I have a lot to say about this supposed "masterpiece". Buckle up.

I'm glad to have finally played Metroid Prime all the way through, as I've tried many times to finally get through this one over the years. But after having played, the rave reviews this remaster is getting here and on other sites has me thinking most people who played this fall into one of two categories: they are telling Nintendo it's okay to barely lift a finger and they'll buy whatever they shit out as rose-tinted nostalgia goggles reassure them it's amazing, or the Nintendo Switch is so currently starved for big releases that Switch owners will gladly settle and applaud for whatever crumbs they can get. If you gave this game 5 stars, neither option is good, but I'll let you pick your poison.

The high ratings people are giving this is nothing short of lunacy. Let's start with the fact that this is a remaster: outside of textures, lighting effects, and better dual joystick support (that the original should have had to begin with), what was done here? Some new concept art for you to unlock? Very cool. I like the idea of unlocking things as you progress, but these are all pretty lousy. I went and checked them out after completion and felt zero sense of reward: a picture of Samus, wow. (Also, why does the game stop and save after you look at these?) I don't think they added any obvious quality of life improvements the game was begging for. You cannot switch between lock-on targets, this feels like it should have been added, and the 3D map (which is painfully uninformative) has the joysticks reversed as I assume the original did. This should have been changed in the remaster. The thermal visor is painfully nauseating with a thick motion blur and feels like Samus is using a janky prototype, not future tech. But hey, Samus' face looks better in the visor reflection now, at least she no longer looks like a ghost staring back at you.

Let's talk about those brand-spanking-new visuals. They're good, but for what year? Is this an Xbox 360 release? Breath of the Wild really set a bar that Nintendo could never hit again, it seems, and now I'm almost worried for Tears of the Kingdom. The FOV is still cramped as hell and obviously cannot be changed. I highly recommend going into the options and disabling Samus' visor to help give you some much-needed breathing room. The Bombu, basically just four floating orbs, are still just that, but actually manage to be somewhat creepy as they advance on you. Never say Nintendo can't do a lot with a little, as "little" is what was done here, after all. The original is so old it can now legally drink in the States yet still looks pretty good, if you ask me.

Audio is either forgettable or bad. Nintendo sure does love making extremely annoying "low health" warnings in every game they can throw one in. Fortunately, you're only likely to hear this one early on as the game gives you an absurd amount of health quickly. The music is lifeless and sometimes feels like it's actively trying to bother you. The combat song gives you a brief window before this annoying wail/siren noise comes on repeatedly, actually incentivizing you to be expedient in your fighting so you don't have to experience that blare. I think with half an hour in GarageBand I could make more enjoyable short tunes and I'm not exaggerating.

But most important: the gameplay. Guess what? It isn't good. Very quickly you'll learn average enemies pose almost no threat and should just be avoided entirely if you're not in that room for something. They aren't even worth locking on and firing once, that's seriously a waste of time here. Traversing? It's a pretty negative experience. Every zone feels like a slightly-varied environmental chore to get through, but ultimately you'll just be running and jumping through them recklessly and being okay with suffering the slight damage if it means you get to the end door faster. There's no reason to stop and take in any scenery, none of it looks very good anyways, just get on with it.

Why are you traversing so much? Well it's a Metroid game, so that comes with the territory, but the entire point of this game is "Find the Twelve Artifacts" (and this is at least six too many). With the change to first person, maybe incessant platforming and traversal was a bad choice, since you can barely see anything with the low FOV. Samus no longer feels like an acrobat in space but rather like a Pacific Rim Jaeger with only one pilot at the wheel. She's sluggish and maybe hungover, but she's tasked with walking all over the damn map for "Artifacts" that are basically just keys. The whole plot of this game is finding keys and getting equipment to help you get those keys. Very exciting stuff. Have fun switching cannon types to open doors over and over again.

The boss fights are all pretty easy and forgettable, usually you overuse whatever ability was just unlocked. The final boss battles are tedious, especially the last one with you swapping visors and just jumping to avoid a single, repetitive attack. You're never in any danger unless this is your first ever video game, as again, you'll have more health than you know what to do with. There is a Hard mode, but it's only playable after completion, and I wish I got to try that initially as Standard had me asleep at the wheel. The titular metroids? First time they grab you it's spooky, every other time it's fucking annoying. They exist just bother you while you're jumping around trying to get the next Artifact. They don't even hurt very much, you'll just sigh as you learn to drop into the Morph Ball and bomb it off so you can get back to finding the next ke-- amazing Artifact.

In my opinion, the best gameplay stretch here wasn't a boss or even combat at all, but a Spider Ball section where you're finally feeling on edge because you can fall a great distance into a pit of lava if you mess up even a little bit. It was the most engaged I ever felt in the game and helped me realize just how shitty everything else was that Metroid Prime had tossed my way.

Metroid Prime was never a very good game and its remaster was a sad cash grab during a bone-dry stretch in the Nintendo Switch's lifecycle. I cannot see someone playing this remaster without the nostalgia for the original and honestly saying they had fun with the series of chores. This feels like a fan project, not a game that helped sell a whole console. The switch to first person was not a good choice for the Metroid games and I cannot believe they made two more in this series (with a fourth on the way). After the success of this remaster, I'm guessing those'll be coming soon, too, and I will definitely be ignoring them. If you want to play a good Metroid game, play the best one: Metroid Fusion. Metroid: Zero Mission is also good stuff. If you don't want to download a GameBoy emulator or they're "too old" for you, then play Metroid Dread. That's a good game. This is not.