My personal history with the Metroid series goes back to 2005. In a summer filled with Halo 2 somehow I was turned on to Metroid Prime for the Gamecube. After completely falling head over heels for Prime I went on to play many other Metroid games. Every Metroid has been a wonderful experience for me(well, Hunters and Prime 2 had their moments at least) and to date I have only not played the Prime Pinball spin off and Metroid II: Return of Samus. I consider myself to be a pretty big fan of the series, and I can say I was highly anticipating Prime 3. Now, after going through the game for the first time I feel I can give it a solid critique and offer my thoughts on what worked and what didn’t.
I went into Metroid with very mixed feelings. E3 2007 brought some weird news, such as: less emphasis on back tracking (meaning more linear level design), voice acting with a more narrative focus, and beginning the game with a fairly large arsenal. All of these things were eye brow raisers. Linear level design? Metroid has always been about gaining abilities and traversing several areas over and over, always opening up new passage ways and secret tunnels through each traversing. Hearing that there would be less emphasis on that was extremely disheartening. The same applied for the narrative focus. Game narratives can be awesome, but Metroid has always been just about Samus and her exploits. Metroid games are based on exploration, and that even went for the narrative in past games. As you explore you begin to piece together what’s happening. Only Fusion had gone against this, but that narrative barely broke the traditional flow series veterans have come to love. Only the large beginning arsenal could be forgiven, because, realistically, is it feasible that Samus always encounters some disaster that renders her suit unusable? No. So as long as more power-ups keep coming that could work out. It was the narrative and linearity that was scary.
Along with that the controls were a major concern. Before the Wii’s launch it was being touted as the perfect console for FPS gaming. Red Steel launched along side of the Wii and was hyped to be a solid piece of software that could demonstrate how great Wii FPS games could control. Instead of doing that it was a broken mess of a game. Ever since then I have been weary of any first person Wii games, and was skeptical of how Prime would play.
So, I went into Prime expecting that the narrative and possibly linear gameplay, along with potentially sloppy controls would ruin one of favorite gaming series. Thankfully, none of those things happened. Prime 3 opened up, and for the first hour there is a lot of narrative and even some extremely linear levels, but get out past those tutorial-ish levels and it went to something a bit more like what Prime vets are used to. Still, there were a few things to get used to. The level structure was not like previous Primes or Metroid games for that matter. Prime 3 actually shares a planet system, seen before only in Prime Hunters. What this means is that Prime 3’s level layout expands several different planets versus one planet with several different areas. To travel between these planets Samus must use her ship. And for some that may sound like a hassle, and believe me it really can be. However, the game is mostly set up for the player to explore one area at a time. For example the opening area is a Galactic Federation cruiser, and accomplishing all of your goals there will open up the first plant of Norion (which, is basically the tutorial part two). Completing the Norion goals will open up Bryyo, and upon landing on that planet the game starts to feel like a real Metroid title. It’s there that players can begin to gain more abilities, explore several regions and defeat bosses. Accomplishing those goals opens up another planet and so on. As the game progresses players will need to travel back to the planets for a few upgrades and near the end of the game a small collection quest (if you played Prime or especially Prime 2 you know about artifact collection, and the quest in Prime 3 is much, much, easier and bearable). From a game progression prospective Prime 3 actually functions very much like it’s predecessors.
A few problems I had with the game flow was using the ship as both a travel agent and an item. It’s fun to hop in and travel a few times, but once a player reaches that inevitable spot where they don’t know what the fuck to do or where the fuck to go, getting into the ship and suffering through the load times gets frustrating really fast. And as an item it’s basically useless. There are only a few times it’s necessary to use the ship, and sure it’s a neat idea but it hardly comes into play. I would have liked to see less planet hopping and more “ship as an item” use.
The actual control method for the game really worked too. It puts a lot of Wii control methods to shame, not just FPS controls. This isn’t a game with a few motions tacked on, this is a built from the ground up for Wii game that actually makes full use of the remote. The game makes you choose a sensitivity. I actually forget the names for the sensitivities, but it basically boils down to easy, standard, and advanced. Easy mode functions like the past Prime games. The lock on feature is the same, and movement with the remote is slower. Standard is a step up from there. It functions more like how the game was described. You use the Wii remote to look around, and it works really well. A Lock on feature is present, but it’s not like previous Prime’s. It’s looks your focus, not your gun. So you can move around, but to hit an enemy or object you have to carefully aim. Advanced mode is Standard on steroids. The remote responds to your every movement, and that can make the game really frustrating to play. My recommendation is standard.
I had a few problems with the button lay out. Most of the gadgets you use are mapped to good spots. A and B are interchangeable as eiter jump or shoot. Personally B felt way more natural as the shoot button, it is a trigger after all. + and – were a little awkward. they both do very different things and mixed them up rather often. – is the visor change button. Pressing – and pointing the remote at the icon will change the visor. That worked well, but pressing + activates hyper mode, which constantly drains energy. Prssing + expecting to see the visor menu and using hyper mode is always unwelcome. Aside from that no other button was hard to reach or use. The control scheme made sense and worked very well.
As for the narrative, I said before the introduction is narrative heavy, but that then the game really backs off after that. There are scattered cut scenes here and there, but nothing like a half an hour long Metal Gear cut scene. Sadly I felt that Retro and Nintendo’s story was actually too skimpy. It tried to flesh out the story but never really came close to succeeding. That’s my problem with a lot of Nintendo games actually. Even the Zelda games fail at truly delivering on a great narrative. Nintendo has always been a company that has made their focus: gameplay over story. Now that philosophy is weakening their games. Prime 3 is a strong title, and if Retro and Nintendo decided to really make a story it would have been a welcome addition. They clearly know when to add the scenes, but they haven’t done enough to really make something that fleshes out the story. It’s like they went half into it. Perhaps it was to make sure no one was alienated; no one could be totally upset. They added a little more than usual but kept it recognizable. To me that doesn’t cut it. For a company who has taken serious hardware risks I just don’t see it coming through in the software. Game play is one thing, but game design has to evolve too. A competent, well added story isn’t something that should be hard to make. Retro Studios really put together an amazing game here, and I know they all have this grand idea of what the true narrative is. That’s evident in the beautiful art direction. It;s very clear that the team had some serious direction and there is a full vision here. Why it didn’t come out through a more competent story I’ll never know.
Overall I found the game to be very enjoyable. The environments were really neat, and very detailed. And since getting to know your environment is key to Metroid games, having great environments is something that’s essential to the game. The controls were great, and the progression turned out to be very enjoyable. If you have a Wii this is something you should have in your library. If you don’t have a Wii this could easily be a reason to get one, especially with some other major titles down the line.
Quick Pros and Cons
+ detailed, beautiful environments
+ amazing gameplay
+ solid game progression
- narrative could have been much better
- the ship as an essential part of gameplay didn’t work as well as it could have
- there are a few not very enjoyable linear parts
