their use of them. *01:04:11* **Max Roberts**: So I wrote down uh you know our only real touch points to the previous titles are silics *01:04:12* **Max Roberts**: The mention of Metroids and Scans, you don't actually I mean you see them in some cutscenes, but there are a few bosses, I think a total of three, possibly four. *01:04:18* **Max Roberts**: But three of them are mutated by a Metroid. *01:04:28* **Max Roberts**: Like a Metroid join them and you read that in a scan visor. *01:04:32* **Max Roberts**: But you never see the Metroids them like you never fight the Metroids themselves. *01:04:36* **Max Roberts**: Um, there's no real space pirates, there's no Chozo, it's like completely detached from the which is fine. *01:04:42* **Max Roberts**: I'm cool with it. *01:04:47* **Max Roberts**: Uh I would like Metroids in a Metroid game though, and especially since they were *01:04:49* **Max Roberts**: at least three of them in this game, like it felt weird to not actually uh fight them, you know? *01:04:54* **Max Roberts**: Or like at the very least for Silex to use them at the end in his particular boss fight, because they were his pets that we stole in Federation Force. *01:05:02* **Max Roberts**: Um, what a silly, silly ending. *01:05:11* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, those uh those pets just ended up inhabiting lava monsters on another planet. *01:05:12* **Logan Moore**: Ta-da! *01:05:21* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, so *01:05:21* **Logan Moore**: That's all that the was done with them. *01:05:22* **Max Roberts**: That was a bit disappointing, but the bosses themselves, very fun, very cool. *01:05:23* **Max Roberts**: I like them overall. *01:05:27* **Max Roberts**: Uh they all feel very metroid. *01:05:30* **Max Roberts**: I was hoping for a Craid appearance finally in a Metroid Prime game, but no, no Craid this time around. *01:05:32* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:05:36* **Max Roberts**: I was really hopeful in Lava Land. *01:05:39* **Max Roberts**: I was like, ah, maybe he'll be here. *01:05:41* **Max Roberts**: But no. *01:05:44* **Logan Moore**: Alas. *01:05:44* **Logan Moore**: There's there's crades in Super Smash Bros games, but not any Metroid Prime games. *01:05:46* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *01:05:51* **Logan Moore**: Unfortunately. *01:05:52* **Max Roberts**: Oh well. *01:05:52* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I I thought they were all like excellently designed. *01:05:53* **Logan Moore**: I thought they all looked really cool. *01:05:56* **Logan Moore**: Again, typical Metroid Fair, I like you said, but that's not *01:05:58* **Logan Moore**: I feel like that's underselling it to some degree to just say like yeah, it's par for the course, but the course is like yeah, it's it's great. *01:06:02* **Max Roberts**: Killer. *01:06:09* **Max Roberts**: They're great. *01:06:10* **Logan Moore**: Like so yeah, so like I *01:06:11* **Logan Moore**: They were very good. *01:06:13* **Logan Moore**: I I liked all the bosses in this game. *01:06:14* **Logan Moore**: The only issue that I had w with any of the bosses was the one we kind of keep mentioning here, which was the lava pool one. *01:06:16* **Max Roberts**: Big lava dragon, yeah. *01:06:21* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, did not enjoy that one. *01:06:23* **Max Roberts**: I did really like this touch, which only happens twice in the game, which I *01:06:25* **Max Roberts**: is fine. *01:06:30* **Max Roberts**: But there are two times that you fight fight Silex, but they're actually robots in disguise. *01:06:30* **Max Roberts**: But when you scan *01:06:36* **Max Roberts**: them, it's like there's a powerful psychic shield and we can't like you can't break through it. *01:06:38* **Max Roberts**: And so you have to figure out the pattern or the weakness yourself *01:06:45* **Max Roberts**: I was like, ah, that's kind of cool. *01:06:49* **Max Roberts**: I like that. *01:06:51* **Max Roberts**: I like you're making me use my brain slightly more than normal. *01:06:51* **Max Roberts**: That's good. *01:06:56* **Max Roberts**: I like that. *01:06:57* **Max Roberts**: It was a good touch. *01:06:58* **Max Roberts**: Suppose there's a low uh like a narrative reason too. *01:06:59* **Max Roberts**: Revealed at the end. *01:07:03* **Max Roberts**: Oh well, whatever. *01:07:04* **Logan Moore**: Maybe, maybe. *01:07:05* **Max Roberts**: Well, the psychic shield part, powerful psychic shield. *01:07:07* **Logan Moore**: Uh the psychic shift *01:07:07* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:07:11* **Logan Moore**: Let's get into the narrative because this is I I feel like I'm coming down *01:07:12* **Logan Moore**: harder on the this was my this was my difficulty with even writing my own reviews. *01:07:18* **Logan Moore**: It's like at the end of the day I like this game, but it's easier for me to talk about the things that I did not like than the things that I did like with it. *01:07:22* **Logan Moore**: And so I feel like I'm being like over *01:07:29* **Max Roberts**: Well, I think that's always the case. *01:07:29* **Max Roberts**: It's always easier to talk about the stuff you don't like. *01:07:31* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:07:32* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, especially with like a fourth entry like this in a series where it's like, yeah, it does everything good from the previous games that I like. *01:07:34* **Logan Moore**: Let's talk about the stuff that's bad. *01:07:41* **Logan Moore**: Uh *01:07:43* **Logan Moore**: The story in this game, man. *01:07:45* **Logan Moore**: Um I think the No let's just start with this *01:07:48* **Max Roberts**: You want like the whole story? *01:07:49* **Logan Moore**: They really try to lean into it more so than ever before. *01:07:55* **Logan Moore**: More cutscenes than ever, more characters than ever, more talking than ever. *01:07:59* **Max Roberts**: Well No, I disagree with that. *01:08:03* **Max Roberts**: I think there are more characters there's more talking than characters in corruption. *01:08:06* **Logan Moore**: You think? *01:08:07* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *01:08:12* **Max Roberts**: At the very least, out of the gate, you have the three bounty hunters. *01:08:13* **Max Roberts**: You have each AI. *01:08:17* **Logan Moore**: You have a lot you have a lot of you have a lot up front in corruption for sure, but as the game goes on, I feel like it starts to kind of fall away. *01:08:17* **Max Roberts**: Mm. *01:08:22* **Logan Moore**: And in this game, I feel like it's more consistent throughout. *01:08:26* **Max Roberts**: Sure, yeah. *01:08:26* **Logan Moore**: So that's why I would say I feel like there's much more in this game, story-wise and character-wise. *01:08:30* **Max Roberts**: I would agree with that, sure. *01:08:31* **Logan Moore**: Um *01:08:37* **Logan Moore**: The big problem for me is that there's so much talking and banter and they try to inject a lot of like *01:08:39* **Logan Moore**: humor into the game and it does not work because Samus is a silent protagonist. *01:08:50* **Logan Moore**: And here's the thing that blows my mind. *01:08:57* **Logan Moore**: This is something I would not have known until I have played Dread here. *01:08:59* **Logan Moore**: She talks in dread very, very infrequently, but she'll throw a line out here and like a couple times in that game. *01:09:04* **Max Roberts**: Have you not played other M *01:09:10* **Logan Moore**: No. *01:09:13* **Logan Moore**: I know and I don't want her I don't want Samus to be a chatterbox. *01:09:13* **Logan Moore**: I do want her to be quiet. *01:09:16* **Max Roberts**: Oh, well. *01:09:17* **Logan Moore**: But like does she talk? *01:09:18* **Logan Moore**: She talks another M, right? *01:09:21* **Max Roberts**: Oh, she talks a lot in other M. *01:09:21* **Max Roberts**: There's uh full-blown voice cutscenes, like it's a whole thing. *01:09:23* **Logan Moore**: Okay, that's what I thought. *01:09:23* **Max Roberts**: Um *01:09:26* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I don't I don't want her to talk a ton, but like it doesn't it doesn't work. *01:09:26* **Logan Moore**: It falls so flat. *01:09:33* **Logan Moore**: It what falls flat is the the banter they try to write in. *01:09:35* **Logan Moore**: so many times. *01:09:39* **Logan Moore**: Especially with uh I mean Miles McKenzie his is his own kind of character. *01:09:40* **Logan Moore**: That's that's fine. *01:09:47* **Logan Moore**: But like I think specifically with Duke and Armstrong *01:09:47* **Logan Moore**: Once you get to the section where you're running around with both of them, they're chatting to one another, going back and forth, they're trying to like *01:09:52* **Logan Moore**: Which one is is Armstrong the girl? *01:10:00* **Logan Moore**: She's trying to talk to Samus some and Samus just does not say anything the whole time because she doesn't say anything that anyway the whole it's like it's this doesn't work. *01:10:02* **Logan Moore**: Like you have to have Samus say *01:10:10* **Logan Moore**: one or two words every now and then, I feel like. *01:10:13* **Max Roberts**: So, okay. *01:10:17* **Max Roberts**: All right. *01:10:22* **Max Roberts**: I want to go back to this. *01:10:24* **Logan Moore**: I'm gonna go back to it. *01:10:25* **Max Roberts**: So Metroid is rooted conceptually in the film Alien and like this idea of be *01:10:26* **Max Roberts**: tier uh sci-fi horror, right? *01:10:35* **Max Roberts**: And I actually think this might be the most like Retro is so adept at *01:10:40* **Max Roberts**: It's execution here. *01:10:48* **Max Roberts**: I really think. *01:10:50* **Max Roberts**: Miles is. *01:10:51* **Max Roberts**: They knew exactly what they were doing when they previewed and gave everyone all this Miles stuff in Fury Green. *01:10:53* **Max Roberts**: Miles is, I think, perfectly written. *01:11:02* **Max Roberts**: Even his description is like he talks to himself all the time. *01:11:06* **Max Roberts**: And in Miles, solely contained in the cutscenes, *01:11:11* **Max Roberts**: I think it's perfectly fine. *01:11:16* **Max Roberts**: It's him talking to you in the desert that's always annoying. *01:11:18* **Max Roberts**: And that's just retro, like, hey, you need to go this way. *01:11:22* **Max Roberts**: Go this way. *01:11:26* **Max Roberts**: Do you have enough crystals yet? *01:11:27* **Max Roberts**: That part's annoying. *01:11:29* **Max Roberts**: Sarge or Duke, I just called him Sarge the whole time. *01:11:31* **Max Roberts**: He's the most flat to me, even more than the robot. *01:11:36* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:11:40* **Max Roberts**: Um, he's awful. *01:11:41* **Logan Moore**: I didn't even bring up the robot. *01:11:42* **Max Roberts**: Armstrong, kinda lover. *01:11:44* **Max Roberts**: The beginning when you get her and she completely utterly fangirls, like, oh my gosh, you're the greatest ever. *01:11:49* **Max Roberts**: I was like, you know what? *01:11:58* **Max Roberts**: It's actually kind of cute. *01:12:00* **Max Roberts**: I kind of like it. *01:12:02* **Max Roberts**: Uh but it's so not Metroid, right? *01:12:03* **Max Roberts**: But then you think about it, it's like maybe it is. *01:12:07* **Max Roberts**: Maybe it is Metroid. *01:12:09* **Max Roberts**: And then I like Tanabe's, you know, cool western samurai kind of vibe. *01:12:11* **Max Roberts**: Whatever. *01:12:15* **Max Roberts**: He also doesn't really do much for me. *01:12:15* **Max Roberts**: He's all aesthetics. *01:12:17* **Max Roberts**: And then the robot is just um that one K. *01:12:19* **Max Roberts**: K eight or whatever from uh KSO from Rogue One, whatever that Detroit's name is. *01:12:23* **Max Roberts**: Same sort of vibe. *01:12:30* **Max Roberts**: I I like the cast in bits and pieces. *01:12:32* **Max Roberts**: I think there's a lot of corn here. *01:12:38* **Max Roberts**: A lot of cheesy, campy, corny stuff, particularly *01:12:42* **Max Roberts**: in the mines. *01:12:46* **Max Roberts**: Um the mines is really the roughest part for our team here because *01:12:48* **Logan Moore**: Yes. *01:12:53* **Max Roberts**: Unprompted, it really is like out of nowhere, it feels like. *01:12:55* **Max Roberts**: You finish up, I think wherever you get the robot, I think you go back to the ice place to get the robot. *01:12:59* **Max Roberts**: And then Miles is like, everyone's at the mines waiting for you. *01:13:06* **Max Roberts**: Why is everyone waiting for me? *01:13:12* **Max Roberts**: What do I need these people for? *01:13:13* **Max Roberts**: Um, and so the mines do that narrative thing that I talked about of like we're going down, everyone's getting plucked away by these monsters. *01:13:15* **Max Roberts**: The problem is *01:13:23* **Max Roberts**: Well Tanabe and the robot stay up top. *01:13:26* **Max Roberts**: I'm like, okay, so we've already got two of them out. *01:13:28* **Logan Moore**: It's also not Tanabe, I'm sorry, it's Tokabe. *01:13:31* **Max Roberts**: Thank you. *01:13:35* **Logan Moore**: Tanabe Tanabe's the producer. *01:13:36* **Max Roberts**: It's like Tanabi's the producer, Takabi. *01:13:37* **Logan Moore**: The producer's notabe based on the *01:13:38* **Max Roberts**: So Takabi, they stay up top. *01:13:40* **Max Roberts**: And then you go down and Sarge makes this sacrifice. *01:13:43* **Max Roberts**: He's like, I'll stop him. *01:13:47* **Max Roberts**: I'll stuff the hole with the drill. *01:13:48* **Max Roberts**: Except guys, the grievers dig through the dirt. *01:13:51* **Max Roberts**: They're coming out of the walls. *01:13:55* **Max Roberts**: This will not stop them. *01:13:57* **Max Roberts**: Your sacrifice means nothing. *01:13:58* **Max Roberts**: And then Armstrong does the exact same thing. *01:14:01* **Max Roberts**: Don't worry, Samus, I'll stop 'em. *01:14:04* **Max Roberts**: Samus didn't need any of these people at any time in the mines. *01:14:08* **Max Roberts**: Not one. *01:14:13* **Max Roberts**: I guess the closest would be the robot yeeting her across the cavern, but she could have just like grapple beamed across whatever. *01:14:13* **Max Roberts**: So this cool narrative idea is completely wasted on this corny, meaningless gestures from everybody, and it just bogs it down. *01:14:20* **Max Roberts**: It's like *01:14:28* **Max Roberts**: What if what if we just went down the mines by ourselves? *01:14:29* **Max Roberts**: Why do I need everybody? *01:14:31* **Max Roberts**: And then they make a big fuss about blowing, you know, going into the Chrono Tower together, but that's just a cutscene. *01:14:33* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:14:34* **Max Roberts**: There's not *01:14:40* **Max Roberts**: So they fall really flat, like in this back half of the game. *01:14:41* **Max Roberts**: But I think in their individual chunks, except for Sarge and Tokabi. *01:14:45* **Max Roberts**: They're good. *01:14:52* **Max Roberts**: Like they they're great. *01:14:52* **Max Roberts**: And if I may be so frank, I loved the end *01:14:55* **Max Roberts**: I like when they all team up to fight Silex and hold him back. *01:15:00* **Max Roberts**: When Miles got shot, I audibly gasped. *01:15:04* **Max Roberts**: I was like, oh my gosh, they're killing him. *01:15:07* **Max Roberts**: I was like, what a sacrifice. *01:15:10* **Max Roberts**: That's great. *01:15:12* **Max Roberts**: And I think that shows it's effective in that B tier writing of like, they did it. *01:15:13* **Max Roberts**: They hit the right note when they needed to hit the note. *01:15:18* **Max Roberts**: I loved it. *01:15:22* **Max Roberts**: I loved the end for all of these characters. *01:15:24* **Max Roberts**: It was actually really great. *01:15:27* **Max Roberts**: And I hope if if there's a future game, we get to go save them in some capacity. *01:15:28* **Logan Moore**: I understand what you're saying about this like being rooted in like B film horror or sci-fi or whatever. *01:15:35* **Max Roberts**: Let me say this really quick. *01:15:44* **Max Roberts**: I also realize this could be part of my brain trying to justify really bad writing and really bad characters, and I want to be very clear, like I'm not trying to just make excuses. *01:15:46* **Max Roberts**: There are parts of this that I like, um, and I think that they match with the roots, but it is by no means a justification for, you know, Sarge Sarge going knuckle up every 10 minutes. *01:15:56* **Logan Moore**: That's what I was gonna say is like I feel like they almost needed to trust me, I love some schlockiness. *01:16:09* **Logan Moore**: I love some cheesiness. *01:16:17* **Logan Moore**: in any sort of media. *01:16:19* **Logan Moore**: Like I I think it's great. *01:16:21* **Logan Moore**: But I feel like they almost didn't lean far enough into it where you can tell that like *01:16:22* **Logan Moore**: the writers or the dev team are in on the joke and it's almost like, is this just poor *01:16:30* **Logan Moore**: like m for lack of a better w term term, like Marvel writing or whatever, which I know is is a thing people throw around a lot, but like, you know *01:16:38* **Max Roberts**: Resure. *01:16:43* **Logan Moore**: I I I think it it it it wasn't t over the top enough almost. *01:16:48* **Max Roberts**: Like like they they poured it all into miles and no one else really got the over the top cheese *01:16:54* **Logan Moore**: And the other thing too *01:16:54* **Logan Moore**: Yes, like Miles Miles of all the characters was the one that I didn't mind as much because I *01:16:59* **Max Roberts**: Which is so funny given the previews. *01:17:04* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, like he's annoying, yes, but like you can tell like that's the whole point. *01:17:07* **Logan Moore**: Like everybody else, it was just like this is *01:17:13* **Logan Moore**: generic and just seems t bad. *01:17:17* **Logan Moore**: Like more so than um *01:17:22* **Logan Moore**: intentionally trying to be schlocky or anything like that. *01:17:25* **Logan Moore**: I think the other thing too for me with Metroid, and this has always been one of my favorite elements of the games is that they're very *01:17:28* **Logan Moore**: Isolated. *01:17:37* **Logan Moore**: Samus is very much alone. *01:17:38* **Logan Moore**: This is why she's a silent protagonist for the most part. *01:17:40* **Logan Moore**: This is why she doesn't, you know, typically work with others, which is why kind of the idea of having her be *01:17:43* **Logan Moore**: part of a team or an ensemble in this game is a little odd. *01:17:48* **Logan Moore**: Like th these games are very much about Samus being *01:17:52* **Logan Moore**: Like the prime games, I know again, three included some more characters and stuff like that. *01:17:56* **Logan Moore**: But the prime games and a lot of the other 2D Metroid games are very much just Samus alone and environ in a certain environment. *01:18:02* **Logan Moore**: working her way through this area and trying to complete her objective or escape or whatever, like that is a huge element of *01:18:10* **Logan Moore**: Most Metroid games. *01:18:20* **Logan Moore**: And so for them to get rid of that to some degree by always having somebody talking in your ear or something like that was a little jarring. *01:18:21* **Logan Moore**: Um *01:18:30* **Logan Moore**: I and that's where the disconnect was at for with me for me more than anything. *01:18:31* **Logan Moore**: Like if they wanted to turn this into cheesy B movie B movie action or something like that, then like they needed to lean. *01:18:36* **Logan Moore**: further into that direction, I think, throughout the entire game. *01:18:45* **Logan Moore**: Instead they're trying to like kind of juggle both and it doesn't fully work because the *01:18:49* **Logan Moore**: sequences where characters are running their mouth with dumb quips left and right where uh the sequences were that I really wanted to end sooner rather than later so that I could just go back to being *01:18:55* **Logan Moore**: Samus by myself exploring, trying to figure stuff out. *01:19:06* **Logan Moore**: Like like you said, the drill is a good example of that. *01:19:09* **Logan Moore**: Like, why is everybody else here? *01:19:11* **Logan Moore**: I can just go down into this by myself and and figure this out. *01:19:13* **Max Roberts**: I can push a button, I can start a drill, like none of this they added nothing *01:19:16* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:19:18* **Logan Moore**: Yes. *01:19:24* **Logan Moore**: Speaking of adding nothing, Silux. *01:19:25* **Logan Moore**: Do you think this was worth the literally 20-year wait to finally get this payoff? *01:19:30* **Logan Moore**: From hunters to Federation Force, the tease of all teases, the only reason to play that game? *01:19:36* **Max Roberts**: A hundred percent ending corruption teases it. *01:19:43* **Logan Moore**: Yes. *01:19:46* **Logan Moore**: And three teases of s or I guess not three. *01:19:47* **Logan Moore**: Do they they they don't tease that he'd be f involved in future games on Hunters. *01:19:50* **Logan Moore**: He just shows up. *01:19:54* **Max Roberts**: He's just there. *01:19:55* **Logan Moore**: So corruption and a Federation force into this. *01:19:55* **Max Roberts**: Okay. *01:19:57* **Logan Moore**: This was Silex's moment in the s the sun, sort of. *01:20:00* **Logan Moore**: Even though he's not really gone, I guess he could show up in Metroid Prime 5, but *01:20:04* **Max Roberts**: All right. *01:20:04* **Max Roberts**: Oh, he's absolutely still around. *01:20:06* **Max Roberts**: Um, okay. *01:20:10* **Max Roberts**: I have a Silex rant within me. *01:20:12* **Max Roberts**: And I've I've I'm I've accepted a lot this time. *01:20:16* **Max Roberts**: So back in our Hunters episode, we talked about, and basically I want to say it was Stanabe. *01:20:19* **Max Roberts**: Tanabe, not Tokabi. *01:20:25* **Max Roberts**: Uh Tanabe was like, yeah, Silex is cool. *01:20:26* **Max Roberts**: I just like Silex. *01:20:31* **Max Roberts**: So essentially the gist of the quote, if I'm remembering it correctly. *01:20:33* **Max Roberts**: And I realize that's his sole purpose. *01:20:37* **Max Roberts**: It's to be cool. *01:20:40* **Max Roberts**: It's to be sick. *01:20:41* **Max Roberts**: Uh his voice at the end when he talks. *01:20:43* **Max Roberts**: Awesome. *01:20:48* **Logan Moore**: Great. *01:20:48* **Max Roberts**: Oh my gosh, what like *01:20:49* **Logan Moore**: It's real it's really cool. *01:20:50* **Max Roberts**: His armor's sick, he's got this beam, he has a sword, his morph ball is pretty cool. *01:21:16* **Max Roberts**: lockjaw, I mean even the name for it. *01:21:22* **Logan Moore**: He's got like green tendrils everywhere. *01:21:24* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, he's so cool. *01:21:27* **Max Roberts**: He takes Samus through a wormhole and fights her *01:21:30* **Max Roberts**: in a g in an alternate dimension. *01:21:34* **Max Roberts**: Everything about Silex and an appearance front is just dope. *01:21:36* **Max Roberts**: And then there was all this talk. *01:21:43* **Max Roberts**: It's like, ah, this is gonna be a game about Silex. *01:21:44* **Max Roberts**: He's gonna be the villain. *01:21:47* **Max Roberts**: This is great. *01:21:48* **Max Roberts**: That that teaser trailer with him and the Metroids. *01:21:49* **Max Roberts**: I'm like, oh, this is awesome. *01:21:51* **Max Roberts**: We're gonna fight Silux. *01:21:53* **Max Roberts**: Like he's gonna be this bad guy bugging me the game. *01:21:55* **Logan Moore**: He's not even in it. *01:21:58* **Max Roberts**: His job's just to be cool. *01:21:59* **Max Roberts**: He's just he's not in it. *01:22:01* **Max Roberts**: His job is to be cool and have a really weak backstory. *01:22:02* **Logan Moore**: How did you feel going to the final area *01:22:08* **Max Roberts**: Oh my gosh. *01:22:08* **Max Roberts**: Like into the tower. *01:22:12* **Logan Moore**: After you had gotten all Yeah, after you had gotten all the keys, gotten all the mech parts, and you know you're gonna go fight him. *01:22:12* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, so originally I thought because they tease when you go to lava pool, they teach they tease Silex there, but really that was one of the robots in disguise. *01:22:20* **Max Roberts**: I was like, oh my gosh, is he like Darth Vader? *01:22:28* **Max Roberts**: Is he like hiding out in this lava castle and I gotta fight him in the lava? *01:22:30* **Max Roberts**: Um *01:22:34* **Max Roberts**: What a disappointing just appearance in the game. *01:22:37* **Max Roberts**: He truly is not in it in any capacity. *01:22:40* **Max Roberts**: Ridley shows up more than him. *01:22:42* **Max Roberts**: Uh and Ridley could only be even Ridley and *01:22:44* **Max Roberts**: in corruption had a terrible final boss fight, but at least he was like in it and had this super sick falling down fight, you know, ballrock style. *01:22:49* **Max Roberts**: I just so really I was hopeful that there was just gonna be a really cool story between the two of them. *01:22:57* **Logan Moore**: I just *01:22:58* **Max Roberts**: I don't even need his backstory, just I th I thought he was gonna be in the game, and he's not. *01:23:02* **Max Roberts**: Silex's job from here on out is just to be cool, just to look dope and be this great antagonist with this incredible voice. *01:23:07* **Max Roberts**: Um, and I've accepted that now. *01:23:16* **Max Roberts**: I've I now know that he is a lie and he's just uh you know eye candy for lack of a better word, and I've I've accepted that *01:23:19* **Max Roberts**: His origin story in particular, I actually this is probably how like some original Star Wars fans feel about like the origins of *01:23:29* **Max Roberts**: I don't know, whatever character they, you know, liked in the original. *01:23:38* **Max Roberts**: This is this is how people feel about the Book of Boba. *01:23:42* **Max Roberts**: It's like, gosh, maybe we didn't need a origin story for Boba Fett. *01:23:45* **Max Roberts**: Maybe we didn't need him getting out of that sarlac pit. *01:23:49* **Max Roberts**: I don't like okay, big Hunters fan over here, me, poured over that manual, always was reading about it, and so *01:23:52* **Max Roberts**: If I may, if you may indulge me, this is the official Nintendo's Player's Guide. *01:24:02* **Max Roberts**: This is the entry for Silex. *01:24:06* **Max Roberts**: This is all *01:24:09* **Max Roberts**: This is all the fan base has had to basically go off of for the last I don't know twenty years. *01:24:10* **Logan Moore**: Twenty years. *01:24:15* **Logan Moore**: Yeah *01:24:17* **Max Roberts**: Silex was already in pursuit. *01:24:18* **Max Roberts**: of Samus Aaron when the Ambolic transmission was broadcast. *01:24:20* **Max Roberts**: For reasons no one knows, Silex has n long nursed an intense hatred. *01:24:24* **Max Roberts**: for the Galactic Federation, its member planets, and most of all, its star bounty hunter, Samus. *01:24:30* **Max Roberts**: Silex may well be Samus's equal, resourceful, efficient, and infinitely patient. *01:24:38* **Max Roberts**: It's odd considering his uh reason for his demise. *01:24:44* **Logan Moore**: I pay *01:24:47* **Max Roberts**: Um The mysterious hunter has been tracking Samus secretly for days, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. *01:24:49* **Max Roberts**: Silex's primary target is Samus herself, but the secret of ultimate power would be of great help against her. *01:24:55* **Max Roberts**: In fact, it just might be powerful enough to destroy the entire galactic. *01:25:03* **Max Roberts**: Federation. *01:25:06* **Max Roberts**: So all we've had is uh he hates Samus and he hates the Galactic Federation. *01:25:08* **Max Roberts**: I think him being a former Galactic Federation soldier. *01:25:13* **Max Roberts**: really just kills all. *01:25:18* **Max Roberts**: Like just kills it all for me. *01:25:21* **Logan Moore**: Well like the backstory doesn't even make any sense. *01:25:24* **Logan Moore**: Like he doesn't listen to orders. *01:25:27* **Logan Moore**: I mean clearly the the i the implication is just kinda like *01:25:30* **Logan Moore**: He was always kind of a bad guy. *01:25:34* **Logan Moore**: He doesn't he's not a good guy to begin with, which it's I I don't really like. *01:25:36* **Logan Moore**: I feel like if they they should have given him a justifiable reason to actually hate Samus. *01:25:41* **Logan Moore**: Instead it's just kind of like *01:25:46* **Logan Moore**: He's a jerk. *01:25:48* **Logan Moore**: He wants power. *01:25:49* **Logan Moore**: He gets mad. *01:25:50* **Logan Moore**: The person closer to him that he can blame for a certain situation is Samus. *01:25:51* **Logan Moore**: So he lashes out at her. *01:25:56* **Max Roberts**: Honestly, like that was already like what his motivation was. *01:25:59* **Max Roberts**: And then this this origin story cutscene that you unlock with an amiibo or a hundred percent completion just justifies what we already like had to go off of. *01:26:03* **Max Roberts**: So it just feels so pointless. *01:26:14* **Logan Moore**: I don't I mean, I wonder if they wanted to do other story things with this game and were even held back by what previous games had done. *01:26:19* **Max Roberts**: I don't But they didn't do anything. *01:26:27* **Logan Moore**: You know, like not only were they held back from *01:26:29* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:26:33* **Max Roberts**: There's nothing I *01:26:33* **Logan Moore**: I don't know. *01:26:34* **Max Roberts**: I get it. *01:26:35* **Max Roberts**: Like, what's Ridley's origin story, right? *01:26:36* **Max Roberts**: Like, why is this dragon in charge of space? *01:26:39* **Max Roberts**: Like, I don't need to know it. *01:26:42* **Logan Moore**: I don't need I don't I I don't need to know either. *01:26:42* **Max Roberts**: I don't need it. *01:26:43* **Max Roberts**: Like, I just want cool villains. *01:26:45* **Max Roberts**: And if the *01:26:47* **Logan Moore**: But at least Dark Samus is like an ever-present threat throughout the other games, showing up a lot. *01:26:47* **Max Roberts**: Sure, yeah, it's a yeah *01:26:52* **Logan Moore**: It's like, oh crap, Dark Samus is here. *01:26:54* **Logan Moore**: Like even if you're not fighting Dark Samus, like, you know, three or four times across the the game, like they're showing up *01:26:56* **Logan Moore**: routinely and like reminding you that like I'm the overarching villain. *01:27:04* **Max Roberts**: And Silex just isn't in this game. *01:27:06* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, Silex is not in it. *01:27:10* **Logan Moore**: The only time he is is as fake robots. *01:27:11* **Max Roberts**: Okay. *01:27:14* **Logan Moore**: And those fights are *01:27:15* **Logan Moore**: Fine. *01:27:17* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, it's just everything was I mean, yes, I echo everything you said. *01:27:17* **Max Roberts**: I'm so mad. *01:27:21* **Logan Moore**: Like what a what a disappointment of like this build-up for this game. *01:27:22* **Logan Moore**: Being, oh, this is finally gonna be the Silex versus Samus game, and it's just not and again we can talk about this here at the end. *01:27:27* **Max Roberts**: And it's only *01:27:27* **Logan Moore**: We'll we'll talk about, you know, the future and stuff like that, but *01:27:35* **Logan Moore**: I think clearly the idea now is to make a Metroid Prime 5. *01:27:39* **Logan Moore**: Retro Retro is staffed up to, you know, make games like this. *01:27:43* **Max Roberts**: No, they're going back to Donkey Kong. *01:27:46* **Max Roberts**: They're going back to Donkey Kong. *01:27:49* **Logan Moore**: I think they'll clearly make another one. *01:27:51* **Logan Moore**: The story ends on a cliffhanger. *01:27:53* **Logan Moore**: Samus just kind of abandons everyone and plants a tree, and that's that. *01:27:56* **Max Roberts**: That's a good one, by the way. *01:28:00* **Max Roberts**: I like the tree scene. *01:28:02* **Logan Moore**: But yeah, I this Silex will be in the next game. *01:28:03* **Logan Moore**: I think Silex, if they're planning another, you know, trilogy or whatever, Silex is gonna be the *01:28:06* **Logan Moore**: the dark Samus of this trilogy, yes. *01:28:12* **Logan Moore**: Um but man, they gotta do more with the next one. *01:28:15* **Logan Moore**: It just that's the frustrating thing is like *01:28:19* **Logan Moore**: If he had just kind of shown back up in this game and then everybody was like, whoa, Silex is gonna be in it, that's crazy. *01:28:24* **Logan Moore**: Like that would be one thing. *01:28:31* **Logan Moore**: But instead they f *01:28:32* **Logan Moore**: tease this in two other games to like set up what you think is finally his big showing and it's just nope not not really in it *01:28:33* **Logan Moore**: Not really not really involved. *01:28:45* **Logan Moore**: I will say the final boss looks great. *01:28:47* **Logan Moore**: Really love the final boss. *01:28:48* **Logan Moore**: I love the the stage the stage where you're all fighting him together. *01:28:50* **Logan Moore**: as a group, and then when he whips you through a wormhole and they fight him alone, it's all very fun. *01:28:54* **Logan Moore**: And then uh there's kind of the the the ballrog-ish element to it where you're going *01:28:59* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *01:29:05* **Logan Moore**: Y through the wormhole shooting at at him. *01:29:06* **Max Roberts**: Very Star Wars, I was thinking like that. *01:29:09* **Logan Moore**: Uh yeah. *01:29:09* **Max Roberts**: If I if I may, this was one of my other big brain ideas. *01:29:12* **Max Roberts**: We're back in the pitch meeting. *01:29:16* **Max Roberts**: I'm looking Tanabe in the eye and I'm like, here's the narrative pitch for this game. *01:29:18* **Max Roberts**: Alright, we get rid of all the companions. *01:29:24* **Max Roberts**: I'm sorry, Miles. *01:29:27* **Max Roberts**: And they all turn into just basically abilities. *01:29:28* **Max Roberts**: Like Miles could have been like a tech support where you could upgrade your suit. *01:29:31* **Max Roberts**: The robot is a sonic beam that would destroy certain matter. *01:29:34* **Max Roberts**: Uh Takabe would be a scope, you know, very hunters actually. *01:29:39* **Max Roberts**: So like whatever. *01:29:43* **Max Roberts**: Each person would have had an ability. *01:29:44* **Max Roberts**: There's an assault on a Federation base, a teleporty beam rock explodes, and it sends Silex and his Metroids and Samus to an unknown planet. *01:29:47* **Max Roberts**: Just the two of them. *01:29:59* **Max Roberts**: The only way home is a giant tower with a teleporter that will beam them back. *01:30:01* **Logan Moore**: And they're east r each racing against the other to get what they need to get home. *01:30:08* **Max Roberts**: Exactly. *01:30:11* **Max Roberts**: Exactly. *01:30:13* **Max Roberts**: So everywhere you go. *01:30:14* **Logan Moore**: Or it couldn't even be that. *01:30:16* **Logan Moore**: It could just be Silex is trying to stop Samus and is like tracking her the whole time to prevent her from getting back. *01:30:18* **Logan Moore**: He doesn't care if he gets back. *01:30:24* **Max Roberts**: Sure, but like you're interacting in the same space. *01:30:26* **Logan Moore**: All he wants to do is kill Samus. *01:30:26* **Max Roberts**: It he's not like every boss fight, but he's there all the time. *01:30:31* **Max Roberts**: He's changing the environment. *01:30:33* **Max Roberts**: Um could be very invincible in that way, like Angstrom Levy, like we're in an altered dimension. *01:30:35* **Max Roberts**: What are the consequences of being stuck here? *01:30:40* **Max Roberts**: It just Silex would have been more present. *01:30:43* **Max Roberts**: It would have been more isolating. *01:30:47* **Max Roberts**: And the two of them going against for certain parts, like to get home. *01:30:49* **Max Roberts**: Would have been great. *01:30:54* **Max Roberts**: And he could have used the Metroids more, like they could have been a bit more dynamic. *01:30:55* **Max Roberts**: Um, maybe they infest this planet and they start breeding. *01:30:58* **Max Roberts**: I don't know. *01:31:03* **Max Roberts**: But like *01:31:04* **Max Roberts**: I I won't ever believe any hype for a villain again for Metroid. *01:31:07* **Logan Moore**: Well *01:31:13* **Logan Moore**: I I know we're we're gonna kind of move on to wrapping up here, but I we did not talk about this. *01:31:14* **Logan Moore**: What did you think of the overall story of being whipped away to another planet or *01:31:19* **Logan Moore**: another time and another planet and there's the Lamorne. *01:31:27* **Max Roberts**: I kind of thought there was gonna be a better time element to this game. *01:31:33* **Max Roberts**: I think the closest thing is it's called Chrono Tower. *01:31:36* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I did too. *01:31:37* **Logan Moore**: It doesn't really I I mean it's all it's exp a lot of it's uh tried to attempt it to be explained neatly in the in the scans and stuff like that, but it just *01:31:39* **Logan Moore**: Everything with the Lamorne gets very puzzling. *01:31:50* **Logan Moore**: Or not not puzzling. *01:31:54* **Logan Moore**: It just kind of retreads the same ground, I guess, as far as Metroid goes. *01:31:56* **Logan Moore**: Like, oh *01:32:00* **Logan Moore**: You're the chosen one We've been waiting for you, Samus. *01:32:00* **Logan Moore**: Finally the chosen one to save our people or help us. *01:32:04* **Max Roberts**: Well, I liked what I liked is that she fails *01:32:08* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:32:12* **Max Roberts**: In a way, like they're all dead. *01:32:12* **Max Roberts**: It's over. *01:32:15* **Max Roberts**: Like they didn't succeed. *01:32:16* **Max Roberts**: And so you have to *01:32:18* **Logan Moore**: But does she fail? *01:32:18* **Logan Moore**: She plants a tree *01:32:20* **Max Roberts**: Right, she does the thing where she basically plants the next generation. *01:32:21* **Max Roberts**: I forget what other sci-fi thing. *01:32:25* **Max Roberts**: I liked that though, because Echoes is the same story of, oh, you're the chosen one you can help us save. *01:32:26* **Max Roberts**: the light version at the Aether over these dark the in creatures or whatever, and you succeed and the bug people will come back or whatever. *01:32:32* **Max Roberts**: Um *01:32:40* **Max Roberts**: I like that you go there and you think, oh, maybe I'll meet these people or whatever, but no, you you fail and robots are just taking care of everything. *01:32:41* **Max Roberts**: Or, you know, they failed. *01:32:49* **Max Roberts**: They didn't find you in time in time. *01:32:50* **Max Roberts**: Or I don't know. *01:32:54* **Max Roberts**: I wish there was more of a time element to it, because it felt like there was supposed to be, but really it was more just space travel and teleportation. *01:32:55* **Max Roberts**: Overall it's it's fine. *01:33:05* **Logan Moore**: Does Does it ever even begin to explain where this artifact at the beginning of the game that *01:33:05* **Max Roberts**: I I like the Lamorne story. *01:33:06* **Logan Moore**: whips everybody away to another planet, however many light years away even shows up. *01:33:13* **Logan Moore**: Like it's just like they're transporting this thing and it gets knocked over or activated and all of a sudden boom everybody's on another planet. *01:33:18* **Logan Moore**: It's like does d was this even expla I don't know. *01:33:27* **Logan Moore**: It's it's just a a a catalyst to kickstart the story, I guess, the whole opening twenty minutes or so there, but even even that I didn't really *01:33:32* **Logan Moore**: understand what was what what what really happened that led to them all being whisked away to view rose *01:33:41* **Max Roberts**: You know, the story may not be that great, but I think the cutscenes are pretty slick. *01:33:49* **Max Roberts**: I think they're given uh *01:33:55* **Max Roberts**: that blue studio or whatever that does Halo Master Chief stuff, uh, I'll run for their money. *01:33:57* **Max Roberts**: I think the *01:34:03* **Max Roberts**: presentation and again it goes back to just being cool uh every cutscene Samus looks dope *01:34:05* **Logan Moore**: The opening's really cool, like which was kind of how they re-revealed this game initially, what, a year or two back. *01:34:15* **Logan Moore**: Like that whole opening with her flying in on her ship and jumping out of it and *01:34:22* **Logan Moore**: That the whole opening sequence is very cool looking. *01:34:27* **Max Roberts**: It's a good time, man. *01:34:31* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:34:31* **Max Roberts**: Every time you enter a new area, it has that slick title card. *01:34:33* **Max Roberts**: the music, like the the Vista. *01:34:39* **Max Roberts**: It's just every time you get a power-up and she like holds her arm cannon up in the air, it's just *01:34:42* **Max Roberts**: It looks so good. *01:34:51* **Max Roberts**: It's so beautiful. *01:34:52* **Max Roberts**: So pretty. *01:34:54* **Max Roberts**: It's a very well animated. *01:34:56* **Logan Moore**: It looks good. *01:34:58* **Logan Moore**: And also I want to give a quick shout-out too visually while we're talking about this real quick. *01:34:59* **Logan Moore**: Her suit looks awesome. *01:35:04* **Logan Moore**: Not the final suit and not the red one. *01:35:05* **Logan Moore**: I don't like the red one either. *01:35:07* **Max Roberts**: No, no. *01:35:08* **Logan Moore**: Just her stand *01:35:09* **Logan Moore**: I know you like the red, the Viola suit or whatever. *01:35:10* **Max Roberts**: The red suit *01:35:10* **Logan Moore**: Uh I just like her standard Samus look in this game. *01:35:14* **Max Roberts**: The ver Yeah. *01:35:18* **Logan Moore**: I think it looks cooler than ever before. *01:35:18* **Logan Moore**: Primarily just thanks to *01:35:21* **Logan Moore**: upgrades and technology and the power of the Switch 2 and all that. *01:35:24* **Logan Moore**: But I I think sh I think her armor looks very, very cool in this game. *01:35:27* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, no, she's uh I I think the Viola suit is *01:35:33* **Max Roberts**: uh the best looking Samu ever made. *01:35:37* **Max Roberts**: Um that red is fire. *01:35:39* **Max Roberts**: It's so good. *01:35:43* **Logan Moore**: I like the blue or the like teal looking one and the yellow and the red and some of the other Yeah, that I like that one a lot. *01:35:44* **Max Roberts**: Fusion? *01:35:48* **Max Roberts**: Yeah. *01:35:49* **Max Roberts**: I'm a fusion. *01:35:49* **Max Roberts**: I'm a sucker for the fusion suit. *01:35:51* **Logan Moore**: I like that one too. *01:35:52* **Max Roberts**: But it's it's very this is a very good looking game. *01:35:53* **Logan Moore**: Do you have much to say about the music? *01:35:59* **Logan Moore**: I think we talked about it briefly again *01:36:01* **Logan Moore**: Another great soundtrack, I think, with this game, um, even though people have complained about the lack of music in the desert area. *01:36:04* **Logan Moore**: Um but other than that, I think that I think the different biomes all have great um *01:36:12* **Logan Moore**: Songs attached to them and stuff like that. *01:36:18* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, I'm not I'm not mad about Soul Valley not having music. *01:36:20* **Max Roberts**: I think it's perfectly appropriate. *01:36:23* **Max Roberts**: They know when to hit the choir button. *01:36:25* **Max Roberts**: Like in the in the booth, they have a space choir button. *01:36:27* **Max Roberts**: They're like, now. *01:36:31* **Max Roberts**: I think the ice belt music outside *01:36:41* **Max Roberts**: Is very good. *01:36:45* **Max Roberts**: Like they clearly understood uh ice level, you know, requirements. *01:36:46* **Max Roberts**: But then the problem is that they change it when you go inside, and that's pretty disappointing. *01:36:51* **Max Roberts**: And the other thing is the Grievers in particular trigger a specific, like it may be all enemies, but I noticed it with Grievers particularly. *01:36:57* **Max Roberts**: specific, like very shrill kind of music almost reminds me of the phantom fights in the first prime game. *01:37:08* **Max Roberts**: The music that would play when the ghosts show up that you shoot. *01:37:18* **Max Roberts**: And it just would interrupt the music and in the great minds in particular, since you're always fighting grievers *01:37:22* **Max Roberts**: that shrill music never stops and it's it's annoying. *01:37:30* **Max Roberts**: So I I was a bit dis I I did not like the Griever music in particular. *01:37:34* **Max Roberts**: But the rest of it's pretty good. *01:37:40* **Max Roberts**: Fury Green is standout, and I think of course, because it's the first one. *01:37:42* **Max Roberts**: Vault Forge had a lot of guitar, if I recall correctly, but Ice Belt. *01:37:47* **Max Roberts**: Just outside. *01:37:52* **Logan Moore**: Still doesn't have anything on the first two prime games though, in my opinion. *01:37:55* **Max Roberts**: Um no, I mean *01:37:57* **Logan Moore**: Sorry. *01:38:00* **Max Roberts**: No, you don't have to apologize. *01:38:01* **Max Roberts**: It's hard to beat perfection. *01:38:03* **Max Roberts**: How do you how do you top fendrana drifts? *01:38:04* **Max Roberts**: Like that's what you study from here on out. *01:38:07* **Logan Moore**: Exactly. *01:38:07* **Logan Moore**: Exactly. *01:38:09* **Logan Moore**: Those are those are still the best in the series. *01:38:10* **Logan Moore**: Um *01:38:13* **Logan Moore**: Max, I think that's it. *01:38:14* **Logan Moore**: Except for legacy. *01:38:16* **Logan Moore**: What is this game's legacy? *01:38:18* **Logan Moore**: Even though I think it's a very clear and obvious one that we've kind of talked about throughout this episode. *01:38:20* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, I think it's it's like I said at the top, it's a game that cannot escape the shadow of its reboot. *01:38:26* **Max Roberts**: Um and the ideas ahead of time. *01:38:33* **Max Roberts**: It's *01:38:36* **Max Roberts**: Maybe not too many cooks in the kitchen, but the head chef was definitely dictating um maybe the wrong ingredients to use or the wrong way to present the dish. *01:38:38* **Max Roberts**: But retro Retros are m Retro Studios are masters of their craft *01:38:50* **Max Roberts**: And they can polish like nobody else. *01:38:58* **Max Roberts**: It is a stunning achievement of a game in those regards, both technically and visually. *01:39:01* **Max Roberts**: In an industry of games that are coming out that are *01:39:07* **Max Roberts**: can can be 40, 60, 80 hours long and have bugs and graphical issues and not look as well. *01:39:11* **Max Roberts**: This game is rock solid and it's a tight maybe not tight in the sense of like pacing overall and things to do, but it's like it's 12 hours *01:39:21* **Max Roberts**: And it's gorgeous. *01:39:31* **Max Roberts**: You would be hard pressed to find anything that looks this good on PS5 Pro. *01:39:32* **Max Roberts**: Metal Your Solid Delta, anyone? *01:39:37* **Max Roberts**: Like *01:39:39* **Max Roberts**: It's this is a great game. *01:39:40* **Max Roberts**: It's just I think the pieces they kind of had the wrong instructions or ideas from the outset, whether that's Nintendo, Bandinamco, or Retro, whoever it was. *01:39:43* **Max Roberts**: They like stuck to the wrong guns this time around. *01:39:54* **Max Roberts**: And it's unfortunate, but I do hope that you're right that Retro is staffed up for Prime now. *01:39:57* **Max Roberts**: And they're they're back to being a Prime studio and maybe now we get to see what ground up Prime from Retro Studios in the modern era looks like. *01:40:04* **Logan Moore**: What would you have given this game, score wise? *01:40:15* **Logan Moore**: I know we don't ever assign scores to games at the end of our podcast like this, but I'm just curious because I did have to review this one. *01:40:18* **Logan Moore**: And it was tough. *01:40:25* **Logan Moore**: This was one of the toughest games I think I've ever reviewed. *01:40:26* **Max Roberts**: I probably I'm thinking letterboxed like a star scale, so *01:40:29* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I gave this four out of five on our scale. *01:40:36* **Max Roberts**: I was gonna say four out of five. *01:40:38* **Max Roberts**: Four out of five. *01:40:40* **Max Roberts**: If this game wasn't as polished as it was and as beautiful as it was, it definitely wouldn't have broken four. *01:40:41* **Max Roberts**: But I think it's presentation and just *01:40:47* **Max Roberts**: I mean it's it's about as shiny as Samus's suit in this game, honestly. *01:40:50* **Max Roberts**: It's um it's really good. *01:40:54* **Max Roberts**: It's so well executed, even if the ideas inside aren't the best. *01:40:56* **Max Roberts**: you can't fault the execution of them. *01:41:02* **Max Roberts**: So yeah, what do we get? *01:41:06* **Max Roberts**: Four out of five if we're just doing a star scale. *01:41:07* **Max Roberts**: So you know higher than Metacritic, but just barely. *01:41:11* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I've been hired in medical *01:41:11* **Logan Moore**: Uh just barely. *01:41:14* **Logan Moore**: I think I mean yeah, this game's legacy is obviously just its creation and everything surrounding it. *01:41:15* **Logan Moore**: The fact that it's out and it exists is a huge *01:41:21* **Logan Moore**: W, I guess, for for people who wanted to see this uh yeah, the simple fact that it survived. *01:41:25* **Max Roberts**: It survived *01:41:28* **Logan Moore**: Um, but it was clearly Frankenstein together. *01:41:33* **Logan Moore**: There was another quote somewhere, we didn't mention it, but uh *01:41:35* **Logan Moore**: Tanabe or whoever uh mentions that they really couldn't restart scrap uh development from scratch. *01:41:39* **Logan Moore**: Like when they rebooted it in 2019, they didn't scrap *01:41:46* **Logan Moore**: everything that had been done to the game prior. *01:41:50* **Logan Moore**: They kind of still continued with a lot of the core concepts and ideas behind that initial version of the project and they just had to kind of *01:41:53* **Logan Moore**: Pick it up and go from there. *01:42:02* **Logan Moore**: So a lot of it was reworked. *01:42:04* **Logan Moore**: I'm sure they, you know, changed art direction and maybe some story elements and things like that. *01:42:06* **Logan Moore**: But like *01:42:12* **Logan Moore**: Whatever the core design ideas were or ones that they were more or less stuck with. *01:42:13* **Logan Moore**: I think that's where he's talking about the like open world and Breath of the Wild influences and stuff like that. *01:42:19* **Max Roberts**: You know, we didn't really mention this. *01:42:24* **Max Roberts**: I mean, we've mentioned it in passing. *01:42:26* **Max Roberts**: But we do have to remember this game was designed *01:42:29* **Max Roberts**: for then switch one and it runs on switch one and just as technically sound to be quite honest. *01:42:33* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:42:36* **Max Roberts**: The Digital Foundry video *01:42:41* **Max Roberts**: is great if you want to look at the uh kind of comparison between those those two versions. *01:42:43* **Max Roberts**: But when you think about the Tegger one custom chip inside the Switch one and you think of just the technical limitations *01:42:50* **Max Roberts**: And then what Retro is able to squeeze out of that and you think that this whole game fits and runs at 60, not, you know, 4K 60 or even 1080 60, but *01:42:57* **Max Roberts**: It's pretty pretty incredible when you think about that. *01:43:12* **Max Roberts**: And going forward, whatever retro makes, you know, will be a switch to, well. *01:43:15* **Max Roberts**: assuming they get it out within one console generation will be a switch to exclusive. *01:43:21* **Max Roberts**: And so I'm curious what they can do unbound from the shackles of, you know, 2017 hardware. *01:43:24* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I I'm I'm I'm ten times more interested in seeing what a potential Metroid Prime 5 would look like compared to this *01:43:32* **Logan Moore**: Frankenstein's sort of monster of a game. *01:43:40* **Logan Moore**: And still, with all that being said, like they *01:43:44* **Logan Moore**: largely landed the plane in a good place with this game. *01:43:50* **Logan Moore**: This game is never gonna be what people thought or hoped it would first be when it was announced in 2017, but we still got a *01:43:54* **Logan Moore**: solid final product, especially for how development went on this game. *01:44:03* **Logan Moore**: Mo most of the time games that are in development hell like this. *01:44:07* **Logan Moore**: do not turn out even remotely good. *01:44:11* **Logan Moore**: Um so the fact that this is even solid um is nice to see. *01:44:14* **Logan Moore**: So yeah, let's hope we get *01:44:22* **Logan Moore**: Metroid Prime 5 in what, 2030 or something like that at this point *01:44:24* **Max Roberts**: Don't say that. *01:44:30* **Max Roberts**: Don't don't speak that curse over us. *01:44:31* **Max Roberts**: What you want to hope for is that we get Prime Two remastered. *01:44:34* **Logan Moore**: No, I I actually don't because I will not play that game again because that's a Metrovania game for sicko's, as I continue to call it. *01:44:38* **Max Roberts**: No. *01:44:41* **Max Roberts**: We'll get two this year. *01:44:45* **Max Roberts**: They're gonna annualize Metroid, don't you know? *01:44:47* **Max Roberts**: They're gonna it's gonna be two remastered. *01:44:49* **Max Roberts**: We'll get another 2D game. *01:44:51* **Max Roberts**: We'll get three remastered. *01:44:53* **Max Roberts**: And then five five will come out. *01:44:56* **Max Roberts**: Um I do *01:44:58* **Max Roberts**: I do think Retro makes a new Metroid game again. *01:45:00* **Max Roberts**: Like I I think that's what they work on next. *01:45:04* **Logan Moore**: If I was a developer that joined the studio to work on this game and I knew that the final version of this that *01:45:07* **Logan Moore**: got out to the public was not what everybody within the studio would have wanted it to be. *01:45:14* **Logan Moore**: That would inspire me that much more to then *01:45:20* **Logan Moore**: make my own from scratch, you know. *01:45:23* **Logan Moore**: So I have to imagine the studio is motivated to some degree to do that. *01:45:26* **Logan Moore**: And they probably will. *01:45:30* **Logan Moore**: Will Nintendo greenlight it? *01:45:32* **Max Roberts**: And well I'm I'm curious how it curious how it's will sell, how it has sold. *01:45:33* **Logan Moore**: I don't know, probably like *01:45:35* **Max Roberts**: I'm sure we'll learn those numbers. *01:45:43* **Max Roberts**: um you know here in a a financial report or two come in I guess February or March when that will come about. *01:45:45* **Max Roberts**: But you also have to think like all the tools are in place now and obviously the staff are in place. *01:45:53* **Max Roberts**: So and there's no theoretical baggage. *01:45:59* **Max Roberts**: So I would hope that development just naturally would be shorter since they don't have to build from scratch, so to speak. *01:46:02* **Logan Moore**: And even though Metroid games don't sell that well, it's not like Nintendo's gonna stop making them either. *01:46:08* **Logan Moore**: Like this will just always be one of its more *01:46:15* **Logan Moore**: niche franchises that is for a specific hardcore audience and those that audience will show up. *01:46:18* **Max Roberts**: Hey, I don't know. *01:46:25* **Max Roberts**: My dad walked out here while I was playing it one time. *01:46:26* **Max Roberts**: He said, Is this Metroid? *01:46:28* **Max Roberts**: I was like, Pfft, you knew that? *01:46:29* **Max Roberts**: Amazing. *01:46:32* **Logan Moore**: You gotta get him you gotta get him a switch two. *01:46:34* **Logan Moore**: And so he can play this for himself. *01:46:37* **Logan Moore**: Uh, Max, that's not only the end of this episode, that's the end of this season. *01:46:40* **Logan Moore**: until a theoretical Metroid Prime 5 maybe one day releases and then we'll do an episode on that because we do do that. *01:46:46* **Logan Moore**: Resident Evil Requiem's about to come out and we're gonna do an episode on that. *01:46:53* **Max Roberts**: Oh, baby. *01:46:54* **Logan Moore**: We're gonna go back to our Resident Evil season and add that back to our *01:46:56* **Max Roberts**: That will *01:46:56* **Logan Moore**: uh list of episodes there. *01:47:00* **Logan Moore**: Uh do you want to talk about what's next for season eight while also not committing to any timelines for season eight here? *01:47:02* **Max Roberts**: Yeah, so I remember when we announced season seven and season eight, I wrote in one of my articles on the blog *01:47:14* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, so *01:47:15* **Max Roberts**: I was like, surely it won't take us a year to play five Metroid games. *01:47:23* **Max Roberts**: Uh I was correct in that. *01:47:29* **Max Roberts**: It took us almost two and a half. *01:47:31* **Max Roberts**: But we did announce season eight alongside season seven, which was Castlevania. *01:47:36* **Max Roberts**: We have played a whopping total of one game for Castlevania out of 18. *01:47:40* **Max Roberts**: That we were going to play. *01:47:45* **Max Roberts**: Um, but we did buy them all. *01:47:47* **Logan Moore**: We do have them all. *01:47:52* **Max Roberts**: At least the ones we were going to play. *01:47:52* **Max Roberts**: So we are prepared. *01:47:55* **Logan Moore**: Dominus collection became a thing in between the time we announced this season and this us now looking to play these. *01:47:56* **Max Roberts**: C and also like Prime Four came out in time for us to do the C it all works that procrastination has paid off. *01:48:05* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:48:10* **Max Roberts**: Um so we will be moving forward with Castlevania. *01:48:13* **Max Roberts**: We'll be jumping into *01:48:18* **Max Roberts**: I think the next game we're playing is Rondo of Blood. *01:48:20* **Max Roberts**: Um, given our order for that season, you can go to chapterselect. *01:48:24* **Max Roberts**: com slash season eight to see that order. *01:48:28* **Max Roberts**: I believe that's up there. *01:48:30* **Max Roberts**: There, should double check my own work. *01:48:32* **Max Roberts**: But that's what's next. *01:48:34* **Max Roberts**: Uh we're not committing to season seven's there *01:48:36* **Max Roberts**: theme at the moment. *01:48:40* **Max Roberts**: We have ideas, but I think we're gonna keep it closer to our chest this time instead of announcing it years in advance. *01:48:41* **Logan Moore**: You mean season nine? *01:48:46* **Max Roberts**: Nine, yeah, yeah, yeah. *01:48:48* **Logan Moore**: Yeah. *01:48:50* **Max Roberts**: Um *01:48:50* **Max Roberts**: So a little tighter on that one. *01:48:51* **Max Roberts**: I do have the order. *01:48:53* **Max Roberts**: It's 19 episodes, God help us all. *01:48:54* **Max Roberts**: Um I'm excited about it. *01:48:57* **Logan Moore**: Excited about it. *01:48:59* **Max Roberts**: And *01:48:59* **Max Roberts**: I I say this with the biggest pinch of salt. *01:49:01* **Max Roberts**: You know, a year and a half, two years ago, we invited a lot of people to play Castlevania with us, and I have to follow up with all of those people when their time comes, but *01:49:03* **Max Roberts**: Should everyone say yes once again? *01:49:12* **Max Roberts**: Um it's gonna be a great episode season with guests and *01:49:16* **Max Roberts**: Fun games all around. *01:49:20* **Max Roberts**: And like Logan said, we have Resident Evil Requiem out as of recording this in like a month and a month and a half. *01:49:21* **Max Roberts**: Um *01:49:31* **Max Roberts**: We will obviously be playing that and jumping back in to season five Resident Evil and doing that. *01:49:32* **Max Roberts**: Actually, *01:49:39* **Max Roberts**: I need to go back and listen to our hopes and wishes for Resident Evil 9 and see how woefully wrong they all are, because 9 is shaping up to be pretty, pretty, pretty cool. *01:49:40* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, I mean we've got I mean we've we've we've got uh in between now and season eight dropping, which we don't know when that'll be we don't know when we'll *01:49:51* **Logan Moore**: We're gonna start to I I know I'm gonna start trying to play through a lot of the Castlevania games, so hopefully we can get in a good cadence here and start *01:50:01* **Max Roberts**: They are they are much shorter. *01:50:07* **Logan Moore**: They are. *01:50:11* **Logan Moore**: They are for sure. *01:50:12* **Logan Moore**: And we've already done long seasons, you know, with Pokemon and stuff like that. *01:50:13* **Max Roberts**: And those are long. *01:50:17* **Logan Moore**: But on that note of Pokemon, like *01:50:18* **Max Roberts**: Oh there will be *01:50:19* **Logan Moore**: Gen 10's gonna come out at some point here. *01:50:20* **Logan Moore**: Like we'll go back and do an episode on that whenever that happens. *01:50:23* **Logan Moore**: Resident Evil we're gonna do. *01:50:26* **Logan Moore**: You know, if Vin Diesel. *01:50:27* **Max Roberts**: Atreus goes to college. *01:50:28* **Logan Moore**: Adrius goes to college. *01:50:30* **Logan Moore**: If Vin Diesel ever brings back the family, then we'll do another Fast and Furious episode. *01:50:31* **Logan Moore**: Like we've we've built up a nice bat catalog of *01:50:36* **Logan Moore**: shows here for various franchises. *01:50:40* **Logan Moore**: And if you haven't gone back and listened to those yet, like the thing we're, I think, most proud of with this show is that *01:50:43* **Logan Moore**: The stuff we pushed out years ago, I think, is still just as relevant now. *01:50:50* **Logan Moore**: We have really created evergreen podcasts in some sense, which I'm proud of. *01:50:54* **Logan Moore**: Um *01:51:01* **Max Roberts**: One of our most popular episodes is Sticker Star, if you believe it or not. *01:51:01* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, season one. *01:51:06* **Max Roberts**: Paper Mario. *01:51:08* **Logan Moore**: Lotta sticker star *01:51:08* **Max Roberts**: And you know, that most likely will be getting another entry as well here on the Switch 2. *01:51:09* **Max Roberts**: I'm sure there will be another Paper Mario game. *01:51:13* **Max Roberts**: at some point. *01:51:16* **Max Roberts**: So it's uh it's good times ahead. *01:51:17* **Max Roberts**: I'm excited to play Rondo of Blood again, honestly. *01:51:21* **Max Roberts**: It's gonna be a great time. *01:51:23* **Max Roberts**: I saw a copy of that game in a retro shop mm a month ago. *01:51:24* **Max Roberts**: First time I've seen that one physically. *01:51:28* **Max Roberts**: Well, I would love to own it, but I don't even have a console for it, so. *01:51:32* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, if you've been if you've been, you know, waiting for this season to come out for the longest period of time, first off, thank you for listening to the show. *01:51:36* **Logan Moore**: Second off, sorry for the delay and the wait here to get this one out. *01:51:43* **Logan Moore**: But uh *01:51:47* **Logan Moore**: Yeah, we're we really I know one of my resolutions of sort for this year is to really get back into the flow of the show and podcasting as a whole, and I'm really excited for *01:51:48* **Logan Moore**: what we've got lined up here in the months and years to come with this. *01:52:00* **Logan Moore**: So *01:52:07* **Max Roberts**: Well, I think that does it. *01:52:07* **Max Roberts**: We did it. *01:52:09* **Max Roberts**: We did it. *01:52:09* **Max Roberts**: Season seven is wrapped. *01:52:10* **Max Roberts**: It's done. *01:52:11* **Max Roberts**: It's toast. *01:52:12* **Max Roberts**: It's in the put it in the scan visor vault until five comes out someday. *01:52:13* **Max Roberts**: Very exciting. *01:52:18* **Max Roberts**: Thank you all for joining us this season and listening, playing along with us. *01:52:19* **Max Roberts**: We've had a great time with you all. *01:52:23* **Max Roberts**: If you would like to listen to any of those seasons that we just talked about, head over to chapterselect. *01:52:25* **Max Roberts**: com. *01:52:30* **Max Roberts**: You can see all of the seasons we've got there. *01:52:30* **Max Roberts**: Check out the episodes in your podcast player of choice. *01:52:33* **Max Roberts**: If you would like *01:52:37* **Max Roberts**: To see the stuff that Logan works on, you can over to comicbook. *01:52:39* **Max Roberts**: com where he writes over there. *01:52:42* **Max Roberts**: And for myself, you can go to maxfrequency. *01:52:44* **Max Roberts**: net, check out the blog and the shows and podcasts there. *01:52:46* **Max Roberts**: But thank you all so much for listening to this season of Chapter Select. *01:52:49* **Max Roberts**: And until next time, adios. *01:52:54*