Its Big! It's Immersive! And quite simply: Amazing.
Upon starting the game the first thing you'll notice is it is played from a 1st person perception and your weapon is a beam gun. Being the first metroid game I'd ever played, I at first thought this was a little stupid. Maybe you will too, but it didnt take me long to appreciate it. As you progress through the game you'll find different alternations of your power beams that will help you progress through the various puzzles the game has to offer.
The Hud display is very unique and I believe it makes it just that little more immersive. Have you ever played Halo? You see nothing of yourself except your hands and gun. In Metroid Prime it actually tries to create the feeling that you are indeed wearing a suit. On the edges is a helmet, not a frame as I initially thought. As you come across different environment (ie water, smoke) it'll effect your vision. You'll be able to see those little water droplets pouring down your helmets front, and I think that's pretty cool. You might be thinking now... "won't that get in the way?" My answer is: Surprisingly no.
When I first landed on Tallon IV, it felt like the coolest thing ever. It is a strange world filled with exotic plants and animal life forms and I think you'll really appreciate it. Exploring it for the first time is awesome and you'll find it easy to immerse. Unfortunately with the extreme amount of backtracking this game has, this effect does start to wear off. Graphically this is the best game on the gamecube, perhaps on of the best of the generation.
On Tallon IV you'll travel the globe searching for upgrades to your suit. In the style of Legend of Zelda, you'll need to solve puzzles and get new items in order to pass through different areas. Some of the puzzles really require you to think, some of them to the point of serious annoyance. Speaking of it, if you are a fan of Zelda, you'll soon be a fan of Metroid. Getting more upgrades to your suit is fun as you slowly get more abilities. Morph Ball, Super Bomb, Double Jump, Grapple Beam and alterations of the Power Beam just to name a few.
The scan visor is simple yet effective, upon turning it on you'll be able to search the area for clues. You can scan almost everything. You can scan every single creature for a brief history and characterises. You can learn about their weakness. You can learn about how something came to be damage or how a dead creature met its fate. But most of all and this is very important: You can learn about the world and why you are here. Which gives you more purpose to the game as you discover the Chozo and Samus are connected. The scan advisor also gives hints on how to complete a puzzle. Metroid Prime is a game about exploration and discovery, the scan advisor makes this possible.
It may surprise you to hear that the combat aspect of the game is not the biggest aspect of the game. Its simple enough: lock on to your enemy, shoot and dodge their fire. Of course you'll get access to more beams and you can scan them to discover their weakness. The combat sometimes is boring. Where the combat really shines is in boss battles. In the tradition of Zelda, Metroid Prime has some really impressive bosses. A few of them took me 2 hours to figure out how to beat. Remember thats what Metroid Prime is about: Puzzles, exploration and discovery
Now unfortunately I must explore some of the flaws it has, the biggest being: backtracking. Now there's nothing wrong with backtracking, but the truth is Metroid Prime has a little too much of it. As I already mention it slowly destroys that awesome feeling of exploration and discovery, and you'll continually have the face the same enemies (which you've already killed 500000 times) again and again. Sometimes its confusing where to go, I once went for months on end without knowing what to do. This is even the case when it tells me the area I have to go. To be quite blunt, Metroid Primes biggest flaw is: Its annoying and at times repetitive
The game has hardly any glitches, I don't remember coming across any troubles with it. As the game nears its end I started to find it a little to easy. I'm doing my best to think of flaws with this game, just to be a non biased reviewer, but quite simply I'm finding it hard. Its Big! It's Immersive! And quite simply: Amazing.