(Metroid Prime Trilogy – Wii U)
I very much enjoyed my time with this game, and I wasn’t sure that I would. I haven’t ever played any first-person shooters and even if Metroid Prime is not a traditional fps, the fact that you must aim at enemies was enough to make me nervous. However, I feel this game may be a good starting point for players like me. A mechanic called lock-on ensure that players new to the genre are given an easy introduction while not making the game overly simple.
Remember, this review reflects my experience and therefore everyone else’s as well. If you disagree with any point I bring in this post, then you should reflect on your opinion until you agree with me as I am correct and you are wrong. Thank you for reading!
Lock-on
Lock-on makes this game much easier for players who are not ready for a true fps experience. By pointing your aim near an enemy then holding ‘Z’, your aim locks onto the enemy and stays locked as long as ‘Z’ is held. For most enemies, especially in the early game, if the player locks on and shoots enough times with the right weapon, the enemy will die.
However, as the game progresses, the player is tasked with fighting more enemies at once, requiring the player to lock-on one enemy while avoiding the others in their peripheral.
Near the end of the game, there are enemies which move too fast for lock-on to always work, so the player is encouraged to stop using lock-on briefly and use free aim to lead their shot. This encouragement was subtle and worked on me as I finally felt a little competent at aiming by the end of the game. Every enemy in the game can be killed by using lock-on, so the devs could certainly have gone a bit farther, and perhaps they do in the next two games.
Problems
I really enjoyed this game, but it had a few issues that keep it from its full potential.
- I had to look up two things during my play through, and I can’t say I regret either of them. Most egregious for me is returning to the Sunchamber for the artifact. I knew the door was covered in vines, and I thought after I’d gotten the fire weapon along with the flamethrower, that this would be a cinch. However, after returning and trying every weapon at my disposal, the scan (and the internet) told me that the vines were literally indestructible. Thus, you must go to the opposite side of the map and return to the sun chamber a different way. To top it all off, once you get the artifact, the vines disappear for no apparent reason! I just think they should have chosen something more sensible and less notoriously weak to fire to block the door if they wanted me to go the other way that bad.
- I was at a loss during the elite pirate omega boss fight. The scan told me that when I broke all of its armor, it would turn invisible using normal visors, implying that I had to use the x-ray visor at this stage of the fight. However, if you do this, you’ll find the omega is nowhere to be seen. Then, you have to fight some low-level pirates. Afterwards, the omega inexplicably reappears with his armor back. Repeating this several more times, I gave in and looked up the answer. As it turns out, you do have to use the x-ray visor, but omega is literally invisible even in x-ray until he starts healing on one of the phazon patches around the room. Not only that, but he is only vulnerable to super missiles and similarly limited weapons. The game up to this point has been pretty consistent about telling the player an enemy’s weakness in a scan, so to not be told of this limited-time weakness to a limited weapon is a bit unfair.
- Using the wiimote to control Samus was mostly great. However, I felt the controls failed me on one thing: turning. Samus’ turn speed in this game is so slow. I wish I had a button to quickly turn around, as enemies often surprise me from behind. It is worth noting that I never used the ‘advanced controls’, but due to my inexperience with shooters, I felt this options was out of the cards.
Highlights
Here are my favorite aspects of this game
- The scavenger hunt for all twelve Chozo artifacts is a great way of reusing the map one last time. It’s exciting to look through the map and find the location the entry is talking about. I do wish the entries were written a little more like riddles but it was fun nonetheless.
- The final boss was a great conclusion to the game. While the second form experienced a similar problem to the elite pirate omega boss fight with the boss turning invisible even in x-ray mode, it was to a much lesser degree since the location of the boss was always pretty clear due to its fire move, and method by which you had to hurt it was made clear in the scan text.
- Overall, I think metroids are the best-designed enemy in this game. When they go to charge, it takes quick reaction-time to dodge out of the way, but gives you a free shot at them. Their later variants which require a specific weapon to damage require the player to be familiar with the differences in charge time and shot speed with each weapon as well. While they can be tough, they are satisfying to beat.
Score
I don’t really know how I feel about game scores. Everyone is different and has their own wants from a game, but there are also objective elements to game design. So I will give two scores: My personal score based on how much fun or I enjoyment I got out of a game, and another “objective” score which tries to consider objective measures of the game while considering when it was made. But I made the objective score, so it’s more of a “subjective objective” score than anything.