[Review] Metroid Prime Remastered
One of the most critically and commercially successful games in its series, Metroid Prime was the jump to 3D that Mario and Zelda had benefited from years prior. Unlike those games, Prime was on the GameCube and Retro Studios took full advantage of the new hardware, being one of the best-looking games of its generation. When Metroid Prime Remastered was shadow dropped two Nintendo Directs ago, it still came as a surprise, despite all of the rumors that the whole trilogy was being remade for Switch. At first I was going to pass on it, but once I learned it had gyro aim support, I wound up getting it anyway.
Metroid Prime Remastered is a remaster, not a remake – if you’ve played both side-by-side or back-to-back, it’s clear that the remaster is running on the same engine as the original. As such, it’s essentially the same exact game but with new graphics and controls. Samus still finds herself entangled in the business of space pirates after intercepting a distress beacon from a space station orbiting Talos IV, a planet once occupied by the enlightened bird-like Chozo race. After wiping out the station, Samus sets off to explore Talon IV and uncover what the space pirates are up to. Fortunately for her, the Chozo, who raised Samus from a young age, were the ones who developed her power suit, and much of the technology on Talos IV is compatible.
Obviously this is what leads to the gameplay loop the Metroid series is known for, as finding new upgrades will allow you to explore more of the planet, which allows you to find more upgrades, and so on. Metroid Prime Remastered as a game is virtually identical to the original GameCube game, so I don’t have a whole lot to say about it that hasn’t already been said by a million Youtube video essays. It’s less of a first-person shooter and more of a first-person exploration game interspersed with bits and pieces of action and the occasional boss fight. Solving a puzzle you couldn’t before finding the right upgrade is satisfying, but those who come into Metroid Prime expecting Halo might be disappointed.
The faster pacing and character movement of the 2D Metroid games was traded off in the move to first person 3D with a more atmospheric and immersive game world, with more matriculate traversal. And to their credit, Retro Studios did an excellent job all those years ago, as Talon IV is a treat to explore, built with Samus’s new moveset in mind. New beam weapons unlock differently colored doors and new visors not only help with certain combat situations, but also serve to enhance discovering new parts of Talon IV. The action and exploration in Metroid Prime are nicely intertwined.
But I can’t stress enough how much of a slog backtracking is, and I think it’s too much of an issue to be glossed over. Of course, backtracking is a given in any game labeled a Metroidvania, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. It eventually becomes an absolute chore to revisit locations thanks to a map layout design that is sometimes a little too branching and linear, with rooms that refill with enemies every time you revisit them and beam-locked doors require you to switch them around frequently. As authentic as the remaster is, I can’t help but feel like more couldn’t have been done, at the very least optionally, to streamline this aspect of the game.
So the gameplay remains the same, but it wouldn’t be much of a remaster if the graphics didn’t get a suitable update. Appropriately, Metroid Prime Remastered looks incredible for a Switch game, almost unbelievable at times, and at a constant 60 frames per second. Yes, the rooms that each level is comprised of are relatively small and individually loaded, but Retro Studios made the most out of the graphical overhead presented by porting the game over from GameCube. Speaking of loading, opening a door in the original would sometimes take a few seconds as the new area loaded in, but that’s rarely the case in the remaster.
Metroid Prime Remastered looks just like how you remember it, and despite the improvements in fidelity, it flawlessly maintains the atmosphere and visual language of the original. Everything, from the helmet HUD to the lighting to the foliage to the lifeforms that call Talon IV their home, just plain looks better. It also maintains most of the finer details that made the GameCube original stand out, like Samus’s reflection in the visor on bright flashes, or raindrops hitting her visor as she looks up from her ship’s landing point. There are a few changes, like weapon fire no longer having dynamic lighting, the thermal visor looks noticeably more blurry, and there was a bit of a stink about how the doors look, but despite the hardware limitations, Metroid Prime Remastered still has plenty of eye candy. It sometimes looks like an Xbox One game – I know that doesn’t sound like a compliment, but this is the Switch we’re talking about.
You now have four distinct ways to control Samus, with the default controls being revamped for modern sensibilities. Despite the GameCube controller having two analog sticks, Retro opted for a GoldenEye approach for the original game – the left analog stick moved and turned Samus and aims her arm cannon when holding the right trigger. The right stick, the C-stick, was used to select beam weapons while the D-pad was used to change visors. The default for Remastered is more traditional by today’s standards, with left stick moving and right stick aiming. It’s easier to get used acclimated to, but you have to hold the X button to switch the D-pad from changing visors to changing beams (you can change whether beams or visors are the default) which isn’t the most elegant solution and can trip you up when the action gets heavy.
As wrong as the original control scheme would seem at first, it worked well when you consider how much jumping around you do, so it’s great that this control scheme is also an option. In addition, you also have a dual-Joycon setup that simulates the controls used for Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii, which used the Wii remote and nunchuck. Finally there’s hybrid mode, which uses the original GameCube controls while enabling gyro for aiming, but changes how the left stick functions in doing so. However, you can also turn on gyro aiming for the default controls, which is what I preferred. Metroid Prime was designed around using the lock-on function, so precise aiming is hardly ever required, but for instances where targets need precision to lock on to, don’t require locking on, or simply can’t be, gyro aim is a blessing and it saddens me that gamers and developers aren’t taking it more seriously.
Metroid Prime Remastered is what a remaster of an already great game should be – updated visuals and gameplay that doesn’t compromise the original experience. As much as I personally love Metroid Prime, I do believe it’s flawed in ways that can’t be ignored, but that won’t stop me from recommending it, even at its $40 price tag. Aside from the other games in the trilogy, there really isn’t another game out there like it.
