I think the Phazon Mines design was intentionally. It's one of the only stretches of the game where you have to actively manage damage taken as the enemies at that point hit hard, and you can't just blast your way through due to the beam switching.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
LTTP: Metroid Prime Remastered - Is it still great, or is it nostalgia?
- Thread starter darthkarki
- Start date
Kataploom
Gold Member
My complain is not the difficulty, it's about the lack of save points, I think they messed that up badly. I hate that way of doing "difficulty", it just feels like cheap time sink. The game is properly difficult there, they didn't need to remove save points. Whomever had that idea did a bad job.
Old metroid games have ALWAYS a section like that... Metroid Dread upped the general difficulty and added some checkpoints, that's the proper way of doing difficulty imo.
Well I finally finished the game and I still stand by my criticisms of the game. Don't get me wrong the game is a 10/10, absolutely loved it but there were a few issues with it still.
Most importantly as previously pointed out, storywise I was expecting a bit more than was given. No issues with finding bits of lore in environment and piecing what was going on on the planet but rather some overarching context. Just briefly telling who Samus is and why she followed Ridley to Tallon IV would've gone a long way. Similarly what a metroid is etc.
I like the map but it could've benefited from having some marker or clue as to which bomb and missile upgrades you haven't picked up yet. You might have already noted that there is a secret path hidden but locked due to not having the tool yet. The map doesn't take a huge time to traverse but finding all 50 missile upgrades was painful. Even after watching a guide and seeing all locations, there were a couple that I thought I'd already picked up but turns out I hadn't. To be sure I had to go through one by one and that took longer than I would've liked.
Combat is not the best but it is what it is. Really didn't enjoy enemies such as fission metroids when you have to switch weapon mid-fight as the controls for doing that is very clunky.
But yea despite this absolutely amazing game and I really hope they'll release remasters of the second and third.
Most importantly as previously pointed out, storywise I was expecting a bit more than was given. No issues with finding bits of lore in environment and piecing what was going on on the planet but rather some overarching context. Just briefly telling who Samus is and why she followed Ridley to Tallon IV would've gone a long way. Similarly what a metroid is etc.
I like the map but it could've benefited from having some marker or clue as to which bomb and missile upgrades you haven't picked up yet. You might have already noted that there is a secret path hidden but locked due to not having the tool yet. The map doesn't take a huge time to traverse but finding all 50 missile upgrades was painful. Even after watching a guide and seeing all locations, there were a couple that I thought I'd already picked up but turns out I hadn't. To be sure I had to go through one by one and that took longer than I would've liked.
Combat is not the best but it is what it is. Really didn't enjoy enemies such as fission metroids when you have to switch weapon mid-fight as the controls for doing that is very clunky.
But yea despite this absolutely amazing game and I really hope they'll release remasters of the second and third.
MrJangles
Member
Playing it for the first time these past 48 hours but I just can't stomach the constant backtracking. Its beyond a joke. I've opened up that Chozo Ruins area, the lava filled area and the snow covered area. Last night I uncovered a new section that told me I need to find 12 relics and I switched off. I just know its going to be constant back & forth (again). Fast travel & auto-save should have been added to this remaster.
Thanks but no thanks.
Thanks but no thanks.
Big Baller
Al Pachinko, Konami President
You need to memorize the map and go with the flow, you will unlock/collect most things on your path if you do.
It’s still great, if you have a good memory and map reading skills you can avoid getting lost too often but many it seems struggle with it. Only annoyance I had with replaying it was that I missed a single missile expansion and so aren’t on 100%. I don’t know which I missed as I didn’t use a guide and don’t fancy wading through a YouTube video to see which one it was.
cireza
Member
It is a game about exploration. The main thing you have to do is explore, find your route, remember where to come back.
It is not a corridor or an open-world where you can't get lost. Metroid is the kind of game that still requires investment, memorization and thinking from the player, which is something that has gradually disappeared to the profit of bloated/tedious "work-games" where you turn off your brain and are rewarded with progress for simply doing a dumb, infinite list of tasks that are constantly reminded to you.
If you can't invest yourself in a game, don't play something like Metroid.
Last edited:
MrJangles
Member
Completely different games but Super Metroid, SOTN, Ori, Pankapu, etc are huge favourites of mine. Maybe its the different perspective, I dunno, put this particular Metroidvania isn't clicking with me. That it looks so gorgeous adds to the disappointment.
cireza
Member
Too bad, you are missing on a fantastic trilogy, and a fourth upcoming game.
ChoosableOne
ChoosableAll
I tried the og twice, but couldn't get into it. 2d ones are better. I got stuck at one point in Metroid Zero Mission and couldn't continue, but I will definitely finish it one day.
cireza
Member
Not really. Both 2D and 3D are excellent series. 2D is simply more approachable.
Last edited:
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
The remaster / remake is quite a welcome visual update of a classic that holds up today. Minus the minor worsening of some particle effects like the snow… less of a thick flurry :/.Sheesh, this ended up way longer than I expected. TLDR: I didn't love the game. Too much backtracking, poor level design, no story, annoying combat. But what do you think? What do you like/not like about it?
================================
I just completed Metroid Prime Remastered. This is my first Metroid game, and perhaps being somewhat overhyped by the praise the original has received over the years I'm left mostly underwhelmed.
I've wanted to play the Prime trilogy for a long time but haven't had the opportunity. They are some of my brother's favorite games, I'd say they are considered classics - well received at release, and that opinion doesn't seem to have shifted over time - and I love "Metroidvania" style games (despite the fact that I've never played a Metroid or Castlevania). I was very excited hearing about remastering efforts for the Switch as that would allow me to finally try them out - with a facelift to boot.
The good:
- The remaster is very well done. It easily stands among the best looking Switch games. I love how many control options were included - however you want to play, you're likely covered.
- The overall conceit is perhaps unoriginal but still classic and always appealing - traveling through space, exploring alien worlds, fighting monsters. A lot of the environments have a good sense of atmosphere.
- The different visors is a very interesting concept, although I don't think the implementation was quite perfect. I did enjoy scanning everything around the environments, building up logs, and learning story details through them.
- Some of the puzzle elements were pretty cool - finding out you could double-hop with the morph ball bombs blew my mind. Wish there was more of that!
The less good:
- Starting with the worst design element: backtracking. Dear God, this was so annoying. At least half of the playtime is just endlessly traversing across the same damn corridors and rooms over and over to get from one end of the map to another.
- This game is desperately crying out for fast travel spots, and honestly just including that one thing would make it so much more enjoyable. Returnal did this perfectly - it's a very similar design with branching corridors and rooms, but a handful of fast travel spots drastically reduces the frustration and wasted time of backtracking.
- Alternatively (or even better, additionally), this could be ameliorated by better level design with more interconnectivity and shortcuts. I love in games like Demon's Souls where you will fight hard through a long gauntlet to get to new areas, but then will open a new door that allows you to instantly walk right there in the future. In Prime, you may enter an area and make your way to the objective by one path and come back by another, but both paths are super long and annoying to re-traverse. It doesn't make it any faster to get back, just different, and that's not better.
- To me, the biggest draw of the Metroidvania style is the progressive acquirement of new tools that allow new actions and access to new areas. I'll see something I can't access yet, but then acquire the necessary tool, allowing me to come back and try again. But when that requires walking for miles back through a hundred boring corridors filled with the same stupid respawning enemies to get there, and then back again when I'm ready to continue, I have absolutely no desire to try.
- Level design.For the most part, the game is one long corridor after another. It's just not very interesting. There are a few smaller areas that buck this trend - Chozo Ruins and Phendrana Drifts have some more interesting rooms and some paths that interconnect and loop back on themselves - but those are the exception. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the Magmoor Caverns. That entire area is literally one long corridor: in almost every room, you enter one side and walk out the opposite. There are exactly two rooms in which there are more than one enter and one exit door, and they don't even lead to extra paths, just one room sticking off the side.
- Again, this problem is exacerbated by the fact that you have to continually re-traverse these same boring corridors over and over. It might not be the height of level design across the industry, but it would at least be less aggressively in-your-face about it if it just had fast travel spots or a few more shortcuts.
- Story. ...What story?
Seriously though, I was surprised that there is basically no story or characters (besides what you glean off of scanning - more on that later). I was under the impression the Metroid series was a little bit more narratively driven. There is not a single line of dialogue. There are a handful of short cutscenes that amount to "you arrived somewhere" or "you departed somewhere". This is my understanding of the plot:
- Samus goes to investigate a derelict ship's distress beacon. It seems like there are some monsters aboard that attacked the crew.
- I fight a big monster.
- What is this? Why do I care?
- A metal space dragon shows up and then leaves. I follow it to the nearby planet.
- Why do I follow it? What is the space dragon? Why do I care?
- I wander around killing wildlife and collecting bits of my equipment that is lying around for some reason. I think I'm trying to find the dragon but have no idea if what I'm doing is heading towards that goal. It seems there are more intelligent aliens doing some kind of experiments as well.
- I find a bunch of glowing keys and bring them to a temple and the dragon shows up now for some reason. It attacks me for some reason, so I kill it.
- Why can't I leave the planet now? Isn't finding the dragon why I was here?
- I use the keys to open a passage into a cave beneath the temple. Since I can't leave, I explore.
- There is a big glowy monster down there that attacks me, so I kill it. Now I can leave.
- What is the monster? Why do I care if it lives down there? The previous civilization is already gone, what more damage can it do?
I'm being somewhat facetious - since when do we balk at shooting anything that moves in a game? My point the game doesn't really explain anything that is happening or why it matters.
- Of course, this is completely ignoring what I already noted: scanning. I actually really appreciate that kind of storytelling and piecing together what happened to the previous civilization and the details of what the space pirates are working on. However, I think that should be additive, not the entirety of the game's story. I think the fundamental, core plot should be presented in a more traditional fashion.
- Poor combat. I'm not terribly fond of FPSs in general, but some do better than others at delivering satisfying feeling combat. A few elements that I think contribute to this: interesting and varied player weapons and abilities, enemy variety and behavior, and hit reactions.
- All Samus really has is a gun. Even if there is a lot of variety in guns, I need something else - grenades, a melee attack, something - so that I'm not just shooting endlessly. It gets repetitive. I know that technically you have morph ball bombs also, but you can't use them for most combat scenarios. It's really a puzzle tool for specific use cases.
- There are a fair number of enemy types, I wouldn't say that's a problem. Some of them, specifically the wildlife, have some more interesting behaviors as well. But in the second half you're constantly facing waves of space pirates and Chozo ghosts, and they got old really fast. They shoot a couple shots, then maybe move a little bit, and then repeat ad nauseum.
- Some enemies have reactions to certain beams: some can be frozen, and that is fun. But most have no reaction to your shots. You just fire until they die, and nothing really interesting ever happens.
- Lastly, but perhaps most importantly: so many of the enemies are the most ridiculous bullet sponges. The bosses especially are guilty of this. It's just not fun spending minutes on end tapping the same button over and over to shoot the same enemy over and over with the same weapon over and over until they die.
- Respawning enemies. Considering you retrace your steps through the same areas multiple times, it wouldn't make sense for you to clear out an area and then never face an enemy there again. But it also sucks spending a ton of time fighting stupid bullet sponge enemies, going two rooms away and coming back, and then having the exact same goddamned enemies reappear. It at least needs some randomness and variability. Of course it's worsened by the fact the combat just isn't very fun to begin with. I ended up just racing through rooms as quickly as I could and avoiding every combat encounter possible, which I do not find to be a ringing endorsement.
- Visors. I actually really like this idea, and using it in exploration was very enjoyable. But you also need to use it in - you guessed it - combat, and I feel like the effects were designed to be used for slower paced exploration. It's just too blurry, disorienting, and hard to see when you're moving quickly and trying to track multiple targets.
- Gaminess. This is really subjective and personal. Everyone has different tastes and different levels of tolerance for realism vs gaminess. I love the realism of The Last of Us and I love the gaminess of Mario. In Metroid Prime though I feel there's a bit of a disconnect between the realism of the environments and story, and the gaminess of this immense amount of your personal equipment spread out all over this planet in bespoke rooms, floating in some kind of technology implying that it's meant to just be sitting there, but... why? And then you have these doors that for some reason have to be shot by different types of beams from your gun to open, which... just doesn't make sense. Samus' suit design kind of goes here too - the artstyle is maybe too faithful to the 2D originals while the environments have become much more realistic. It stands out in an odd way.
- The ending. The final boss fight(s) were quite dramatic and impressive, minus the bullet sponginess. But the ending after that... oh my word. Anti-climactic is an understatement. Text states the area is collapsing, so I thought I was going to have to escape like on the ship at the beginning. But no, it cuts and you appear outside. The ground is rumbling, it feels like everything is going to come down. You call your ship, it arrives, you jump on, look back, and... there's a little fire on the ground. The end. The whole thing is maybe a minute long.
I recognize I'm coming at this 22 years later, and there have been a lot of advancements since then. Many of the things that have been done better in later games were done first here, and it was probably very innovative at the time. But we do have different standards now, and that's kind of my point/question: is this really still a great game now?
I'd compare this to something like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I also recently played that for the first time, and it was magical. It absolutely stands the test of time and is fantastic to play now even for the first time.
Personally, if someone is looking for Metroidvania style games today, I wouldn't recommend this one. I think there are far better examples:
If anyone managed to make it through this book, how are Prime 2 and 3 in comparison? Did they do anything to improve on the elements I did not enjoy? Or is it mostly more of the same?
- The Batman Arkham series
- God of War 2018 and Ragnarok
- The Ori games
- Returnal
- Probably more but that's all I can think of at the moment.
nkarafo
Member
Since this thread got bumped i thought i would post again since i replayed it recently.
It's a 9/10 for me. What prevents it being a perfect game are three things (a couple i mentioned already in older posts):
- The forced constant weapon switching. Super Metroid did this better by merging all the beams. In Prime they are separate so you have to switch in order to open weapon specific doors and kill weapon specific enemies. This is tedious. They could at least make the doors become generic ones after you unlock them with the right beam once, if they really wanted to keep the separate beams design. There's no point unlocking them every time.
- The loud music when the ghosts appear. Very annoying, i always dread these rooms for this reason. Plus, the ghosts are boring to kill and take too long.
- The Magmoor Caverns are not very exciting. Now this isn't really fair because i'm comparing it to Super Metroid. In that game, the lava area was very late in the game (Lower Norfair Ruins) and was the most dangerous one and the music reflected that. In Prime, the lava area is kinda like the main hub where most other areas are connected. You revisit it more times than any other and it becomes very mundane and common. And the music remix is also not nearly as good, it's far more monotone and less bombastic. But i guess that makes sense since they made the area that way. The original epic Norair Ruins theme would not fit. I think it would be better if they used the upper Norfair theme instead.
These issues prevent the game from being perfect for me. And it is perfect otherwise. Especially considering the low expectations before the original was released.
It's a 9/10 for me. What prevents it being a perfect game are three things (a couple i mentioned already in older posts):
- The forced constant weapon switching. Super Metroid did this better by merging all the beams. In Prime they are separate so you have to switch in order to open weapon specific doors and kill weapon specific enemies. This is tedious. They could at least make the doors become generic ones after you unlock them with the right beam once, if they really wanted to keep the separate beams design. There's no point unlocking them every time.
- The loud music when the ghosts appear. Very annoying, i always dread these rooms for this reason. Plus, the ghosts are boring to kill and take too long.
- The Magmoor Caverns are not very exciting. Now this isn't really fair because i'm comparing it to Super Metroid. In that game, the lava area was very late in the game (Lower Norfair Ruins) and was the most dangerous one and the music reflected that. In Prime, the lava area is kinda like the main hub where most other areas are connected. You revisit it more times than any other and it becomes very mundane and common. And the music remix is also not nearly as good, it's far more monotone and less bombastic. But i guess that makes sense since they made the area that way. The original epic Norair Ruins theme would not fit. I think it would be better if they used the upper Norfair theme instead.
These issues prevent the game from being perfect for me. And it is perfect otherwise. Especially considering the low expectations before the original was released.
Last edited:
Big Baller
Al Pachinko, Konami President
Yeah, I still hate the combat music in Prime lol.
keefged4
Member
Honestly I play through Prime 1 and 2 at least once every year
IAmRei
Member
I'm kind of the same, but widen the games to MP and Castlevania as whole, last year I finished their 4 games.
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
Legit.
To me, what brings the game a little down from absolute perfection is mostly:
- enemy respawns being beyond ridiculous. There is little in gaming I hate more than that tall room in Magmoor where you just have to let the door close behind you when you leave, and you know those goddamn turrets will be there again as soon as you open the door. Which makes no sense, too, seeing that the respawn isn’t so obsessive in other rooms. Same for the rooms with the flying pirates; that one room in Phendrana and the labs are a chore to backtrack through.
- ghosts and elemental pirates being such bullet sponges. The ice pirates, especially, are a PITA. Pirates make you burn through your missile ammo so fast it’s not funny.
- even when you have your full equipment, backtracking rarely gets that much faster. As you said, you have to go through Magmoor so many times, and there’s plenty of rooms that still take a load of time to travel through in ball form.
- there’s no in-game way to check item pickup percentage. I understand this is a QoL feature that gaming picked up a bit later, but going back to look for that couple of missile tanks you’ve missed can be horrible. This is even worse in Echoes, but Prime has its share of cleverly hidden pickups that can be a nightmare to find.
Still solidly in my top 10 of all time. Such an amazing game.
nkarafo
Member
Yeah, i suppose they needed to balance things a bit with the respawns. The turrets being one of those things that didn't need to re-spawn. I would also completely delete the ghosts from the game code after you kill them, lol.
Now that i think of it, i'm sure most of these issues could be easily fixed with a mod/fan made patch. That would be great.
Now that i think of it, i'm sure most of these issues could be easily fixed with a mod/fan made patch. That would be great.
Last edited:
GametimeUK
Member
I find that games where the gameplay mechanics are the main focus are often the ones that show their age more over time. Metroid Prime for example can't really hold any merit based on its combat system, but the main "metroidvania" elements with its light exploration, cool level design and backtracking through areas with the mental map you've made in your own mind is such a cool experience to the point it won't ever age badly for me. It was incredible when I first played it in 2005 and it's still incredible now.
Same goes with the exploration, backtracking and puzzle solving in the classic RE games.
Same goes with the exploration, backtracking and puzzle solving in the classic RE games.
Wish I still had 2 and 3, I'd have replayed them both by now following 1 and before 4.
OGM_Madness
Member
I’m still hoping for a Port of Prime 2 and 3 for Switch before Prime 4.
Robb
Gold Member
They will appear in some form. I can’t see them choosing to name the game numerically with “4” after a 18 year absence and not re-releasing prior titles.
LavitzSlambert
Member
Really? Because that’s exactly something I would expect from Nintendo. I think experiencing Echoes and Corruption might actually chase people away from the series unless they’re modernized as much as 4 is (probably not). Rather, I think they’ll lead with 4 and re-release 2 and 3 after, and potentially sell to a wider/more curious audience. Also they won’t be tired of Metroid before 4 releases.
Robb
Gold Member
Do you have any examples of this?
Prior to Pikmin 4, which was on a 10 year hiatus, they re-released Pikmin 3 and Pikmin 1+2 - for example.
LavitzSlambert
Member
They did it with Dread ahead of Fusion and Zero Mission rereleases on NSO. Not exactly the same, since they also did Samus Returns a few years back.
Come to think of it, they also did it with Metroid Prime and Fusion back in the day when Metroid wasn’t relevant for years, then they released Zero Mission. I doubt it would have been as well received the other way around.
DragoonKain
Neighbours from Hell
Backtracking in and of itself is necessary for all Metroidvanias. The problem with Prime is the auto locked doors that slow down the pacing and force you to clear out entire rooms. But it's not TOO bad. It's just a little annoying when exploring. But in this game in particular fast travel would ruin the experience because you find so many things when going back through areas that you can enter when you get upgrades. But that and auto-save are still more legit complaints than backtracking. Every single Metroidvania has you going back through old areas over and over again. Not sure why anyone would even play the genre if they dislike that.
Robb
Gold Member
Yeah, but Dread also wasn’t a numbered sequel.
I’d find it very unlikely for them to release Metroid Prime 1 followed by the 4th installment, with no easy way to play 2 and 3 prior to 4.
darthkarki
Member
I understand if you didn't get through the ridiculously long OP, but I do explain why in the first couple points. It's not backtracking as a concept, it's the excessive amount that is required here in conjunction with the poor, boring level design and combat.
Shaki12345
Member
If there's anything that isn't wrong with MP, it's level design. It's all been deliberately designed. You can make a case for Magmoor Caverns, which needed more elevators. But the level design is what makes this a outstanding game, among other things obviously.
DragoonKain
Neighbours from Hell
I wasn't responding to your post with mine. But since you brought it up, I disagree with the level design. I actually think it has some of the better designed levels in gaming. I love all the hidden areas and secrets and diversity in types of puzzles and kinds of areas. Combat I've played better, but it was a 20+ year old game and it's still pretty good. I just don't compare it to FPS because it's not a true shooter, it's a Metroid game. It's pretty well aligned with other Metroid titles in terms of combat. Metroid games just might not be your thing.
Big Baller
Al Pachinko, Konami President
Cant believe they released the Prime trilogy in 5 years time.
nordique
Member
When you put it that way, it’s remarkable. All 3 games were fantastic and still hold up well
Soapbox Killer
Grand Nagus
When it was released almost 25 years ago it was possibly the greatest pure video game ever made.
Not much has changed since. There might be 8 games made since then that are better…maybe.
Not much has changed since. There might be 8 games made since then that are better…maybe.
Zephyranthes
Member
Prime 1 is an incredible game. It is not, however, a perfect game, and it's natural that some people are going to be put off more by its flaws than others. Yes, some of the pathfinding can be unclear at times on your first run, and tracking down the 12 artifacts can be tedious. I personally found the game's way of delivering narrative via scan logs to be a good fit for the game's setting, but I can also see how others may not care for it and prefer more direct storytelling via cutscenes/dialogue.
Shifty1897
Member
I feel like I never understood the hype behind the Prime series. I made myself finish the remaster and it was fine, but I don't think it's better than the 2D Metroids. I guess the nicest thing I could say was that it probably had the second best first person jumping I've ever experienced, with the first being Bioshock Infinite.
darthkarki
Member
Welp, I was content to let sleeping dogs lie, but then you all bumped the thread and got me annoyed with this game all over again
I think we're talking past each other a bit - a lot of the defenses of the game are responding to straw men or criticisms no one has made, as opposed to the actual complaints I and others have levied.
Who exactly is complaining about getting lost? Where is this coming from? The game literally includes a map, how would getting lost even be possible?
It appears that many who enjoyed the game aren't actually reading or comprehending the criticism, and instead assuming if someone didn't like the game, it's because it was "too hard" and they should go play baby games and leave Metroid Prime to the galaxy-brain chads. A perfect example:
Otherwise there's really no point to this forum.
What exactly requires memorization or thinking? If there was no in-game map that would make sense, but there is - what do you need to memorize? At any point in the game your only goal is to move along mostly linear corridors to get to areas you haven't been yet - what about that requires thinking? I would agree that your enjoyment is going to depend in large part upon how invested you are in the world, but my point is that there is extremely little there to draw you in, and the gameplay you will be engaging with in the process is lacking. It just isn't up to today's standards. Everything has been done better elsewhere.
That does indeed wear you down, because it's not fun. It's not good design. It's not engaging. It's precisely because the game isn't asking enough as far as exploration and creative decision making in the moment-to-moment gameplay that it becomes boring. It's not that it's hard, it's not taxing my poor smooth brain or my reflexes, it's just repetitive.
I totally believe that you and others consider it a masterpiece, and I'm really not even trying to change your mind. I honestly, truly just want to know: what is it that makes it a masterpiece in your opinion? Trying to put aside nostalgia (which is exceptionally hard for all of us), mechanically, what does this game do in its design that hasn't been done better since?
What would you say are the defining characteristics of a Metroidvania?
Put another way, it shouldn't be possible to complete the game and have no idea why the main character is where they are, what they are doing/trying to accomplish, what this metal dragon is and why they're chasing it, etc. The bare essentials of the plot shouldn't be optional or dependent on knowledge of previous games.
I think we're talking past each other a bit - a lot of the defenses of the game are responding to straw men or criticisms no one has made, as opposed to the actual complaints I and others have levied.
Who exactly is complaining about getting lost? Where is this coming from? The game literally includes a map, how would getting lost even be possible?
It appears that many who enjoyed the game aren't actually reading or comprehending the criticism, and instead assuming if someone didn't like the game, it's because it was "too hard" and they should go play baby games and leave Metroid Prime to the galaxy-brain chads. A perfect example:
Who is asking for a list of tasks? What on earth are you talking about? I'd really love to have a meaningful discussion on the merits of this game and game design in general, but you've got to put a bit more effort into understanding what others are saying.
Otherwise there's really no point to this forum.What exactly requires memorization or thinking? If there was no in-game map that would make sense, but there is - what do you need to memorize? At any point in the game your only goal is to move along mostly linear corridors to get to areas you haven't been yet - what about that requires thinking? I would agree that your enjoyment is going to depend in large part upon how invested you are in the world, but my point is that there is extremely little there to draw you in, and the gameplay you will be engaging with in the process is lacking. It just isn't up to today's standards. Everything has been done better elsewhere.
It is indeed asking a lot - a lot of repeated traversal of the same corridors and fighting the same enemies.
That does indeed wear you down, because it's not fun. It's not good design. It's not engaging. It's precisely because the game isn't asking enough as far as exploration and creative decision making in the moment-to-moment gameplay that it becomes boring. It's not that it's hard, it's not taxing my poor smooth brain or my reflexes, it's just repetitive.I totally believe that you and others consider it a masterpiece, and I'm really not even trying to change your mind. I honestly, truly just want to know: what is it that makes it a masterpiece in your opinion? Trying to put aside nostalgia (which is exceptionally hard for all of us), mechanically, what does this game do in its design that hasn't been done better since?
Maybe not. This is what I stated in the OP:
To me, the biggest draw of the Metroidvania style is the progressive acquirement of new tools that allow new actions and access to new areas. I'll see something I can't access yet, but then acquire the necessary tool, allowing me to come back and try again.
What would you say are the defining characteristics of a Metroidvania?
As I stated in the OP, I love scanning as well:
I actually really appreciate that kind of storytelling and piecing together what happened to the previous civilization and the details of what the space pirates are working on. However, I think that should be additive, not the entirety of the game's story.
Put another way, it shouldn't be possible to complete the game and have no idea why the main character is where they are, what they are doing/trying to accomplish, what this metal dragon is and why they're chasing it, etc. The bare essentials of the plot shouldn't be optional or dependent on knowledge of previous games.
touchfuzzy
Member
It was a masterpiece then and even better now with the normal controls and enhanced graphics.
"Not getting it" doesn't make you some super smart gamer that's figured out some long lost secret. Arguing that Metroid Prime has 'poor level design' (lol) would suggest the opposite.
"Not getting it" doesn't make you some super smart gamer that's figured out some long lost secret. Arguing that Metroid Prime has 'poor level design' (lol) would suggest the opposite.
Shaki12345
Member
A lot people don't get Metroid Prime because unlike most games, this game doesn't hold your hand and it actually requires some brainpower, patience and intelligence. These people are used to following mission markers like a mouse follows the scent of cheese.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
If you want a Metroid game with more story and less backtracking, there's always Other M.
kevboard
Member
in short... it's an actual Action Adventure. that term has lost most of its meaning these days, but yeah... this is an actual action adventure without any "modernisms"