Method in the madness, Methodical Metroid
I can safely say I've never been too much of a fan of Nintendo's most prominent works. I've never been into platforming so I've never been too much into Mario, never been too much into the specific flavor of action-adventure titles that Zelda brings other than Breath of the Wild (shocker I know). The only point of interest I mostly have outside of their RPGs (Fire Emblem and Xenoblade) is Metroid, a fast platformer but more than that to the point it's created it's own subgenre called Metroidvania, platforming with mostly non linear design and item progression to a certain extent. I really like this approach to platforming due to the item progression reminding me of the power progression I enjoy in RPGs. Coming into this now, I was really excited to try out Metroid Prime. First person titles are a bit uncommon coming into the creation of Prime and especially from Nintendo considering this is their answer to bringing Metroid to the three dimensional space. Probably lacking the knowledge of creating a first person title, Nintendo sought help from Retro Studios which brought their knowledge of creating the Turok titles from a different time. This should've been one of my favorite Nintendo titles ever, my love for first person shooters and Metroid being the one of the only main (arguably) Nintendo series I care about should make this something magical and for the most part, Prime got that home run but not without a few strikes.
The game opens up with a partially powered up Samus answering a distress call like it was just any other job until it becomes much more than that and Samus ends up losing her few power ups and lands on the mysterious Tallon IV to explore further. Admittedly I wasn't too invested in the story, the thing about Metroid titles is that they always feel like separate chapters in Samus Aran's life and nothing too spectacular since it never gets into personal development about the character itself and it's never really felt needed unless it goes into why she's cool. The game does give you a lot to digest in the terms of logs and items to scan giving you information about enemies, pirate logs and even how some items operate. I sadly wasn't able to digest all of it due to my attention span but it's there if you want to truly immerse yourself with information about where you at and what you're up against.
I've admittedly only played a few Metroid titles (Metroid (only for 2 hours), Super Metroid, Fusion, Zero Mission and Dread) so my perspective on Metroid might not be wholly complete but I always felt like the speed, item progression, level design and backtracking were kind of the hallmarks of what makes a Metroid game excellent. First person Metroid might sound like a fever dream to the uninitiated at first but I'll just say it plainly: it works. The moments where you are jumping platform to platform, going through rooms, the item progression and the gates and it just all feels familiar. I also have to preface in mind that I played with the standard first person shooter controls since trying the regular vanilla controls for thirty minutes and I couldn't do it at all. Even when the game was design around it, my muscle memory fails to adapt to something that isn't the popular twin stick format and I'm grateful this remaster has that.
There's a lot more to unpack turning something into 3D, the gameplay and platforming challenges alone would probably cover pages of the intricacies but this was extremely faithful but I found myself annoyed and wanting with this game, more than I'd like to admit. Now I understand backtracking is almost a guarantee at this point in the series, the entire notion of returning to an area and finally opening that locked area is a dopamine rush for fans of the series but I always liked how fast 2D Metroid lets you go back, you tend to get movement abilities that let you zip through rooms at almost breakneck pace and I never minded it as much. With Prime however, you never really get anything movement related other than an extra jump and morph ball boost so you're constantly at a moderate pace when it comes to backtracking and there was a lot to go back to constantly. It started to feel annoying when enemies kept coming back and it was really hard to avoid without taking damage in compared to 2D Metroid when you can just completely ignore them or screw attack or dash through them which made the game feel like it was way longer than it needed to be. Some of the enemy design and general gameplay design also felt tedious as well, I do like the different types of weapons Samus gets but later on it feels like a constant swap-a-thon and swapping with the conventional first person shooter scheme takes a bit more effort when you're taking the brunt of it. I completely understand that combat isn't the main and sole focus of Metroid Prime, it's all about the exploration and adventure but I just never really had a moment where I just clicked with the mechanics. It might be in part due to the control scheme because even using super missiles had me do some weird grip where I had to move my thumb off the stick (R+ZR or R+A) so there was already a little delay in shooting the powered missile out. After testing some controllers out though, this might be purely a joycon controller issue with how small and naturally uncomfortable they tend to be. The boss fights are also pretty amazing as well and kept me on my feet for the most part with the last few bosses being really engaging.
The overall level variety is generally great and by that I mean we got the standard hot level, the cold level, the indoor building level, the forest level and the ruins level. Each level for the most part felt decent enough to traverse though and the move to 3D helps a lot with the general atmosphere of the game, never at the time you really see how Samus sees these alien worlds she tends to visit realized like this before. The soundtrack is great with some ambient electronic tracks that do a good job of setting the scene for each area with the ice level being my favorite track.
I was completely prepared to give this game a higher score but I felt way too annoyed and frustrated during the final stretch with the backtracking and generally tired of the platforming after a bit which feels like I can't give it much more justice here. I really do love the concept here and I still think it generally works really well and for a first attempt (albeit a remaster that fixes the control scheme), it's pretty solid. I'm more curious to see how Prime 4 will bring this sub series of Metroid into the modern age where the most prominent single player first person shooters are either fast paced arcade fun or immersive sims where interactivity is everything I feel like this remaster is a taste of what's to come.
I can safely say I've never been too much of a fan of Nintendo's most prominent works. I've never been into platforming so I've never been too much into Mario, never been too much into the specific flavor of action-adventure titles that Zelda brings other than Breath of the Wild (shocker I know). The only point of interest I mostly have outside of their RPGs (Fire Emblem and Xenoblade) is Metroid, a fast platformer but more than that to the point it's created it's own subgenre called Metroidvania, platforming with mostly non linear design and item progression to a certain extent. I really like this approach to platforming due to the item progression reminding me of the power progression I enjoy in RPGs. Coming into this now, I was really excited to try out Metroid Prime. First person titles are a bit uncommon coming into the creation of Prime and especially from Nintendo considering this is their answer to bringing Metroid to the three dimensional space. Probably lacking the knowledge of creating a first person title, Nintendo sought help from Retro Studios which brought their knowledge of creating the Turok titles from a different time. This should've been one of my favorite Nintendo titles ever, my love for first person shooters and Metroid being the one of the only main (arguably) Nintendo series I care about should make this something magical and for the most part, Prime got that home run but not without a few strikes.
The game opens up with a partially powered up Samus answering a distress call like it was just any other job until it becomes much more than that and Samus ends up losing her few power ups and lands on the mysterious Tallon IV to explore further. Admittedly I wasn't too invested in the story, the thing about Metroid titles is that they always feel like separate chapters in Samus Aran's life and nothing too spectacular since it never gets into personal development about the character itself and it's never really felt needed unless it goes into why she's cool. The game does give you a lot to digest in the terms of logs and items to scan giving you information about enemies, pirate logs and even how some items operate. I sadly wasn't able to digest all of it due to my attention span but it's there if you want to truly immerse yourself with information about where you at and what you're up against.
I've admittedly only played a few Metroid titles (Metroid (only for 2 hours), Super Metroid, Fusion, Zero Mission and Dread) so my perspective on Metroid might not be wholly complete but I always felt like the speed, item progression, level design and backtracking were kind of the hallmarks of what makes a Metroid game excellent. First person Metroid might sound like a fever dream to the uninitiated at first but I'll just say it plainly: it works. The moments where you are jumping platform to platform, going through rooms, the item progression and the gates and it just all feels familiar. I also have to preface in mind that I played with the standard first person shooter controls since trying the regular vanilla controls for thirty minutes and I couldn't do it at all. Even when the game was design around it, my muscle memory fails to adapt to something that isn't the popular twin stick format and I'm grateful this remaster has that.
There's a lot more to unpack turning something into 3D, the gameplay and platforming challenges alone would probably cover pages of the intricacies but this was extremely faithful but I found myself annoyed and wanting with this game, more than I'd like to admit. Now I understand backtracking is almost a guarantee at this point in the series, the entire notion of returning to an area and finally opening that locked area is a dopamine rush for fans of the series but I always liked how fast 2D Metroid lets you go back, you tend to get movement abilities that let you zip through rooms at almost breakneck pace and I never minded it as much. With Prime however, you never really get anything movement related other than an extra jump and morph ball boost so you're constantly at a moderate pace when it comes to backtracking and there was a lot to go back to constantly. It started to feel annoying when enemies kept coming back and it was really hard to avoid without taking damage in compared to 2D Metroid when you can just completely ignore them or screw attack or dash through them which made the game feel like it was way longer than it needed to be. Some of the enemy design and general gameplay design also felt tedious as well, I do like the different types of weapons Samus gets but later on it feels like a constant swap-a-thon and swapping with the conventional first person shooter scheme takes a bit more effort when you're taking the brunt of it. I completely understand that combat isn't the main and sole focus of Metroid Prime, it's all about the exploration and adventure but I just never really had a moment where I just clicked with the mechanics. It might be in part due to the control scheme because even using super missiles had me do some weird grip where I had to move my thumb off the stick (R+ZR or R+A) so there was already a little delay in shooting the powered missile out. After testing some controllers out though, this might be purely a joycon controller issue with how small and naturally uncomfortable they tend to be. The boss fights are also pretty amazing as well and kept me on my feet for the most part with the last few bosses being really engaging.
The overall level variety is generally great and by that I mean we got the standard hot level, the cold level, the indoor building level, the forest level and the ruins level. Each level for the most part felt decent enough to traverse though and the move to 3D helps a lot with the general atmosphere of the game, never at the time you really see how Samus sees these alien worlds she tends to visit realized like this before. The soundtrack is great with some ambient electronic tracks that do a good job of setting the scene for each area with the ice level being my favorite track.
I was completely prepared to give this game a higher score but I felt way too annoyed and frustrated during the final stretch with the backtracking and generally tired of the platforming after a bit which feels like I can't give it much more justice here. I really do love the concept here and I still think it generally works really well and for a first attempt (albeit a remaster that fixes the control scheme), it's pretty solid. I'm more curious to see how Prime 4 will bring this sub series of Metroid into the modern age where the most prominent single player first person shooters are either fast paced arcade fun or immersive sims where interactivity is everything I feel like this remaster is a taste of what's to come.