It is amazing, in retrospect, that Prime managed to so fully translate Metroid into a first person platformer/adventure game over two decades ago. And now, with a fresh coat of paint and non-antiquated controls, it could pass as truly modern release.

Because a tremendous amount of the experience not only holds up, but also stands as a unique experience. Few games strike the balance of letting the player wonder like Prime does. There is always the tension that you could be totally lost, but there is such satisfaction from when a hunch proves right.

Beyond that feeling of wondering though, Prime excels in the difficult tasks of making enjoyable first person platforming and a steady stream of Puzzles that aren’t perfunctory but kind of the point. All wrapped in impeccable aesthetics from art direction to music.

Overarching, though, my one major criticism is that the game could have been tuned to make back tracking mildly less punishing. Not with fast travel or something against the spirit of wondering, but in giving the player more powerful tools to remove some friction in traversing earlier parts of the map. Prime somewhat does this, but something that speeds up movement by the end and weapon tuning for a late game area so it isn’t such a pain to go back through would be huge improvements.

But regardless, Prime’s final stretch of exploration and bosses are terrific and bring the game together as perhaps the best Metroid, despite the mid game friction. It still holds up today and makes me excited to see what the upcoming sequel will be like. I hope they have the confidence to keep this game’s DNA intact while perhaps pulling a few lessons in mechanics progression from modern Metroidvanas.