Definitely the weakest of the Prime Trilogy, but still a very good game. It ends up streamlining and simplifying the 3D Metroid format into something a bit more digestible for newcomers to the franchise. This has its benefits, but it has some pretty big flaws as well.

There's a bigger focus on plot this time; characters actually have voices! Some of the added characters are interesting and add more to the universe, though I wish we had more time to flesh them out. The three other bounty hunters are all really cool, though they really just serve as eventual boss fights. The story itself is pretty basic as well, but it at least ties the Phazon arc to a satisfying close. (for now)

Gameplay is a mixed bag. It's a lot more linear thanks to the greater emphasis on plot, which does cut down on some confusion the previous two games had, but it also removes some of the charm. The idea of actually flying to different planets is really cool, but the amount of loading screens and transitions makes Prime 2 look like a smooth bullet train ride. There's also some pretty interesting upgrades this time. No Super Missles or Power Bombs and we're back to a single beam that gets upgraded over time, but we also have some really cool additions like the Ice Missiles and ship upgrades. I also greatly appreciate the versatility given to the Grapple Beam as an avid Grapple Mechanic Enjoyer™. We've got a few interesting puzzles too thanks to the Wii's motion controls that briefly add some flavor.

Combat is where things feel like a step down in particular, however, and it's all because of Prime 3's biggest mechanic: Hypermode. There was a reason why it was saved for the final boss in previous games; it's a busted mechanic. And it ends up being something you rely on frequently if you want to get rid of the sometimes spongy enemies. The damage it does is just unmatched and nearly makes regular combat obsolete if it wasn't for it requiring health to use. The Hyper Ball and Hyper Grapple upgrades are also woefully underutilized.

Man, I have a lot to say about this one, but I'll just cut it off here. Game's still good, I like some of the risks it takes, but it's still a step down from the previous two entries in the Prime Trilogy.

Golden Sun is the spiritual successor to SEGA's Shining Force series, this time, Camelot was commissioned by Nintendo themselves to make them a "Shining" of their own. In this role-playing game, you play as a young "Psynergy" adept (a neologism for Chi meditation) preventing the return of Alchemy, a powerful, but consuming power, from returning to the world of Weyard, during a conflict between Sol Sanctum and the adepts of Mars, the Proxians.

The game features some of the most impressive graphics and soundtracks on the system, one of the main elements of the game was collecting the 28 Djinns, creatures with abilities similar to Final Fantasy VI's espers, shifting your magical abilities and attributes. Environments in Golden Sun are lively and dynamics, beautifully crafted dungeons feature many puzzles which can be solved with the many psynergic spells at your disposal, adding depth to the world which itself already has a charm of its own.

Golden Sun doesn't tell its story from its shallow storyline but its journey throughout many towns and their side-quests, with the main quest being a driving force for its exploration.

Lost in Random oozes charme from every corner - at the same time many of other corners were cut. There are multiple points during a playthrough where certain parts of the story are so incredibly rushed that they gotta have to have been scrapped mid-development, other times the quest summary in the menu tells a completely different story than the one you actually got to experience and 60% of the cards you could use in combat are absolutely useless. There is a lot of transparency in how many things were changend during development - they didn't clean them up very well.

But I still had a lot of fun with the game. The gameplay kept me entertained throughout my 12hr playthrough, the presentation of the entire game was consistently brilliant and even the overall story was quite fun to witness in the end. Special shoutout to the sound team tho. You ppl KILLED it, especially with the VO for the characters. Every single character becomes so charming trough the voice work alone (which is direly necessary when there are like 15 models that get reused over and over again).

There are also some legit amazing moments in this, where everything - gameplay, music, and all of the visual stuff - just works so, so well together. And for those moments I will treasure this game. The rest is fine, good enough. Those cut corners are also... weirdly charming? in a way?

ps. there is I think a lot to be said about gender in this game - moreso by accident I think. Those fifteen reused character models get voices of varying gender associations and the pronouns of each character do quite often not coincide with that association - which for me at least resulted in me not assuming any characters gender at some point. At the same time, as soon as there is some degree of narrative tropes, everything is kept strictly heteronormative. There's a lot to talk about here.

Quest 64 is one of the most flawed games that I've ever loved. I can't deny that it has a lot of frustration points: the battle system is terribly imbalanced, the story is nearly non-existent, and it has some actually miserable dungeons. But despite these flaws, I think some of its design ideas are kind of brilliant.

For one, it's lamentable how few RPGs have copied the idea of hiding "skill points" in the overworld/environment. They're a far more enticing link between the exploration & action phases of the game than your typical random treasure chests. I mean, by this point I've memorized where all of the spirits are, but in my earliest playthroughs I would gasp in excitement whenever I found one.

The element system, while imbalanced in practice, is pretty well-realized from a design sense. The four elements have distinct gameplay incentives and are functionally intuitive (water is the healing element, earth is defensive, etc). By prioritizing specific elements, you're rewarded with early access to far stronger spells, but you'll have more of an issue countering enemies/bosses of those same elements. And for its time, the hybrid turn-based/real-time action battle system was so clever!

It's tragic to me that Quest was rushed to market in the race to be the first RPG on the N64, because there are the foundations of something amazing here. The inspired game design, the unique setting, the period-appropriate instrumentation of its soundtrack, the charming monster designs - I can only feel that Quest deserved better than it got.

I feel very confident in calling Symphonia one of the best games I've ever played, almost everything about this game comes together in such a good fashion to make a truly amazing game. To start with the best aspects of the game I think the story and characters are easily the best part of the whole game, every single main character has so much depth and lore behind them, I consider Sheena and Zelos amazing examples of how to write a good character that you want to learn more about. The story is one of the best written stories I've ever experienced and I enjoy almost every single second of it. 2nd to the story and characters is the battle system, this was the Tales series first 3D game and it shows as later games in the series improve the combat greatly; Symphonia's combat is stiff at points but for the most part it's extremely fun when you get the hang of it and easily makes this game worth playing just for the battle system, the inclusion of a free run would've fixed all my issues with it. Some of my issues with the game are the visuals hold up decently well but the animations do not, the stiff and lazy animations take the emotion out of certain key scenes in the story, the models aren't much better as they don't really show off the character designs properly, some of this can be blamed on the game being older but this is more of an art style issue rather than model quality. My only other issues with Symphonia is the dungeons are a mixed bag, some of them are fun and interesting to explore but others are horrible and some of the worst dungeons I've played in a video game but in all, my biggest issues with the dungeons is the amount of them, there's way too many with very little downtime in between dungeons.

Overall I recommend this game to any RPG fan as it's certainly worth playing for the battle system, characters, story, and some of the dungeons.