Prime roast
In preparation for Metroid Prime 3, the big Wii game this summer, I went back and played through Metroid Prime 2 on GameCube, a game I had played mostly through in years past, but just now played to completion.
Metroid Prime 2 is... well, it's not fundamentally different from Metroid Prime 1, in regards to presentation, game play, controls... everything, really. You can fall off of ledges and hurt yourself now; scanning things is easier; there's a few different weapons, though they function with frightening similarity to the weapons from Prime 1; fewer Metroids; and it goes on in that fashion. Small things, really. This time, Samus gets her stuff stolen in the game's opening sequence, giving you your reason for having to hunt it all down yet again. Each stolen implement is held by a boss, and that's where the main difference in Metroid Prime 2 becomes apparent: this game is much harder than its predecessor. Really, some of those bosses border on sheer unfairness. My completing the game last night came from the lucky break that continuing allowed me to resume the fight with the second final boss, rather than start over against the first. Had it not, I would have quit right then and there.
So this one has some frustration that the first one didn't. Then there's the fact that the first game feels more -- I don't know -- Metroidy? -- than this one. The game is fun in regards to the fact that it's still Metroid, but it's not a new experience like the first game was. Moreover, the game uses the light/dark dichotomy to create two worlds, each a mirror image of the other, as well as a "dark" version of Samus. This must be a Nintendo thing, because they do this in a lot of their main franchises, particularly Zelda.
Time for a brief installment of Spoiler Theater, so cover your ears and sing loudly if you don't want a more-or-less predictable revelation to be ruined for you. Dark Samus IS Metroid Prime, which doesn't make a lot of sense given that Prime got atomized at the end of the first game. Oh, it's never definitively stated that DS is MP, but the Luminoth lore gives it away, talking about a cataclysmic meteor crash that began all their problems with Dark Aether, which is exactly how Tallon IV is described as going down the toilet in the first game. When you get your last look at Dark Samus before the final battle, it's pretty obvious.
So that's that, and Metroid Prime 2 goes back on the shelf until I revisit it again in a few years or so. I'm in the process of rounding out my GameCube library (while there's still time...) and have picked up a few older titles at budget prices. I've just started Chibi-Robo, which is a game both adorable and... and... I'm not sure. I'll have more to say about it some other time.
Metroid Prime 2 is... well, it's not fundamentally different from Metroid Prime 1, in regards to presentation, game play, controls... everything, really. You can fall off of ledges and hurt yourself now; scanning things is easier; there's a few different weapons, though they function with frightening similarity to the weapons from Prime 1; fewer Metroids; and it goes on in that fashion. Small things, really. This time, Samus gets her stuff stolen in the game's opening sequence, giving you your reason for having to hunt it all down yet again. Each stolen implement is held by a boss, and that's where the main difference in Metroid Prime 2 becomes apparent: this game is much harder than its predecessor. Really, some of those bosses border on sheer unfairness. My completing the game last night came from the lucky break that continuing allowed me to resume the fight with the second final boss, rather than start over against the first. Had it not, I would have quit right then and there.
So this one has some frustration that the first one didn't. Then there's the fact that the first game feels more -- I don't know -- Metroidy? -- than this one. The game is fun in regards to the fact that it's still Metroid, but it's not a new experience like the first game was. Moreover, the game uses the light/dark dichotomy to create two worlds, each a mirror image of the other, as well as a "dark" version of Samus. This must be a Nintendo thing, because they do this in a lot of their main franchises, particularly Zelda.
Time for a brief installment of Spoiler Theater, so cover your ears and sing loudly if you don't want a more-or-less predictable revelation to be ruined for you. Dark Samus IS Metroid Prime, which doesn't make a lot of sense given that Prime got atomized at the end of the first game. Oh, it's never definitively stated that DS is MP, but the Luminoth lore gives it away, talking about a cataclysmic meteor crash that began all their problems with Dark Aether, which is exactly how Tallon IV is described as going down the toilet in the first game. When you get your last look at Dark Samus before the final battle, it's pretty obvious.
So that's that, and Metroid Prime 2 goes back on the shelf until I revisit it again in a few years or so. I'm in the process of rounding out my GameCube library (while there's still time...) and have picked up a few older titles at budget prices. I've just started Chibi-Robo, which is a game both adorable and... and... I'm not sure. I'll have more to say about it some other time.
posted by TM520 | 6:02 AM
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