JWLplays
23 reviews liked by JWLplays
In a just and sensible world, DKC: Tropical Freeze would have the same recognition as the Metroid Prime trilogy, because it's a kinetic and imaginative platformer that deserves to share that stage with Retro Studios' other masterpieces.
Super Monkey Ball 2
2002
We were spoiled. Add this to the pile of GameCube games that checks all the boxes: great level design, soundtrack full of bops, addictive and replayable multiplayer, all built around one easy-to-grasp mechanic.
This game had me charmed from the very beginning! The combat is fun, the characters are great and the writing is surprisingly well done (plus the backtracking isn't nearly as terrible as some people say).
Really just a good time overall!
Really just a good time overall!
Portal 2
2011
Portal 2 is a game that means so much to me. It's a game I genuinely believe is as close to perfect as one can possibly be. From its writing, to its gameplay, to its visuals, everything about it is just fantastic.
I've never been able to recover from the time a friend played it for the first time and he said "Oh so you probably based your entire personality around this game in high school" because he was 100% spot on. I even had a Portal 2 backpack in high school. All four years.
Playing it again with the developer commentary is also a great time, highly recommend it.
I've never been able to recover from the time a friend played it for the first time and he said "Oh so you probably based your entire personality around this game in high school" because he was 100% spot on. I even had a Portal 2 backpack in high school. All four years.
Playing it again with the developer commentary is also a great time, highly recommend it.
Resident Evil 4
2005
Resident Evil 4 is pretty much as good as gaming gets. It is the pinnacle of action-horror. It was an absolute revolution for 3rd person shooters, action games and gaming in general.
The gameplay is near perfect. The controls are excellent because the whole game is designed around them. The over the shoulder camera keeps the action at the perfect distance. The weapons using laser sights and having so much punch to them. Fast, accurate aiming with just enough weapon sway, inaccuracy and enemy threat to keep you on your toes and trying to hit your shots. The way enemies consistently react to getting shot and the incredibly satisfying headshots. Following up with a kick or suplex. The game just constantly rewards you for playing well. Taking on enemies with just a knife whether it's for fun or to save ammo or to slash projectiles out the air. Watching enemies fall off edges after being shot. Pushing the ladders while enemies try to climb it. Shooting through doors. kicking doors open to damage enemies on the other side. Getting enemies to group together and throwing an incendiary grenade into them. Leaping out windows. The set pieces and bosses. Crowd control. Repositioning when needed and not knowing exactly what's behind you while doing so. Using the environment to your advantage. Getting your head taken off in one horrific hit. The enemy variety. The weapon variety. They somehow made you not hate escorting another character. The list goes on and on and god damn it's all so good. The pacing is so well done as well with the game constantly throwing cool new things at you but also knowing when to slow things down a bit. The developers didn't even stop after creating a brilliant, lengthy, highly re-playable main story, they went and did more. The Mercenaries mode is really addictive. Then there's Separate Ways and unlockables too.
The story, characters, dialogue and cut scenes are ridiculously entertaining and well directed. It's so goofy and fun. God damn it's all so fun, remember FUN? It's like the only questions asked when making this game were - Is it fun? Is it entertaining? Does it play well? Does it fit in? If yes, then put it in the game. It's like they had no fear of risks and were just totally confident in what they were making, which is surprising if you know the story of this games development. The tone and atmosphere is handled perfectly. Seriously how did they do this? The game can be silly and/or over the top one minute and then have no problem being more serious the next. It also can be genuinely creepy at times, or surreal or bleak. It definitely delivers on the body horror and gore too.
The game looks and sounds top notch as well. It was one of the best looking games available when it came out. The art direction is fantastic. The village is cold, bleak, isolated and hostile with something gruesome around every turn. The castle is surreal, sinister and uncomfortable. It's so opulent and ornate but something is very off about it and there are traps everywhere. It kind of reminds me of the mansion from the RE 1 remake. The Island is grimy, dirty and industrial and does have some great creepy sections but it's visually more generic and forgettable unfortunately. They nailed the character and enemy designs too. The voice acting is exactly what was needed. The enemies sound harsh and scary. The guns hit hard and all the gross noises are spot on. The soundtrack is superb and so are the ambient sounds.
However no game is perfect and Resident Evil 4 is no exception. The worst thing about this game is that it wasn't survival horror and it put an end to Resident Evil being a survival horror franchise as they went down the action-horror path from here on wards. The puzzles are also not the best but I guess really good puzzles would have bogged down this games action focus and pace. The Island is also not as good as the first two locations. I think this is mostly due to the first two areas setting such a high bar, the industrial setting feeling more generic and maybe being a little too action heavy at times. Looking back at the game now I think it did overuse the quick time events as well. As cool and well done as they are it gets a bit much, especially when your on like the 20th play through.
If you have never played it before do yourself a favour and play it now. I highly, highly recommend Resident Evil 4. I still remember buying my collector's edition just after launch, which is still on my shelf, and playing it all day. Then I bought the Wii version and played it to death again. Then the PS3 and then the PS4. I think I am going to be playing this once every five years or so until I die. Some people try to dismiss this game's high praise with statements like "It's just nostalgia" or "You just think old good, new bad." But they are wrong, Resident Evil 4 really is just that good. This is what lightning in a bottle looks like.
9.8/10
Extra notes:
I think it comes across in the review but just to make things clear. This is a general review of Resident Evil 4 and not for any specific release.
Here are a few thoughts on the different versions
The GameCube release is special for me because that was my first experience and the game was built for the GameCube and that controller. I think the GameCube version is harder too; I’m not sure if they messed with the games balance or if it’s just me but the original feels more challenging. I also have the collector’s edition which came with a very cool bonus disc with behind the scenes stuff. But this version misses out on the extras added later and it is on two discs.
The Wii release is my favourite because it’s the same RE4 but with the extra content and Wii controls. Playing with the Wii remote makes an already incredibly fun game even more enjoyable. Aiming feels great and shaking the controller is a nice change from the button pressing QTEs.
The PS3 and PS4 HD releases are the same awesome RE4 and I loved them but I think they should have put more time and attention into them. Capcom could have done a much more thorough remaster.
The gameplay is near perfect. The controls are excellent because the whole game is designed around them. The over the shoulder camera keeps the action at the perfect distance. The weapons using laser sights and having so much punch to them. Fast, accurate aiming with just enough weapon sway, inaccuracy and enemy threat to keep you on your toes and trying to hit your shots. The way enemies consistently react to getting shot and the incredibly satisfying headshots. Following up with a kick or suplex. The game just constantly rewards you for playing well. Taking on enemies with just a knife whether it's for fun or to save ammo or to slash projectiles out the air. Watching enemies fall off edges after being shot. Pushing the ladders while enemies try to climb it. Shooting through doors. kicking doors open to damage enemies on the other side. Getting enemies to group together and throwing an incendiary grenade into them. Leaping out windows. The set pieces and bosses. Crowd control. Repositioning when needed and not knowing exactly what's behind you while doing so. Using the environment to your advantage. Getting your head taken off in one horrific hit. The enemy variety. The weapon variety. They somehow made you not hate escorting another character. The list goes on and on and god damn it's all so good. The pacing is so well done as well with the game constantly throwing cool new things at you but also knowing when to slow things down a bit. The developers didn't even stop after creating a brilliant, lengthy, highly re-playable main story, they went and did more. The Mercenaries mode is really addictive. Then there's Separate Ways and unlockables too.
The story, characters, dialogue and cut scenes are ridiculously entertaining and well directed. It's so goofy and fun. God damn it's all so fun, remember FUN? It's like the only questions asked when making this game were - Is it fun? Is it entertaining? Does it play well? Does it fit in? If yes, then put it in the game. It's like they had no fear of risks and were just totally confident in what they were making, which is surprising if you know the story of this games development. The tone and atmosphere is handled perfectly. Seriously how did they do this? The game can be silly and/or over the top one minute and then have no problem being more serious the next. It also can be genuinely creepy at times, or surreal or bleak. It definitely delivers on the body horror and gore too.
The game looks and sounds top notch as well. It was one of the best looking games available when it came out. The art direction is fantastic. The village is cold, bleak, isolated and hostile with something gruesome around every turn. The castle is surreal, sinister and uncomfortable. It's so opulent and ornate but something is very off about it and there are traps everywhere. It kind of reminds me of the mansion from the RE 1 remake. The Island is grimy, dirty and industrial and does have some great creepy sections but it's visually more generic and forgettable unfortunately. They nailed the character and enemy designs too. The voice acting is exactly what was needed. The enemies sound harsh and scary. The guns hit hard and all the gross noises are spot on. The soundtrack is superb and so are the ambient sounds.
However no game is perfect and Resident Evil 4 is no exception. The worst thing about this game is that it wasn't survival horror and it put an end to Resident Evil being a survival horror franchise as they went down the action-horror path from here on wards. The puzzles are also not the best but I guess really good puzzles would have bogged down this games action focus and pace. The Island is also not as good as the first two locations. I think this is mostly due to the first two areas setting such a high bar, the industrial setting feeling more generic and maybe being a little too action heavy at times. Looking back at the game now I think it did overuse the quick time events as well. As cool and well done as they are it gets a bit much, especially when your on like the 20th play through.
If you have never played it before do yourself a favour and play it now. I highly, highly recommend Resident Evil 4. I still remember buying my collector's edition just after launch, which is still on my shelf, and playing it all day. Then I bought the Wii version and played it to death again. Then the PS3 and then the PS4. I think I am going to be playing this once every five years or so until I die. Some people try to dismiss this game's high praise with statements like "It's just nostalgia" or "You just think old good, new bad." But they are wrong, Resident Evil 4 really is just that good. This is what lightning in a bottle looks like.
9.8/10
Extra notes:
I think it comes across in the review but just to make things clear. This is a general review of Resident Evil 4 and not for any specific release.
Here are a few thoughts on the different versions
The GameCube release is special for me because that was my first experience and the game was built for the GameCube and that controller. I think the GameCube version is harder too; I’m not sure if they messed with the games balance or if it’s just me but the original feels more challenging. I also have the collector’s edition which came with a very cool bonus disc with behind the scenes stuff. But this version misses out on the extras added later and it is on two discs.
The Wii release is my favourite because it’s the same RE4 but with the extra content and Wii controls. Playing with the Wii remote makes an already incredibly fun game even more enjoyable. Aiming feels great and shaking the controller is a nice change from the button pressing QTEs.
The PS3 and PS4 HD releases are the same awesome RE4 and I loved them but I think they should have put more time and attention into them. Capcom could have done a much more thorough remaster.
Majora's Mask is very novel for its tight use of integrated systems and narrative to explore themes of alienation, despair and hope. It's one thing, I think, for a game to have high level themes, it's another thing for those themes to be directly illustrated by elements of its underlying systems, like it's ticking clock, temporal loop mechanic, the deliberate inability for the protagonist to meaningfully save or help everyone. The latter of which isn't forced upon you by the narrative structure of the game, there's no unseen writer telling you that someone can't be saved other than the fact that you simply don't have enough time. In a lot of ways, I think Majora's Mask is uniquely tempocentric in an art form mostly structured around games which center around the agency and freedom of players. It's a world that is moving on its own clock with characters who are interacting to their impending demise in their own ways, the player is reduced to an interloper and is not the central pivot point for the story, they are merely a vessel to experience it.
I also think Majora's Mask is a game that, in an ideal world, should only be played once. The way Majora's Mask rations time means that you're forced to choose, ultimately, to make sacrifices between doing "right" by individual characters and doing "right" within the context of trying to save the world to the point that even thinking about some of those choices however much time later still tugs at me. By helping some characters resolve certain traumas and unresolved pain, you're quite literally choosing to give them a measure of peace above quite literally everything else, above the existential security of the entire world. To me, that's almost the definition of selfless love, and it's incredible that any medium could find a way to convey that using such a simple mechanic as the ticking clock.
The truly powerful thing that helps make Majora's Mask a masterpiece, is that all these choices emerge through gameplay, it's your trade-offs, your time to ration, the game doesn't tell you how you should manage your time, the game doesn't even mandate you save the world, as far as Majora's Mask is concerned, you can let the world die while using all the time you have to comfort the dying, to help them move on and let go and that's fine. I feel bluntly that there is something truly beautiful in that.
Majora's Mask as a game that has come closer than any game I have played to having a truly holistic design. Everything about the game from the sound design, mechanics and direction is expertly crafted around the underlying philosophical and social premise it is trying to convey and to me, that's just incredible. Very few games come close to ever achieving that level of integration of systems, ideas of disempowerment, alienation, loneliness and a sense of hopeless struggle or futility. These are some of the most difficult themes to address in gaming, a genre all about choice and a perception of agency, and yet the game knocks it out of the park just on mechanical construction alone. Majora's Mask is a bad Zelda game, I should say that bluntly. It does not fit the series tone or its normal gameplay cycle in any way, but by god I'm glad it is one. If you go into Majora looking for something else, what you find is a game that has mastered the gameplay narrative balance to create a game that will forever hold up as a masterpiece in my eyes and something I feel very strongly everyone should be able to experience in full atleast once in their lifetime.
I also think Majora's Mask is a game that, in an ideal world, should only be played once. The way Majora's Mask rations time means that you're forced to choose, ultimately, to make sacrifices between doing "right" by individual characters and doing "right" within the context of trying to save the world to the point that even thinking about some of those choices however much time later still tugs at me. By helping some characters resolve certain traumas and unresolved pain, you're quite literally choosing to give them a measure of peace above quite literally everything else, above the existential security of the entire world. To me, that's almost the definition of selfless love, and it's incredible that any medium could find a way to convey that using such a simple mechanic as the ticking clock.
The truly powerful thing that helps make Majora's Mask a masterpiece, is that all these choices emerge through gameplay, it's your trade-offs, your time to ration, the game doesn't tell you how you should manage your time, the game doesn't even mandate you save the world, as far as Majora's Mask is concerned, you can let the world die while using all the time you have to comfort the dying, to help them move on and let go and that's fine. I feel bluntly that there is something truly beautiful in that.
Majora's Mask as a game that has come closer than any game I have played to having a truly holistic design. Everything about the game from the sound design, mechanics and direction is expertly crafted around the underlying philosophical and social premise it is trying to convey and to me, that's just incredible. Very few games come close to ever achieving that level of integration of systems, ideas of disempowerment, alienation, loneliness and a sense of hopeless struggle or futility. These are some of the most difficult themes to address in gaming, a genre all about choice and a perception of agency, and yet the game knocks it out of the park just on mechanical construction alone. Majora's Mask is a bad Zelda game, I should say that bluntly. It does not fit the series tone or its normal gameplay cycle in any way, but by god I'm glad it is one. If you go into Majora looking for something else, what you find is a game that has mastered the gameplay narrative balance to create a game that will forever hold up as a masterpiece in my eyes and something I feel very strongly everyone should be able to experience in full atleast once in their lifetime.
A great remaster of an absolute classic.
Metroid Prime is one of the greatest Gamecube games and one of the best games of that generation. It’s great to see it get a quality remaster for old fans to revisit it and so new players can jump in easily. They did an excellent job with this remaster by taking an already good looking game that was still holding up well after all this time and making it look beautiful. The game works perfectly too. They also added new control options without getting rid of the old controls. One thing to keep in mind though is this is a Gamecube game so it was made within the limitations of that time and hardware. Not that it really matters as I still enjoyed this more than the majority of current games but it’s still worth remembering when going into Metroid Prime remastered.
Metroid Prime is one of those games that can be hard to put down after starting it. The exploration is so satisfying and enjoyable. Every time you find a new ability it triggers your memory of all the things you went past that can now be reached/unlocked. The exploration is also elevated so much by the atmosphere, beautiful visuals and great soundtrack. The environments are a joy to become familiar with and all the small details, like reflections and moisture on the visor, add so much. Combat is good with a variety of great looking enemies to dispatch. There is also a good variety of weapons at your disposal, once unlocked, that you are regularly forced to switch between. Things really work well when faced with a small number of different creatures. There are some puzzles to solve too and the developers trusted players to pay attention to the environment and use the tools available. There is plenty of scanning to do and lore to discover which adds another layer of depth to the experience.
Metroid Prime does have some things to nitpick though. First of all I think the design could be a little tighter or the locations more interconnected to reduce backtracking slightly. It is also on the smaller/shorter side and could have benefited from one more location. I think most first time players will probably finish it in around 11 to 13 hours. On top of this, while it is definitely worth revisiting, it doesn’t have a lot of immediate replayability. You could try for 100% or do a different difficulty but Metroid Prime could be a one weekend game for many people. It does lack a little in challenge and the enemy AI could be better. Another thing is that some of the bosses don’t take quite enough damage which means the fight drags on a tad too long. However none of this brings down the whole experience too much.
Metroid Prime is a beautiful, fantastic game with very minor faults and this is a really well done remaster. I hope Metroid Prime 2 can get the same remaster treatment soon too. Metroid Prime Remastered is a must own Switch game. If you’ve never played this before then go grab yourself copy, this is one of the greats.
9.3/10
Metroid Prime is one of the greatest Gamecube games and one of the best games of that generation. It’s great to see it get a quality remaster for old fans to revisit it and so new players can jump in easily. They did an excellent job with this remaster by taking an already good looking game that was still holding up well after all this time and making it look beautiful. The game works perfectly too. They also added new control options without getting rid of the old controls. One thing to keep in mind though is this is a Gamecube game so it was made within the limitations of that time and hardware. Not that it really matters as I still enjoyed this more than the majority of current games but it’s still worth remembering when going into Metroid Prime remastered.
Metroid Prime is one of those games that can be hard to put down after starting it. The exploration is so satisfying and enjoyable. Every time you find a new ability it triggers your memory of all the things you went past that can now be reached/unlocked. The exploration is also elevated so much by the atmosphere, beautiful visuals and great soundtrack. The environments are a joy to become familiar with and all the small details, like reflections and moisture on the visor, add so much. Combat is good with a variety of great looking enemies to dispatch. There is also a good variety of weapons at your disposal, once unlocked, that you are regularly forced to switch between. Things really work well when faced with a small number of different creatures. There are some puzzles to solve too and the developers trusted players to pay attention to the environment and use the tools available. There is plenty of scanning to do and lore to discover which adds another layer of depth to the experience.
Metroid Prime does have some things to nitpick though. First of all I think the design could be a little tighter or the locations more interconnected to reduce backtracking slightly. It is also on the smaller/shorter side and could have benefited from one more location. I think most first time players will probably finish it in around 11 to 13 hours. On top of this, while it is definitely worth revisiting, it doesn’t have a lot of immediate replayability. You could try for 100% or do a different difficulty but Metroid Prime could be a one weekend game for many people. It does lack a little in challenge and the enemy AI could be better. Another thing is that some of the bosses don’t take quite enough damage which means the fight drags on a tad too long. However none of this brings down the whole experience too much.
Metroid Prime is a beautiful, fantastic game with very minor faults and this is a really well done remaster. I hope Metroid Prime 2 can get the same remaster treatment soon too. Metroid Prime Remastered is a must own Switch game. If you’ve never played this before then go grab yourself copy, this is one of the greats.
9.3/10
Soundtrack, atmosphere and even immersion are pretty close to perfection in this game. Just listen to some of the hourly music on Youtube if you haven't already. I'll link some of my favorites here.
5 PM
7 PM
11 PM
The gameplay loop consists of classic Animal Crossing - you collect fruit from trees, catch bugs and fish and dig up an occasional fossil. The main 'goal' of the game is paying off your house's debt, but it shouldn't be treated as the main focus, because you'd usually play this game for other reasons than just to 'finish' it as fast as possible. I'm talking about a key part of the franchise here - the villagers and the interactions with them.
If you're coming from New Horizons, you're probably sick of your villagers repeating the same three lines every single day. Fortunately this is not the case in New Leaf. Villagers have a lot more variety in conversations and are not your biggest superfans at the beginning (as opposed to New Horizons). Of course the topics will be repeated every now and then - but that's because the game doesn't expect you to talk to someone a hundred times in a row and the devs didn't want to spend a lifetime working on dialogue for humanoid animals - which is understandable!
I mentioned the atmosphere in this game being especially good earlier. The emptiness and closed shops with calm songs in the nighttime are a direct contrast to the cheerful and lively atmosphere with peppy songs during the day. Both feel very different and it's hard to explain that feeling. It just feels right.
Decoration is a rather major aspect in this game too and it's obviously not as refined as in New Horizons, but you still have many options to design your town and home nonetheless. For the only time in an Animal Crossing game you take the role of a mayor and are allowed to build various sorts of infrastructure in your town - if you have the funds. You can't place furniture outside in this entry, but it's not a negative for me, as this feature wasn't added before either and is just a really good QoL improvement in New Horizons.
The upgradeable shops in the shopping district are a really cool concept and give you a feeling of progression. The more you play the game, the more stuff you'll be able to buy. This is done entirely without FOMO (fear of missing out) and allows you to play the game at your own pace.
Speaking of FOMO, the seasonal events like Halloween and Christmas are unmissable and repeated in a yearly cycle. If you would really like to attend those events despite not being there at the given day, you can go into the game's settings and set the day to whenever you want. I would not recommend time traveling as it messes with the intended slow pacing of the game, but feel free to adjust the date as you want if you want to experience more of the game in a shorter timespan.
5 PM
7 PM
11 PM
The gameplay loop consists of classic Animal Crossing - you collect fruit from trees, catch bugs and fish and dig up an occasional fossil. The main 'goal' of the game is paying off your house's debt, but it shouldn't be treated as the main focus, because you'd usually play this game for other reasons than just to 'finish' it as fast as possible. I'm talking about a key part of the franchise here - the villagers and the interactions with them.
If you're coming from New Horizons, you're probably sick of your villagers repeating the same three lines every single day. Fortunately this is not the case in New Leaf. Villagers have a lot more variety in conversations and are not your biggest superfans at the beginning (as opposed to New Horizons). Of course the topics will be repeated every now and then - but that's because the game doesn't expect you to talk to someone a hundred times in a row and the devs didn't want to spend a lifetime working on dialogue for humanoid animals - which is understandable!
I mentioned the atmosphere in this game being especially good earlier. The emptiness and closed shops with calm songs in the nighttime are a direct contrast to the cheerful and lively atmosphere with peppy songs during the day. Both feel very different and it's hard to explain that feeling. It just feels right.
Decoration is a rather major aspect in this game too and it's obviously not as refined as in New Horizons, but you still have many options to design your town and home nonetheless. For the only time in an Animal Crossing game you take the role of a mayor and are allowed to build various sorts of infrastructure in your town - if you have the funds. You can't place furniture outside in this entry, but it's not a negative for me, as this feature wasn't added before either and is just a really good QoL improvement in New Horizons.
The upgradeable shops in the shopping district are a really cool concept and give you a feeling of progression. The more you play the game, the more stuff you'll be able to buy. This is done entirely without FOMO (fear of missing out) and allows you to play the game at your own pace.
Speaking of FOMO, the seasonal events like Halloween and Christmas are unmissable and repeated in a yearly cycle. If you would really like to attend those events despite not being there at the given day, you can go into the game's settings and set the day to whenever you want. I would not recommend time traveling as it messes with the intended slow pacing of the game, but feel free to adjust the date as you want if you want to experience more of the game in a shorter timespan.
F-Zero GX
2003
Its been 20 years and its aged flawlessly, one of and arguably the best racing game ever made.
Metroid Prime 3 Corruption is a very complicated game for me. It was the first Metroid game I received, around its launch window, yet here it is, the last one that I'm completing. Feels weird.
This game is pretty good, but it does so many extremly weird decisions that it can't help but feel well below it's 2 gamecube predecessors, especially Echoes.
The main issue is, obviously Hypermode. So much of the game relies on this absolutely broken mechanic that removes pretty much all the challenge. Corruption decides to take a much heavier focus on combat than Prime and Echoes, yet somehow strips down the Beam system back to what it was in the 2D games, and doubling this, make missiles feel extremly weak. So what does it do to compensate? Hypermode. Hypermode is far from a bad idea within itself, it's kind of like Devil Trigger in Devil May Cry, and the use of health as ammo is pretty interesting. Except enemies pretty much die on impact the second you pull it out.
Oh but you use health as ammo, so it's a risk reward system that gives you even more of an incentive to search far and wide the game world to find energy tanks? Right? Wrong, the game gives you every energy tank on a silver platter. Exploring and secrets are basically only relegated to find missile packs, which again, feel much less useful in this game than previously, so the whole Metroidvania aspect is severly damaged.
All this gives is a game where you're braindead just shooting at stuff. Metroid was never survival horror per se, but exploring the world felt extremly tense sometimes, Echoes was so good at this, making you carefully plot your next step, making you save ammo if you could, now that's just gone, with save points even fully healing you and remplishing your ammo now. Maybe it was a way to hope to get on the Halo trend, which was at its peak at the time, but if that's the case, I'm sorry, this dosent even come close. The simple gunplay of Metroid Prime is fine in a game that puts first and foremost exploration, but it will not stand up to games with a focus on gunplay.
So what saves the game? The World design is simply put, brilliant. Bryyo, Elysia and the Pirate Homeworld are all top tier locations with excellent music, I think this might be the strongest selection of worlds to explore in the entire Metroid series, and I am not kidding, traversing these is amazing. This coupled with great presentation and a strong sense of finality to this trilogy does make Corruption stand out, but all and all, it just can't help but feel lesser. It's "just a good game" in a series that has excellence as its standard.
This game is pretty good, but it does so many extremly weird decisions that it can't help but feel well below it's 2 gamecube predecessors, especially Echoes.
The main issue is, obviously Hypermode. So much of the game relies on this absolutely broken mechanic that removes pretty much all the challenge. Corruption decides to take a much heavier focus on combat than Prime and Echoes, yet somehow strips down the Beam system back to what it was in the 2D games, and doubling this, make missiles feel extremly weak. So what does it do to compensate? Hypermode. Hypermode is far from a bad idea within itself, it's kind of like Devil Trigger in Devil May Cry, and the use of health as ammo is pretty interesting. Except enemies pretty much die on impact the second you pull it out.
Oh but you use health as ammo, so it's a risk reward system that gives you even more of an incentive to search far and wide the game world to find energy tanks? Right? Wrong, the game gives you every energy tank on a silver platter. Exploring and secrets are basically only relegated to find missile packs, which again, feel much less useful in this game than previously, so the whole Metroidvania aspect is severly damaged.
All this gives is a game where you're braindead just shooting at stuff. Metroid was never survival horror per se, but exploring the world felt extremly tense sometimes, Echoes was so good at this, making you carefully plot your next step, making you save ammo if you could, now that's just gone, with save points even fully healing you and remplishing your ammo now. Maybe it was a way to hope to get on the Halo trend, which was at its peak at the time, but if that's the case, I'm sorry, this dosent even come close. The simple gunplay of Metroid Prime is fine in a game that puts first and foremost exploration, but it will not stand up to games with a focus on gunplay.
So what saves the game? The World design is simply put, brilliant. Bryyo, Elysia and the Pirate Homeworld are all top tier locations with excellent music, I think this might be the strongest selection of worlds to explore in the entire Metroid series, and I am not kidding, traversing these is amazing. This coupled with great presentation and a strong sense of finality to this trilogy does make Corruption stand out, but all and all, it just can't help but feel lesser. It's "just a good game" in a series that has excellence as its standard.