My Thoughts on the Metroid Prime Trilogy

[vanguard333]

Late last year, I decided to try the Metroid series, starting with Super Metroid. I then played Metroid Dread after that. Both were fun. I heard a lot of good things about the Metroid Prime Trilogy, so I bought the trilogy on my Wii U for $20 and decided to give these games a try. Finally, I have completed all three games in the trilogy. I'm going to put my thoughts in spoiler tags in order to keep this from getting too long, but in the Prime 3 section, there are some actual spoilers. 

 

Preface: One thing I should say right away to bear in mind is that I am really not a fan of first-person games. I don't like being unable to see where the player character is standing, I don't like the lack of peripheral vision, and I don't like the focus on ranged combat that usually involves guns. When a game called Kingdom Come: Deliverance was announced, it sounded almost perfect for me: a historical fiction RPG set in late-Medieval Europe with combat inspired by actual Historical European Martial Arts. Yet, when the game released, what kept me from buying it wasn't the survival mechanics or the game being a buggy mess on release; it was the game being entirely first-person outside of dialogue that made me choose not to play it, as I knew I likely wouldn't enjoy it.

So, with that in mind, what did I think of the Prime Trilogy? …I really enjoyed it.

 

The Trilogy as a Whole:

Spoiler

I think I was able to enjoy these games so much because of all the clever ways they were able to transfer the Metroid formula over to first-person 3D in such a way that, most of the time, the first-person view wasn't much of a bother. As always with a Metroidvania, the focus is on exploring a hostile and labyrinthine world, and the exploration is generally really good.

Moreover, despite my dislike of first-person view, I don't think these games could've worked nearly as well as they did if they hadn't been first-person. I do think it's possible to make a good third-person 3D Metroid game, but these three games utilize the first-person perspective to such a thorough extent that they really do benefit from it. Normally I find first-person games less immersive than first-person games, but it was almost the opposite for this game: seeing the game effectively through Samus' visor was genius; not only does it put all the health and ammo indicators in the game world, but the different visor settings add a lot to these games overall. The combat, thanks to aiming being done with the Wii Remote's pointer, was also really fun.

All that said, there are still times when the problems with the first-person perspective pop up; usually in the form of platforming. I really don't understand how anyone can think first-person platforming is a good idea: even in third-person 3D platforming, they have to add shadows and such to make it clear where the character will land; what makes anyone think that platforming would be any good when you can't see the player character's feet or the platform they're going to land on? Seriously; platforming in these games is a massive pain.

 

One thing that really surprised me about these games is just how good they look. There are definitely games from the GameCube era that still look incredible; Wind Waker is a good example, but Wind Waker managed it through what are practically Studio Ghibli graphics; the Metroid Prime games aren't nearly as cartoony, but they still manage to look incredible, to the point where the most I could see an HD remaster of the Trilogy do is update some of the textures and character models.

One thing that an HD remaster can do that would be a big help would be to add a feature to the map that lets the player know which rooms contain the last remaining items. If you go for 100% in these games, either write down where you found items as you play, or have a wiki at hand; otherwise you are in for a lot of tedium. Less so in Prime 3 (more on that later), but definitely in Prime 1 and 2.

 

Prime 1:

Spoiler

I'm not sure what I can really say about Prime 1, partly because it's the one I played least-recently and isn't as fresh in my mind, but also partly because it's great all-around.

Its greatest strength is definitely its exploration and immersion; it does a fantastic job making the player feel like they're exploring an alien world and uncovering a mystery. It certainly helps that the area design is outstanding, with plenty of times where I feel the need to stop and think, "Wow; look at that!" But the slow-paced exploration is just great. Backtracking is organic and the locations have plenty of variety and are all interesting to explore. I don't even mind the artifact hunt near the end, mainly because I found most of them already long before it was time to actually start looking for them.

Of course, no game is perfect. One thing about Prime 1 would be that it's probably the one that most emphasizes platforming, and I've already stated my problems with platforming in 1st person. There's also no way to go directly from certain areas to certain other areas, so backtracking when doing optional stuff can sometimes be a bit slow.

 

Prime 2: Echoes

Spoiler

Metroid Prime: Echoes is a very strange experience; almost everything about it is simultaneously better and worse than they were in Prime 1.

The world design has been more streamlined: three outer areas connected to a central hub area, with each of those three areas then also being connected to each other. On the one hand, having every area be connected to each other helps with backtracking, but the design also hinders backtracking in many respects because things don't loop back organically very often; a fair amount of the time, backtracking involves actually turning back rather than finding a new way back.

Applying a Light World/Dark World concept to a Metroidvania is an interesting idea. It provides a neat way to reuse areas in a genre where, normally, reusing areas is a bad idea as you want the locations to be memorable. Taking damage over time in the dark world and then healing over time in light bubbles is a neat idea for emphasizing being careful and methodical, but the health regen in the light bubbles is far too slow to be useful.

Changing the overarching threat from the Space Pirates to a unique threat in the form of the Ing is a great idea for a direct sequel. The problem is that the Ing aren't very unique; their quirk is that they take over and corrupt local wildlife and technology, which is the exact same quirk as the x-parasites and Phazon. Granted; they were born from a phazon meteor impacting Aether, so I guess the similarity is at least somewhat intentional, but it still felt like I'd already fought these things.

Introducing a brand new species in the form of the Luminoth was brilliant, and having one be present throughout the game and asking for Samus' help is a great idea; it really gives the player a greater sense of what you're trying to save: if Samus fails, the species goes extinct. However, I'm not sure if having immediate pressing stakes like this is a good idea for a Metroid game; one thing that I think helped with Prime 1's immersion is that you were ultimately investigating a mystery: what happened to the planet, what are the space pirates trying to accomplish, etc.? That's a plot that lines up nicely with the labyrinthine exploration; having there be an ongoing fight and immediate stakes makes it feel weird to try to go for 100%: "U-Mos; I know I need to save your planet as soon as possible, but could you please wait while I revisit past areas to look for missile expansions?" It also raises questions such as: why do the Ing never try to take back any of the Light of Aether that Samus retrieves from them?

The ammo systems for the light and dark beams was a neat idea: overuse one and you have to use the other to refill it. Neat idea, but in practice, it means that you never have full ammo after using one of them, the annihilator beam that was powered by both of them was something I never used for combat, the upgrade charge-attacks cost way too much ammo to use, and with one beam being better in one world than the other and the standard beam doing a pathetically small amount of damage in comparison, overusing one and having to scrounge for ammo became routine, especially in the dark world.

There's an increased emphasis on puzzle-solving in this game, particularly through use of the morph ball. That was great, especially since I thought the morph ball was perhaps a bit underutilized in Prime 1. But the puzzles and boss fights that require the morph ball unfortunately expose all of the morph ball's faults: most notably the fixed camera, the very sensitive movement & steering, and the very unreliable jump. That one fight against the spider ball guardian in particular was an excruciating exercise in frustration and annoyance. I thought that the Omega Pirate in Prime 1 was the worst boss fight I ever encountered, but there are one or two boss fights in this game that make it look brilliant in comparison.

Finally, the menu interface is better organized than that in Prime 1, but it is more annoying to navigate.

 

There are two things about the game that is definitely less good than in Prime 1: the first is the area design. I'm not asking for a huge amount of variety, but the areas in this game really don't stand out. In order, you explore a wasteland (the hub), a desert, a dark desert, a flooded swamp, a dark flooded swamp, a sci-fi flying fortress, and a dark sci-fi flying fortress; there's almost never a "Wow; look at that!" moment, especially early on since there's no real visual difference between a wasteland and a desert.

The second is the sky temple key hunt. It's as if the developers either didn't know what it was that made the artifact hunt in Prime 1 not stink, or they felt desperate to pad the game out even though this game would've taken me the longest to complete even without the key hunt. You can't start actually collecting them until late in the game and you can't keep track of which ones you've already obtained.

To give the game something, I will say that the Light Suit is my favourite of Samus' outfits in this trilogy. It's not much since the first-person means you almost never see the suit, but it's something.

 

Prime 3: Corruption

Spoiler

Metroid Prime 3 is very, for lack of a better word, interesting.

One thing that was immediately obvious was that the game was going for being a more cinematic and epic game; likely to make it a more thrilling conclusion to the trilogy, since the game practically screams, "This is the end of the Phazon Saga", and I think the game mostly pulls it off. I think it manages it because the more epic angle almost never gets in the way of the Metroid formula in this game; you're still exploring and investigating; ironically making it a bit more immersive than Prime 2 in that regard.

There's an increase in action compared to the previous games, and I think it does a good job with it. In the previous Metroid Prime games, there were bosses that I liked and bosses that I didn't like. With this game, I like all the boss fights; they're all really well done. The only other Metroid game I can think of where that was the case was Metroid Dread, and even then, there were one or two bosses that, while not bad, weren't necessarily interesting. For this one, they're all good. Particular highlights would have to be the fights against the corrupted bounty hunters because of the tragic angle to those fights, the fight against Meta Ridley in the elevator shaft, and the final fight against Dark Samus.

Speaking of action, the hypermode is an interesting mechanic; mostly good. It might seem counter-intuitive to gear an exploration game more towards action and then add a mechanic that makes the action significantly easier, but that's the thing: it's phazon; it's supposed to be too easy. It's the best implementation of a superpowered-evil-side I've seen in a video game, as there's always the risk of phazon corruption whenever you use hypermode, and I will admit that I got one or two game overs as a result of phazon corruption.

Increasing the use of the ship is a very intriguing idea for a Metroid game. Normally, the ship just acts as a place to save and refill ammo. This game has it be used as a level-select, a way to transport items that Samus can't possibly carry, and even a way to destroy enemies sometimes, though I only ended up using that last one once in total as it's rarely possible to use, and even more rarely useful. I must say that I absolutely enjoyed utilizing the ship, especially using the ship grapple to solve puzzles, to the point where I want these features to return. I get the distinct feeling that there were plans to utilize the ship even further. There's only two optional puzzles that require the ship grapple to solve; both on Bryyo, there are buttons inside the ship's cockpit that serve no real purpose, and when the fleet arrives at Phaaze, you see the Federation Fleet fight the corrupted space pirate fleet, and I found myself thinking, "That looks cool; I wonder if we'll take part in this fight" and then Samus flies past the fleets and lands on Phaaze, and I thought, "Oh; okay. …I didn't think it would be that easy."

What the areas lack in interconnectivity is almost made up for in variety; you get to explore a half-destroyed spaceship in space and a sky city full of surprisingly-benign robots; how often do you get to explore places like that in a Metroid game? There are a ton of "Wow; look at that!" moments. I say "almost" made up for because having essentially several mini-labyrinths instead of one big labyrinth is still a bit of a hit to the explorative aspect of the game, and repeatedly going back to the ship and flying to another area can get a bit tedious, though that's mainly because the take-off and landing cutscenes are unskippable.

The final level: the planet Phaaze, is very neat. After the first two games had the final area be only one or two rooms at most, it was interesting to see the concluding mission be a proper enemy gauntlet. Constantly having to keep your phazon levels from getting too high is very fitting. My one annoyance would have to be the infinite metroids in certain rooms; mainly because they can get really annoying when I'm trying to unlock the way to the next part of the map.

There are of course the Wii-era motion gimmicks, but I honestly found them harmless. I can see why they'd annoy some people, but I'm not one of them.

Overall, it's a very fun game and a fitting conclusion to the trilogy. It makes me wonder how they're going to follow up from this with Metroid Prime 4, considering this game ends with the titular Metroid Prime: Dark Samus itself, being very conclusively destroyed once and for all thanks to the complete destruction of all phazon in the galaxy.

 

Incidentally, finding a lore scan saying "Metroid Project 'Dread' is nearing final stages of completion" is quite hilarious in hindsight.

 

Obligatory "Which Game I liked Most" Section:

Spoiler

Overall, the Metroid Prime trilogy is kind-of like the Triforce from The Legend of Zelda: Prime 1 excels the most at exploration (courage), Prime 2 excels the most at the puzzle-platforming (wisdom), and Prime 3 excels the most at action (Power). I prefer exploration the most for these games, so it's probably no surprise that I liked Prime 1 the most. But it may surprise you that I liked Prime 3 second-most, largely for being such a good conclusion to the trilogy.

 

I'm sure there's even more I could say about this trilogy, but I'll leave it at this for now. What do you think? Probably that nothing I said is anything new as these games are over a decade old.

Edited February 3, 2022 by vanguard333