4.5/5 ★ – omegaoxide's review of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.

Metroid Prime 2 - 9/10 A Link to the Past on 3D Steroids The Changes: Beams: Now your beams have an ammo pool like that of the missiles, but they get consumed about five times as fast. Map: Much smaller taking an approach to making it more interconnected than Prime 1. Gameplay: The same as prime, but now with a twist of only two beams instead of its four. Instead of overloading with a color match you do the opposite of what color it is, or what world it comes from. Speaking of worlds this game has a light and dark version of its map allowing you to jump back and forth to avoid obstacles. Combat in the dark world is more dangerous as you take damage over time meaning you need to be a lot more aware of your position. Luckily there’s light beacons that counter the effect and heal one energy per second. Progression: You retain the morph ball and the charge beam with you needing to unlock some of the more helpful abilities at the beginning rather than further into the game. Later is where the new and returning from the 2D game abilities get thrown in. This game takes place in respective sections with backtracking every now and then for truly nice unlock system. When in the main area you must explore to the light temple by use of your tools and portals. After that you do the same for getting all three keys to the dark temple to fight the boss. Difficulty: Way harder with no beam upgrades to fall back on which is a good change. However, the replacement for the old beams is two that take ammo. Ammo which is a lot harder to come by compared to the first where they dropped way over the tens with missiles. Each part of the map only has one ammo refill station for a total of five. It’s very frustrating to deal damage with such a high cost. This game has the worst payment in the franchise to deal pain. Level Design: Long disconnected paths in and to the end areas of a map, but with interconnected rooms like the 2D Metroid games do. The added layer of revisiting the same rooms with a dark and twisted version is surprising very deep. The dark world makes up for how small the map feels because it almost doubles the size and changes the rooms enough to feel different. Atmosphere: Brown and purple. It looks pretty good despite its color palettes being very limited. The backstory and map design makes this feel like a war torn wasteland. It feels even more alien than the last game, but you can see the culture of the Luminoth and Ing. Story: Another distress call this time federation in origin on a planet outside of their jurisdiction. You land only to be attacked by a mysterious symbiotic force later explained to be known as the Ing. The luminoth have been fighting a losing battle against them for over a decade. You are the one person that could turn this tide to save the planet of Aether from destruction. (Personal Summary) Best Parts: The gameplay is way more polished and the map is significantly more fun to traverse. The lore is still phenomenal and the world design is extremely unique. I like the gimmick of traveling between two worlds like Link to the Past or Link Between Worlds. Not to mention the key collection at the end isn’t an absolute pain like Prime one was. Worst Parts: The ammo system holds this game back from being balanced in the players favor at all. Most fights will have you relying on the age old charge beam which does not feel very fun. Final Thoughts: I loved this title the first time and I love it even more now. This is a prime game that I feel is overshadowed by its older brother who was the first of its kind. It’s also the only one that has a gimmick and a good one at that. Some of the light/dark powers make me wish we got more alien technology integrated into Samus’ armor in the main series, but it’s rare and not very likely with how the story has progressed. I hope prime 4 takes the ideas from this game to nail the good parts of this title. - 9/10