This review contains spoilers
When playing Metroid Prime, I found myself not only curious about its world and mechanics, but I found myself curious about our world. It's the kind of game that inspires me to learn more. There are some intense moments and some cinematic moments, but some of the best moments in the story exist in the fallout of that tension - clearing out a room of Space Pirates and spending time in silence reading their research logs, understanding more and more about them. On the complete opposite side of this example, loved returning to to the Chozo Ruins, being able to explore more of its catacombs and finding more writings the Chozo civilisation left behind in their struggle. How the story is being told, is just as important as the story being told.
The scan visor is a smart way to get you to learn about the world. Through it, you learn more about the creatures you’ll face in battle, swapping beams and visors to get a better hold of many combat encounters. You learn about how you can destroy and traverse the world, and you can read scripts left behind by the two dominating races on the planet of Tallon IV. The combat isn’t particularly deep, but the visors and beams give each encounter a unique quirk. When using the wave beam against the final boss, I found myself acting more acrobatically to weave around its attacks, due to the wave beam’s homing properties. In other encounters, the wave beam made me act more aggressively, because it stuns smaller enemies. The other three beams have this same kind of situational variety. At the bare minimum, for the more superfluous applications of each beam and each visor, they add that kind of frenzied panic to the combat which I appreciated a lot in Super Metroid. The scan visor often contextualizes how you’ll be using each beam/visor. Sometimes you’ll reason out to use certain beams against certain enemies, like the plasma beam against ice enemies. Other times, the scan visor will aid you in understanding what beams, visors, and by extension, strategies, to use.
Mechanically, the world is a pretty good translation of the 2D Metroid formula. Get an upgrade, find the path the game’s unseen hand is guiding you towards, repeat - with a few optional upgrades and artifacts to find for observant or replaying players. The last half of the game challenged me into thinking critically - I found it very fun to plan my route on the fly to maximize the amount of upgrades and artifacts I could find in the shortest amount of time possible. I think because of the third dimension, Prime can’t get away with as many well kept secrets as its 2D siblings, without them being impossible to find. Thankfully, I find that there are a lot more puzzles and activities that test your spatial awareness - even then, they can be a little simplistic and boring. In a game with a literal added dimension to it, the hint system is a welcome addition, and an even more welcome addition is being able to disable it. The physical world isn’t the most interesting visually or mechanically, but it has some fantastic setpieces, and uses Samus’ available movement well. Samus’ main visor, the one you’ll have equipped for most of the game, has a lot of impressive details to it, further grounding the user interface and “video-game-y” mechanics into the world’s canon, which I appreciate.
Metroid Prime, for me, more than anything, is about the environment and knowledge, and life. Every facet of it feels deliberate, and in service of its greater experience. The Space Pirates are insistent on their believed place in the hierarchy of the cosmos, taking all that they can from the Metroid Prime, augmenting themselves beyond health and sentience. Then, the Metroid Prime, subtextually, represents not a poison, but knowledge itself. Knowledge the Chozo knew to keep at bay, and knowledge the Space Pirates believed they could harness. Samus then, is a kind of succession, who drives away the last sentient beings from Tallon IV, and kills the memory of the knowledge they tried to control, like an empty earth burying the last remaining memory of a nuclear war that wiped out humanity - nuclear energy and waste, comparisons I think are inevitable to Phazon.
There’s a lot more to think about when it comes to Metroid Prime’s story. I think its told organically and does a wonderful job of building tension in the game’s narrative. I think it’s very thought provoking.
I think everything about it is great! The gameplay is not slacking by any means but the story truly elevates it. What I see as its overarching theme, it succeeds at conveying - delivering one of the most focused and immersive games I have had the pleasure to learn more about.
The scan visor is a smart way to get you to learn about the world. Through it, you learn more about the creatures you’ll face in battle, swapping beams and visors to get a better hold of many combat encounters. You learn about how you can destroy and traverse the world, and you can read scripts left behind by the two dominating races on the planet of Tallon IV. The combat isn’t particularly deep, but the visors and beams give each encounter a unique quirk. When using the wave beam against the final boss, I found myself acting more acrobatically to weave around its attacks, due to the wave beam’s homing properties. In other encounters, the wave beam made me act more aggressively, because it stuns smaller enemies. The other three beams have this same kind of situational variety. At the bare minimum, for the more superfluous applications of each beam and each visor, they add that kind of frenzied panic to the combat which I appreciated a lot in Super Metroid. The scan visor often contextualizes how you’ll be using each beam/visor. Sometimes you’ll reason out to use certain beams against certain enemies, like the plasma beam against ice enemies. Other times, the scan visor will aid you in understanding what beams, visors, and by extension, strategies, to use.
Mechanically, the world is a pretty good translation of the 2D Metroid formula. Get an upgrade, find the path the game’s unseen hand is guiding you towards, repeat - with a few optional upgrades and artifacts to find for observant or replaying players. The last half of the game challenged me into thinking critically - I found it very fun to plan my route on the fly to maximize the amount of upgrades and artifacts I could find in the shortest amount of time possible. I think because of the third dimension, Prime can’t get away with as many well kept secrets as its 2D siblings, without them being impossible to find. Thankfully, I find that there are a lot more puzzles and activities that test your spatial awareness - even then, they can be a little simplistic and boring. In a game with a literal added dimension to it, the hint system is a welcome addition, and an even more welcome addition is being able to disable it. The physical world isn’t the most interesting visually or mechanically, but it has some fantastic setpieces, and uses Samus’ available movement well. Samus’ main visor, the one you’ll have equipped for most of the game, has a lot of impressive details to it, further grounding the user interface and “video-game-y” mechanics into the world’s canon, which I appreciate.
Metroid Prime, for me, more than anything, is about the environment and knowledge, and life. Every facet of it feels deliberate, and in service of its greater experience. The Space Pirates are insistent on their believed place in the hierarchy of the cosmos, taking all that they can from the Metroid Prime, augmenting themselves beyond health and sentience. Then, the Metroid Prime, subtextually, represents not a poison, but knowledge itself. Knowledge the Chozo knew to keep at bay, and knowledge the Space Pirates believed they could harness. Samus then, is a kind of succession, who drives away the last sentient beings from Tallon IV, and kills the memory of the knowledge they tried to control, like an empty earth burying the last remaining memory of a nuclear war that wiped out humanity - nuclear energy and waste, comparisons I think are inevitable to Phazon.
There’s a lot more to think about when it comes to Metroid Prime’s story. I think its told organically and does a wonderful job of building tension in the game’s narrative. I think it’s very thought provoking.
I think everything about it is great! The gameplay is not slacking by any means but the story truly elevates it. What I see as its overarching theme, it succeeds at conveying - delivering one of the most focused and immersive games I have had the pleasure to learn more about.