Past Blasting: Metroid Prime

Last week, having finished off Super Metroid at last, I decided to pull out my disc for Metroid Prime and give it a spin. Prime had been one of my favourite games for quite some time, and soon it became clear that nothing much had changed in that respect as I powered my way through the game to complete it 100% in just a couple of days. Exciting, thrilling and wonderfully immersive are some words that come to mind, but they don’t even begin to describe the fun I have when playing this game today.

While many fans of the Metroid series prior to Prime may have worried at the prospect of a first person shooter ruining a well-established favourite franchise, I had no such concerns. My first experiences with Samus had come with Super Smash Bros on the Nintendo 64, so Prime just looked like another awesome shooter with some exploration elements. Upon picking it up for myself, I found something much, much deeper – a game which catered to both my urges of wanting to survey every last nook and cranny of a vast-yet-barren alien planet, as well as my need to blast creepy foreign creatures into oblivion. While I run the risk of sounding cliché, Metroid Prime really was one of those games I struggled to put down which left me salivating for more even after all baddies had been blasted and all the upgrades collected.

After the success of Metroid Prime, some key members of Retro Studios moved on to pursue careers with other companies. While this isn’t an uncommon occurrence in the industry, it became clear to me after playing through the second and third installments of the trilogy that there was something missing. Prime 2 and 3 remained great games as both first person shooters and explorative adventures, but there just wasn’t the same amount of care put into crafting them which caused a trilogy that had initiated with a big bang to slowly fizzle out later on. When I realised the two sequels lacked the same punch as the original, I was able to reflect on just what had given Prime its soul, made it such a fantastic experience and allowed it to stand above other shooter and adventure games on the market at the time.

A gripping introduction was the first part of Prime that made it so memorable, and was something I felt the sequels fell just short of. Introductions can be tough to get right in action games, as there needs to be just the right mix of simple tutorials to get the player comfortable with the controls as well as action to keep them interested. In Prime, this entailed the exploration of a defunct Space Pirate ship, partially destroyed by an onboard experiment gone wrong. As a player, I found myself really intrigued as I trekked through the eerie ship to discover just what had occurred, the weakened enemies and rubble aboard the ship serving as an excellent masked tutorial to get me used to the gameplay.

The introduction of Echoes, while keeping the same sort of spooky and isolated feel, didn’t manage to capture the same level of excitement as the original. Prime 3, on the other hand, didn’t mask its tutorials quite as well and forfeited the signature isolated feel of the Metroid franchise for the entire introduction by placing you onboard a Federation Gunship in the presence of other humans and bounty hunters. To its credit Prime 3 was the only game of the trilogy which didn’t strip you of your weaponry after completing the introduction, but otherwise neither Prime 2 nor Prime 3 felt like they had quite as strong introductions as the first.

The combat in Metroid Prime is simply superb. The weapons are all very balanced in their use throughout the game and nicely varied with the effects they have on enemies and the environment. While finding a new beam weapon can be exciting due to it unlocking new areas of the game to explore, each successive weapon will make you feel much stronger than before and the effects they can have on previously-difficult enemies will make you feel unstoppable. Sheegoths, as an example, are formidable foes which can take a few charged shots and/or missiles to defeat after finding their weakpoint, but return to them with the plasma beam and you’ll be able to disintegrate them into thin air with a single charge shot. While their actual uses may be limited, all of the additional beam-combos are really neat additions that provide some nice extra options during combat, dispatching enemies quickly and looking awesome at the same time.

All of these factors come together to provide a really strong shooting experience which took my preference over the later two Prime games mainly because of the variety of options available to the player when fighting your foes. Prime 2’s beam weapons felt a little generic and not so ground breaking or special, whereas Prime 3 got rid of most weapon options in favour of a simple, all-in-one stacked beam and combat that usually just consisted of entering a phazon-infused hypermode whose novelty wore off too soon. While the main focus of Prime was to retain the explorative gameplay of its 2D predecessors, its combat was an integral component of the overall experience which remained exciting and fun throughout the entire game.

Exploring the world of Prime wouldn’t be so fun if the game was devoid of good environments, and it’s clear that this was something the designers sought to get right from the very beginning. Prime has your typical ice world and lava world, as well as jungle ruins, an underwater wreck, underground mines and a secret laboratory for you to explore. They’re all very fascinating locales, but what really stood out for me was how the designers were able to intertwine the right amount of natural beauty from the planet of Tallon IV as well as all of the intriguing pirate and Chozo technology housed upon the planet when creating these environments. All of Tallon IV’s inhabitants, whether they be friendly or foes, worked together to give the environment a life of its own, a sort of soul which felt alien yet believable at the same time. The game’s world was so wonderfully immersive it was incredibly easy to pass up the option of quitting at each save point, just because of the level of intrigue you had as a player in not knowing exactly what you might discover lying hidden in the next room.

The music of Prime lent itself largely to this feeling of immersion also. Not because the tracks were fantastic stand alone tunes you could remember and hum to yourself ten years later, but because they managed to fit the environments they were assigned to and really help in setting the overall mood of the area you were exploring. I can’t recommend Prime’s entire soundtrack to everybody as quality listening material for the iPod on its own, but in the context of the game itself the music was perfect. I’m unsure if I can put my finger on why exactly I feel the music worked so well, but a theory I have pertains to the way the soundtrack sounded so foreign and alien-like. There were all sorts of sound effects and instruments used in the background of each track that I just hadn’t heard used in that sort of way before, but it worked because I was so heavily convinced that it just fitted the atmosphere of Tallon IV.

I could go on for hours in my praise for Prime as a whole, but there’d be little point when I could be spending that time reliving my time on Tallon IV. If this blog were to have any one purpose, however, it would be to encourage everyone out there to grab Metroid Prime, pop the disc in and play. Whether they be returning to the world of Prime again or whether it be a brand new thing, Prime is one of those gaming experiences of this decade, nay, all time which should not be overlooked.

Review: Yoshi’s Island DS

Yoshi’s Island DS is the direct sequel to Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, released on the Super Nintendo over a decade ago. It takes all the ideas from the original game and expands on them with new levels, puzzles, and most notably new babies for Yoshi to lug around, each with their own unique abilities. After spending so many hours with the first game all those years ago I really wanted to love Yoshi’s Island DS, but a few flaws and lack of the same charm its predecessor possessed ended up hurting my appreciation for this new installment.

Looks like Yoshi's Island. Can't say as much for the music here.

The basic premise of the story here is that Kamek has kidnapped all of the babies in the Mushroom Kingdom again. In an airborne struggle, the stork manages to free Baby Mario from Kamek’s grip, who ends up being reunited with the Yoshis. Together, the Yoshis and Mario set out to rescue the other babies from the baddies one by one.

The game retains the same colourful crayon-drawn art style as the original on the SNES, yet the sound here isn’t quite up to standard. Most sound effects have been recycled from the original game, which is mostly fine with the exception of the odd ear-grating cry of a lost baby. On the other hand, the music, while chirpy, is easily forgettable and borderline boring at times. Most of the music consists of remixes of the same one tune, and much of it fails to capture the mood of the area you’re exploring, especially for the fortress levels and boss fights.

Climbing the vines with Baby Donkey Kong

Each of the five babies found over the course of your adventure will be able to lend their unique abilities to your arsenal to help you through the levels. Mario enables Yoshi to run super fast and activates M blocks within levels to help (or sometimes hinder) your progress. Peach uses her parasol to catch draughts of wind and float high into the air, Donkey Kong can grab onto vines as well as barge through obstacles. In later levels you’ll be required to string together the abilities of several different babies in order to move forward, and some levels will require you to come back after acquiring a new baby’s abilities in order to scout out all the secrets within them and achieve a perfect score.

These secrets are one of the game’s high points, as there are plenty to find and many are devilishly difficult to locate. First up, there are doors in most levels unlocked with a key which lead to one of many minigames, which can be fun to play after you’ve played a level to exhaustion for a breath of fresh air. Then, if you earn a high enough score in all of the levels within a world by finding all of the hidden red coins, stars and flowers, you’ll open up an additional level to play which combines most of the challenges you’ve faced within that world’s individual levels into one super-difficult stage. While these extra stages are a great way to test your skills, it’s easy to wear yourself out on the way to unlocking them while trying to find all of the secret pickups within each level. Even though it wasn’t often, there were times where I would have all the abilities required to complete a level for 100%, but such was the level design that I had to guess which baby to switch to for an upcoming segment since I wouldn’t get the chance to switch back if I chose wrong unless I started over.

While there aren’t as many worlds to explore as in the original, the levels try to make up for this by being longer. However, later on in the game this can end up hurting some of the appeal of Yoshi’s Island DS as a portable platformer, since it takes considerably longer to reach checkpoints within levels and not many stages are bite-sized enough to finish on the go. Later levels may be a lot tougher, but when the difficulty stems from long, unforgiving segments of bouncy obstacles and baddies placed above bottomless pits and spikes, the game can become frustrating to the point where it isn’t fun anymore. The camera functionality could have been a lot better during these difficult sections too, as it will often forbid the player from scrolling the screen down or to the side to see what hazards may await them.

A new kangaroo friend to jump around with

The abilities of the babies, while varied, are quite gimmicky in that each of them really only has one or two select uses. After seeing a certain object or obstacle in a level you’ll know which baby to switch to by instinct. Rotor fans will, at some point, act as air lifts for Peach. Vines can only be grabbed onto by Donkey Kong. While the game occasionally tries to puzzle you with the question of how to reach DK’s vines or how to activate Peach’s airlifts, Yoshi’s Island DS usually relies on other gameplay gimmicks to keep the levels feeling fresh. New gimmicks will include a kangaroo friend which bounces you through a secret area, stilts which can be used to cross over treacherous terrain and skis to slide down snow-covered slopes at swift speeds. None are nearly as diverse as Yoshi’s eggs and there isn’t much fun to be had with them outside their predesigned puzzles like there might be with the powerups and suits of other Mario platformers.

Hit the coloured bits with eggs or lick them up. Yawn.

Unfortunately, the boss fights in the game don’t focus on the unique abilities of each character and instead only require the player to master Yoshi’s usual arsenal of egg throwing, tongue licking and butt stomping attacks. It’s always easy to know what to do and even easier to finish the boss without risk of losing a life. I’m not as bothered with the fact that the fights are so easy though, more so that a game which focuses so heavily around switching skill sets to tackle the appropriate tasks in front of you can’t use that same concept in its boss battles.

While Yoshi’s Island DS remains a good platformer and can still be fun to play, its numerous flaws prevent it from becoming a second coming of the classic original. It’s a fine game for those looking for a bit of additional DS platformer fun, but if you’re looking for the full Yoshi’s Island experience again it’d be a better idea to just pull out the Super Nintendo.

You can’t beat the classics…

But that won’t stop me from trying.

Growing up in a time where 3D games were beginning to emerge as the standard meant that unless your parents bought you an old SNES for cheap and refused to let you get any consoles after that, it was hard to stick with 16-bit games (or older) and appreciate them fully. While I have some great memories of playing classics like the original Prince of Persia and SNES titles like Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario Kart and Yoshi’s Island, my experiences with the 16 bit consoles were rather limited. It’s only natural as a kid to gravitate towards those 3D titles with cutting-edge graphics like Super Mario 64 and leave the 16 bit genre behind, despite how good the gameplay beneath the surface may be.

But in an industry where the average age of the consumer is something like 34, it can be hard to gain respect as a gamer if you didn’t grow up during the “golden age” of the eighties, or if your first system was any more powerful than 8-bit. All too often there are young and/or inexperienced gamers awed by seemingly new and innovative ideas in today’s games, whereas if they had grown up ten, fifteen years earlier they’d know better. Knowledge of the evolution of games and the mechanics within is something I feel essential to anyone looking to earn a little credibility with their opinions about them. That’s why my current backlog of games to play and finish includes not mainly bestselling titles from this generation, but games from yesteryear which have managed to end up on many players’ top lists for aiding in the development of the industry, or just because they’re damn good to play.

My list is close to a hundred different titles at the moment, so I won’t bother posting it here. Some games I have listed as simply wanting to play to get the gist of the gameplay ideas and perhaps the visuals and music, while others I’ve heard enough about that I know it would be utterly embarrassing to go on having not beaten them. But hey, laugh at me when I say two of those games I had never beaten and barely played through were Super Mario World and Super Metroid for the Super Nintendo.

This game is pretty good. But you don't need me to tell you that.

I finished up the former just over a week ago, and can now easily understand its praise. The gameplay is still fantastic and it’s interesting now to see where a lot of the ideas for modern Mario games originated. Where the game excels and sets itself apart from other Mario titles though, especially new ones, is in two main areas. The first I felt was with its powerups, which were always of great use and never felt gimmicky and restricted in their use like the Mega Mushroom and Blue Shell in New Super Mario Bros, for example. The other highlight for me was with the secret exits, and just how rewarding it was upon finding some on my own. Secrets in games are fantastic when hidden well and out of the way of your usual adventure, which is part of why I liked the Donkey Kong Country trilogy so much. But when hidden so far out of the way that you might not even notice them at all during a first playthrough, with rewards usually consisting of an entire new level to play through — it just adds a whole extra level of polish to a game which was already incredible. There are a lot of games today that use some nicely hidden secrets with a pointless extra life or some in-game cash as a reward that I think should take a leaf out of Mario World’s book.

Kraid likes him some missiles for breakfast.

I haven’t finished Super Metroid yet, I’m probably just over halfway through at this point, but again it’s proving to be a classic example of a game holding up perfectly to the test of time. This has been further proven by the success of recent Xbox Live Arcade release Shadow Complex from Epic Games, which uses the exact same type of 2D exploration gameplay with better graphics. While being stuck in a place like Maridia for half an hour in any other game would usually see me consult a friend or walkthrough for help, in Super Metroid it only provides an excuse for more fascinating exploration off the beaten track. I already loved the Metroid Prime trilogy by Retro Studios so the fact that I love exploring Zebes in Super Metroid comes as no real surprise to me, it’s just nice to see where a lot of that gameplay came from. The original Metroid may prove a bit harder to get into without the map functionality and a proper save function, but I’ll worry about that at a later time.

In other news for today:

I seem to have a real bad habit of jumping around from game to game and not bothering to finish what I start at times. This kind of description can be used to describe me outside of gaming too, and in either case it’s kind of annoying when I reflect back on everything I’m juggling and how much of it I’ve actually completed. Half Life 2 is one of these games, although I have a bit of an excuse in this case in that my copy is the laggy Xbox port and I really want to wait to get the version included with the Orange Box instead. It’s a great game but the framerate of my version really kills the experience at times.

Twilight Princess is another game I mentioned before that I’m hoping I get to finish before jumping to another title. I had finished the game back when it was released, although my opinions on the game were rather rough for a while. This recent playthrough has made me appreciate it a little bit more, and while it’s still very samey and isn’t the best of the franchise, I still like it a lot.

That’s all I really have to say for today though. Might try to post up a review or two sometime soon for kicks, but otherwise… bye?