Metroid Prime: Remastered
Set Phazons to Fun!!!
Written by Tim Janowitz:
Urbandictionary.com defines a Metroidvania as,
“A garbage term for a genre that was created entirely by Metroid and for which Castlevania deserves no credit for. """Metroidvania"""s are characterized by their open world environments and their use of upgrades that slowly make more areas of the map accessible. Most games in the genre are two-dimensional.”
After completing Metroid Prime I can indeed say it is certainly one of those, except for the 2D part.
Metroid Prime Re:Make is a remake of the game Metroid Prime for the gamecube that I liked as a kid because you played as a space babe with a cool robot suit and a gun on her arm from super smash bros. Unfortunately I was a dumb child and could not beat the first boss in the tutorial. I eventually grew up into a dumb college student where after a multi month battle with Ebay customer support I finally got my hands on the game once again. I was able to beat the tutorial and the first plant boss thing but due to the hard fought ebay battle, my interest was almost entirely lost at that point.
But now in the year 2023 we have been graced by a remake and this time I finished it baybeee! It was just like the old game probably, at least up to the parts I played, I cannot confirm otherwise. But this time they added good graphics, except for the doors according to very angry people on the internet.
I am a 2D metroid veteran and I expect a thanks for my service, but metroid in 3D was a newish world to me. I can safely say the translation went well. Everytime you fired a charge blast at something in the darkness you could see the beautiful and deadly bounty hunter Seamus Erin’s eyes reflected off the protective dew kissed visor. And in that reflection I could see my own eyes reflected off the black mirror of the nintendo switch screen. My eyes were in her eyes and her’s in mine, like that peter gabriel song I think. At that moment I was a space babe with a gun arm, this game makes you really feel… like Samus Aran.
I had made it through most of the game at my normal smooth brain metroid playing pace until I hit the dreaded Iconic partially broken bridge tunnel thing in every metroid game. It would not make a fool of me this time, I super bombed that shit! Alas but instead of progress I got a super freeze missile thing I think. I got stuck at several other parts of the game due to some bullshit there is no way I would have found unless I looked it up, but it would not be a true metroid experience iif that did not happen.\
Overall I had a great time with the game. Scanning stuff and learning about the world was interesting until I got bored and needed to shoot something. I really enjoyed being able to switch between the beams and find out the best combinations of beams and missiles to kill enemies more efficiently instead of a linear beam upgrade path in other metroid games. It was fun to zoom around in the morph ball. I felt both smart and disappointed when I found a secret that had a very involved puzzle only to get a missile pack upgrade. It was a real hoot.
This is the part where I complain about the game. The game suffers from gating the final stretch by needing to pick up every arbitrarily hidden artifact, most are in boss areas but there are a few that I needed to watch youtube videos to find even when I was given the location. I hate mandatory collectathons and always will (bite me Andrew). It gave me the same feeling I am suffering through with other gamecube game Windwaker, that I want to beat, but really don't feel like finding a bunch of triangles. A couple other complaints is that I was hoping there would be more boss fights, and aside from the super missile and super Ice missile the ultra upgrades like the flame thrower and electric beam didn’t seem to be worth the missile drain to use.
All criticism aside, this game is a prime example of a metroid game done right in 3D, and first person. It honestly makes me wish more first person shooters adopted a similar structure. I rate Metroid Prime Re:Mastered
4 out of 5 morphballs.