the intro being a watered down halo CE knockoff put a bad taste in my mouth and made me think this was gonna suck, but honestly I loved this game. I think I like it more than fusion, although I think I like fusion's tone more (this one kind of felt like an action movie, especially whenever the federation was on screen) but this game felt more free and explorable. It did at least something with having other characters, the other hunters had pretty cool designs and it was cool to see why samus is the best. I think another reason of why this one felt more free was because of the length. It's about 9 ish hours compared to fusion's 4, and if there was 30 minutes of dialogue in fusion and 30 minutes of dialogue in corruption, it feels less suffocating in corruption. Think of it like this. You get a 20 on a test. But the test is out of 20. That's 100%. but if the test is out of 100, that's a 20%. which is a failing grade in most countries.
This one's gonna be a bit of a shorter review cause I gotta step out for a smoke and mentally prepare for Other M. Few last things I wanna quickly touch on. One, I liked the hypermode in this. It makes this one a bit harder than echoes (thank god) because the enemies have to do damage balanced around your potential immortality. But it also helps you choose when you wanna clear the room of bulletsponge enemies. It was a cool addition. I just wish less upgrades were focused on it. I'm not gonna be in it all the time, and upgrades like the electric wave when ur in hyper boost ball feels gimmicky and designed only to add another puzzle type. Goes onto my next point. Something I love about the other prime games is how once you get a hold of the controls that's all there basically is. Every action you get is an extension of your base movement. There's no buttons to press because you scan with your lock on or jump into it with your morph ball. The grapple hook is also an extension of your lock on, your super missiles are an extension of your charge beam, etc etc. This game has button prompts to get awkward fallout 3 conversation cams with npc's, levers where you gotta pull the wiimote to pull the lever (i played on primehack kbm so all of those puzzles were replaced with the button W) or something. It just kind of breaks immersion when you try to open a door and you see a huge text popup saying MOVE THE WII REMOTE TO THE RIGHT TO OPEN THIS DOOR. Speaking of wii remote, the grapple hook in this game is front and center. You grapple to pull shielded enemies' shields off, you grapple random debris, you grapple everything. It unfortunately also feels kind of tacked on and not like the rest of sammy's natural movement. You see something glow yellow or an enemy pop up with a shield and think "oh yeah." Okay, last point is the scavenger hunt. There is one in the game. But I think they finally got it right? By the time I was ready to head into the endgame, I had all of the keys but three. And this game is pretty linear, one planet to the next, so I hadn't been to these places in a while. The whole point of the scavenger hunts in these games is to encourage the player to do one last sweep/victory lap around the world picking up spare e tanks and missile expanders before they can face the final boss. But in prime 1, it was kind of redundant because I'd been to all these areas over and over before and gotten all the shit and I was only there for the keys and in prime 2 it was annoying because the game sucked and I didn't wanna play anymore (im just playing. but the prime 2 one was a SLOG I legit almost abandoned right there.)
Anyways, yeah that's about all. Thanks for reading. Sorry I was so serious this time. I've been having a lot of problems with the wife. I'll be writing serious reviews with no jokes for the time being.
EDIT: i played metroid other m for 12 minutes and got to a part where it told me to turn my wiimote sideways. there is no way to play it with keyboard sooo i guess ill have to skip that one and move onto dread oh noooo oh nooo thats awful
This one's gonna be a bit of a shorter review cause I gotta step out for a smoke and mentally prepare for Other M. Few last things I wanna quickly touch on. One, I liked the hypermode in this. It makes this one a bit harder than echoes (thank god) because the enemies have to do damage balanced around your potential immortality. But it also helps you choose when you wanna clear the room of bulletsponge enemies. It was a cool addition. I just wish less upgrades were focused on it. I'm not gonna be in it all the time, and upgrades like the electric wave when ur in hyper boost ball feels gimmicky and designed only to add another puzzle type. Goes onto my next point. Something I love about the other prime games is how once you get a hold of the controls that's all there basically is. Every action you get is an extension of your base movement. There's no buttons to press because you scan with your lock on or jump into it with your morph ball. The grapple hook is also an extension of your lock on, your super missiles are an extension of your charge beam, etc etc. This game has button prompts to get awkward fallout 3 conversation cams with npc's, levers where you gotta pull the wiimote to pull the lever (i played on primehack kbm so all of those puzzles were replaced with the button W) or something. It just kind of breaks immersion when you try to open a door and you see a huge text popup saying MOVE THE WII REMOTE TO THE RIGHT TO OPEN THIS DOOR. Speaking of wii remote, the grapple hook in this game is front and center. You grapple to pull shielded enemies' shields off, you grapple random debris, you grapple everything. It unfortunately also feels kind of tacked on and not like the rest of sammy's natural movement. You see something glow yellow or an enemy pop up with a shield and think "oh yeah." Okay, last point is the scavenger hunt. There is one in the game. But I think they finally got it right? By the time I was ready to head into the endgame, I had all of the keys but three. And this game is pretty linear, one planet to the next, so I hadn't been to these places in a while. The whole point of the scavenger hunts in these games is to encourage the player to do one last sweep/victory lap around the world picking up spare e tanks and missile expanders before they can face the final boss. But in prime 1, it was kind of redundant because I'd been to all these areas over and over before and gotten all the shit and I was only there for the keys and in prime 2 it was annoying because the game sucked and I didn't wanna play anymore (im just playing. but the prime 2 one was a SLOG I legit almost abandoned right there.)
Anyways, yeah that's about all. Thanks for reading. Sorry I was so serious this time. I've been having a lot of problems with the wife. I'll be writing serious reviews with no jokes for the time being.
EDIT: i played metroid other m for 12 minutes and got to a part where it told me to turn my wiimote sideways. there is no way to play it with keyboard sooo i guess ill have to skip that one and move onto dread oh noooo oh nooo thats awful
If Metroid Prime 1 and 2 were on the line of FPS and Metroidvania. Metroid Prime 3 is just FPS. Too linear to be a Metroidvania, the story is very Halo feeling, constantly told where to go, and much more focus on combat.
I hate this game, it's Metroids worst entry.
I don't like linearity or hand holding in games in the series that defined metroidvanias, a genre about non linearity and freedom. Of all metroid games there are only 2 linear entries I've given high reviews fusion because the linearity a loss of control is what makes it terrifying. In a series where up until this point (outside of metroid 2) you've been free and unbound you're suddenly trapped, you're given no alternative paths, no sequence breaks, and all of your moves are less powerful. This makes the horror of fusion much more up there. The other one Dread is a very sadly linear game, absolutely worse than Fusion, but it has some sequence breaks and is the best controlling metroid game to date. These games are games with many upsides.
Prime 3 doesn't have this. It doesn't have an reasoning for the linearity they just wanted to copy Halo. I don't find anything Prime 3 does good, the combat is a slog and boring, and you'll be exploring a level having a grand ol time and then you get spammed with like 50 notifications that exploring isn't what you're supposed to be doing in this game.
So yes the linear, cinematic, halo clone, metroid game, to me is my least favorite entry in the series, yes I'd rather finish other M than this game (not to say that game is good).
Samus returns is the only game that comes close to beating this one in how much I hate it, but this one takes the cake because genuinely I despise FPS games especially when they have nothing going for them, the other prime games had non linearity and exploration. This game has nothing for me.
I gave this game a 1/10 because I genuinely hate it.
I hate this game, it's Metroids worst entry.
I don't like linearity or hand holding in games in the series that defined metroidvanias, a genre about non linearity and freedom. Of all metroid games there are only 2 linear entries I've given high reviews fusion because the linearity a loss of control is what makes it terrifying. In a series where up until this point (outside of metroid 2) you've been free and unbound you're suddenly trapped, you're given no alternative paths, no sequence breaks, and all of your moves are less powerful. This makes the horror of fusion much more up there. The other one Dread is a very sadly linear game, absolutely worse than Fusion, but it has some sequence breaks and is the best controlling metroid game to date. These games are games with many upsides.
Prime 3 doesn't have this. It doesn't have an reasoning for the linearity they just wanted to copy Halo. I don't find anything Prime 3 does good, the combat is a slog and boring, and you'll be exploring a level having a grand ol time and then you get spammed with like 50 notifications that exploring isn't what you're supposed to be doing in this game.
So yes the linear, cinematic, halo clone, metroid game, to me is my least favorite entry in the series, yes I'd rather finish other M than this game (not to say that game is good).
Samus returns is the only game that comes close to beating this one in how much I hate it, but this one takes the cake because genuinely I despise FPS games especially when they have nothing going for them, the other prime games had non linearity and exploration. This game has nothing for me.
I gave this game a 1/10 because I genuinely hate it.
Actually think the combat is pretty great on replaying, refreshing in that the free-aim of Wiimote controls felt stifled when stapled onto the first two games that never required it by virtue of their original GameCube-controller-based design.
Elysia is peak, and continue to love the detailed eerie environmental design Retro kicks butt at. Centering the game around the idea of your ship being movable/upgrade able is a fun way of making this one distinct, though the heavy militaristic “federation” presence throughout really takes away from the sense of isolation and… Samus being a subversive element in a cutthroat world that I love about the other games. SPOILERS I kept waiting for the federation to be corrupt or to double cross her or something as a crux of the plot but it never got very interesting like that.
Also am not sure the push and pull of “hyper mode” works as well as they want. Feels a bit more confusing whether I’m making a good call to sacrifice the health to use it or not instead of being something where I feel like I’m making smart decisions.
Worst of the Prime trilogy imo but still a blast. Retro rocks.
Elysia is peak, and continue to love the detailed eerie environmental design Retro kicks butt at. Centering the game around the idea of your ship being movable/upgrade able is a fun way of making this one distinct, though the heavy militaristic “federation” presence throughout really takes away from the sense of isolation and… Samus being a subversive element in a cutthroat world that I love about the other games. SPOILERS I kept waiting for the federation to be corrupt or to double cross her or something as a crux of the plot but it never got very interesting like that.
Also am not sure the push and pull of “hyper mode” works as well as they want. Feels a bit more confusing whether I’m making a good call to sacrifice the health to use it or not instead of being something where I feel like I’m making smart decisions.
Worst of the Prime trilogy imo but still a blast. Retro rocks.
People really.
enjoyed a lot back in the day, but not as much as prime 1/2, it is still an absolute must to play the trilogy though, I wait with the rest of the world with baited breath for prime 4 to stop being vaporware
Honestly, I can't say this game is really that much worse than Echoes or even Prime 1. The motion control gimmicks really aren't that bad - hell, the aiming is a lot better than the gamecube entries - and it feels similar in a lot of ways. But that's the real problem, it's over familiar. You spend most of your fifteen hours collecting the same powerups you've collected twice already and there's even less variety in the collectible pickups.
Corruption is overwhelmingly easy too. Where Echoes pushed its luck with some infuriating battles, the followup is laughably simple. The game floods you with extra energy tanks. The majority aren't hidden at all, nor do they come at the points you'd expect. You'll trundle along a quiet tunnel and oop, there's an energy tank! Right on your path, here you go! And given that each energy tank is more valuable thank ever, thanks to Samus' new ability to press a button and turn invincible and gain a one hit kill death cannon for thirty seconds, the combat is completely dull. All other complexities from Prime 1 and 2 have been stripped away, with no swappable beams, no dark/light mechanics, and most of the enemies having the most brain dead, repetitive AI. What replaces all these nuances is a mechanic with the potential to bring an interesting risk/reward sell your soul mechanic to the fights, but instead just being an easy mode that's always a button press away.
But maybe that's not so bad, sure the Prime games have placed a greater emphasis on combat than the 2D Metroid games have, but exploration has always the big draw. How is it here? More bad news, friends. It's pretty meh. Previous entries have had you exploring a labyrinthine map that gradually unfolds outwards and inwards over a single world, with a fantastic zig zag pace that has you excitedly doubling back to a dead end every time you receive a new ability. Prime 3 bucks this trend by instead breaking its world up into distinct levels across three planets. Now while these levels do often cross into each other, each is a fairly linear, isolated corridor between launch pads. Very little here feels like you're unravelling a dense navigational puzzle over the course of your playthrough, but instead you have your hand held by a nagging computer telling you exactly where to go at all times.
Well, okay, perhaps it's more linear than other Metroids, but Fusion was a lot more straightforward than Super and people seem to like that one. Sure, linear levels aren't so bad, but they have to be good and interesting. The move to a structure that centres smaller, discreet levels offers the opportunity to explore a greater variety of locales and level theming. Especially after Echoes which was fairly repetitive in its environmental aesthetic, perhaps this will be a welcome reprieve? I'm grieved to say once again: "Nope"
While the first proper planet Bryyo (Norion comes first, but functions as an ancillary prologue and tutorial really) is quite varied, featuring an area reminiscent of Tallon from Prime 1, then a jungle and fire level, it quickly gives up all efforts to vary itself. The second planet Elysia is bloody horrendous. It's initially pretty, an interesting combo of Sanctuary Fortress from 2 and Star Wars' Cloud City. Unfortunately it is an absolute nightmare to navigate, owing in part to its endless visual repetition. There is no variety whatsoever to the look or design of its corridors and rails. Many feel completely copy-pasted and I found myself having to check my map every other room, whereas I could navigate much of Prime 1 from memory alone. This is the planet you'll be leaving and returning to most often too, as you'll see most of Bryyo in one big go, but you're frequently ordered to piss off from Elysia and come back after going through endless loading screens flying back to Bryyo for a boring power up. The pace is lethargic at best, never picking up decent momentum for longer than a few minutes at a time.
Now seems as good a place to move on to the more superficial elements. And boy, what an ugly, ugly game. Constantly overbright with the bloom and saturation turned up to a thousand, with the pirate homeworld being a particularly bad offender. Each planet seems to give itself into a single colour in an attempt to differentiate themselves, but outside of that, it honestly looks worse than Prime 1. The model work is exceptionally poor, which,combined with the greater move towards story cutscenes with human models and actual faces being animated this time around, just leaves the whole thing looking and feeling about five years older than it is. The sound too is lacking, with no tracks really standing out and the enemy sound effects as generic as their designs.
I'll round things out by talking about the story then, and there's little positive to be said here either. I struggle to think of much to say other than that the whole thing feels like naff Halo. The runup to the final level sees you babysitting a group of AMERICAN™, I mean, "Galactic Federation" marines through a long gunfight in a corridor. The first prologue (that's right, first, there are two for some unknown reason) is almost word for word the Pillar of Autumn from Halo but worse in every way. All of this greater buildup and story emphasis eventually leads to a twist that's so obvious I feel dirty calling it a twist as Dark Samus is shrugged away in the final minutes for a naff mastermind villain that makes no sense.
Deep breaths, deep breaths. Maybe I've been too harsh, certainly the game is playable enough. But it's wholly unneccessary, bringing nothing new of note to the table and taking away so much of what made the Prime games - and the Metroid series as a whole - so interesting. I recommend playing with a podcast on, well no, I recommend you don't play at all, but if you must, bring a distraction to this mediocre snoozefest.
Corruption is overwhelmingly easy too. Where Echoes pushed its luck with some infuriating battles, the followup is laughably simple. The game floods you with extra energy tanks. The majority aren't hidden at all, nor do they come at the points you'd expect. You'll trundle along a quiet tunnel and oop, there's an energy tank! Right on your path, here you go! And given that each energy tank is more valuable thank ever, thanks to Samus' new ability to press a button and turn invincible and gain a one hit kill death cannon for thirty seconds, the combat is completely dull. All other complexities from Prime 1 and 2 have been stripped away, with no swappable beams, no dark/light mechanics, and most of the enemies having the most brain dead, repetitive AI. What replaces all these nuances is a mechanic with the potential to bring an interesting risk/reward sell your soul mechanic to the fights, but instead just being an easy mode that's always a button press away.
But maybe that's not so bad, sure the Prime games have placed a greater emphasis on combat than the 2D Metroid games have, but exploration has always the big draw. How is it here? More bad news, friends. It's pretty meh. Previous entries have had you exploring a labyrinthine map that gradually unfolds outwards and inwards over a single world, with a fantastic zig zag pace that has you excitedly doubling back to a dead end every time you receive a new ability. Prime 3 bucks this trend by instead breaking its world up into distinct levels across three planets. Now while these levels do often cross into each other, each is a fairly linear, isolated corridor between launch pads. Very little here feels like you're unravelling a dense navigational puzzle over the course of your playthrough, but instead you have your hand held by a nagging computer telling you exactly where to go at all times.
Well, okay, perhaps it's more linear than other Metroids, but Fusion was a lot more straightforward than Super and people seem to like that one. Sure, linear levels aren't so bad, but they have to be good and interesting. The move to a structure that centres smaller, discreet levels offers the opportunity to explore a greater variety of locales and level theming. Especially after Echoes which was fairly repetitive in its environmental aesthetic, perhaps this will be a welcome reprieve? I'm grieved to say once again: "Nope"
While the first proper planet Bryyo (Norion comes first, but functions as an ancillary prologue and tutorial really) is quite varied, featuring an area reminiscent of Tallon from Prime 1, then a jungle and fire level, it quickly gives up all efforts to vary itself. The second planet Elysia is bloody horrendous. It's initially pretty, an interesting combo of Sanctuary Fortress from 2 and Star Wars' Cloud City. Unfortunately it is an absolute nightmare to navigate, owing in part to its endless visual repetition. There is no variety whatsoever to the look or design of its corridors and rails. Many feel completely copy-pasted and I found myself having to check my map every other room, whereas I could navigate much of Prime 1 from memory alone. This is the planet you'll be leaving and returning to most often too, as you'll see most of Bryyo in one big go, but you're frequently ordered to piss off from Elysia and come back after going through endless loading screens flying back to Bryyo for a boring power up. The pace is lethargic at best, never picking up decent momentum for longer than a few minutes at a time.
Now seems as good a place to move on to the more superficial elements. And boy, what an ugly, ugly game. Constantly overbright with the bloom and saturation turned up to a thousand, with the pirate homeworld being a particularly bad offender. Each planet seems to give itself into a single colour in an attempt to differentiate themselves, but outside of that, it honestly looks worse than Prime 1. The model work is exceptionally poor, which,combined with the greater move towards story cutscenes with human models and actual faces being animated this time around, just leaves the whole thing looking and feeling about five years older than it is. The sound too is lacking, with no tracks really standing out and the enemy sound effects as generic as their designs.
I'll round things out by talking about the story then, and there's little positive to be said here either. I struggle to think of much to say other than that the whole thing feels like naff Halo. The runup to the final level sees you babysitting a group of AMERICAN™, I mean, "Galactic Federation" marines through a long gunfight in a corridor. The first prologue (that's right, first, there are two for some unknown reason) is almost word for word the Pillar of Autumn from Halo but worse in every way. All of this greater buildup and story emphasis eventually leads to a twist that's so obvious I feel dirty calling it a twist as Dark Samus is shrugged away in the final minutes for a naff mastermind villain that makes no sense.
Deep breaths, deep breaths. Maybe I've been too harsh, certainly the game is playable enough. But it's wholly unneccessary, bringing nothing new of note to the table and taking away so much of what made the Prime games - and the Metroid series as a whole - so interesting. I recommend playing with a podcast on, well no, I recommend you don't play at all, but if you must, bring a distraction to this mediocre snoozefest.
Samus gets space goo poisoning and Ridley is here again for some reason.
I FUCKING HATE MOGENAR
Mogenar is a perfect encapsulation of why Retro's boss design is consistently dogshit.
"You are not allowed to damage me now"
"Risk a repetitive stress injury or I'll heal to full"
"Fuck you, you didn't fire fast enough and now I will heal to full"
"You are not allowed to damage me now"
My wrist is in pain from trying to down this fucker on Hypermode. I have no idea how I managed this a decade ago.
Mogenar is so deliriously overtuned that Helios and Omega Ridley both went down on my first attempts meanwhile I gave up against Mogenar after my fifth failed run and resorted to save-stating to preserve my sanity. That might not sound like a lot but these bosses have way too goddamn much HP on Hypermode and I had been blasting at Mogenar for longer than I had previously been playing the game. While I've never bothered to see this be performed, I've read that in speedruns the optimal strat is to glitch skip Mogenar until the end of the game with beam upgrades, because even on lower difficulties it still is harder then all the other bosses and still takes too fucking long.
Corruption has a suite of other problems, chiefly among them that the entire rest of the game's combat loop is entirely one-note and composed purely of: "Engage Hypermode" Phazon Overload" "Auto-Vent" "Engage Hypermode".
Prime 3 is designed to be much more of an accessible high octane shooting experience than to be an exploration game, yet it lacks any of the mechanical depth to support this decision.
As it turns out, a one weapon FPS is an idiotic idea. When your combat encounters in World-1 play out identically to encounters on World-3 except now with decreased difficulty due to resource accumulation, then your combat mechanics are broken. On Veteran P3 is thoroughly mediocre. On Hypermode the game is unchanged due to the degenerate damage output of literal hypermode until m o g e n a r. I'm demoting P3 down to Other M tier. The level design between them is earily similar too. Feeling like it's just hallways over and over.
This is a rancid end to the trilogy and I'm reminded of why I started to leave it out of my Metroid marathons beyond just not wanting to deal with Wii-motes.
Mogenar is a perfect encapsulation of why Retro's boss design is consistently dogshit.
"You are not allowed to damage me now"
"Risk a repetitive stress injury or I'll heal to full"
"Fuck you, you didn't fire fast enough and now I will heal to full"
"You are not allowed to damage me now"
My wrist is in pain from trying to down this fucker on Hypermode. I have no idea how I managed this a decade ago.
Mogenar is so deliriously overtuned that Helios and Omega Ridley both went down on my first attempts meanwhile I gave up against Mogenar after my fifth failed run and resorted to save-stating to preserve my sanity. That might not sound like a lot but these bosses have way too goddamn much HP on Hypermode and I had been blasting at Mogenar for longer than I had previously been playing the game. While I've never bothered to see this be performed, I've read that in speedruns the optimal strat is to glitch skip Mogenar until the end of the game with beam upgrades, because even on lower difficulties it still is harder then all the other bosses and still takes too fucking long.
Corruption has a suite of other problems, chiefly among them that the entire rest of the game's combat loop is entirely one-note and composed purely of: "Engage Hypermode" Phazon Overload" "Auto-Vent" "Engage Hypermode".
Prime 3 is designed to be much more of an accessible high octane shooting experience than to be an exploration game, yet it lacks any of the mechanical depth to support this decision.
As it turns out, a one weapon FPS is an idiotic idea. When your combat encounters in World-1 play out identically to encounters on World-3 except now with decreased difficulty due to resource accumulation, then your combat mechanics are broken. On Veteran P3 is thoroughly mediocre. On Hypermode the game is unchanged due to the degenerate damage output of literal hypermode until m o g e n a r. I'm demoting P3 down to Other M tier. The level design between them is earily similar too. Feeling like it's just hallways over and over.
This is a rancid end to the trilogy and I'm reminded of why I started to leave it out of my Metroid marathons beyond just not wanting to deal with Wii-motes.
I managed to arrive at the Screw Attack to check how awesome it felt and, well, it was just like MP2. With no big surprises but it felt satisfying to get it still.
This said: I appreciated the Wii mote and Nunchuk gimmicks, I still remember back at E3 of 2007 how much they hyped for that.
It's also the reason why on Switch it seems hard to pull it off, or potentially any next console. Which is bad since the game is great. Not as awesome as MP1 but I was personally enjoying it slighly better than MP3.
This said: I appreciated the Wii mote and Nunchuk gimmicks, I still remember back at E3 of 2007 how much they hyped for that.
It's also the reason why on Switch it seems hard to pull it off, or potentially any next console. Which is bad since the game is great. Not as awesome as MP1 but I was personally enjoying it slighly better than MP3.
Esse jogo consegue ser mais linear que Metroid Fusion, porém n tira o charme dele. É um jogo MUITO bem feito, tem cenários extremamente detalhados e criativos.
Wiimote and nunchuck is the best way to play a FPS game ever. This game also works perfectly with that.
Rundas 🐐
Prime 3 offers a lot of quality of life improvements to the formula while keeping most of the best parts from the first two games. It's not my favorite in the trilogy, but it's pretty good.
I played the trilogy through the wii collection, and gameplay wise, it plays just as good as the first two games for the most part. There was the occasional jank, mostly involving the new grapple pull technique during the more intense fights. The nunchuck just wouldn't recognize the second half of the pull sometimes which made a few fights drag a bit.
The game is much more combat focused than the first two games in general, to mixed success. Combat has never been the prime games' biggest strength, but it's alright here for the most part. Fights can drag on a little too long, if you don't rely on hyper mode. Hyper mode ended up being my "ok I'm tired of this fight and I just wanna move on feature. Fortunately, this didn't happen too often, it only ever reached that point for me when the smaller enemies started using hyper mode on me or with the enemies with annoying hitboxes. Enemies tend to move faster and in some cases a bit more sporadic than the first two prime games. This can lead to more intense fights, but it also resulted in the lock on system being a bit finicky on certain enemies (i.e., the aerotroopers). This can be annoying when the game throws endless hordes of enemies at you and you've got to re target the flying enemy while being swarmed.
The improved combat is especially true for the bosses. For the most part, all the bosses in prime 3 are pretty solid (if a little on the easy side). I don't think any of the bosses reach the heights of the best bosses from 2, but they're all much better than the huge health bar, damage sponges from prime 1.
Most of the returning power ups are at their best in prime 3. Everything just feels most fluid and fun to control. The screw attack in particular feels less stiff than prime 2, and you can course correct a bit if you take off at an awkward angle. Prime 3 keeps the improved scan visor from prime 2 and I really love the new x ray visor. However some power ups felt a little more awkward to use. The seeker missiles in particular felt more hit or miss to me than the previous games, and there were multiple instances of me targeting each object, but the seeker missiles not working just I wasn't standing in the exact right spot.
Prime 3 kind of reminds me of fusion, and not just with some of the similar power ups. The environments are a lot more linear than the first two prime games in a way that feels like a nice mix of fusions linear level design and the looping level design from prime 2. Instead of having one really large planet to explore like the first two prime games, prime 3 gives lots of smaller scale, more linear looping set pieces across multiple planets which I think worked out really well. I think the new design helps streamline the exploration and reduce backtracking (although if I had to pick, I would rather have a game structured more like prime 2 with the quality of life improvements of prime 3).
The best improvements of all though are how prime 3 handles item tracking and the final maguffin sidequest. You can unlock a map upgrade that actually shows you where collected and missing items are on each planet with saves so much time when you're trying to find those last few upgrades you missed. The final maguffin sidequest is vastly improved as well. You no longer need all of them to finish the game (but they are all still required for 100% completion) and you can get pretty much all of them through normal thorough exploration (I think I only had to backtrack to get 1 of them and it probably took less than 5 minutes).
Prime 3 does a lot of world building as well which was really cool to see. It was nice seeing other bounty hunters and members of the federation, even if they were underutilized.
There were some other things that frustrated me with the game. I really don't like the removal of being able to scan things when you're receiving a transmission. I can't count how many times I was in the middle of scanning when a transmission would come in, stopping me from being able to finish scanning everything in the room until I opened the map and watched the slow animation. There were a few times where the doors would not open for an extended period of time so the game. It didn't really bother me, until I booted up prime 1 again to get the last logbook scan I missed on my first play through and I never ran into this issue at all.
I also wish dark samus were more present in the story. She has some good lore scans and I like her boss, but she doesn't feel as prominent in the story for being the big bad, especially compared to prime 2.
Prime 3 also has the weakest soundtrack of the trilogy. It's not bad, but it focuses more on ambiance and doesn't have as many memorable melodies as the first two prime games.
The game is also really mean at times with missable scans. You really gotta be thorough with your scan visor if you wanna 100% the logbook in this game and there are a lot of instances of certain enemy types only appearing the first time you clear a room. Needing to scan the hunters before you enter the elevator on Norion is also really mean for first time players. I managed to 100% the logbook, but I tend to scan every little thing. If you're gonna go for 100% scans I really recommend using a reference to make sure you don't miss any of the permanant missable scans (use the metroid recon logbook guide and DO NOT use the wikitroid guide. The wikitroid guide list a few scans as missable when they aren't even in the logbook and I've never felt more panic than thinking I permanently missed a scan from the very start of the game when I was doing my endgame item/scan cleanup).
Overall, I really liked prime 3. The prime games are a series where you could tell me any game is your favorite and I could understand why. It's probably my least favorite of the trilogy (neither game comes close to prime 2 for me), but the least good 3D metroid game is still a really great game.
I played the trilogy through the wii collection, and gameplay wise, it plays just as good as the first two games for the most part. There was the occasional jank, mostly involving the new grapple pull technique during the more intense fights. The nunchuck just wouldn't recognize the second half of the pull sometimes which made a few fights drag a bit.
The game is much more combat focused than the first two games in general, to mixed success. Combat has never been the prime games' biggest strength, but it's alright here for the most part. Fights can drag on a little too long, if you don't rely on hyper mode. Hyper mode ended up being my "ok I'm tired of this fight and I just wanna move on feature. Fortunately, this didn't happen too often, it only ever reached that point for me when the smaller enemies started using hyper mode on me or with the enemies with annoying hitboxes. Enemies tend to move faster and in some cases a bit more sporadic than the first two prime games. This can lead to more intense fights, but it also resulted in the lock on system being a bit finicky on certain enemies (i.e., the aerotroopers). This can be annoying when the game throws endless hordes of enemies at you and you've got to re target the flying enemy while being swarmed.
The improved combat is especially true for the bosses. For the most part, all the bosses in prime 3 are pretty solid (if a little on the easy side). I don't think any of the bosses reach the heights of the best bosses from 2, but they're all much better than the huge health bar, damage sponges from prime 1.
Most of the returning power ups are at their best in prime 3. Everything just feels most fluid and fun to control. The screw attack in particular feels less stiff than prime 2, and you can course correct a bit if you take off at an awkward angle. Prime 3 keeps the improved scan visor from prime 2 and I really love the new x ray visor. However some power ups felt a little more awkward to use. The seeker missiles in particular felt more hit or miss to me than the previous games, and there were multiple instances of me targeting each object, but the seeker missiles not working just I wasn't standing in the exact right spot.
Prime 3 kind of reminds me of fusion, and not just with some of the similar power ups. The environments are a lot more linear than the first two prime games in a way that feels like a nice mix of fusions linear level design and the looping level design from prime 2. Instead of having one really large planet to explore like the first two prime games, prime 3 gives lots of smaller scale, more linear looping set pieces across multiple planets which I think worked out really well. I think the new design helps streamline the exploration and reduce backtracking (although if I had to pick, I would rather have a game structured more like prime 2 with the quality of life improvements of prime 3).
The best improvements of all though are how prime 3 handles item tracking and the final maguffin sidequest. You can unlock a map upgrade that actually shows you where collected and missing items are on each planet with saves so much time when you're trying to find those last few upgrades you missed. The final maguffin sidequest is vastly improved as well. You no longer need all of them to finish the game (but they are all still required for 100% completion) and you can get pretty much all of them through normal thorough exploration (I think I only had to backtrack to get 1 of them and it probably took less than 5 minutes).
Prime 3 does a lot of world building as well which was really cool to see. It was nice seeing other bounty hunters and members of the federation, even if they were underutilized.
There were some other things that frustrated me with the game. I really don't like the removal of being able to scan things when you're receiving a transmission. I can't count how many times I was in the middle of scanning when a transmission would come in, stopping me from being able to finish scanning everything in the room until I opened the map and watched the slow animation. There were a few times where the doors would not open for an extended period of time so the game. It didn't really bother me, until I booted up prime 1 again to get the last logbook scan I missed on my first play through and I never ran into this issue at all.
I also wish dark samus were more present in the story. She has some good lore scans and I like her boss, but she doesn't feel as prominent in the story for being the big bad, especially compared to prime 2.
Prime 3 also has the weakest soundtrack of the trilogy. It's not bad, but it focuses more on ambiance and doesn't have as many memorable melodies as the first two prime games.
The game is also really mean at times with missable scans. You really gotta be thorough with your scan visor if you wanna 100% the logbook in this game and there are a lot of instances of certain enemy types only appearing the first time you clear a room. Needing to scan the hunters before you enter the elevator on Norion is also really mean for first time players. I managed to 100% the logbook, but I tend to scan every little thing. If you're gonna go for 100% scans I really recommend using a reference to make sure you don't miss any of the permanant missable scans (use the metroid recon logbook guide and DO NOT use the wikitroid guide. The wikitroid guide list a few scans as missable when they aren't even in the logbook and I've never felt more panic than thinking I permanently missed a scan from the very start of the game when I was doing my endgame item/scan cleanup).
Overall, I really liked prime 3. The prime games are a series where you could tell me any game is your favorite and I could understand why. It's probably my least favorite of the trilogy (neither game comes close to prime 2 for me), but the least good 3D metroid game is still a really great game.
I started playing this game right after playing the first two and I guess I was just kinda tired of Prime for the moment. Hence why I still didn't finish this one. I do think it's good though, for what I've played at least. The motion gimmicks aren't half bad, they don't really disturb the flow of the gameplay. The new emphasis on story and more of a cinematic direction are kind of... uncharacteristic for this series. It feels like it's stripping away part of Prime's unique character to make it feel more like some other sci-fi shooter. I don't know about this one.
I do appreciate the more linear level design. What for some is a huge turn-off, for me is an absolute plus. I don't like the metroidvania structure, so I had much more fun playing through this than running around aimlessly or following a guide.
I will come back to this game. When I have the time.
I do appreciate the more linear level design. What for some is a huge turn-off, for me is an absolute plus. I don't like the metroidvania structure, so I had much more fun playing through this than running around aimlessly or following a guide.
I will come back to this game. When I have the time.
If Metroid Prime 2 wanted to be a harder, more story-driven game than its predecessor, while maintaining an identity of its own, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption's goal is a lot clearer. It wants to be a big, bombastic finale to the Prime series, and it probably also wants to be Halo. This is pretty clear since moment one- where every other Prime game and most games in the franchise at the time had little on-screen story and dialogue, Corruption starts with a long tutorial delivered by friendly NPCs, and then follows that up with an action intro where you meet three fellow Bounty Hunters you'll be working with. It takes little time for things to go wrong, and while the four of you manage to avoid disaster, you are all knocked out for a month by the villain of the previous game, Dark Samus. When you wake up, you find out your suit has been modified to house Phazon, the all-consuming evil matter that the trilogy revolves around, and with Samus tasked to save two different planets from destruction at the hands of Phazon, the game finally starts proper.
Except, does it really? As I said, Corruption's goals are pretty different from the other games: it's clearly trying to be a more linear and narratively focused game first, and a metroidvania second. Action with a side of exploration, not exploration with a side of action, while still keeping the Metroid spirit. This is... fine, frankly. Fusion does something similar, and I quite it like that game. And Corruption's combat is... alright! It's the same basis as the rest of the series, with the removal of beams to switch between (not such a bad thing, in my personal opinion, but the loss of hidden weapons kinda sucks, especially in a game that has you do more shooting) and the addition of Hyper Mode, which a lot of the combat relies around- you sacrifice 99 hp, and get to briefly do a whole lot more damage. Even with what I'm about to say, this is definitely the Metroid Prime game I had the most fun fighting in, though mostly because of the bosses. The problem with the core combat is that Hyper Mode quickly goes from an emergency tool that you only use when needed to the strongest weapon in your arsenal, and eventually becomes the only thing you'll ever be doing. 99 HP quickly becomes a smaller and smaller portion of your overall health as you get more E-Tanks, and when enemies get strong enough to do more damage than that in half a second, you'll be popping it on every fight, multiple times. It's just too strong of a tool- you can hammer down on a Space Pirate for 20 seconds before taking them out, all the while their friends pelt you with bullets, or you can go Hyper Mode and wipe the entire squad in half that time. Luckily bosses need to be made vulnerable before you can deal damage to them and are balanced around Hypermode, so that isn't a problem there. In fact, I must once again commend the overall design of some of these fights- they've got the puzzle element you'd expect from the series, requiring you to figure out the right combination of actions to make the boss vulnerable, but they don't let up on a mechanical level either, asking you to execute your strategy efficiently and quickly, all the while demanding some good aiming and dodging. Great stuff.
Something worth noting is that I played on Hard and at the beginning, I thought this game was going to be a real challenge- several fights in the end of the first area got me to struggle quite a lot, which I welcomed, but the difficulty loosened up pretty quickly, with the exception of the occasional boss encounter. Something else to note is I played this game on Dolphin, using PC FPS controls. It was a great experience, but it does prevent me from commenting on the game's use of motion controls, which are a very important element of it. Perhaps I'd have enjoyed combat more if I had to physically yank enemies' items and weapons away, rather than just pressing a button to do so. A thing that I can comment on, though, is Samus' Gunship, which is very weird- a whole Visor slot is sacrificed to being able to command it, and the first upgrade it gets is the ability to bomb enemies. This is really cool in theory, but completely pointless in practice. Even among the wide open areas where you'd expect this ability to be usable (which given this is still a Metroid game, are few and far between), the ship can only be used in a few of them, to the point that I don't think I actually ever remembered to use it on an enemy once. There's even ammo expansions for the missiles as pickups but I couldn't fathom ever using them often enough for those to matter. Feels like they had the idea but then never figured out how to implement it.
Where I think Corruption really falters, though, is the level design. Again, it's not a problem to make a game less open, but this is taking the worst of both worlds. First off, progression is not only 100% linear, but spelled out to you by some NPC over comms- there's an option to turn off hints, but bafflingly that only removes the marker over the area they tell you to go to, not the actual dialogue and cutscene that points you to that area. In Prime 1/2 you could choose to go in entirely unassisted, here you'll be babied no matter what. But that might be for the best, because frankly backtracking in this game sucks. A game like Super Metroid handles its world by having side rooms spin off a central, shorter path- you may want to explore every branch of this tall room in Brinstar once you first reach it, but when you're done with that you can just go through the center room any time you pass by. It's smart- it focuses a lot of content in side areas so backtracking is quicker. Corruption does the exact opposite to an infuriating degree. I mean look at this shit, it's literally a straight line from the beginning to the end, and you'll have to go through that a few times, especially if you backtrack for collectibles. Even just on the first time through, you'll need to go back through these levels on your way out, a lot of the time. And those collectibles are worthless, a lot of the time. Ship Ammo upgrades mean basically nothing, and missiles are nearly vestigial in this game- I think just mashing attack does more damage than them, by the endgame. MP1 and 2 made the missiles more valuable thanks to the super missile attack, and encouraged you to look for upgrades for your beam weapons, E-Tanks and ammo expansions, which were all either pretty cool or pretty vital- 3 has very little of that.
It just feels bad, especially with the long load times between rooms, and the game straight-up enjoys making backtracking miserable. When you've beaten a boss, areas will be repopulated by a very annoying enemy that requires Hyper Mode to kill, and demands your attention with long-ranged, fast attacks. The second and biggest area in the game, SkyTown, also makes you go through these railways which force you into quick aiming minigames and make you restart from the beginning if you get hit- they're extremely obnoxious. The map gets pretty hard to read too, oftentimes, and that sucks because rooms are somewhat hard to distinguish at times. Going through these levels the first time is great, they're gorgeous and full of interesting stuff, but backtracking is a thankless chore, and the game still requires it at time and encourages it at others. Something it deserves praise for though is how it handles the series' traditional endgame fetch quest- previous Metroid Prime games essentially locked most of its collecting until it told you to do so, but Corruption makes the area where you'll use these collectibles available early, and gives you goodies and directions for the macguffins, encouraging the hunt to happen a lot more gradually. It's great fun and definitely the best way they've done it. Something I don't like is how many power-ups are just given to you, I think about half the E-Tanks in the game are literally or nearly literally just put in the main path for you to bump into with zero effort- bit of a shame, after Echoes' elaborate puzzles (which this game does admittedly have a few of).
The last thing to touch upon is the story, so expect spoilers for the first act of the game, and maybe vague allusions to things that happen after. That said... come on, did anyone think the hunters were going to stick around? The intro takes such effort to introduce them all as quickly and as much as it can that it's basically spelled out to you that they'll all meet grisly ends, and indeed, by the time you're knocked out and wake up, they've all been corrupted by Dark Samus, and serve as antagonists, one per area. They're all pretty cool in concept but it all just happens so quickly that I can't help but not care. I'd have loved to see more of Gangrayda's envy of Samus, or Rundas' friendly rivalry with her, but they're all three gone so quickly, and when they're back they're just very very evil and die in the span of one scene. Even if you didn't figure out that something like this would happen, by the time you fight Rundas, the first of the three, it's pretty clear the other two are gone too, and the game never plays with this knowledge in any interesting way. It'd be great if one of the three managed to survive and help you, only to maybe fall to Phazon later, or if one overcame the Phazon corruption, or died but left you a message, I dunno. It'd be cool even if you could learn more of their pre-corruption exploits, but as it is, they're just mid-bosses with a lot of preamble, and that's kind of a shame, especially because Nintendo's previous attempt to introduce rival bounty hunters also flopped pretty hard.
The rest of the story is... fine? I think it straddles a good line, making Samus still very professional but giving us some insight on her feelings, unlike the previous two games where she was frankly just a player avatar most of the time. But, I dunno, it's just Samus fighting a big alien evil guy, no real interesting developments. I like the lore of the various planets, probably my favorite of the three games, despite Echoes' tough competition. I dunno. I'd like to say that Corruption is, in its own way, a worthy sequel to the previous two Metroid Prime games, but I don't really believe that it is. It has some good ideas, some bad ideas, and sort of fails to fall together into a product that's as cohesive and effective as them. It's not committed enough to being an action game to succeed in that regard, and it's not a good metroidvania, so it's sort of nothing at all. But hey, at least it's not Other M.
Except, does it really? As I said, Corruption's goals are pretty different from the other games: it's clearly trying to be a more linear and narratively focused game first, and a metroidvania second. Action with a side of exploration, not exploration with a side of action, while still keeping the Metroid spirit. This is... fine, frankly. Fusion does something similar, and I quite it like that game. And Corruption's combat is... alright! It's the same basis as the rest of the series, with the removal of beams to switch between (not such a bad thing, in my personal opinion, but the loss of hidden weapons kinda sucks, especially in a game that has you do more shooting) and the addition of Hyper Mode, which a lot of the combat relies around- you sacrifice 99 hp, and get to briefly do a whole lot more damage. Even with what I'm about to say, this is definitely the Metroid Prime game I had the most fun fighting in, though mostly because of the bosses. The problem with the core combat is that Hyper Mode quickly goes from an emergency tool that you only use when needed to the strongest weapon in your arsenal, and eventually becomes the only thing you'll ever be doing. 99 HP quickly becomes a smaller and smaller portion of your overall health as you get more E-Tanks, and when enemies get strong enough to do more damage than that in half a second, you'll be popping it on every fight, multiple times. It's just too strong of a tool- you can hammer down on a Space Pirate for 20 seconds before taking them out, all the while their friends pelt you with bullets, or you can go Hyper Mode and wipe the entire squad in half that time. Luckily bosses need to be made vulnerable before you can deal damage to them and are balanced around Hypermode, so that isn't a problem there. In fact, I must once again commend the overall design of some of these fights- they've got the puzzle element you'd expect from the series, requiring you to figure out the right combination of actions to make the boss vulnerable, but they don't let up on a mechanical level either, asking you to execute your strategy efficiently and quickly, all the while demanding some good aiming and dodging. Great stuff.
Something worth noting is that I played on Hard and at the beginning, I thought this game was going to be a real challenge- several fights in the end of the first area got me to struggle quite a lot, which I welcomed, but the difficulty loosened up pretty quickly, with the exception of the occasional boss encounter. Something else to note is I played this game on Dolphin, using PC FPS controls. It was a great experience, but it does prevent me from commenting on the game's use of motion controls, which are a very important element of it. Perhaps I'd have enjoyed combat more if I had to physically yank enemies' items and weapons away, rather than just pressing a button to do so. A thing that I can comment on, though, is Samus' Gunship, which is very weird- a whole Visor slot is sacrificed to being able to command it, and the first upgrade it gets is the ability to bomb enemies. This is really cool in theory, but completely pointless in practice. Even among the wide open areas where you'd expect this ability to be usable (which given this is still a Metroid game, are few and far between), the ship can only be used in a few of them, to the point that I don't think I actually ever remembered to use it on an enemy once. There's even ammo expansions for the missiles as pickups but I couldn't fathom ever using them often enough for those to matter. Feels like they had the idea but then never figured out how to implement it.
Where I think Corruption really falters, though, is the level design. Again, it's not a problem to make a game less open, but this is taking the worst of both worlds. First off, progression is not only 100% linear, but spelled out to you by some NPC over comms- there's an option to turn off hints, but bafflingly that only removes the marker over the area they tell you to go to, not the actual dialogue and cutscene that points you to that area. In Prime 1/2 you could choose to go in entirely unassisted, here you'll be babied no matter what. But that might be for the best, because frankly backtracking in this game sucks. A game like Super Metroid handles its world by having side rooms spin off a central, shorter path- you may want to explore every branch of this tall room in Brinstar once you first reach it, but when you're done with that you can just go through the center room any time you pass by. It's smart- it focuses a lot of content in side areas so backtracking is quicker. Corruption does the exact opposite to an infuriating degree. I mean look at this shit, it's literally a straight line from the beginning to the end, and you'll have to go through that a few times, especially if you backtrack for collectibles. Even just on the first time through, you'll need to go back through these levels on your way out, a lot of the time. And those collectibles are worthless, a lot of the time. Ship Ammo upgrades mean basically nothing, and missiles are nearly vestigial in this game- I think just mashing attack does more damage than them, by the endgame. MP1 and 2 made the missiles more valuable thanks to the super missile attack, and encouraged you to look for upgrades for your beam weapons, E-Tanks and ammo expansions, which were all either pretty cool or pretty vital- 3 has very little of that.
It just feels bad, especially with the long load times between rooms, and the game straight-up enjoys making backtracking miserable. When you've beaten a boss, areas will be repopulated by a very annoying enemy that requires Hyper Mode to kill, and demands your attention with long-ranged, fast attacks. The second and biggest area in the game, SkyTown, also makes you go through these railways which force you into quick aiming minigames and make you restart from the beginning if you get hit- they're extremely obnoxious. The map gets pretty hard to read too, oftentimes, and that sucks because rooms are somewhat hard to distinguish at times. Going through these levels the first time is great, they're gorgeous and full of interesting stuff, but backtracking is a thankless chore, and the game still requires it at time and encourages it at others. Something it deserves praise for though is how it handles the series' traditional endgame fetch quest- previous Metroid Prime games essentially locked most of its collecting until it told you to do so, but Corruption makes the area where you'll use these collectibles available early, and gives you goodies and directions for the macguffins, encouraging the hunt to happen a lot more gradually. It's great fun and definitely the best way they've done it. Something I don't like is how many power-ups are just given to you, I think about half the E-Tanks in the game are literally or nearly literally just put in the main path for you to bump into with zero effort- bit of a shame, after Echoes' elaborate puzzles (which this game does admittedly have a few of).
The last thing to touch upon is the story, so expect spoilers for the first act of the game, and maybe vague allusions to things that happen after. That said... come on, did anyone think the hunters were going to stick around? The intro takes such effort to introduce them all as quickly and as much as it can that it's basically spelled out to you that they'll all meet grisly ends, and indeed, by the time you're knocked out and wake up, they've all been corrupted by Dark Samus, and serve as antagonists, one per area. They're all pretty cool in concept but it all just happens so quickly that I can't help but not care. I'd have loved to see more of Gangrayda's envy of Samus, or Rundas' friendly rivalry with her, but they're all three gone so quickly, and when they're back they're just very very evil and die in the span of one scene. Even if you didn't figure out that something like this would happen, by the time you fight Rundas, the first of the three, it's pretty clear the other two are gone too, and the game never plays with this knowledge in any interesting way. It'd be great if one of the three managed to survive and help you, only to maybe fall to Phazon later, or if one overcame the Phazon corruption, or died but left you a message, I dunno. It'd be cool even if you could learn more of their pre-corruption exploits, but as it is, they're just mid-bosses with a lot of preamble, and that's kind of a shame, especially because Nintendo's previous attempt to introduce rival bounty hunters also flopped pretty hard.
The rest of the story is... fine? I think it straddles a good line, making Samus still very professional but giving us some insight on her feelings, unlike the previous two games where she was frankly just a player avatar most of the time. But, I dunno, it's just Samus fighting a big alien evil guy, no real interesting developments. I like the lore of the various planets, probably my favorite of the three games, despite Echoes' tough competition. I dunno. I'd like to say that Corruption is, in its own way, a worthy sequel to the previous two Metroid Prime games, but I don't really believe that it is. It has some good ideas, some bad ideas, and sort of fails to fall together into a product that's as cohesive and effective as them. It's not committed enough to being an action game to succeed in that regard, and it's not a good metroidvania, so it's sort of nothing at all. But hey, at least it's not Other M.
Metroid Prime 3 Corruption is a very complicated game for me. It was the first Metroid game I received, around its launch window, yet here it is, the last one that I'm completing. Feels weird.
This game is pretty good, but it does so many extremly weird decisions that it can't help but feel well below it's 2 gamecube predecessors, especially Echoes.
The main issue is, obviously Hypermode. So much of the game relies on this absolutely broken mechanic that removes pretty much all the challenge. Corruption decides to take a much heavier focus on combat than Prime and Echoes, yet somehow strips down the Beam system back to what it was in the 2D games, and doubling this, make missiles feel extremly weak. So what does it do to compensate? Hypermode. Hypermode is far from a bad idea within itself, it's kind of like Devil Trigger in Devil May Cry, and the use of health as ammo is pretty interesting. Except enemies pretty much die on impact the second you pull it out.
Oh but you use health as ammo, so it's a risk reward system that gives you even more of an incentive to search far and wide the game world to find energy tanks? Right? Wrong, the game gives you every energy tank on a silver platter. Exploring and secrets are basically only relegated to find missile packs, which again, feel much less useful in this game than previously, so the whole Metroidvania aspect is severly damaged.
All this gives is a game where you're braindead just shooting at stuff. Metroid was never survival horror per se, but exploring the world felt extremly tense sometimes, Echoes was so good at this, making you carefully plot your next step, making you save ammo if you could, now that's just gone, with save points even fully healing you and remplishing your ammo now. Maybe it was a way to hope to get on the Halo trend, which was at its peak at the time, but if that's the case, I'm sorry, this dosent even come close. The simple gunplay of Metroid Prime is fine in a game that puts first and foremost exploration, but it will not stand up to games with a focus on gunplay.
So what saves the game? The World design is simply put, brilliant. Bryyo, Elysia and the Pirate Homeworld are all top tier locations with excellent music, I think this might be the strongest selection of worlds to explore in the entire Metroid series, and I am not kidding, traversing these is amazing. This coupled with great presentation and a strong sense of finality to this trilogy does make Corruption stand out, but all and all, it just can't help but feel lesser. It's "just a good game" in a series that has excellence as its standard.
This game is pretty good, but it does so many extremly weird decisions that it can't help but feel well below it's 2 gamecube predecessors, especially Echoes.
The main issue is, obviously Hypermode. So much of the game relies on this absolutely broken mechanic that removes pretty much all the challenge. Corruption decides to take a much heavier focus on combat than Prime and Echoes, yet somehow strips down the Beam system back to what it was in the 2D games, and doubling this, make missiles feel extremly weak. So what does it do to compensate? Hypermode. Hypermode is far from a bad idea within itself, it's kind of like Devil Trigger in Devil May Cry, and the use of health as ammo is pretty interesting. Except enemies pretty much die on impact the second you pull it out.
Oh but you use health as ammo, so it's a risk reward system that gives you even more of an incentive to search far and wide the game world to find energy tanks? Right? Wrong, the game gives you every energy tank on a silver platter. Exploring and secrets are basically only relegated to find missile packs, which again, feel much less useful in this game than previously, so the whole Metroidvania aspect is severly damaged.
All this gives is a game where you're braindead just shooting at stuff. Metroid was never survival horror per se, but exploring the world felt extremly tense sometimes, Echoes was so good at this, making you carefully plot your next step, making you save ammo if you could, now that's just gone, with save points even fully healing you and remplishing your ammo now. Maybe it was a way to hope to get on the Halo trend, which was at its peak at the time, but if that's the case, I'm sorry, this dosent even come close. The simple gunplay of Metroid Prime is fine in a game that puts first and foremost exploration, but it will not stand up to games with a focus on gunplay.
So what saves the game? The World design is simply put, brilliant. Bryyo, Elysia and the Pirate Homeworld are all top tier locations with excellent music, I think this might be the strongest selection of worlds to explore in the entire Metroid series, and I am not kidding, traversing these is amazing. This coupled with great presentation and a strong sense of finality to this trilogy does make Corruption stand out, but all and all, it just can't help but feel lesser. It's "just a good game" in a series that has excellence as its standard.
This review contains spoilers
My favorite of the prime trilogy, all thanks for getting the option to get pickup icons if you launch the satelites from the sky city, had the most fun towards the end game when I had all of the powers so I could collect all of the missles, energy tanks and other pickup upgrades, and yet I still ended up with 97% because one map didnt have those helpful icons.
End game was stressful as hell, no save points, just run through the final dungeon with the phazon meter while solving puzzles, fight dark samus, fight Auroroa, all in one go without saving, that was old school stressful gaming lol
Overall a good game, and a good entry to end the trilogy.
End game was stressful as hell, no save points, just run through the final dungeon with the phazon meter while solving puzzles, fight dark samus, fight Auroroa, all in one go without saving, that was old school stressful gaming lol
Overall a good game, and a good entry to end the trilogy.
Metroid Prime 3 is such a great way to finish off a great trilogy. its a little more linear than the other Metroids, but its still super fun. you have ziplines you can ride on, ancient ruins to explore, acid rain to avoid, abandoned and creepy spaceships to traverse. every location is interesting and unique, more so than previous Metroids, as every level takes place on a different planet
the game also has more quality of life improvements than the previous Metroid Primes, and it takes advantage of the Wiis controls more than the previous ones as well. its such a fantastic game that i cant recommend enough
the game also has more quality of life improvements than the previous Metroid Primes, and it takes advantage of the Wiis controls more than the previous ones as well. its such a fantastic game that i cant recommend enough
They could have fallen off with this one but they didn't. Really good.
boss battles are easily better than any in the first two games but then there's all this tacked-on stuff that bogs the game down (motion controls rip)
Although inferior than 1 and 2 this is still a masterpiece of a game. The only thing that is definitely a step down is the atmosphere and the more dialogue heavy story that doesn't suit the Metroid universe. The gameplay is still amazing and the wii remote provides a far superior control scheme.
(Metroid Prime Trilogy version played)
100%ed
2nd best in the trilogy, overall a more linear yet still open ended experience that doesn't make as many stupid mistakes as Echoes and does a better job with the ones it still insists of containing.
The controls are understandably divisive yet still razor sharp and pleasant to use in my opinion. The use of motion for certain out-of-combat actions is interesting and not overdone however the grapple lasso does feel a bit overused both during and not during combat. Some powerups were cool but overall didn't feel organic and more forced in for the need of a lock at a certain point which's key you don't get until later.
Corruption contains a far more cinematic and involved plot than Echoes and even more so Prime, in an engaging and well-built world, that helps frame the gameplay in an interesting way. This does, however, detract from the games sense of isolation and exploration, a key component in the atmosphere of Metroid Prime. Also taking away from this isolation is a fairly demanding hint system that, whilst implemented much more organically than the first 2 games, doesn't let you figure stuff out for yourself very often.
Whilst this game is excellent and enjoy it does unsurprisingly feel a little like Metroid Prime for the 3rd time. Hopefully 4 finds some way to keep things fresher
MILD SPOILER WARNING
At the end of the game you are greeted by an annoying sight of another fetch quest that bodes poorly at first but implemented much differently, I completed it and achieved an important item without even realizing it was a path of progression later on, in addition to the fact that you only need 5 out of 9 EASILY findable keys, this fetch quest comes across much more fluidly than Prime or Echoes.
SPOILERS OVER
Side note: The load times in this game were awful, way worse than 1 and 2, some doors took about 10 seconds to open after being shot, very annoying
9/10
100%ed
2nd best in the trilogy, overall a more linear yet still open ended experience that doesn't make as many stupid mistakes as Echoes and does a better job with the ones it still insists of containing.
The controls are understandably divisive yet still razor sharp and pleasant to use in my opinion. The use of motion for certain out-of-combat actions is interesting and not overdone however the grapple lasso does feel a bit overused both during and not during combat. Some powerups were cool but overall didn't feel organic and more forced in for the need of a lock at a certain point which's key you don't get until later.
Corruption contains a far more cinematic and involved plot than Echoes and even more so Prime, in an engaging and well-built world, that helps frame the gameplay in an interesting way. This does, however, detract from the games sense of isolation and exploration, a key component in the atmosphere of Metroid Prime. Also taking away from this isolation is a fairly demanding hint system that, whilst implemented much more organically than the first 2 games, doesn't let you figure stuff out for yourself very often.
Whilst this game is excellent and enjoy it does unsurprisingly feel a little like Metroid Prime for the 3rd time. Hopefully 4 finds some way to keep things fresher
MILD SPOILER WARNING
At the end of the game you are greeted by an annoying sight of another fetch quest that bodes poorly at first but implemented much differently, I completed it and achieved an important item without even realizing it was a path of progression later on, in addition to the fact that you only need 5 out of 9 EASILY findable keys, this fetch quest comes across much more fluidly than Prime or Echoes.
SPOILERS OVER
Side note: The load times in this game were awful, way worse than 1 and 2, some doors took about 10 seconds to open after being shot, very annoying
9/10
Big step down from the previous 2 but still pretty solid
This might be a hot take but MP3 is my favorite out of the trilogy. I will always praise the decision to expand the Metroid world and make it more fleshed out.
Basically Fusion but better
Combat felt a bit too spammy, and the backtracking was nowhere near as elegant as previous games.
But man. Some phenomenal set pieces, god tier art design and tons of smart innovations in regards to controls.
That final Phazon segment of the game in hypermode was one of the most incredible things I've ever played.
Has some of the highest highs, but lowest lows of the Prime trilogy. But even with the jumps in quality, a lesser Prime game is still a must play videogame.
But man. Some phenomenal set pieces, god tier art design and tons of smart innovations in regards to controls.
That final Phazon segment of the game in hypermode was one of the most incredible things I've ever played.
Has some of the highest highs, but lowest lows of the Prime trilogy. But even with the jumps in quality, a lesser Prime game is still a must play videogame.
Saved from being the worst Prime by the existence of Hunters, Corruption is an overall enjoyable adventure marred by trivial difficulty due to the new gimmick "Hyper Mode" which renders Samus functionally invincible for most combat encounters. Ignoring gameplay, the presentation is topnotch and saves the title from true mediocrity. Worth at least a once-through if you're marathoning the series.
This review contains spoilers
Normally, a trilogy of games would be confined to the same console. Keeping an IP to a confined minimum of three is a respectable decision based on maintaining conciseness with a three-act story arc or preserving the natural evolution of a series before it severely starts to lose its initial luster with subsequent entries. It also helps the general cohesion that all three games in a trilogy are rendered with the same game engine and are released around the same time. It worked for Mario on the NES, Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, both Crash Bandicoot and Spyro trilogies on the original PlayStation, etc. Did the Metroid Prime series on the Gamecube tightly wrap up the 3D Metroid subseries in a neat, little three-piece package on Nintendo’s sixth-generation system? Sadly, Retro Studios only managed to eke out two titles on the twee little lunchbox, putting every Metroid fan that purchased a Gamecube at an awkward place of irresolution. It’s not as if Retro Studios failed to meet their deadlines before the Gamecube’s demise, nor did the sixth generation of consoles deviate from this industry-practiced pattern of a well-rounded set of three consecutive mainline games per series. My insightful conspiratorial musing on why Retro Studios deferred the third Metroid Prime game after the Gamecube’s tenure is that a little birdy over at the Nintendo mothership in Japan flew all the way across the pond to inform Retro Studios that a revolution was coming: The Nintendo Revolution (later renamed the Nintendo Wii). Because they received this tidbit of crucial information, Retro Studios shifted their efforts to finishing their final rendering of the Metroid series on the Wii. What made the presence of a Metroid title on Nintendo’s new console so pertinent? In short, the motion controls. Because a large portion of Metroid Prime’s gameplay involves aiming and shooting, Nintendo would be foolish not to capitalize on the notion of a 3D Metroid game where the player can control Samus more intimately than ever before. As thrilling as the notion of waving Samus’s arm cannon around with newfound layers of kineticism is, the inherent novelty of motion controls will strike gamers with a familiar sense of dread. Does Metroid Prime 3: Corruption supersede the negative connotations associated with motion controls and provide us with an exemplary ending to the critically acclaimed 3D Metroid trilogy? Well…
Why does Retro Studios seemingly enjoy making the Metroid fanbase fretful? Gamers everywhere had to install pacemakers after their hearts couldn’t take the nerve-wracking thought of the highly anticipated next Metroid game being a first-person shooter after its prolonged absence. After being relieved at the result of Metroid Prime being a modern masterpiece and the second gaming carrying on the first game’s mantle splendidly, it was apparently time for another onslaught of anxiety-induced heart murmurs. Considering how astounding the finished product of Metroid Prime was, at least everyone could now trust Retro Studios' game developer acumen. Still, the new ideas on display here feel as if gamers are once again witnessing a pack of vultures circling around the Metroid series on the brink of death, praying to God that it will show signs of revitalized vigor so that they will leave and peck at Star Fox or something instead. If motion controls weren’t as maligned in the gaming community as they are, one might chide me for approaching what could be exciting feats of gaming innovation with such abject cynicism. Frankly, the stigma surrounding them is justifiable, which means the vultures can probably break out the fancy china and napkins for a freshly stinking feast. To assuage players of the mental burden revolving around Metroid Prime’s new peripheral, I’m glad to report that the motion controls in Metroid Prime 3 are perfectly competent (for the most part) and do not severely hamper the Metroid Prime experience. However, there is still plenty to find fault with Metroid Prime 3 which has little to nothing to do with the Wii’s primary control gimmick.
My primary gripe with Metroid Prime 3 is how it strips the essentials of Metroid’s rich, intuitive design down to a slurry of standard first-person shooter elements. I should’ve expected something like this considering the third entry to a series is always the point where streamlining occurs to make a series more accessible after the gameplay formula has been tweaked to refinement over the course of two entries. Even though Metroid Prime 3 submits to the third-entry pattern as usual, certain outliers exacerbate the extent of its accessibility. Historically, 2007, the year of Metroid Prime 3’s release, was when the first-person shooter genre hit its commercial stride and began its course as the dominating king of gaming for the duration of the seventh generation. At the same time, Nintendo was trailblazing new ground for widespread accessibility on the Wii to garner an audience totally unfamiliar with the gaming medium. Metroid Prime is both a first-person shooter and a Nintendo-produced title, so the two happenstance sums of its identity, unfortunately, make for a distressing equation in 2007. Both factors make their best efforts to subdue Metroid’s idiosyncrasies that have made the series one of Nintendo’s most influential and acclaimed properties for the sake of garnering a broader audience.
At face value, Metroid Prime 3’s introduction vaguely recalls the one from the first game. Samus arrives on an intergalactic tanker called the GFS Valhalla suspended somewhere in the vast reaches of the cosmos to discuss a matter of utmost importance with the vessel’s decorated commander Admiral Dane. Samus is tasked to cleanse the internal hard drives of a series of organic supercomputers called the “Aurora Units” located all around the galaxy that have been infected by a nasty virus. Apparently, the situation is so dire that it calls for enlisting three other bounty hunters to assist Samus on her mission: the “Silver Surfer on ice” Rundas, the phlegmatic, mech-powered Gohr, and the bouncy, flirty shapeshifter Gandrayda. Seeing Samus work alongside this motley of bounty hunters reminds me of the Superman joke from Seinfeld, stating that the practicality of the Justice League is superfluous because the Man of Steel would never require assistance for any act of heroism. Still, it’s relatively amusing seeing other figures in the Metroid universe of the bounty hunter vocation besides Samus. Despite the number of valiant warriors on deck, the GFS Valhalla still manages to be successfully infiltrated by a fleet of space pirate goons, causing the spaceship to sink into the gravity of a nearby planetoid as its remnants lie dormant forevermore like the frigate that opens the first game. The chaos during the introduction certainly upholds the Metroid standard of hooking the player with that ticking sense of tension.
Suspicions should rise from any Metroid veteran while witnessing Metroid Prime 3’s introduction sequence. I’m breathing a sigh of relief that the game doesn’t revert to modeling itself as a co-op shooter like Halo after seeing Samus fraternizing with the other bounty hunters during the expositional buildup in the GFS Valhalla. Still, where does the game get off uttering so much dialogue? Gamers often criticize 3D Nintendo titles for lacking spoken lines of dialogue, another smirch against the old fuddy-duddys at the company for rejecting gaming modernity. Even if Nintendo ever decides to inject enough voice acting in their IPs to fill a Tennessee Williams play, Metroid should still be the series with the lowest priority for this radical change. The last time I checked, isolation was a key component to Metroid’s tone and atmosphere, and conversing with NPCs on a regular basis is antithetical to conveying that crushing feeling of loneliness. Samus is still roaming around the map(s) without a bounty hunter peer or a diminutive sidekick to keep her company. Still, the former agents of the now-defunct GFS Valhalla insist on signaling in information on Samus’s objectives through some sort of earpiece in her power suit. Sure, transmitting current objectives to Samus and pinpointing them on a map with a question mark was present in the previous two Metroid Prime games, fueling the counterargument that 3D Samus had already tarnished that explorative Metroid meatiness. To think that the majority of Metroid fans hadn’t batted an eye until now! I, along with several other Metroid fans, interpreted the objective signaling from the first two games with a suspension of disbelief. We viewed the suggested trajectory as something for our eyes only, a videogamey attribute like a pause menu or the game over screen. When characters from the game are constantly voicing commands at Samus and directing their orders by uttering Samus’s name, the immersiveness of being surrounded by a looming air of alienation is heavily compromised. Even with streamlining the trajectory to completing an objective, one would think the process would be at least smoother, but I encountered far too many instances where the game would nail down an objective on the map just to send the player back to fetch an upgrade needed to progress that isn’t marked. This does not foster exploration through the player’s intuition, it’s just brazenly misleading.
A considerable aspect of Metroid’s intentional feeling of onset dread through sci-fi seclusion is also compromised with Metroid Prime 3’s environments not coalescing on one planet. As a landmark first for the series, Samus progresses through the game by traveling to and fro from five different planets and or smaller orbital bodies by flying to them with her ship. Did an unpaid intern at Retro Studios come up with this newfangled idea to “innovate” on Metroid’s gameplay and if so, why did the higher-ups listen? It is the dumbest change that Metroid Prime 3 implements by a fair margin, even among plenty of other questionable ones. If the state of abandonment in Metroid doesn’t send pangs of nervous uncertainty down the player’s spines, the flow of progression deeper into the catacombs of uncharted ground will. That is, it would trigger this feeling if Metroid Prime 3’s maps were constructed as a conglomerate of diverse environments connected by branching paths like every other Metroid game. Venturing from the tranquil origin point of her parked ship to an area comparatively harsher and deadlier through inquisitive excavation is a strong element of Metroid’s level progression. Encountering a number of dead ends after completing the assigned objective and resorting to tread back to the ship to change the course directive is as cheap and inorganic as a lawn flamingo. What is this? Ratchet & Clank? Actually, that comparison reminds me of something amusing. I adored Insomniac’s space-age 3D platformer series as a kid and was slightly disappointed while playing the first Metroid Prime that Samus wouldn’t be revving up her ship’s engines to blast off to multiple planets throughout the course of the game like the way that Ratchet & Clank organizes progression. Now that I grasp the slow burn, intricate direction of Metroid, a Metroid game that actually delivers on my initial expectations is a sacrilegious transgression equivalent to spitting in my face. On top of acting as a remote valet, Samus’s ship is also armed to the teeth with missiles and a grapple beam that lifts hefty objects airborne. All Samus’s ship did in every previous Metroid game was twiddle its proverbial thumbs waiting for Samus to finish her mission or to periodically save. Here, it’s Samus’s indentured servant, and calling it to bombard defensive systems with a load of firepower from the skies is another brassy scene in a series that relies on subtleties.
It could be possible that I’m acting a tad overdramatic. Splitting the notable districts of a Metroid Prime world could still function appropriately if the daunting sense of progression is still emulated on each individual planet. I’m sorry to say that Retro’s streamlining seeps deeply into the level design as the planets are divided by individual districts, signified on the map by the ability to dock Samus’s ship. The worst offender of the planetary parting is Bryyo, the first legitimate location in the game whose exploration isn’t halted entirely by the narrative. The first section of the world that Samus arrives at is a sweltering rock with the cosmos as a prominent backdrop. With the exception of the mechanical Chozo technology that intersects the branching paths, the unhinged alien fauna and the wild humidity exude a prehistoric atmosphere. Its beauty is arguable, but one cannot deny its curious aura. After completing the first objective on the planet, Samus scurries back to her ship with the coordinates to Bryyo’s Fiery Airdock, a smoldering furnace whose sulfurous claustrophobia rivals that of Magmoor Caverns with the manmade industrial sterility of the Metroid Laboratory on Phendrana. Remember when every player’s heart sank from the tonal whiplash of stumbling upon the Phendrana laboratory after an hour or two of plodding along the serene, snowy cliffside? That effective sensation could only be achieved through organic progression, and the fact that Bryyo could’ve offered the exact same reaction but ultimately couldn’t due to the artificial way Metroid Prime 3 approaches level progression is such a shame.
Elysia and the Pirate Homeworld aren’t as jaggedly orchestrated as Bryyo. There are plenty of free vacancies for Samus to park her ship on their surfaces, but she isn’t forced to hop between them via flight to visit each section. Elysia implements a tramway system to carry Samus across the various isles suspended in the sky. If you’re adept with your Greek mythology knowledge, I can affirm that Elysia is as immaculate as its name would suggest. The ancient Chozo creatures have crafted a scattered sky metropolis among the clouds, with glimmers of golden light shimmering among the clouds and cracks of lightning booming in the distance to signify the rapturous scope of the setting. Elysia is Cloud City from Star Wars as depicted in a glorious afterlife with sparse architecture. Yet, I believe that Elysia is a gas giant, so the hazy, ethereal effect is actually a noxious element wafting around, still exuding a sense of Metroid danger (literally) in the air. From a conceptual standpoint, Elysia is a highlight section of the game, and I might prefer its angelic serenity to the electric iridescence of the Sanctuary Fortress from the last game. However, Elysia is quite a pain to navigate due to the zigzagging arrays of skylines that Samus must grapple on and ride around. The Pirate Homeworld also affirms all connotations to its name. The place that the series mainstay menaces call home has a hostile glow surrounding it, signifying a prevailing threat of danger at every step. The underground metro transit system is a logical method of transportation for what we can infer is an active civilization, transporting Samus around the three prominent districts in what is the most organic example of traversal in the game. The only aspect about the Pirate Homeworld that bothers me is the escort mission that serves as the area’s climax. What irks me isn’t the AI of the soldiers charging headfirst to their deaths, but the fact that the corrosive acid rain that Samus spent at least three overarching objectives finding a means to become immune from doesn’t phase them in the slightest. So much for continuity? I’m not sure what to make of the base of the federation on Norion or the Metroid-infested remnants of the GFS Valhalla either. Transitory filler for a few story beats, perhaps?
While I explicitly stated at the beginning of this review that Metroid Prime 3’s motion controls weren’t a substantial detractor, their radical implementation after two Metroid Prime games played on a more traditional controller still makes them worth delving into. All in all, Metroid Prime 3’s control scheme isn’t much different than it was with a Gamecube controller. Shooting is still assigned to the primary A button while the B button usually used to execute action still makes Samus leap off the ground. Jumping manages to be smoother due to the player’s trigger finger fitting nicely on the back of the Wiimote. Analog control still fits on the left thumb even if the nub is separated by the additional nunchuck peripheral. The motion aspect is all in the aiming, which is highlighted by a more pronounced reticle. As one would probably guess, the accuracy of Samus’s shots coincides with the player’s ability to line them up with the reticle. Since Metroid Prime is a more combat-intensive Metroid experience, not automatically ensuring a dead-on hit with the targeting system like in the previous games makes the action more challenging and engaging. The grapple gameplay on the other hand, however, is a fickle affair. Swiping the nunchuck half of the controller when using the grapple beam will tear away enemy shields, machine sockets, and chunks of debris. When executed properly, it feels like the player is cracking a whip, but only when the game decides to register a grapple with the adhesive stick instead of a pathetic energy splash. The section on Bryyo where Samus must pull back three levers on a generator was the worst instance of their unresponsiveness, and I’m pretty sure the flying space pirates that were present were laughing at my struggle, which infuriated me to no end.
All other gameplay attributes in Metroid Prime 3 involve little to no motion control, and the total number of them has been reduced or slightly modified. The game forgoes the Super Missile upgrade that blasted the most microscopic of cracked barriers and stubbornly locked doors. The missiles themselves eventually are rendered in the ice variety after a certain point, and they’re mainly used for freezing makeshift ice platforms more than combat. Accumulating missile upgrades are mainly for the occasional door locked behind five or so targets that need to be hit all at once. The trusty scan visor is now accompanied by an X-ray visor and one that calls Samus’s ship for a variety of commands. Every beam Samus acquires replaces the old one as opposed to having it join her arsenal for specific elemental situations. It’s a shame the game can’t be bothered to mix and match the beams anymore, but I guess upgrading to a stronger beam every time makes sense. The modification that upsets me more is making Samus jump in morph ball form without the push of a bomb, for my proficiency with double jumping with bombs that I honed to expertise has been rendered obsolete. One Metroid tradition I’m actually glad that Metroid Prime 3 has forsaken is the need to recollect all of these gadgets and upgrades because it became a tiring tease.
Metroid Prime 3 forces all of Samus’s weapons and other abilities to take a backseat to Phazon: the mechanical and narrative weight of the entire game. Since its heavy lore implications and infamous mine on Tallon IV, the pernicious substance has been edging its way far too close to Samus for comfort. After materializing itself as Samus’s evil, neon blue doppelganger in the second game, Phazon’s growing evolution in the third game has critically struck the bounty hunter. After an encounter with Dark Samus on Norion in her attempt to obliterate the planet with a Phazon meteor called a “Leviathan Seed,” Samus recuperates from her strained victory with a nasty Phazon infection. It now runs rampant in Samus’s bloodstream, and she must release it from her system like any other bodily waste. Expunging the toxin comes in the form of a superweapon, an extension of Samus’s standard beam unleashed by holding down the start button. Samus’s visor becomes engulfed in a hazy static, and the frenzy ceases when the energy bar at the top of the visor is either entirely depleted or taps out by pressing the start button again. If Samus neglects to do either, the bar will turn red and force Samus to drain the Phazon or succumb to the corruption and die bleeding out into her suit. Considering using Phazon proves to be far more effective at dispatching enemies than any regular weapons, one would figure to abuse this mechanic without impunity. However, the caveat is that the Phazon energy coincides with Samus’s health, with a full bar equalling out to one whole energy tank. This balancing act is what makes the Phazon usage the most interesting new mechanic that Metroid Prime 3 offers. Unleashing the ineffable substance is contingent on whether the player can afford to drain their health for their own safety, a gamble based on the player’s defensive skills during combat.
Even though using Phazon comes with dire complications, it seems like the player will be obliged to take the gamble even if they feel tentative about it. Eventually, the enemies become so durable due to the prevailing corruption of Phazon, so the only effective means of wiping them out is to fight fire with fire. Despite the risk, Samus will end up flaunting her internal affliction. In the way Phazon is used, it seems like an illicit drug rather than space-age asbestos. Everyone, even the heroes, is imbibing the stuff to make themselves stronger at the cost of their physical and mental integrity. The most tragic examples of Phazon use are Samus’s bounty hunter chums, who fall the furthest from grace when they get a hint of it. Unlike Samus who can control her inner struggle, the other three bounty hunters go stark raving mad with drug-induced delusion and attempt to sabotage Samus’s mission. Because they are too far gone to save, Samus must euthanize them with the brute force of her arm cannon to prevent further harm to themselves or the fate of the galaxy. While their boss fights on each of the three significant areas all amount to the struggle of keeping the targets aligned with all of them moving erratically, the narrative depth behind these fights obviously bestows some emotional weight. Or, at least that’s what the game is trying to convey. I got the impression that the bounty hunters were the good guys in the introduction, but were these guys Samus’s bosom buddies? Is the fact that Gandrayda cheekily called Samus “Sammy” enough to signify a sense of a personal connection? We aren’t granted enough time to interact with them under normal circumstances to understand the gravity of the scenario. The main bosses that cap off an area’s completion at their Phazon cores prove to be much more of a challenge but did not feel the slightest bit of grief upon slaying these Phazon-riddled giants, so I suppose the emotional effect sort of worked. Ridley is one of these titans in his new “Omega” variant which seems to be the metallic “Meta” coat, but thicker because it’s now protecting a tender wound from when he plummeted down an elevator shaft with Samus on Norion. What exactly is Ridley’s stake in Dark Samus’s nefarious plans to flood the universe with Phazon? Is he simply acting as a cog in this wheel just to spite Samus? We weren’t bereft by Ridley’s absence in the second Metroid Prime, and his inclusion here just feels like an arbitrary lark.
After liberating each world of their Phazon problem, Samus and the federation troopers take the newly acquired Leviathan Battleship to penetrate the barrier surrounding the planet Phaaze: the source planet of the Phazon corruption. Once Samus makes the intrepid plunge downward to the point of no return, something unexpected occurs. You see, at this point in the game, the player shouldn’t fear the damaging effects of Phazon as they did when Samus’s health bar first turned red and the alert levels were critical. In fact, the player should be comfortable using it as an extra boost. Well, the game assumes the player has been fiending Phazon like a crippling addiction because Samus will be in an inescapable state of Phazon frenzy mode for the duration of the finale. From the trek to the center to the two boss fights with Dark Samus and the multi-phased Aurora Unit, the constant state of alert and the threat of that bar filling to its breaking point is genuinely hairraising, more so than any of the series' mainstay escape sequences. In the end, when the federation celebrates Samus’s conquering of Phazon and all it adulterates, the ending I received was one where she returns to Elysia and looks longingly out into the skyscape. I’m told that this scene is her lamenting the deaths of her fallen bounty hunter comrades, which overtly adds more weight to Samus’s grief. Still, I don’t know why it’s specifically where she fought Ghor. Maybe she’s showing some favoritism like Dorothy did for the Scarecrow. Despite all of the effective moments in Metroid Prime 3’s finale, the best part by a fair margin is how the game handles the obligatory fetch quest near the end. To usurp the Leviathan Battleship from the space pirates, Samus needs to recover a code located deep in the broken catacombs of the GFS Valhalla. Restoring the battleship to the state of traversability only requires five of the nine energy cells, and they can be plucked out of the walls at the first point Samus sees them. This is the only clear improvement that Metroid Prime 3 makes to what was already in place for the previous two games, and I am extremely grateful for not having to backtrack, especially in this divergent galaxy.
Upon playing Metroid Prime 3, I’ve concluded that the 3D trilogy should’ve been titled “Metroid Phazon.” Now that the third and final entry in the trilogy shares little in common with the previous two, Phazon is the one constant that unites all three games and gives them the sense of a cohesive trilogy arc. Everything else in Metroid Prime 3 is naturally hard to compare to the previous two Metroid Prime titles, and it’s not only because the player has to contend with flailing Samus’s arm cannon around with a detached, bulky wand to ensure accuracy. For the record, I much prefer how the first two Metroid Prime games approached exploration and level design because it was astounding that a 3D game could effectively emulate a design philosophy that seemed staunchly planted in the 2D space with no legroom to innovate. Metroid Prime 3 looks like a Metroid game but does not act or feel like one, sharing more in common with its first-person shooter contemporaries than any title of its own namesake. I cannot criticize Metroid Prime 3 for what it wasn’t trying to be, which was the first two games only with motion controls. As far as a more action-intensive, space opera Metroid goes, Metroid Prime 3 still succeeds thanks to the Phazon system, and the grapple beam utility to a lesser extent, for offering something interesting while raising Metroid Prime’s skill ceiling. My comparative distaste for Metroid Prime 3 compared to the other two ultimately comes down to a matter of taste. I much prefer Alien to Aliens because I prefer a rich, brooding atmosphere in my horror media, but I can still concede that the latter still achieves something substantial with its different intentions.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Why does Retro Studios seemingly enjoy making the Metroid fanbase fretful? Gamers everywhere had to install pacemakers after their hearts couldn’t take the nerve-wracking thought of the highly anticipated next Metroid game being a first-person shooter after its prolonged absence. After being relieved at the result of Metroid Prime being a modern masterpiece and the second gaming carrying on the first game’s mantle splendidly, it was apparently time for another onslaught of anxiety-induced heart murmurs. Considering how astounding the finished product of Metroid Prime was, at least everyone could now trust Retro Studios' game developer acumen. Still, the new ideas on display here feel as if gamers are once again witnessing a pack of vultures circling around the Metroid series on the brink of death, praying to God that it will show signs of revitalized vigor so that they will leave and peck at Star Fox or something instead. If motion controls weren’t as maligned in the gaming community as they are, one might chide me for approaching what could be exciting feats of gaming innovation with such abject cynicism. Frankly, the stigma surrounding them is justifiable, which means the vultures can probably break out the fancy china and napkins for a freshly stinking feast. To assuage players of the mental burden revolving around Metroid Prime’s new peripheral, I’m glad to report that the motion controls in Metroid Prime 3 are perfectly competent (for the most part) and do not severely hamper the Metroid Prime experience. However, there is still plenty to find fault with Metroid Prime 3 which has little to nothing to do with the Wii’s primary control gimmick.
My primary gripe with Metroid Prime 3 is how it strips the essentials of Metroid’s rich, intuitive design down to a slurry of standard first-person shooter elements. I should’ve expected something like this considering the third entry to a series is always the point where streamlining occurs to make a series more accessible after the gameplay formula has been tweaked to refinement over the course of two entries. Even though Metroid Prime 3 submits to the third-entry pattern as usual, certain outliers exacerbate the extent of its accessibility. Historically, 2007, the year of Metroid Prime 3’s release, was when the first-person shooter genre hit its commercial stride and began its course as the dominating king of gaming for the duration of the seventh generation. At the same time, Nintendo was trailblazing new ground for widespread accessibility on the Wii to garner an audience totally unfamiliar with the gaming medium. Metroid Prime is both a first-person shooter and a Nintendo-produced title, so the two happenstance sums of its identity, unfortunately, make for a distressing equation in 2007. Both factors make their best efforts to subdue Metroid’s idiosyncrasies that have made the series one of Nintendo’s most influential and acclaimed properties for the sake of garnering a broader audience.
At face value, Metroid Prime 3’s introduction vaguely recalls the one from the first game. Samus arrives on an intergalactic tanker called the GFS Valhalla suspended somewhere in the vast reaches of the cosmos to discuss a matter of utmost importance with the vessel’s decorated commander Admiral Dane. Samus is tasked to cleanse the internal hard drives of a series of organic supercomputers called the “Aurora Units” located all around the galaxy that have been infected by a nasty virus. Apparently, the situation is so dire that it calls for enlisting three other bounty hunters to assist Samus on her mission: the “Silver Surfer on ice” Rundas, the phlegmatic, mech-powered Gohr, and the bouncy, flirty shapeshifter Gandrayda. Seeing Samus work alongside this motley of bounty hunters reminds me of the Superman joke from Seinfeld, stating that the practicality of the Justice League is superfluous because the Man of Steel would never require assistance for any act of heroism. Still, it’s relatively amusing seeing other figures in the Metroid universe of the bounty hunter vocation besides Samus. Despite the number of valiant warriors on deck, the GFS Valhalla still manages to be successfully infiltrated by a fleet of space pirate goons, causing the spaceship to sink into the gravity of a nearby planetoid as its remnants lie dormant forevermore like the frigate that opens the first game. The chaos during the introduction certainly upholds the Metroid standard of hooking the player with that ticking sense of tension.
Suspicions should rise from any Metroid veteran while witnessing Metroid Prime 3’s introduction sequence. I’m breathing a sigh of relief that the game doesn’t revert to modeling itself as a co-op shooter like Halo after seeing Samus fraternizing with the other bounty hunters during the expositional buildup in the GFS Valhalla. Still, where does the game get off uttering so much dialogue? Gamers often criticize 3D Nintendo titles for lacking spoken lines of dialogue, another smirch against the old fuddy-duddys at the company for rejecting gaming modernity. Even if Nintendo ever decides to inject enough voice acting in their IPs to fill a Tennessee Williams play, Metroid should still be the series with the lowest priority for this radical change. The last time I checked, isolation was a key component to Metroid’s tone and atmosphere, and conversing with NPCs on a regular basis is antithetical to conveying that crushing feeling of loneliness. Samus is still roaming around the map(s) without a bounty hunter peer or a diminutive sidekick to keep her company. Still, the former agents of the now-defunct GFS Valhalla insist on signaling in information on Samus’s objectives through some sort of earpiece in her power suit. Sure, transmitting current objectives to Samus and pinpointing them on a map with a question mark was present in the previous two Metroid Prime games, fueling the counterargument that 3D Samus had already tarnished that explorative Metroid meatiness. To think that the majority of Metroid fans hadn’t batted an eye until now! I, along with several other Metroid fans, interpreted the objective signaling from the first two games with a suspension of disbelief. We viewed the suggested trajectory as something for our eyes only, a videogamey attribute like a pause menu or the game over screen. When characters from the game are constantly voicing commands at Samus and directing their orders by uttering Samus’s name, the immersiveness of being surrounded by a looming air of alienation is heavily compromised. Even with streamlining the trajectory to completing an objective, one would think the process would be at least smoother, but I encountered far too many instances where the game would nail down an objective on the map just to send the player back to fetch an upgrade needed to progress that isn’t marked. This does not foster exploration through the player’s intuition, it’s just brazenly misleading.
A considerable aspect of Metroid’s intentional feeling of onset dread through sci-fi seclusion is also compromised with Metroid Prime 3’s environments not coalescing on one planet. As a landmark first for the series, Samus progresses through the game by traveling to and fro from five different planets and or smaller orbital bodies by flying to them with her ship. Did an unpaid intern at Retro Studios come up with this newfangled idea to “innovate” on Metroid’s gameplay and if so, why did the higher-ups listen? It is the dumbest change that Metroid Prime 3 implements by a fair margin, even among plenty of other questionable ones. If the state of abandonment in Metroid doesn’t send pangs of nervous uncertainty down the player’s spines, the flow of progression deeper into the catacombs of uncharted ground will. That is, it would trigger this feeling if Metroid Prime 3’s maps were constructed as a conglomerate of diverse environments connected by branching paths like every other Metroid game. Venturing from the tranquil origin point of her parked ship to an area comparatively harsher and deadlier through inquisitive excavation is a strong element of Metroid’s level progression. Encountering a number of dead ends after completing the assigned objective and resorting to tread back to the ship to change the course directive is as cheap and inorganic as a lawn flamingo. What is this? Ratchet & Clank? Actually, that comparison reminds me of something amusing. I adored Insomniac’s space-age 3D platformer series as a kid and was slightly disappointed while playing the first Metroid Prime that Samus wouldn’t be revving up her ship’s engines to blast off to multiple planets throughout the course of the game like the way that Ratchet & Clank organizes progression. Now that I grasp the slow burn, intricate direction of Metroid, a Metroid game that actually delivers on my initial expectations is a sacrilegious transgression equivalent to spitting in my face. On top of acting as a remote valet, Samus’s ship is also armed to the teeth with missiles and a grapple beam that lifts hefty objects airborne. All Samus’s ship did in every previous Metroid game was twiddle its proverbial thumbs waiting for Samus to finish her mission or to periodically save. Here, it’s Samus’s indentured servant, and calling it to bombard defensive systems with a load of firepower from the skies is another brassy scene in a series that relies on subtleties.
It could be possible that I’m acting a tad overdramatic. Splitting the notable districts of a Metroid Prime world could still function appropriately if the daunting sense of progression is still emulated on each individual planet. I’m sorry to say that Retro’s streamlining seeps deeply into the level design as the planets are divided by individual districts, signified on the map by the ability to dock Samus’s ship. The worst offender of the planetary parting is Bryyo, the first legitimate location in the game whose exploration isn’t halted entirely by the narrative. The first section of the world that Samus arrives at is a sweltering rock with the cosmos as a prominent backdrop. With the exception of the mechanical Chozo technology that intersects the branching paths, the unhinged alien fauna and the wild humidity exude a prehistoric atmosphere. Its beauty is arguable, but one cannot deny its curious aura. After completing the first objective on the planet, Samus scurries back to her ship with the coordinates to Bryyo’s Fiery Airdock, a smoldering furnace whose sulfurous claustrophobia rivals that of Magmoor Caverns with the manmade industrial sterility of the Metroid Laboratory on Phendrana. Remember when every player’s heart sank from the tonal whiplash of stumbling upon the Phendrana laboratory after an hour or two of plodding along the serene, snowy cliffside? That effective sensation could only be achieved through organic progression, and the fact that Bryyo could’ve offered the exact same reaction but ultimately couldn’t due to the artificial way Metroid Prime 3 approaches level progression is such a shame.
Elysia and the Pirate Homeworld aren’t as jaggedly orchestrated as Bryyo. There are plenty of free vacancies for Samus to park her ship on their surfaces, but she isn’t forced to hop between them via flight to visit each section. Elysia implements a tramway system to carry Samus across the various isles suspended in the sky. If you’re adept with your Greek mythology knowledge, I can affirm that Elysia is as immaculate as its name would suggest. The ancient Chozo creatures have crafted a scattered sky metropolis among the clouds, with glimmers of golden light shimmering among the clouds and cracks of lightning booming in the distance to signify the rapturous scope of the setting. Elysia is Cloud City from Star Wars as depicted in a glorious afterlife with sparse architecture. Yet, I believe that Elysia is a gas giant, so the hazy, ethereal effect is actually a noxious element wafting around, still exuding a sense of Metroid danger (literally) in the air. From a conceptual standpoint, Elysia is a highlight section of the game, and I might prefer its angelic serenity to the electric iridescence of the Sanctuary Fortress from the last game. However, Elysia is quite a pain to navigate due to the zigzagging arrays of skylines that Samus must grapple on and ride around. The Pirate Homeworld also affirms all connotations to its name. The place that the series mainstay menaces call home has a hostile glow surrounding it, signifying a prevailing threat of danger at every step. The underground metro transit system is a logical method of transportation for what we can infer is an active civilization, transporting Samus around the three prominent districts in what is the most organic example of traversal in the game. The only aspect about the Pirate Homeworld that bothers me is the escort mission that serves as the area’s climax. What irks me isn’t the AI of the soldiers charging headfirst to their deaths, but the fact that the corrosive acid rain that Samus spent at least three overarching objectives finding a means to become immune from doesn’t phase them in the slightest. So much for continuity? I’m not sure what to make of the base of the federation on Norion or the Metroid-infested remnants of the GFS Valhalla either. Transitory filler for a few story beats, perhaps?
While I explicitly stated at the beginning of this review that Metroid Prime 3’s motion controls weren’t a substantial detractor, their radical implementation after two Metroid Prime games played on a more traditional controller still makes them worth delving into. All in all, Metroid Prime 3’s control scheme isn’t much different than it was with a Gamecube controller. Shooting is still assigned to the primary A button while the B button usually used to execute action still makes Samus leap off the ground. Jumping manages to be smoother due to the player’s trigger finger fitting nicely on the back of the Wiimote. Analog control still fits on the left thumb even if the nub is separated by the additional nunchuck peripheral. The motion aspect is all in the aiming, which is highlighted by a more pronounced reticle. As one would probably guess, the accuracy of Samus’s shots coincides with the player’s ability to line them up with the reticle. Since Metroid Prime is a more combat-intensive Metroid experience, not automatically ensuring a dead-on hit with the targeting system like in the previous games makes the action more challenging and engaging. The grapple gameplay on the other hand, however, is a fickle affair. Swiping the nunchuck half of the controller when using the grapple beam will tear away enemy shields, machine sockets, and chunks of debris. When executed properly, it feels like the player is cracking a whip, but only when the game decides to register a grapple with the adhesive stick instead of a pathetic energy splash. The section on Bryyo where Samus must pull back three levers on a generator was the worst instance of their unresponsiveness, and I’m pretty sure the flying space pirates that were present were laughing at my struggle, which infuriated me to no end.
All other gameplay attributes in Metroid Prime 3 involve little to no motion control, and the total number of them has been reduced or slightly modified. The game forgoes the Super Missile upgrade that blasted the most microscopic of cracked barriers and stubbornly locked doors. The missiles themselves eventually are rendered in the ice variety after a certain point, and they’re mainly used for freezing makeshift ice platforms more than combat. Accumulating missile upgrades are mainly for the occasional door locked behind five or so targets that need to be hit all at once. The trusty scan visor is now accompanied by an X-ray visor and one that calls Samus’s ship for a variety of commands. Every beam Samus acquires replaces the old one as opposed to having it join her arsenal for specific elemental situations. It’s a shame the game can’t be bothered to mix and match the beams anymore, but I guess upgrading to a stronger beam every time makes sense. The modification that upsets me more is making Samus jump in morph ball form without the push of a bomb, for my proficiency with double jumping with bombs that I honed to expertise has been rendered obsolete. One Metroid tradition I’m actually glad that Metroid Prime 3 has forsaken is the need to recollect all of these gadgets and upgrades because it became a tiring tease.
Metroid Prime 3 forces all of Samus’s weapons and other abilities to take a backseat to Phazon: the mechanical and narrative weight of the entire game. Since its heavy lore implications and infamous mine on Tallon IV, the pernicious substance has been edging its way far too close to Samus for comfort. After materializing itself as Samus’s evil, neon blue doppelganger in the second game, Phazon’s growing evolution in the third game has critically struck the bounty hunter. After an encounter with Dark Samus on Norion in her attempt to obliterate the planet with a Phazon meteor called a “Leviathan Seed,” Samus recuperates from her strained victory with a nasty Phazon infection. It now runs rampant in Samus’s bloodstream, and she must release it from her system like any other bodily waste. Expunging the toxin comes in the form of a superweapon, an extension of Samus’s standard beam unleashed by holding down the start button. Samus’s visor becomes engulfed in a hazy static, and the frenzy ceases when the energy bar at the top of the visor is either entirely depleted or taps out by pressing the start button again. If Samus neglects to do either, the bar will turn red and force Samus to drain the Phazon or succumb to the corruption and die bleeding out into her suit. Considering using Phazon proves to be far more effective at dispatching enemies than any regular weapons, one would figure to abuse this mechanic without impunity. However, the caveat is that the Phazon energy coincides with Samus’s health, with a full bar equalling out to one whole energy tank. This balancing act is what makes the Phazon usage the most interesting new mechanic that Metroid Prime 3 offers. Unleashing the ineffable substance is contingent on whether the player can afford to drain their health for their own safety, a gamble based on the player’s defensive skills during combat.
Even though using Phazon comes with dire complications, it seems like the player will be obliged to take the gamble even if they feel tentative about it. Eventually, the enemies become so durable due to the prevailing corruption of Phazon, so the only effective means of wiping them out is to fight fire with fire. Despite the risk, Samus will end up flaunting her internal affliction. In the way Phazon is used, it seems like an illicit drug rather than space-age asbestos. Everyone, even the heroes, is imbibing the stuff to make themselves stronger at the cost of their physical and mental integrity. The most tragic examples of Phazon use are Samus’s bounty hunter chums, who fall the furthest from grace when they get a hint of it. Unlike Samus who can control her inner struggle, the other three bounty hunters go stark raving mad with drug-induced delusion and attempt to sabotage Samus’s mission. Because they are too far gone to save, Samus must euthanize them with the brute force of her arm cannon to prevent further harm to themselves or the fate of the galaxy. While their boss fights on each of the three significant areas all amount to the struggle of keeping the targets aligned with all of them moving erratically, the narrative depth behind these fights obviously bestows some emotional weight. Or, at least that’s what the game is trying to convey. I got the impression that the bounty hunters were the good guys in the introduction, but were these guys Samus’s bosom buddies? Is the fact that Gandrayda cheekily called Samus “Sammy” enough to signify a sense of a personal connection? We aren’t granted enough time to interact with them under normal circumstances to understand the gravity of the scenario. The main bosses that cap off an area’s completion at their Phazon cores prove to be much more of a challenge but did not feel the slightest bit of grief upon slaying these Phazon-riddled giants, so I suppose the emotional effect sort of worked. Ridley is one of these titans in his new “Omega” variant which seems to be the metallic “Meta” coat, but thicker because it’s now protecting a tender wound from when he plummeted down an elevator shaft with Samus on Norion. What exactly is Ridley’s stake in Dark Samus’s nefarious plans to flood the universe with Phazon? Is he simply acting as a cog in this wheel just to spite Samus? We weren’t bereft by Ridley’s absence in the second Metroid Prime, and his inclusion here just feels like an arbitrary lark.
After liberating each world of their Phazon problem, Samus and the federation troopers take the newly acquired Leviathan Battleship to penetrate the barrier surrounding the planet Phaaze: the source planet of the Phazon corruption. Once Samus makes the intrepid plunge downward to the point of no return, something unexpected occurs. You see, at this point in the game, the player shouldn’t fear the damaging effects of Phazon as they did when Samus’s health bar first turned red and the alert levels were critical. In fact, the player should be comfortable using it as an extra boost. Well, the game assumes the player has been fiending Phazon like a crippling addiction because Samus will be in an inescapable state of Phazon frenzy mode for the duration of the finale. From the trek to the center to the two boss fights with Dark Samus and the multi-phased Aurora Unit, the constant state of alert and the threat of that bar filling to its breaking point is genuinely hairraising, more so than any of the series' mainstay escape sequences. In the end, when the federation celebrates Samus’s conquering of Phazon and all it adulterates, the ending I received was one where she returns to Elysia and looks longingly out into the skyscape. I’m told that this scene is her lamenting the deaths of her fallen bounty hunter comrades, which overtly adds more weight to Samus’s grief. Still, I don’t know why it’s specifically where she fought Ghor. Maybe she’s showing some favoritism like Dorothy did for the Scarecrow. Despite all of the effective moments in Metroid Prime 3’s finale, the best part by a fair margin is how the game handles the obligatory fetch quest near the end. To usurp the Leviathan Battleship from the space pirates, Samus needs to recover a code located deep in the broken catacombs of the GFS Valhalla. Restoring the battleship to the state of traversability only requires five of the nine energy cells, and they can be plucked out of the walls at the first point Samus sees them. This is the only clear improvement that Metroid Prime 3 makes to what was already in place for the previous two games, and I am extremely grateful for not having to backtrack, especially in this divergent galaxy.
Upon playing Metroid Prime 3, I’ve concluded that the 3D trilogy should’ve been titled “Metroid Phazon.” Now that the third and final entry in the trilogy shares little in common with the previous two, Phazon is the one constant that unites all three games and gives them the sense of a cohesive trilogy arc. Everything else in Metroid Prime 3 is naturally hard to compare to the previous two Metroid Prime titles, and it’s not only because the player has to contend with flailing Samus’s arm cannon around with a detached, bulky wand to ensure accuracy. For the record, I much prefer how the first two Metroid Prime games approached exploration and level design because it was astounding that a 3D game could effectively emulate a design philosophy that seemed staunchly planted in the 2D space with no legroom to innovate. Metroid Prime 3 looks like a Metroid game but does not act or feel like one, sharing more in common with its first-person shooter contemporaries than any title of its own namesake. I cannot criticize Metroid Prime 3 for what it wasn’t trying to be, which was the first two games only with motion controls. As far as a more action-intensive, space opera Metroid goes, Metroid Prime 3 still succeeds thanks to the Phazon system, and the grapple beam utility to a lesser extent, for offering something interesting while raising Metroid Prime’s skill ceiling. My comparative distaste for Metroid Prime 3 compared to the other two ultimately comes down to a matter of taste. I much prefer Alien to Aliens because I prefer a rich, brooding atmosphere in my horror media, but I can still concede that the latter still achieves something substantial with its different intentions.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Los mundos de Metroid están vivos y la banda sonora de éste hace que yo quiera vivir en algunos de ellos. ¿El único fallo? Disparas apuntando con el mando de la Wii.