Despite the whirlwind of hell around me, I did get Metroid Prime 4 and have completed 3 playthroughs, 100% items and scans, and that includes hard mode.

For note, I got this on Switch 1 and this review will be of said Switch 1 version.

Graphics: There is no complaints here. Everything is detailed and gritty when it needs to be or otherworldly sterile when it needs to make a point. The character models look very detailed and Samus' armor looks excellent. The game also runs at a solid 60 fps and I never saw any frame drops.

Music: As with many metroid games, a fair few tracks are little more than ambiance, but the areas with music are very strong and match the area you're in. Boss battles notably have suitably intense themes. That said, a couple areas lack music and it's to make a point, which I'll get into later.

Controls: I play with two Joycons in a controller grip and the game is different from other Prime entries, namely in that it's a twin stick shooter instead of a one stick movement with a focus on lock-on. The first boss is actually a lesson for the later bosses in the game, namely that the Lock On will work akin to Prime 3, locking onto the center of the target, but the vulnerable parts will be off to the side in some way, requiring you to hold onto the lock while also using motion controls to aim at the actual target. Anyone fresh off of Prime Remastered will make multiple mistakes with the controls for a while before getting into the proper rhythm.

Gameplay: A metroid game by any other name would work this way. Unlike the 2d entries, however, there is virtually no sequence breaking, as is the style of the Prime games due to them frequently having a specific set of events and a more complex world to work with. One of the things advertised early on is the Viola suit and Viola motorcycle. This is the primary mode of transport across the Hub area as there no true fast travel functions. This actually plays into the central narrative as the main hub area is a massive sandy desert and it's... virtually empty. You race and breakneck speeds and... sometimes see birds. See some sand whale things in one specific area... and that's about it. Later on some killer robots show up once in a while, but it punctuates how dead this world is becoming. The 5 other areas you go to have themes akin to previous metroid games, such as starting in a forest/temple, going into a mechanized facility, going into a frozen mountain, traversing a volcano, and going deep underground in the mines. Every area has things to look for, upgrades abound, and like Prime 3, there are things you can activate to show you the locations of items you didn't collect yet. Samus gains numerous familiar powers from previous games, but they are all now Psychic tinged. This gives all of them additional properties. For example, bombs are dropped in morph ball form, however you can now float a morph ball bomb with psychic powers and throw it to a distant bomb slot or foe. Samus also gains elemental weapons though these run off of an Ammo system akin to the light and dark beams of Prime 2. There is the fire and ice, but another is Electricity which can be used to reactivate certain machines. The most notable thing are Green Crystals. These are a power source the local aliens used and you are tasked to gather them through the expanse of the desert. More and more appear through the course of the game's progression and by returning them to the temple, you can enhance powers of Samus. This includes making her basic beam drastically more powerful to the point missiles virtually have no use in combat as rapid firing her normal beam will obliterate most foes and even bosses. In each of the 5 areas, you will encounter Galactic Federation soldiers. Well, most are soldiers, one isn't and the one who isn't is the first you encounter, the Engineer. He's a nerdy guy who talks a lot, but he talks a lot because he's scared out of his mind and when he's scared, he talks to calm himself down. He and Samus end up finding a safe area in the temple and he sets it up as a home base that the other GF soldiers will also stay at when Samus rescues them. He also has to modify the Alien's technology to work with Samus' suit in some cases, mainly because he's forcibly modifying tools into weapons. There was a massive smear campaign due to this first fellow due to him having slightly stupid dialogue and that he was part of an escort mission. This is in contrast to the reality where the "escort" mission is through all of about 4 fairly brief rooms and then he is safe at the base. This isn't remotely a challenge even on hard mode. Another complaint is that he takes over the role of the "Suddenly Samus realized she knows where to go and knows where the next goal is.", which was always irritating when you were doing something else, it just now has a voice line with it, and again, it's really not a big deal. You'll still be spending plenty of time in silence.

Story: Okay I'm spoiling everything and laying it out. Samus gets called to help with a full scale assault on a GF compound. She tears a swath through the pirate ranks until she encounters Sylux and his modified Metroids, which perform a full scale fusion with a creature, rob it of it's sanity, enhance it's power, and make it 100% loyal to Sylux, which basically means it'll kill anything on sight. During the scuffle, Sylux shoots an unknown alien artifact, which turns out to be a dimensional teleporter, and it activates. Samus is whisked to a new world where she has a psychic crystal embedded in the forehead of her suit and learns of the Lamorn, an alien species on the cusp of extinction on a dying planet. The Lamorn's story is spread out through the game, but essentially, the Lamorn achieved species peace due to certain ones being born with a biological crystal in their forehead allowing them to communicate with virtually anything as well as manipulate aspects such as teleportation. They eventually mined out crystals of a near exact match and had crystals embedded in every member of their race. They then began advancing technology at a rapid rate, but the rate was so rapid it depleted most of their environment and they decided the back off and work on more esoteric abilities and help restore the damage they did to the world. Using the Green Crystals, they formed it into a liquid that could spur on rapid life growth and fashioned a rain machine to pour it over the land to restore everything. It worked in a couple small areas... and then the side effects kicked in, which was that EVERY Lamorn who had an artificial crystal embedded in their head turned into a blind, savage creature known as a Griever. Not only was the world dying but now their race nearly went completely extinct in the blink of an eye and only 13 were left. They fell upon a prophecy that "one" would come and save them, but the prophecy never said when, only that the One would come from "outside". They had no way of knowing if the One would arrive on their own or if they had to find them, so 12 of the 13 Lamorn left across space and dimensions to try and find the One and none returned. By the time Samus reaches the inner sanctum, the 13th and final lamorn has long since dies and only a recording is left. All that is left is a unique tree that has all the memories and legacy of the Lamorn deep in it and when Samus collects enough green energy, she is given a single Fruit from the tree that she is to plant on a new world. This effectively gives her a new suit which is very powerful. After this, Samus is to gather 5 keys to activate the master teleporter to return her to her point of origin, and the 5 keys were entrusted to 5 guardian creatures who befriended the Lamorn... Surprise, Sylux rendered them into mindless freaks by bonding them with his metroids in a bid to kill samus and any GF trooper. Oh and Robots keep being activated that target and try to kill samus and the troopers. And a shield goes around the complex that the teleporter is in... Oh, turns out Sylux ended up in the same building as samus, but he was in the control room while Samus was in the chamber of greeting "The One" and Sylux has been mentally controlling the remainder of the planet the entire game. Samus encounters the Engineer, but after that she finds Tokabi, a sniper who used to be a Hunter but joined the GF to pay the bills. he has a deep religion that he stands by and if you find him in his camping areas, he'll share more of his backstory with Samus. Next Samus encounters Duke, a commander, and a soldier from his squad, Armstrong. Duke is a hardass and when he sees Samus, he instantly realizes that something is wrong as he is not a high priority safety concern, meaning they aren't in familiar space anymore. Armstrong is a loyal soldier who heavily admires samus to the point she can't help but make Giddy comments towards her and after Samus saves all the soldiers from one of Sylux' attacks, she even outright hugs the antisocial Samus. Duke politely asks for Samus' assistance, even if he is embarrassed to admit he needs it. The final ally you pick up is actually a robot. He is a large humanoid designed specifically to pilot the new class of Golem mecha that are about three times larger than the ones soldiers are permitted to pilot. He develops a personality and actually is afraid of the normal memory wipe after this mission because of how unique everything is, and Duke agrees that he wants to argue that he should be allowed to keep his memories of this mission. Samus eventually saves all of them, rebuilds a mecha golem to break the forcefield on the tower, gets all 5 keys for the master teleporter, and brings everyone to the tower while carrying the Legacy Fruit. Except when starting the teleporter, Sylux wakes out of a rehab pod, now having his body and suit infused with Lamorn nanomachine technology. The first part of the fight has all five of the GF soldiers assisting you in attacking Sylux and they are quite good at it. When you weaken him, he tackles Samus and reveals he has dimensional slip powers and pulls them into an arena in the middle of some space area. Samus and Sylux fight like mad with Samus finally overloading Slyx's suit and seemingly sending him plummeting to his death. Samus manages to go back through the gateway and go back to the teleporter with the 5 GF troopers, but as the teleporter is warming up, Sylus isn't so dead and pops back in, clearly beyond insane. He shoots the controls to the teleporter, which causes the entire system to start overloading. The troopers rush Sylux but he starts manhandling them, all of them screaming at Samus to get the teleporter working because if anyone should go back, it should be Samus since she's the only one who can keep up with the nightmares attacking the galaxy. The mech has Sylux in a full nelson, Tokabi has ahold of Sylux's gun arm, Armstrong has ahold of his left arm, Duke punched Sylux in the face and is trying to push him back, but it's not enough. Sylux fires a shot while the teleporter is warming up and our Engineer jumps in the way and takes a fatal shot. All of them tell Samus to go, and Samus reluctantly activates the teleporter just before it explodes as Tokabi throws her his religion symbol he kept with him. Samu is forced to leave all 5 behind with an utterly insane and currently unkillable Sylux. When she comes out the other end of the portal, she plants the legacy fruit, which instantly sprouts, and hangs Tokabi's symbol upon it, carrying on the legacy of the Lamorn and the last wishes of the GF troopers she was forced to leave behind.

Summary: All of the Prime games have a theme. Prime 1 is Solitude. Prime 2 is Twisted darkness. Prime 3 is corruption. What is prime 4? Desolation. Aside from the ONE green area you are in early on, everywhere you go is dead. Dead and sandy, dead and frozen, dead and in a volcano, dead under ground, or completely dead and just full of machinery. The only constant are the Grievers, all that is left of the Lamorn. There are sequences that are loading screens of Samus running down obscenely long halls, of Samus riding at high speed on her bike, or traversing in a rocket powered cannon shell, and the long long stretches of silence... take their toll in telling you just how empty this world is. As you go around, you start to appreciate hearing your Engineer buddy talking to you. you look forward to hearing what Tokabi has to say about his life. You look forward to hearing Duke's advice to Armstrong. You can't help but smile when the mech friend helps Duke remember a song or play a little joke on the Engineer. You have a shred of hope you'll get to see the last Lamorn.

Then you realize the last Lamorn died so long ago he doesn't even have a body to bury. Then you see that you have to say goodbye forever to this little family you've spent the game with and know you'll never see them again.

You couldn't save them. You couldn't save any of them. All there is, is the hope and seed of the future.

The game is solid and enjoyable, but it's emotionally brutal.