By PATRICK CAVASOS
Staff Writer
At the time of it’s release Metroid Prime was nothing like the series fans had been wanting from a new installment, this far into the series every installment had been purely 2D and a large push for this whole new First Person 3D world was not looking like a great comeback for Metroid. Least that’s how it was viewed at first, now a simple google search will show you heavy amounts of praise Prime had got, critically and from truly dedicated fans, it’s become a somewhat legendary installment in a just as legendary series of games. It all began when Retro Studios had released Turok on the Nintendo 64, seeing their success Nintendo hurriedly decided to pick up the studio and let them work with some new properties, they sadly were all failures and never made it far into development, it wasn’t until someone discovered their First Person Adventure engine that they realized just what Retro had on their hands, they were quickly picked up during a meeting to develop Metroid within that exact engine, this became Metroid Prime.
We open up this whole new saga of Metroid with a fast and sudden alert for our heroine Samus, the Space Pirates are in trouble with the Parasite Queen, a wild creature running rampant among their ship, only Samus can stop this rampage. Our ship lands and is immediately thrust into gameplay. It’s our first time seeing the world of Metroid in 3D and even greater, we see this whole new axis from Samus’s eyes, letting us feel even more like we are there. This new control scheme feels super smooth with all the aiming being controlled by lock ons and motion controls, using your hand to move Samus’s blaster around the screen feels incredible and makes it just that much more immersive as you explore the world and blast away at creatures. Before you know it you’ve discovered how to roll around as a ball or how to shoot missiles then suddenly you put face to face with the Parasite Queen, all that training was for this moment. You must focus and dodge away at every attack and blast away at her in between her attacks, it’s like you’re playing chess, you must think ahead for when you can make a move against her everytime she has a turn. Once you defeat her the screen goes red and the entire ship is warning you that its about to crash, your put straight into Samus’s stressful escape as you must swing around and skid past corners to find a way out, luckily Samus gets off just in time and the Space Pirates Frigate falls straight into a neighboring planet, it feels like you just finished a whole journey but really it’s just the beginning of a far greater one.
The frigate crashes onto the planet Tallon IV and just like that you realize the scope of this journey, Samus follows after and lands on Tallon IV, just like that your thrust into this large open world, heavy rain and greenery is all that surrounds you, this is the real beginning of the journey. Immediately you’re surrounded with options, you can go this way and that way, there’s a door over there and right there, it’s all up to you. Well there may only be one ‘real’ option, the fact the game trusts you enough already to let you go off the beaten path and make your own discoveries is something not many games can achieve with such excellence, it makes it that much more immersive. The Tallon overworld is mainly peaceful and straight forward, it acts as a hub to get to all the other areas such as the Chozo Ruins where the game’s combat first makes a common appearance. Chozo ruins is like a tutorial area, you may have beaten the Frigate stage but now you must deal with the complex structure of these room layouts and the fast chaotic behavior of the surrounding wildlife working against you. You end up coming out of the chozo ruins stocked up with many new abilities and then the game really lets loose and lets you journey free from it’s set path allowing you to use all your abilities to their best. Just from these new actions alone the area count has gone from a mere two to a whopping five areas to explore including the Tallon Overworld, the ancient abandoned Chozo Ruins, the large frozen caverns of Phendrana Drifts, the pirate infested Phazon Mines and the fiery volcanic land of Magmoor Caverns.
From now on you’re jumping back and forth from each and every land on Tallon IV, finding new abilities, relics to open the final door, optional upgrades, and much more secrets like hidden dialogue, near everything has something to say if you scan it. It’s this amount of interaction with the world that brings so much character to this game and it’s expansive world. This end game dash around the map collecting all these final relics is quite entertaining as you solve a bunch of small puzzle-esque riddles that lead to all of their locations, it’s a fairly enjoyable end game experience that really doesn’t stay in action for too long, a perfect victory lap. Of course after getting all these relics something happens that will lead you to the final area, you unleash the relics upon their designated areas and fight Ridley, the Space Pirate leader in a one on one fight, and just like the parasite queen you’ll be bouncing around the stage for any chance of escape, it’s quite entertaining although carried on for a long time. Alas you destroy ridley and enter the Impact Crater of a Meteor to fight the final boss, Metroid Prime, the game’s namesake. THis fight will have you constantly switching between forms of navigation and attack, all your different blasters are gonna have a major role here like all your other abilities. It acts as an amazing end to thai adventure as you slowly whittle down this creature’s health as it runs for its survival to finally reveal it’s true form, furthermore it makes you use different forms of vision now just to even see it. Now more than ever you’ll be needing your full attention on your surroundings as Prime may just be invisible, this chaotic bombardment of events finally ends as you blast Prime to pieces and blow up the Prime’s homeland for Tallon’s safety.
It really makes sense now why this game is so highly praised and loved by many, fans and critics alike. Heck, it was so good it led to a game changing trilogy that would change each console generation a massive amount, each one deserves a look back just like this. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes continues straight after this journey and it’s just as if not a far more amazing journey.