No better way to end an astonishing Trilogy - 10/10
Metroid Prime 3, a recent release on the Wii, would in short be easily in the top 5 best games i have played in my life. PS User gave it a 90% rating as it's 'best buy' crushing Microsoft's Halo 3 and Sony's Heavenly Sword, even MyWii gave it a 94%. Rivaling that of every other Wii game, or video game in itself. Even it's own past, From the Revolution and impact that of Metroid Prime, and trying to overcome the slight let-down that Echoes became in the Prime Family. Since the first Prime, Hunters and Echoes never matched up to the amazing game that was Metroid Prime. This game though, really stood out and took a new direction along the same path, and quite simply, I could not have asked for a better way to end such an amazing, emotional, and downright Revolutionary Saga of gaming.
The storyline of Corruption continued on from basically the first Prime, at the end Metroid Prime managed to rip off Samus' (sexy) Phazon Suit, and after the place was completely destroyed, she managed to survive inside that suit, echoes, you thought you won but you really hadn't, it continues in this game, facing Dark Samus early in the game and much later on. Ridley makes a comeback, the game lost a lot of veteran fans by not having Ridley in Echoes, gladly Meta Ridley makes it's way back for a nice way to start off the game, and coming to a finish of the game playing Omega Ridley for a nice Climatic Feeling.
Retro Studios once again managed to amaze me at how many things they can put in, and make great features, all without endangered another part of the game. Unlike Super Mario games, this game has a very deep story behind it, with great cinematic with amazing graphics (see below), that didn't drag on for dozens of minutes with just text, this is surely a great way of giving more story with less boredom. There were times when a message would be delivered to Samus on the bottom of the screen that you could read and still be playing. With great cut scenes in between each section, and voice acting by all the characters, it was an amazing story to not only follow, but be a part of.
And i must say it was an amazing way to finish the saga, with the great combinations of features only the Wii could offer, the Story wraps itself in an epic turn of events coming from every corner. Telling you where to go, but only a slight jab on how to actually get there. Creative design techniques, running into old allies that you must destroy, as well as new ones, too, all coming into a climatic finish that any Metroid fan would easily say it was well worth the money.
Story twisted as much as a rubix cube
Not surprised. It always has amazed me at how well the game developers of the Prime series have managed to make this look the equivalent of a Microsoft, even PS3 game, all within the little capacity of a Wii console. The worlds you see are amazing! From a swamp like area or Bryon, to the absolutely amazing Sky World of Elyssia! Where you spend your time doing missions in a suspendable city high up in the clouds! Then heading over to the well built Pirate Homeworld, not as basic as Prime 1, with Ice, Fire, Desert, and Forestlands, but still had a nice way of being creative, offering the ability to be in more depth filled places without going as dark and Gothic as Echoes. More of the places were Electronic too, unlike the Chozo Ruins where it was a bare wasteland (Chozo Ruins were amazing though, don't get me wrong).
The one thing that let me down was the loading time, I got to the point where i would shoot a door and have to wait a few seconds just for it to open, maybe longer. This happened previously in the other games, maybe not to this extent. They could have cut down a bit on the Graphics to help the loading times, but Nintendo always know how to conceal a Loading screen, whether it is During a cinematic, or just when you aren't paying attention, something is always loading preparing you for the next stage of battle. Some are obvious though like your ship flying through the sky, but you can't expect it to be 100% perfect. By by God it was close.
The last thing i rely on Retro for doing is putting the fine details in. I remember watching a Review on Echoes and the guy playing zoomed right up close and in behind the cracks you could see these little creatures all doing their own things on the wall. Small things the average player wouldn't notice. I personally spend my time scanning and looking around, and the things you see are absolutely breath taking and beautiful, especially coming from the Nintendo Wii and the fact that it isn't a super charged processor. Amazing.
Ah, one of the only letdowns i found in this game. Music from the Prime series, heck Metroid series overall has always hit me in the heart and managed to dive deep and give an incredible amount of atmosphere. Chozo Ruins, Tallon Overworld, Sanctuary Fortress, especially boss fights, Meta Ridley, Metroid Prime! I have never heard such deep and amazing music that makes you feel at the centre of the game. Sadly though, as great as the music was in this game, there wasn't much that really stood out and had a nice tune or beat to it that i thoroughly enjoyed.
With cinematics though they did a great sound of implementing sound into the game with characters as well. There may have been some great music, but nothing i could hear. The Echoes starting would have to be one of the coolest things i have ever heard, the beat, the depth, oh wow! Corruption's starting sounded like the Opera or something, really high singing with low dynamics and long duration.
Again, It wasn't as though the music wasn't great in the game, There was a great amount of detail to it, you could hear people talking in the background, again like i said before Retro have a great way of adding the small things that make you love that game that you don't even notice! But i doubt i will go crazy and download some music from Corruption. Great audio though, just not revolutionary.
Didn't blow me off my seat, but better then most games
General Controls:
A or B to shoot aye? My personal Preference is B, i used A for the first part of the game but for some reason i like B better. My only advice to anyone reading this that hasn't played it yet, 'try them both, pick one, don't change'. It becomes very difficult to change after woulds, you get used to one. I personally had some mental problems using the A or B to shoot, i kept pressing C for games like maybe Red Steel. As I'm sure your aware turning into the morphball mid-fight isn't exactly the most productive way to stay alive. Besides that with down on the D-pad to shoot a missile, everything was within the grasp of my hand saving stretching muscles to press a button.
Point and Shoot:
This was the real revolution to the game. After Red Steel tried it for the first game ever, which they did well for, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption blew my pants off at it's advanced controls that do everything you want it to without being to complicated. You could even change the sensitivity to adjust to certain people as well, when you locked on you had the choice of Free Aim, which was great! Even in the morph ball their were features that allowed you to aim where you wanted to charge to. I did enjoy the fact that you changed visors by pointing at the screen, although swapping back to Combat Visor in the middle of a fight became sometimes tricky as the centre one was a bit small.
Motion Sensing:
Obviously not the first Wii game to do this, regardless it did it amazingly. The first thing i noticed which was a
great edition was the fact that you no longer needed to jump in the morphball by laying a bomb first, but you could simply flick the Wii remote into the air and off you went! Instantly able to jump much quicker and easier. Some of the 'switches' where you pulled in and out were more for show i guess, to 'wow' people, sometimes it became very tedious. And the grapple beam, throwing the nunchuck at the enemy or switch or whatever there was to grapple, and then hoisting it away with your very own arms. The controls for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption were a revelation on many levels.
Controls were the main Revolution here
The new edition and the main one to this game is of course Samus' new Hypermode. She accesses Hypermode via her new PED suit she obtains in the game. I personally at first glance though this would be one of those things where it is too strong to use it all the time, meaning you end up saving it for a time you need it which never comes. How wrong I was. It was basically the same principle as i remember the old 'F-zero' games. You have health, and you could boost which would send you further ahead. But every time you used boost it would take the energy off your health, so the more boost you used, the more chance you had of dying.
That's how they worked this, and what a great system it was. Every time you went in it would inject 1 whole energy tank to use in Hypermode, meaning of course that every time you shot it would take off your health. This meant you could use it a hell of a lot more but taught people how to bargain power over life. I hadn't died of using it too much at all either, only i would be 'corrupted' sometimes and you would have to quickly shoot all of the Phazon out of you before it truly took you over.
Although it was used a bit too much in boss fights, the really close ones i would find myself on just over 1 energy tank health and i had to unleash a tonne of Phazon at the enemy, and if i were to do that i would die, no questions asked. Regardless it was still one of the best and newest features about the game.
Just how i wanted it to be...
Every Metroid game has some new visors. Always the Combat and the Scan one, although i found in MP3 things were much easier to scan, rather then seeing a wall with 6 different things to scan on it, it would just be one big thing to scan saving confusion. And as i'm sure any Metroid fan would have easily noticed by now, in the Prime games there are usually those 2, as well as one for spotting out enemies more easily, and one that is just way out there that blows you away!
This game featured some similar ones. For instance the X-ray visor that appeared in Prime 1 is back in this game but in a different light. It looks more like the Thermal/Dark visor from previous games and less like the original X-ray visor. But the original was horrible, you couldn't see anything, it looked like someone turned the lights on inside your TV. As well as the one on Prime 3 when you locked onto an enemy it super imposed them onto a mini screen inside your own visor making them easier to spot out helping in a fair few battles.
The other new one is what was called the Command Visor. This allowed you to control your ship remotely and send it on things like Bombing runs and come land near you even to have like a mobile save point. This was a great feature which also let you upgrade your ship with more parts which was great fun and a great help later on in the game.
Somewhat the same, but redefined
First of all, Turning the Missiles into an Ice missile was a great idea! By far. You could use it to freeze enemies and there were heaps of them meaning that you would barely ever run out finding more ammo everywhere you turned. Next is beams, it had more of an older style game look because each beam became all of the previous ones plus a new feature. From the Power Beam, all the way up to the Nova beam etc. They all the the same as the last with some funky new feature. This was a great idea and it saved time because you had all you needed right there!
There were a fair few weapons that had minor upgrades, for example what we know as the 'Grapple Beam' became a Lasso, the Grapple Voltage, it even got a Hypermode upgrade. Screw Attack made a return, lots of Upgrades in this game in fact, was much more fun with them and i am very glad they managed to put them all in! Still by far my favorite thing to do was Grapple onto an enemy and unleash my own energy into them hurting me but overloading them with energy and absolutely annihilating them!
A simpler but more practical weapon approach
Unlike the Zelda games where you could defeat even the final boss with a flick of the finger, Metroid has a more complicated look at bosses while still offering the simplicity of it all. The main key to defeating one i found was to scan it. It would always 'hint' you in the right direction of how to defeat it no-matter what part of the fight you were upto with the boss. No matter what Shape or Size they all had different traits and different ways to defeat them.
Enemies on the other hand i managed to see a hell of a lot of the same type. I know that it is normally in the same area meaning the bad guys come in a lot. I also know their were various types of enemies with more armour etc, but it didn't often have you do too much else then simply keep shooting at them until they die. But with the awesome control scheme that was not a problem because nothing in this game is more exciting then shooting bad guys!
Not too easy, not too hard, but oh so fun!
Overall: This game deserves a 10/10, I normally give this score, mainly because i only review what i like, but out of everything i have done, this one is by far the greatest game as I'm sure i've explained above. It would be unfair not too
Conclusion:
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for the Nintendo Wii broke boundaries in Video Gaming, setting standards for it's on franchise, Nintendo gaming and Video Gaming across the world. You do not come across many video gamers that would not like this game and if they didn't, they have no idea what a good game is. With stunning graphics pushing an amazing console to it's limits, intuitive Control systems as well as a downright Deep and Atmospheric Story to back it all up, I was on the edge of my seat gripping my Wii-mote like it was a million dollars with my teeth clenched just waiting for the next thing to happen and for the series of events to unravel themselves into a mind blowing Game that ends one of the Best Sequels of one of the best Video Gaming Franchises in existence.
No game is Perfect. But it's rare one get this close.
-
Cham
Oh and i'll leave you with my metroid movie on your way outt
Submitted by Cham-balam
24/11/2007
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