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

Metroid Prime: Remastered 2023 Delayed Review- 9/10 Prime Gaming on the Switch The Changes: Visual Effects: Beautiful new graphics that have an intense shine to them. Metals on samus’ suit absolutely sparkles when interacting with the maps lighting sources. New controls: Modern shooter controls are a definite change almost overshadowing the motion controls from the prime trilogy. Fixes: Some textures have been fixed after being broken on the trilogy release like the arm cannon having animated textures for the different beams. Gameplay: A fps with mechanics that revolve around scanning and puzzle solving. The scanner gives you the lore details and information on enemies weaknesses plus their place within the world’s environment. Puzzles are big difference from the regular 2D Metroid games, it’s what makes this its own thing with a unique identity. It could be simply scanning a few things or finding a weakness within the map to exploit to open more of it. It does fall a little flat on its face in the shooter department with beams that completely make the previous beam unlocks irrelevant, however it tries to fix this with color matching damage increases in the final parts to promote swapping beams. Missiles and other upgrades for your ammo capacity are less than worthless because of the overpowered beams, but those beams can use a secret charge attack that you can find for each beam hidden in the map. Those charge attacks use the missiles but plasma beam is the only one that isn’t completely useless. Progression: Similar to a 2D game, but now with more split paths than ever before. You typically visit and area clearing as much as you can then go to Magmoor Caverns an unbelievable amount of times. Most of the basic power ups from super Metroid make their return in full glory and is probably the closest of the primes to mimic its item progression system. The ending however is locked behind keys that are hidden around the map, which was no problem for me this time since I grabbed a few thanks to me playing this twice before. For a new player however, your key collection is probably zero and getting them is going to add an hour or so more of game time with the worst part of this game. Difficulty: Very easy even on the hardest of difficulties in the game. Like I said overpowered beams and even the plasmas overcharged function. Could definitely use a rebalance on the hardest difficulties to actually throw a wrench in the plans of overly confident players. Level Design: Unfortunately it is very linear in several sections of the map with the first area being one of the more explorable and the ruins topping even that. Magmoor Caverns unfortunately is the be all end all best way to traverse the map effectively, but it is the blandest straight line section of the entire planet of Tallon IV. Magmoor is the splinter in the side of this game that murders the pacing. It is typically the end game highway that many other Metroidvanias use to help with backtracking forced in as the central location that is part of the primary game. I’m absolutely confused as to why they made this location so boring and a necessary evil to getting around the planet. Atmosphere: Very good and adventurous like Metroid 2. You are investigating what the pirates are doing here and how you can put a stop to it. You can gather files on their inhumane experiments both on the opening ship and their bases on Tallon IV below. It just feels so foreign and alien nailing exactly what the Super Metroid did for 2D in a beautiful 3D environment. Every once of this place makes ecosystem feel exceptionally real and believable. Story: Distress call for a ship that turns out to be a space pirate ship experimenting with something called Phazon. Both this ship and the planet below have been colonized by the pirates and their efforts must be stopped to save the Galaxy from disaster. (Personal Summary) Best Parts: Well done lore with environmental storytelling to match. This game cements the formula for the rest of the prime games going forward and even sets up a story for with a secret 100% cutscene. Collecting feels just as good as the 2D games despite being twenty times easier thanks to the sound cues for nearby items. Worst Parts: Magmoor and the key collection to open the final boss. The pacing is set on fire and gets tomatoes thrown at it once it comes down to getting to the final boss. It is by far one of the worst endgame collection events I’ve seen in a videogame. Final Thoughts: A gem to be sure that does everything well til the end where it falls off an 1000 foot cliff. It’s definitely a very good game and repeat playthroughs make the final section obsolete to a degrees since you already know where to look. One of the most unique fps games that really does puzzles good and lore exceptionally well thanks to the scanning. By no means does it top any of the best 2D games, but this definitely is a great Metroid title. - 9/10