Metroid Prime: Trilogy (review)

Description
Metroid Prime: Trilogy is a 3D first-person adventure and metroidvania video game in the Metroid series and the Metroid Prime subseries of games. It contains three games: Metroid Prime (2002), Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004) and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007). All of the games' main focus is on exploration, scanning the heck out of absolutely everything you can get your visor locked on and finding upgrades to progress. All three games and this trilogy edition were developed by Retro Studios. Trilogy was released in 2009. Since then it has been ported to Wii U digitally in 2015, and it will most likely be remastered for the Nintendo Switch.

Francca
I first found out about this game after playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption during the autumn months of 2016. I later played through Trilogy on the Dolphin Emulator, and since it ran well, I feel that it's justified to judge the game by those experiences.

For starters, for the 40€ original price tag, this game is absolutely worth every single cent. For the current 80€+ price scalper offers on Amazon, eBay and other online retailers? Not so sure. You have to be a really big fan of this trilogy and the Metroid series in general to think that that's worth it, and considering that it's most likely getting ported to Switch for much cheaper, I wouldn't go out on buying the original disc just yet.

That doesn't mean Metroid Prime: Trilogy would be a bad or overrated collection of games, not at all. Something that Metroid games famously do very well is being atmospheric and having a "feel" to it, unrivaled by anything else on the industry. As an IGN journalist would say, there really isn't anything like it, and especially the Prime games really make you feel like you're in Samus' shoes, while still making the gameplay feel extremely personal. All of the games' soundtracks are really good and fit the appropriate mood for the area they play in, and even if not all of them are bangers, they all fit in the moment even if they might not be the most hummable tracks of all time. The first-person visor view was an amazing idea by Retro Studios, and it lends itself to making the main menu and HUD (Heads-Up Display) UI really feel like it's part of the world. Many games (open worlds, shooters and MOBAs in particular) can often clutter the game screen with unnecessary or mostly useless information that takes up a lot of space and doesn't make the game feel more like a world you'd like to visit one day (though there are masterpieces like Super Malario Bros. that barely have any UI at all, making the gameplay extremely streamlined and satisfying). Metroid Prime 1-3 doesn't have that. The visor HUD is minimal, with only the most important things explained that you basically need to see at all times, with the more intricate settings and other options available by pressing 1 on the Wiimote. It might sound like I'm making too big of a deal about just some simple user interfacing, but it really makes a world's difference to the gameplay experience and can even make the game feel much better when done right, even though the game necessarily isn't good overall. Metroid Prime: Trilogy is, though.

Another big pro for the game is its controls. Never has a first-person shooter/adventure felt so immersive and natural to play; gone are the days of having to suffer with the jarring camera controls of dual stick aiming! Yes, I am well aware that Wii Remote pointing controls did not become standard after Prime 3 or Trilogy released for obvious reasons, but you can't tell me otherwise about the absolute fact that the peripheral is easily the best way to use the controls to make the connection between the player and the character. Some of you might be wondering if the controls are inaccurate due to them relying on the Wii and its Sensor Bar, fear not. I played Prime 3: Corruption with a MotionPlus Wii Remote, and while I haven't checked how it fares with a regular Wiimote, I'm quite sure that it'd be atleast good. The world design is also impeccable, as it should be for a metroidvania(s). From the massiveness of Prime 's nearly open world-like map and the innovative multidimensional skipping of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, all the way to Metroid Prime 3: Corruption 's grand-scale planet-hopping and gunship-controlling exploration, every game in the trilogy has a way of making its world feel unique and its own.

More gushing about Metroid in the Pros & Cons section below, because if I'd list literally all the things that Metroid Prime: Trilogy excels at, you'd be here reading this until next Wednesday.

Pros

 * Amazing atmosphere
 * Some of the best music of its genre
 * Excellent world and sound design
 * Intuitive and immersive motion controls
 * Great combat in the first two games, especially in Prime
 * Well aged graphics and good character models (including the best suit design for Samus, yet and since!)
 * Rich lore and scan logs make for a great backdrop to situate the games' events in
 * Includes Metroid Prime 2: Echoes' multiplayer mode as a bonus, which makes the game have more value, play time-wise
 * Cool box art lol

Cons

 * Some bosses are too simple or annoyingly designed, though most are fine or great
 * A few backtracking sections can get tideous, mostly in the first Prime
 * Prime 3 's combat is bad. Like, really bad.
 * If you somewhat know what you're doing on the first playthrough already, the games can be over quite quickly, especially if you don't want to fully complete them
 * Some upgrades in Prime can feel boring as most are just 3D-ified Super Metroid upgrades

Individual Ratings
Francca: 8/10

Final Rating
8/10