How Samus Aran defiantly emerged from the dark, murky depths of development hell and earned herself the title of conqueror.
It just didn't make any sense to me. Ever since the beginning, it had always been the case that a Nintendo system hadn't lived a fully productive life until it had played host to at least one entry from each of the company's trio of pillar franchises: Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Metroid--the "Big 3," as we referred to them. Yet here we were nearing the end of the N64's life, and the Metroid series was nowhere to be found!
"How is such a thing possible?!" I vehemently questioned, bothered by the fact that my favorite video-game series was continuing to be inexplicably absent.
And the problem was that no one could give me an answer as to why the issue was being ignored: Nintendo Power was content to remain silent on the matter. Nintendo's executives had nothing to say, and it seemed as though they were loath to acknowledge the series' existence. And game journalists, who should have been asking all of these same questions, were otherwise too busy parading around in leather jackets and talking about how cool it was to play nothing but M-rated games.
My routinely scouring the Internet in search of news about an N64 Metroid sequel proved to be pointless. I could find nothing--not the faintest allusion to a next-generation Metroid game. And soon it became apparent to me that the writing was on the wall and that I'd have to resign myself to the fact that the Metroid sequel I'd long been craving simply wasn't going to appear. It would remain true, rather, that if I was hungry for some Metroid action, I'd have no choice but to keep returning to the classics, all of which were several old by that point. And If I wanted to visit the Metroid universe via one of my modern systems, I'd have to settle for playing the shoot-'em-up mini-game in Galactic Pinball or taking control of Samus Aran in Super Smash Bros.
It seemed crazy to me that Nintendo had consciously passed up the opportunity to harness the N64's power and bring the Metroid series roaring into the 3D era. "Hasn't Metroid always been one of the company's biggest sellers?!" I wondered as I looked over the roughly tallied sales figures, which suggested that the series' three games had sold an average of two million copies. "Isn't it true that Metroid is just as important to the company as Mario and Zelda?!"
Apparently it wasn't.
As we moved into the 2000s, it had been so long since the release of Super Metroid that I began to consider the possibility that the Metroid series was finished, though I couldn't imagine how such a thing could happen. "It doesn't make any sense," I thought, "but it might be the case that Nintendo retired the series without telling anyone."
"But no matter what the truth is, Nintendo," I said in protest, "this is no way to treat one of your greatest, most-influential game franchises!"
I was very frustrated with the situation.
That's why I wasn't so quick to abandon cynicism when gaming sites started reporting that Nintendo was working on not one but two new Metroid games. "That's six years too late!" I was tempted to say.
The company, according to reports, was promising to deliver two distinct products: The first was going to be a Super Metroid-style Metroid game for the Game Boy Advance. I wasn't a big fan of the platform, but I was willing to overlook its technical shortcomings and troublesome lack of backlighting if it meant that I'd finally get the chance to play a brand-new 2D Metroid.
And the second product, which was going to be released in following, was going to be a large-scale 3D Metroid game for the company's newly arriving GameCube console.
Honestly, I couldn't get excited for the 3D game because its ambitions weren't as clearly articulated (changing the viewing perspective to first-person was interesting but hardly revolutionary on its own). In fact, none of what I was reading about the game's development was encouraging. To start, R&D1, the creative force behind the trio of Metroid games that I so adored, wasn't going to be involved in its development. Rather, its development was placed in the hands of a newly founded Texas-based group called "Retro Studios," which had absolutely no track record--not a single game to its credit.
And, more bafflingly, the game was going to be a first-person shooter and thus condemned to inhabit one of my least-favorite genres! "What could they be thinking with that decision?!" I wondered in perplexment, my thoughts centered on what this shift in genre meant for the future of the series on consoles.
As the months dropped off, the news didn't get any better. All I'd read about was how the game's development was plagued by setbacks: missed deadlines, continual staff turnover, and even frequent resignations by studio higher-ups. And the only thing that we, the gaming community, could do was watch on from afar and wonder, "What the hell is going on with this game?"
I could only come to one conclusion: If Metroid was going to be farmed out like this and dismissively shoveled off to some no-name developer, then it had to be true that Nintendo really didn't care all that much about the series' future on consoles. The real Metroid series would instead be relegated to portable devices and thus firmly slotted as a secondary property.
Consequently, it seemed, the 3D game (whose finalized title was "Metroid Prime") would be used not to expand upon the Metroid universe or open up new venues in which the series could further blossom but instead to lure in the Halo crowd and those who were enthusiastic about the first-person shooter genre, which was currently producing a large portion of the market's hottest games. Apparently, I theorized, Nintendo desired to expand its reach and court the "hardcore" types who normally rejected the company's "kiddie" systems, and Metroid, its most "mature" series, was the key to accomplishing this goal.
I mean, sure: Miyamoto and his crew continued to assure us that Prime was actually going to be a "first-person adventure game," but their statements came off like lip service. Because all of the evidence pointed in another direction. From what we could see in screenshots, it was looking as though Prime was going to be nothing more than a derivative first-person shooter.
"And if that's the truth," I thought, "then there's no reason for me to have any interest in the game."
From then on, Metroid Prime was all but absent from my radar. I no longer cared to read about it or know about how its development was progressing, and if I was learning new things about it, it was only because I was gleaning bits of information as I was skimming through aggregate-site headlines. I was content to instead focus all of my attention on the GBA game (whose title was revealed to be "Metroid Fusion" at E3, 2001), which was being made by people who worked on the earlier Metroid games and actually understood what the series was about.
"That's the only real Metroid game," I adamantly declared, "and the only one that I'm going to buy!"
But in truth, I knew that much of what I was doing was performative and that I wasn't going to be able to keep it up forever. I knew that it was pointless to even attempt to lie to myself and that no amount of skepticism or pessimism was going to stand in the way of my gullibly heading over to an online store and pre-ordering Prime as soon as it became available.
The reality was that I'd already committed to buying a GameCube, a console for which I had little enthusiasm and was only interested in owning because it was going to be home to Super Smash Bros. Melee, and I needed to justify my decision by keeping a list of potential game purchases. Luigi's Mansion, the console's showpiece title, wasn't doing anything for me, and it was clearly no substitute for a true next-generation Mario game and in no way worthy of being the follow-up to one of the most transformational video games ever made (Super Mario 64). And I also wasn't particularly interested in Super Monkey Ball, Wave Race: Blue Storm, or any of the other launch games.
So as a consequence of my apathy, Metroid Prime was the game that found itself atop the list.
To its credit, Nintendo's marketing had done an excellent job of creating the sense that the dual release of Prime and Fusion constituted a landmark event. It was so effective in sending that message that I was convinced that I'd be missing out on the chance to celebrate the glorious, momentous return of the Metroid series if I chose to ignore either game.
That situation, too, helped to rope me in.
So now I was in a position in which I was going to buy Metroid Prime no matter what it was and regardless of how little interest I had in playing it. At worst, I rationalized, Prime would be a neat little extra--a decent first-person shooter that I could mess around with for a few hours on a boring Sunday or two.
So when the two games went up for pre-order during the middle portion of 2002, I clicked my way over to Amazon.com and reserved myself copies of both of them. I had mixed emotions as I was doing so, but I didn't let that stop me from completing the order. Because, honestly, I was still at a point in life where loyalty trumped reason.
By the time the games arrived in my mailbox, I'd already decided that I was going to play Prime before Fusion, and I'd put together a detailed narrative of how the entire experience was going to play out: Prime, I was certain, was essentially going to be the Metroid series' Castlevania 64. I'd endure it as best I could, and all the while, I'd lament the fact that Nintendo had passed up the opportunity to blow us away with an expansive, revolutionary Metroid game in favor of tossing out a shallow, imitative assembly-line shooter that was only loosely related to the series.
Then I'd quickly shelve it and move on.
And then, when I needed it most, Metroid Fusion would be there waiting for me with open arms, ready to save me and thus provide me the true Metroid experience for which I was now starved!
"Pain before pleasure," I'd say.
So with little enthusiasm, I popped the Metroid Prime CD into my GameCube and readied myself for some watered-down "Metroid" action.
Not even the title screen's cool visual--a zoomed-in view of a Metroid's innards, pulsating tendrils and all--or remindful musical theme could convince me that I was about to experience something authentic-feeling.
And early on, my intuition was proving to be correct: The opening moments aboard the Space Pirate's derelict frigate were wholly underwhelming. And also, everything about the game seemed off: Its controls were a troubling combination of complicated and somewhat unwieldly, which had never been the case in a Metroid game. For however technically impressive it was, its environments were bland and sterile and thus the striking antithesis of the earlier Metroid games'. And with all of the gravely injured, near-zombified Space Pirates stalking about, the ambiance was such that Prime felt more like a space-based horror game than a traditional action-adventure game.
"This is basically Doom without any of the fun, frantic shooting action!" I thought as I traversed the largely empty frigate and slowly exchanged fire with mortally wounded Space Pirates.
Absolutely nothing about the game's atmosphere screamed "Metroid" to me.
I couldn't deny that using a special visor to gain access to new rooms and gather information was a cool feature and that the pirate logs' content was actually quite intriguing, but in that moment, neither of these elements registered as anything more than a tasty little morsel in a largely unsavory dish.
Also, the battle against the Parasite Queen, killing which was merely a matter of strafing around in a circle and mashing buttons, did little to dispel the notion that Prime was a first-person shooter rather than a "first-person adventure," which was what Miyamoto promised that it would be.
And the escape sequence that followed, though it had its moments (not among them the three-minute period in which I got stuck in one of the larger rooms because it was too dark to spot its exit point), felt like a token addition and a desperate attempt to make the most reductive of links to the 2D games.
"So this is what the whole game is probably going to be like," I concluded after completing the escape sequence. "It's going to be a slow-paced shooter that tries to establish itself as a Metroid game simply by making the most basic and hollow of references to past series entries."
And as I watched Samus' ship chase Meta Ridley down to the neighboring planet, I felt nothing. By then, my level of investment had dropped to near zero.
"This game has no chance of being anything special," I thought.
But then something strange started to happen. Suddenly the game's tone began to change as did my way of observing it.
It happened as Tallon IV came into view.
In that moment, my senses started to tingle. Because suddenly there were encouraging signs: Samus' ship was intensely cutting its way through an ominous gray sky and an atmosphere whose rainy, thunderous conditions were highly reminiscent of those that greeted her back on Planet Zebes in Super Metroid. And as her ship gravitated toward the chosen landing point, the camera began to circle around the environment slowly and dramatically, and its every angled shot worked to reveal a tantalizing view of a surface whose rainfall-besieged foliage and undisturbed nooks and passageways were telling a highly intriguing story about an outwardly desolate planet that was no doubt hiding endless mystery and unseen danger.
This was something else entirely. The world that was lying before me now was conveying with great confidence that Metroid Prime's were going to be far from a series of dull, mundanely designed metallic corridors.
The atmosphere in this place was reminiscent of Crateria's surface's, yes, but it was also coated with a powerful sense of wonder. I could feel it all around me as I surveyed the landscape from atop the ship.
And as I listened to the area's invigorating, goosebumps-inducing music, which kicked in moments after the ship landed, I nodded and said to myself, "Yeah--this game is for real."
It was as if history was repeating itself: Here I was, once again, completely frozen in place and helpless to resist the power of a Metroid game's aural conveyance.
In that moment, the only thing that I felt compelled to do was put down the controller and intently listen to the music and absorb what it was telling me.
That's when I realized, to my great astonishment, that I was under the spell of a very familiar-sounding tune: a slower-tempoed, more-enchanted recreation of the original Metroid's Brinstar theme! It was a captivating rendition, and I let it wash over me for the next several minutes, which I spent wandering around the opening area and exploring all of its watery nooks and alcoves; excitedly testing out and experimenting with the game's vaunted technology (which reviewers had rightly raved about) and marveling over every little effect, like how raindrops would splash against Samus' visor whenever I'd look upward; acclimating myself to the game's control scheme, which made a lot more sense when it was given this new context; and generally taking in the sights.
I remember the visceral jolt that I felt when the clawed Beetles emerged from the cavern's depths and began stalking me. The manner in which they clawed their way through the ground and the dispersing-mist effect and violent camera-shaking that accompanied their entrance were firm reminders that we were in the next generation, baby, and that Metroid Prime was going to be all about experiencing the types of breathtaking action and technological feats that were never before possible!
That's how impactful that first enemy encounter was.
Also, I vividly recall the moment when my 180-degree turnaround was complete and I fully embraced the game: When I entered into the following cove, I put to use the free-aiming mechanic and pointed the camera toward the top of the cave wall, and as soon as I did so, I found myself staring in awe at the sight of two waterfalls cascading down a series of cliffs, all of which were being patrolled by honest-to-goodness Geemers! These familiar creatures were circling their assigned spaces in the same way that they always had.
It was right then that all my remaining doubt evaporated and I said to myself, "This is it. This is Metroid."
I count these two instances among the most memorable opening moments I've ever experienced in a video game. They were a world-changing level of impactful.
For me, they set the tone for the entire generation.
And by the time I reached the elevator room, whose familiar-sounding alien ambiance generated an unmistakably Metroid-style air of suspense, I was wholly invested in Metroid Prime. I knew that I wanted to fully immerse myself in its world and eagerly experience everything that it had to offer.
I knew, also, that it absolutely was going to be a special game.
The game's sense of immensity was palpable. I could feel it even as I was traversing my way through the Chozo Ruin's cramped connecting halls and insect-infested corridors, many of which were purely functional, yes, but invariably imbued with an air of anticipation that was so entrancing that I couldn't help but use the time that I was spending within these places to wonder about (a) where they were taking me and (b) the nature of the alluringly exotic locations that were surely lying ahead.
This was something that only a true Metroid game could do for me.
And as I played on and progressed deeper into the game, there was Metroid Prime, true to its lineage, continuing to use ingenuity and new technology to blaze a trail, just as its progenitor did way back in 1986.
To start, it set a new standard for jumping in the first-person. Its creators at Retro absolutely nailed the mechanic and made jumping in the first-person feel as natural as jumping in a 2D game. Never before had a game of this type made me feel so in control as I leapt my way across series of platforms and long gaps and did so without ever having to look down to check my positioning or worry about slipping off of a platform edge in the run-up to a jump.
It was almost miraculous how precise and natural-feeling Prime's jumping mechanics were. Because in past first-person games, jumping was terrible by rule, and consequently even the shortest-distance jumps felt unnecessarily harrowing.
In this game, though, platforming was a breeze. It never made me nervous. And as I was effortlessly leaping from one small, narrow platform to the next, all I could wonder was, "How did they do this? How did they get jumping so right?"
Also, incredibly, there was almost no interruption in the action because Retro had come up with an ingenious scheme for hiding loading times: Upcoming areas would load as you were traveling through tactically lengthened transitional corridors! These corridors were normally devoid of obstacles, yes, but that wasn't an obvious problem because of how the designers cleverly imbued transitional rooms with mysterious, thought-provoking ambiances that worked to keep you in a perpetual state of wonderment and thus distract you from the fact that they were largely empty!
"Keep their minds busy," the designers thought, "and they won't notice."
And they were correct to think so.
Then there was the immersion factor.
One of Prime's greatest strengths was that it had a way of making you feel as though you were in a constant state of interaction with the surrounding environment. It had, for instance, many different visor effects, the most memorable of which included the aforementioned raindrop-splashes, the condensation that would form on Samus' visor whenever you would traverse your way through a steamy passage, the unsettling electrical interference that would obscure your view whenever you were hit with an explosive attack, and the reflective visage of Samus that would sometimes appear when you took damage.
Also, switching between first-person view and Morph Ball mode was seamless and thus never broke your immersion. It never took you out of the world.
And the newly obtained Thermal and X-Ray visors allowed you to interact with and track otherwise-invisible enemies and objects by reading heat signatures and detecting electromagnetic waves. They made you feel as though there was always more to the environments than what you were seeing and that it was important to continue viewing them in different ways.
Everything that Prime did was big and impactful, and you just knew that every first-person game in following was going to use it as a source of inspiration.
Also, Prime's creators were proving themselves to be proficient at telling stories using environmental conveyance, which was something that Super Metroid was able to do to great effect. So they obviously played the latter and took notes.
In this game, there were no flashbacks or cut-scenes. Rather, Tallon IV communicated its predicament via its environment conditions: its dilapidated temples, its roughly hewn caverns, its implicative ruins, and its test-subject-filled laboratories, all of which were able to provide explanation for who or what had been active within them without displaying a single word.
And scanning, which was turning out to be an invaluable aspect of the experience, also played a big role in how you extracted information about your surroundings. I learned a whole lot about the Space Pirates and other Tallin IV inhabitants not via dialogue exchanges but by decoding machines' and shrines' encrypted data, which spoke of the characters' histories, ecologies, struggles and machinations.
These were old and new ways of conveying narrative, and I felt that both of them were equally brilliant.
The story conveyances that were most memorable to me were the Frigate Orphean and Control Tower computer logs in which the Space Pirates talked about (a) their defeat on Planet Zebes and (b) their failing attempts to replicate Chozo technology and specifically their crazy experiments, which often left "volunteers" mangled and mortally wounded.
These logs were comprised of only a few lines of text, yet still they did an amazing job of providing me context for Prime's placement in the series' timeline while informing me of how high the stakes were.
I simply loved what they did for the game.
As I continued to Morph-Ball my way around secret tunnels and discover all types of alternate routes, it became apparent to me that Retro had succeeded wildly in creating a 3D world that was highly interconnected and organically branching. And before I'd even reached the game's halfway point, I felt comfortable in saying that Prime's level design was so incredibly remindful and characteristic that it formed a game that was basically Super Metroid in 3D--or, at least, a game that was very close to it.
It had, in that time, done amazingly well to capture the spirit of "Metroid" and showcase a clear understanding of what it was that made the series so great.
Honestly, I didn't believe that such a thing could be done. In the previous months, I felt that there was only one way that a 3D Metroid could ever earn the rank of "great": It had to follow the template set by Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It had to be so high in quality that series fans simply wouldn't notice that it wasn't visually or spiritually compatible with its 2D predecessors. "Because obviously 3D games can never feel like 2D games!" I thought.
But as it worked out, Prime was more authentic-feeling than I ever could have imagined. In fact, I was already of the opinion that it stomped both Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time in terms of capturing the essence of the 8- and 16-bit forebears.
It served as the best example of how to properly transition a 2D game series into the world of 3D.
From that point forward, my experience was all about excitedly progressing through Prime's world and marveling over each new discovery--over each newly introduced area, game mechanic, and musical theme.
It was about finding appreciation for the game on two levels and thus eagerly observing just how closely it adhered to established Metroid values and seeing how its ambitious creators would use their new technologies to expand upon those values in a 3D space.
And it was about one of my favorite Metroid traditions: entering into a new area and immersing myself in it and letting its environmental attributes and musical accompaniment use their power to inform me of its state and suggest to me how I was supposed to feel about being there. Because Prime was a true Metroid game, and that was how it deserved to be experienced.
Prime's topnotch sound and visual design always did the expected job. If I entered into, say, Magmoor Cavern (which was clearly the game's version of Norfair), I'd immediately know where I was and the level of danger that was present. The environments' reddish tint and the passages' steamy corridors would inform me that I was in a place whose air was toxic while the music's urgent-sounding strains and deep percussion would explain to me that many deadly, aggressive creatures were lurking here.
That was yet another Super Metroid aspect that Prime was able to masterfully replicate.
It helped that the tune that was playing was utterly familiar to me: It was the Lower Norfair theme from Super Metroid! I was elated to hear it, and I felt that the composer made a great move in bringing it back. Its mere presence served to create an important nostalgic link to the beloved Super Metroid, which was something that I strongly appreciated.
I didn't see the tune's return as pandering, no, because by then, I felt that Prime had proven itself and thus earned the right to make as many references to Super Metroid, from which it obviously took great inspiration, as it wanted.
Prime's music was fantastic, and it played a vital role in helping the game to convey its message.
A great example of such was when I arrived at the snowy Phendrana Drifts. As soon as I exited the connecting hall and stepped into the area's exterior, I immediately found myself under the spell of a powerfully melancholic, emotionally subjugating tune that did well to inform me of the area's quietly desperate state and make me feel sad for whoever or whatever it was that had suffered here.
Also, whether it was intended or not, the tune's remindful tones worked to evoke memories of my experiences with past Metroid games and of the now-long-gone simpler times when my friends and I would spend countless hours of our summer vacations cheerfully exploring the worlds of those ol' 8- and 16-bit adventure games.
For that reason, I considered it to be the game's best music track.
The tune that played in the Crashed Frigate (which at first, embarrassingly, I didn't recognize as the sunken remains of the Frigate Orpheon from the game's opening), Prime's underwater area, did much the same for me. It was melancholic and despairing in character, and it functioned to describe the sense of hopelessness that pervaded this planet, which, as I learned, was struggling to survive the invasion of the poisonous Phazon menace.
As I listened to it, I'd be overcome with a feeling of depression, and I'd hope that succeeding in my mission would help the planet to see better days (assuming that I didn't blow it up as I was leaving).
That was the kind of power that Prime's music had.
For years in following, I listened to the game's evocative tunes via downloaded MP3s and YouTube videos and let them provide shading to my thoughts and daydreams. They were the perfect accompaniment for such activities.
Metroid Prime's atmosphere was so haunting that it had a way of making me believe that unseen forces were lurking within every visible space even when I was in places that were observably abandoned.
That's how I felt whenever I was in the Phazon Mines, which was the Space Pirates' base of operations. It was home to the game's most intense action sequences, but still it was a sparsely populated place. But even then, the disconcerting influence of its quietly sinister music had me convinced that evil forces were hiding around every corner, waiting to ambush me.
That's what made it all the more intense when an actual surprise attack did occur. The result would be "stress piled atop tension," which is pretty much an apt description of what my treks through the area's exterior sections were like.
Also, the music's concerningly quiet, understated nature added an eerie feel to the observation of Phazon-subsisting Metroids, whose ostensible docility was all the more unease-inducing when witnessed from afar. In truth, the Metroids were hardly a serious threat, yet the music's imbuing energy was able to bely such a notion and make you believe that they were far more dangerous than they actually were.
I mean, sure: I wasn't thrilled by the fact that Retro had deviated from the canon and changed it to where frozen Metroids could be destroyed with a single missile blast, but by then, I was so impressed by what the company had done with the game that I was willing to give it a lot of leeway.
"The company has earned that right," I thought.
Metroid Prime may have had some flaws, but honestly, I didn't care to spend time pointing them out or complaining about them. Because, quite simply, the game was too phenomenal for me to waste time on such a silly activity.
It didn't really matter to me that the Chozo Ghost encounters were obnoxiously designed, that boss battles tended to drag on too long, and that doors sometimes took too long to open, no. I considered these to be minor offenses in a game that was otherwise constantly wowing me with its awesome visuals, astonishing special effects, terrific music, impressive technical achievements, ingenuous puzzles (many of which used the Morph Ball and Spider Ball mechanics to amazing effect), cool weapons, and grand feeling of adventure.
"Let the reviewers waste their time complaining about a handful of doors not opening right away," I thought.
And long before I was ready for it to do so, Prime was signaling tome that it was time for the adventure to draw to a close.
I really didn't want that to be the case. I wanted for the game to stretch on as long as possible. I was having such an amazing time with it that I simply didn't want it to end!
That's why I didn't mind the Chozo Artifact hunt, which many in the gaming community dismissed as a "fetch quest." I was fine with its inclusion because I wanted to spend as much time as I could in Prime's world. I wanted to find any excuse that I could to travel across it again and again and spend time admiring its every environmental and atmospheric element and exploring its every space in search of secrets.
So I loved the Chozo Artifact hunt. And I wished that the game had more quests of its type. Because I enjoyed playing it that much!
And soon all that was left were the conclusive encounters with Meta Ridley and Metroid Prime (which was or wasn't an actual Metroid depending upon who you asked).
Their battles were long and frustrating, yes, but also tense and epic-feeling. The final clash with Metroid Prime, in particular, was a heart-racing affair, and it was so chaotic at times that I frequently fell victim to bouts of what I call "gamer spazout," which is an instance in which you get so flustered during a battle that you can't remember the correct button inputs and wind up executing every possible action except for the one that you intended to execute. All I wanted to do, each time, was run over to the pool of Phazon, equip the required visor, orient myself, identify the target, and fire; but instead I'd change beams, roll into a ball, activate the map, lay Power Bombs, frantically spin in circles, and thus put myself in a position in which I had to spend minutes trying to eliminate the endlessly spawning Fission Metroids.
So that was a problem.
Eventually, though, I pulled myself together long enough to achieve victory.
But like I said: I didn't want Metroid Prime to end. That's why I was kinda sad when it was over.
That was an indication of how great the game was: It left me wanting more. It did so to such an extreme degree that all I could think about in following was what Retro could do with a sequel. "There's endless potential here," I believed.
Also, of course, I immediately replayed the game, and then I proceeded to return to it multiple times over the next few months. And each time, I extracted immense enjoyment from it.
Though, that would never be enough for me. Because my appetite for Prime's action had grown near-insatiable, and the only nourishment that could possibly satisfy my hunger, I knew, was more of it--more of what the game was offering.
That's why I couldn't wait for the announcement of the next Metroid Prime game!
That was Metroid Prime. It was a game that thunderously blasted its way through my shield of skepticism and pessimism and proceeded to blow me away. Its mission was never to overcome doubt, no. Rather, it was to create its own grand expectations and then smash even those to pieces. And that's exactly what it did.
Somehow those crazy cats at Retro had done it: They made Metroid work in 3D. They showed us that there really was such a thing as a "first-person adventure."
They proved everyone wrong. And furthermore they created one of the best video games in history and certainly one of the Metroid series' best entries.
For me, Prime was an instant favorite, and for a long time, I had it locked in a virtual tie with Super Metroid for "overall best series game," which was a remarkable feat considering my intense adoration for the latter. It had done everything that my beloved 2D games did: It made me feel as though I was truly occupying its world. It inspired me to wonder about what was going on in both its visible and unseen spaces. And it filled me with the sense that its environments were hiding many more secrets and that I'd find them if only I kept on looking.
And all I could think about was "Where is Retro going to take the series from here?"
Unfortunately, things didn't work out like I hoped they would. Retro's much-anticipated follow-up, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, didn't come close to meeting my expectations. I couldn't have been more disappointed with the game, which was merely "solid" when it needed to be so much more.
Echoes' main issue was that it was bogged down by a heavily obstructive light world-dark world system whose presence worked to wreck the game's pacing (there were so many load times) and hamper the level designers' ability to create an expansive world. I was hoping to once again explore a continuous, wonderfully interconnected Metroid world, but what I was given, instead, were two bland, largely segmented mirror worlds.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was superior to Echoes, but it started to lose focus of what Metroid was. It scaled way too large, and its emphasis on planet-hopping and the Galactic Federation's activities served to minimize the sense of isolation and relegate the Metroids, which at one time were described to be the universe's greatest threat, to minor annoyances and mere background players that would occasionally show up in a featureless room and just kinda float around near a corner.
This was supposed to be a series about how extremely dangerous the Metroids were (that's why the series is named after them!), but after playing the Prime games, it became impossible for me to believe that they were a bigger threat than Phazon, Dark Samus, the Ing, and the Prime series' brand of Space Pirates.
"Clearly someone forgot what's most important here," was all I could think.
Metroid Prime, I thought, was going to be a driving force behind console gaming's next golden age, but instead it represented the beginning of the end--in my view, at least.
It was too grand a creation. It had set too high a bar. And when I assessed what its sequel had offered, my sense was that its creators had neither the time nor the motivation to top their original work and meaningfully evolve its formula. (Though, to be fair, it was likely the case that Retro was short on budget and facing tight deadlines, which are two factors that I didn't take into account at the time.)
I felt the same way about the sequels to all of the other gen-6 games that had so enraptured me (Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and a few others). None of them were able to meet my expectations. They, too, were merely "solid," and each one of them also took the disappointing approach of trying to top its predecessor by simply doubling the size of the world and increasing the level of complexity.
And after playing them, I could only conclude that console games weren't going to get any better. They weren't going to endeavor to be revolutionary. Rather, they were going to be content to simply iterate.
It was this long series of disappointing sequels that accelerated my falling out of love with consoles. I continued to extract enjoyment from consoles in the years that followed, yes, but at no point did I ever truly love them again.
But if that was to be the end for me as a console partisan, then I could say that I went out having seen what stood atop the pinnacle. It was Metroid Prime.
The game that our communities had once showered with derision turned out to be one of gaming's greatest success stories. It had gone above and beyond in its endeavor to prove its worth. It had done brilliantly to honor the name of its forebears. And in doing so, it was able to cement itself as not just one of the best Metroid games but also one of the best video games in history.
For that moment in November of 2002, all was right in the world. Metroid Prime was amazing, and I knew that I was going to play through it many times in the future. I'd found a new obsession.
And the best news was that there was more Metroid waiting for me! Now it was time for me to turn my attention to Metroid Fusion, which, I believed, was surely going to prove itself to be the next-level 2D Metroid game that I'd been waiting to play for more than half a decade!
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