Topic: Metroid Prime series in general 'love it, hate it'?

[Richter]

Metroid Prime was probably one of the top 5 games of that era. Great gameplay, atmosphere, so much detail. Perfect transition from Super Metroid to 3D, which was great since they carried on strong in 2D on the GBA at the same time. Couldnt get into Echoes AT ALL. Just didnt feel the same. Because of this I never got to part 3. Would have picked up the remastered Wii set if it wasnt so overpriced now.

[X]

Would have picked up the remastered Wii set if it wasnt so overpriced now.

I think the reason why it's so overpriced is that they stopped making them. At least that's what I heard. Expensive or otherwise you might seriously want to track a copy down and get it before your chances run out.

-X

[ShinAkumaXX]

I got the Trilogy for Wii at K-Mart a few months back for $50. I never shop at K-Mart and found it by surprise. I actually sold it on eBay for $75... as I already had a copy. Here's an auction for one, price is pretty low right now. http://cgi.ebay.com/Metroid-Prime-Trilogy-Wii-2009-/220772932432?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item3367179b50

[Flame]

Oh god please don't bring up Other M.

That game is an embarassment to the franchise.

other M was good, it was the presentation of the story and poor delivery by the Actress playing Samus that make it sound bad.

Everything presented makes sense. (I mean Samus related. The bottle ship and MB I have no comment on. that was handled not too well.)

Samus and Adam was handled EXACTLY as it was in Fusion. she thinks about him half the time, I remember Adam this and Adam that.

The authorization was really just a bad excuse for an upgrade system, rather than resorting to prime's system of "LOL PEBBLE HITS YOUR HEAD, YOU LOSE EVERYTHING"

On paper and in theory, it sounds reasonable. She is aiding a Federation mission, thus she is following the rules set by the Federation commander in charge. But in execution, certain things make little sense. Specifically, while weapons make sense, suit upgrades do not. I dont understand why she had them off to begin with, but whatever the reason, SHE had them off. Adam didnt make her turn them off.

Ridly, dont start on that. Samus is KNOWN to have PTSD. Ridley's rebirth after Samus destroyed him, and the planet his body was on, and yet he came back, AGAIN, metaphorically and literally, out from the fires of Hell, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. It hit her like a brick:
 she cant put him down.
he always comes back.
it will never end.
her Parent's murderer will never stop haunting her.

She had a PTSD attack. NEVER has Ridley's entrance and buildup been as dramatic.

Read more Metroid manga.
Ridley's appearance literally has her eyes rolling into her head, screaming, literally begging for death.

[X]

DUDE!! You took my thoughts right outta my head  Are you sure you're not Mentok; the mindtaker? And yeah, I loved that Ridly battle. It was far more epic with choice in music re-composition too.

-X

[PFG9000]

The authorization was really just a bad excuse for an upgrade system, rather than resorting to prime's system of "LOL PEBBLE HITS YOUR HEAD, YOU LOSE EVERYTHING"

I absolutely disagree.  Which is more believable?  Why the hell would Samus trek through a hot room that saps away at her health when she has the ability to turn her suit on?  What benefit could it possibly be to her or to anybody else to disable her suit?  It was a horrible game mechanic in Other M, one of the many stupid aspects of the game.

In Metroid Prime's scenario, Samus got smacked against a wall by an explosion, IIRC (and piled on by monsters in Echoes).  That could very believably damage her suit to the extent that it doesn't work as well as it used to.  Yes, it's convenient, but it's also believable.  The Other M thing just takes you right out of the game.

[Puwexil]

Other M is pretty terrible. I wrote about it a bit when it came out, which I'll leave behind spoiler tags in order to avoid fattening up the thread with something relatively irrelevant.

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This is such a depressing game. So much squandered to middling execution and unambitious concepts. Dig deep, and there's a glimmer or two of genuine worth, but it's hard to stay positive when you're sustaining on scraps and leftovers.

Metroid is about worlds. Inhospitable, unfamiliar, alien worlds. Other M gives you the BOTTLE SHIP, a derelict space station, separated to three distinct sectors. The themes are: foliage, ice, and lava. The visual design in these places is utterly standard and banal in every possible way. The series has explored each theme in the past with rather appealing results, but here it's just Video Game Clichés 101. To add insult to injury, many of the vistas you come across aren't even real in the context of the game world, merely landscapes applied through the Bottle Ship's hologram system. I don't know what the point is, except to drive the local fauna (and the player, I suppose) insane. There's little joy in exploring a pretend-environment, segued by steel walls, girders and support structures. There's no room for the world to breathe, as each moderately intriguing locale is followed by a sterile, blending-together-in-your-head hallway or shaft.

And boy does this game love empty stretches of nothing. If the stunning lack of ambition in the appearance of the world doesn't kill the experience, then surely the layouts will. Everything is huge -- no doubt to accommodate the combat system of the game -- and consequently empty and barren. The artificiality, in turn, cheapens the obstacles you face (locked doors, mainly). Again, the generic art direction only heightens the incredible disinterest with which you regard the surroundings. I can't invest into a world that does nothing to impress me, neither structurally nor visually. To make matters worse, what you see is actually less than what you get, because the supposed exploration is brought to a screeching halt by an extremely limiting use of 3D space. I lost count of how many pointless invisible barriers I encountered, usually placed in the most aggravating spots, like prohibiting a simple leap from a platform to an adjacent one. You can't plummet into your doom with a missed or mistimed jump, because the game won't let you. Every action is robbed of potential consequence. The world is a prop in every sense of the word, and nothing disappoints me more than this.

Of course, worldbuilding is not accomplished through visuals exclusively, as music plays just as big a part in creating a convincing setting. Other M's score is handled by Kuniaki Haishima, and there is very little enjoyable about it. The game uses music exceedingly sparingly, usually reserved for boss encounters and cutscenes. This kind of direction can be very effective, such as in Demon's Souls, but Other M does not have that game's chilling atmosphere or tension to justify the decisions made here. The lack of music does not inspire dread or suspense, just boredom. I guess the intent was to create atmosphere through ambiance, but this is never done well. Return of Samus used inventively bizarre compositions and minimalism in sound design to its benefit, Other M just excludes music and decides that is all that is needed. When the music does turn up, it's always an explosion of meaningless noise (for boss battles) or a ridiculously overdone exhibit of melodrama (for those "poignant" cutscenes).

There's a story in this game, right? I couldn't tell you why, though. It adds nothing and detracts a whole lot. It's exactly the sort of thing that springs to mind when people criticize Japanese storytelling, the very worst of it. Exaggerated reactions, convolution mistaken for depth, redundant exposition, dreadful pacing... it's all present and accounted for. It's all wrapped in one of the most literal, janky, artless localizations I've heard come out of a Nintendo game, who usually know better. The shameful script is perhaps partly to blame, but the performances by the cast do not fare well at all. Samus is not "distant" or "detached" from other people, she is just bored out of her mind. This is unfortunate, because she has the most lines, the majority of which are subject to her endless, droning monologues inside her head, bringing in that extra touch of not bothering to invest any emotion in her voice. These inner monologues also have the subtlety of a tank crashing through a house, recounting in show-and-tell flashbacks events that transpired just moments before. Respect for the audience is completely absent. I am not someone who is against any and all attempts at introducing a traditional story into a Metroid game, but if it's a big focus like it is in Other M, it had better be something worthwhile and interesting. This just isn't the case here.

Special mention is required for the method by which Samus gains new abilities in the game. Every major skill is unlocked by "authorization" from Adam, at pre-designated points where the skill or ability in question is necessary for progress. I imagine the reason for this design decision was the apparently-a-big-deal issue of Samus needing to reclaim her abilities in every new game, so the explanation offered here is that she never lost any of her skills from Super Metroid, she is just forbidden from utilizing them to their fullest under the command of Adam until so required. It would be a cute feature if it didn't completely fall apart in how it's handled in the context of the game. To start, Samus is using missiles and bombs at her arrival to the Bottle Ship, when she's acting independently. Soon enough she meets Adam, who casually tells her to fuck off, after which bombs and missiles cannot be used because Adam has not authorized them yet. This is insane, because at no point did such an agreement occur between the two characters. It is only later that Adam agrees to cooperate with Samus, at which point he outlines the conditions and limitations on Samus' arsenal. Illogical turns continue, as a moderately big deal is made out of how power bombs cannot be used since they are far too destructive. Why, then, is Samus prohibited from using purely defensive or mobility-enhancing gear that is only beneficial to her mission? What good is heat-shielding armor when it's only authorized for use after a lengthy trek through perilous lava? Why does Samus need to turn back when she sees a grapple point before her, and the grapple beam could be activated at any time? Is Adam incompetent, or just a dick? All these questions pop up because in a effort to "legitimize" Samus' way of acquiring power-ups, the developers have created a myriad of new, greater logical inconsistencies. Finally, if the point was to show that Samus' abilities from her previous adventure are intact, why does she need to collect energy and missile tanks, just as she has always done? It's an utter, indefensible mess, and is strikingly evident of how blatantly forced the progression in this game is, and how bad it is about rationalizing its narrative crutches.

Head-scratching design decisions pop up in many portions of the game. Oftentimes, first-person view is forced upon you, leading to an investigation segment reminiscent of Ace Attorney, hovering the cursor over the view until you hit the critical spot. There are rather numerous, unskippable, potentially pacing-murdering and most importantly, never enjoyable. It never took me long to proceed -- at most, a minute -- but that did not help mask how superficially implemented they were into the game, how effective they were at robbing any scene of potential suspense, and how comical they became if you chose/were forced to idle in them (space pirate assault team staring at you endlessly from the ceiling, only because you did not zoom into a specific individual among their lot (it's like the Gohma encounter in Ocarina of Time made terrible)). The other gimmick in the game is forced over-the-shoulder bits, where you ever-so-slowly crawl towards your destination, unable to do anything else. This is another attempt at creating suspense, but it just drags, on and on. You can't interact with anything, nothing ever happens, and they serve no point. It's sort of astonishing to behold.

Is there anything the game is successful at? The controls feel great, for one. Samus is agile, quick on her feet, capable of blazing through any obstacle in skillful hands. Translating so many actions to a playstyle that is primarily handled with just a d-pad and two buttons is accomplished through subtle automation of certain actions and clever camera work. Abilities like the screw attack, space jump, speed booster and shinespark feel at home here, and making use of them leads to the most enjoyable portions of level design in the game. It's not complex or ingenious by any means, but it does feel natural and satisfying to pull a shinespark into a hidden item, even if it wasn't particularly deviously concealed.

Similarly, combat fares well in that it's fast-paced and intuitive in its simplicity. Sense-evasion (timed presses of the d-pad upon facing an enemy attack leading to an invincible dodge roll) forms the crux of this, along with its added benefit of instantly filling up your beam's charge meter. The best offense is thus found in the best defense, and while somewhat lenient in its execution, sense-dodging is fun to utilize in all situations. The evolution of Samus' abilities during the course of the game also leads to satisfying results, casually disposing of previously challenging opponents with a simple screw attack, or a room-clearing plasma beam charge. The very best the game has to offer is found in its major boss fights which, while not the pseudo-puzzles of the Prime games, prove intense and interesting to face. Practically every single one forces you to rely on your evasive skills, and as this game does not dispense health pick-ups, every move is suitably crucial. I came close to dying in several battles, and I didn't feel like I was performing horribly. The opposition just demands respect.

There's something worth mentioning pertaining to the "post-game". In the game proper, you'd have faced many returning creatures from the series lore, such as Ridley, Nightmare and the Queen Metroid. The game's final surprise in its secret, post-credits boss is the energy-siphoning Phantoon, returning from Super Metroid. While I recognize the obvious flavour of pandering fan service in all these reappearances, I couldn't help but be excited because of the manner in which this particular encounter was executed. It makes sense to meet Phantoon after the events of the game have passed, since it is a creature that subsides on leeching off derelict, abandoned vessels such as the Bottle Ship. The presentation is also striking, since contrary to the majority of the game's enemies, Phantoon is a legitimately oppressive, gargantuan Lovecraftian horror that appears seemingly unexplained, and that is that. Samus has no unbearable soliloquies about its nature, and it's this silence that grants the event its impact, and worth as a narrative element. Of course, my fondness for Phantoon in this game is doubled by the fact of him being the best boss in the game, showering the arena with projectiles, ghastly apparitions and generally just wrecking the scenery in a rampage. It's mighty impressive, and brings the hardware to its knees.

That's Other M, and I'm left disappointed and confused by the majority of its design choices. The most arresting bits - art, level, and sound design - are also the ones that I tend to hold most important in my enjoyment of any video game, and the ones that do work are beneficial, but not crucial. Like Corruption, I completed the game with all items found the first time through without even trying, which is one hell of a turn-off. Many pick-ups in Super Metroid eluded me for years, and I don't think that's a bad thing. Speaking of that game, I don't want another one just like it. I want another Metroid that is as good at what it does as Super Metroid was. I want a game that inspires and surprises me. Other M is utterly predictable, and that is the tragedy of it.

In conclusion:

As for the Primes, I can say that I love the first, respect Echoes mostly for its art design, and abhor Corruption and Hunters as the point-missing debacles that they are.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Well, I can chalk up the Gravity Use Non-Usage to one thing:
It is, perhaps, conceivable, that having a gravity-altering device aboard the ship that has human lives, can cause harm upon those lives.

In the real world, such a device would need a huge containment field, to the point in which it would not be a good idea to have it on.  Imagine a portable black hole.  It would be shooting gamma rays and all sorts of radiation to a surrounding environment, thus killing any humans not wearing the proper shielding attire.  I would imagine that the device that makes the Gravity Suit work the way it does, it set up to do just that.  At first, the mission is to find and safely retrieve all humans within the ship.

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For those who don't know, You only get to use the Power Bomb once you're absolutely sure the ship has no remaining humans left at all; that is, after everyone has already evacuated.

Of course, I cannot at all explain the Varia Suit, since I'm not sure how the damn thing works.  I would imagine that if a suit is to have the shielding to drive away heat radiation from incredibly powerful heat sources such as magma, it would have to have a very very powerful (yet thin) force field around the suit.  For this to work, you would need a lot of energy and a lot of it would cause suit radiation, which could, potentially, endanger the lives of humans around it.  In Super Metroid, you notice that in the intro where Samus is shaking the hands of the scientist with the baby metroid on hand, she's already reverted to the default Power Suit (no large pauldrons, standard signature "backwards L" in the front, etc.).

So although I don't particularly like it, I can somewhat conceive why she's not allowed to use those devices on a Rescue Mission on a ship.

[Puwexil]

Trying to apply real-world science/logic to space-age fantasy tech rings kind of false to me. If the game doesn't make it an issue or a factor, you probably shouldn't either. All that matters is the convoluted rationale they tried to enforce tripped over its own rules and undermined everything they tried to build towards.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Thing is, it IS an issue because people are bitching about 'why can't I use this?' and 'it's stupid that I can't use that because it's not been permitted' and so I'm trying to think of something that, in that day and age, wouldn't have to be explained, did not deserve a line for exposition, and would still make sense.

It would totally break the mood if Adam was like "Your gravity suit would cause cancer, don't turn it on until we're sure there all survivors are accounted for."

But you're right, normally it doesn't make sense to throw real-world science/logic/physics to a scifi/tech/fantasy setting.

[X]

Of course, I cannot at all explain the Varia Suit, since I'm not sure how the damn thing works.  I would imagine that if a suit is to have the shielding to drive away heat radiation from incredibly powerful heat sources such as magma, it would have to have a very very powerful (yet thin) force field around the suit.  For this to work, you would need a lot of energy and a lot of it would cause suit radiation, which could, potentially, endanger the lives of humans around it.  In Super Metroid, you notice that in the intro where Samus is shaking the hands of the scientist with the baby metroid on hand, she's already reverted to the default Power Suit (no large pauldrons, standard signature "backwards L" in the front, etc.).

Since the Varia suit is Chozo-built I don't think it would pose a threat to anyone beyond the user herself. Chozo tech is never explained nor has it been fully detailed for us to see. The Varia option might be so advanced that it doesn't need to have any kind of energy shielding to block or deflect radiation and frigid temperatures. I could simply be a type of unknown material or polemic substance built onto the suit itself that can do the job just as well if not better then any energy field. This is my theory at best.

-X

[rubenjohnson]

If you love Metroid Prime as much as I do, share it in the ... Hate HATE HATE. This game, and this series in general is so over rate

[Munchy]

Metroid Prime 1 was pretty sweet. Can't say I've played much of 2 and 3, but they took the generic FPS look a little too far. 1 actually felt much more like genuine Metroid to me.