Metroid Prime Remastered
I was honestly a bit worried after having played Dread so recently because I wasn't sure how well the search action formula would translate to 3D. I had heard that the backtracking had turned a lot of people off, which was never much of an issue for me in the mainline games, but I still felt a bit anxious about it. I quickly learned that those fears were entirely unfounded. Somehow, Retro Studios managed to make a first-person shooter that still feels like a Metroid game, even implementing original ideas to complement the new perspective and increase player immersion.
Taking place in between the first two Metroid games, the space pirates are scrambling to reorganize after the devastating blow to their leadership that they suffered at the hands of bounty hunter Samus Aran. Intercepting a distress signal from a space pirate frigate, Samus investigates to find that they were moving their genetic-testing operation from their old base on Zebes to one on Tallon IV. After her encounter with one of the pirates' genetic-testing subjects, Samus inadvertently triggers the frigate's self-destruct sequence and loses most of her suit's capabilities escaping the blast. The game truly begins once she touches down on Tallon IV intending to stop the space pirates' operations and recover her abilities.
The majority of what you explore on Tallon IV will either be ruins left by the Chozo that once lived there, or new operational facilities constructed by the space pirates. Both have their own sets of obstacles and enemies, and both have a unique beauty and intricacy that make them a lot of fun to traverse. The early Metroid games, Super Metroid especially, were designed to tell a story without taking control away from the player or overusing text. While Metroid Prime does this a little bit, Samus' new scanning visor does most of the heavy lifting, and I actually really loved it.
The scanner has multiple functions that are required for progressing in the game, like hacking space pirate computers or activating ancient Chozo technology, but I spent a lot of time using it to learn more about the world and its inhabitants. While exploring, you can scan plant life to learn how it is being affected by changes to the environment, or ancient writing on the walls to understand what happened to the Chozo that built the ruins. In fights, the scanner can even detail enemy attack patterns or reveal weaknesses for you to exploit. It makes sense that Samus' suit is loaded with helpful technology, and being able to take advantage of it now that we're behind the visor is pretty neat. The visor actually has its own brand-new set of upgrades that take advantage of this new perspective even more.
Samus' beam upgrades are adjusted from previous games to have quasi-elemental associations that help to differentiate them more than in the 2D games, with the wave beam causing electrical reactions and the plasma beam capable of heat-based interactions, each of which is beautifully reflected in the exposed channels along the arm cannon. While most of the other suit upgrades Samus finds on Tallon IV return from other games in the series, there's one set that could only work this well in a first-person perspective. Activated similarly to the scanning visor available from the start of the game, you can also unlock an X-ray visor and a thermal visor that alter how you see the world around you. Whether it's highlighting invisible enemies, locating hidden wires and switches, or seeing in the dark, the visors have a lot of utility and really push the feeling that you actually are Samus.
With those new upgrades and the expert inclusion of other familiar suit powers, Retro Studios made Samus a ton of fun to control in this brand-new perspective. Exploring the beautiful world of Tallon IV hardly ever felt like a chore, despite the frequent backtracking, especially since you'll have new and faster ways to traverse familiar locations every time you return to them. I was very impressed with Metroid Prime and how well it translated the search action formula, especially for a game that was originally released more than two decades ago. The remastered port on Switch even feels like it could have been a new release, looking and playing as well as, if not better than, most other shooters I've seen on the console. For fans of first-person shooters and metroidvanias, this game is going to be excellent for you. Now I'm just hoping that we can get a remaster of the other two games in the trilogy before the sequestered fourth entry is finally released.
The game is available for Switch here (as of 3/20/24): https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/metroid-prime-remastered-switch/
