Metroid Prime

The Short


Pros
- Fantastic revival/reimagining of the Metroid franchise after years of nothin'
- Absolutely beautiful graphics and effects look great even to this day
- Sound design and music is top of its class in every category
- Manages to keep the Metroid feel while still being in a first person shooter perspective
- Plenty of puzzle solving and exploration for the hungry Metroid fans
- Scanning stuff in the environment was a clever and cool way to present story and flavor text
- The only first person game to date where I have felt in control of my jumps
- Seriously, I thought this game was going to ruin the franchise and it ended up being amazing


Cons
- Might have actually stayed too familiar to Metroid lore so much that it didn't branch out much on the creativity found in Super Metroid
- Scanning, while a cool idea, could get tedious
- Lock-on shooting is a great idea when it works, which is about 50% of the time
- While it does have a few "warps," worlds can take an extremely long time to traverse
- Places you go look beautiful but feel generic (grass world, water world, ice world, etc.)

This is how you revive a franchise. 

The Long

First things first: we are going to do a whole "listen to a song while reading this review" thing, like we did with the Lifeforce review. So get ready to crank up your speakers or headphones or whatever and listen to what I consider to be the best menu music of all time. 

This song is freaking amazing.

Got it going? Excellent. Let's get on with the review.

As stated in my Metroid Fusion review, the Metroid series went on a sort of hiatus after Super Metroid until November of 2002. Then we were blessed with not one, but TWO Metroid games released a single day apart: Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime. They couldn't be more different. Fusion was a handheld game, a callback to the original 2D Metroids, while Metroid Fusion was a first-person shooter developed by Retro Studios, a Texas based developer. 

Fans flipped the crap out, doing the usual fan thing where they panned a game before even playing it, arguing that Metroid Prime was going to ruin the Metroid series and destroy everything they hold dear, as well as murder their cat and hold their mother hostage. You know, gamers. 

Then the game came out, and I kid you not when I say it was the best Metroid game since Super Metroid. And the trilogy that followed is easily one of the finest gaming has to offer. 

So let's dive in, shall we?

Hey, this ain't the Metroid I 'member!

Metroid Prime is, as stated, a first-person shooter. But it plays completely unlike one you've ever played before. In most FPS games on consoles, you aim with both sticks and the game requires tricky precision and skill. This is not the case in Metroid Prime. Either because the second stick on the Gamecube controller sucked, or because they needed it for other menu options, Retro opted that Metroid Prime have a lock-on system, actually more similar to the 3D Zelda games than anything else. "Doesn't that take out the challenge?" you ask. Well, no. Actually, it makes it so this game works as a Metroid game.

Let's glance back for a second at Metroid games before this one. There were three: Metroid on the NES, Metroid 2 on the Game Boy, and Super Metroid on the SNES. All these games were similar (and 2D) but there was one important aspect: these games are not really about shooting stuff. Blasting alien life comes second. The main point of the Metroid games is the combination of atmosphere with exploration (dare I say...atmospheric exploration is the point of Metroid?). Like most Nintendo games they were less focused on creating a diverse gameplay experience and more focused on taking you to a wondrous and interesting place for you to explore. Zelda has been doing this for years (and not doing anything with their gameplay...), and even the Mario games like Galaxy make you feel like you are going somewhere special. It's Nintendo's thing.

Pictured: goopy immersion

Retro Studios nailed this with Metroid Prime. By making the shooting easier they dropped the intense focus that one would normally have in these types of games. Instead, they made a game where shooting was secondary to the adventure at hand, which involved more exploration and environmental puzzle solving than anything else.

But hey, it's a "first person shooter." Doesn't that mean Retro screwed the pooch on this? How do you make an FPS game without any "S?" Well...like this game, actually.

Metroid Prime feels more Metroid than most in the series (and especially Other M). After an absolutely killer intro sequence where you land on a space pirate ship and then blow it out of existence, you are dumped on Tallon IV with the mission to find out what the crap those stupid pirates are up to. The world is wide open from the start, with you only being limited by what powerups you've obtained. Sound familiar?

WHAT OTHER GAMES DOES THIS REMIND ME OF?

The different areas of the world are gorgeous, diverse, and interesting to explore. The graphics of this game are completely stunning, with polygonal edges hardly noticeable and the effects particularly top notch. It does a ton to add to the immersion, which is exactly what you want when the goal of the game is to, you know, immerse you.

It should also be noted that while this game requires a hefty amount of first-person jumping, it never felt bad. Most games I never know where I'm jumping or landing, but in Metroid Prime the jumping was just floaty yet heavy enough that I easily grasped a hold of it. Not to mention when you jump Samus naturally looks down a little, allowing for easier landings. 

Oh hey, did the song above run out? Here's another one for ya.

Soundtrack = so good.

Anyway, everything Metroid is here. You use weapons to find secrets like more energy and missile tanks to get stronger. Bosses are on a massive scale and require some genuine cleverness to defeat. You can easily switch between the various "beam" weapons Samus obtains, and it even has a new trick with different "visors" that allow you to see heat-patterns on enemies (which is required for some). It all fits together so well it's almost unbelievable, creating an experience that I've yet to see done by any other company.

The only complaint I have with the design is this game might have been too afraid of its fans. By that I mean that, besides the change to a FPS view, the game borrows heavily from other Metroid staples. This isn't bad, and it's nice to see old favorites like the Varia Suit and Ice Beam back, but it makes the game feel like it's missing its own unique flavor. You also have blatant boring usual video game stuff in the worlds (fire world, plant world, desert world, ice world) that is not bad but not entirely original. Luckily they totally mixed this up in the sequel, which...I still haven't beaten. Video endurance run?

Those 'dem space pirates are still up to no good.

As previously stated, this game looks incredible. Even with regular composite cables from a 4:3 outputting Gamecube, Metroid Prime is a very pretty game. This is mostly due to the smooth transitions between artifacts, and the fact the whole thing just oozes its style. The visor looks extremely cool, and moves with your face with a sort of delay, like Samus is actually turning and the HUD is catching up. Other cool things that BLEW OUR MIND back in 2002 were when you look up at the rain drops appear on the visor, or if you are hit by a bright enough flash of light you can see Samus' eyes reflecting on the glass. This stuff is pretty common in FPS games now-a-days, but in 2002 it was a bloody amazing revelation. Even now I argue this game does it better than any other. 

The music is also absolutely standout. In a game based on atmosphere, music is everything. Super Metroid has probably the most atmospheric soundtrack of any game ever (well...except maybe the Silent Hill games). Metroid Prime delivers on all fronts with a soundtrack that is both catchy and sinister, hitting all the right notes and recycling old themes for good measure. I'm still amazed at how well they pulled this off.

Rocks shouldn't move like that. If rocks move like that, shoot 'em. 

There's been a weird amount of "fan" backlash towards this game in recent years (I swear it bounces up and down like a yo-yo; one minute they love it, the next they hate it, so on and so forth), but I still maintain the fact that this game is an absolute masterpiece. Is it perfect? Well, no...no game is. But even today replaying it I found it hard to quit, I would get so caught up in the beauty and of the world and the adventure of exploring. This is even more amazing when taken in context: Retro had next to nothing to go off of, yet were tasked to revive one of the most beloved franchises Nintendo had. The cards were completely stacked against them on every level, and still they blew all expectations away. There's a reason this is considered by many to be one of the best games of its generation: it's incredible.

Minor flaws aside, Metroid Prime is a game you really have to play. While it isn't a 2D Metroid game, I really couldn't care less. For me (and I'm sure any many, many others), this game was the catalyst that really sold us on the Metroid series, and because of it we became hardcore fans of all the rest of the games. So you did good, Retro. You did very, very good.

Five out of five stars. 

This is the part where I'm supposed to say something like "It was the Portal 2 of its generation" but I'm not going to. Because that's a stupid thing to say.