Metroid Prime Trilogy

[BlankCanvas]

Dang, lots o' hate for MP2 around here. I was kinda' expecting it, but didn't think it'd be this bad. Maybe it's just because I'm not that far in the game, so I haven't grown tired of some of the controversial game mechanics, like having to find Keys and portal-hopping in Dark Aether. But right now I can tolerate all of those things, and I think the game's pretty fun.

[Irritating Stick]

While MP2 is the low point in the Prime series for me, I didn't think it was terrible.

[romulux]

there's nothing wrong with echoes. in a lot of ways it was a big improvement over prime- the fact that they had the engine and mechanics sorted out meant that they could devote a lot more time to art direction, which you especially see in the sanctuary fortress. the increased amount of stuff going on compared to prime 1 is mind boggling, and prime 1 was already a pretty full game.

the map system is also hugely simplified with three main branches out from the temple grounds for each area to make backtracking clearer, although whether people like that cleaner layout as much as the snaking-all-over clusterf**k of a map from prime 1 is a matter of opinion. either way, it's clear they spent a lot more time thinking about the maps.

the key hunting was lame, but you only have to find 9 of them while prime made you find 12 artifacts, so even that's an improvement over the first game.

it also gives you the best challenge and longest play time of the 3. i think people get turned off by how complicated it is, but if you're in the mood for something difficult it's great. it's definitely the prime game i feel like replaying the least for those reasons, while corruption is the easiest for me to pick up with it's ease of gameplay and even better art direction, but that doesn't mean echoes is any less of a game.

the only real disappointment to me is the music. kenji didn't really nail it the way he did with prime 1 and 3.

[Clowns8me]

there's nothing wrong with echoes. in a lot of ways it was a big improvement over prime- the fact that they had the engine and mechanics sorted out meant that they could devote a lot more time to art direction, which you especially see in the sanctuary fortress. the increased amount of stuff going on compared to prime 1 is mind boggling, and prime 1 was already a pretty full game.

the map system is also hugely simplified with three main branches out from the temple grounds for each area to make backtracking clearer, although whether people like that cleaner layout as much as the snaking-all-over clusterf**k of a map from prime 1 is a matter of opinion. either way, it's clear they spent a lot more time thinking about the maps.

the key hunting was lame, but you only have to find 9 of them while prime made you find 12 artifacts, so even that's an improvement over the first game.

it also gives you the best challenge and longest play time of the 3. i think people get turned off by how complicated it is, but if you're in the mood for something difficult it's great. it's definitely the prime game i feel like replaying the least for those reasons, while corruption is the easiest for me to pick up with it's ease of gameplay and even better art direction, but that doesn't mean echoes is any less of a game.

the only real disappointment to me is the music. kenji didn't really nail it the way he did with prime 1 and 3.

discussion. settled. i think he just nailed it, gents. Fun Comparison Time: Echoes is to Metroid as Majora's Mask is to Zelda. as for the music, i think in terms of making a successfully ambient and atmospheric soundtrack, the music is just as effective as that of MP1 and MP3. just MP2 is admittedly a lot less... catchy.

[karkashan]

I will defend my love of MP2 to the death. (Favorite Metroid game, hands down, if you can't count this one). More than any other game in the series, in my opinon, this game frickin' nailed the Metroid 'atmosphere'.

The Quadraxis fight alone propels it up into the levels of epic few games can ever reach.

[hellfire888]

i havent really played through any of them.. i had part 3 for about a day and a friend wanted to trade for smash bros... so i did it because i didnt have smash yet... ive been looking for a copy of trilogy for a good price, but i cant find one cheaper then $40.. i know ill eventually find one at a pawnshop or bookstore for 10, i just know it

[MAGNUS-8M]

...the map system is also hugely simplified with three main branches out from the temple grounds for each area to make backtracking clearer, although whether people like that cleaner layout as much as the snaking-all-over clusterf**k of a map from prime 1 is a matter of opinion. either way, it's clear they spent a lot more time thinking about the maps....

discussion. settled. i think he just nailed it, gents. Fun Comparison Time: Echoes is to Metroid as Majora's Mask is to Zelda.

It's true, I do dislike MP2 mostly because it does NOT snake paths every whichway through the map, but just like Clowns8me compared it to, it has extremely organized areas set in almost specific cardinal directions, without any clever or optional backtracking(save for one or two tiny paths back to the previous area to collect one item)....which is one of the few things I didn't like about Majora's Mask(but mostly just that....the areas were just too organized and cardinal in their placement). Like I said, I don't hate MP2, and I think it did a few things better than MP1(like presentation for scanning and everything, the update-voice for it was cool), but if there's one thing I hate in 3D adventure games, it's extremely artificially placed layouts. It's just not organic in the least...it's almost blatantly plain that it was preconstructed and not natural.

After that, I was also annoyed due to the fact that everything circled around keys, whether they were keys disguised as translator modules, or keys disguised as ....keys. And that the artificial design of the extremely-organized world was also paired up with the artificial pattern of 'go to light world, get keys to open dark world boss, beat boss, get light, return to light world, open next world'. Do that three times, get 12 MORE keys using cryptic clues for finding invisible enemies, raid the final area, and that's basically it. Nothing special or interesting, just 'do the same thing three times, beat boss, go play MP3 afterward'.

Yet, with all that ranting, it's still a very good game at it's core. It's just that it's so non-organic in almost every aspect of its design, it just feels very watered down. Majora's Mask actually had character overall(and many actual characters inbetween), but the dark atmosphere and mostly similar music in this game kind of blurred the experience as one big dark-game that kind of made it feel sorta 'bleh'. And then you actually play MP3 and realize it's even less of a Metroid game because the levels are so cut-up betwen worlds, there's almost no alternative paths for each world(except the ones you're forced to take, so they're pretty much useless anyway)...so it's almost because of MP3 being like that, that I like MP2 almost a little bit better.. =P MP3's presentation is very charismatic, though. For what it lacks as a Metroid game, it at least feels good, it just doesn't play at all like I want it to.

[KingBroly]

Two words on why I hate Echoes:

Dark

Aether

[Irritating Stick]

What about it? The level design? The enemies? Or just everything in general?

[KingBroly]

A few things

Atmosphere
- It's too purple and too overbearing. The BEST Metroid games have something what I call "Atmospheric Balance" where the Atmosphere is neither too much nor too little. This is why Super, Prime and Zero Mission excel. Echoes you have polar opposites in terms of atmosphere, and they don't gel together all that well.

Not Connected
- Dark Aether feels like a Dungeon Crawler that actively kills you while you move

Boost Ball Guardian
- Fuck. THIS. BITCH.

Although to be fair I have never died against Boost Ball Guardian.

[Irritating Stick]

Yeah I get your point. I hated the constant damage you would get in Dark Aether. If my life was low I would just sit in one of the safe zones and just do something else for 5 minutes until my health recharged. Cheap? Maybe, but I didn't care.

[Clowns8me]

Yeah I get your point. I hated the constant damage you would get in Dark Aether. If my life was low I would just sit in one of the safe zones and just do something else for 5 minutes until my health recharged. Cheap? Maybe, but I didn't care.

i think that's what most people do. and, not to sound angry at your post, i think i want to petition to get the word "cheap" banned from describing anything video game related. but yeah i think the dark aether is the main "hate it or love it" point for most MP2 players.
as for the boost ball ing: its would be a fine boss if the ultimate outcome itself were not essentially decided by luck.

[Devil_Rising]

No man, "cheap" absolutely has it's place in gaming speak. There is a world of difference between a game that is challenging, and a game that is cheap. Some of the levels in Super Mario Galaxy 1 were challenging. Some of the levels in Super Mario Galaxy 2, are downright cheap, and thus it sort of ruined the enjoyment of that game for me.

Old school games, like Ghosts n Goblins, or the classic Ninja Gaiden games, are not hard...they're cheap. There's a difference.

[romulux]

if there's one thing I hate in 3D adventure games, it's extremely artificially placed layouts. It's just not organic in the least...it's almost blatantly plain that it was preconstructed and not natural.

that's a good point, i never thought of it that way. it never struck me that the environments were any less real because of the layout, mainly because in an exploration game you just sort of automatically wander wherever the game lets you without much thought about how the actual layout looks on a map. as long as you're not thinking too much about it it'll still seem natural.


when people say prime 2 and 3 aren't metroid enough i think it's kind of silly, since none of the prime games play remotely like super metroid or earlier ones did at all in so many ways (other m is by far the most faithful 3D metroid there's been in that regard).

going back to the 2D games, they weren't even all that consistent with how the world should be presented- the original was too primitive to really have much going on and i don't think anyone wants another game to play out like that. metroid II went in a more linear, objective based direction that's also not the most popular.

so when people say something doesn't feel like the "old metroid games" what they really mean is just super metroid. looking at where sakamoto's 2D team went from there with fusion it's clear that the series was always intended to keep evolving and changing the format each time.

the only reason people think super metroid is the only true template a metroid game can have is that 8 years passed before we got another one. the game got idolized and put on a (well deserved) pedestal. so what in reality has always been a constantly changing series is viewed by people as a single SNES game. i love super metroid, but i think the series has a lot more room for experimentation than people seem to be willing to accept.

[MAGNUS-8M]

if there's one thing I hate in 3D adventure games, it's extremely artificially placed layouts. It's just not organic in the least...it's almost blatantly plain that it was preconstructed and not natural.

that's a good point, i never thought of it that way. it never struck me that the environments were any less real because of the layout, mainly because in an exploration game you just sort of automatically wander wherever the game lets you without much thought about how the actual layout looks on a map. as long as you're not thinking too much about it it'll still seem natural.

when people say prime 2 and 3 aren't metroid enough i think it's kind of silly, since none of the prime games play remotely like super metroid or earlier ones did at all in so many ways (other m is by far the most faithful 3D metroid there's been in that regard).

Mostly, I notice that sort of 'boxed-in' feeling when I realize I'm in an environment to get specific items and then get out, and you go through that exact same pattern three times before an end-game pattern begins of nearly the same calibur. Super Metroid and Metroid Prime 1 both had a more fluid movement from area to area, and especially for SM, you were rarely told to go to a specific environment in order to collect something. In a way, MP2 is almost like Metroid II, in that you can't go to the next area until you do something specific: collect keys, or kill Metroids.

For MII, that was acceptable because of the type of portable game it was back then(short bursts of gameplay for trips or times you are otherwise away from home), but for MP2, it's kind of a let down. I liked it in SM where you could choose to continue down the same new path but need to loop around(collecting a few missed upgrades with your new abilities), or backtrack just a little bit and grab the next ability upgrade quicker. I also liked going from one area to the next in Metroid Prime, getting an idea of where the 'unreachable' areas were, and then remembering to come back to them later. MP2 and MP3 to some extent just did not do that. MP2 sent you to one area, forced you to mine it out so to speak, and then sent you to the next. You could backtrack a little bit, but it was mostly just for one or two items, or the stupid key-quest at the end of the game...it had nothing to do with the game's story directing you back to that area for some reason of importance, just, collecting more of the same thing. MP3 was a little better about it, but being confined to planets meant the space for interconnecting maps was very limited(and some of those 'hidden' paths were obligatory anyway).

I wouldn't say that only Super Metroid encompasses what everyone wants in a Metroid game; personally I feel that Metroid is nearly identical, and is missing only a map, stacking weapons, and the save system(which was present on the FC version). MP1 also had a similar flow to both of those games, and although Fusion is mostly linear, it still has some secret passages and more or less all environments connect to each other in some way or another. So as far as I'm concerned there are at least four examples of good Metroid gameplay to base the others on. Compared to those four, MP2 was extremely boxy in its layout...whereas the other games seem to say 'go wherever you want to, as long as you are able to', MP2 seemed to stand in your way and say 'you can't go anywhere else until you've mostly completed this area, period'.