This has been a long time coming. When Metroid Prime came out for the Gamecube, it was the single reason I came back to playing consoles, buying the Prime Bundle to get the black gamecube with that game and a bonus disc previewing the then soon to release Metroid Prime 2: Echos. When that second game came out, it was a birthday gift just before I finished the first one. This game would become my favorite game in the franchise just due to the villanous Ing and how much I loved fighting them. Hell, even the Wii was a Christmas gift (ok, an empty box with a promise to get one which would finally get in my hands months later due to scarcity) because Metroid Prime 3 was coming out for it almost exclusively, and I loved every second of that too, as again it was a birthday gift. To say this series is one I hold in high regard would be an understatement.
However, a few years later Nintendo released this collection with all three titles on one disc and reworked for the wiimote. Admittedly, I was interested in replaying the games, especially to feel how the first two play with the new control scheme. After all, FPS style generally benefits a lot by a pointer device. However, more important, I wanted the collector’s edition, as it would also mean having the trilogy in a metal case, which admittedly I’m a bit of a sucker for. But since I had played all three games prior, I let it slide into my backlog since I had a number of games (even then) I had never played at all. Recently, this changed, and I have now put down the wiimote after traveling through the Phazon story with Samus one last time. They don’t make games like this anymore… and it’s a damn shame.
Now, before we continue, I have to note this is a collective review. Since Metroid Prime Trilogy is three games in a single menu, I am covering all three in this review. I’ve split the review to cover each in turn, and the links below are shortcuts to each one.
Story: Samus Aran has completed her mission. Alone, she infiltrated the Space Pirate base station hidden under the rocky labyrinthine cave-system of planet Zebes, destroyed their highly advanced AI super-computer the Mother Brain, and blew up the base on her way out to ensure they can not restart their Metroid-bioweapon operations.
But she could not go home just yet. Before she even left the system, she received a distress signal from a frigate ship, so she changed course to offer assistance and rescue if possible. What she found was a now heavily destroyed Space Pirate frigate and breaking in revealed why: cloning metroids was only one of their biological experiments. On Talon IV,the planet this ship orbits, they found a highly poisonous substance known as phazon, but it also has the benefits of a mutagenic nature that even as it destroys the nervous system, always mutates the creature to physically be tougher, more dangerous, and harder to kill on top of being an incredible energy source. It took no time for the space pirates to begin toying with the substance. And they paid the price as this ship’s emergency was their experimental creatures running amok and killing the crew.
Furthermore, it didn’t take long for Samus to find the queen of the parasites they were working on, and it’s dead body falling into the ship’s reactor core is the final nail in it’s coffin. However, the escape proved her mission was not over, as Ridley, the leader of the space pirates survived their fight during her mission and she found him escaping the ship to Talon IV. Samus pursues him to finish the mission.
While you will play this opening story, this is the point when the real story begins as Samus explores Talon IV to find and stop Ridley’s bio-weapon operations. And at the same time, this hunt proves to be only one of two major stories, the other being told through relics of the Chozo’s ancient world scattered about the map. These will tell the tale of how Phazon came to the planet and how this proud race of space-spiritualists did their best to fight and contain “the worm and it’s poisons” from harming their world, as well as just what it means now that someone is here trying to harvest it for military dreams of conquest.
8/10
Graphics: Back in the day when the hot new systems were the PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox, this game was absolutely gorgeous. The game brilliantly translated the look and feel of the previous 2D title (Super Metroid) far more completely to a 3D/first person world then anyone would have been able to dream!
Sadly, this does not translate to the graphics holding up as exceptionally well, though. In fact, the fact that this is a re-release without any real graphical updates at all is a bit of a disappointment. And going only from the Gamecube to the WIi, it does not even increase the resolution. Don’t get me wrong, the game still looks pretty good even now over 15 years later. But that does not mean it doesn’t show it’s age. You can not help but notice how a lot of the rock-forms or any other area in the game show their graphic geometry relatively clearly compared to modern or even semi-modern games. But at the same time, the sheer variety and scope of the world has not dimmed over time. And despite the 3D modeling of the maps being simplistic by today’s standards, it comes off as an exceptionally clean-looking world for the most part.
In fact, in the entire game I can think of two places where time has aged this wrong and left anything not clear-looking. One place very early in the game is a small cave that being used to today’s graphics, you might need to look around a little to see one of the ways out, and there is a ruined hall with a similar issue closer to the 1/3rd mark.
Characters, on the other hand, generally fair a lot better meeting a lot of what we expect even now! Bitmap detail is not going to be as high, but you are not going to notice that between the very smooth movement, great rendering, and pure style that signifies how Metroid is supposed to look. In fact, it really only stands out in the few cutscenes the game has where you get up and personal with Samus and see it in her armor and ship’s door.
And that goes double for when dealing with Space Pirates. Simply put, these are going to be your main opponents late in the game, and they look great BEFORE you do something to alert them and they come to life! Once that happens, it all comes together brilliantly.
8/10
Sound: The music in this game is simply amazing. Meshing a technological feel with an orchestrated score remixing of the classic opening music used throughout the Metroid overworlds of every game since the NES era, creating a great alien world vibe as you first see the surface of Talon IV. And yet the same track set the tone that you are on an adventure with Samus, making you all the more eager to explore and see what is out there.
And this level of mood control continues as you play, between intensification when you face off with intelligent enemies (Space Pirates are not the only thing you will face off with), boss battle music, and even the themes of each or areas you will travel through.
However, it’s a bit of a shame that the game doesn’t have the original title screen once you select to play this title in the collection, as you will have to wait till the end credits to hear the most alien, unique, and iconic new score to introduce the entire trilogy has to now wait until you get to the end of the game during the end credits now.
And while there is absolutely no voice acting in this game, the sound effects also hold up very well. Your blasts from each of your weapons all sound great with the exception of the flamethrower, which doesn’t sound like much at all, and all the enemies sound pretty good, including the scree-sounds of the Metroids when they get ready to fly at you. Not much stands out here, for good or bad.
8/10
Gameplay: Metroid Prime is a First Person shooter of sorts where the “sorts” is more about exploring and adventuring then the actual combat. Between finding the things you need to progress, figuring out a few puzzles here and there, and the occasional boss fight where the you have to learn how to use their movements in combination with specific weapons and visors, you will do very little of the classic aim and hammer the shoot button you might with other FPS games.
Instead of worrying about accurate fighting, you will use a lock-on mechanic to keep you on the enemy, either for enemies who’s sole reason to exist is to keep the action in place or those boss/boss-lite encounters while you learn or execute the pattern to finish them off.
As of for that exploration/puzzle part you are playing for, you are in for a treat. This game offers an expansive play-area made of 5 huge maps just covered in secrets and puzzles just waiting to be found and figured out. Doing so will reward you with power ups that will help you by either increasing your survivability and/or granting you a new ability of some kind which on top of being useful will also increase the areas you have access to as you continue to explore further. This is in essence a gameplay style popularized by this franchise and it lives on in it’s first 3D rendition brilliantly.
The big feature of the game being in this collection, however, is the ability to play through it with the Wii-mote controls of Metroid Prime 3 instead of relying on a lock-on mechanic with a stick on a controller, and this works incredibly well. When roaming around it makes finding your way, completing puzzles around shooting targets, and zeroing in on enemies quickly very easy. But that does not mean it works perfectly, however.
The problems here reside around adapting this new control scheme to a game designed around a lock-on mechanic instead. Because the game used lock-on, it expects the user to use it and as a result, have absolutely perfect aiming. Granting them the freedom the pointer controls offers also removes this accuracy from the game. Thankfully the game options allow you to adjust this so you can use the pointer to navigate and aim, but then lock on to keep aimed at your target, making the game behave with the precision aim you are expected to have while keeping a large portion of the freedom allowed by the new scheme. (In fact doing so made the single worst fight in the game a LOT easier then even in the Gamecube release)
Aside from that, the only other issue I had was with selecting weapons and visors. In the original game, this was done by flicking the rocker-switch or the small camera stick on the Gamecube controller in the direction of the weapon you wanted to use, but this gets slowed down by having to bring up a menu and clicking the cursor on what you want to use. It is not a huge deal until the very end of the game as you are not required to make these changes on the fly until then. And even then only one fight really relies on you doing making these changes outside of a pattern, but that fight happens to be most of the last boss of the entire game, so prepare for him to annoy the HELL out of you.
8/10
Story: Some time after the events of Metroid Prime (and Metroid Prime Hunters for the DS for that matter), Samus received a mission request from the Galactic Federation. They have lost contact with a team of marines hunting down a faction of Space Pirates near the planet Aether. She accepted the mission but on arrival, storms in the atmosphere damaged her ship and she needed to make an emergency landing. Now stuck on the same planet, Samus attempted to find and offer assistance to the these marines until she and they can get off the planet, but this was simply not meant to be.
Much like the previous game, this is where you take over, but not when the real plot begins. Exploring the HQ setup by the marines, Samus finds them dead, and yet they don’t seem to stay this way as the bodies get back up and start to shoot at her! While Samus can easily dispatch them, it will be up to her to figure out what the hell attacked and killed the maries she was sent to save, as well as survive where they did not.
And yet there is more going on here, as the same creatures that killed off the marines are in a war with the natives of the world, and at stake is not only who wins or even who lives, but who’s version of the planet will be left in space!
Suffice it to say, between Metroid Prime 1 and 2, the stakes have been increased as Samus takes part in a war between dimensional versions of the world, the light (normal) and dark versions of Aether. And while the Space Pirates are definitely here, active, and harvesting phazon from that dark world, their part of this tail is actually more in the background as they too have to face off with a far more dangerous enemy in the Ing: the parasitic residence of the dark world.
Rather, instead your tail will be told by interactions with the last guardian of the Luminoth, the moth-like species that once traveled the stars and even interacted with the Chozo in their heyday, but have since made this planet home and as of this moment, have been all but eradicated. He will explain the war and what’s at stake as well as how Samus can help them out.
But while this will explain the basic story, details once again come in the form of logs you will find among the bodies of the dead, arcane relics, and computer systems which will all give snippets of the world’s history. From the last moments of the poor soul you are analyzing to both pirate and Federation security logs, to even ancient texts telling the tale of how the world came to be split between light and dark and the war that followed, there is a LOT of lore to be found for those who want to see everything the plot as to offer. And for those interested in only the basics of who to kill and where to go, you can basically do that too!
8/10
Graphics: Where Metroid Prime still looks really good for it’s age, Metroid Prime 2 puts it to shame, as it is arguably one of the best two looking games of it’s generation and the best single looking game on the Gamecube. True, this does not mean it looks like a modern game, but it still holds it’s own, even today!
The sheer level of detail you will see in the world around you simply looks gorgeous even now, and aside from the resolution, could pass as a 360/PS3 title with little effort. And the world you will explore in varies greatly between 4 primary areas (ranging from ruined wastelands to a technological fortress) and the various dark-world counterparts for each. And while they all carry their own feel and look, they still fit together to make a total picture of a world falling apart at the seems to the parasitic invasion of the second (dark) one.
But the highlight here are the enemies you face. Space pirates look menacing as hell, with the local lifeforms not hiding they have survived a ruined world and as such evolved to be scrappy as all hell… but all of that falls second fiddle to the Ing. These are arguably among the coolest villains to ever grace a video game screen, taking black forms of various shapes and sizes, dissolving into living pools of darkness, and when they can get away with it, taking over and mutating things in the light world as their way to handle the (to them) toxic environment it contains, creating dark and powerful versions of more classic villains…. all with a flair of evil look that has just not been topped.
8/10
Sound: Sadly, Metroid Prime 2 does not stand up to the original in this department. Do not get me wrong, it still sounds amazing, but it does so for atmosphere alone. Gone are the memorable music tracks that ooze “Metroid” for much more generic horror feels. It still sounds good, but you are not going to remember much for very long after the game is over. The only exception to this is the “encounter” song used for basically every boss fight in the game. That will stick with you as it has that right energy and dread mix to make the scene in the game.
And just like the previous title, do not expect any actual voice-work beyond grunts and yelps of Samus if she’s hit to hard by something. Characters can have a lot to say, but none of it is voiced at all.
And of course we then get to sound effects, and here this game makes more of a mark. From Samus’ various weapons to the grumblings of the local life to roaring Ing to even the Space pirates who you can not understand but are clearly barking orders and insults in the heat of battle. It’s all here and it all sounds right.
7/10
Gameplay: Again like the first title, Metroid Prime 2 is a “First person Adventure” and walking into the collection the one I was the most eager to replay. Between the darker/horror tone of the game and it’s new main antagonist army, this game promised to be an epic adventure to never forget. You will wander through the light and dark worlds in your quest to steal back the planetary energy from the Ing and restore the world of Aether to it’s former glory. Along the way you will be constantly recollecting all the weapons and equipment that the Ing basically ripped out of Samus’ armor as well as new toys introduced and exclusive to this adventure.
For example, you will not gain access to the classic wave, ice, and heat beams the first game had. Rather, your additional beam weapons are more Luminoth made: a light, a dark, and an annihilation beam, which actually need light and dark ammunition that you can only regain by kills/destruction using the weapon of the opposite type, creating a new balancing act within the game you will have to keep in mind as you play. Thankfully, most of the time this balancing act boils down to if you want to do the extra damage, but there are some enemies that will demand you use one or swap along the way between weapons to come out on top, and many doors that will demand you use them to be opened. But if you truly run out of one of the beams, you can charge them to fire a normal shot, at least, so the game will not let you get stranded by such restrictions.
In addition to this, you will also see one of the biggest staples of the 2D titles make it’s first appearance in a 3D Metroid: The screw-attack. In this game, you will not use it so much as a weapon, however as for maneuverability. In the open it becomes a way to expand your jumps by flipping several times in the air (although you will CRUSH anything you fly into doing this), and at the same time you will find surfaces that using the screw attack will let you cling to and jump from, climbing structures you couldn’t before. Although it is also a good thing they did not rely heavily on it, for while it is fun from time to time, it is also fairly inconsistent, as you may find yourself bouncing off the roof of where you want to land and back down to the bottom of whatever you are crossing as often as you nail that 3-point landing on the other side. It can be as annoying as it is fun.
This is not the only issue, unfortunately, with the geometry of the game. With the higher polygon counts, Retro Studios decided to have some enemies where the point they take damage is not so much on the surface, but obscured by moving parts, but the engine doesn’t always account for it well, resulting in the fight not always being the fairest. In particular, there are two bosses this applies to, a fish enemy who’s mouth is the target, but wont always register, and the first/last phases of the final boss of the game which seem to also like to ignore hits from time to time due to this.
It is also worth noting this issue can also occur in maps as well, particularly when using the morph ball where you have a bit more inertia then walking around and can make getting into that tunnel just a little more annoying (or completely infuriate with the boss to get the spider ball).
But when all is said and done, these issues are really outliers that you hopefully wont let you end your experience pre-maturely, as overall the end result is more Metroid Prime in much the same fashion as the previous title. Enjoy!
8/10
Story: It’s been six months since the events of Metroid Prime 2: Echos. With the Luminoth saved and the space pirates routed from their source of phazon, and the pirate activity appears to have died down for the time being. Even more encouraging is the fact that the Galactic Federation now have a source of phazon to investigate FAR more responsibly then the pirates ever did. To this end, they have found it to be a highly toxic, but incredibly potent fuel source. Enough so in fact they have found arming a suit with shielding appropriate for a very small dose, they can arm their troops with it to give them a needed temporary boost in battle. So far, the technology known as the PED suit has proven promising!
But good things are simply not meant to last and that just became appearant as a virus has been spread across the Federation’s Aurora origanic computer networks, and the cause appeared to be a unit onboard a ship thought lost at random: The GFS Vallhala. It turns out when it dissappeared 4 months ago, it was due to pirate attack, and they’ve been using it to take out all early warning systems. But with a vaccine/cure created, the Federation called on four bounty hunters to assist in delivering it to the infected systems, including our hero Samus Aran.
But to find out why the pirates did this did not take that long, for during briefing, the fleet was attacked by the pirate fleet on it’s way to ruin the base on the planet Norion below. But the attack was just to be a softening blow as a giant asteroid was flying towards the planet called a Leviathan! And while Samus and company were able to get the cannons online to shoot it down, it was not without cost, as Dark Samus fried all four of them in the process. No one was conscious when they were found in the aftermath of this.
A few months later, Samus woke up in the medical bays of the base, but she wasn’t quite the way she was before. Dark Samus’ attack changed all four hunters on a cellular level, and now each one of their bodies is generating it’s own stock of phazon. Taking advantage of this, the scientists and doctors modified all of their suits with PED technology to take advantage of this, for the danger is far from over. In addition to the antivirus delivery that still needed to happen, two other leviathans had landed on the nearby planets of Bryyo and Elysia. And upon landing both began to make disturbing changes to their respective planets, threatening to destroy them. Further issues have arisen as the Federation had sent the other hunters to take care of this while Samus was still out of commission… and have lost contact with all of them.
From this point, you will go with Samus on a planet-hopping adventure that potentially puts her up against the most threatening force she has ever faced in the entire franchise to save the galaxy, and the game has no problem showing you just how dangerous phazon, Dark Samus, and the leviathan seeds she lead to be dropped on the various planets really are, both in the now enslaved to the will of “their savior” space pirates to the effects of Samus’ new mutation on herself and those she considers her colleagues. Honestly this titles turns up the plot, telling it much more as you play then the other titles in this trilogy. But if you think there isn’t any lore to find, don’t kid yourself. The main story is a lot more detailed, but there is a lot (and fairly disturbing) lores to be found, both to each individual worlds and the often brutal and tragic pasts the civilizations native to them were, as well as the general situation going on. Lore hunters like myself are absolutely served by this title as well.
8/10
Graphics: Metroid Prime 3 is the one title in this game that started on the Wii instead of the Gamecube, so you can expect it to be the best looking game in the series, though unfortunately it is not by a lot, however. Do not get me wrong, the game still looks great, but Metroid Prime 2 had pushed the gamecube so hard that the much more standard for it’s system graphics shown in this third title just wasn’t a massive step forward like many wanted.
However, what this game lacked in graphical improvement, it more then made up for in pure variety. Unlike the previous titles, Metroid Prime 3 requires you to fly between ultimately at least 7 different locations in space, each of which contains it’s own complete look and feel, from the tribal ruins of Byyro to the high-tech and toxic enviornment of the Space Pirate homeworld, this game holds nothing back giving a lot more character to the Metroid universe then most games in the franchise. Again, that is not a shot at the series, but a note of just how much this game covers. And to do all that it did in a single title is impressive all it’s own, especially late in the game.
The only two issues I can point to against the graphics of this game, and the first is fairly common. Unfortunately, this game uses dithering effects for some of the fading it does. This might not be a huge issue, but the Wii was not a high-def system, so while a system running at a higher resolution might get away with that easier, it stands out like a sore thumb here.
I would also point out a weird issue at the end of the game when your entire health system changes. In the original release, this point in the game kept the health bar you get when are in hyper-mode to display the situation, but no matter how many health-tanks you picked up along the way, it looked normal. You took more damage in that bar depending this detail, but the polish remained despite you not getting every tank. This is oddly missing in this release, displaying an obvious space where more health could be as blank space in the bar. It’s weird looking and makes no sense that they would remove polish from the original release like that.
7/10
Sound: Once again, we have another game on this disc where you kinda miss out on one of the greats for title-screen music due to how the collection was built. Originally you were greeted with a religious tone to rival what Halo was doing, but this is lost since selecting a game in the menu of this disc time takes you right to the opening scenes of the game itself. However that is not to say the game’s music is a let down. Most of it remains a weird combination of this with alien tones, mix changing depending on where you are in the game. Add to this some intensity ratcheting tunes when you get to the boss-fights in the game (or when space pirates drop in out of nowhere, be it ambush or alarms) and you get a pretty good sounding bit of music while you play.
Sound effects are a lot more standard for this series, however. The familiar enemies of the past make all the usual screeches, squawks, roars, or even just the space-pirate chatter we all know and love from this series. But with the severely expanded amount of environments, there are also a number of new enemies, like robots that march in tempo, clanking along the whole time. They sound about as you would expect, just adding to the library of sound you will hear as you play.
But this game did do something completely new for the franchise. Samus may not yet speak in Metroid Prime 3, but a lot of other characters are actually voiced, from all three other bounty hunters to the GF troopers, to even the Aurora units you interact with, this game is a LOT more talkative then previous entries (which at best had a text wall or two for important chatter from a character or two you encounter throughout the game), and everything sounds absolutely great. My only regret is the game keeps Samus herself silent. It makes sense for most of the game, but at the end, it would have been a nice touch the way the game gives her final report.
8/10
Gameplay: Much like the rest of this trilogy, Metroid Prime 3 is played from a first person perspective, but this one was designed with the Wiimote in mind from the beginning rather then being converted for this collection and it shows. Where the other games needed to create a new menu to let you select your beam weapon, this time your beam is gradually improved upon with upgrades that combine powers, freeing up that button on the wiimote to choose between normal and hyper-mode, the new stand-out this installment builds around. In essence, you hold down the “+” button to enter this mode. At this point, your health will be replaced by a zoom in of the single health tank you pumped into the system, and it becomes your ammunition for the moment. In return, your fire power and even defensive systems are incredibly boosted, letting you kill off enemies that would take a lot of damage rapidly, and even some you couldn’t fight without it (like several bosses).
Whatever health you dont use when you turn off the mode returns to your health meter, assuming you don’t get stuck in corrupted mode. When this happens you are not allowed to leave hyper-mode and that tank begins to fill up on it’s own as Samus’ phazon generating power goes into overdrive. At this point, you can only leave by emptying the tank (firing enough phazon beams to empty it) or to keep it from filling long enough Samus’ PED armor automatically vents the entire tank. You will at this point lose the full tank and you have no choice in that matter, but it’s better then the alternative. If the tank fills up for a little while, Samus will fall to the phazon corruption her body is currently fighting and the game will end. In the end, it becomes a balance (albiet an easy one to maintain) that you will need to work with to succeed.
In addition to this, the game also goes easier on the visors then other titles did. Yes, you still have 3 additional visors before the game ends, but you only ever collect 1 additional one (x-ray). You always have the other two, but now they are the investigate visor (as the whole series uses) and a new “ship command” visor. This latter can only be used in specific instances when you call on your ship to do a bombing run in specific areas, lift/place large objects, or to call your ship to land, letting you use it as a mobile save-point as well as leave the area from more then your initial landing place. And on top of that I think there is a single boss in the entire game that requires you to swap visors as you fight them at all, making the game far more balanced on keeping your target reticle in the fight instead of switching view modes. Needless to say, the combat becomes much smoother for this last entry. In fact, I would argue this might be the best example of FPS controls with a wiimote!
9/10
Below are shared between all 3 games
- Spazing hunter: During the last fight of the original Metroid Prime, the boss began hunting Hunter Metroids in addition to the usual Fission Metroids (which seems different from the original release). This is not the bug so much as rather then die from a Super Bomb, the thing just started flipping around in space like it had nothing to grab onto and the program didn’t know what to do with it. It was more confusing then anything however, as it did not get in the way of finishing off the boss and the game.
Overall: It’s hard not to recommend getting your hands on this title to quickly have a frankly amazing trilogy of games. It’s a nice little package that works very well overall and every title in it is very good. However, if you have or can get the original releases of all three games, it may be worth doing that instead. Again, do not get me wrong, this is a great series and very well assembled, but small details here and there that were just better in the original releases of all three titles stop it just shy of being the best way to experience it all.
Score:
8/10
Source: Gamestop (also available as a download on the WiiU)
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