Silent Hill is iconic lofi horror for a reason. Incredibly atmospheric, creepy without cheap jump-scares, and occasionally charming thanks to its B-movie cheese.

I strongly recommend people go in with this spoiler-free guide as to how to get a good end: I actually played this twice back-to-back, with my first run surprising me with the bad end ("This game has multiple endings?!"), which felt like a slap in the face. Replaying it took less than half the time and gave me an even greater appreciation for the game.

Overall, a real delight of a game that leaves me wanting to explore more games that can capture the genuine retro horror feel.

The transition to 3D was rocky and didn't allow for much depth, though exploration was fun. (Rope physics were also a bit more... adventurous? Which was neat - there were times where you had to wrap rope around something.) Then, boss fight! Wow, it's actually good, too! And... the game abruptly ends. Like, I cannot overstate how abruptly this game ends. If you've got 3 friends who happen to already own it, it's not a bad way to spend an afternoon, but I can't quite recommend spending money on it.

(I played with Primehack because the Wiimote controls made my wrist sore; an extra half-⭐ if you're using that, bumping it up to "may be worth playing if you're a big Metroid fan." The carpal tunnel isn't worth it otherwise.)

Man, this feels like Halo 2 dropped and made Retro quake in their boots. We've got more characters! Cutscenes! Military! Setpieces! A guy saying "damn!" As the Wii's flagship shooter, it's got to stand up to the competition, right?

...Alright, that's probably uncharitable - but this game really feels like it's straining against the series it comes from. Metroid games, in my mind, are defined by three things: exploration, atmosphere, and recontextualization. Corruption's atmosphere is fine - the art direction is as good as ever, and there's clearly been a lot of thought into how to construct the various worlds to give them independent identities. (Stumbling across the Xenoresearch Labs was a real highlight!) However, the other the other two areas are really weak.

IIRC, the first eight-ish hours are spent keeping you on a leash, chugging ahead without any interesting decision-making on where or how to proceed. When it finally lets you figure out your own way forward, it's a breath of fresh air, but it never goes especially far with it. Out of the trilogy, this game inspires the least curiosity and wonder. It spends so much time shuttling you from place to place, ensuring you don't get too distracted or lost, that so little room is left for asking "I wonder how you get there?" or "I wonder what that's there for?"

And the recontextualization - the Metroid series, at its best, does a great job making you look at an old location in a new way thanks to the items & knowledge you've gained. This very rarely happens in this game. Most of the things worth backtracking to are simply different-colored doors; something that, at this point in the trilogy, should not inspire any surprise. When it does happen, it rarely goes anywhere significant. It's just disappointing, frankly.

There are good additions. This game's equivalent of a Chozo Artifact/Sky Temple Key hunt is easy to start early, and it doesn't require collecting all of them to progress. (I enjoy 100%ing Metroid games, so you know I did anyway, but point being that this helps ease the lategame slog that Prime games can slip into.) Its fast travel system is also the best in the trilogy, making the endgame cleanup even faster. And many of the new items are genuinely cool - the grapple upgrades are a clever way to improve a previously underutilized item.

However, I do not think this game works well as an ending to the trilogy. The ending is so focused on tying the narrative up in a neat bow that it devolves into abrupt hand-waving, hoping to dazzle you with a flashy (but unfortunately uninteresting) final boss so that you won't think about how nonsensical its attempt at closure is. It smacks of tight deadlines and cut content, and I'm disappointed it had to end this way.

I won't pretend this game doesn't have flaws, namely in the back half's pacing. But two elements deserve exceptional respect: the sense of place, and the happy accidents.

The sense of place is hard to miss while playing, but it rewards intentional attention. The details are just stunning, especially considering this was before throwing complex geometry & high-res textures on things was "free" (insofar as performance is concerned). Whether it's the atmospheric soundtrack, the bite-sized sprinklings of worldbuilding the Scan Visor offers, or the way each interstitial hallway has varying depth and implied purpose, it's a lot to baste in. As a child, I would treat some game worlds more like sandboxes to play in rather than linear experiences, and Metroid Prime offered a lot to enjoy with that kind of in-the-moment play.

And the happy accidents. Whoo, boy. Being a Metroidvania, this is a game about acquiring things that change your relationship to your environment, recontextualize places you have been, and open up ways to progress. By design, it does this with items. By accident, it does this with knowledge. Yes, I'm going to discuss the glitches in this game - if talking about things that were neither intended by developers nor affect the average player's playthrough doesn't interest you, fine. I think art is worth evaluating for how it arrives, separate from intent - and the wealth of knowledge there is to plumb from this game is vast, deep, and rewarding. I've been learning this game's dark arts for about two years now (in conjunction with the excellent randomizer mod), and I'm still learning more every run.

I don't expect the average player to try any of that out, though. I expect most will play through it once, have a ball in the first half and gradually tire in the second. But with time and study, this game appreciates in value. If you've already played it, check out a commentated speedrun. Watch them fling themselves at incredible speeds, hop around obscure geometry, and maybe even turn into a math-breaking ball of light, and you'll have a glimpse of the strange beauty of this game's accidental depths.

What an odd game. Its presentation is fantastic, ranging from the beautiful spritework to the iconic soundfont. The added & updated content (gen 4 mechanics, Pokeathlon, following Pokemon!!) are greatly appreciated, too. And the victory lap in Kanto is still as nice a surprise as it was back in GSC.

But why did they do so little to address the infamously bad XP curve? Grinding in this game is a slog, and it ends up strongly discouraging experimenting with your team. I had a lot of things I wanted to try out, but the amount of mindless grinding time it would have required made it not worthwhile at all. This was exacerbated in the lategame, where getting something from level 1 to 60 - a necessity for the Elite Four refights & Red - could take hours. Just a huge fumble for what should have been a slam dunk. I'm thankful later games addressed this, at least.