I heard it has a darker tone, like a horror game. Doubt. How dark can it get? The story revolves around going to Aether (planet name) to retrieve some lost federation soldiers. The first level has you walking into a room where most of them are dead, being fed upon by these bugs called Splinters which, you know, might be a little dark...Oh they're hanging, yeah, that's creepy. One of them getting sucked up like one of the barnacles from Half Life 2. You scan all these bodies and find the soldiers' logs before they died and then they're possessed by (well I'll just call it "dark eco") and start attacking you like zombies. Nice.
These aren't just any soldiers either, they look up to Samus, they might not personally know her but one person even calls her Santa Claus because of how legendary she is, imagine being a bounty hunter of that status finding the bodies of these people who looked up to you like that. That's not even as far as it goes, they went as deep as saying who sat in each of the seats in the crashed ship, as needlessly irrelevant as that sounds, it tells you how many people were on the ship as well as which ones still need to be accounted for. That's so smart! I love it. Sad though.
This is a different game, I can appreciate that, that's exactly what I asked for. I also asked that it added more story related cutscenes, got that too. I still scanned as much as I could though (as should you to get the story), but even that has an improvement with each item you scan being tagged green in the visor so you can differentiate what things do.
Green = Scanned. Blue = Not scanned. Red = Important. Simple but definitely worth noting. Not to mention the friendlier natives are MOTHS! And guess what? They talk, maybe not in english (or your preferred language), but they do have a few written dialogue scenes, just what I asked for. You find those bodies too...
Here's a small weird thing though. In Prime 1, you start out with stuff but your suit gets taken out of commission from the elevator explosion. This one, you start out with stuff but it also gets taken out of commission. And it's not like there isn't other stuff to get, but I'm asking to keep even just the bare essentials like morph ball bombs (you have the ball, just not the bombs) maybe they felt it would add to the experience if you went back to areas to unlock stuff you were unable to get because of a stupid bomb or measly missile but it's not very rewarding, anyway.
I also want to complain about the difference in menu, the map is the same but the place where you see lore and research and stuff has a really weird layout, stylized but weird to navigate through because it's like sorting through subfolders using gulp motion controls so you have to spin it around like a ball...it's a whole mess. With the last game, you had multiple visors, which I honestly wasn't really a fan of. I mean they cranked up the immersion factor but here? We have new ones but I don't really care for them, they pose the same problem I have with not starting out with ball bombs, gatekeeping. If it was a normal ability or mechanic, it might be fine but to force you to change the game view entirely? I don't think we need extra visors for Prime games going forth (I'm unsure whether it's in 3 or not).
The main feature that I was concerned about was the light/dark gimmick and the bubbles. I had no idea what that meant but it sounded horrific.
BUT let me explain it because it might sound worse in concept than it actually is. It's not really a shield, it's more of a stasis. This next part is going to sound bad but the dark air hurts you and light bubbles heal you so you recover from it immediately. Each bubble is powered by a crystal or light (there are even creatures that project them and you follow them to stay in the light) some you power by shooting but most are spread evenly enough that you're only outside the bubble in short bursts.
AND this is done in the dark dimension which is basically a mirror of the regular one with some things missing and some things added (Nintendo likes this feature and has used it in various games since then so you probably already know it (this might even be the origin of some of it)) that doesn't make it wore out though because it's only done in bursts. Imagine a specified section of an area that you navigate, fight a boss and then you go back into the real dimension where you don't worry about any of that. Not all of the light realm is translated into the dark realm. PLUS you get something that suppresses the damage from the dark eco even further. It's very graceful and didn't stress me out like I thought.
This is where this game starts to take a bit of a turn though because I mentioned how it was done in "sections". Well that's essentially how the rest is done too. You start off doing the Agon Wastelands and restoring that temple, and afterwards a few more separate maps. It's more organized that way and I feel like the backtracking is at least condensed to the area you're in rather than every map in the game (not 100% but more than Prime 1 imo) But when you do backtrack, it sticks out because it's so far away. Some are going to like the separation and some aren't, I understand both arguments.
There is a weak spot compared Prime 1 though and that's the bosses. I remember a good amount of the bosses from Prime 1, because I just played it, but I literally just played this and I disliked most of these bosses and doubt I'll even remember then and the ones that I will, will be for all the wrong reasons. I like the variety but most of the time, they're annoying to actually play, even the common enemies. The music just wasn't as memorable to me either. (And the extended emphasis on the ball in this game is atrocious.) On the plus side, I can say that I liked the story more than the first game.
In the end, I just didn't enjoy it as much as Prime 1. It does some things better than the original and that start was promising but it just didn't live up to my expectations. It was littered with too many little inconveniences.
These aren't just any soldiers either, they look up to Samus, they might not personally know her but one person even calls her Santa Claus because of how legendary she is, imagine being a bounty hunter of that status finding the bodies of these people who looked up to you like that. That's not even as far as it goes, they went as deep as saying who sat in each of the seats in the crashed ship, as needlessly irrelevant as that sounds, it tells you how many people were on the ship as well as which ones still need to be accounted for. That's so smart! I love it. Sad though.
This is a different game, I can appreciate that, that's exactly what I asked for. I also asked that it added more story related cutscenes, got that too. I still scanned as much as I could though (as should you to get the story), but even that has an improvement with each item you scan being tagged green in the visor so you can differentiate what things do.
Green = Scanned. Blue = Not scanned. Red = Important. Simple but definitely worth noting. Not to mention the friendlier natives are MOTHS! And guess what? They talk, maybe not in english (or your preferred language), but they do have a few written dialogue scenes, just what I asked for. You find those bodies too...
Here's a small weird thing though. In Prime 1, you start out with stuff but your suit gets taken out of commission from the elevator explosion. This one, you start out with stuff but it also gets taken out of commission. And it's not like there isn't other stuff to get, but I'm asking to keep even just the bare essentials like morph ball bombs (you have the ball, just not the bombs) maybe they felt it would add to the experience if you went back to areas to unlock stuff you were unable to get because of a stupid bomb or measly missile but it's not very rewarding, anyway.
I also want to complain about the difference in menu, the map is the same but the place where you see lore and research and stuff has a really weird layout, stylized but weird to navigate through because it's like sorting through subfolders using gulp motion controls so you have to spin it around like a ball...it's a whole mess. With the last game, you had multiple visors, which I honestly wasn't really a fan of. I mean they cranked up the immersion factor but here? We have new ones but I don't really care for them, they pose the same problem I have with not starting out with ball bombs, gatekeeping. If it was a normal ability or mechanic, it might be fine but to force you to change the game view entirely? I don't think we need extra visors for Prime games going forth (I'm unsure whether it's in 3 or not).
The main feature that I was concerned about was the light/dark gimmick and the bubbles. I had no idea what that meant but it sounded horrific.
BUT let me explain it because it might sound worse in concept than it actually is. It's not really a shield, it's more of a stasis. This next part is going to sound bad but the dark air hurts you and light bubbles heal you so you recover from it immediately. Each bubble is powered by a crystal or light (there are even creatures that project them and you follow them to stay in the light) some you power by shooting but most are spread evenly enough that you're only outside the bubble in short bursts.
AND this is done in the dark dimension which is basically a mirror of the regular one with some things missing and some things added (Nintendo likes this feature and has used it in various games since then so you probably already know it (this might even be the origin of some of it)) that doesn't make it wore out though because it's only done in bursts. Imagine a specified section of an area that you navigate, fight a boss and then you go back into the real dimension where you don't worry about any of that. Not all of the light realm is translated into the dark realm. PLUS you get something that suppresses the damage from the dark eco even further. It's very graceful and didn't stress me out like I thought.
This is where this game starts to take a bit of a turn though because I mentioned how it was done in "sections". Well that's essentially how the rest is done too. You start off doing the Agon Wastelands and restoring that temple, and afterwards a few more separate maps. It's more organized that way and I feel like the backtracking is at least condensed to the area you're in rather than every map in the game (not 100% but more than Prime 1 imo) But when you do backtrack, it sticks out because it's so far away. Some are going to like the separation and some aren't, I understand both arguments.
There is a weak spot compared Prime 1 though and that's the bosses. I remember a good amount of the bosses from Prime 1, because I just played it, but I literally just played this and I disliked most of these bosses and doubt I'll even remember then and the ones that I will, will be for all the wrong reasons. I like the variety but most of the time, they're annoying to actually play, even the common enemies. The music just wasn't as memorable to me either. (And the extended emphasis on the ball in this game is atrocious.) On the plus side, I can say that I liked the story more than the first game.
In the end, I just didn't enjoy it as much as Prime 1. It does some things better than the original and that start was promising but it just didn't live up to my expectations. It was littered with too many little inconveniences.