'on the one hand it displays amazing moments that define metroid. on the other it tramples clumsily over the past.'
Metroid Prime 3 - review
this review of 'metroid prime 3: corruption' doesn't promise to be comprehensive, but it does outline and analyze the areas of the game that I think are of greatest importance to discuss.
The bad
As a long-time fan of the metroid series, you would think that I would have been looking forward to this game, but I wasn't really bothered about it.
I adored the first metroid prime (my favorite gamecube game) and played it a lot. When the second one came out I got it first day, but after a while I was somewhat disappointed. I felt I had seen it all before.
I also took issue with the whole 'dark world', that I thought was boring and largely empty, and too similar to the 'light world'. The only two areas I really remembered were 'torvus bog' and the mechanical level at the end.
But I eventually borrowed MP3 from a friend, and I must say it caused a lot of varied reactions in me.
First of all, let's talk about the opening of the game. Samus actually docks into the 'galactic federation', and there are actually guards walking about. The first reaction from me is one of slight confusion and a sort of "hmm…is this really necessary" kind of attitude.
I can't get over how much the beginning of MP3 felt like the beginning 'Halo' mixed with the beginning of 'Half-Life'. Anyway, several of the NPCs at the station just stand there repairing boxes or something – it's just really odd for a metroid game.
But it was about to get odder, when you meet 'admiral dane'!
Admiral dane tells you of some corruption virus harming their supercomputers, while some other 'bounty hunters' are just milling around. I kind of lost it when the pink one talked, and almost banged my head on the controller when the one with the deep voice started trying to have an emotional moment (*cue deep voice* "If only I was there, this would never have happened…"). Please…don't talk anymore.
I think the actual character designs for the hunters are okay, but the faces are just silly and voices are terrible. "See you later, sammy…" the pink girly one says in a somewhat seductive voice. Samus, ever the mute says nothing back. But it's like you're supposed to believe that they're chums or something, and that they normally talk like that and hang out together.
The whole 'other characters' thing was just kind of an ill-advised move. It totally removed the atmosphere and placed Samus in an out-of-place context. This is one of the reasons why I don't think retro studios is that great at storytelling (at least in this way) – they seem like a very technically-driven company.
Anyway, the whole game has been simplified for the Wii. Everything looks great, but it's shorter in length and more compact. Samus starts off with some of her old abilities so she doesn't need to attain the basic ones. Also, you can't switch between weapons as whatever new weapon you get replaces the older one. This all works fine.
I'd say the biggest change with this new metroid is the level selection screen. Retro thought it was a good idea to cut the game into separate levels instead of one whole compact, inter-connected map.
I can see where they were going with this. It makes the game feel like it has more of a 'mission-structure', and indeed the game is more mission-based, similar to fusion's linear design. The use of samus's ship makes her feel more like a bounty hunter. I think retro wanted to really emphasize the bounty hunter aspect.
However, it cuts the game up into sections which destroys the feeling of cohesion and seamlessness that retro worked so hard to build in the first two games.
Levels in MP3 feel like they could have been in a 'Zelda' game. It's such an odd mish-mash of sci-fi and fantasy elements that sometimes just don't feel right.
The first two levels are kind of generic. The first one is a space station that is actually okay, setting the tone of the game and giving you a familiar feel. Though, there is an odd inclusion of ridley towards the end of the level. It's kind of confusing and throws you, because you kill ridley off in the first prime. But apparently this one is 'mecha ridley' and not 'meta ridley'.
It's just confusing and it feels like they just threw it in for dramatic effect, even if it is cool in itself – it's not cool to just liberally mess around with a series' roots for the fun of it. Ridley, like samus is in danger of losing its mystique due to over-exposure in all the other games recently. I had this concern when they just plonked another meta-ridley at the end of 'zero mission'. Do they not even care anymore? It's just lazy.
The second level is comprised of a number of sub-levels. One is a jungle and the other is a fire temple.
For some reason there is really no atmosphere in the jungle level. It all has a kind of lifeless feel to it, like it has had all the juice sucked out of it. I really felt like retro had simply run out of ideas at this point. All the levels in this section felt like re-hashes and remixes of various other areas from the first two games, and no better for it.
The good
However, it's not all bad. Once you get to 'skytown Elysia', you know that this is going to be an awesome place and MP3 really feels strong and it all feels like metroid again.
Skytown Elysia is a beautiful steampunk fantasy network, hovering in the clouds.
It's hard to describe the beauty in words, but I'll describe the layout of the level, which is genius.
There are lots of pipes everywhere, and a feeling of a rusty fantasy world that is under repair by tiny robots hovering around. (They don't harm you).
The corridors are classically metroid; narrow and dank. The darkness and depth of the level is bathed in many sources of light though. The light doesn't reach the corners of the rooms, but instead glows faintly and silently. The corridors are littered with green discs that bathe your senses in green light. And there are tons of other little light sources and transparencies.
Once you get out of the tight corridors, you can see the large expansive clouds, and you're able to breathe again. The small corridor areas are tied together by rails. In a stroke of genius, samus can hook onto the rails and glide effortlessly through the sky!
It is such a calming and serene experience that really makes you feel better that the rest of the game isn't up to scratch. When gliding, you forget the open arenas of earlier levels and repeated bosses, and just enjoy the moment, where you can feel the essence of metroid: transience.
But it's not just the beauty of the art direction. It is everything – down to every polygon, and every interaction. The texture detail is low, but retro have painstakingly crafted detail with lots of angular polygons and sheets of transparency, giving efficient and effective depth and detail to the world, that is really striking and proof that you don't need to use the latest technical breakthroughs in 3D graphics to make your game look good.
I think 'Bioschok' looks great, but the characters look far too rubbery, and bump mapping everything doesn't make it necessarily look any better. A lot of 'next-gen' games look far too shiny, while metroid prime 3: corruption retains an identiy among all the samey, bandwagon graphics of the bigger consoles.
I always feel like experiencing the prime games is like walking around in a natural history museum or a secret science exhibit, shown only to scientists. It has that aesthetic…sort of surreal and dreamy, but you know it is a simulation underneath.
In my metroid prime review I talk about how the identity of prime is in its fluidity and pacing. The metroid games have always been fluid and well-paced, but prime does it so perfectly and seamlessly that it almost becomes about moving from area to area – as a concept.
Samus becomes a vagrant and a vagabond, with no stable home. While in SM, samus defines speed, the samus in MP is an explorer; an examiner; an analyzer. She is working methodically to take the spice pirates down from the inside, bit by bit.
Elysia showcases samus's methodical nature the best, with so many interactions and so much input by the player. Retro forces this idea that samus is a key. She is a key that is unlocking elysia, and the chozos' world, each step of the way. They give you control for each separate element that you could possibly think of.
All of this is mostly due to one thing: the morph ball. The morph ball completely changes gameplay and it is still today, fresh, inspiring and innovative in its application.
At the end of the elysia level you have to build a bomb. The game could simply get you to fetch a bomb, then bring it the correct place and treat you to a cut-scene. But instead, you have to find three separate parts to the bomb in spread out locations.
Once you get to each part, you then have to use your scan visor to check the areas that need attention.
Then you often have to use your morph ball or plasma beam to get things online again, then there are several more steps before you have to change visor to call down your ship to pick one bomb part up! And you have to do this kind of thing three times, before the finale of destroying this big leviathan corruption seed.
Prime finds its own identity in its systematic, methodical 'interaction system'. I've never played a game before that offers you so much control over your actions.
This is good, considering how much rhythm and consistency it loses from having more wide-open levels and cut-up world design with menus. Add to that, the fiddly Wii controls, it ends up being an exhausting and strange experience.
On the one hand, it displays many stand-out moments, defining its own identity as a series whilst retaining the essence of metroid, but on the other it tramples all over what it means to experience metroid. So, I am a bit nonplussed.
There are many other cool moments, like the Valhalla, and the ending level but I've ran out of space and time. I think metroid deserves a well-earned break for a while.
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a final note....
it is ironic that metroid is a series that is fundamentally about transience and change, but corruption has made the most radical changes and transitions to the design so far - only, they feel weird and out of place.
this is a strange contradiction that remains though-provoking...