Just rolled the credits of Metroid Prime 4. I was surprised to see it only took 20 hours to play through this game. It definitely felt much longer, in a good way. It felt like a very robust game with plenty of content. At the end I was hoping it lasts a bit longer or has a bit more content. For a lot of other games it’s the opposite, I hope they end sooner so I can play the next one.M
Metroid Prime 4 is such a masterpiece. I almost feel i have my 2026 game of the year already. Btw I looked up and figured games released in December are usually considered for awards of the next year.
At first I didn’t even realize Metroid Prime was its own series, separate from Metroid. I somehow thought it was a jump of Metroid series from 2D to 3D. Later I found there were three 3D Metroid Prime games on GameCube and Wii. And Metroid Prime 3 was released on 2007… no wonder I never heard of them. So this is a series revival after 18 years. And apparently this 4th-gen was originally developed by Bandai Namco, but was scrapped by Nintendo due to quality issues, and started over by Retro Studios. This backstory explained how the game seemed to make an attempt on open-world with an empty desert, but 99% of actual gameplays still happen in traditional mazes. Zelda made that breakthrough of blending “new abilities unlock new places” and open-world; I’m ok if Metroid doesn’t make that leap.
The graphics, music, and level design of Metroid Prime 4 is very very good. A first-person view brings a more immersive experience than the 2D game; and the sci-fi theme works great with the thrill brought by alien monsters and abandoned facilities. Other levels of lush forest, icy cave, and stormy towers also look stunning and make me want to stop and just stare at the view from time to time.
One thing I wondered was how the game works with the unique pointer control of Switch 2. I’ve seen people on Reddit said it worked great and “felt like the game was designed for that control”. But my own experience was rather disappointing. Metroid Prime 4 has auto-lock (by pressing L2), and has a few bosses that require you to aim “a bit off the center of auto-lock”, which seems to be designed for the Switch 2 control. I tried pointer and motion control, and eventually decided to turn both off and just use the most traditional right stick control. Maybe I’m just too used to the old-school control and less used to the motion/pointer way. The bosses were not hard in normal mode. I was able to beat almost all bosses within 3 tries, including the final boss. The only exception was the “fire dragon” which was a pretty great boss fight. Overall it’s a thrilling, smooth, and not over-challenging game experience. I loved it.
I think my earliest Metroid game was Metroid Fusion on 3DS. The core experience of exploring a huge maze with a detailed map was not new to me at that time as I played Castlevania before, but it was still fun. The most impressive part was how certain puzzles were designed. I remember some puzzles require solutions that are both hard to figure out and hard to execute. It could be a morph ball flying through several screens with precise jumping, transforming, and bombing. I remember having a feeling of achievement after solving some puzzles. Metroid Prime 4 has a lot of puzzles and some of them are clever. But none of the puzzles was sophisticated enough to make you feel “achieving”. It was more of a “huh this is clever” feeling. I think boss fights was a better part of Metroid Prime 4, compared to puzzles.
Overall I’ll give this game 8.5/10. Absolutely worth a try if you are ok with FPS game control on console, and want a sci-fi themed non-open-world Zelda-like experience, lol
2025 was a big year for me. I almost felt overwhelmed just thinking about what to write in this post, lol. I’m sure I’ll finish it as long as I start somewhere.
First, I had a baby and became a dad. Wesley is 4 months old today. It’s amazing to watch him grow and become visibly different every month. Sometimes even a week can bring quite a change. I still think the current society puts a lot of influence into people’s mind about parenting and family values. It almost feels like everyone is supposed to love their kid with all their heart and time. But in reality… think about great people in history with a lot of kids, I don’t think they spent much time taking care of kids. Childcare is a labor intensive work no matter how you paint it… Don’t take me wrong. I really enjoy holding the little guy in arms and sharing time with him. Would I say “this is the best thing that ever happened to me” according to the “social convention”? I cannot say it wholeheartedly yet, lol.
Before the kid arrived, I did my travels. The month-long trip to Peru was an all-out adventure for me. Machu Picchu was awesome. And climbing a snow mountain felt like a good closure to my outdoorsy life. I did cry a bit at the peak to mourn the presumed ending of my lifestyle. In early August I did a weekend trip to Great Basin NP which was a nice little encore. Then it’s Phoenix for the baby.
At work, the AI coding advancement this year was remarkable. Claude Code completely changed how software development. I feel we are rethinking and relearning our own profession. It’s an exciting and scary moment.
Company grew to almost 50 people. It felt a bit of a grind. Business is growing, we are still looking for that sweet spot. A lot of hard work. Another feeling is the company is getting “large”. We fired people and had to go through PIP stuff, like we had HR breathing down our neck. I didn’t anticipate we needed to be so buttoned up at this stage, but whatever.
I basically gave up board games this year. Wen started playing a mobile game in a very addicted way. So when guests came over she barely came out to play anymore. And I’ve been playing Ark Nova on BGA so much that other games felt less interesting because of the depth difference, and playing Ark Nova with friends just became not that fun for me anymore given the experience difference. I probably played Ark Nova 1200+ games online. Then one day in Phoenix I decided this was too much and deleted my BGA account. I haven’t played any board game since.
I did keep video games as a hobby. It’s actually not hard to find time playing video games during the parental leave… or even afterwards. We have some childcare help (nanny and grandparents), and video games I play are on console and can be paired anytime. Here are the games I played this year:
Metaphors Refantazio (PS5). After two action games I wanted to play a JRPG and found this one. Not bad. An alternative take to Persona games.
Ghost of Totei (PS5). Nice graphics and actress performance. Very industrial. An ok game.
Hades 2 (Switch 2). Great game. It’s funny it landed on consoles one year later than PC (early access) but I don’t really care about playing games on day 1 anymore.
Octopath Travelers 2 (Switch 2). Nice relaxing game. Too relaxing so every time I play it I got really sleepy… didn’t finish.
Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch 2). Wonderful game! Actually the first Donkey Kong game I played through. Lots of simple fun of smashing stuff. Almost like a 3D Mario game in a different flavor.
Expedition 33 (PS5). Obvious choice for the game of the year. Solid on every front, with great innovations. A must-play for RPG funs this year.
Split Fiction (PS5). A decent successor to the groundbreaking game It Takes Two. Though I feel It Takes Two was overrated,I think Split Fiction did a good job to inherit the core mechanism while making some extensions.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (PS5). Disappointed. Way worse than the previous one (Reborn). I think the creators stretched this trilogy way too long and lost steam.
Balatro (iOS). Great mobile game. Worth a play.
Monster Hunter Wilds (PS5). I really liked this generation of Monster Hunter. A comeback of MH World with a brave system change. My only problem is this gen was too short and had zero endgame content when it was released. Releasing remaining contents in several updates throughout a year just doesn’t give players the right experiences.
