After an agonizing 7-year wait, Metroid Prime 4 Metacritic score is just barely above black sheep like Other M and Prime Pinball

It's been 7 years since the announcement of Metroid Prime 4, 9 years since the launch of the last Metroid game, and 18 years since Prime 3 landed. After an agonizing wait for longtime series fans, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is nearly upon us, and early reviews are already here. But while those scores aren't bad, they do suggest that Samus's latest adventure can't quite measure up to the classics of the series.

With 57 critic reviews factored in, Metroid Prime 4 currently enjoys a Metacritic score of 80, indicating a "generally favorable response." There are a few superlative outliers, including a 5/5 Giant Bomb review calling it "the closest the series has ever felt to the original Metroid Prime, in terms of tone, gameplay, and quality," and a 9/10 review from Nintendo Life calling it "quite possibly the boldest, most well-realised Metroid game to date."

But those are, again, outliers. The majority of the scores fall into the 80% range, or a bit lower – as with our own 3.5/5 Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review. There were times when my colleague Oscar was "awed by the melancholy and mysterious vibes of this exploration-focused FPS," he writes. "But, at many other moments, it's bogged down by odd new features that detract from what's almost one of Samus' best. Being so close to greatness can sometimes be the bitterest feeling of all."

An 80% aggregate score would be pretty good for most games, but 'most games' don't have the Metroid pedigree to live up to. Super Metroid cemented the blueprint that the best Metroidvania games still follow to this day, and is rightly regarded as one of the best games of all time. The first Metroid Prime has a Metacritic score of 97 – the 11th-best ranking of any game tracked on the site. Its follow-ups have slightly lower, but still incredibly strong ratings – Prime 2 has a 92, while 3 has a 90.

Unfortunately, Metroid Prime 4's reviews put it closer to the black sheep of the series. Metroid Prime Pinball is an oddball spinoff that got a 79 on Metacritic. Metroid: Other M, a game that's fun enough mechanically but abysmal at capturing the tone of the series, also got a 79 aggregate score. These are all decent ratings, but the pedigree of the Metroid series goes well beyond merely "decent."

These are the best Metroid games of all time.