It's nice to finally play one of the most famous games in one of my favorite franchises.

I've been a huge fan of 2D Metroid ever since I first played Metroid Zero Mission back in 2012. I love almost all of them, and each one has a distinct rhythm to it that never fails to captivate me. I think a large part of it is due to Samus' kit being so iconic and fun to use. Power ups like the shine spark, screw attack, and morph ball all make it so that the act of controlling Samus never gets old.

When starting Prime I was really worried about how that flow would be affected in a 3D space. A Metroid game being good to me relies on 2 key factors, control and pacing. So seeing that the control was completely changed to be a first person shooter, I was nervous that the feeling of Samus would not be as solid as the 2D games. I was super wrong though.

Samus controls like an absolute dream in this game, and the added duel stick option in the Remastered easily makes this the definitive way to play the game. The new camera shift actually makes combat a lot of fun to engage with in this game, which the developers clearly knew because this Metroid game has a larger focus on combat. There are multiple different beam types that you can swap on the fly, which create a great sense of flow that you dont typically see from a Metroid game.

The main downside to this camera angle is that it doesn't really allow for some of my favorite upgrades like the speed booster or screw-attack to exist, but I was honestly ok with it for this game. Areas feel a lot less platforming heavy, and the added boost ball ability still made moving through areas a breeze. It had a bit of a learning curve, but by the end of the game the boost ball had joined the ranks of one of my favorite abilities in the series.

Moving on to that second criteria for a good Metroid game for me, the pacing of this game is utterly fantastic. The balance between finding new areas and backtracking to old ones is a very tricky one, and I think Prime mostly nails it. By the end of the game I knew each area like the back of my hand, and I never really tired of backtracking to them (until I attempted 100% but we'll get to that.)

The atmosphere and music are incredible too, which isnt a surprise since its fucking Metroid Prime. However, the part that surprised me the most was the story. I actually found myself really engaged with it, and the way it was told diagetically through using the scan visor was really damn smart. It brought me back to my first time exploring and scanning text on planets in Outer Wilds, which made me realize that the translator in that game was probably heavily inspired by Metroid Prime (same with the parallels between the Phazon and Ghost Matter tbh).

My only real complaint with the game came from a lack of QOL features with its map. Modern Metroid does a really good job of allowing you to mark areas on your map that you want to return to, and also showing you how many items are left in each area, which makes backtracking easier. Prime doesnt have anything like this, which makes the endgame grind for 100% extremely tedious and boring. The pacing of the game got completely destroyed in the last 2 hours of my session, mainly because I kept wandering around in circles looking for the last 5% of items.

Overall, there is a reason that Metroid Prime is an absolute classic and seen as the epitome of the series. While I don't enjoy it as much as some of my favorite 2D outings (Dread and Zero Mission), I do think it has quickly risen to being one of my favorite Metroidvanias of all time.

....I just really don't like what the Remastered did to Samus' face. It's in that state of the uncanny valley that I REALLY hate.

This is the only game that I feel like I could truly call a super game.

Final Fantasy 7 has always been one of those games that alluded me. I have probably played through Midgar maybe 3 or 4 different times in my life, and due to one reason or another I never made it much farther than that. It really wasn't due to anything from the game, it was just circumstances. Seeing how good Rebirth looks and wanting to get in on the hype, I finally decided to sit down and give this game the try and deserves, and holy shit did it not disappoint.

There is so much to absolutely love here. The characters are almost all winners, with the only one being disappointing was Vincent solely due to the fact that his side quest was way too short. The music is still genuinely fantastic, with songs like Cosmo Canyon and Highwind joining some of my favorites of all time. It is physically impossible for Uematsu to miss.

The most surprising thing that held up the most to me was the graphics though. I unironically think this game is still gorgeous, even with its blocky character models and blurry backgrounds. Whenever the game played a pre-rendered cutscene I felt the same awe I probably would of felt back in 1997. Good art direction and design is timeless.

The story also won me over, which is surprising because I heard that it could get overcomplicated and confusing. But no, the story is incredibly straight forward with a couple genuinely really fun and interesting twists. The game made me look at Cloud in a new light, and it made me appreciate him even more. I cant wait to play Crisis Core to learn more about his and Zack's friendship.

The gameplay was mostly a lot of fun, but it had a few issues. I love traditional turn based combat, so for the most part I had a blast managing and grinding my party through battles. The problem mainly comes from a lack of character identity, and the materia system being a bit too clunky to manage. The materia system makes it so that you can make any party member any class, and while a lot of fun to use, makes it so that the party does not have a lot of variation outside of limit breaks (which are awesome). Swapping materia also became a huge hassle even with the quick swap menu, and made a lot of the game slow down to a crawl. It really is the games biggest flaw because if they just ironed out this system a little more I could see it being one of my favorites.

There is still so much more to talk about with this game, but I'll leave it at this. Final Fantasy 7 genuinely made me feel like a kid again. This game came out 4 years before I was born, but while playing it, I truly felt the weight of what this game accomplished for its time. But even with that said, if Final Fantasy 7 released as is today (except for a few tweaks to the materia system), I do genuinely believe it would still be considered one of the all time greats.

A truly timeless masterpiece.