Review: Metroid Prime 3

As you all know, I have a habit of getting around to some games long after they are released (sometimes 10 years or more), so this one should seem new in comparison.  So there!

So, back in the early days of the Gamecube, Nintendo released a somewhat controversial game called Metroid Prime.  It wasn’t full of porn or anything like that, but it was a first-person shooter of sorts, which threw a bunch of Nintendo fans into a hissy fit.  You see, up until that point, Metroid was all about side-scrolling platformers, and good ones at that.  But then those fans played the game.  And then they changed their diapers.

Several years later, the Metroid Prime trilogy comes to a close with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.  As you know (if you played the first two), Samus has spent the last several fighting a band of Space Pirates who use a mysterious and volatile element called Phazon to mutate into super soldiers.  At some point, a certain Phazon being takes on the appearance of Samus and begins to wreak havoc on the universe.  That’s where we come in!

In Metroid Prime 3, you get the same Metroid-style platforming mixed with an immersive first-person view.  In the story, Samus teams up with some of the Federation’s other bounty hunters to defeat the Space Pirates and determine what Dark Samus has to do with the whole thing.  But, the good thing about this game is you can use the Wii remote to point and aim at the screen, and once you’ve spent a couple of minutes with it, it works like a charm.  After I finished the game, I tried to play a FPS with a regular controller, and it seemed so primitive and unintuitive that I may or may not have thrown up.

One thing about the Metroid Prime games is their difficulty.  The first one was very, very difficult.  There were very few save points, a ton of enemies, and huge, obnoxious bosses.  The second game was even harder.  In fact, it seemed like they ramped up the difficulty just because.  Metroid Prime 3 is hard, but for the most point, it’s a fair hard.  By that I mean that the difficulty increases steadily and if you take the time to look around and find all of the hidden items, it’s a highly enjoyable game.

That’s the fun part of the Metroid games, after all.  Look around and try and find all of the hidden items and rooms.  In fact, there is a special room in the game that lets you download maps for the different planets so you know exactly what room all of the goodies are in.  It was exceptionally helpful, and because of it, I was able to finish a Metroid game at 100% for the first time ever.  Awesome!

The game suffers from very few flaws.  Some of the objectives are extremely obscure, and one of the bosses halfway through the game was harder than most of the others.  The game does include a new hint system, but it rarely gives you a hint more helpful than, “Check your map for objectives.”
In short, the game is a fantastic finish to the Prime series.  It’s at least as good as the first one, maybe better.  I love all Metroid games, and to be honest, I’m a little sad to see this series end.  Hopefully they’ll make more somewhere down the line.

Pros:

• Excellent Wii-remote controls
• Extremely fun gameplay
• Several large and beautiful worlds to explore

Cons:

• Somewhat confusing at times
• Slightly unbalanced difficulty

This game has earned a Blatantly Biased:




Btw, you can get the entire series on one disc in Metroid Prime Trilogy, where all three games feature Wii-remote controls for the price of one game!  Totally worth it!  But hurry, it’s already becoming hard to find!