1 and 2 were already great, so things should only get better for 3, right?
Prime 3 is paradoxically the best and worst of the series. It found a way to frustrate me at nearly every turn, but it still fixes some things that the other two Prime games struggled with.
First, some good. While I really liked beam combos and the various beam effects in the previous games, Prime 3 really doesn't lose out on much by simplifying the system to a more 2D-esque standard. Power Beam -> Plasma Beam -> Nova Beam is a nice progression (though this is made slightly more complicated by Hypermode... we'll get to that) and the Ice Missiles borrowed from Fusion are nice - when they work.
Prime 3 doesn't break much new ground in terms of environment design, other than the stunning (albeit somewhat samey) SkyTown and perhaps Phaaze (you like blue?). Bryyo has some neat variation, condensing Tallon IV into a few decently interconnected areas. The Pirate Homeworld is also quite striking, though not as much as Sanctuary Fortress. Sanctuary Fortress also doesn't have an escort mission in it...
The game's small cast of Hunters is a welcome addition, though they don't nearly get enough screen time. Justice for Rundas.
One of the best changes made is the addition of the Chozo Observatory. 100% completing the previous two games is quite tedious, because there's no record of which rooms have collectibles, nor which rooms have had their collectibles picked up. Prime 3 not only lets you bookmark rooms to track this kind of thing, but the Observatory later reveals the locations and collection status of every collectible in every area of the game (as long as you've beaten or at least advanced quite far in that area). The previous games would've greatly benefited from this - if a similar system was available in all three games, then I'd have 100% completed them all.
And now, the bad. Let's cut to the chase: Hypermode. Hypermode is a truly bizarre addition to Prime 3. It's interesting narratively - Samus is quite literally corrupted by power, and using Phazon turns her into an unparalleled killing machine. But the ramifications for gameplay are dire. Hypermode consumes energy, up to a full tank if you run out the timer, so to facilitate using Hypermode, Prime 3 throws several energy tanks at you within the first couple of hours of playing. This neuters the difficulty, so what does the game do? It bumps up the health of every enemy, making non-Hypermode combat drag on; and it allows some enemies to enter Hypermode themselves, which pretty much forces you to enter Hypermode yourself if you hadn’t already.
The result? Combat encounters go one of two ways: you can either try to play the game like its predecessors, using your movement abilities to dodge enemies while chipping away at their health with your beams (or slowly putting missiles into them until they freeze, assuming that they even can freeze); or you can go into Hypermode and kill them in a few shots or with a Hyper Missile or two. You’ll probably lose the same amount of energy either way.
Most of Prime 3’s bosses are no more complex or interesting or challenging than Thardus from Prime 1, which is pretty disappointing. Most are simple “wait until I’m not invulnerable anymore, enter Hypermode and shoot me for a bit” affairs, while others are just bullet sponges. The best they really get is Ghor, who works a little like the Quad enemies in Prime 2; and Omega Ridley, who has decent phase variety and utilises the X-Ray visor in a cool way, but I’m really scraping the barrel here. It also doesn’t help that three of the fights take place in the nearly-identical Leviathan Seed boss arenas and two more take place within Phaaze (did somebody order blue?).
That was a lot. But there's more!
Ping-ponging is back, with extra obnoxiousness. Getting a message from Aurora-242 to straight-up tell you that you need to go to a different planet is ridiculous, but what makes it worse is that there are already solutions to this problem, some of which are even used within the game! Some of these hints (or directions, if we're being honest here) are presented more diegetically, like how "go to [x] room on the Pirate Homeworld" is framed as a call from Admiral Dane asking you to meet up with him and a squad of Federation troops - if the Federation are going to be made so prevalent, then why not frame the hints as points of interest discovered by the Federation exploring these planets?
Motion controls... motion controls. One step forward, two steps back. Motion aiming is great, a welcome change from the tank controls of the first two games; but the lack of direct camera control makes traversal almost more clunky. And then there are the motion sequences and the waggling. Shake controllers to break free from things. Twist the controller to remove battery cells. Pump the controller to make stuff work on Bryyo. Mime pulling a lever with the controller to make the trams run on Pirate Homeworld. Pull the nunchuk to move debris and expose boss weakpoints. I just goes on and on and on... the "this was meant to be a Wii launch title" influence is very visible.
...I think that's it. For all the complaining I've done, I honestly did still enjoy my time with Prime 3. I like the ideas it has, and I'm glad it improved on a few issues in its two predecessors. But makes a heap of mistakes in the process. If I ever revisit this trilogy, I'm not sure I'll do a full trilogy playthrough... yikes.
Prime 3 is paradoxically the best and worst of the series. It found a way to frustrate me at nearly every turn, but it still fixes some things that the other two Prime games struggled with.
First, some good. While I really liked beam combos and the various beam effects in the previous games, Prime 3 really doesn't lose out on much by simplifying the system to a more 2D-esque standard. Power Beam -> Plasma Beam -> Nova Beam is a nice progression (though this is made slightly more complicated by Hypermode... we'll get to that) and the Ice Missiles borrowed from Fusion are nice - when they work.
Prime 3 doesn't break much new ground in terms of environment design, other than the stunning (albeit somewhat samey) SkyTown and perhaps Phaaze (you like blue?). Bryyo has some neat variation, condensing Tallon IV into a few decently interconnected areas. The Pirate Homeworld is also quite striking, though not as much as Sanctuary Fortress. Sanctuary Fortress also doesn't have an escort mission in it...
The game's small cast of Hunters is a welcome addition, though they don't nearly get enough screen time. Justice for Rundas.
One of the best changes made is the addition of the Chozo Observatory. 100% completing the previous two games is quite tedious, because there's no record of which rooms have collectibles, nor which rooms have had their collectibles picked up. Prime 3 not only lets you bookmark rooms to track this kind of thing, but the Observatory later reveals the locations and collection status of every collectible in every area of the game (as long as you've beaten or at least advanced quite far in that area). The previous games would've greatly benefited from this - if a similar system was available in all three games, then I'd have 100% completed them all.
And now, the bad. Let's cut to the chase: Hypermode. Hypermode is a truly bizarre addition to Prime 3. It's interesting narratively - Samus is quite literally corrupted by power, and using Phazon turns her into an unparalleled killing machine. But the ramifications for gameplay are dire. Hypermode consumes energy, up to a full tank if you run out the timer, so to facilitate using Hypermode, Prime 3 throws several energy tanks at you within the first couple of hours of playing. This neuters the difficulty, so what does the game do? It bumps up the health of every enemy, making non-Hypermode combat drag on; and it allows some enemies to enter Hypermode themselves, which pretty much forces you to enter Hypermode yourself if you hadn’t already.
The result? Combat encounters go one of two ways: you can either try to play the game like its predecessors, using your movement abilities to dodge enemies while chipping away at their health with your beams (or slowly putting missiles into them until they freeze, assuming that they even can freeze); or you can go into Hypermode and kill them in a few shots or with a Hyper Missile or two. You’ll probably lose the same amount of energy either way.
Most of Prime 3’s bosses are no more complex or interesting or challenging than Thardus from Prime 1, which is pretty disappointing. Most are simple “wait until I’m not invulnerable anymore, enter Hypermode and shoot me for a bit” affairs, while others are just bullet sponges. The best they really get is Ghor, who works a little like the Quad enemies in Prime 2; and Omega Ridley, who has decent phase variety and utilises the X-Ray visor in a cool way, but I’m really scraping the barrel here. It also doesn’t help that three of the fights take place in the nearly-identical Leviathan Seed boss arenas and two more take place within Phaaze (did somebody order blue?).
That was a lot. But there's more!
Ping-ponging is back, with extra obnoxiousness. Getting a message from Aurora-242 to straight-up tell you that you need to go to a different planet is ridiculous, but what makes it worse is that there are already solutions to this problem, some of which are even used within the game! Some of these hints (or directions, if we're being honest here) are presented more diegetically, like how "go to [x] room on the Pirate Homeworld" is framed as a call from Admiral Dane asking you to meet up with him and a squad of Federation troops - if the Federation are going to be made so prevalent, then why not frame the hints as points of interest discovered by the Federation exploring these planets?
Motion controls... motion controls. One step forward, two steps back. Motion aiming is great, a welcome change from the tank controls of the first two games; but the lack of direct camera control makes traversal almost more clunky. And then there are the motion sequences and the waggling. Shake controllers to break free from things. Twist the controller to remove battery cells. Pump the controller to make stuff work on Bryyo. Mime pulling a lever with the controller to make the trams run on Pirate Homeworld. Pull the nunchuk to move debris and expose boss weakpoints. I just goes on and on and on... the "this was meant to be a Wii launch title" influence is very visible.
...I think that's it. For all the complaining I've done, I honestly did still enjoy my time with Prime 3. I like the ideas it has, and I'm glad it improved on a few issues in its two predecessors. But makes a heap of mistakes in the process. If I ever revisit this trilogy, I'm not sure I'll do a full trilogy playthrough... yikes.