TheNameBrand
BACKER
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
15h 0m
Days in Journal
8 days
Last played
July 19, 2023
First played
July 4, 2023
Platforms Played
Library Ownership
Metroid Prime is back with a fresh coat of paint, making it the perfect opportunity to dive headfirst into one of gaming’s most interesting and well-beloved first-person shooters. I absolutely believe it is worth it, and below you’ll find my spoiler-free thoughts as to why.
Metroid Prime Remastered is 100% faithful to the original package, so the core experience is very much the same as it was when it was released on the GameCube all those years ago, but with the added benefit of high-fidelity textures, tweaked sounds, modern aspect ratio, and some new control schemes (plus some other minor things here and there). I’m not entirely sure what’s changed since the Metroid Prime Trilogy was released on Wii, but that being said, it plays flawlessly.
The new coat of paint is incredible and this game is more atmospheric than ever before, however, I’d imagine if you’ve recently experienced the game through any means, Metroid Prime Remastered isn’t going to feel worth revisiting because it really is the same game as it always has been. Which is quite the opposite of being a bad thing! For someone like me, where a number of years have passed: I was more than excited to jump in. I think most others are in the same boat. If you’re in the group of players who have never experienced these games I say to you: This game is phenomenal and I absolutely recommend it, and consider it a worthwhile purchase and addition to your Switch library.
Metroid Prime Remastered is an incredibly fun game. I love the core Metroid aesthetic of the space pirates, future tech, ancient civilizations, and alien horrors beyond our imagination. It’s so vibrant and different from anything else Nintendo makes, and it’s all done so well. The narrative weaves all of these cool elements together through several layers of game design. You have the story of YOUR adventure that you weave yourself as you explore TALON IV, and through the scanner visor, you can learn about two other narratives, being the Chozo, who occupied the planet long ago, and the Space Pirates, who currently occupy TALON IV. While there is a lot of scanning and a lot of reading to get a comprehensive understanding of everything at play, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of putting the pieces together and found myself completely engaged and eager to learn more about the world and the mysteries the game presents.
Alongside scanning, combat is surprisingly frenetic for a Nintendo-published game. Even minor enemies will track your movement and shoot where they anticipate you to move, making more difficult combat scenarios dances with death as you play some kind of 4D chess, anticipating where the enemy anticipates you to move. Later, the game introduces “color-matching” where certain enemies will only take damage from specific weapons. This really tests your skills as you dodge multiple enemies and their hail of bullets and lasers as you focus fire down on whatever enemy is vulnerable. It can get surprisingly chaotic and even difficult at times. Even with normal difficulty, I found a couple of problem areas that kept killing me before I got good enough to proceed. All that being said, combat is incredibly fun and the game gradually gives you more difficult situations as you progress making for a nice scaling difficulty that challenges you at all the right moments.
Puzzles are another aspect of Metroid Prime. Back when I played as a teenager, they were a bane of my playthrough and ultimately ended my run. What my problem was: I wasn’t reading everything, and I wasn’t memorizing important words, showing up in interesting areas. You’ll scan an object that will very clearly tell you it’s made of a specific metal, then later you’ll obtain a new weapon, and in the menu, you’ll read it can destroy a very particular type of metal, and the lightbulb will go off and you’ll kind of remember where you read that very specific thing. Or you’ll scour the map for any INKLING of a door you haven’t been to in any area… It can be frustrating at times, but solving the riddles and puzzles is incredibly rewarding when you finally do so.
I love the score. The music in this game is perfect in every instance. Some tracks make the rooms feel mysterious and otherworldly. Others help to sell the action-packed explosive combat. It is marked by a SoundFont that at times clearly identifies it as a product of the 2000s but I am so here for that. It really helps the identity of the game. While there isn’t really a practical use for it I really appreciated the inclusion of the music library menu. Not to mention the art gallery and stuff! Really cool to see in this remaster for sure.
I do have two gripes to talk about and the first one is the backtracking. I know this is a Metroid game, so a certain amount of that is to be expected. And I suppose you can travel relatively quickly across the different areas if you don’t focus on killing the enemies in the rooms. But, especially right before the end of the game when you’re collecting the Chozo Artifacts, you will likely spend several extra hours just moving from place to place. Even before that though, if you miss putting a hint together, you could very well travel to the overworld just to go right back from where you came from. I really hope in Prime 4 there is just a better system. Even if it’s like a Tears of the Kingdom, lay down your own teleporter kind of thing, it would be super appreciated.
The other gripe I have is I really truly hate the color-matching, more specifically in the Fusion Metroids. Those Metroids split into two and they’re always different colors. So you have to focus on the one with a weapon and then very likely you get your energy drained by the other, so you bomb and you repeat that process. There’s a section of the game where you have several Fusion Metroids to deal with and it is one of the most aggravating things in any game ever. So I’m just gonna tell you. Don’t bother. Use the super bomb. Run away and move on.
Ultimately It took me 15 hours to beat, and I enjoyed just about every bit of it. Like I said: I love the aesthetic. it’s not a perfect game, I’m comfortable in saying that, but I really do think this is worth playing because it’s just such a cool freakin’ game. I think also, this is a great test to know whether or not you’ll be interested in Metroid Prime IV, which I’m speculating will be the Switch’s Swan song. But that’s neither here nor there. Highly Recommended! And at $40 bucks, makes for a great breather game while we’re waiting for other games to release in this truly incredible year for gaming.
If you enjoyed this review, consider interacting with it on my website
Metroid Prime Remastered is 100% faithful to the original package, so the core experience is very much the same as it was when it was released on the GameCube all those years ago, but with the added benefit of high-fidelity textures, tweaked sounds, modern aspect ratio, and some new control schemes (plus some other minor things here and there). I’m not entirely sure what’s changed since the Metroid Prime Trilogy was released on Wii, but that being said, it plays flawlessly.
The new coat of paint is incredible and this game is more atmospheric than ever before, however, I’d imagine if you’ve recently experienced the game through any means, Metroid Prime Remastered isn’t going to feel worth revisiting because it really is the same game as it always has been. Which is quite the opposite of being a bad thing! For someone like me, where a number of years have passed: I was more than excited to jump in. I think most others are in the same boat. If you’re in the group of players who have never experienced these games I say to you: This game is phenomenal and I absolutely recommend it, and consider it a worthwhile purchase and addition to your Switch library.
Metroid Prime Remastered is an incredibly fun game. I love the core Metroid aesthetic of the space pirates, future tech, ancient civilizations, and alien horrors beyond our imagination. It’s so vibrant and different from anything else Nintendo makes, and it’s all done so well. The narrative weaves all of these cool elements together through several layers of game design. You have the story of YOUR adventure that you weave yourself as you explore TALON IV, and through the scanner visor, you can learn about two other narratives, being the Chozo, who occupied the planet long ago, and the Space Pirates, who currently occupy TALON IV. While there is a lot of scanning and a lot of reading to get a comprehensive understanding of everything at play, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of putting the pieces together and found myself completely engaged and eager to learn more about the world and the mysteries the game presents.
Alongside scanning, combat is surprisingly frenetic for a Nintendo-published game. Even minor enemies will track your movement and shoot where they anticipate you to move, making more difficult combat scenarios dances with death as you play some kind of 4D chess, anticipating where the enemy anticipates you to move. Later, the game introduces “color-matching” where certain enemies will only take damage from specific weapons. This really tests your skills as you dodge multiple enemies and their hail of bullets and lasers as you focus fire down on whatever enemy is vulnerable. It can get surprisingly chaotic and even difficult at times. Even with normal difficulty, I found a couple of problem areas that kept killing me before I got good enough to proceed. All that being said, combat is incredibly fun and the game gradually gives you more difficult situations as you progress making for a nice scaling difficulty that challenges you at all the right moments.
Puzzles are another aspect of Metroid Prime. Back when I played as a teenager, they were a bane of my playthrough and ultimately ended my run. What my problem was: I wasn’t reading everything, and I wasn’t memorizing important words, showing up in interesting areas. You’ll scan an object that will very clearly tell you it’s made of a specific metal, then later you’ll obtain a new weapon, and in the menu, you’ll read it can destroy a very particular type of metal, and the lightbulb will go off and you’ll kind of remember where you read that very specific thing. Or you’ll scour the map for any INKLING of a door you haven’t been to in any area… It can be frustrating at times, but solving the riddles and puzzles is incredibly rewarding when you finally do so.
I love the score. The music in this game is perfect in every instance. Some tracks make the rooms feel mysterious and otherworldly. Others help to sell the action-packed explosive combat. It is marked by a SoundFont that at times clearly identifies it as a product of the 2000s but I am so here for that. It really helps the identity of the game. While there isn’t really a practical use for it I really appreciated the inclusion of the music library menu. Not to mention the art gallery and stuff! Really cool to see in this remaster for sure.
I do have two gripes to talk about and the first one is the backtracking. I know this is a Metroid game, so a certain amount of that is to be expected. And I suppose you can travel relatively quickly across the different areas if you don’t focus on killing the enemies in the rooms. But, especially right before the end of the game when you’re collecting the Chozo Artifacts, you will likely spend several extra hours just moving from place to place. Even before that though, if you miss putting a hint together, you could very well travel to the overworld just to go right back from where you came from. I really hope in Prime 4 there is just a better system. Even if it’s like a Tears of the Kingdom, lay down your own teleporter kind of thing, it would be super appreciated.
The other gripe I have is I really truly hate the color-matching, more specifically in the Fusion Metroids. Those Metroids split into two and they’re always different colors. So you have to focus on the one with a weapon and then very likely you get your energy drained by the other, so you bomb and you repeat that process. There’s a section of the game where you have several Fusion Metroids to deal with and it is one of the most aggravating things in any game ever. So I’m just gonna tell you. Don’t bother. Use the super bomb. Run away and move on.
Ultimately It took me 15 hours to beat, and I enjoyed just about every bit of it. Like I said: I love the aesthetic. it’s not a perfect game, I’m comfortable in saying that, but I really do think this is worth playing because it’s just such a cool freakin’ game. I think also, this is a great test to know whether or not you’ll be interested in Metroid Prime IV, which I’m speculating will be the Switch’s Swan song. But that’s neither here nor there. Highly Recommended! And at $40 bucks, makes for a great breather game while we’re waiting for other games to release in this truly incredible year for gaming.
If you enjoyed this review, consider interacting with it on my website