coldsteel1212
Number of posts : 741
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Registration date : 2008-11-17
 | Subject: Metroid Prime Trilogy Review  Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:45 am | |
|  Yes, Metroid Prime is back and this time, as most of you know, all bundled together for extra fun. I, being a Metroid fan, instantly rejoiced and even though I already owned and beat all three before, I bought it. Let's go from out of box and into game.
The box is a pristine metal box with a hard plastic inside covering. On the front, we see Samus in a awesome pose, Arm Cannon pointed and ready to fire.
On the back of the collector's edition box is Samus just starring.... lol.
On the inside is a nice hard plastic covering with a cool looking disc thing... oh wait, that's the disc XD and you get a manual to all three games. Behind the plastic is some art of Samus striking many poses, the Ing, Skytown, and even her ship from Metroid Prime 3.
There is also a mini exclusive art album with the story outlined on one side.
Now, let's take a look at the game.
---Watch This First---
Metroid Prime Trilogy Trailer
Going through the opening, it looks awfully familiar to anyone who saw this year's E3 "Other M" trailer. After an exquisite opening title, we go into the login-menu. From here, we register into our game with our respective Mii, and see the main menu. Most, if not all, of us dove head first into the game. Starting with Metroid Prime 1, we saw a great fun opening of Samus in her oh so beloved Varia Suit shoot off a white beam.
Metroid Prime 1
We quickly start off in space, with Samus jumping from her ship onto a Space Pirate Frigate. After a quick tutorial on the ropes of the game, we enter the frigate. But what do we find? Mass destruction and ruin. Figures... lol. Space Pirates lay strewn across the ship, dead, alive (barely), or not really injured. As you delve deeper, scanning as you go, you learn a little about what the Space Pirates are working on and what must've gone wrong. Phazon... a mysterious substance with bio-mutagenic abilities is found aboard this ship and you soon find out it came from Tallon IV. After a bit of walking, some shooting, and scanning along the path, you come across a reactor room. You fight a queen mutated parasite, which is obviously related to the smaller broodlings you find throughout the ship. After defeating it, it falls into the reactor, setting off a chain of explosions that ultimately destroys the frigate. As you run to escape, you come across your old nemesis, Ridley. After a brief stare of vengeance from Samus, you grapple across and run down a hall. On your way, you are hit by an explosion, taking all your abilities other than the Power Suit and Power Beam offline. That's some ole' BS. After escaping the ship, you follow Ridley to Tallon IV but soon lose track of him. Now the story really begins.
Lush forests, desolate ruins, poisoned halls, winter wonderlands, and magma caverns are just the sites you'll visit on this journey. Its a truly diverse land, and has been fouled by what you later come to realize is phazon which came from a meteor 50 years previous. The chozo, or what's left, have gone insane or "corrupt" due to phazon poisoning. And its your duty to stop the Space Pirates yet again and destroy the foul "worm" that brings forth this plague. But little do you know that something dark... something mimicking you... has come forth in the end.
Fighting the Thardos (in my opinion its a reference to Galaxy Quest)
The game primarily focuses on retrieving your gear you lost and more so throughout the story in order to reach new areas and advance the plot. The story takes place mostly within the many objects that can be scanned and great detail was placed into all the enemies and biological life-forms in the game. Using the Wave, Ice, Power, and Plasma beams you make your way through the game as well as obtaining your Varia suit again, the gravity suit, and eventually the Phazon suit with the Phazon Beam (which is only used against Metroid Prime [Core]). You use a combat and scan visor which are obvious in their name for use. Then there is the thermal visor, which was really cool to use, and even has its own sound when activated. It works just like a actual thermal visor and helped in bad weather conditions and cold areas. The fourth visor was the X-Ray visor which allowed you to see past false walls and track those pesky Chozo ghosts.
This game is kind of vague in how you got through it. Basically, without hints on your first run, you'd be practically lost other than playing through like in 2-d metroid games and just going as far as you can in each direction. There is very little to point out which way to go other than hints. One very vague part was the artifacts, that while vital to the games plot, were very seldom mentioned outside of the Tallon Overworld. This just made the game awkward at points for newcomers and was discouraging to some to the point that they just stopped playing.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
After you destroyed Metroid Prime on Tallon IV, you sometime later are sent on a mission to save a group of Space Marines on patrol in the Dasha region of Galactic Federation territory. After engaging a Space Pirate Frigate, they follow the crippled vessel onto Aether, a nearby planet. Their ship was damaged in the process of landing and due to the atmosphere, all comms are down. There is no hope for escape.
Samus is seen setting course for Aether and quickly finds out herself how harsh this planet's atmosphere is. After being struck by a purple lightning bolt, you crash in the Great Temple Grounds. After exploring, you come across some dead GF Troopers. After turning on a generator, you are attacked by these "zombies" that are infected with some sort of parasite. Taking them out, you come across a "dark entity" and follow it though some sort of black hole. Once inside, you find out the entity is you! A dark verison of you and not only that, but there is phazon here as well! After a brief moment, Dark Samus as we can now call her shoots out the Light Crystal behind you, causing you to be attacked by the atmosphere of this land and its inhabitants. You have now lost all your gear save for your Power Beam, Morph Ball, and Varia Suit. AGAIN! You are left mostly helpless to fend for yourself. Lol. You make your way foreward and eventually stumble upon the GF troopers main base. All are dead. And you soon find out what happened.
Commanding Officer A. Exeter left a log showing their turmoil. After following the pirates they landed and soon found out they were stuck there. Fending off horde after horde of Dark Splinters and Dark Grenchiers as are seen in the halls previous, they finally fall in blazing glory. Now, you make your way to U-Mos, a sentinel who is the last of the awake Luminoth, the once dominant race of Aether. He tells you of how the Ing came into existence due to a meteor falling on Aether. You must now save three energy controllers, by taking the energy from Dark Aether and bringing it to Light Aether. This is the basis of the gameplay plot.
There are three regions other than the temple grounds. They are the Agon wastes, once great plains and fields, they are now deserts. The Torvus Bog, which at one time was a lush forest now turned to a inhospitable marsh swampland. And lastly Sanctuary Fortress, the original dwelling place of the Luminoth and great castle filled with robots and mechanical equipment used in the last days of the war with the Ing, all now corrupted or taken control of by the Ing.
The game is based around the three energy controllers and traveling between a light and dark world. This gives it a Link to the Past feel in a way but is a good idea and is utilized in many puzzles well. Recovering your gear to advance still plays a strong role in the game. Many unique and interesting bosses and enemies abound here and its nothing new to the Metroid series to see odd, yet intriguing enemies. You also face off against Dark Samus many times through out the story and while you gain strength, so does she. And trust me, she has a fun time absorbing phazon.
Dark Samus in the Japanese version of Trilogy
Scanning still plays a vital role in the back story and current story of the game. Platforming plays a larger role, in my opinion, in this game than in its predecessor. Especially due to the fact of now having the Screw Attack, which although obtained late in the game, really adds in getting around certain rooms and crossing places that usually require the grapple beam. The game, since revolving around light and dark, uses the Light and Dark beams. The other beam is the Annihilator which was a very late addition to the game and was cool but useless to me. The fact that the beams in this game used ammo made the Annihilator beam almost annoying because it used both a dark and light ammo per shot. The only thing I found cool with it was its Charge Combo called the Sonic Boom (Guile lol) and it was NOT cost effective for 30 ammo of both dark AND light plus 5 missles. You use combat and scan visors here too, as well as the dark visor which allows you to see interdimentional objects, enemies were in bright red and you could also now target Ing even in their blob forms. Last is the echo visor which utilizes sound in order to see certain transmitters and unlock certain doors.
Through the use of the Dark Suit, you take much less damage from Dark Aether's atmosphere. In fact, its exact to how fast your health recharges inside a safe zone. Which balances out how "unfair" it seemed when you played through with the Varia suit in the Agon Wastes. After restoring all the temples' light other than the Great Temple, you are rewarded with a light teleportation system at the temples and the oh so fine Light Suit. Makes Samus look way cool, and also completely protects you from Dark Aether's atmosphere and crude poison water. Wish you could've had it before hand instead of the Dark Suit.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Now, after having saved the Luminoth, Aether, and possibly many other worlds, you are gathering in the Galactic Federation Ship Olympus. After a short movie with Dark Samus, you see Samus, our heroine, awake. She turns her ship on and boards the G.F.S. Olympus. After walking through the ship a bit, you see that now the characters are more interactive. Now there are finally voices! Huzzah! Although, most people are too "busy" to talk to you. You finally reach the bridge and talk to the flagship's commander, Commander Dane, who if you scan, has some history in common with you which explains why he places so much hope and friendship in Samus. After a meeting with Dane and the other "hunters" (Rundas who is a Phrygisian and is closely related to the Vhozon of MP: Hunters who were also ice wielders, Ghor, who is after several incidents, only 8% human. The rest is all bio-cybernetic body components that allow him to interact with and merge with technology. Lastly, Gandrayda, who is a genetic shape-shifter. Little is known about what her true race is.) the Space Pirates appear from nowhere out of a worm hole and start to attack the fleet and Norion, the planet on which the first line of GF defense is placed. After fighting your way to your ship, you make planetfall.
Now, teaming up with the other hunters, you must restore three (only two for you) generators that power the planetary defense system. This is a cannon capable of taking out orbiting ships and is required to destroy a meteor that will soon make planetfall. This is later known as a Leviathan, one of many that spreads Phazon in the universe (similar to those on Tallon IV and Aether). After reaching the control tower, Samus and the the other hunters are attacked by Dark Samus, who you previously thought was Atomically destroyed. Apparently not, and she seems more powerful then ever. After she marks you with her sign of "corruption", she flies off. Samus, at the last moment, turn on the cannon at the last second and pass out. Norion is safe.
After this incident, you find out you were asleep for a whole month. Now awake, you have acquired a PED suit which allows you to use Phazon to enhance your armor suit and arm cannon. You then find out you must investigate your fellow hunters disappearances and complete their missions. You head for Bryyo, followed by Elysia, the Space Pirate homeworld, and finally Phaaze, the source of all Phazon.
Well, the gameplay in this one is great. Its fast and fun, has more interaction then the previous two, and major graphical improvements. It focuses a lot this time around the phazon. Now you can use it yourself with the PED suit which allows you to power up using phazon within your body, given to you by Dark Samus herself. You fight the other hunters eventually and absorb a certain power from each. Along the way, when you beat a boss, you gain a new Phazon Item which can only be used in Hypermode. Scanning plays its part again, but the story really is played out through actual dialogue now which is much better and less time consuming then in its prequels. And its cool to see Samus go from red to blue, no lie, as she slowly becomes more corrupt by the Phazon from the bosses and finally Phaaze.
Space Pirate Commandos at the Space Pirate Homeworld
This game does NOT allow for the switching of beam weapons which was a little hard for me to get used to. After you defeat Ghor, you obtain the plasma beam and then the nova beam WAY later in the game. The plasma beam was necessary to weld circuits together or melt pieces of thin metal that blocked access to certain things. The nova had the rate of fire of the power beam with the strength of the plasma beam. Not to mention it both welded, melted, and shot though Phazite which helpped one-hit KO some enemies. You use the combat and scan visor again, but now you get the command visor which allows you to use your ship for battle and movement. Lastly is the X-Ray visor which makes its second appearance and is much improved since Metroid Prime 1.
Controls
All the controls for each were essentially the same, and it was great. The only thing that could be a hassle is if you sit at an angle from your television like I do which can cause you to lose the wii remotes pointer. But still, that's personal, not the games fault. The controls are easy to learn and pick up and you can do some more "ninja skills" (as I call them) with jumping on small ledges to avoid being hit and the like in no time at all. Quite literally one of the most fool proof setups for controls.
Extras and Multi
The extras were a nice touch. You gain coins throughout the game and use them to buy soundtracks from the game to listen to, art work, the fusion suit, bumper stickers for Metroid Prime 3. The screenshot tool was totally worth it too. The extras really added something special to it. Multiplayer, despite the cool cutscene, is highly lacking and could be better if it had been improved, worked on, given wifi even. Many things could have improved it but the only difference was the wii motion sensor controls. That was a disappointment. All in all, the extras certainly add to the game.
Ratings
Metroid Prime 1 -- 7.5 out of 10
Its good, has a good balance of action, platforming, and puzzle solving. The sound was great along with its many songs. But the thing that prevents its perfection were some glitches I personally found coupled mainly with the lack of guidance to what needed to be done. Felt like you were quite literally left to fend for yourself. Lol.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes -- 9 out of 10
The reason i liked it more so than Prime 1 was because the storyline was much more developed and you had a better sense of a goal than in 1 where it was just go get this item then this item then "OMG, I need to get the artifacts!!!!!eleven!!one!" out of no where basically. I knew but not the first time i played.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption -- 10 out of 10
Controls and interactivity were way improved. Felt more realistic. Story was more easily advanced, you ship was actually used. Music was great. Actual voice acting was amazing, since it was really nice and it felt smooth. Graphics were pretty nice, and its something nobody can deny that Samus's power beam looked much cooler lol.
Overall: 9 out of 10
The games were great. No doubt. And its a rejoice combo for any Metroid fan. The menu was cool, the new controls were a blast, the extras were awesome (especially the soundtracks from MP 1 and 2 X3), and the games just flowed from one to the next. It was just great fun and lasts for days not to mention you'll want to replay it every now and again. I highly recommend buying it if you loved the games, are a Metroid Fan, are curious of the series, or just want to play a video game. Unique puzzles, decent platforming, great story, awesome music and controls, and much fun to be had.
Note: Some people didn't notice, but the cut scene just before you start a game will have Samus in the current suit she has on that exact save file. Pretty neat, isn't it?
Edit: Added a bit on gameplay, switched the rating system, and added the trailer and some pics.. =D
P.S. Courtesy to IGN for the trailer and some of the pictures used. Credit for those specific articles goes to them. Nothing else, nor the mainstay of the review was influenced or created by them.
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