(I played with Primehack because the Wiimote controls made my wrist sore; an extra half-⭐ if you're using that, bumping it up to "may be worth playing if you're a big Metroid fan." The carpal tunnel isn't worth it otherwise.)
Man, this feels like Halo 2 dropped and made Retro quake in their boots. We've got more characters! Cutscenes! Military! Setpieces! A guy saying "damn!" As the Wii's flagship shooter, it's got to stand up to the competition, right?
...Alright, that's probably uncharitable - but this game really feels like it's straining against the series it comes from. Metroid games, in my mind, are defined by three things: exploration, atmosphere, and recontextualization. Corruption's atmosphere is fine - the art direction is as good as ever, and there's clearly been a lot of thought into how to construct the various worlds to give them independent identities. (Stumbling across the Xenoresearch Labs was a real highlight!) However, the other the other two areas are really weak.
IIRC, the first eight-ish hours are spent keeping you on a leash, chugging ahead without any interesting decision-making on where or how to proceed. When it finally lets you figure out your own way forward, it's a breath of fresh air, but it never goes especially far with it. Out of the trilogy, this game inspires the least curiosity and wonder. It spends so much time shuttling you from place to place, ensuring you don't get too distracted or lost, that so little room is left for asking "I wonder how you get there?" or "I wonder what that's there for?"
And the recontextualization - the Metroid series, at its best, does a great job making you look at an old location in a new way thanks to the items & knowledge you've gained. This very rarely happens in this game. Most of the things worth backtracking to are simply different-colored doors; something that, at this point in the trilogy, should not inspire any surprise. When it does happen, it rarely goes anywhere significant. It's just disappointing, frankly.
There are good additions. This game's equivalent of a Chozo Artifact/Sky Temple Key hunt is easy to start early, and it doesn't require collecting all of them to progress. (I enjoy 100%ing Metroid games, so you know I did anyway, but point being that this helps ease the lategame slog that Prime games can slip into.) Its fast travel system is also the best in the trilogy, making the endgame cleanup even faster. And many of the new items are genuinely cool - the grapple upgrades are a clever way to improve a previously underutilized item.
However, I do not think this game works well as an ending to the trilogy. The ending is so focused on tying the narrative up in a neat bow that it devolves into abrupt hand-waving, hoping to dazzle you with a flashy (but unfortunately uninteresting) final boss so that you won't think about how nonsensical its attempt at closure is. It smacks of tight deadlines and cut content, and I'm disappointed it had to end this way.
Man, this feels like Halo 2 dropped and made Retro quake in their boots. We've got more characters! Cutscenes! Military! Setpieces! A guy saying "damn!" As the Wii's flagship shooter, it's got to stand up to the competition, right?
...Alright, that's probably uncharitable - but this game really feels like it's straining against the series it comes from. Metroid games, in my mind, are defined by three things: exploration, atmosphere, and recontextualization. Corruption's atmosphere is fine - the art direction is as good as ever, and there's clearly been a lot of thought into how to construct the various worlds to give them independent identities. (Stumbling across the Xenoresearch Labs was a real highlight!) However, the other the other two areas are really weak.
IIRC, the first eight-ish hours are spent keeping you on a leash, chugging ahead without any interesting decision-making on where or how to proceed. When it finally lets you figure out your own way forward, it's a breath of fresh air, but it never goes especially far with it. Out of the trilogy, this game inspires the least curiosity and wonder. It spends so much time shuttling you from place to place, ensuring you don't get too distracted or lost, that so little room is left for asking "I wonder how you get there?" or "I wonder what that's there for?"
And the recontextualization - the Metroid series, at its best, does a great job making you look at an old location in a new way thanks to the items & knowledge you've gained. This very rarely happens in this game. Most of the things worth backtracking to are simply different-colored doors; something that, at this point in the trilogy, should not inspire any surprise. When it does happen, it rarely goes anywhere significant. It's just disappointing, frankly.
There are good additions. This game's equivalent of a Chozo Artifact/Sky Temple Key hunt is easy to start early, and it doesn't require collecting all of them to progress. (I enjoy 100%ing Metroid games, so you know I did anyway, but point being that this helps ease the lategame slog that Prime games can slip into.) Its fast travel system is also the best in the trilogy, making the endgame cleanup even faster. And many of the new items are genuinely cool - the grapple upgrades are a clever way to improve a previously underutilized item.
However, I do not think this game works well as an ending to the trilogy. The ending is so focused on tying the narrative up in a neat bow that it devolves into abrupt hand-waving, hoping to dazzle you with a flashy (but unfortunately uninteresting) final boss so that you won't think about how nonsensical its attempt at closure is. It smacks of tight deadlines and cut content, and I'm disappointed it had to end this way.