Metroid Prime Remastered is a perfect remaster of a very flawed game. It's one of the best looking games on the Switch, with gorgeous environmental design and beautifully reworked lighting and effects. The low texture resolution is pretty much the only complaint to make at this point, and it's a very minor one. Overall image quality is sharp and the game runs without any fps drops. Compared to the original, Prime now has a 16:9 widescreen resolution and a variety of reworked control option. I chose the default control scheme with gyro aiming and had a serviceable experience, although swapping between beams (essentially the different weapons in Prime) felt somewhat clunky and unresponsive at times.
I mentioned above that I consider this to be a flawed game, but that doesn't mean that it's a bad experience. There's much to enjoy here, and it's unfortunate that Metroid Prime never became as genre defining as the 2D Metroids were. Excluding the other Prime games, there are simply no shooters like this. Metroid Prime values exploration and atmosphere over combat and quick reflexes. You can go through entire areas without encountering the default humanoid shooty enemies that are the standard throughout the shooter genre. When you eventually end up in a confrontation with either the local wildlife or space pirates, positioning and choice of beam type are always more important than the act of aiming.
The moment I felt the game was truly special was when I unlocked a new weapon and, instead of contemplating its effectiveness against enemies, I thought about all the areas I could now access. As cliché as it might sound, the game truly makes you feel like it's you alone, tasked with exploring this alien planet with its ruined civilization.
Unfortunately, the game does have a few issues. On the one hand, I think the developers choosing not to implement too many quality of life changes is commendable. For example, implementing fast travel would have destroyed the feeling of an interconnected world without loading screens. On the other hand, I'd hoped for at least some kind of autosave. Some might argue that autosaves would hurt the game's intended difficulty, but I think a one time continue point similar to the Dark Souls save system would've worked well here. The Switch is a portable console, and losing up to 30 minutes because you had to stop your play session or decided to play something else can be frustrating.
Even worse are the games final 2-3 hours. Space pirates and Metroids become the primary enemy type to fight, and neither are especially fun to face off against. Players will also encounter more and more platforming segments, which aren't the games strongest mechanic either. And then, just when you're about ready to face the final bosses with all your upgrades, you need to backtrack through all the game's areas to collect 12 artefacts, grinding the games pacing to a screeching halt. At this point, a lot of players will feel compelled to pick up a guide, which isn't exactly great for a game focused on exploration.
My frustration culminated in a room right before the final boss. The room consisted of a platforming section players had to traverse whilst being attacked by flying enemies. If you miss a platform, you fall down and have to start over again. If you collide with one of the flying enemies, you most likely fall down and have to start over again. If one of the enemies latches onto you, your screen gets distorted, you most likely miss your platform, fall down, and have to start over again. Now for the real fun part: even if you somehow manage to not fall down when an enemy latches on to you, the only way to get rid of them is to turn into a ball and detonate a bomb (it makes more sense in context, bear with me). However, detonating said bomb does not only get rid of the enemy, it will also catapult you in the air, and can easily make you roll of the platform once you fall down, leading to you having to restart all over again.
I know, this sounds like complaining for the sake of complaining, but I just had less and less fun the longer I played, and those last 2-3 hours were the one point pretty much everyone criticized the original game for. Before those, I had considered the game to be essentially perfect, and I'm somewhat sad that I can't fully recommend Prime Remastered because of it. That being said, I still believe that every fan of the fps genre should at least try the game for themselves, if only to see what the genre is truly capable of.
I mentioned above that I consider this to be a flawed game, but that doesn't mean that it's a bad experience. There's much to enjoy here, and it's unfortunate that Metroid Prime never became as genre defining as the 2D Metroids were. Excluding the other Prime games, there are simply no shooters like this. Metroid Prime values exploration and atmosphere over combat and quick reflexes. You can go through entire areas without encountering the default humanoid shooty enemies that are the standard throughout the shooter genre. When you eventually end up in a confrontation with either the local wildlife or space pirates, positioning and choice of beam type are always more important than the act of aiming.
The moment I felt the game was truly special was when I unlocked a new weapon and, instead of contemplating its effectiveness against enemies, I thought about all the areas I could now access. As cliché as it might sound, the game truly makes you feel like it's you alone, tasked with exploring this alien planet with its ruined civilization.
Unfortunately, the game does have a few issues. On the one hand, I think the developers choosing not to implement too many quality of life changes is commendable. For example, implementing fast travel would have destroyed the feeling of an interconnected world without loading screens. On the other hand, I'd hoped for at least some kind of autosave. Some might argue that autosaves would hurt the game's intended difficulty, but I think a one time continue point similar to the Dark Souls save system would've worked well here. The Switch is a portable console, and losing up to 30 minutes because you had to stop your play session or decided to play something else can be frustrating.
Even worse are the games final 2-3 hours. Space pirates and Metroids become the primary enemy type to fight, and neither are especially fun to face off against. Players will also encounter more and more platforming segments, which aren't the games strongest mechanic either. And then, just when you're about ready to face the final bosses with all your upgrades, you need to backtrack through all the game's areas to collect 12 artefacts, grinding the games pacing to a screeching halt. At this point, a lot of players will feel compelled to pick up a guide, which isn't exactly great for a game focused on exploration.
My frustration culminated in a room right before the final boss. The room consisted of a platforming section players had to traverse whilst being attacked by flying enemies. If you miss a platform, you fall down and have to start over again. If you collide with one of the flying enemies, you most likely fall down and have to start over again. If one of the enemies latches onto you, your screen gets distorted, you most likely miss your platform, fall down, and have to start over again. Now for the real fun part: even if you somehow manage to not fall down when an enemy latches on to you, the only way to get rid of them is to turn into a ball and detonate a bomb (it makes more sense in context, bear with me). However, detonating said bomb does not only get rid of the enemy, it will also catapult you in the air, and can easily make you roll of the platform once you fall down, leading to you having to restart all over again.
I know, this sounds like complaining for the sake of complaining, but I just had less and less fun the longer I played, and those last 2-3 hours were the one point pretty much everyone criticized the original game for. Before those, I had considered the game to be essentially perfect, and I'm somewhat sad that I can't fully recommend Prime Remastered because of it. That being said, I still believe that every fan of the fps genre should at least try the game for themselves, if only to see what the genre is truly capable of.