Metroid Prime Remastered - Review

Mission: Survive

Console: Nintendo Switch

I've never been a fan of the 1st person perspective video games. I find the perspective jarring and disorienting. Games with this perspective are off-putting to me. However, when Metroid Prime Remastered got shadowdropped during the February 2023 Nintendo Direct I decided to get myself a copy. I might not like 1st-person titles but I do like Metroid and the praise the Prime series have received hasn't escaped my attention.

If there was ever a good moment to try out a 1st person game again, to see if I might like them better now that I'm older, Metroid Prime Remastered is the perfect game for the job.

Let's talk about it.

Bounty hunter Samus Aran tracks a distress signal to an abandoned frigate in orbit of Talos IV. She learns that the ship belongs to the notorious Space Pirates who have been running genetic experiments on Talos IV's fauna with something called 'Phazon'. Experiments that have broken loose. Things go from bad to worse when not only an explosion from the self-destruct sequence damages her suit but Space Pirate leader Ridley himself shows his face, escaping to the surface of the planet. Down but not out, Samus follows Ridley to Talos IV to stop whatever nefarious scheme he's been cooking up.

Metroid is a game series about its atmosphere and environmental storytelling. The eerie and isolated air. The stuff you see littered in the for- and background. This time around we also have lore added as a way to engage with the narrative. From reports from the space pirates to ancient texts from the extinct Chozo civilization that once called the planet home.

It's these lore bites from which you get the real meat of the plot. You don't need to scan a lot to understand the basic gist of what's going on. But if you take the time in each area to scan what's there to scan you will get a lot more and I, at least, found what I learned very interesting. If you're down for this type of storytelling then the story of Metroid Prime is a satisfying one. If not, well, there's always the excellent gameplay.

As stated in the opening Metroid Prime has gone 1st-person. While that does lead to some new gameplay elements and innovations this is still a very familiar Metroid game at its core. You travel across the planet's different labyrinth-like areas, from the jungles of Central Tallon to the icy mountains of the Phendrana Drifts, exploring each area to find new upgrades to add to your arsenal so you can access new paths to get even deeper into the planet to uncover its secrets and deal with enemies blocking your way more efficiently.

A look at the 1st-person perspective. There are even (optional) boarders simulating the inside of Samus's helmet. 

It can become somewhat difficult to figure out where to go next with how vague MetroidVanai games tend to be but thankfully the game gives you hints on where to go on the map so that you don't just spend hours wandering around not knowing what to do. This little system, combined with some easy-to-understand design and environmental cues, makes Prime a good starting point for anyone who has never played a Metroid game before.

The difficulty is also an area where this game is welcoming to newcomers. It has one of the best difficulty curves I've seen in a game easing you in with its core features in a well-set-up tutorial section before slowly ramping it up.

The only problem with the difficulty is with one particular area in the game. The, as I later learned, infamous 'Phazon Mines'. Your first visit to this area around 2/3rd into the game is the most punishing section the game has to offer. It is here where the most difficult enemy type first pops up. Add-in though mini-bosses, cramped areas and a big lack of safe points and you have a section that kicks any underprepared player to the curb.

I"ll also say that the boss fights are too easy. They're fun "puzzle bosses" but once it comes to actual difficulty they don't stack up to some of the basic enemies in the game. Their patterns are not difficult to read and with the big arena's you fight them dodging their attacks isn't a problem. Don't get me wrong, they are fun, but enemies such as the upgraded Space Pirates gave me a harder time than they did.

Your arsenal consists of Samus' usual tricks. A variety of different suits, beams, missiles and exploration-based upgrades such as the rocket boots. And, of course, her trusty Morph Ball that allows her to roll up into a ball and fit into small spaces.

For beams you have four: the standard, balanced, power beam + power bombs. The electrical wave beam can stun enemies and has a slight homing effect. The ice beam can freeze virtually everything but is very slow to use. Last is the powerful plasma beam that is kind of overpowered.

In combat, beams are supereffective against certain enemy types. For the space pirates in the late game especially you need to hit them with the beam that corresponds to the pirate's colour. You won't make a dent otherwise. One of the reasons why the difficulty spikes in that last third of the game but I digress. A standard but effective system.

During exploration beams have two uses. The one you'll be using the most is opening doors. Just like the enemies, coloured doors can only be opened by shooting them with the beam of the corresponding colour, except for blue doors. There are also certain obstacles that you can only get past with the correct beam. Using the superhot plasma beam to melt a layer of ice, for example. I have a bit of a bone to pick with the doors and no, it's not the inverse textures. Switching beams to open doors gets very, very tedious.

On the map, it lists opened doors as 'green'. What I would've done in this remaster is make it so that once you've opened a door they, like the mini-map, turn green or the standard blue and can then be opened by any beam. You keep the original intent while streamlining opening them during backtracking, cutting back on time on a tedious task.

Then there is the morph ball. While Metroid Prime is a 1st-person game, whenever you enter morph ball you switch to a 3rd-person view. An elegant solution to keeping the morph ball functional and controllable. With its speed and manoeuvrability it controls very well and, with some right usage, can also help you in combat scenarios. Not only that but there are more than a few '2d' morph ball sections that I quite like. They harken back to the series' 2D roots and provide quite a few fun secrets.

In all of this Metroid Prime is a very standard Metroid game and I'm very thankful for that. I really like that standard Metroid gameplay and this has made it easier for me to get used to the 1st person perspective. A new feature in Prime, to leverage this 1st-person perspective I'd wager, are the different visors. Samus has 4 different visors she can equip: the basic combat, scan, thermal and X-ray visors.

I think all visors are pretty self-explanatory; the scan visor allows you the scan anything and everything while the thermal visor gives Samus thermal vision allowing you to see things you couldn't see or interact with before. Switching between visors is critical in both taking down certain enemies, especially in boss fights and finding your way around many obstacles.

A look at the vision of the thermal visor.

I like how these visors add another layer of gameplay to Prime in a way that's uniquely suited to its 1st- person perspective. That said I do think the current setup could've been streamlined more. I don't see the point in making the combat and scan visors two separate visors. In Remastered at least you have an auto lock on and enough buttons that you could've married to the two. Would've saved on even more switching hassle and all those moments that scanning something left you vulnerable though I guess the latter does add to the tense atmosphere.

Another issue I have is that the perspective leads to a lot of moments in which you're backhanded because you can't see the enemy. The only way to avoid incoming attacks is to strafe. It's an inherent problem to this perspective and while this constant vulnerability helps with the atmosphere of the game I would've preferred to have more defensive options.

Metroid Prime: Remastered looks, sounds and run excellently. While it says 'remastered' on the box Retro Studios have gone further than simply giving all the assets an HD makeover. It seems like they've rebuilt all character models and assets. The models are far more detailed. The colours are brighter, the lighting is crisper and the game features modern particle effects and water mechanics. The latter can easily be seen when looking at how the water drops flow from your arm cannon.

The game sounds great as well. The main score comprises remixed classic Metroid themes as well as some very eery and atmospheric sound effects and sound design. And, of course, thanks to the more powerful Switch hardware the game runs very smoothly. No bugs, glitches, slowdown and the like.

For new features, this version of the game adds new control options. You can go for the standard GameCube one, the motion controls from the Wii version through the Joy-Cons and a modern control scheme that makes use of the Switch (Pro) controller and falls more in line with, well, modern control standards. The latter is what I'd pick but if you played the original and have a GameCube(-like) controller that's not a bad option too. I wouldn't go for the motion controls though; the Joy-Cons desync too often. We also have all those newly designed models and the new concept art for the remastered added to the gallery for your viewing pleasure.

Conclusion

When doing my research, I learned that Retro Studios had a hard time figuring out how to translate Metroid into the 3rd dimension. When you playing Metroid Prime: Remastered I noticed none of these struggles. Quite the opposite, really: the game is so well designed, and every classic Metroid element is integrated so seamlessly that you'd almost think that Metroid was made for this viewpoint. The transition to first-person brings new elements while retaining the classic Metroid essence. The difficulty curve is well-balanced, though the Phazon Mines can be too challenging. The variety of beams and upgrades adds depth to combat and exploration and the graphics and sound design are excellent. Overall, it's an excellent game for Metroid fans and newcomers alike.

Not spectecular numbers, not even by a longshot, but I'm happy with them.