Beaten Metroid Prime Remastered

If someone asks how my weekend was, I'm going to answer with "radiant", because I got an overdose of Phazon radiation. The stuff glows so vibrantly that you can almost feel it through your screen. Anyway, I've just completed my first playthrough of Metroid Prime Remastered with 100% items and logbook. A review will follow shortly, probably tomorrow evening, but before that I just want to talk about my personal experience with this remaster, which can be summed up with:

"Must look at everything."

And there were two reasons for this:

1. It all just looks so pretty now.
2. I really wanted to scan absolutely everything.

This took quite some time. In fact, this playthrough lasted over 13 hours, where I can do much better. But going fast wasn't the priority here, where sometimes I just stood there and marveled at the scenery.

As a Nintendo fan you learn not to be a "graphic whore", but what Retro Studios (and everyone else involved) has achieved here on such old hardware is nothing short of a miracle. This is the best looking Nintendo game with a realistic art style and it shows. So, I really took my time to look at everything, sometimes even just staring at walls. But this helped with not missing anything for the logbook.

Luckily, the scans carry over in a New Game+, so I technically won't ever have to do this again, until the next remake in 20 years or so. I also took the time to read through everything once more, which I haven't done in a long time, where it was a nice refresher. And when it comes to Metroid my memory sadly isn't as good as it is for Zelda, I can tell you that much.

I was even making some of the same mistakes as five years ago, when I revisited Metroid Prime on the Wii. Again, I've went to the bottom of the sunken Frigate Orpheon without the Gravity Suit and used the Save Station down there, only to realize afterwards that I need to get the Gravity Suit first and now have to climb all the way up without it. This is an infuriating platforming section, because those Jelzaps pull you off the platforms and then you land in a tentacle pit, like in some bad hentai movie...

And I even still remembered how I went the wrong way during this part in the game five years ago, but my thought process was that I didn't go into the wrecked ship right away, because I had assumed I needed the Gravity Suit first. Well, it was exactly the other way around...

It's badly designed and lacks a good flow, because after you got the Ice Beam it leads you to the Frigate Orpheon, where you only need the Ice Beam to enter it, so it seems like the way forward, while you actually need to go to the other end of the game world. This may even have been intentional, to make the player first go down there, learn that they need the Gravity Suit, and then search for it. The enemies even change between these two visits.

Well, maybe the hint system sends you in the right direction a bit sooner, but I wouldn't know, because I always keep it turned off ever since my first playthrough on the GameCube fifteen years ago. There is no shame in using it with this game, though, especially for first-timers. If a long-time fan like me still can get lost in the maze of Tallon IV, Metroid Prime must be utterly confusing at times for new players.

Backtracking in this game can also be annoying, because many rooms need two items to finally clear them. For example, the Tower of Light can be accessed once you've gotten the Spider Ball. So, you might want to go there and get that fancy Wavebuster once you have that upgrade in your possession. But if you haven't gotten the Gravity Suit yet, then you will have to return there once more to also get the Chozo Artifact in this place. Plus, there is also some backtracking to the room before, where you might end up going there four times in total.

But enough about that, since these aren't new problems. Other than the absolutely gorgeous graphic, a big aspect of the remaster are the controls. I'm not fully happy with them (more about that in my review), but I did give all of the four control schemes a try. Classic controls are probably my least favorite, because I really enjoy using the gyro aiming. The hybrid controls aren't that great, however, because you have to use a button to activate the motion-powered aim. Otherwise it acts the same as the classic controls.

Interestingly, the dual stick controls also support gyro aim in the options and they do an even better job of implementing them, so I went with this control scheme for the majority of my playthrough, until getting the Power Bombs to be exact. I just like using the Pro Controller and this seemed like the best option, but it does get a bit convoluted at times, especially with the beam switching, because you don't have the right stick for that.

So, in the end I also gave the pointer controls a chance with the Joy-Cons and it was so much better. It's as good as I remember it from the Wii, even better so, because you can now easily switch beams and visors with the extra buttons that the Wii Remote and Nunchuk didn't have. My only gripe with it is that you have to use the A-button to shoot, instead of Y like in Metroid Dread, where I accidentally triggered the Morph Ball one too many times during a boss battle. Otherwise it's very good and I will most likely use this from start to finish for the Hard Difficulty.

Speaking of, I will keep this mode for later, like I usually do. Maybe I will play it to warm up for Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Remastered in the future... I just need to remember to not go down into Frigate Orpheon prematurely. And I still hope that they may release an update that unlocks the Fusion Suit somehow, because Hard Mode wouldn't be the same without it. Metroid Fusion will become available via Nintendo Switch Online next week, maybe they'll connect that somehow... Let's see.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption – Friend Voucher and Credit Hunt

I'm currently in the middle of replaying Metroid Prime 3: Corruption as part of the Metroid Prime Trilogy, where again I'm going for both the Veteran and Hypermode difficulties. Playing Veteran mode first has actually a greater purpose this time, because with the goal of fully completing the game, I also want to finally get all Credits and Friend Vouchers and there were still some tricky achievement-like goals left, where some of it is simply easier to do on Veteran.

Friend Vouchers

Luckily, I received enough Green Credits to unlock everything in the Extras menu from people over at GameFAQs, when WiiConnect24 was still a thing. Today you can't get these Green Credits anymore, unless you're using a prepared savegame, but you can still get the Friend Vouchers, which were originally used to send Green Credits to other players.

There was also this trick, where you could send Fried Vouchers and then restore your savegame from a SD card to get them back, which is why I still had my total of 23 Friend Vouchers preserved. They are earned by clearing various achievements throughout the game, with 26 in total. This meant that I was still missing three achievements and I made it my goal to find and unlock them. Well, I still had to get those:

• GF Trooper Saved
• Flawless Escape
• Perfect Execution

Thing is that the game doesn't keep a list around of which ones you already got, so I had to make an educated guess. With "Flawless Escape" and "Perfect Execution" I was pretty sure that I never did those, because they are easy to screw up and frustrating to repeat. The other one completely eluded me, however. I had no clue, which one I could still be missing, because they all seemed doable enough. So, I had no choice than to try them all again one by one (here you can find an excellent guide by the way).

Luckily, it turned out that I originally failed to save one of the GF Troopers on the GFS Olympus sequence right at the beginning of the game, so I didn't have to keep looking and worrying for long. However, I still repeated the "Juggling Bonus 20" right before that, which isn't easy to pull off. But at least I didn't have to look any further. I suppose, when I first played this I was focused on the three Blue Credits, where you also have to save various GF Troopers, but I completely ignored this one.

So, this was easy enough, but sadly I can't say the same about "Flawless Escape". Getting this one was hell and it stagnated for over a week, because I couldn't do it. In the past I would try maybe once or twice and then move on, like any sane person would do. But since I'm now in it for the completion, there was no moving on until I got this.

And this created my personal nightmare of a Groundhog Day. You can't save right before this sequence, so if you screw up (and it's very easy to screw up here), you have to cross through half of Norion again, getting through the same scripted sequences again and again. You watch a Space Pirate getting blasted by a PED Marine, who then shouts "Hostile eliminated". You walk through Crawlmines and then destroy some actual mines. In the next room you have to wait forever, before the door opens. And then you have to skip two cutscenes with Ghor, who has the atrocity to block the way to the other Landing Bay, where the way would much shorter from there... This really made me hate Ghor more than already, where blasting his face with my Hyper Beam was more satisfying than ever.

Anyway, it takes about five minutes to retry the Ridley escape sequence and during that very short sequence it's easy to make a mistake. His feet hurt you, so you can't fully dodge to the sides. You need to be fast and precise here and it takes a lot of practice and some luck. Now, if the game had checkpoints like Metroid: Samus Returns, you could just skip back to the beginning of the sequence to try it again. Then it probably wouldn't take long to earn this Friend Voucher, because you can really practice it. But sadly Metroid Prime 3: Corruption doesn't have checkpoints and the extremely dull repetition of those scripted Norion sequences takes you out of it again and again, where it's hard to stay focused.

This really took a big hit on my motivation and it took me around a week to do it, before I could finally move on with the game. I started playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, right after I had finished Metroid Prime 2: Echoes last month on May 21st, but I wasn't done with this Friend Voucher before May 28th...

I probably couldn't have mustered the motivation if I didn't also complete Super Mario 3D World the other day, where I still had to clear every level with every character. For this I also had to do the crazy Champions Road again, as well as the Mystery House Marathon, both two tough and lengthy levels, where you don't have any checkpoints. But at least there you stay focused all the time, there are no dull moments. While here you just walk through some corridors. It's needlessly frustrating padding and I really hope that the Metroid Prime Trilogy games will get checkpoints like in Samus Returns if they are remastered in HD someday.

As for the "Flawless Escape" sequence itself, to me it felt like the first part was much harder, because Ridley spams the laser more and goes in for a bite attack more quickly. In theory clearing this challenge sounds "easy enough", where you lure his laser attacks to one side and then quickly dodge to the other, but in practice it felt like the return of Metroll Ridley. Sometimes he shoots in the middle or at the opposite side just to confuse you and I would dodge right into the beam, because you have to dodge early...

The key to success was watching Ridleys head more carefully instead of focusing on the attacks themselves. If you focus on the lasers, you would need to dodge right when it starts, which then causes twitchy behavior, where you dodge, while you shouldn't dodge. But watching his head gives you more time to react properly, so I then finally did it after multiple evening of trying this.

It didn't take me as long to score "Perfect Execution", in fact I got it on my first try. But repeating this would probably be worse, because the game shuts you off from the last save point during the entire turret sequence on Bryyo. So, to repeat this, you would also need to destroy the first turret again, which is an annoying fight thanks to the endlessly spawning Space Pirates.

I hate this mechanic and it's also what makes "Perfect Execution" tough, because these Aerotroopers keep swarming in and they might even appear behind the turret, where you can't immediately hit them. On top of that you have to deal with the terribly unresponsive motion controls of the Grapple Lasso, where you might waste time trying to get a clamp down, which then results in a loss. I was lucky, though, and I could do it despite these difficulties on my first try. This is still a terrible Friend Voucher, however...

Gold Credits

With that I finally had all 26 Friend Vouchers unlocked, but I was still missing a special Gold Credit called "All GF Troopers Survived". Or at least I thought, I was. There you have to make sure that all 20 Demolition Troopers survive on the Pirate Homeworld, which isn't the easiest task. You have to be really aggressive, use Hyper Mode almost all the time and make sure that none of the Space Pirates can take a shot at your comrades...

Again, I was in a Groundhog Day situation, where you do the same sequences over and over again. And that pitching sound of a GF Trooper dying really started to get on my nerves. But when I finally did it nothing happened, which had me really baffled. "Is this a glitch?" I tried it again, but again for nothing...

It turned out that I already got this Gold Credit on Normal Mode back in 2009 and I was simply miscounting the Gold Credits on the aforementioned Credits Guide. I was counting how many Gold Credits I was missing in the Extras menu (18), and then compared it against the number of Hyper Mode bosses mentioned in the guide (17). I thought I was one short, but defeating the Commander Pirate on Hyper Mode also rewards you with another Gold Credit, which wasn't included in the boss count of the guide, but as an extra entry, which I had missed when checking. I simply assumed that I was missing the most difficult one, while I wasn't really missing anything at this point.

Well, I still have to beat the game on Hyper Mode and I will hopefully collect all Gold Credits then. The biggest challenge will probably be Mogenar, who didn't gave me much trouble during Veteran Mode – he didn't even regenerate his orbs once. But I've tried him on Hyper Mode once before and it didn't go well... my run ended at that point. So, let's see, how this will go this time.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Revisited

It's been a while, since I've revisited Metroid Prime on the Wii U, and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes actually followed right after, in November 2017. I've completed the "Veteran Mode" at the time, but since I've set the goal to finish all Metroid Prime Trilogy games in both the Veteran and Hypermode difficulties, I wasn't done yet.

But I couldn't muster up enough motivation to play through the game again right away and then Breath of the Wild happened, where I returned to the game for its DLC. It wasn't before now, half a year later, that I'm finally done revisiting the planet Aether.

So, this took me quite a while, which in all honesty doesn't speak for the game. Of all my replays and revisits in the last years, this one probably covered the longest time span due to the circumstances. The actual game time wasn't that long, though it took me a couple of hours longer than for Metroid Prime. So, mainly this was because I lacked the motivation.

It doesn't mean that I don't like the game, for the most part I even like it more than Metroid Prime, because it fixed so many issues that I had with the previous game. The first person platforming was toned down heavily, the visors are more fun to use and the ammo-based beam system really has some strategy to it, instead of simply matching the right color.

(Though you still do this with doors, where I would have preferred it, if these doors went normal after the first time, similar to the red doors that you have to open once with Missiles. Ideally, when you've explore everything, all doors should be normal for the sake of convenience and ammo savings. But that's nitpicking...)

Overall I still prefer it, when beam stacks like in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and I don't have to worry much about ammo consumption. I would even argue that Other M did things best, where you can regenerate Missiles on your own and Hard Mode doesn't have any pick-ups at all, but the game still works fine. Metroid for me is the most fun, if I reach a point, where I run through the world blasting. Super Metroid has that, Other M has that and Samus Returns has that as well, which for me immensely adds to the replay value of these games.

But Metroid Prime 2: Echoes never really reaches this point. In fact you always feel kind of weak and enemies usually take much time and resources to be defeated. In Torvus Bog I keep running by the Grenchlers, because they are so annoying to deal with, even at the end. At least in Metroid Prime, where you had a similar enemy with the (Baby) Sheegoths, you could later one-shot them with the Plasma Beam, which is hugely satisfying. That's the kind of ingame development that I'm seeking from Metroid.

Echoes doesn't offer this, however. The Power Beam is the only thing that doesn't waste ammo and it feels too weak for the job from the start. Ammo stations would have been more important than ever, but they are scarce, so you often have to take the time to shoot stuff in the environment with your Dark and Light Beams to produce the opposite ammo.

And the Annihilator Beam at the end then feels like a massive disappointment, where it completely betrays all expectations created by its name and it's just not worth the high ammo waste. The only thing it annihilates are the Ing, when you use it on a light beacon or crystal, which draws them into suicide. But that only works on them and otherwise you're better off still swapping between Dark and Light Beam, which you both get early.

That's a good point, actually, because what the game lacks in endgame power, it makes up for a great beginning. I love Agon Wastes. For me it's the best and most satisfying part of the game. The atmosphere is great and it got the whole dark world feeling right, mostly because it's still the part, where Dark Aether hurts you badly and really feels claustrophobic. You also get many useful power-ups in this part, including Space Jumps, the Dark Beam, the Light Beam and the cool-looking Dark Armor. You have a nice face-off with Dark Samus and engaging the Space Pirates is a lot of fun here, while I always hated the Space Pirate parts in Metroid Prime.

I love the beginning of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Federation Force really should have followed this and Corruption for its design, instead of going into the ridiculous chibi optic. Then it might have sold some copies after all. Echoes even has the giant turrets that you can use to blast things in the environment and Space Pirates coming out of giant dropships. It just doesn't look as cute, which certainly helps, and if Federation Force was any cool, it would have stuck to the Trilogy aesthetics.

Anyway, it goes downhill from there. Torvus Bog has some really nice music, probably the best in the game, but that's as much as I'm willing to praise the area. Traversing it is not much fun and often even needlessly convoluted (especially in the Submerged Temple), you get the worst power-ups in the game and the enemies can be super annoying, mainly the aquatic Alpha Bloggs and the aforementioned Grenchlers. This goes so far that I prefer exploring Dark Torvus, because Dark Aether here actually feels much less threatening and even like a place, where I can rest and relax from the annoying swamps. And that's probably not how it should be...

The game also has some confusing back-tracking here, where I was stuck for quite a while, when I replayed the game last November in Veteran Mode. Overall the game is much more structured than it predecessors, which I've previously analyzed in my Worlds of Metroid article. Agon Wastes establishes the division into the three temple areas, where in one area you need to find entrances to Dark Aether, collect all three Dark Temple keys and fight the giant boss at the end of the temple in Dark Aether. It's as close to Zelda as Metroid probably will ever get. Thing is that you completely stayed within Agon Wastes and its dark counterpart for the whole time. And the areas in Dark Aether aren't connected at all, so you're really focusing on the one area at a time.

Now I thought that the same would apply to the Torvus Bog, but after acquiring the Boost Ball you actually have to leave the area and get the Seeker Missiles in the Temple Grounds. This isn't unusual for a Metroid game, but I simply didn't expect that during this moment and was stuck for a while, because I had the hint system deactivated and the game doesn't really leave any ingame hints for this. You have to remember that one half-pipe in the Temple Grounds and consider this as the way to proceed... Metroid Prime had also some parts, where it's not entirely clear how to move forward, but Metroid Prime 2: Echoes used back-tracking in a very obscure way.

The same happens during the Sanctuary Fortress, again after defeating a Morph Ball ability mini boss - the Spider Guardian. Now you have to remember that on bottom of the Submerged Temple there were still some magnetic rails that take you to a portal, which then leads to the Power Bomb Guardian. By studying the map there, it looks like the whole part is closed off by yellow doors, which need Power Bombs, and because I didn't remember it all too well, I was stuck again, wandering around the Sanctuary Fortress without any real clues what to do next...

And while I know that the Sanctuary Fortress has many fans, I'm not one of them. It's similar to Torvus Bog, where the music is certainly great, but it's not as much fun to play. Again it feels like the Ing Hive, the Dark Aether counterpart, is actually nicer and less threatening than the light world, where you're attacked by Ing Smashers one too many times. Those guys usually close all doors and take a lot of ammo to be defeated, which stops being fun after a while...

Other enemies in the area like the Quads or the Rezbits are also not to be underestimated and need exactly the right strategy, so that they are not completely annoying. The Quads want two Super Missiles to the head and then be destroyed with your Boost Ball or else they will annoy the hell out of you. The Rezbits want to be frozen with dark energy and then smashed with a missile or else they will annoy the hell out of you.

But the enemies that really take out the momentum of the game are the bosses. The temple bosses are all impressive, but they overstay their welcome far too long with their multiple phases. The Armobis fight was quite difficult in Hypermode, where it just keeps going and at the end you have three worms jumping around from all directions, which can cost you a lot of health. Luckily, there is usually a save station not too far away from the main bosses, which can't be said about all the Guardians.

The Spider Guardian is especially frustrating in that sense, because if you have to repeat the fight, you have keep going through the whole temple and Energy Controller part again, before you can do the fight again. Here I really prefer the system of Other M and Samus Returns, where you can start over from the beginning of a boss fight, in case you die there. The motivation to try again is a lot higher, if you don't have to go through the same set of rooms again and again and again, taking you out of the action and needlessly wasting a lot of time.

With the Spider Guardian this is even worse, because the whole fight takes a while with its puzzle nature and the real difficult part comes at the end. Whoever had the idea that making you jump right between two upward slopes in Morph Ball mode hopefully isn't working for Retro or Nintendo any longer. Problem is that the Morph Ball doesn't offer the necessary precision. You need to accelerate to go up the slopes and then stop right on top, but the ball usually keeps some momentum and then rolls down again. It's very tricky and frustrating. It's like playing Rollgoal from Twilight Princess in a boss fight situation. A good game never creates challenges based on its flawed controls, it should always hide the flaws as much as possible, which Echoes absolutely doesn't do during this part.

Curiously, I didn't have as many problems during my Hypermode run, I did it on first try there. And I mean trying the fight once without dying, since the last part still took me many attempts to get right. But once you figured it out, you can keep trying without taking (much) damage.

I can't say the same about the Boost Ball Guardian, however. It's kind of the opposite, where I barely managed him on my first try during my Veteran run and then took about two dozens of attempts in Hypermode. This fight just doesn't feel balanced at all and he used to be even more difficult in the GameCube version, imagine that! But my main problem was that I treated it like a Morph Ball fight, while you're better off jumping and shooting things, until the stalker soup appears that want to be attacked with Bombs... Anyway, at least you don't have to repeat half of Torvus Bog, in case you fail.

The Spider Guardian is also an example for another phenomenon in the game: Morph Ball platforming. What the game luckily lacks in first person platforming, it makes up for with its Morph Ball sequences, where some items might take a while to get. There's lots of jumping involved, where the Wii version's Spring Ball comes in handy, but the momentum of the Morph Ball doesn't only make the Spider Guardian tricky, but also some of the platforming sequences.

Anyway, after you're done with all bosses sans the final one, the fun will finally return. I really enjoy these scavenger hunts at the end of games, where you return to most parts of the world, which seemed to be a common thing among GameCube titles. The Wind Waker did with the Triforce Shards, Metroid Prime did it with the Chozo Artifacts and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes did it with the Sky Temple Keys. It's a great incentive to re-explore everything at the end with all your powers, though sadly in Echoes you don't grow too powerful, as already mentioned.

The back-tracking can also be quite some fun, because there are many items to discover, where Agon Wastes seems again like the most satisfying part. Lots to find there. By the way, I completely forgot about the teleportation between Energy Controllers with the Light Suit... It's not that useful, however, you might be using it once or twice for shortcuts during the final back-tracking part and that's it. But it's essentially the series' first attempt at Teleportation Stations.

It's also curious, how even the darkest parts of Dark Aether, where you find Dark Tallon Metroids, Phazon and Ingstorms, don't scare me as much as the Phazon Mines or the Impact Crater in Metroid Prime. It never has this uneasy feeling and I actually enjoy exploring the depths of darkness. But it's mostly because the enemies are not as annoying. For example the (Dark) Tallon Metroid are dealt with easily, unlike those nasty Fission Metroids.

There are also some parallels to Breath of the Wild in the game, mainly between the corruptions caused by the Ing and Calamity Ganon. In both cases you have some tentacle eye monsters, which seems to be a common theme in Nintendo games, because Phantom Hourglass did the same thing with Bellum. And you have guardian robots being corrupted by some dark goo, shooting lasers at you...

That's mostly it for the game and I probably won't be touching this ever again, until there's some HD remaster. But I'm looking forward to Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, where its Hypermode ability seems to be the right thing for me. Get blastin'!

Metroid: Samus Returns Revisited

For the last two weeks I've been traveling quite a lot and since Nintendo's Smartphone games don't work without a solid internet connection, I had to resort to my Nintendo 3DS, where I was in the mood to play Samus Returns again.

For my review last September I've played through the game in both the Normal and Fusion Mode difficulties. This time I opted for a Hard Mode playthrough, where I followed two rules:

1. No Scan Pulses
2. No Backtracking before the end of the game

The only exception to the second rule would be revisiting the Surface area once before facing the Metroid Queen to complete the map there with Space Jumps, which isn't possible anymore, as soon as you are in company of the Baby Metroid.

But this gave me a lot of time with the baby, where for the first time I could take some of the shortcuts that it provides for obtaining various power-ups. I also scored the second best "ending" in Hard Mode with a time of 7:40, which leaves a lot of room for improvements. But I wasn't speedrunning, I was playing more casually and I also had the goal of completing the entire map without any Scan Pulses, which wasted quite some time.

When filling out the map, the game can be a little annoying, because there are many squares, where you often have to touch some weird corners either by jumping against the right spot or by using the Spider Ball. So, sometimes for one little spot on the screen it creates an entire square on your map, which caused quite some short-notice backtracking on my end. "Oops, I missed some weird corner again."

On the long run I want to unlock all nine ending eventually, but beating the game under 4 hours will require a lot of practice and perfect knowledge of the game world.

At least I enjoy replaying the game a lot. It might even become the Metroid game with the highest replay value for me and it will certainly replace Super Metroid and Other M on that regard, the two Metroid games I've beaten the most so far. It just has the fast paced and smooth gameplay that I enjoy about Other M, but it's a lot closer to the classic Super Metroid gameplay, where the SNES game sadly feels very sluggish with its controls from today's standards.

Samus Returns is quite linear with its strict area-by-area approach, but most Metroid games follow this approach, some are just better at hiding it than others or offer some weird sequence breaks as compensation. But the areas of SR388 themselves usually feel quite open and the game doesn't have this "in your face" linearity of Metroid Fusion or Other M, where you're always told where to go. There's also no forced backtracking to previous areas, which was super confusing in some of the Metroid Prime titles. All of the backtracking is just there for you to discover more hidden power-ups.

Already with the GameBoy Classic I thought that the approach of killing all Metroids within one area to proceed felt quite smart. And Samus Returns really did a good job of developing this formula into a game that has a nice flow. I enjoy it a lot and this certainly wasn't the last time that I've played through this game.

Metroid Prime Revisited

image source

After replaying all the classic 2D Metroid games and completing both the new 3DS Metroid games, Samus Returns and Federation Force, it was time to revisit the Metroid Prime Trilogy in early anticipation of Metroid Prime 4. When the anthology was originally released for the Wii in 2009, I cleared all three games with 100% scans and items on Normal Mode. My goal now is to clear the remaining Veteran and Hypermode difficulties and to collect the rest of the Credits in order to unlock everything in the gallery. The latter is only relevant to Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, so with the first two games it will "simply" be about clearing the higher difficulties.

Why bother with Veteran Mode and not just jump straight into Hypermode? Well, the Metroid Prime Trilogy takes note on your save files, what difficulties you've already beaten. In a save file there are these little circles on the left border of each game slot and they will be only filled after beating the corresponding difficulties. This doesn't work its way down, so clearing Hypermode doesn't count as clearing Normal or Veteran Mode, even though they are the same thing with different damage values. But for me clearing Veteran Mode first is a nice way to familiarize myself with the games again, before I take on the highest challenge.

In case of Metroid Prime I also activated the Fusion Suit during Hyper Mode, which I jokingly called "Fusion Mode", because it pretty much was the same thing as in Samus Returns. And all that without scanning any amiibo! Well, to be fair, to unlock the Fusion Suit in the original version on the Nintendo GameCube you had to link the game with Metroid Fusion on the GameBoy Advance via a cable...

But overall the approach of beating Veteran Mode first as a practice paid off a lot in this case. I rarely died in both modes, but I actually died more often on Veteran, figuring things out. Only Meta Ridley gave me a lot of trouble in both modes... I even started to call him "Metroll Ridley", because the second phase of his battle seemed like pure trolling. You can easily wear him down to about 10% of his health with only a few scratches, but that's where he starts to wear you down, while taking little damage himself. My mistake was that I always tried to dodge his ram attacks, instead of shooting him with a charged shot in the mouth right before this attack. The constant ramming at the end then cost me my life a couple of times. Frustration pure. But it's not so hard, once you know ALL the tricks.

It's similar with the Omega Pirate, who surprisingly gave me very little trouble. I only died on my first try on Veteran, but then never again. The tricks here are to use Power Bombs to destroy his Phazon armor and then to ignore the Space Pirates by jumping around, while spamming the Omega Pirate with Super Missiles. It's doable.

Practicing on Veteran also helped a lot with the time later in Hypermode. It was quite the disaster during my Veteran Playthrough, taking above 11 hours. Navigating the world of Metroid Prime can be annoying, because it's a maze with no real shortcuts. Especially if you miss stuff and have to cross the same hard-to-navigate areas multiple times, it can be a little frustrating. For example I went into the sunken Frigate Orpheon without the Gravity Suit, because I misremembered its location. I thought it was down there, but then I had to get all the way back up without it, which wasn't much fun. I couldn't even just load my last savegame, because there is a Save Station down there, which I used without hesitation. It was still interesting, because the enemies are different at the time (no Aqua Pirates, but tentacles on the bottom).

Another wrong turn for me was missing the Artifact of Spirit at Phendrana's Edge, so I had to go back through that area, where you actually find the Gravity Suit, three times in total. On top of that this game has lots of platforming for a First Person Shooter with many vertical areas, where you often find yourself in rooms that are shaped like a tube. Around the same area in Phendrana it's easy to fall off somewhere and drop down all the way into the water, while Flying Space Pirates are still shooting at you. Experiencing this in First Person Mode isn't much fun, it's usually quite disorienting.

But things went much, much better in Hypermode, when I knew all the locations of every item and could plot a quite efficient course through the game. Plus, I had the practice for all the platforming areas and I could traverse the various rooms much quicker, so in total I was able to shave off about four hours of my time. It's still far from any world record, but my personal best and that on the highest difficulty.


Overall I have to say that replaying this game felt similar to Super Metroid, where the throne was shaken quite a bit. I always regarded both Super Metroid and Metroid Prime as the best Metroid games, but I'm not so sure anymore. Unlike Super Metroid, however, Metroid Prime isn't in need of a remake. The game still looks, feels and plays amazing. An HD remaster would be more than enough, if Nintendo ever wanted to touch this game again.

The problems lie more at the core here. One example would be the aforementioned platforming, which doesn't suit the First Person playstyle all too well. And this was already toned down heavily in the sequels, if I remember correctly. Some of the fights also don't work too well in First Person, especially with bosses that try to push you in a corner or ram into you. The most annoying enemies are probably the War Wasps in the beginning with that silly Hive Mecha fight...

But the biggest gripe I have is about the visor and beam switching. When compared to the sequels it's just not that good. The Thermal Visor doesn't even feel like a real upgrade, because the game forces you to traverse those disorienting dark areas after acquiring it. Both it and the X-Ray Visor limit your view quite a lot and both it and the X-Ray for the most part are only there to target otherwise invisible enemies, which isn't good game design to begin with.

It's similar with the beams, where the game turns into a massive "shoot the right color" puzzle. It's not strategic like in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, where the beams consume ammo and you want to use them at their best potential. The only ammo here are missiles and they are rarely ever worth it. If Federation Force got one thing right, then it's missile power, because they feel relatively weak in Metroid Prime, where at the end you might only consume them for the beam combos like Super Missiles or to shatter frozen enemies.

Well, Ice and Plasma Beams offer a significant boost in power, but otherwise it's really just about matching the color of doors and enemies over and over again, which is very simple minded. They even have a Metroid variant that's about switching to the right beams, the Fission Metroid, while Metroids overall are much weaker in Metroid Prime than in any other Metroid game.

And of course there are the various Beam Troopers, which feel somewhat incomplete, because they don't really fire the corresponding beams at you, it's just all power shots. Ironically the Power Troopers are the most dangerous ones, because they can't be stun-locked like the others and they fire really fast. This got me bad in Hypermode on my way to the Power Bombs through the Phazon Mines. The Power Troopers in the Ore Processing did so much damage in a short time that I had to heal by changing from Elevator Access A to Elevator A many times to farm health orbs from the explosive crates and the Scatter Bombus. It even feels like a relief, when the Metroid haunt the Ore Processing and the troopers are gone...

Getting to the Power Bombs can be quite tough, because it's a long way without any Save Stations in between, but the part afterwards is even more so rewarding, where you backtrack through the entire world, collect all the hidden items and Chozo Artifacts, before you dive down into the Phazon Hell again and phase the last three bosses.

The final boss is then the pinnacle of all the switching, where in the first phase you have to switch to the right beam and in the second phase to the right visor... Very original. What's even worse, the game gives you the cool looking Phazon Suit only to introduce the red Phazon shortly after, which acts exactly like Phazon before. And I hate that room, where you have to do some platforming above a sea of red Phazon that endlessly spawns those annoying Fission Metroids. The final boss isn't something that you want to try again because of this room alone. It's like the whole ending of the game is a concentrated culmination of what's wrong with it...

But I don't just want to complain. Metroid Prime is still a prime game. If Super Metroid is the equivalent to A Link to the Past, then Metroid Prime is the Ocarina of Time of the Metroid series. It beautifully transformed the greatness of Super Metroid into a First Person Shooter/Adventure. Diving down in the world of Tallon IV is still amazing even at today's standards, where I especially like the Chozo Ruins. This place is absolutely magical and lets me immerse into the game every single time.

But still I'm happy that I'm done with this game for now, because I'm really excited to dive into Metroid Prime 2: Echoes next!

Metroid (NES) Revisited

Right before the release of Metroid: Samus Return I went through another classic Metroid game. In fact I revisited the classic Metroid game, the first one, released in 1986 on the NES. For this I again used the Wii U Virtual Console. It's a short game overall, so you can easily beat this in one evening, if you want to.

However, at first I was hesitating whether I actually want to play this or not. With the Zelda NES games I usually feel like they offer some unique gameplay within the series, where I enjoy replaying them to a degree. Especially Zelda II - The Adventure of Link is very different from the rest of the series, while The Legend of Zelda simply has his own charm and feels more like a sword beam shooter at times, which can be addicting.

Metroid on the other hand just feels like an underdeveloped prototype for the later games. Super Metroid has a very fitting name, because it's essentially a superior version of Metroid. It even takes place in the world of the first game, but tries to do everything bigger and better. Level design, controls, gameplay - everything has improved by a margin. And on top of that Nintendo even created a remake of the first game in the same style with Zero Mission. So, there doesn't seem to be a good reason to play the first game and unlike The Legend of Zelda it fails to captivate with its own classic 8-bit gameplay.

You can only shoot in three directions (left, up and right) and at the beginning of the game you can't even shoot things at your feet. You need the Wave Beam for that (or to use Bombs). It all feels somewhat quirky compared to the later games and even the most basic enemies like the Rios and Wavers can be super annoying early on, because they are so hard to hit and just fly right through you.

If you die, you start with 30 health and then you're out to farm energy balls, where enemies for the most time only leave 5 points of energy at a time, if any, while every mistake will cost you much more... Also, the Ice Beam does not do more damage and makes killing enemies even slower, because they don't take damage from being frozen. And then you're up to playing the ever-same boring corridors again and again. While getting through Norfair I almost was about to reset the game and say the magic words for the only way I knew the game could be fun:

NARPASSWORD

But I didn't and I have to say that the game gets a lot easier and manageable, as soon as you get the Varia Suit. You take considerably less damage then. I almost was about to enjoy the game, when this happened:

Why can't Metroid wall-jump?

There's one part in Norfair right before the Wave Beam, where you can fall down and not get out of the lava. With the Varia Suit it takes a while, before you die there, so you have to put the game aside and slowly wait for the inevitable. Lava in general seems to be something in this game, where it's easy to get stuck in.

Also, as soon as there are more than two enemies on the screen, the frame rate drops significantly and makes the game hardly playable at times, but it still keeps throwing more enemies at you than it can handle. The Screw Attack also often fails you, where you take damage instead of destroying an enemy... It all just doesn't feel very reliable, where the game is just not fun at times.

I personally think that they did a much better job with the sequel already, Metroid II - Return of Samus. While the controls, gameplay and the graphics are as simple as in the first game, the game works much better with its restrictions. It also introduced points, where you can refill your health and missiles, which is dearly missed in the first game, where grinding is your only option.

Anyway, despite all the shortcomings, I still made it to Tourian to hunt some Metroids and face Mother Brain.

But the latter has proven to be very difficult, because again there's too much happening at once on the screen, where you get hit from every direction, while you're fighting the low frame rate... So, this certainly won't become my favorite Metroid game, it might even be my least favorite. But let's hope that my new favorite Metroid title will be released today.

Metroid: Other M Revisited

Let's revisit another Metroid, before Samus Returns gets released... After playing various 2D Metroids on the Wii U Virtual Console, I was in the mood for another round of Metroid: Other M. Or two rounds, to be exact, because I did both a 100% run and a Hard Mode run. With that I've beaten the game now six times in total - four 100% runs and two Hard Mode runs. And more runs might follow in the future. I've already beaten Hard Mode once two years ago and at that point I felt like I was completely done with the game, only to be drawn back in now.

Next to Super Metroid it has been for me THE Metroid game with the highest replay value. Yes, the game's story was badly written and doesn't shine a good light on Samus' character. Yes, the level design is too linear and the authorization feature was so wrongly executed that nothing made much sense whatsoever. I mean, why would Samus deactivate her life supporting Varia and Gravity Suits to begin with? All of this angers me every time, when I replay the game, because the game could have been so much better. But it never stopped me from enjoying, how the game feels and plays.

I thoroughly enjoy the hybrid 2,5D Metroid style with its simplistic controls, its auto aim, the Sense Moves, the Lethal Strike and the Concentration. It's even what makes this game work in Hard Mode to begin with. I couldn't imagine beating any other Metroid game with just one Energy Tank and no Missile Expansions (even though Zero Mission encourages you to do so with its different unlockable endings). But here it can be quite a lot of fun.

It's still challenging, so it's not that the game is just really easy. You have to master the mechanics and know when to dodge and when to shoot. The enemies are all very versatile and it can be quite tough at times. Even so that playing Normal Mode partly can feel like Hard Mode, sometimes when you simply try to get to the next Navigation Room alive and you have lots of strong enemies in your way. Getting to the Speed Booster in Sector 2 would be a good example for this. Concentration only gives one Energy Tank at first (you can upgrade this later) and you can't find any pickups like health orbs, so you're basically stuck in Hard Mode for a while.

Groups of Zebesians can be quite troublesome, especially if they shoot those green grenades around. And the Griptians (those spiked armadillos) also gave me more trouble than they probably should. Hardest parts are of course the bosses, but here at least the game is very forgiving, because it lets you restart right at the beginning of the boss fights.

Best boss fight certainly is Ridley and he can take a while in Hard Mode, because he can easily kill you with a single hit. But despite this it never gets frustrating, it never stops being fun, so I keep going, until I finally beat him. It's like learning a dance, with the right move in every step of the fight. And it's super satisfying to finally best him.

The Metroid Queen on the other hand is a little bit more frustrating, because you can't dodge her ridiculous fire breath (that she probably stole from Ridley) with Sense Moves, despite Samus doing the exact thing in the sequence before the second phase. At least the game is even more forgiving here and puts you at the beginning of the 2nd phase, if you die. If you had to beat all the Metroids again and again, I probably would have lost motivation.

But beating the Metroid Queen in Hard Mode is certainly a nice finale for my tour through the classic Metroid series, before Samus Returns gets released in less than a week, where we will meet the Queen again.

Hard Mode doesn't have the Phantoon fight, but the whole epilogue part of the game is about backtracking and getting all the expansions that you might have missed on the Bottleship, where it would miss the point in Hard Mode... Still, it would have been interesting to phase this as well.

In general I enjoy traversing the Bottleship quite a lot, because it has such a nice atmosphere. It feels quite eerie at times. And while the music isn't all that melodic, it certainly creates a fitting ambience. Downside is that the whole level "design" is based on long tunnels, which gets boring fast.

Overall I would really like to experience another Metroid game in a similar 2,5D style on the Nintendo Switch. There are things to improve like the usage of the first person perspective, which in itself is done fluidly, but the way it was integrated and forced in the game for Missile usage and those weird pixel hunts wasn't very good. It should be mainly used for looking around and scanning things like in Metroid Prime. You can compare this to the motion controls in Skyward Sword. In itself they worked quite well, but what the game made of them with all the "slash in the right direction" puzzles and fights wasn't all that enjoyable and sometimes even frustrating... With a new game on the Switch they could put Missiles on a button and implement the first person view differently.

But for now let's see, how Samus Returns will fare next weekend! Maybe this will become my new Metroid game with the highest replay value.

Metroid Fusion Revisited

Another month, another Metroid.

To prepare for Samus' Return on the Nintendo 3DS, I decided to play through the major 2D Metroid games on the Wii U Virtual Console again. After Zero Mission in June and Super Metroid in July, it was now the turn of Metroid Fusion, the last one on my list. (I've skipped the first Metroid game, because I don't like it that much and it's not as fleshed out as the others.)

And out of the three, I probably enjoyed replaying Metroid Fusion the most! It's been many years that I've played through the game and I remembered it to be much harder, but playing through Hard Mode in Zero Mission probably prepared me on a level, where the game gave me little trouble. The European and North American versions of the game also don't have a Hard Mode or a Gallery, so it's already much easier to complete than Zero Mission. Similar to Super Metroid, I only went for one 100% run here.

The bosses can be still quite tough, though... But I like, how they are done in this game. They are usually the main goals, but not in some artificial way, where defeating the bosses destroys some statue or gives you some key item. Here they are direct targets, because they are either causing trouble on the BSL station or they provide you with a necessary power-up or both.

The X-Cores at the end of each boss fight could be annoying, but they really made me master all the boss fights in the game. There are no close calls allowed here, because you still have to face the X-Core at the end, which can give you quite some trouble, especially early on. But of course you can master this part of the boss fights as well.

Overall, I enjoy, how this game plays quite a lot, probably the best out of the 2D Metroids. The controls are spot on and collecting the X has a nice vibe to it, while the power-ups all really feel powerful, especially all the beam upgrades.

I also like very much, how the Missiles are upgraded to Super Missiles, because this streamlines everything much more. In both Super Metroid and Zero Mission you would have to switch between missile types, while Super Missiles were the real deal. You want to use Super Missiles in boss fights, because normal missiles are too weak. And often you are grinding for Super Missiles during boss fights... Metroid Fusion bypasses all this nonsense by simply turning them into an upgrade.


Of course the big downside of this game is the high linearity, always sending you from A to B, even closing doors right behind you.

At the end this shocked me a little, because I was missing a few items before the final boss. I then went back to a Restore Point to get them. One was a Power Bomb near the "Ridley Freezer" on the Main Deck and to get back there I had to go all the way over Level 2 and the Reactor Core. I also missed an Energy Tank on the Main Deck, right above the first boss, but luckily you could still get there via Screw Attack.

But I still ended up with only 98%, because I thought that 70 Power Bombs is the maximum (74 really is a weird number for one), so I was missing two of them in Level 5. Anyway, that's when I learned that you can freely explore the entire station after you've beaten the final boss. It even shows on the map, where you're still missing items and how many there are, similar to a New Game+ in Zero Mission. I didn't know that! I always thought that you have to be very careful not to miss anything, before you go to the final boss...

In a way this is similar to Other M, just without the added Phantoon fight. And both games certainly share many similarities, where Other M copied many of the concepts. I also think that Other M plays and feels very nice, but suffered mostly from the high linearity. But Metroid Fusion certainly has the better story of the two, leaving only a sequel to be desired...

See you next mission...?

Super Metroid Revisited

In anticipation of Samus Returns, I'm currently (re)playing several Metroid games. After Zero Mission, I continued on the Wii U Virtual Console and played through Super Metroid again.

Super Metroid was my first Metroid game, when I discovered the franchise for myself in 2008. It's even the game that made me chose the nickname "TourianTourist", some time before opening this blog. And since then it always has been one of my favorite Metroid games next to the Metroid Prime Trilogy, where I've also beaten the game a couple of times now. But after replaying the game now, it doesn't feel like it can live up to all that.

It's still a very good game, don't get me wrong, but it feels a little dated now, where most of the issues lie in its controls, especially after playing Zero Mission and seeing Samus Returns. The input seems to be quite stiff. It starts with the Wall Jumps that behave somewhat differently than in other games. You have to press into the direction and then press the jump button like a split seconds afterwards. If you press both at the same time, it doesn't work. And every time I play this game, it takes some time to get used to this again.

But it's still not as bad as the Grapple Beam. This item has some really awkward handling and probably the "stiffest" input in the game. It's just not fun to use this item. This goes so far that one time I played through Super Metroid without using the Grapple Beam at all. I did the entirety of Maridia with Wall Jumps, because it worked much better for me than the Grapple Beam. And that's saying something.

In addition, there are some things in Super Metroid that are simply inconvenient. One is the item select, where you have to go through a list of five items with some of them even being situational. Both Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission streamlined this more by using the R button to toggle between Beam and Missiles, as well as Bombs and Power Bombs in Morphball Mode. Much better! They also got rid of the Grapple Beam and the X-Ray Scope. And I'm a little worried how well switching items and beams in Samus Returns will work. From the looks of it, you have to use the touchscreen quite a lot...

Another issue is the map, where you can only view your current area. When I arrived at the end, I was missing three Missile Expansions, so I wanted to compare my map with item location maps on in the internet. But for this I still had to travel through each area individually, where again I thought that Teleport Stations will be the best addition to the franchise since the ledge grab (which is also absent from Super Metroid, since it was introduced in Fusion).

With all of this in mind, I won't be surprised if this game follows Samus Returns and receives a proper remake in the future, maybe even on the Switch. With that Nintendo would be remaking the Metroid classics in order, which makes a lot of sense. It probably wouldn't be necessary for Metroid Fusion, though, and at some point Nintendo should make a proper Metroid 5, instead of doing remakes.

Anyway, I still enjoy this game quite a lot. The music and atmosphere are absolutely great, all areas have a distinct feel to them and offer maze-like exploration. I usually enjoy the Brinstar area the most and the Wrecked Ship the least, where I kind of lost motivation around this part. Even though Super Metroid only takes around 3 to 5 ingame hours to beat, where you could do it in one evening, it took me several weekends to fully beat this game... It wasn't as exciting as it used to be.

At least the game keeps it simple, because you don't have to beat it six times under different conditions to unlock all endings. Overall the game is much easier than Zero Mission, which is especially noticeable with the bosses. I guess, in case of Ridley the Super Metroid version actually is a little more difficult, but the Kraid and Mother Brain fights are much, much easier, when compared to the GBA game. On the other hand Super Metroid doesn't hold your hand as much, where you have to find out on your own, where you can progress, while Zero Mission keeps giving you directions all the time.

Collecting all the items isn't as insane as it was in Zero Mission as well. There are no ridiculous Shine Spark stunts required and it's mostly about finding all the hidden secrets. Still, to get 100% under 3 hours certainly takes some practice and planning, because it's easy to miss a Missile Expansion here and there.

I would try this as well, but currently my time is somewhat limited. Before Samus Returns gets released, I also want to play through Metroid Fusion on the Wii U Virtual Console. And I'm also currently playing through Metroid Prime: Federation Force with some friends, where we're having a blast. But more about this later on.

The next two months certainly will be Metroid-heavy!

Metroid: Zero Mission Revisited

After the announcement of Samus Returns, I decided to return to my endeavor from last year, where I started revisiting various Metroid titles, both Metroid II - Return of Samus on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console and Metroid Prime Hunters at the time. For now I want to replay several 2D Metroid games on the Wii U Virtual Console, where I started with Zero Mission, because there was a discount available at My Nintendo and because I haven't played this game since 2008, where I first got into the Metroid franchise.

Similar to Metroid Fusion, I've never owned Zero Mission on my original GameBoy Advance. And I'm kind of glad that I didn't, because I can't imagine myself ever completing this game without the help of Restore Points. The amount of pixel perfect input perfection required to perform the various Shine Spark stunts in order to get some of the pick ups is just ridiculous. Especially the one Energy Container at Chozodia, where you have to hit several slopes and quickly store another Shine Spark, probably would have broken either my fingers or my GameBoy Advance if I ever had tried this on the original version. With Restore Points it's doable, because if you screw up a single part, you just have to repeat this (given you saved right before it) and not start over from the very beginning.

What also took me quite a while was the Missile Expansion in the lower right corner of the Ridley area, because I tried getting this as early as possible... Other than the Shine Spark sequence to get there, you also have to get through a maze of dissolving blocks. It's a lot easier to do with the Space Jump ability, but then you would have to return there later in the game, which costs a lot of time. So, this time I tried to do it without it, which took many tries... There's lots and lots of mastery in this game.

Another infamous example would be within the tunnels of Brinstar, where you can get a Super Missile very early in the game, right after obtaining the Speed Booster and the Spring Ball:

It's probably even necessary if you want to get a 100% item rating under 2 hours, which is required for some of the endings. I'm not gunning for this, though, I'm settling with completing the game on both Normal and Hard with 100% items. Other than Other M I hadn't beaten any Metroid games on Hard / Hyper Mode yet, because usually I felt like the games were hard enough on Normal Mode or I had trouble getting past the first big boss. But this time I'm up for a challenge.

Hardest part was probably the Mother Brain boss fight, which is absolutely atrocious in any difficulty. I actually had to go back and collect some missing Super Missile packs (6 of them do the trick), because otherwise this fight is just endlessly frustrating. Again having Restore Points made the whole thing more bearable.

But I like how in a New Game+ it does show how many items there are in each area and how many you found already. This is really helpful, because on my first playthrough I had to study maps on the internet in order to find some of the last Missile Expansions that I had missed.

In general, Zero Mission isn't one of my favorite Metroid games and probably never will be, despite this being a solid title. I really enjoy how they remade the first game and translated it into the style of Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. That's really well done, but they had to up the ante and that's where this remake failed me. I don't like running away from invincible foes in video games, so I ultimately found the whole Zero Suit section of the game to not be enjoyable. It even kills a good part of the replay value for me, which is probably why I never bothered with replaying this game up until now...

It's also a very long section of the game, where they've created this massive maze on top of a game world that already wasn't very easy to navigate to begin with. You can waste a lot of precious time just getting from A to B. And this makes me look forward to the teleport stations in Samus Returns even more, because this feels like one of the best possible additions to the franchise (they had teleporters in Hunters, but there it wasn't all that helpful).

It also ruined a part of the continuity, which Retro Studios tried to establish with Metroid Prime, where Samus has some of the abilities from the first game ready in the beginning, but she loses them. It's almost like Sakamoto actively wanted to discredit Metroid Prime, where he likes to remind everyone that he isn't involved with the Prime series. That they added the Gravity Suit, Power Bombs, and all the other typical upgrades to the remake also felt a little bit uninspired and to a degree unnecessary.

Anyway, it was still quite fun and I'm looking forward to replaying Super Metroid next month.

Metroid Prime Hunters Revisited

Not only the Zelda series is currently celebrating 30 years of existence, but also Metroid. And as with Zelda I also want to revisit most of the Metroid games for the 30th Anniversary, some of them even for the first time. And Metroid Prime Hunters is one of these titles, which I haven't touched since my original playthrough. In this case I had never even gotten the 100% rating, because I had been missing some of the scans.

But playing the multiplayer was always a lot more fun, so I never really bothered with the singleplayer mode again until last weekend. As a huge fan of the Unreal Tournament series and Unreal Championship 2, I really like what Nintendo has done with the multiplayer part of Metroid Prime Hunters, where you get a nice First Person Arena Shooter with unique characters. If you can get used to the rather exotic controls of this game, there are seven different game modes and many different arenas to enjoy. And the character design of the individual hunters is absolutely outstanding, they've done in amazing job of making every single hunter unique in both design and abilities. It's all really great.

The singleplayer, however... not so much. It's really just the multiplayer arenas connected to each other with corridors on a series of four different planets / stations. In some cases it's hard to say, what came first: the arena or the singleplayer environment? It's probably a mix of both, but sometimes it can be tough to orientate, because some of the places are entirely symmetrical or just hard to overlook. And this gets really annoying in the escape sequences, which you have to do a total of eight times for no good reason. You can't use any portals in them, so you have to run through the entire place again and you often get involved in fights with either Guardians or other Hunters. There it's easy to lose your orientation and then you might run back, from where you came from. This happened to me in Celestial Archives multiple times and to make things worse, the enemies will just reappear and you have to fight them again... ugh!

There are also lots of cheap deaths. Abysses are an instant kill and while there aren't many in the game, the moving platforms above them can be a deathtrap, if you accidentally jump, which might happen, if you look around with the Stylus (double tapping the touchscreens makes you jump). Or if you get squeezed in Morphball Mode, it's Game Over as well. In the Metroid Prime Trilogy you would only get hurt, but here it's an instant death and there's an entire sequence of blocks that want to squash you... I rarely ever died to actual enemies, it was usually either pitfalls, squashing or timers running out. Sadly, the game does have a Death Counter at the end to taunt you, but I'll settle for the 100% rating and leave it be. No way that I'm going through this mess again.

It's not all bad, though. I do like the focus on collecting the various beam weapons from the other Hunters instead of the usual Metroid power-ups and using them to explore new areas in places that you've already visited. The weapons could have been made a little bit more interesting, because for the most part they just disable force fields of the same color and help you with certain enemies and Hunters, e.g. Spire is weak against the Judicator. I also like, how in the 2nd half of the game the hunters are all free roaming and you can meet them anywhere, which makes the game world feel a little bit more alive and threatening. You're not alone in this Metroid game...

The Hunters are really the star of the game, which isn't saying much, because there is nothing else really. It's the only Metroid game without any actual Metroids (funny enough, the demo Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt did have them, as well as an alternate controls scheme) and besides the final boss there are only two different bosses that get repeated four times in total, where each time they evolve somewhat and become more difficult. But you still keep fighting a pillar and a giant eye ball again and again. The game is quite stale and repetitive.

From what we know Metroid Prime 4 will focus on Sylux and his hatred for both the Galactic Federation and Samus. Federation Force even supports this idea. But I really hope that the other Hunters will return as well and we will get another excellent Metroid arena shooter on the NX. I would love to play a game like this with better controls and HD graphics.

Metroid II Revisited

Return to Return of Samus

After playing through Another Metroid 2 Remake I also decided to give the original Metroid II - Return of Samus another try, this time on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console.

And I've actually beat it twice in a row. First time I ended up with a time little over 3:00 hours, but that's where you get the best ending with Samus in her bikini. So, this is why I decided to beat the game quickly again in one evening (with 100% items), where I was able to shave off an entire hour.

It's really a short game, but not a bad one. I like it more than the first Metroid, because it offers more variety. But compared to the first game it's also quite easy and it's probably one of the easier Metroid games overall. And also one of the more linear games, where you basically just follow a long tunnel and explore the four larger areas at the sidelines, which are quite open. Items are hard to miss and there isn't all too much to collect. There are 22 Missile Expansion, six Energy Tanks (one of which seems to optional) and only few upgrades to your suit.

There are also 47 Metroids to hunt and they are A LOT easier to kill than in AM2R. In general I like the concept of the evolving Metroids and hunting them down, where a remake of the game in the style of Metroid: Other M would have been absolutely amazing.

But... I'll settle with the AM2R remake for now, which is a lot more challenging and offers many more hidden secrets, but still stayed quite close to the original game. I was actually surprised about how "accurately" some parts were translated in the fan remake.

Yet Another M

I just finished Metroid: Other M for the third time. Considering the fact that quite some people including myself gave this game a not so good review, this might actually be surprising. And most of the flaws are still present and an issue, the game is still very linear and still focuses on a bad story. And you still get annoyed by the stupid idea of authorizing items, it just doesn't make sense why Samus doesn't use Varia or Gravity Suite from the start for example. And that all the free exploring and item collecting basically happens at the very end of the game, where nothing much is left to do, doesn't really work either.

But some of the earlier issues are basically gone. The confusing scanning sequences are not a problem anymore, because you know what to look for. The story doesn't bother you as much, because you can skip all cutscenes, which really adds to the replay value. And if you mastered how to efficiently use the Sense Moves and Lethal Strike, the game gets rather easy actually. Not even Ridley could give me a fight this time around, because I finished him with a Lethal Strike (didn't know you could do that). So, the game actually gets a little bit more enjoyable, when you play it for a second or third time.

But this alone isn't a good reason to replay the game. I replayed the game two times now simply because I wanted to. For once I enjoy how the game is played. I really like the controls and the fast and fluid action. It just feels great to play this game, I enjoy how the beams feel, how the Missiles blast and how the Screw Attack saws through things. How you fluidly can switch between First and Third Person modes. And I enjoy using Sense Moves and Lethal Strikes. The fights in the game are fun. And this is the main reason, why I enjoy replaying this game.



The Metroid Prime Trilogy games were certainly awesome, but they could also be quite slow and low to the ground. And some things from the earlier Metroid games like the Speed Booster just wouldn't work with the first person view. Metroid: Other M really offers a great, fast and fluid hybrid of both playing styles and I really would like to see another Metroid game using this style.

I also really like the atmosphere inside the Bottle Ship. Originally I stated that the lack of music is quite disappointing, but by now I really appreciate the atmosphere created by the simple ambient sounds orchestra. This space station really gives you a great feeling of isolation, it's so huge and empty and just thinking about the gigantic simulated outdoor areas can be overwhelming.

Well, that's it, for a game which I originally didn't hold in high esteem it's surprisingly fun to replay. It's certainly not the best Metroid game, but it's also not the worst. And if you know what to do, the game can be finished rather quickly, it took me less than eight hours to finish the game this time. It's perfect for two evenings of fun and fast Metroid gameplay.