4.5/5 ★ – MichaelROLeary's review of Metroid Prime Remastered.

Metroid Prime Remastered, the long-rumored and somehow shadow-dropped update to the GameCube classic, is a first-person shooter that puts its focus more on vibe and lore than its actual shooting and that’s to the game’s ultimate benefit. To start out, let me clear the air: I love the IDEA of Metroid but had never finished a full Metroid game until now. Admittedly, I have an aversion to the core design of Metroidvanias and how backtracking is a requirement because it feels like I’m not progressing forward. That doesn’t mean I don’t try them, it’s just a “Me” thing, but added on top of that, specifically with this game, I also didn’t own a GameCube until late in the generation so I just happened to miss it entirely due to circumstance of timing. So this is my first time playing Prime at all, let alone finishing it, and I wish I could go back in time to remedy that. This game IS the all-timer its reputation holds and outside a couple of modernization updates I’d like to have seen, like an auto-save feature for instance, its age isn’t that apparent twenty years later. And with the near-constant discussion of the need for a successor to the Switch, this is one of those games that Nintendo can hold up and say “Oh, really?.” It’s pretty stunning and runs about as smooth as anything I’ve been playing on the current gen of PlayStation and Xbox Series consoles. While the Switch may be getting a little long-in-the-tooth, it’s clearly still got some vibrant time left before its retirement. It's no secret that Metroid took heavy inspiration from the Alien film series to the point that the main recurring antagonist is named for Ridley Scott, but it's interesting to see how that inspiration eventually goes both ways between them because it's clear Alien: Isolation took some notes from Prime in how it applies tone to gameplay. A symbiotic relationship between them where each acts as a mutual muse for one another, benefiting the audience as well. Generally speaking, suit and weapon upgrades are the driving force. 1. Explore until you hit a roadblock. 2. Find the upgrade that lets you by the roadblock. 3. Repeat. This doesn’t exactly need much emphasis, there’s a whole genre of game that’s partially named due to Metroid’s format and you’ve got your video game stalwarts: your double jump, your extra shielding, your elemental weapons. They all feel extremely good, they’re dialed in to an extent that is as perfect as they can be, but it is all stuff that could work in any other game. Well, except for one: The Morph Ball. When I was a young lad, I played a ton of Marble Madness on NES, for some reason we had more than a few Milton-Bradley published games — shout out Captain Skyhawk, and I adored the physics-based puzzler even though my dumb kid fingers weren’t all that great at it. Because of that long history with rolling physics, when unlocking the Morph Ball in this 3D environment it just clicked: This aspect of the game is just Marble Madness with different power-ups like the Boost and Spider Balls. It was never something I thought too much about when playing the 2D Metroid games because you don’t have that extra plane to experience momentum, but with Prime I find myself wishing there was a side mode that was strictly randomized Morph Ball puzzles. It feels that good. And yeah I kinda just want to play more Marble Madness now. Something first-person games tend to convey well is the ability to fill me with the feeling of “being there.” I don’t mean just seeing through my character’s eyes, I mean it enhances the aura of the experience. Whether it’s a walking sim where it’s all tone and history lessons or an action-packed shooter that gets the blood pumping, that first-person point-of-view can hammer home that notion for me. And Metroid Prime is a bit of both with those descriptions. The result is a harmonious dance that goes from atmospheric and downright scary at times to classically fun action. It feels like a 60/40 split in favor of the former. Exploring the environments for clues on lore with your scanning visor is the crux of the game and it adds to the feeling of unease around every corner. At one point, when the power goes out in an area causing you to change over to your heat vision visor, it’s panic-inducing. Conversely, there’s just enough battle encounters to shake things up with more traditional action. A small misgiving in the action I encountered is that while the updated control scheme is welcomed, it’s not quite as elegantly implemented as I’d hoped. Juggling visors and weapon types is obviously designed mechanically with the unique button layout of the GameCube controller in mind so it’s a little messy when you need to hot swap but it could also be worse so not a huge complaint. I do find that the further along you get in the game, the encounters start getting a little gratuitous in terms of the Space Pirates. I prefer the cadence of creature encounters while exploring earlier on in the game versus how often those three or four-on-one shootouts are stacked. That’s particularly true for the Phazon Mines East region. The lack of save stations here was a bit of a frustration point for me, which is where my general annoyance with backtracking I mentioned earlier came back into play. Either I retreat to the entrance through the entire area, going through respawned and sometimes enhanced enemies, or I risk it all and just go for it. I initially chose the latter, which caused me to die, so I decided on the next go around I’d go back and save but that just caused everything to slow down and the risk wasn’t worth the reward because of the respawned enemies so I just replayed the same thing multiple times when one extra save station would have made all the difference. I know, I know. “Get good” and all that, but it’s my one pain point because while I have my gripes about save stations as a goal to reach instead of checkpoints, I understand that’s more my personal aversion to the genre rather than an issue in the game’s design. You can’t really get mad at inherent nature and for the most part, their placement in environments feels pretty fair but with how long of a stretch you go without one in Phazon Mines East, it’s the first time in the whole game I muttered to myself, “This isn’t fun.” Thankfully, once you move onto Phazon Mines West that’s not an issue again for the rest of the game. Back to the right amount of save points where I felt challenged but not to the extent where it felt hopelessly redundant. There’s not too much to spoil in the game's ending so I do want to talk about how it chooses to get succinct and direct in its closing. It shows that Samus is victorious in her mission but there’s a hint of regret and sadness in what she’s learned about this lost world, its former inhabitants, and her place in their fate. It contrasts the lengthy and mysterious discovery period of the game with a moment of clarity and the feelings that bring about for the protagonist and, by means of controlling her, me, it holds a lot of impact. In other words, it’s beautifully concise in how it wraps up. So, in the end, yeah Metroid Prime Remastered rips. It’s a lovingly updated version of a long-lauded game and I’m beyond relieved to finally take it off my Shelf of Shame.