Well, beating this on my birthday sure was a nice surprise! Especially since this was a pretty great game overall. It was my Secret Santa game in fact, which was something me and my discord fellas participated in. I'll link the list I did for that here.

Any who, yeah this was really good. I beat Prime 1 last year for the first time and thought it was awesome. So I was excited to see how 2 fared and I was not disappointed. I do think 1 was better overall as 2 has higher highs in some parts of the game and lower lows but it's still really good even compared to 1.

When it comes to straight up improvements, there's a couple things 2 did extremely well compared to 1. Loading times are all faster, it takes like half the time for you to get to a new area now. Scans now go from red or blue to green when scanned and are much easier to see if they've been scanned or not. The scanning especially being a lot better than 1's would definitely make me miss it when I replay that eventually lol.

Obviously the game's big mechanic is the dark and light worlds and honestly, I thought it was awesome. I've heard some people say they found it tedious, and I never really had an issue with it. I thought it added a cool spin on Prime's gameplay and made you think. It could make the game difficult somewhat, especially when fighting some of those dark world bosses but I liked that.

Speaking of the bosses, they're very interesting in this one. Overall, I'd say they were an improvement from 1 tho there were a couple that were a pain in the ass. Spider Guardian obviously being the main culprit for most people. I didn't hate it but man was it frustrating trying to figure out what to do while fighting it cuz that one can be brutal. A lot of the bosses were actually pretty tough, they were certainly more complex than 1's bosses. Those last few tho, the 2nd Dark Samus fight...Quadraxis and the whole set of final bosses were easily the best in the game and better than all of Prime 1's bosses. At first I was a little disappointed with the boss roster in 2 but after fighting the endgame ones, overall I do think 2 has better bosses than 1.

Now the biggest thing I think that's holding this game back from being better than 1, is its world. Prime 1 was basically Super Metroid in 3D. You had a very interconnected world to explore that was more into showing not telling. Prime 2 is more similar to Fusion with its bigger focus on storytelling and more linear world. The game is definitely not quite as linear or focused on story as Fusion, but it definitely feels like it took inspiration from it. The world is broken up into 3 main areas to explore and 1 overworld type area you go back and forth from. Rather than exploring at your own pace like Prime 1, it feels more like you're guided around slightly as you have to go back to the hub to unlock each new area. Eventually the areas do have elevators that connect to other areas but even with that the world isn't as tightly designed as 1's I feel. The area's are all cool, especially Sanctuary Fortress...that one is awesome, however I feel there weren't as many "aha" moments whenever I saw areas connect like in 1. I also feel like the game wasn't as atmospheric as 1 was, at least not the atmosphere I dig as much. Still, the world does interconnect by the end, I just think compared to 1 it just aint as good.

As for other miscellaneous things, the OST is pretty solid tho I do think its a downgrade compared to 1. I love how the classic item room theme is back, that's sick. I enjoyed the connections the game made to 1 near the beginning. Dark Samus was awesome to see in this game finally and it seems like it comes back in 3 so that'll be cool. Pirate commanders suck ass and were easily the worst enemy in the game. They're basically Chozo Ghosts from 1, except instead of locking the doors only some of the time, they lock them every time they appear and they're tanky as fuck which Chozo ghosts weren't. Weird change tbh and was just tedious every time they popped up. Navigating menus in this game feels clunkier than 1, they tried to make it all cool but it feels like it takes longer to find a certain file if you wanna read it again. It was interesting to see the screw attack in this game and while I warmed up to it by the end of the game, I still can't help it felt a little lame compared to how it was in prior games. Also again, one of the best parts of the game was just getting collectables and seeing what puzzles you have to do to get/find them. That was still really fun to do in this game, especially with the Dark/Light gimmick. I did get every item, which is of course a Metroid staple, and got a good chunk of the scans so I'm satisfied.

Overall, this was very good despite some issues I had. I do like Prime 1 more but this was definitely a worthy sequel I feel. Thank you @QuentTheSlayer for having me play this as my Secret Santa game, had a jolly good time! Next is gonna be the original Klonoa. A nice short game will do me good methinks.