I had to get used to playing with the Wiimote and nunchuk, and even at the end of the game I kept confusing the visor and weapon buttons (plus and minus on the Wiimote). It was simpler on the Gamecube, you could change visor with the d-pad and weapons were on the c-stick I think. Anyway, overall it's not something that took away any enjoyment of the game.
And what a game it is. It's always been in my top 10 of best games ever, and I thought that playing through it again would change my perception of it a little bit... after all, it's 10 years old, and a lot of 3D games generally don't age that well... But this is Metroid Prime. The gameplay is still great, the graphics are good, though showing their age in certain aspects (mud and water textures, not a lot of detail on enemies). The gameplay is still fairly unique, you can't really compare it to a "normal" FPS with how the (sort of) open world works, the morph ball puzzles, etc. It really is its own breed. I think Retro did an awesome job of transferring the Super Metroid feel to 3D.
No game is perfect though. The Phazon Mines section at the end of the game is easily the worst area of the game. There is some backtracking to be done - which in the worst case is a cheap way of prolonging the game, but at least going through the world again is not too bad since you have new abilities and can go hunting for energy tanks and missile expansions before taking on the last bosses. I started looking for the artifacts very early, but you can only get all of them once you have the power bomb, grapple beam and X-ray visor.
But I consider those only minor criticisms, the game is beautiful, the game is well-designed and really clever in places, the music is great (my personal favourite tracks are the 2 Phendrana Drifts songs and the Drowned Frigate), and the atmosphere, something I'm very sensitive to in a game, is amazing.
I finished the game in 13h23, with 79% of the items. If I remember correctly, that included 190 missiles, 12 energy tanks, and 5 power bombs. That's what I found without using any help from Gamefaqs or the like. I could've made more of an effort I guess, but towards the end of the game I really wanted to take on the final bosses. The Meta Ridley boss fight was great, and quite difficult. The end boss (not going to say who/what it is, spoilers! Which is funny because it's in the titl... nevermind!) was much easier, and a little less fun to beat maybe. Still, there are no bad bosses in this game.
So after this playthrough, 10 years after my first, my feelings for this game haven't changed that much. If anything, I love it even more, it stood the test of time much better than I thought. Who said this again; a great game is a great game forever? Well, Metroid Prime was a great game 10 years ago and it still is today. It's easily one of my favourite games of all time.
As for my history with the Metroid Prime franchise: I actually bought my Gamecube when Metroid Prime came out here in Europe, I got this bundle (and got Eternal Darkness for free - which I also loved). And yes, it included this "name plate" - as you can see both my Gamecube and the name plate are still intact:
I bought that exactly ten and a half years ago...!
And over the years, my Metroid Prime collection grew...
I still haven't finished 2 by the way. From the start I never liked it as much as 1, and I think there was some frustrating/difficult boss in the game, I just gave up and moved on to other games... I'll start over with the Trilogy version some time later this year. I liked Corruption more than 2, I'll play that one as well to see if I still like it.
About the Metroid Prime Trilogy "collector's edition": it has a neat little booklet with the Metroid Prime story (all three games, how they start and how the end) and some cool art work:
That's all for now! I did a replay of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past earlier this month so I might do a short review of that as well soon.
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