The Prime games are different than standard action-focused FPSs and instead focus on exploring. They also feature a lock-on similar to the Zelda series. I would have never even attempted playing Prime 4 if not for that. The controls would still need to be remapped in my Switch 2’s system settings so I could tap the shooting and jump buttons while still holding the lock-on, though.
I began hatching my plan of attack while downloading my brother’s digital game card onto my system. What I came up with was moving the lock-on to ‘A’ so I could jump with ‘B’ and shoot the power beam and missiles with ‘X’ and ‘Y’, respectively.
I didn’t have to do that, though. Did I magically regain movement I have been without for over 15 years? No, something even more unlikely happened: a Nintendo-developed game had in-game remapping.
It might not sound like much, but the difference between changing remaps at the system level and doing it in-game is huge. This meant I didn’t have to delete one of my saved layouts (you only get five per controller) or deal with button prompts that contradicted my remaps. I can’t tell you how many times I failed taming horses in BOTW and TOTK because of the button prompt tricking me into pressing ‘L’ when I remapped that input to ‘ZL’.
Prime 4 also separates control schemes for the morph ball and Vi-O-La, so they could be remapped independently. That’s another thing that doesn’t sound like a big deal but actually is. Imagine how annoying it would be having to change the controls every time Samus morph-balled or jumped on her motorcycle. Even thinking about that is giving me a migraine.
So after remapping everything to my liking and some trial and error with the camera and reticle controls (I settled on dual stick plus gyro), I set off for adventure. I swallowed my pride and played on casual mode which did some heavy lifting while I built up my energy tank collection. My progress took off after the initial struggles and I cleared the game right under 16 hours. I probably would have beaten it an hour quicker if Myles had just told me where Tokabi was in the desert. The one time I wanted some direction on where to go and I got nothing. What a dork.
A thought occurred to me while watching the credits: Do I think Prime 4’s inclusion of in-game remapping will lead to it being in other Nintendo-developed games? It wasn’t in Prime Remastered, so they must be rethinking the matter. Right?
The answer is obviously no. This was just Retro Studios acting on its own. No other game developed by any other Nintendo-owned studio will have it during the Switch 2’s lifetime. You might think that’s a pretty bold statement but high-ranking Nintendo officials have made it clear they aren’t going to do it. Read this back and forth from Jason Schreier’s interview with the master of the Zelda franchise, Eiji Aonuma, from 2019:
Aonuma: When we have a button arrangement, we very much put thought into how we do it, because there’s a specific way we want players to feel. In some ways, if we freely let players do customizations on key assignments and such, I feel like we’re letting go of our responsibility as a developer by just kind of handing everything over to the users. We have something in mind for everybody when we play the game, so that’s what we hope players experience and enjoy as well. But we understand also that players have a desire for free customization.
Schreier: Also, physically disabled players might not be able to play the way developers intended.
Aonuma: Definitely, that’s a very good point, and that’s something we’ll keep in mind going forward, thinking about that.
So Aonuma-san thought about it and then decided to not include a remapping option in the two Zeldas released after this interview, Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom. He didn’t even allow it in Age of Calamity or Age of Imprisonment! The lack of it in Age of Imprisonment is incredibly damning, as you can remap the controls in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, which was built in the exact same engine (Koei Tecmo’s Katana Engine) three years prior.
Aonuma-san has since been promoted from Deputy Manager to Senior Officer at Nintendo EPD (home of Nintendo’s software development groups), which means his belief that developers shouldn’t allow players to remap their controls in-game is likely echoed throughout every team there. Metroid Prime 4’s development was only “overseen” by Production Group 6, which perhaps explains why Retro was able to get away with it.
Why Nintendo’s leadership is so weird about accessibility features when their peers do include them is beyond me. Sony and Microsoft wouldn’t make games more accessible unless the effort to do so was profitable. You’d think the company leading the charge on higher game prices would know that.
This isn’t about money for Nintendo, though; it apparently is one of its core design philosophies. Retro Studios’ efforts in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond prove it’s a dumb ideal. The team’s inclusion of incredibly basic accessibility features in Prime 4 did not negatively affect the gameplay at all. It was no different than any other Prime game in that regard. The actual mistakes Retro made were the momentum-killing open world, straight-as-an-arrow level design, and bad writing. None of those were related to making the game more accessible, plus, according to a recent Famitsu interview, the open-world idea might have been forced on Retro.
It makes me almost sad that the most accessible Nintendo game I’ve played ended up being disappointing. A real monkeypaw situation for your boy. On top of that, Retro’s next original game may not release this decade based on how long it took to ship Prime 4. We aren’t going to see another Nintendo game with worthwhile accessibility features until then.
That’s not going to keep me from buying nearly everything Nintendo puts out, because it’s had its hooks in me since I was a little kid, but its choice to be this way gets more frustrating by the day.
