Metroid Prime: Trilogy Review

Now normally I am against remakes, but when a publisher decides to re-release three games and sell them for the price of one, who am I to complain? Well, The Metroid Prime: Trilogy is a “Prime” example of capitalism in the works(don’t hurt me!).

This game includes the exploits of Samus Aran through the adventures of Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, all now using the motion controls of the final installment. I’d like to note that porting games is not as easy as it looks, and takes months of development time to work out all the bugs. So don’t think it’s just all for the money (although it really is).

Gameplay:

This is where the game truly excels. This is one of the few games out there that actually gives the Nintendo Wii a good name, and has wonderful use of motion controls. I’d like to note that I am not an enemy of motion controllers like my fellow author, Scott; I just feel that too many developers act like generic uses the Wii-mote are adequate for most games. Luckily, the Prime Trilogy is not amongst them.

This game is not a standard dual analog shooter, but instead utilizes a lock-on interface. Now, under normal circumstances, I dislike this kind of gameplay because it has a tendency to make the game too easy, and less interactive. However, this is not the case; I found the enemies to be creatively appropriate for this style and challenging, although sometimes gimmicky. The major elements of first-person combat remains relatively constant. You have beams and missiles. The former of which are relatively weak and can be charged for increased damage, and the latter are stronger and come in limited supply.

Both Metroid Prime I and II allow for switching between the beams available, while the third allows for only one equippable beam, but adds in a “hyper mode” which I’ll address later. The beams are relatively varied throughout the game, and have induced effects if you charge them, such as freezing with the ice/dark beam, electrocution with the wave beam, or burning with the light/plasma beams. Choosing the beam appropriate for the enemy leads to the best results. Besides your weapons, the first person combat is rather straight forward: dodge enemy attacks, pound enemy with fire otherwise (but then again aren’t all games like this?). The enemies are well varied, from callsigns to fighting styles, to the extent that the game doesn’t allow for typical shooter malaise (also known as the “clear room/move/repeat” syndrome).

The game also possess a “visor” system which allows for anything from scanning enemies and data logs, to spotting invisible enemies with thermal, or x-ray vision. Most of these add a simple and fun element to gameplay, but can appear gimicky at times. Like the power failing right after you recieve the thermal visor in the first game. I would like to note that the scanning of creatures is actually interesting. It doesn’t reveal strategies of how to defeat enemies, but rather talks about their habitat, diet, and other interesting facts about the creature itself: a nice little touch.

The third game adds in a tactical element called “hyper mode” which allows you to sacrifice 100 units of health for about 10 seconds of what I call “God-mode” in which you own everything. I would like to note in the hardest difficulty “hyper mode” acts like a paper-cut to enemies compared to the average belly-rubbing them to death. In other words: this DOES NOT make the game easy. Actually on the hardest difficulty, the health loss due to hyper mode becomes insignificant compared to that which you receive in combat. Oh, and if you’re not convinced about the difficulty: Some enemies have hyper-mode too.

The boss fights are truly something to witness though. Everything from shooting at a fast gymnastic bounty hunter (I know, weird right?) to doing a Gandalf scene with Samus as Gandalf and Ridley as the Balrog. All are a sight to behold, and in truth a lot of fun. I don’t want to spoil too much, so I’ll stop for now.

Now I’ve been talking about first-person combat up to this point, and yes there is more than just shooting and dodging in first person. You can also shoot and dodge as a morph ball, and have bombs and power bombs as your arsenal. This combat never shows up much, but when it does, it’s refreshing if only a little generic. There are even a few boss fights in which you remain in morph ball mode. Most of these are designated “puzzle” bosses though, and as such are more tedious than they are enjoyable.

I’d like to note that this three-dimensional Metroid is not all about combat. The Prime Trilogy retains true to it’s platforming and puzzle solving roots. The platforming is fun and well paced with combat, but the puzzles are simple and more meticulous than challenging. That being said, the Trilogy offers three modes of difficulty. The hardest of which, is actually challenging. So for those of you who like a test of skill (like myself), this is a good game to look at. However, you do have to beat the game on normal in order to unlock the hardest difficulty, but if that’s not worth it, you can always try playing the game with your weak hand.

I would like to note a game mechanic that has the innate tendency to appear in every Metroid game: losing all of you’re abilities at the start. I understand why it’s there, but seriously? I can’t count how many time I’ve gotten the stupid morph ball bomb advancement!

Story:

Without revealing too much, Samus gets a distress signal from a damaged space pirate vessel orbiting the planet, Tallon IV. Upon learning of further pirate influence on the planet, the bounty hunter descends to find an abandoned Chozo sanctuary, filled with tomes admonishing “the great poison” and “the worm”. The inner rooms of the sanctum are filled with tainted waters and carnivorous insects and plants. However even after defeating the poison’s source, there seems to be much more to both the Chozos’ disappearance, and the pirates’ interest in the area…

If you can’t tell, I enjoyed the storyline a lot. To be fair though, a majority of the story is revealed through logs that need to be scanned throughout the game; Meaning that you could go through the entire game without needing to know what’s going on. Now depending on your point of view, this is either a good or bad thing. I, personally, side with the latter. I believe side-quests should ADD to the story, not BE the story. Now to be fair on that front, the second and third installment give the basics of the story through the play-through, but it’s just a thin layer of the deep sea that is the Metroid Prime history.

To my own humor, Retro Studios seems to rival the main writers at Nintendo. See Nintendo likes to claim that the Prime Trilogy happens between Metroid, and Metroid II: The Return of Samus, but Retro Studios seems to believe its a successor to Super Metroid. With the original release of the separate Prime games, the log data allowed for adequate arguments for both claims. However, with the re-release, some “log data”s were changed to better support the Super Metroid statement. The “log data”s were also changed to seal any plot holes that existed in the original games, such as prime able to leave the sealed crater.

All things aside, I believe the story behind Metroid Prime is a good one, if not told in the best fashion.

Graphics:

Like most metroid games, the Prime Trilogy features a variety of different landscapes. From the fiery magmoor caverns to the swamp-like Torvus Bog, the terrains all have their own feel and native species. It’s a remake of two Gamecube games and a Wii game, so, visually, it’s not as impressive as what you would see on the other consoles. Even with that being said, the game demonstrates a beautifully created galaxy, in which something truly horrible is about to happen to it, and as you play further into the series, you begin to witness the corruption spreading with your own eyes.

Let me put it this way: The game may not be a graphical masterpiece that you’d expect to see on the PS3, or X-Box 360, but in this game, each area is finely crafted, textures are rarely reused, and nothing seems out of place. I can’t think of any legitimate criticisms, except a few animations were done rather poorly.

Sound:

The music in the Prime Trilogy isn’t the best music known to man. I can say something of major importance in it’s favor though: It doesn’t fit the mood; it SETS the mood. To better describe this are few examples:

MP2: echoes: Upon entering The Sanctuary, a towering fortress of Luminoth design long abused by the decay of war, you see the rustling of robots working with busy abandon. They seem to not notice that thier masters have withdrawn long ago, and continue diligently with their assignments. The music in this area fits that explanation perfectly. The even paced rythm of the music, as cleaners roamed the walls.

MP3: corruption: The Vahalla was a Galactic Federation Cruiser that was attacked by space pirates during a training mission. Now 4 months after the attack, it has become a spqwn place for phazon, and metroids. Besides the graphics of the lights flickering, and shadows moving in the distance, the ambience of the ship creaking and the screech of a metroid off in the distance. It was scarier than Resident Evil 4 to say the least.

I was very satisfied with the mix of music for the boss fights, and how the music really added to the area, I don’t have too many complaints.

Overview and Scores:

Gameplay 4.0/5: fun, challenging game-play. 10+ hours on you’re first play-through. Has a tendency to be gimmicky.

Story 3.7/5: The story is a classic “save the galaxy” role, but if you look you can learn much about the world around you.

Graphics 3.5/5: for a Wii game, it’s not bad, but not the greatest either. still well done.

Sound: 4.5/5 This, with the graphics, is what makes the immersion factor of this game. This music has the ability to make your hair stand on end, or your heart race on command.

OVERALL 3.9/5: If you own a Wii, this game is a must have, but not something I would suggest buying a wii for ( unless some other games are catching your eye ).

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