Looking back at the Prime trilogy, and how Prime 3 struggles to understand what made Prime 1 and 2 beloved.
Oh, the Metroid Prime trilogy—the objection of my attention for the last five months—what the hell happened?
As someone who played Prime 2 with the Wii-mote controls, going into Prime 3, I wasn’t expecting too much to be different. Sure, Prime 2 wasn’t made with Wii-mote controls in mind, but the developers managed to implement them in a way that didn’t seem too egregious or annoying to use. It felt very natural aiming the Wii-mote at the TV, shooting with the B button, jumping with A, and maneuvering around with the Nunchuk. I will admit without shame that I prefer the Wii-mote controls over the GameCube controls.
But, something about Prime 3’s controls seemed…off. For a while there, I couldn’t put into words what was off about them. And trust me, I tried. It wasn’t until I hooked up my Wii U to a capture card and streamed the game to my friends where I finally figured out what was wrong:
The lock-on feature sucks.
If you know anything about the Prime games, being able to lock onto the enemies is crucial to beating the game. It’s fundamentally what makes Prime so unique as a first-person shooter, as you lock-on and strafe around the enemy, dodging their attacks and attacking when you can. Prime 3 completely ruins the lock-on feature by not making Samus lock-on to the specific points necessary to beat the boss, but locking on to the boss itself, forcing you to free-aim at each point and battle the camera to let you see what you need to see.
Figuring this out only unraveled so much more about what makes Prime 3 such a nightmare of a game to play. Now, I’m not saying Prime 3 is a bad game, no. There’s a lot to Prime 3 that is quite enjoyable despite the lock-on feature being ass. Prime 3 is probably one of the most ambitious games in the series. But, does that redeem the negative qualities of the game? Let’s find out.
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Now, let’s get back into it!
The Lock-On Sucks: Camera Controls and Boss Fights
Let’s start with the most annoying part of Prime 3 (for me). Like previously discussed, I had a hell of a time with the lock-on feature in this game. Prime 2’s lock-on feature irked me as well, but it wasn’t so much as the lock-on feature being bad in that game, per say, but because the game wasn’t built with motion controls in mind. It was hard to control and get the lock-on to work, but once you locked-on, you were set. Phases be damned, you could manage the boss fight pretty well regardless, and attack where you needed to.
Prime 3, however, has a centralized locking system. Instead of locking on to the point that you need to attack on the enemy, it would lock-on to the center of the enemy, regardless of height, distance, and size. No matter what. The goal here is for you to lock-on to the enemy, and free-aim at the specific weak points with motion controls. It’s ingrained in the game pretty much straight from the get go. One of the first enemies you’re introduced to is essentially a wall of security robots. To defeat them, you have to free-aim and shoot at each individual robot when indicated, while it slowly and incrementally approaches you.
The thing is: the camera barely allows you to look where you need to look in order to free-aim half of the time.
Free-Aiming vs. Limited Camera Controls: How to Make A Boss Fight Dreadful Without Trying
The Seed Bosses are a great example of this (which, spoilers for boss fights in Prime 3 going forward, skip ahead to the next title if you don’t want to be spoiled). Take Helios, for example. He’s the second Seed Boss, not nearly as dreadful to fight as Mogenar, but still incredibly annoying nonetheless. He’s got multiple attacks, most of which include security robots surrounding him that act as his shield, and require precise aiming across a 7x4 grid. Precise aiming! For a Wii game!! He’ll fly between each of the security robots and activate them, which you then need to shoot down before they shoot you, but of course, you’re locked to Helios, not the security robots. So, while the targets are stagnant, Helios is jumping all over the place, making it hard as hell to precisely aim away from him (not to mention, incredibly disorienting).
And on top of that, Helios is floating above you, at the very edge of the camera, forcing you to battle not only with the lock-on and the motion controls, but the camera itself. And this is just one attack!! One attack out of a cycle of four or so, two of which where you literally can’t attack him because he’s either a ball shooting toward you or a tornado trying to suck you in!!
Not only that, but the game actively punishes you if you don’t complete the sequence quick enough. The phases reset, and you have to continue to strafe around the boss, aimlessly shooting at the targets while dodging annoying as hell attacks, constantly on alert for whatever attack is next, all the while battling the camera to allow you to see more of the target well above you and out of the camera’s range.
You could say it’s an artful example of how Samus’ neck doesn’t fucking work like that, but I think it’s nothing more than poor game design. Why should I have to battle the controls to play the game? The controls shouldn’t be what makes a boss fight hard!
Unfortunately, it isn’t even a boss issue, this is a whole game problem. There’s a point toward the middle of the game where you are standing in the center of Elysia, and you have to defend the literal bomb strapped to the floating island you’re on from invading Space Pirates. Which, alright, not too hard. Except, there’s also Space Pirate ships that are going to shoot at the island, and you can only lock-on to the center of the ship and not the front where you can take damage, and also it’s floating and far away from you, and there’s always two at a time, and also the Space Pirates on the island are trying to kill you. You need to actively ignore the Space Pirates on the island with you, because if you don’t destroy the ships quick enough, then you’ll fail the goal. Like?? Hello?? It’s not even that’s it’s challenging, it’s just fucking annoying.
Every fight sequence in Prime 3 is like this. Every single one. It makes the fights dreadful to even start because you know, innately, that the boss fight is going to suck ass. Hell, I sat outside of the boss fight arena for Helios for months because I was terrified that Helios was going to play out exactly like Mogenar. And you know what? It wasn’t that far off.
Lasso-Controls: How to Make A Fun Game Mechanic Annoying As Hell
One of the major new additions to game controls in Prime 3 is lasso-controls with the grapple beam. Which, in all honesty, sounds like fun! Using the grapple beam to grab onto a door and pull it open was a mechanic in Dread, but it’s 2007 baby! Dread isn’t even close to being out yet! We’re inventing completely new game mechanics here!
And I’m all for new game mechanics in Metroid. The Metroid formula, at this rate, is tried and true, and I don’t mind learning new ways to interact with the environment I’m surrounded by.
Since it’s the Wii, there might as well be new motion control functionalities implemented, so what if the grapple beam could lock on to a specific icon over an enemy, prompting the player to whip the Nunchuk at the screen and whip it back the remove an enemy’s shield, like a lasso? Surely this will go over well. Surely.
Except, you have to scan to find out if something can be lasso’d. And it functions as it’s own scan. You can scan an enemy once to find out how to attack it correctly, and scan it again to get the grapple beam icon to pop up. It isn’t innate. It shows up after scanning. So, you could be stuck in a room without a clue on how to progress, forced to scan every little item just in case it might need grapple beam. Or, you could be stuck dealing barely any damage to a boss, and oh look! The boss is down! But, wait, you have to scan the boss again in this separate phase that isn’t a phase to have the grapple beam icon show up, and lasso the boss to pull it’s armor away! And if you don’t complete this with your finicky Nunchuk controls in 10 seconds or less, the boss will get up again, and they will continue attacking you like nothing happened, and you will have to throw whatever you got at the boss to try to get them down again, but you don’t really remember what you did that got the boss down in the first place, so you just have to keep throwing whatever you can at an indestructible shield in hopes that something gets through, dodging a myriad of never-ending attacks to get another chance at the shitty Nunchunk lasso mechanic. Surely, this will go over well.
At the very least, once you scan a boss that can be lasso’d, you don’t have to scan it again. But this is specific to bosses, not basic enemies or even removable walls. At some point, I realized that strafing around the enemy to attack them behind the shield was easier than trying to get the lasso to work.
The lasso is an interesting mechanic, but like, I didn’t know that the Nunchuk had motion controls in it until playing Prime 3. And I had a Wii growing up. Never once did a Wii game I played prior to Prime 3 require the motion controls in the Nunchuk to be used. It’s almost as if it barely functions.
Like the sequence in Elysia with the floating island, there is a sequence in Bryyo where you have to ward off a never-ending swarm of Space Pirates while trying to unlatch levers with grapple beam. The Space Pirates will fly up and relatch the levers you already unlatched. They can just fly, so you have to aimlessly jump from platform to platform, racing against their jetpacks. So, when you have to stop and scan the lever to be able to lasso it, and the Space Pirates can just fly there, can you not see how irritating that would be? It’s a race against the clock, but also you’re battling with the controls the entire time. Also the Space Pirates want you dead. And there’s a constant swarm of them. Really cool game mechanic guys, totally not incredibly frustrating.
Hypermode: A Mode That Will Kill You If You Fumble Ever So Slightly
One other game mechanic that’s new to Prime 3 is Hypermode. You’re given it pretty much as soon as the game starts—or well, actually starts after the long ass tutorial on Norion—and are told that if you stay in Hypermode too long, you’ll die. Pretty unique mechanic, and really cool for the plot of the game.
However, if you use Hypermode at all prior to the final area of Phaaze, you will die pretty much instantly. The thing about Hypermode is that it uses your energy tanks. Or, well, really just one energy tank. If you enter Hypermode and use all of your energy, you enter Corrupted Mode, where you have to expel the rest of the energy as quick as you can, or else you’ll die. It adds a lot to the tension of the game, having to be incredibly careful about when to use the Hypermode and use it sparsely so you don’t Game Over. It also teaches you not to depend on it, because overusing it will kill you.
The thing is: it doesn’t matter how much health you have outside of Hypermode. It really doesn’t. If you get Corrupted and you don’t expel the energy quick enough, it will just kill you. And it won’t feel justified because of course you took the precautions, you didn’t depend on it, you just used it a little bit during the Mogenar fight because he was pissing you off and you really wanted to be free of the torment, and you just suddenly die with no recollection of how or why. It just gives you the Game Over screen, even though you had health, even though you were trying to expel the energy to exit the Corrupted mode. It doesn’t matter!
Would you believe it? Another new mechanic in Prime 3 is finicky as fuck, making it so that you never use it or want to use it? Shocking!
The Green Bar: Jump At the Wall and We Might Give You a Cutscene
The final game mechanic-specific annoyance of Prime 3 is the introduction of the green bar. I don’t know if it has an actual name, but it is essentially a green bar that, if you jump toward it, will toss you into a cutscene where Samus pulls herself up on the ledge.
Except, it doesn’t work consistently. You have to make a precise jump at the right height for the cutscene to work, otherwise you’ll fall, most often to your demise. So, picture this: you’re sitting in front of your TV with a Wii-mote and Nunchuk in hand. So far, you’re immersed in the game, and you don’t feel like you’re sitting in a chair playing a game, you’re actually Samus exploring an alien planet. You control Samus to a blank wall. The wall has a ledge that’s green. You jump at the wall, and nothing happens. You jump again, and again, and again, constantly throwing Samus at the edge of a rock cliff, and suddenly, you’re tossed into a cutscene where Samus magically pulls herself up. You didn’t actually do anything to get on to that ledge. In fact, now you’ve been pulled out of the game entirely, because why the fuck did that need to be a cutscene?
This happens multiple times throughout Prime 3, where you have to use a ledge-grab to pull yourself onto a ledge, except this isn’t Fusion. There’s no timing you have to get right, Samus doesn’t actually grab onto the ledge, you’re just throwing yourself at a wall and hoping the game realizes what you’re trying to do to enact the If-Then statement.
And why is it a cutscene? Why do we need to have a green bar to indicate that Samus can’t jump up there naturally? Why do we need to have a ledge that Samus can’t jump to? Why is there a ledge that Samus can’t jump to at all? Isn’t this supposed to be a Metroidvania? Aren’t we supposed to see a ledge we can’t jump to and want to find an upgrade that can let us up? WHY IS IT A CUTSCENE??
I cannot stress this enough: there is nothing in the mechanics of this game that makes me want to play it again. Hell, in fact, there’s more mechanics that I absolutely despise that make me never want to think about Prime 3 again. It is baffling that this game controls so poorly, and yet it shipped out to thousands of gamers. This game sucks so much to play, I cannot imagine people playing this game in the modern era and enjoying their time.
But that’s just the controls of the game. I’m usually not super picky about my controls as long as I manage to beat the game. I’m much more interested in the story of a game, how it blends into the rest of the series, how the characters develop throughout the game, and it’s world-building. How does that hold up in Prime 3? Well…
Where the Hell Are We?: Atmosphere and World-Building
The other major annoyance of Prime 3 is how there isn’t a set planet. In Prime 1 and 2 (or, hell, all of the Metroid games), there’s a set planet you explore throughout the game. In it, you explore Tallon IV and Aether, both of which have multiple areas, expressing the diverse environments of a planet. In Prime 3, there is no set planet. You don’t get to see one planet's history and lore, you don’t get to see one planet’s expansive environments showcased, you only get to see a small fragments of tiny planets that barely have any cohesiveness to it. Not to mention, you can only explore the areas around the landing pads. If there is more to the planet, you aren’t allowed to explore outside of the vicinity of your ship.
In this case, you’re given basic, plain planets with barely any diversity to the environment, and you can’t even explore it without being within reachable distance of your ship. It makes for boring, uninspired gameplay. I could describe to you the different areas of Tallon IV and Aether, what make them all unique, and what their quirks were, but I couldn’t tell you what makes Bryyo different from Norion or Elysia or the Pirate Homeworld. They all just ended up blurring together, especially when inside of a building.
With Tallon IV and Aether, at the very least the separate areas were unique enough, cohesive enough with the rest of the world as a whole, that it’s easy to tell the different areas apart. With Prime 3, each planet felt like an entirely different game. How am I supposed to remember where an upgrade is when remembering the different planets of Prime 3 feels like a hassle in and of itself? Why do I even care that we’re going to Elysia after Bryyo? Why should I want to go back?
Hell, and this is a nitpick, but with Prime 1 and 2, you can define the game by it’s planet. With Prime 3, you have GFS Olympus, GFS Valhalla (which is different than Olympus), Norion, Bryyo, Elysia, Pirate Homeworld, and Phaaze. I couldn’t tell you which of these planets are the most relevant to the plot of Prime 3, nor use it to describe Prime 3 as a whole. It’s just Prime 3, nothing more.
The annoying part of this is that multiple planets seems like a good idea. Getting to travel between the different planets would be cool idea for a Metroid game, especially considering we barely get to see the world of Metroid as a whole. But, what’s the point of traveling between the planets if there’s barely any purpose to exploring other areas? What’s the point of getting into my ship, pressing the “lift off” button in the center, choosing my landing pad, all the while waiting for dozens of load screens, if it means nothing? I don’t get to fly through asteroids, I don’t get to shoot enemies, I don’t get to communicate with other planets except for the very beginning of the game only one time, I just get to sit in loading screens! Why couldn’t that effort be used for making a more cohesive planet structure? Why bother adding features to the interior of Samus’ ship where you can interact with weapons and shields when they don’t do anything! I feel like a fucking infant interacting with one of those toy tablet things!
Ultimately, with small planets and limited exploration, I have to ask: how is this a Metroidvania at this point?
Grievances With Gameplay: How is This Even a Metroidvania?
Phenomenally, there’s no exploration within Prime 3. There simply isn’t. There’s very few hidden areas to explore, and they’re far too close to the main path that it doesn’t feel rewarding to find. You’ll see a Missile Tank within reachable distance, and guess what? You just will have access to it. No upgrades needed.
Because of this, you end up not really needing to explore outside of what is within reachable distance. And because you don’t need to explore outside of what is within reachable distance, you’re just given enough upgrades in order to beat the game along the path. And because of that, every map of Prime 3 ends up being a linear, straightforward map.
And if this is the case, why should I backtrack for upgrades I don’t need? Why should I go back to Bryyo after Pirate Homeworld to find hidden upgrades when they don’t matter?
Part of me feels like the reason why Prime 3 feels so mind-numbingly linear is the fact that you get major upgrades super early. Key movements upgrades that would usually be a late-game item (or in Screw Attack’s case, literally defined as a high-level movement ability in Prime 2) were given within the first hour or so of the game, making the exploration of the planets incredibly easy. They don’t add any new movement abilities to the game, so you’re just able to move around the map without any issue. It makes it so that hunting for unlockables in secret, unattainable areas in the early game non-existent. So, there’s no reason to go back to the early game once you’ve completed the area. So, I ask you, if there’s no hidden unlockables that aren’t attainable due to needing a specific upgrade, how is this a Metroidvania? That negates the entire purpose of Metroidvanias!!
Key Insight: Linearity
I don’t particularly have an issue with linearity in Metroid games. Hell, my favorite Metroid game is Fusion, notorious for being the most linear 2D Metroid. But, the difference between Fusion and this is that Fusion encourages exploration off of the beaten path. It hides unlockables in unreachable areas without certain upgrades, it shows you items and forces you to backtrack to reach it. This isn’t the case for Prime 3. You’re told exactly where to go, you follow through the map in a linear order, and you never stray too far from the correct area at any given time.
The only time where things were hidden by an upgrade was the Spiderball tracks in Elysia. And even then, I’m not convinced that wasn’t part of the actual main storyline. Oh, the one time you have to go back to Elysia for story progression, you just happen to find a Spiderball track never seen before—directly after the Spiderball upgrade was attained—that takes you directly to an energy tank? It just happens to suddenly appear when it’s relevant? Sure, man.
Grievances With Plot: Why Are We Concerned About Space Pirates and Ridley Again?
This is a bit of a superficial annoyance with Prime 3, which is why it’s under a smaller heading, but is still annoying nonetheless: I’m so sick of dealing with Space Pirates all the time. Why are Space Pirates always the enemy in these games? I know that Samus is a bounty hunter, and fighting pirates is exactly what that kind of job would entail, but, also, it’s such a boring plot point.
Like, there’s gotta be a correlation between the Space Pirates not being the major enemy in the most beloved Metroid games (Dread, Prime 2, Fusion in some capacity). I think people are sick of them.
I’m also sick of Ridley being the final boss, or one of the final bosses in Metroid games. It was actually kind of nice to play Prime 2 and never see him or be hinted of his existence. Though, the introduction to Meta Ridley at the beginning of Prime 3 where Samus is falling and battling him was sick as hell. Doesn’t mean I’m not sick of seeing him as the antagonist. Why is Ridley even here? What does Ridley have to do with the plot of Prime 3? Hell, what does Ridley have to do with the plot of Prime at all? Do we need a reminder that Ridley is still alive? What does he add to the plot that makes the game so drastically different? I get putting him in Prime 1 because look guys! He’s in 3D now! But, Prime 3? Who cares!
Ultimately, having the Space Pirates relevant enemies (and subsequently Ridley) just makes the story so incredibly boring. Who cares what they’re researching at this point? What does it matter? I would’ve loved an army of phazon creatures made by Dark Samus or something, and that at least would’ve made logistical sense with the rest of the plot.
Aspects of Prime 3 I Actually Liked
I’m going to be honest here: there is very little about Prime 3 that I liked. I hated the boss fights. I hated how awful the controls were. I hated how we got grapple beam and screw attack so early that backtracking became pointless. I hated most of the planets. I hated how big the maps were and yet how small they felt. I hated how there wasn’t any solid world-building. I hated how they introduced Aurora Units and had Aurora Unit 313 be the final boss, when Aurora Unit 313 was barely mentioned throughout the game, let alone the series. I hated that none of the story made any sense. I hated how they tried to make the story make sense by making Samus seem sad over the deaths of the other bounty hunters, but we barely spend any time with them to actually care about their deaths. I hated how the game tries to be so much and yet fails in every single category of what makes a Metroid game good. It’s such a miserable experience.
But I would be lying if I said I hated every aspect of Prime 3.
Elysia: They Peaked With This One
I really, really liked Elysia. It’s the second planet you go to, and a massive planet at that, but it’s such an incredibly unique planet. It’s like Sanctuary Fortress from Prime 2; phenomenal world design that makes you gasp when you see it.
Elysia is essentially a steampunk-esque planet, where the entire thing is a floating city. You grapple beam between each of the major buildings, and it’s all built of brass railings and mechanical robots that set the theme. It is a phenomenal planet to explore, if you can even call it a planet.
But, that’s ultimately the issue. Elysia is one part of the entirety of Prime 3. I wish Elysia was a single city on a vaster planet you explore; it would’ve made a lot more sense instead of being functionally just a planet to explore. It would’ve been sick if Elysia was this final area to explore, a city in the clouds, where civilization moved after the planet itself became uninhabitable. Maybe due to Phazon. Maybe because of Dark Samus. It would’ve told a story, especially one that connects with the previous Prime games. But as it is, Elysia is just another area of Prime 3. And that sucks.
Corruption: It’s the Subtitle for a Reason
I also really liked the plot of Samus’ corruption with Phazon. It’s genuinely really neat! There’s this huge explosion at the beginning of the game that’s supposed to kill everyone, and while it completely overrides the other bounty hunters of the game to the point that you have to kill them, Samus can just tolerate it (mostly). It is still slowly killing her.
And in such a situation, the Federation gives Samus the new Power Suit that uses Phazon as an attack without realizing that it could literally kill her, and instead of taking it from Samus, they put her in increasingly more dangerous situations that causes the corrupted Phazon inside her to worsen. She’s the one that has to attack the “Seed” of each planet, because no one else can handle that much Phazon in their body. She’s the one that has to go to Phaaze to finish Dark Samus and Aurora Unit 313 for good, because she’s the only one that can. For their own selfish desires, the Federation forces Samus into riskier and riskier scenarios “for the sake of science,” and while Samus is a bounty hunter and the most infamous one, you’d think that they wouldn’t want to put her in too many life-threatening situations because what if she doesn’t survive? The concern almost isn’t there.
It truly makes me wonder when Samus is going to crack. Which, one can only hope is natural progression of the overarching story of Metroid.
Overall Thoughts
All in all, the best description I can give Prime 3 is that it’s fucking annoying and a miserable experience. Challenging at parts, but not in a rewarding way like other Prime games, in a “holy shit, why do I have to fight the controls and defeat the boss?” kind of way.
Prime 3 is one of the worst games I have ever played. But, don’t get me wrong, it’s not as bad as some. I hated the motion controls, didn’t care for the story or world-building, and the boss fights got on my nerves. However, there were a handful of things I wasn’t too mad at. I really liked the corruption aspect of the game, and Elysia was a super cool planet to explore. I just wish they did a bit more with it instead of the bare minimum. For a Metroid game, I expect better. For that reason, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption gets a 4/10 for me.
And that’s about it! I’m so thankful to be free of the horrors that were Prime 3, I’m truly never playing this game again ever. It’s one of those games where I think you should give it a shot just to see how miserable the controls are, and finish it only if you want to say you’ve played all of the Prime games.
Have you played Metroid Prime 3? What were your thoughts? Did you like aspects of it that I hated? Hated aspects I liked? Lemme know in the comments below!
Since writing this post, I’ve started playing Metroid Prime 4. I don’t want to say too much because I’m not very far yet, but I gotta say; I like where it’s going. Game design, world-building, and atmosphere in Prime 4 are so much better than Prime 3, it is truly like a breath of fresh air. And the new mechanics don’t make me want to explode, so that’s a plus. I already can tell that I’m going to have to rate it higher than Prime 3, regardless of how it ends up.
Blog-wise, next post will be my March backlog wrap-up (already, I know!). And if you can do the math, 3/31 is a Tuesday two weeks from now. Which means I will have a main post up the very next day. That’s totally not going to kill me. The post on 4/1 will be a follow up to my “Weird Wii Games” post from January, talking about the weird DS games from the generation. Gonna be weird to record that, since it’s a list, but I’ll figure it out.
And as always, see you next time!
