Metroid Prime

With Metroid Dread coming out soon (which I'm super excited for, by the way), I think it's time for me to talk about another Metroid game. So, why not talk about what ended up becoming my favorite Metroid game of all time, Metroid Prime.

Metroid Prime has a fairly simple story, at least at face value. During a rescue mission, Samus encounters Meta Ridley who nearly kills her and causes her to lose her powers. She chases him to a planet to get her revenge, and that's pretty much it. While I do really like complex plots (and Metroid Fusion does it very well), I feel like the Metroid series is at its best story-wise when the story is simple. Just like Super Metroid before it, this is a revenge story, plain and simple. And similarly to that game, there are a lot of important set pieces that are conveyed through gameplay, like discovering the Metroid in Phendrana Drifts and turning the tables on the pirates using a new Phazon Suit. However, if you want a bit more story, the game contains a ton of optional lore on the Chozo race if you're into that sort of stuff, and there's a great sense of mystery to exploring and uncovering the mysteries of Tallon IV.

Metroid Prime is the first 3D game in the series, and it takes place with a first person perspective. However, despite these changes, it feels like a perfect transition of the main 2D games. It's genuinely impressive how flawlessly the perspective has been shifted without removing the appeal of what makes Metroid great. This is just as much of a Metroidvania as any other game in the series, you go around large maps finding abilities that you can use to power yourself up. Despite this, Prime uses the new third dimension to make far more memorable and unique rooms and set pieces than you might be able to find from the 2D games, from the many tense shootouts with the pirates, to the surprising and satisfying moments of discovery. More than any other Metroid game, I think Prime does an amazing job of encouraging you to explore the world since nearly every room contains something new. However, I do think that Prime has a lot more mandatory backtracking than a lot of other games in the series. Some of it is really fun like returning to Tallon Overworld to uncover its many inaccessible areas throughout the game, while others feel a bit more like padding, like the big Chozo Artifact fetch quest that has you return to most of the locations right before the endgame. In its defense, it's not nearly as egregious or long as Wind Waker's Triforce hunt (and that's one of my favorite games), but I can't blame people who don't quite enjoy it. And with a fairly short length, Prime's campaign is still mostly really well-paced.

Metroid Prime's controls are also really great, maybe even better than some of the 2D games. I'm not all that great at first-person shooters, but the weighty movement and lock-on system makes it feel incredibly natural to me. Apparently, the Wii version even lets you aim with the remote, though I've never gotten around to trying it. The morphball is also a ton of fun to control and roll around due to the greater emphasis on its momentum. Prime is also jam-packed with new abilities and powers that the 2D games don't have, from the different visors, to the different beams and augments, to the suits, to the different morphball abilities. All of it feels great to swap through, and the massive amount of moves near the end of the game never feels overwhelming due to how well it's all organized. The only ability I don't quite love is the scan visor which you can use to learn about enemies and lore, activate panels, and search for hints. The concept is great and it adds a lot more depth to the game, but it's also a bit clunky and slow to use, in my opinion. Despite that, most of the abilities are at the very least a ton of fun to use, and the sheer quantity of them means that it's a lot of fun to figure out the best builds (in terms of suits and beams) for any given situation.

Metroid Prime is a pretty hard game, maybe not as hard as Fusion or its sequel, but this is definitely a difficult game at times. I never found it confusing or hard to navigate even with the added dimension due to the hint system, rather the game is actually at its hardest during the more linear segments. Areas like the start of Phazon Mines and the second half of Phendrana Drifts were really tough, since the lack of nearby save stations means you'll have to make up massive amounts of progress if you die. In most of the 2D games, it always feels like you're at least near a save station so it's not too hard to run back if you feel you need it. In Prime, however, I feel like I end up spending more time in each room, which means that it's not quite as easy. Obviously, there's an appeal to how much more complex Prime's map is, but it does make the checkpoint system a bit more frustrating. I also found the bosses to be really tough at first, and they took a lot of deaths to figure out. Thankfully, once you do figure out a strategy to beat them, they can be really satisfying and fun, with Meta Ridley's fight being the absolute highlight.

What I think really made this game feel super special for me, though, is just how immersive it is. More than any other first person game I've played, it genuinely feels like you're in Samus's shoes. The UI is in the form of Samus's radar, steam and cold air fogs up your view, and bosses can completely tower over you. The way this game deals with perspective is especially stunning, as even enemies and environments can look massive from a first-person view. More than any other game, I feel like Metroid Prime showed me how it would be like to see through the eyes of a Nintendo character, without the camera zoomed out and all that. Metroid Prime is special because it feels like it gives me the experience that you'd expect to get from VR, yet this was a GameCube game from the early 2000s. And that's not to mention the beautiful graphics and texturing that still look fantastic today, along with the great ambient score. What results is a game that feels like it hasn't aged a single bit and is still as stunning today as it was back then.

Overall, Metroid Prime is my favorite game in the series due to its great exploration, memorable locations and set pieces, fun controls, and immersive atmosphere. It has its issues with backtracking and difficulty (though no Metroid game is truly perfect), but it makes up for being easily the best transition from 2D to 3D that I've ever played.

5/5 Stars