A month ago I finished Metroid Prime for the first time and I loved. When thinking about and going into Prime 2, I thought I would be in a world of mixed emotions based on what I've heard of Echoes. However, my expectations were relieved because Metroid Prime 2 is actually pretty good. Just like with Prime, I'm playing this via PrimeHack.
Every time I hear about Prime 2, the first thing I always hear about the game is that it's hard. To me, I didn't find the game to be hard like most people make it out to be. It's definitely more challenging than the first game, but it certainly isn't hard. In fact, the only hard thing I experienced when playing Prime 2 was having to adjust to the light & dark mechanic for exploration & progression. I was very confused at times because I didn't know where to go to. This confusion mostly peaked when exploring the Sanctuary Fortress/Ing Hive due to the nature of the area being more vertical than previous areas. However, once I got ahold of how traversing each area along with their dark world counterparts. I ended up having a much better experience with what Prime 2 had to offer map-wise. Speaking of traversing and just with the first game, I didn't find backtracking to be annoying. This sentiment even extends to the Sky Temple keys. The only exception to that though is when you have to go and get the Power Bomb.
On the gameplay side of things, Prime 2 has a bunch of improvements over the first game. For starters, each location of the game are connected to each other. So, there's no longer a need of having to travel back to one specific area just to reach another. Prime 1 had this issue of always needing to come back to Magmoor along with some areas only linking to one or two other locations. It's a great change and it alleviates backtracking issues. Another things I like about Prime 2 are the bosses. The bosses in this game are a huge step-up from Prime 1. Every boss feels fleshed out and the approach to handle each boss felt genuinely thought out. My favorite boss in this game and the perfect example of this case is Chykka. The fight against Chykka starts off in a slow larva, then transitions into its adult form where you stragetically have to use your seeker missiles and grapple beam. It's a fantastic fight, but this sentiment applies to most of the bosses in Echoes.
The biggest gimmick of Prime 2 are the dark variants of each area. To be quite honest, I didn't find this overall mechanic to hamper gameplay. This is mainly because you'll find a bunch of light nodes you can shot to recover health and that alone makes the dark worlds feel easy. Traveling in the darkness becomes even easier once you obtain the Dark Suit because at that point, you're slightly taking damage from the dark atmosphere. I think the only other thing to really touch up on are this game's visors and beams. The echo and dark visors are great. I wish you got the echo visor earlier in the game because the concept of sonic signals and seeing exoskeletons is an amazing idea. As for the beams, they're alright. The only beam I really liked was the annihilator simply because it's strong and it works in tandem with the echo visor to solve sonic puzzles. As much as I don't care for the dark or light beams, the darkburst was awesome despite how little I used it. Having limited ammo for these weapons is just funny. The concept of having limited ammo could've worked if the game encouraged you to use said beams more often. You really only need to use the beams to open doors and access certain areas. Every enemy and boss, except for Emperor Ing?, can be taken down by the power beam. Perhaps they wanted to add strategy and fear by limiting the uses of the beams, but I don't feel like it works. The idea becomes more baffling when you find beam ammo expansions. Overall, the idea of limiting ammo doesn't work in my opinion.
The last thing I really want to mention is the game's aesthetic, tone and music. This game is quite dark and you'll come to realize that once you scan for lore. When compared to Prime 1, I don't think Prime 2's areas are nearly as memorable. I find the Temple Grounds and Agon Wastes to be rather meh. However, I think Prime 2 has the best area in the form of the Sanctuary Fortress. This place is so visually pleasing to look at. I like how futuristic it looks too. Torvus Bog is another strong area in Prime 2 and the music in Torvus is sooooo good. The whole soundtrack as a whole is quite good. My favorite song in the whole game is the Dark Trooper theme and it sucks that you don't hear often outside of the beginning area of the Temple Grounds.
Despite Prime 2 somewhat frustrating me, I can acknowledge that as a sequel it's great. If you were to ask me which game I preferred, Prime 1 or Echoes, I would humbly say Prime 1. That doesn't take away the greatness Prime 2 has to offer. It's just more of a preference/opinion. Maybe it's because I prefer Prime 1's easier learning curve as opposed to Prime 2's. Perhaps that opinion will change in the future, but I'm glad my overall experience with Prime 2 was great. I don't know what Prime 3 holds, but I have a feeling that it's not going to be as good as 1 or 2. We'll see though.
Every time I hear about Prime 2, the first thing I always hear about the game is that it's hard. To me, I didn't find the game to be hard like most people make it out to be. It's definitely more challenging than the first game, but it certainly isn't hard. In fact, the only hard thing I experienced when playing Prime 2 was having to adjust to the light & dark mechanic for exploration & progression. I was very confused at times because I didn't know where to go to. This confusion mostly peaked when exploring the Sanctuary Fortress/Ing Hive due to the nature of the area being more vertical than previous areas. However, once I got ahold of how traversing each area along with their dark world counterparts. I ended up having a much better experience with what Prime 2 had to offer map-wise. Speaking of traversing and just with the first game, I didn't find backtracking to be annoying. This sentiment even extends to the Sky Temple keys. The only exception to that though is when you have to go and get the Power Bomb.
On the gameplay side of things, Prime 2 has a bunch of improvements over the first game. For starters, each location of the game are connected to each other. So, there's no longer a need of having to travel back to one specific area just to reach another. Prime 1 had this issue of always needing to come back to Magmoor along with some areas only linking to one or two other locations. It's a great change and it alleviates backtracking issues. Another things I like about Prime 2 are the bosses. The bosses in this game are a huge step-up from Prime 1. Every boss feels fleshed out and the approach to handle each boss felt genuinely thought out. My favorite boss in this game and the perfect example of this case is Chykka. The fight against Chykka starts off in a slow larva, then transitions into its adult form where you stragetically have to use your seeker missiles and grapple beam. It's a fantastic fight, but this sentiment applies to most of the bosses in Echoes.
The biggest gimmick of Prime 2 are the dark variants of each area. To be quite honest, I didn't find this overall mechanic to hamper gameplay. This is mainly because you'll find a bunch of light nodes you can shot to recover health and that alone makes the dark worlds feel easy. Traveling in the darkness becomes even easier once you obtain the Dark Suit because at that point, you're slightly taking damage from the dark atmosphere. I think the only other thing to really touch up on are this game's visors and beams. The echo and dark visors are great. I wish you got the echo visor earlier in the game because the concept of sonic signals and seeing exoskeletons is an amazing idea. As for the beams, they're alright. The only beam I really liked was the annihilator simply because it's strong and it works in tandem with the echo visor to solve sonic puzzles. As much as I don't care for the dark or light beams, the darkburst was awesome despite how little I used it. Having limited ammo for these weapons is just funny. The concept of having limited ammo could've worked if the game encouraged you to use said beams more often. You really only need to use the beams to open doors and access certain areas. Every enemy and boss, except for Emperor Ing?, can be taken down by the power beam. Perhaps they wanted to add strategy and fear by limiting the uses of the beams, but I don't feel like it works. The idea becomes more baffling when you find beam ammo expansions. Overall, the idea of limiting ammo doesn't work in my opinion.
The last thing I really want to mention is the game's aesthetic, tone and music. This game is quite dark and you'll come to realize that once you scan for lore. When compared to Prime 1, I don't think Prime 2's areas are nearly as memorable. I find the Temple Grounds and Agon Wastes to be rather meh. However, I think Prime 2 has the best area in the form of the Sanctuary Fortress. This place is so visually pleasing to look at. I like how futuristic it looks too. Torvus Bog is another strong area in Prime 2 and the music in Torvus is sooooo good. The whole soundtrack as a whole is quite good. My favorite song in the whole game is the Dark Trooper theme and it sucks that you don't hear often outside of the beginning area of the Temple Grounds.
Despite Prime 2 somewhat frustrating me, I can acknowledge that as a sequel it's great. If you were to ask me which game I preferred, Prime 1 or Echoes, I would humbly say Prime 1. That doesn't take away the greatness Prime 2 has to offer. It's just more of a preference/opinion. Maybe it's because I prefer Prime 1's easier learning curve as opposed to Prime 2's. Perhaps that opinion will change in the future, but I'm glad my overall experience with Prime 2 was great. I don't know what Prime 3 holds, but I have a feeling that it's not going to be as good as 1 or 2. We'll see though.