Mehtroid Prime.
This is going to be an unpopular opinion probably, but I want to get one thing out of the way: I completely respect the legacy of Metroid and especially Metroid Prime. This game has done something for the genre and gaming as a whole. It translated the 2D to 3D jump perfectly and catapaulted Samus Aran into superstardom and acclaim. It seemed like growing up everybody knew Samus and owned Prime, I could have been convinced the series was on the level of a Mario or Zelda.
I played Dread last year and enjoyed everything except the Metroid part of it, which sounds ridiculous and likely is. What I didn't like about the beloved sidescroller was the tried and true method of solving/beating these games: backtracking to use new mechanics on doors across the map, shooting random walls to expose upgrades, using certain abilities in seemingly random spots, and (intentional) lack of direction. What I really DID like was the way it fed you the game's lore. In my opinion, metroid has one of the coolest stories and worlds in contemporary media. Something about the cryptic nature of the Chozo, Metroid, and our famed bounty hunter grasps me with its full embrace. I'm a sucker for good sci-fi with a paranormal horror tinge, and thats exactly what Metroid is, and Dread knocked it out of the park. Now, as you may know I am reviewing Metroid Prime and not Dread, this was a lead in to one of my major complaints about Prime: the story!
I read almost every pirate log in the game, ran through with the scanning visor on every panel and enemy that I could, but I couldn't piece together as much as I wanted about the story. I enjoyed learning about the Chozo again, the Space Pirates and the Metroid species, but I didn't feel like it lead to a cohesive enough narrative. I didn't really know why I was on Tallon IV other than following Ridley, I did not understand the reason that I was trudging through each zone, piecemeal picking up powerups to open doors in zones previous. It didn't pull me in. In a series like Resident Evil that follows a similar pattern of reading computer files and journals to understand the lore, while also needing to backtrack to complete puzzles and open doors, there's enough story presented to the player to make this make sense. In Prime, there's radio silence upon landing on Tallon IV. I'm not asking Retro twenty plus years ago to say "hey this is why you're doing this" every few seconds, but at least something to tie the pursuit of the Chozo Artifacts and Samus' journey together would be nice.
My other major qualm was the Metroidvania part of Metroid again, I made it through the first few attempts without using any kind of guidance, because the natural progression of the game with your limited items, made sense. However as the game went on I got more and more lost, and my patience to backtrack every possible room and try every door/secret area to get both necessary and optional powerups wore extremely thin. This was compounded by the never ending enemy respawns in already cleared areas, which completely destroyed my ambition to play Prime blind. I didn't want to hesitate and make an error prodding and poking around every room for a helpful item if I was risking a long engagement with Space Pirates, made long because Samus aims and shoots slower than molasses. I eventually beat the game with the assistance of online guides, as it never would happened without them. I'm not the "smartest" gamer per se, but I'm not the opposite either, and I found fairly quickly that I couldn't ration spending my hours scanning and attempting to look through every nook and cranny in the game. I know this is a staple of the series at this point but man, boo.
As far as the remaster itself goes, it was a great job by Retro. Prime on the Switch is actually beautiful, and I had no performance issues to speak of. The music is great, the environments were very well designed, and Samus Aran herself looked fantastic in the moments you get to see her in third person. While I don't love playing Metroid, Retro and Nintendo did a bang-up job in making this game look and feel good, and longtime fans of the series and especially Prime will love that aspect of this remaster.
This is a review based upon my takeaway from the title. Fans of the original and the series at large will love this remaster, I just happened to not. I recommend this to those who enjoy Samus Aran and her item reliant adventures, but do not to those like me who are not a fan of the genre.
This is going to be an unpopular opinion probably, but I want to get one thing out of the way: I completely respect the legacy of Metroid and especially Metroid Prime. This game has done something for the genre and gaming as a whole. It translated the 2D to 3D jump perfectly and catapaulted Samus Aran into superstardom and acclaim. It seemed like growing up everybody knew Samus and owned Prime, I could have been convinced the series was on the level of a Mario or Zelda.
I played Dread last year and enjoyed everything except the Metroid part of it, which sounds ridiculous and likely is. What I didn't like about the beloved sidescroller was the tried and true method of solving/beating these games: backtracking to use new mechanics on doors across the map, shooting random walls to expose upgrades, using certain abilities in seemingly random spots, and (intentional) lack of direction. What I really DID like was the way it fed you the game's lore. In my opinion, metroid has one of the coolest stories and worlds in contemporary media. Something about the cryptic nature of the Chozo, Metroid, and our famed bounty hunter grasps me with its full embrace. I'm a sucker for good sci-fi with a paranormal horror tinge, and thats exactly what Metroid is, and Dread knocked it out of the park. Now, as you may know I am reviewing Metroid Prime and not Dread, this was a lead in to one of my major complaints about Prime: the story!
I read almost every pirate log in the game, ran through with the scanning visor on every panel and enemy that I could, but I couldn't piece together as much as I wanted about the story. I enjoyed learning about the Chozo again, the Space Pirates and the Metroid species, but I didn't feel like it lead to a cohesive enough narrative. I didn't really know why I was on Tallon IV other than following Ridley, I did not understand the reason that I was trudging through each zone, piecemeal picking up powerups to open doors in zones previous. It didn't pull me in. In a series like Resident Evil that follows a similar pattern of reading computer files and journals to understand the lore, while also needing to backtrack to complete puzzles and open doors, there's enough story presented to the player to make this make sense. In Prime, there's radio silence upon landing on Tallon IV. I'm not asking Retro twenty plus years ago to say "hey this is why you're doing this" every few seconds, but at least something to tie the pursuit of the Chozo Artifacts and Samus' journey together would be nice.
My other major qualm was the Metroidvania part of Metroid again, I made it through the first few attempts without using any kind of guidance, because the natural progression of the game with your limited items, made sense. However as the game went on I got more and more lost, and my patience to backtrack every possible room and try every door/secret area to get both necessary and optional powerups wore extremely thin. This was compounded by the never ending enemy respawns in already cleared areas, which completely destroyed my ambition to play Prime blind. I didn't want to hesitate and make an error prodding and poking around every room for a helpful item if I was risking a long engagement with Space Pirates, made long because Samus aims and shoots slower than molasses. I eventually beat the game with the assistance of online guides, as it never would happened without them. I'm not the "smartest" gamer per se, but I'm not the opposite either, and I found fairly quickly that I couldn't ration spending my hours scanning and attempting to look through every nook and cranny in the game. I know this is a staple of the series at this point but man, boo.
As far as the remaster itself goes, it was a great job by Retro. Prime on the Switch is actually beautiful, and I had no performance issues to speak of. The music is great, the environments were very well designed, and Samus Aran herself looked fantastic in the moments you get to see her in third person. While I don't love playing Metroid, Retro and Nintendo did a bang-up job in making this game look and feel good, and longtime fans of the series and especially Prime will love that aspect of this remaster.
This is a review based upon my takeaway from the title. Fans of the original and the series at large will love this remaster, I just happened to not. I recommend this to those who enjoy Samus Aran and her item reliant adventures, but do not to those like me who are not a fan of the genre.
2 Comments
@Underpants158 Thank you! I wanted to like it as I never made it far when I was younger, but alas.
Underpants158
1 year ago