Metroid Prime 4 Logbook, Entry 3

Let's talk about the coolest part of the game so far, the Ice Belt. In old Metroid Prime fashion you'll find a sleeping laboratory there, but it leads to a different revelation...

Scans: 67%
Items: 27%

Metroid Prime 4 Logbook, Entry 2

The next area you get to explore is the Volt Forge, which is mainly a mass production facility for the game's other big gimmick: the motor bike. So, I've proceeded with that part and did some first cruising through the desert of Sol Valley afterwards.

Scans: 44%
Items: 16%

Metroid Prime 4 Logbook, Entry 1

Ah, well... let's just do this. I'm 90 minutes into the game, where I have played through both the intro sequence and the first area, which covers the demo and the previews. So, these are some very early impressions.

Scans: 30%
Items: 9%

Got Metroid Prime 4: Behind

A little late to the party... That's what you get when you pre-order from Nintendo directly. So far I've been an advocate of the My Nintendo Store, despite paying full prices, because you usually get a number of nice goodies, mint quality, and the game on time. However, they hate the idea of you getting the game a day early, so they always keep the deliveries very close to their chest. A little too close. And during the Christmas season, in the week after Black Friday no less, this backfired. My package was stuck in some delivery limbo, where nothing happened for 48 hours...

But I blame Nintendo here. They sent it too late without the necessary priority labels / fast shipping. So, I honestly can't recommend their shop any longer if you want to be playing on launch day. And yes, I could have just gone to some store and pick the game up there, but I wanted the additional goodies and this would have created some unnecessary back and forth. And after the mixed previews and reviews my excitement wasn't the greatest either, so I was able to wait two more days after having waited 18 years.

It only sucked that I had taken one day of vacation... But luckily I was able to move some hours around to have more time to play on Monday. I just hope they won't ever release a new Zelda game in December again, because I won't be as patient in that case.

Anyway, the My Nintendo Store sold the so called "Power Set" of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. It came with a big mouse pad, 61x35 cm, and a set of nine holographic cards. You also get a small key chain in a litte pouch with the game's logo on it, but that's the purchase bonus item that comes with any physical version of the game.

In addition, there are three amiibo: Samus, Samus on Vi-O-La, and Sylux. For some reason, the first two already were released alongside Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment a month ago, on November 6th, but I haven't touched them until today. At least they were delivered on time.

And they look really nice. Well, I personally find the normal Samus to be somewhat redundant, since we already got a very good looking version of that suit with Metroid: Samus Returns, but there is some extra detail with the purple psyschic power stuff and it has a different pose.

Their functionalities inside the game seem to be either useless or questionable, which is a problem with main Metroid games, it seems. Federation Force did it actually best with the paint jobs...

Now, I'm off to finally play the game. I'm not entirely sure if I want to do detailed blogging about my impressions and progress, now that I have effectively lost two days of potential play time, but let's see how I feel after the first couple of hours. It will be a shame if I don't, but in that case a late review will have to suffice.

Age of Calamity – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Proposal

Whether Koei Tecmo will keep expanding Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment after its free updates or not, they shouldn't move on to the next Fire Emblem Warriors just yet. Instead, they should stay on the project a little longer and bring Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity on the same page as its successor, via a shiny Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. This is a very common request, because a lot of people have not been happy with the performance of the original on the Nintendo Switch.

With such an upgrade the game would run in 4k and 60FPS, but since we're talking about a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition and not a mere free update, there also need to be some Switch 2 features to warrant it. One would be support for Game Share, which is an excellent addition in Age of Imprisonment that makes playing the coop mode much more enjoyable.

And the other would be increasing the number of enemies that are visible and ready to be attacked all across the board. The original game often only rendered a limited number of enemies, even when more were in the area. So, you might have 100 Bokoblins in front of you, but the game was only displaying 50 of them at once (just as an example). And the rest were popping in as the others got defeated. That's not a thing in Age of Imprisonment any longer and actually a very good feature for an upgrade, because it makes the game a lot more responsive and fun.

Still, this isn't much and like the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Animal Crossing: New Horizons this should come at the lowest price point, so only 4.99€ for the Upgrade Pack. 

A free update that accompanies the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition could also address some other issues and omissions, which were left in the field after the Expansion Pass was finished. Plus, some improvements from Age of Imprisonment may also be implemented. Here are some ideas:

• Zelda's Royal Attire as a new outfit option
• Quick follow-up to exposed weak point gauges
• A way of re-obtaining certain one-time weaponry, including the Lucky Ladle and Prototype Ancient Short Sword
• A new blacksmith feature to maximize the otherwise random base damage values of weapons
• Increased levels for Vicious Monster Battles during Blood Moons
• Improved camera behavior

They could also finally make Astor playable in the post-game, but who am I kidding?

Well, Nintendo probably wouldn't release this all too soon, because right now they want to focus on Age of Imprisonment and don't take away from its sales. But in a year or so this could be a worthwhile addition to the ever-growing library of Nintendo Switch 2 Editions. 

Age of Imprisonment – 2nd Update Predictions & Suggestions

This week the first free update for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment has been released and one more is to follow. The goal of these updates is to make the game last longer, where Koei Tecmo is expanding the post-game, but the first update did very little here. So, what can we expect from the second one? Will it be the game's saving grace or simply more of the same?

For this exercise, let us try to stay within realistic expectations. After all, we are talking about free updates here, where there have been no announcements for any paid DLC so far. This alone makes new playable characters, battlefields and story scenarios rather questionable, because these are selling points.

To be fair, the first Hyrule Warriors has received some playable characters in its free updates on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS – Cia, Volga, Wizzro and Medli. But they all served as hooks for the paid DLCs that were released alongside them. You could play with these characters and level them up, but you couldn't get their stronger weapons, alternate costumes, or additional Heart Containers without the new Adventure Maps. It doesn't work like that in Age of Imprisonment, where a new character should automatically come with a number of Quests attached to enhance their state and skills.

Age of Calamity on the other hand didn't give us anything for free. Even quality of life improvements were locked behind Quests that were part of the Expansion Pass, which has caused some criticism at the time (in the very least from this blog). Luckily, this isn't the case here, but we also shouldn't expect this to become a free Expansion Pass. The first update is by no means an equivalent to "Pulse of the Ancients".

Let's just take a look at the numbers of everything that got added this week:

• 6 new Quests
• 5 new Challenges (Lv. 81 to 85)
• 6 new Vicious Battles
• 3 new vicious monster
• 2 new weapons
• 1 new Sync Strike 

It's a drop in the bucket. And it already feels incomplete, where it's likely that the second update will continue from what they have started here. So, we will probably be getting some more Challenges, spanning from level 86 to 90, as well as more Vicious Battles, potentially covering some of the missing vicious monster types.

Those are Lizalfos, Horriblin, Molduga, Chuchu, Aerocuda and Gibdo. This would be six in total, where ideally they will just cover them all and don't do any more experiments with horrible combinations of them, because these were not fun in the slightest.

With unique Sync Strikes there is also a lot of potential to close some more gaps. The most obvious ones are left by Rauru, who doesn't have unique actions with any of the four masked sages, even though he is acting as their leader. Or they could just do more with Calamo.

As for new Challenges, it would be nice if there was an equivalent to the "Rack Up Your K.O. Count" missions from the first Hyrule Warriors, where your goal is to score as many K.O.s as possible within a given time limit. They have done something similar in the first update with the Poe collecting, which was a lot of fun and probably one of the best additions so far.

Another very interesting Challenge was "The Struggle for Ash Swamp", where the Ash Swamp is one of two battlefields in the game that don't have a story scenario on them. The new Challenge emulated that and let us explore the battlefield in its entirety for the first time. And here it would make sense if they were to follow this up with the second side battlefield: Damel Forest.

This one is remarkably similar to its counterpart in Age of Calamity, but you only ever get to play parts of it in Age of Imprisonment, never the whole thing. This is a shame, but it doesn't have to stay like this. How about a Challenge where they are out to explore the mysteries of the ancient Zonai and run into a horde of possessed Constructs? A big horde. And let Mineru talk a bit about hiding sky islands in large thunder clouds.

That's it for the obvious additions, following the first update. However, if this were to be all, it certainly would be disappointing, especially when it comes to making the game last longer. But there are a couple of features still missing from Age of Calamity, where it would be nice to have them in Age of Imprisonment as well.

One of these things is the Apocalyptic difficulty. This is a no-brainer, really, and probably the simplest way of prolonging the game: let the players do it all over again in an even harder mode. There were also the Blood Mood battles, which increased the difficulty of the story scenarios. The only problem is that many of them are already under a Blood Moon, so they would have to come up with a different explanation.

Another possibility could be randomized, rotating missions. Age of Calamity did this via its Vicious Monster Battles, but these are now fixed, so they are cleared normally like any other Challenge. And the new ones can be quite infuriating, where you probably don't want to replay them regularly anyway.

An alternative could be something like horde battles, based on "The Battle of Hyrule Field" scenario in chapter 5, where you fight off the Demon King's army. Those would randomly take place on different battlefields and even make use of a random selection of monsters.

Maybe these could even be used to threaten your territories after you are done with all the normal defense missions, where these now span the entire region and not just small parts of the map. But this could potentially be annoying.

And if there is nothing else left to do in a Warriors game, there is always grinding and weapon building. But the latter is very tedious and could use some improvements to make it more fun. Most importantly, you should get more Zonaite Steel after clearing a battle, not just one. The new Quests from the first update give you a piece of pure steel for each type, which was a nice gesture, but not a solution to the problem. Maybe they should add a Quest which unlocks more steel drops per battle. Alternatively, they could introduce some general Aside Quests that will keep rotating forever and let you obtain three pure steel per turn.

They should introduce a weapon shop among the services. Here you could buy more copies of any weapon that you've already obtained once, including one-time rewards, like the High Guard series or the new Longsword of Light. Right now, if you were to dismantle any of them, there is no way of getting them back. And that's unfortunate.

But that's all just peanuts. We know what the people truly want and that's more playable characters, first and foremost Sonia and Ganondorf. This is what would draw attention back to the game. But as stated initially, it may not be the most realistic thing to expect from these free updates.

Both characters also have clear story reasons as to why they were not playable to begin with. Honoring the canon of Tears of the Kingdom is what prevented Sonia from becoming playable, while following the structure of Age of Calamity, where everything on the map is from the perspective of the good guys, is what prevents Ganondorf.

Neither problem is particularly easy to solve. And in the context of the free updates we might be setting us up for disappointment when we are expecting either one. However, in case of Sonia, there is an alternative: Zelda could inherit her Longbow of Light as a second weapon / moveset for herself.

It makes sense from a story perspective and Sonia could even assist Zelda here in spirit, quite literally. And so far Zelda always had a second weapon type in all the Hyrule Warriors games, even a third with the DLCs. It's strange how now she has only one, even though she has become the main character. Inheriting Sonia's bow would remedy that and it also would be a meaningful addition.

In any case, there should be a second bow available. While there is Zonaite Steel specifically for bows, Raphica is the only recipient of these so far. And that is also rather strange. Since the first update has filled out some gaps in the base game, there is a good chance that we might get another bow with the second. And Sonia's is the obvious candidate here, whether as a new weapon for Zelda or in form of the queen herself. If there's one big highlight in these free updates, it will likely be this.

Another candidate for a bow moveset could be Calamo with the Forest Dweller's Bow, where fusing materials to arrows has been a big feature in Tears of the Kingdom, one that has yet to be utilized in Age of Imprisonment. But it would probably turn out quite similar to his default moveset. 

As for Ganondorf... Yes, there is a lot of demand for him on the internet right now, but if they were to make him playable, then they should do him justice. And making him some bonus character, where he becomes a puppet for the good guys during the post-game, isn't that. With Ganondorf we are definitely looking at paid DLC territory, because he would effectively require his own game mode and map to properly realize a Demon King campaign.

There is some interesting potential here, though. He could become the antithesis to the heroes, where he is always fighting for himself and therefore doesn't perform any Sync Strikes. The L button then could be used for a weapon swapping feature, where you can swap between his sword, club and spear on the fly, which is what makes him stand out as a boss. But let's discuss this after the second update...

With Age of Calamity they also had no plans to release any DLC, but once they saw the demand they brought the team back together and made it happen. And history could repeat itself here, where Koei Tecmo has a history of listening to the fans. For the most part.

These free updates, however, are seemingly just there to tie up some loose ends, where one might think that this game got rushed out for some reason. After all, they had announced this for the winter season, originally, where it's not winter yet... So, let them complete the unfinished post-game first and then they can think about a proper expansion.

Age of Imprisonment Chronicle, Entry 10

It is done. 100%. Just in time for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond next week, I have completed the new Hyrule Warriors. Of course, this state won't last long, because we will get a second content update in the near future, but for now I'm finished. Let's talk about the rest of the post-game, as well as the additions that came with the 1.0.2 update two days ago (one day earlier than they had announced).

Difficulty: Very Hard
Scenarios: 24
Challenges: 159
Quests: 402
Map Completion: 100%