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.

Spoiler level: High. Expect specific mechanical and story spoilers.

I played version 1.0 of the GameCube version of Metroid Prime, on a Wii, with a widescreen mod. Although I do own the game, I used Nintendont, which may have improved the game’s performance. I achieved 74% completion with most objects scanned and all but one E-tank, judging by the HUD.

The controls are passable. Tank controls may feel like an odd choice, but they are probably the best scheme that the controller could accommodate; dual-stick aiming would have heavily compromised the button mapping, and the controller’s trigger buttons would have worsened the feel of the weapons, as most sport a one-press, one-shot scheme, which keeps combat frantic and direct. The existing controls are also poorly tuned. Cycling between enemies with the lock-on is finicky at best, as is target acquisition. Weapon switch speed, while fine for combat, bogs down traversal, as all doors require the correct beam to open, even after being unlocked once. Samus also turns too slowly, feeling more like Jill Valentine than a bounty hunter.

Metroid Prime’s true zenith lies within its masterful progression and atmosphere. Samus herself demonstrates the widest gulf, granting a taste of power during the prologue before her upgrades are stripped away, then slowly expanding her capabilities until she can dispatch any enemy with ease. The world similarly shifts; initially, Samus encounters only naturalistic enemies and ancient structures, with adventurous music befitting an uninhabited planet. Over time, the Space Pirates and their modern structures eventually begin to reveal themselves, accompanied by a foreboding score. These industrial complexes present the atmospheric highlights of the game: the music pauses, the lights go dark, Samus is in trouble, and it’s up to her to turn the tables. Her actions have a real effect on the world, and eventually, the Space Pirate logs scattered throughout the world reflect this, mentioning them directly and becoming increasingly panicked over time. This holistic approach to progression sells just how much of a cannon Samus becomes: the world fears her very presence.

Combat likewise shines, with enemies that vary greatly in strength and strategy. Samus Aran’s attacks sport great depth - there are four main beams, each with a charge attack and an unlockable combo attack, missiles, and fringe attacks like the Morph Ball Bomb. Most enemies are broadly vulnerable, but certain combinations hold valuable niches; for instance, the Ice Beam and a missile can dispatch stronger enemies quickly, but only if the player develops high accuracy. Deep into the game, however, the exceptionally powerful Plasma Beam obsoletes the other options. Seemingly as a counter to this, enemies vulnerable only to specific beams are introduced, distilling their encounters to a simple weapon selection. Still, the combat remains enjoyable, if a little heavy on enemy spam near the end, treating Samus’ newfound power more as an avenue for catharsis than a game breaker.

Tallon IV’s level design is very intentional. Instead of featuring a vast world filled with grand vistas and cities, it instead mostly sports cramped indoor areas and walled-off outdoor courtyards. This is clearly a level design concession - it keeps the world’s scale in check - but it removes a sense of placeness from the world. The world also features other artificialities, such as a high amount of platforming. Initially, platforms and environmental hazards integrate with the environment, but eventually these are replaced with arbitrary floating platforms spaced just far enough apart to be cumbersome, and Samus’ lack of movement options renders them boring. Despite this, the world remains chock-full of secrets, and many of them are telegraphed well, even if they are not yet obtainable with Samus’ current gear. Overall the level design is quite palatable, keeping the pace reasonable and the brain spinning.

At least, reasonable most of the time. This game has some of the most volatile backtracking I have ever seen in a game.

Metroid Prime features no fast travel system, which is an admirable design goal, but its areas are too linear. For instance, reaching Phendrana Drifts from the Tallon Overworld presents a ten-minute-long trek, consisting largely of walking and extremely basic platforming. Samus is provided with some movement upgrades, but these save little on backtracking at best. The double jump provides decent time saves in earlier areas, but none for later areas which expect it. The Grapple Beam, conversely, is unlocked criminally late into the game, rendering it mostly useless.

Enemy progression also permeates nearly every area of the game, and while I praised it earlier, it can also turn backtracking into a chore. The worst example, Chozo Ghosts, appear throughout the Chozo Ruins later in the game. By this time, Samus is powerful enough to handily defeat them, and yet they constantly grind down the pace of backtracking. Samus also cannot reliably target them without the X-Ray visor, elevating their annoyance until it is acquired.

Additionally, the Chozo Artifacts are gated rather arbitrarily, best illustrated by the Tower of Light. A player may decide to do some early backtracking through the ruins with the knowledge that the artifact is present, reach the tower, and complete the upper section. Despite this, without the Gravity Suit, the player is pointlessly stuffed from actually obtaining the artifact, forced to spend twenty minutes returning later. It is a blatantly arbitrary lock that is unfortunately repeated elsewhere.

This all puts the player in a tough position - he or she can either backtrack early to potentially gain some artifacts and useful upgrades, but likely spend multiple extra boring hours on the game because of this, or instead the player may choose to defer backtracking until the end of the game, completely destroying the pace of the finale. This volatility has the potential to turn backtracking, which usually acts as a respite that relaxes the pace and tension, into a complete pace-breaker.

Lastly, the game suffers from a few minor oversights. While most camera controls can be inverted, the map’s controls cannot be. The map likewise suffers from a combination of transparency and poor shading, which cause frequent depth confusion. Lastly, the visor transparency setting affects both decorative and functional elements, such as the mini map, health and ammo displays, and beam selection. These should have been separate sliders.

Overall, Metroid Prime leaves me conflicted. On one hand, I love the combat, the exploration, the atmosphere, and the sense of mystery presented by the world, but on the other hand, dry backtracking and an overall lack of challenge leave it sitting somewhere short of true greatness. Still, it will easily hold one’s interest enough to see it through.