Metroid Prime (2002) [GameCube]
13 min read
“Space can be mapped and crossed and occupied without definable limit; but it can never be conquered. When our race has reached its ultimate achievements, and the stars themselves are scattered no more widely than the seed of Adam, even then we shall still be like ants crawling on the face of the Earth. The ants have covered the world, but have they conquered it — for what do their countless colonies know of it, or of each other?”
-Arthur C. Clarke
With Samus back in the hearts and minds of so many these days (though perhaps she never left), thanks in no small part to Metroid: Samus Returns and the Nintendo’s Metroid Prime 4 announcement, I thought it was time for me to get in on the space-faring, bug-blasting, heroine action with a review of Metroid Prime, one of the best leaps from 2D to 3D ever. It is also one of the most obvious.
Leading the Metroid series from its influential, two-dimensional, side-scrolling platforming origins to full-on, three-dimensional, first-person-perspective shooter may not have been a lightning flash of genius so much as it was the most logical direction for Samus and her world. With the rise of more powerful systems supporting 3D gaming came the tide of first-person shooters. Metroid was Nintendo’s best bet for slipping into the increasingly popular FPS scene. The Metroid games themselves had an air of maturity, seriousness, and coolness factor that could appeal to older gamers. Samus, the series’ champion and an icon in the Nintendo gallery, was a natural choice for an FPS lead with her stolid persona and arm-mounted cannon.
The transition between dimensions, from two to three, was not an easy one to make for all characters and franchises. Several were left behind as the gaming industry moved forward. I’m sure you can think of a few franchises which died with the end of the 16-bit age…
If a series couldn’t define itself as technology expanded and then refine itself to keep up with the times, then it simply disappeared, provided there was no other niche in which it could exist. In the survival of the fittest world of gaming where at bottom the success of a product is measured in sales, only the adaptable make it to the next generation. Metroid, despite gaps in its series, is one of those which has survived because it could be reinvented without being fundamentally changed. It could enter into a new kind of genre without sacrificing its core elements. Whether that’s purely by design or by coincidence that Metroid just so happened to function that way already, perhaps no one can say.
Metroid Prime doesn’t lose any of the sense of foreboding and isolation that the series achieved in Prime’s forebears, Super Metroid most notably, and this game is a textbook example of storytelling through atmosphere. This series is the closest Nintendo generally gets to flirting with the horror genre. Everybody knows the Big Red N for their happy-go-lucky innocence and magical games evoking childhood nostalgia, but with Metroid Prime, indeed with the franchise as a whole, there’s a very potent sublayer of horror: aliens, mutants, shambling monsters of all sorts, the presence of silence, and the sensation of loneliness.
As an accent to the Nintendo canon, Metroid is significant. If Nintendo ever puts out an adaptation of one of their IPs in the full, gory, violent, terrifying rated-M for mature flavor, odds are that mantle would fall to Metroid. I can’t exactly envision an Animal Crossing horror game! Not saying they shouldn’t try, though. Maybe there could be a Nintendo development division, “Nintendo After Dark”, though to be fair this game was developed in collaboration with Retro Studios as well. Retro Studios is an American developer and I think that’s interesting to take note of in the adapting of Nintendo’s Metroid to the FPS genre that’s popular in the West.
This particular story, beginning the Prime trilogy, takes place between the original Metroid and Metroid II: Return of Samus (remade recently as Samus Returns), though some conflicting accounts place it after Super Metroid. The Prime trilogy, though prequels to many of the Metroid games, served to fill out this dreadful universe with rich new lore.
Metroid Prime finds the intergalactic bounty hunter, Samus Aran, doing what she does best: cruising through the void in her own helmet-shaped shuttle like a boss. When she intercepts a distress signal from the frigate Orpheon, she discovers Space Pirates, horrible biological experiments, and her old nemesis Ridley, now Meta-Ridley. As the frigate begins to self-destruct, her suit is damaged, causing it to default to its most primitive functions, effectively removing all of her advanced offensive and defensive capabilities.
Samus pursues Ridley to the planet Tallon IV, a world once inhabited by the Chozo civilization. These ancient and technologically advanced bird-like people cherished knowledge before their race was mysteriously ended. Before their demise, they raised a young and orphaned Samus Aran, training her to be a warrior, even infusing her with their own blood, until she became a bounty hunter and left their protective cradle. By the time Metroid Prime rolls around, the Chozo are gone and exist only as ghosts in the vast universe. Tallon IV is riddled with their machines and their ruins, though the planet provides perhaps some inkling of their downfall.
While chasing her enemies, Samus soon discovers Phazon, which the Chozo of Tallon IV called “the Great Poison” before it destroyed them. It is a radioactive, mutagenic super-organism from the planet Phaaze. It came to Tallon IV in a meteor called the Leviathan, and it infiltrated and corrupted the planet’s biosystems.
Exploring Tallon IV, Samus runs into several Phazon-enhanced enemies, Space Pirates mutated by the stuff. She even obtains a new Phazon suit herself and finds her abilities augmented. Her new goal is to confront and defeat the Worm, the Phazon entity which landed with the meteor. The Chozo had attempted to contain this creature within an ancient temple. This entity (spoiler: highlight to reveal) is known as Metroid Prime, a mutated metroid transformed when the meteor landed, and it absorbs the Phazon Suit to become Dark Samus, which appears in the sequels.
The Prime plot thread begins here and the subsequent games take Samus beyond Tallon IV, though a sinister presence dogs her. I’m curious to see how the eventual fourth game fits in, to put it mildly.
The 8-bit Review
Visuals: 9/10
Couple things to be said off the bat. This game was originally released on Nintendo’s GameCube but it was re-released as part of a collection in the Metroid Prime Trilogy on the Wii, one generation later. We’re reviewing the original Metroid Prime, so that means talking about the less crisp, blurrier imagery. What it does not mean is that we’re referring to poor graphics.
On the contrary, Metroid Prime featured some incredibly detailed environments, weather and temperature effects, pulsing alien atmospheres, a keen sense of appropriate lighting, and it crafted a whole new perspective for Samus where the player perceived the world through the visor of her helmet just like she did. The significance of this for the Metroid franchise cannot be understated. This was the first Metroid game to be presented in 3D rather than 2D. There hadn’t even been another Metroid game on a console for 8 years, since Super Metroid.
Prime wisely skipped the first generation of 3D-primary consoles, leaving many at the time wondering where Metroid was during the PlayStation and the N64 era. Nothing could have better served Samus’ leap into three dimensions, though. The Metroid series avoided the clumsy first steps of 3D platformers and shooters to make its appearance once things began to reach a level of refinement. Prime had the time to perfect itself during development even as 3D gaming came into its own.
Looking at the dark beauty of Metroid Prime, I shudder to think what the game would’ve looked like rendered in crude polygons and muddy textures. Less like Interstellar and more like Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Audio: 10/10
The music of Metroid Prime is phenomenal. Composer Kenji Yamamoto made an excellent choice in keeping with the general flavor of spooky space music. The Metroid games are often paraded for their achievements in atmosphere and a large part of constructing that sensation of surrounding, of dread, the perception that something horrible is waiting just around the corner, that all comes from music. Audio design is just as important as visuals in welcoming the player into the game world and immersing them in the experience until they reach “flow”, that height of entertainment where you feel as if you’re in the game.
In the past, I’ve expressed some of my thoughts on atmospheric versus melodic music in games. It seems to me that there has been a tendency to move away from melody in modern audio design where mainstream games have distanced themselves from traditionally defined “levels”. Whoever you are that’s reading this, likely you can recall to mind some tunes from video games and even hum them, but how many of these are from the modern era? Catchier songs existed in the past because those tunes were shorter and identified by their association with compartmentalized “stages” of those games.
The melodic approach to audio design in games doesn’t work in many cases today. Open world games feature music that ebbs in and out, changing tracks as battles begin and end. Thinking about Final Fantasy VII, I can recall several songs to mind that delineate areas within the game and their accompanying themes. Thinking about Final Fantasy XV… I probably can’t even hum a single tune, even after playing over 100 hours. Modern games use the atmospheric in order to achieve a more fluid sound design and that occasionally results in music that settles into the background rather than coming to the forefront of the experience.
This likely seems as if I’m making a qualitative comparison between atmospheric and melodic but I’m not. My point is that the evolving structures of games have dictated the style of musical presentation which best serves each title, explaining the rise in atmospheric, “cinematic” music. Metroid Prime is a great example of a game in which the atmospheric approach to scoring the game heightens the capabilities of the game’s communication with the player.
That isn’t to say that all of the music in Prime is atmospheric background sound. Many tracks are musical updates of previous compositions which appeared in other Metroid games. Fans may recognize a handful of them and since these take their influences from the past, several of them feature a catchy melody.
Gameplay: 9/10
Michael Kelbaugh of Retro Studios has stated:
“We didn’t want to make just another first person shooter. … Making a first person shooter would have been a cheap and easy way to go. But making sure the themes and concepts in Metroid were kept was something that we wanted to do. And translating those things into 3D was a real challenge. For example, translating the morph ball was one of the hardest things to do.”
With so many FPS games on the market (it was positively over-saturated at one point), Metroid Prime and its two sequels still stand out as unique entries in their genre. The developers’ dedication to preserving what made Metroid games unique as platformers and translating that into first-person shooter territory kept the flavor of Super Metroid intact, easing the landing from 2D to 3D. Where this would obviously present issues was with Samus Aran’s mobility.
Samus wields an arm-mounted cannon but she’s not the static, marching protagonist of a typical FPS. In her previous adventures, she demonstrated acrobatic skills such as somersaults and wall jumps. Of course, there’s her iconic ability where she rolls up into the Morph Ball. How could these mechanics be interpreted in a first-person perspective game?
That was actually my primary concern when Metroid Prime first hit the shelves. Mind you, I didn’t own a GameCube at the time, having made the leap to Sony with only retro Nintendo devices to speak of. Nevertheless, I balked at the idea of the camera spinning around when Samus performed her patented Screw Attack. I chortled at the concept of the screen rolling around uncontrollably when she tucked herself into the Morph Ball. As it turns out, my younger and more skeptical self didn’t need to be so apprehensive.
Metroid Prime allows for things like high jumps and even the Morph Ball. The simple solution was for the camera to take a step back from a first-person to a third-person perspective. The screen makes this shift with every transition into the Morph Ball and then Samus can roll around and drop bombs in a three-dimensional environment, and when she’s done the camera returns to her visor in first-person. Because the change is so seamless, it’s a simple solution that lends Samus elegance and fluidity.
No Metroid game could be complete without collectible items and upgrades. Prime is full of them, reinterpreting old trademark abilities as well as introducing new ones to Samus’ ever-expanding arsenal. Gather these power ups in a specific order is still integral to exploring Samus’ environments with new upgrades allowing access to new areas.
Samus’ visor contains an interface that lets players swap between scanners and observational abilities of various sorts, as well as swapping basic weapons. Familiar items include things like the Grapple Beam, but new power ups include the Spider Ball which magnetizes the Morph Ball and of course the Phazon Suit and Phazon Beam. Notaby, the beam weapons in Prime do not stack like they did in Super Metroid. You’ll have to swap between them for their unique effects. All in all, the items are familiar but not devoid of innovation.
Narrative: 10/10
Not as bare bones as its ancestors in this area, Prime is more narrative and world-building heavy due to Samus’ new ability to scan objects and creatures around her, amounting to an encyclopedia of information. Best thing about this is the data tidbits allow you to learn about your surroundings without bringing the gameplay to a screeching halt with overlong cutscenes. There are cinematics in the game but they are far from laborious, emphasizing spectacle over exposition.
In thinking about how a game tells its story, Prime takes the path of using atmosphere and environment to instruct the player. Information about an alien or a machine are pulled directly from those subjects as they exist in Samus’ surroundings, so there’s no sense of isolation in the text or gap between what is being seen and what is being explained.
Metroid Prime is an expert example of this kind of storytelling. Samus pieces together the past and the player explores emotion through comparative subtlety. Additionally, Prime successfully sets up a trilogy (soon to be a quadrilogy) which distinguishes itself even from the rest of the Metroid games, contributing to the series’ lore without retconning and without dumbing down the material.
Challenge: 8/10
The only difficult parts of the game were intended to be the bosses and finding your way around. Anyone who played Metroid up to this point in time would know that it is quite easy to lose your way in the alien labyrinths and corridors. Samus may be brave and able to dive headfirst into any situation but players taking on a Metroid adventure know what value there is to paying attention to their surroundings as they go, remembering where they’ve been and where they’ll need to return once certain power ups are gained.
Losing oneself in Metroid Prime is all the easier thanks to a pretty but somewhat obfuscating in-game map. Rotating the map in 3D is cool and all but there were several times when I couldn’t exactly work out which orange polygon connected to the room I was trying to get to. In this manner it seems like the map system became needlessly complex for the sake of achieving 3D visuals (maybe the only subject of which I can say that about in this game). The old 2D version was much easier to read. It’s a step forward but a clumsy one which makes Prime all the harder to navigate.
Accessibility: 6/10
The new map system isn’t user-friendly and that directly influences this game’s overall accessibility score where getting lost or not knowing where you need to go next is an expectation rather than a risk. Not knowing what power up you need and where to get it forces the player to do their due exploration which is of course what Metroid is all about, figuring out the game room by room and trying to come to grips with how to successfully utilize your gear. Metroid Prime is like trying to solve a puzzle while living in it, without being told all the rules.
Uniqueness: 10/10
How do you reinvent an established franchise? You not only look at it from a new perspective, you make it adopt a new perspective too. As I said in my opener, the leap from 2D to 3D wasn’t easy for every franchise of yore but Metroid made that transition with flying colors. Biding its time, gathering talent, constructing a vision, reinterpreting Samus and her abilities in meaningful ways led to Metroid Prime becoming a class act.
Personal: 9/10
I missed this game at its debut on the GameCube but I picked it up in the excellent Metroid Prime Trilogy compilation for the Wii, certainly one of the best buys for that system. I understand that the nature of the Wiimotes meant a difference in how Prime was played without using the GameCube controller, but it was one instance where I enjoyed the motion controls of the Wii for what they could accomplish.
As for Prime itself, the game has become one of my favorites. This stylish and exceptional take on Samus Aran made the galactic bounty hunter her own pioneer in this new era of three-dimensional spaces, yet it handled the new duds with confidence and therefore with respectability. Really, few franchises are as respected as Metroid. No wonder so many are looking forward to Metroid Prime 4.
Aggregated Score: 8.9
Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage or Mage Cast.
Excellent review! Oh, and I would definitely vouch for a horror- themed Animal Crossing game! 😉
Thank you! Yeah, I’d be down for more Nintendo games with horror elements. Heck, Luigi’s Mansion was a whole lot of fun!
I LOVED Luigi’s Mansion! I played through that game so many times! One of my favorite games of all time, I think 😉
I have played this game. I have never played the 2D Metroid games and my first encounter with the Samus character was in Super Smash Bros. I was a bit surprised to play the first Metroid Prime game to find that the game was much less cartoonlike and more serious than other Nintendo games (although, I remember there were a few horror games on the GameCube, which also felt unusual for Nintendo). I found one of the most prominent features of the game was the sense of isolation, there few other characters and Samus seemed to be surrounded by hostile creatures. I agree that the visuals for the game were very good, I also enjoyed the different designs for the locations and how they used a range of different environments (such as the Phendrana Drifts using a mixture of wintry landscapes, frozen ruins and mechanical structures). I also liked the weather effects and the use of contrasting lighting to add to the environments. One of the most memorable visuals of the game, for me, was the transport into the Phazon Mines, which showed the Impact Crater while the player sunk into the ground. I agree that the gameplay was interesting as a mix of first-person shooter and platform game, which really made the metroids seem more terrifying when they could suddenly appear and attach to Samus’ face, which filled the screen. The only negative bit of the gameplay was it made it a little disconcerting to fight fast moving enemies. I did like the way parts of the background story could be discovered by scanning certain walls, which seemed to integrate the story into the game and added a sense of tension as the player reads about the Worm (although it was a little annoying when the parts of the story were found in the wrong order). I actually liked the 3D maps, they made the locations feel more connected, but I agree that some bits were difficult to read. I also enjoyed the discussion on the changes to the use of music in modern games.
Did the previous Metroid games have the same sense of isolation and horror as this game? What were the highlights of the game for you? What were the changes between the versions of the game available on the Game Cube and the Wii?
Hey so I would definitely recommend the 2D titles to you. The Metroid series is one with very few duds in it. Super Metroid is one of the all-time greats and you’ll see what a close connection there is between that SNES game and Metroid Prime. You’ll find that they share the same sense of isolation and dread.
I liked the 3D maps for what they were, especially visually, but yeah practically they left a little more to be desired.
Highlights of Prime for me were the new style of play and the boss fights, as well as the introduction of Phazon and Dark Samus. Beyond including motion controls in the Wii version, I’m not sure what else was really different from the GameCube version.
Thanks for commenting!
I did not realise Dark Samus appeared in the game. The last time I played this game, I obtained all the extra items, except for one Missile Expansion. I meticulously scanned every part of the game’s environment, but still could not find it. The bosses were also interesting, especially as the information in the Space Pirate consoles describes the creation and the power of some of the bosses, which builds up the tension before they appear. I also liked the way the Metroid Prime boss had different stages, each requiring different techniques. The use of phazon was also interesting, as, in the story, the Chozo were wary of it and saw it as corrupting the planet, while the Space Pirates wanted to study it and used it to create powerful monsters.
Astounding work as usual!
I particularly loved your comments about how going towards the FPS genre (or, at least, its perspective) was a natural step for the franchise, when many (like me) think it was quite a surprising turn. I had never thought about it that way, but it does make sense, and also how games have moved away from more melodic compositions because they do not suit the current open-world gameplay tendency. No game exemplifies that better than Breath of the Wild, I think, because Zelda has always been a franchise with tunes containing defined catchy melodies, and all of a sudden in comes its latest installment and goes the other way. Some fans were disappointed due to the shift, but I appreciated it.
Anyway, great work talking about what is one of the finest games of all time, especially considering you were able to make interesting fresh points about a title people have written so much about.
You are super encouraging as usual! Thanks for taking the time to read this!
I think that I was just as skeptical and surprised as anyone by the new perspective for Samus when Prime was first released. Like I mentioned, I thought that trying to do a 3D FPS Morph Ball was the stupidest thing ever. In retrospect though I think we can now see how much of a genius and an obvious move it was to capitalize on what was becoming the most dominant game genre on the planet.
I also appreciated what was done with Breath of the Wild’s music. I thought that was amazingly done. I mistook the music for occurring because of a cutscene, yet I was still playing. It felt to me like it was coming up out of the very stones and it was light and ethereal. People should probably think about how games are best served by their music based on how the music fits the structure of the game, so yeah melodic and catchy music is great but clearly that wouldn’t work in a lot of the more open games we have today.
I was sitting on this review for so long and struggling to put it together because I really felt intimidated by it! I wanted to say something fresh when I felt like so many writers had already said some amazing things about it. In the end, I could only share my thoughts and I’m happy you got into it. Thanks, Matt!
Yeah, in hindsight going FPS was genius and somewhat obvious, you are right. I also agree with what you said about Breath of the Wild’s music.
You are welcome! It was a pleasure reading it! =)
Great, insightful review! I’ve always found the narrative structure of the Metroid Prime games fascinating- they tell pretty simplistic stories (“pirates are going a bad thing, stop them!” is Metroid Prime abridged) but the scan visor fills in so many details if you’re willing to invest yourself in exploration. They’re still probably the only games that made me feel like I was exploring and discovering an alien world. Scanning things into the database is always so satisfying- here’s hoping the trend continues with 4!
Thank you for the kind words and thank you for reading!
I’ll add “…and don’t step in the sentient galactic poison stuff” to that abridged description. 🙂 You’re right in that Prime does this exploration/information cycle so well. It’s a game which motivates you to explore rather than just giving you a big space to muck about in until you get bored.
I really do wonder what they’ll carry over to Prime 4! Maybe they’ll surprise us with a lot of innovation, maybe they’ll turn the whole thing on its head. I hope it’s Breath of the Wild level reimagining and impact.
Thanks so much for leaving a comment!
Metroid Prime always was a big title on any Nintendo console but it was one of those games I just didn’t like at all. Even though I used Samus on many Super Smash Bros games. Maybe, since I am older now, it is time to play a Metroid Prime game soon haha. I still have my Gamecube so maybe I will pick up this game (really after this post and your 8.9 as a final score). I feel ashamed that I never played this….
Thank you for commenting! I would say definitely give Super Metroid and the Prime trilogy a chance again now that you’re older. They are rather unfriendly and getting lost as a kid in a game didn’t amount to much fun. Yeah it’s still not a ton of fun as an adult but at least you have your adult capabilities to help see you through. Since you have the GameCube, I highly recommend you snag this up! If you don’t have a ton of time, grab a non-spoilery walkthrough for help with navigation.
And no need to feel ashamed, not here at least! There are many significant games I have simply never played for lack of time, platform, finances, opportunity, etc.
So true indeed. I will pick it up as soon as I see it in my local gamestore haha!
I’m crossing my clavicle for ya! Good luck! 🙂
In any other series, a game like Metroid Prime would be the pinnacle. As it stands, I feel Metroid Prime 3 edges it out. Either way, I feel Metroid Prime managed to grasp something the series couldn’t with Super Metroid. It managed to put the skeptics in their place by being a stellar first-person game that demonstrates how versatile the perspective is, having solid combat while never betraying its ethos with its immersive storytelling.
Agreed there, Metroid Prime 3 (particularly the closing section where you’re plunging on down into radiation) was stunning. Metroid Prime is still a masterpiece, though, and a perfect example of how to do a FPS.
Yeah, it’s kind of a shame that Metroid Prime overshadows its two sequels because they really have a lot to offer. Still, you couldn’t go wrong with any of them, so it’s not too much of a shame.
Getting them all on the one Wii disc meant I never thought of them overshadowing each other but it’s easy to see why as tech advanced. I’m definitely looking forward to playing through the next two games again. I remembered Prime the most but by the time I start to think of Prime 3, there’s not much I remember at all.
I think a reason why that ended up being the case at first is because the first one had a wow factor going for it whereas the the next two were (wrongly) thought of as mere token sequels. Though because the easiest way to get them is in the Trilogy compilation, that may end up changing somewhere down the line.
Very interesting point about answering skeptics. Nintendo can’t seem to shed the kiddie persona with naysayers but Prime is a great example of rising to the obsession with FPS’s (which seems to not be as big as it once was, but anyway).
Yeah, but that’s ultimately on the naysayers. Actually paying attention to Nintendo’s output reveals there’s quite a bit of maturity to them. To wit, it turns out Shigeru Miyamoto had been throwing around the idea of a first-person game as early as Ocarina of Time. This changed after it was decided that Link would begin the game a child, as it was deemed necessary to have him visible onscreen at all times.
That’s one tidbit I didn’t know. Thanks! I think you’re correct about the naysayers. It seems a if there’s a tendency for a brand naysayer to underplay or exaggerate hearsay and generalities beyond their experience for the sake of confirmation bias. I find myself doing that too now and then. I would think it’s fairly easy to demonstrate how Nintendo puts out quite a variety of titles, ultimately. This year alone they attracted more than a few consumers with many different games, after all.
Yeah, I learned that one as I was typing up my Ocarina of Time review.
I feel confirmation bias is a major problem plaguing both games journalism and the gaming community – it especially seems to be prevalent with independent critics. It’s true that everyone has their personal preferences, but I have yet to see a big-name game critic move past that stumbling block. Ironically enough, I’ve found that in stark contrast to the consensus that major outlets are biased in favor of Nintendo games, they’re some of the only times I find those opinions completely trustworthy. It’s because I know they didn’t achieve those accolades through playing up to the current cultural climate or being super artsy as was the standby of many early indie titles.
Just gotta say, I love your writing style. Informative and opinionated, in a good way.
Oh, boy. Like others have said, this is easily one of my top five favorite games of all time, probably resting either at the number one or number two position. The Wii version is perfect, Prime is almost tailor made for motion controls. I could go on and on about this game but, in the interest of not writing paragraphs, I’ll just say I agree with your writeup entirely.
I can still hear the music of this game in my head; Phendrana Drifts, in particular, stands out as one of the better atmospheric tracks ever written. The way that steam sticks to your visor, rain drops accumulate as you look up into the stormy alien skies, the feeling of pure isolation as you explore an abandoned alien world, all left a lasting impression that hasn’t gone away. This game holds up very, very well. I’m going to have to write about it myself, I think.
Well thank you so much for the compliment! I am of course like most other writers, self-conscious, but this feedback lets me know what to focus on in my writing to diminish my personal weaknesses. Thanks!
So much love for this game and it’s great. It’s also awesome to meet someone else who thought the Prime motion controls were a good example of such controls being used in a game. If Prime is no.2, then what is your no.1? Definitely if you write about it, drop me a link here so I can check it out! I don’t always get to see every post out there that I’d like to.
Also, question for you: If you had to rank the three Prime games, how would you place them?
My top two is a solid tie between Metroid Prime and Shadow of the Colossus. You can see that I like quiet, solitary, single player experiences.
Although, now that you mention it, I might like Metroid Prime 2 more than the first. It wasn’t quite the revelation the first prime was by virtue of being a sequel, but it’s brutal and super weird, very much the dark middle chapter. I love three, but it lost some of the solitary feel of the first two, there’s just something missing there.
I have the inkling that you and I are quite a lot alike. Single player is where it’s at for me, another reason why I was excited about the many single player games that took significant awards home this year. Shadow of the Colossus is an all time great. My favorite game is Chrono Trigger (which I’ll never write about again, well, not for a long time at least), but games like FFVI, Yoshi’s Isle, Journey, Shadow of the Colossus, Hyper Light Drifter, Super Metroid, all that is my bread and butter.
I need to get on playing Prime 2 and 3 now. Prime 3 in particular is just a vague memory to me right now.
You and I are birds of a feather, for sure. I haven’t actually gotten to Chrono Trigger, shockingly, but only because my friend wants me to play it on our channel. I look forward to it, and I’ll have to seek out your writing on it.
Ah nice! I hope you enjoy Chrono Trigger a lot. If you like JRPGs from the era then you likely will. The piece I did was an in-depth analysis so it might not be something you’ll want to read prior to at least one playthrough. Fair warning.
Oh, good call. Well I’ll keep it in mind for after I’ve played through it!
Metroid Prime is one of my favorite games of all time, for many of the reasons you mentioned above. I was extremely happy to see my favorite track, Phendrana Drifts, pointed out in the sound portion. A metal guitarist named Stemage did an incredible album full of Metroid covers; one of which being Phenrana Drifts. It’s excellent, much like this review.
https://youtu.be/ocZ7pNmnluU
BUHRUTHAAA! Yeah I couldn’t very well write a Metroid Prime review without Phendrana Drifts. Thanks for the compliments and thanks for sharing the music! I love video game covers! I recently discovered Banjo Guy Ollie and it’s right up my musical alley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT5Dse-go24
Looking forward to Prime 4?
I’m looking forward to Prime 4 more than any other game on the planet. Metroid & Zelda are my favorite series, after all! I picked up the Prime Trilogy when they put the Wii VC on Wii U, but never got around to it. Loved 1 & 2 to death. Never touched 3 because I was very much against Wii’s motion controls and hated looking like a drowning victim while playing video games. Same reason I never finished Skyward Sword, I suppose?
I feel like I knew your favorite series were Metroid and Zelda? Either way, the Well-Red Mage approves. These days, I don’t even really know what my favorite series are. They’ve all changed so much.
I can usually say with confidence that Zelda and Metroid are my favorites, but Final Fantasy is right up there with them. XI aside, I haven’t played one I didn’t like and I’ve played them all… so I guess that counts for something. It’s like trying to decide your favorite games of all time and narrowing it down to a top 10 list. It’s so hard because what I love at this exact moment could change in an hour, depending on what I’m in the mood for.
Someone shared BGO’s music on Twitter a few days ago and I watched him do a bunch of Castlevania stuff that was super rad!
Ok, I’m going to have to Google Stemage and listen to that.