I have very fond memories as a kid playing games on my Nintendo GameCube, one of them being my first introduction to a character I loved to use in “Super Smash Bros.” that of Samus Aran in “Metroid Prime.” Over the years, whenever I feel nostalgic and play an old GameCube game, I pop this game in and immediately get annoyed at how it plays. Having come out before the standard way of how to play a first-person shooter, it was always super difficult to adjust to how to play in the old days. Back in 2017 during E3 it was announced that a Metroid Prime 4 was coming (still waiting for a good update on that one) and it was only a matter of time for Nintendo to dust off this classic and give it a little polish. Well, this was the week, not only was “Metroid Prime Remastered” announced at this latest Nintendo Direct, but it also dropped in the Nintendo eShop the very same day, which made it one of the most exciting announcements during the show and pleasantly surprised many fans, including myself.
Developed once again by Retro Studios, as well as help from Iron Galaxy Studios, how well of a remaster did they end up conceiving? For me, it’s a borderline on being a full-on remake rather than a remaster, and that’s the best thing anyone could have asked for. For a game that’s over 20 years old now, I won’t get into a full description of the story, but essentially Samus listens in on a distress signal and finds out there are space pirates up to no good, she takes it upon herself to kick some pirate booty (see what I did there?) and you deal with monstrous aliens and boss fights along the way, all without pretty much zero dialogue, it’s a very silent and eerie game because of that.
Right off the bat, what’s more noticeable than the great new graphics, is “Metroid Prime” finally has modernized controls. No more will you be using a singular joystick to move around, you can finally use two, and it feels amazing. With this extra freedom in movement, it feels like a whole new game in a way. There is a potential downside to this though, because it’s so much easier to control, fighting enemies has gotten incredibly easy. I don’t think they compensated your extra movement for how you interact with the villainess aliens, they seem to think you’re slower than you are and dodging their attacks is a bit of a breeze.
For a Nintendo Switch game, one that originally came out in 2002, it’s one of the best-looking titles in the Switch catalog. I expected this to just be the original game, but the graphics just up-rezzed as high as possible, but while everything is the same, it’s all also very different, the maps are the same, but things like a console of computer screens on a wall seem to be completely redone, everything just feels fresh, which is why to me it felt more like a remake, I think the developers had to recreate everything from scratch. So, this classic looks great and even plays great now, what else is new? The only other thing I noticed was they added an easy casual mode, which after playing it seems a little baffling because it’s already incredibly easy.
That’s about it I believe, and that’s all it really needs to be. With all the quality-of-life improvements, there is one that is omitted, and I feel is very needed, that of an autosave feature. Without check points you are still limited to specific manual saves as you progress. Normally that wouldn’t be the biggest issue, but for a game with a lot of backtracking and a lot of areas to explore you can run the chance of stumbling upon a boss fight you weren’t prepared for, if that happens, like it did for me, you could potentially lose a lot of progress (I lost 30 minutes).
There’s not much else to say here, “Metroid Prime Remastered” is pretty dang awesome, it reinvigorated a classic game giving it a fresh coat of paint and much needed tune ups, the rest is about the same. I’m excited for newer generations to discover one of the best Metroid games out there for the first time. I can’t help but wonder if “Metroid Prime 4” is not far off on the horizon, or maybe 2 and 3 will get similar treatments to this one beforehand. Either way, I hope this game succeeds (again) and we get much more Metroid in the future.
9/10
For more information, visit: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/metroid-prime-remastered-switch/
Related: Nick Navarro Reviews
Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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