Topic: Metroid Prime 1 Remastered

I wonder if they knew there were supply issues and that's why they shadow dropped the digital release? In the hope that we would go digital to play it early.

@JoeM103 Given there was that Walmart thing about Advance Wars releasing February 10th, I think it may have been that Prime and Advance Wars release dates were swapped at the last minute. Perhaps as a result of the balloon incident.

@Grumblevolcano What was the balloon incident?

Ya, there's no "issue" with the doors. Just the original designer got his feelings hurt because they changed it. Like... grow up dude. You did a fine job but the doors were harder to make out due to only showing blue on the perimeter. They did the right thing by changing them to be more easily discernable from a distance.

I had forgotten about the gauntlet, that long stretch between save points in Phazon Mines before getting Power Bombs. I died 3 times trying to find the next save point. 3rd time I was literally outside the save room, but died to that security turret.

What was killing me was getting hit by the electricity going down the cylinder on the spiderball rail. It takes like 3 full life tanks per hit! Get hit twice and you're almost dead.

I finally made it though. Went to Chozo Ruins and grabbed an artifact, then tried to grab the one beneath the statue but didn't have plasma beam. There was a bendezium crack in the room over, but I had no power bombs to use, and no enemies would give me more! Even the save room doesn't refill your bombs, and neither does the Missile room!

So I decided I'd just hit it later when I come back for the artifact.

@JaxonH That security drone is an absolute pain. I was like one energy tank away from dying to him. Thankfully I managed to combo him with my charged Wave Beam shots, but man, that part is crazy. I have died there plenty of times on previous playthroughs, let me tell you

Just got this game. It's okay, it looks very nice, but the lighting is way too dark to the point where I flat out can't see anything in some of the rooms. If I didn't know this game like the back of my hand I might be struggling right now. Is there some kind of hidden setting to help with the lighting? I could really use it.

EDIT: Never mind, just turned up my TV's brightness setting and it seems to be fine.

Up to Phazon Mines. Did a bunch of stuff then died. I'm really going to hate this section.

Seeing a lot of distress about the Phazon Mines before the Power Bomb. There's a place along the way to refill yourself before getting to the drone - the ventilation room with the poison gas. Those poison enemies just keep coming and are one-shot. Takes only a couple mins to refill completely before continuing. They may not have provided a save station, but they did provide a way to refill on the way down there.

@JoeM103 There was stuff on the news about spy balloons before the most recent Direct.

So I just beat the game yesterday. I am utterly shocked by how quickly I was able to blow through this game, it's shorter than I remember. I know it's a GC game, but I don't recall this game being something I could beat in a day or two. But then, it was probably just good for its time while not really holding up in quantity to more modern exploration games like BotW and Odyssey (and no, I'm not talking about those games being more open world, I'm talking about the size of the maps and things to do). Anyway, going back to this game I want to analyze what I think Retro should learn from this game, both in terms of what it did right and what it did wrong (and yes, I do think there are things Prime 1 does wrong, even for its time) to make Prime 4 better:

Lessons to learn from what Metroid Prime 1 does right:
-Have the player jump from area to area progressing the game. One of the best things about Prime is that you don't tend to stay in one area for too long, you frequently find yourself moving on to a new area or backtracking to an old one compared to Prime 2 and 3 which is a bit more structured and has you mainly stay in the same area until you beat the boss of that area with maybe an occasional backtrack to a previous area. The former is definitely more fun, giving you more variety in your exploration and making the most of the Metroidvania system.
-Keep the story minimal. Metroid games really do work best when you're isolated, it allows you to immerse yourself in exploring the game world and heightens the tension in combat situations. Having narrative cutscenes ruins this feeling a bit, best keep the story primarily to logbook scans as it does in this game. They can have a handful of cutscenes like Prime 2 if they want (and really that might actually be better because it helps players understand the general plot without getting too detailed), but they definitely shouldn't have as many as Prime 3.
-Have stronger enemies show up later in the game, even a few bosses. Metroid games, especially the Prime games, tend to do this pretty well, but one underrated element of Prime 1 is how they even have some minibosses, namely the Plated Beetle and adult Sheegoth, reappear later in the game as regular enemies. This is a nice touch that I wish they did a bit more of, it adds a bit more challenge by having tougher enemies that you have to deal with, and then even later in the game when you get stronger weapons that can dispatch them fairly easily it shows you just how far you've come that enemies that once served as a challenging and involved boss battle can now be dispatched effortlessly.

Lessons to learn from what Metroid Prime 1 does wrong:
Make the maps significantly bigger. As stated above, I was shocked to be able to blow through this game in 2 days. An exploration focused 3D game like the Prime games is not something you should be done with in that short a period of time, especially in this day and age where you have open world games that you can literally play for weeks. Definitely feels like the game should be much longer and the game maps bigger. Like, Prime 4 should be at least 3-5 times bigger than Prime 1.
Have more sidequests and things to do. In addition to making the game world bigger they really should have more content in the game. Metroid's bread and butter as far as extra content is the hidden expansions and Prime also throws in logbook scans, but those two things don't quite seem like enough in 2023. You basically find yourself exploring the areas once, returning when you have the necessary powerup later in the game to get the expansion, and then only passing through them again when you need to get to another area. It really feels like there should be even more than that in this day and age. Now as for what? I think having a side mission system, where you could take on smaller and more simplistic missions (maybe stuff like "defeat a strong enemy" or "find a hidden relic" or something like that) in exchange for currency that you could use to buy more powerups and customization options for Samus and her ship, would be a nice way to get more out of the game and its world.
Implement a fast travel system. This stands in stark contrast to what I said for the last 2 points about lengthening the game, but they really should include a fast travel system in the game to let you backtrack to areas more easily. Yes, having to manually revisit areas helps keep the game long, but it's artificially lengthening the game which makes it less fun, not more. Now because of the size of Prime 1 I actually think Prime 1 itself didn't and still doesn't really need fast travel, but some of the backtracking in Prime 1 is very annoying in principle. Worst offenders are Phendrana and Phazon Mines, which are so isolated and have you trudge through long strings of areas to go back to them (in particular, Magmoor Caverns and the crashed Frigate Orpheon respectively). In fact, the stretch from Flaaghra/Varia Suit to the Sheegoth/Wave Beam has you go back and forth through Magmoor Caverns 3 times (and there wasn't much in terms of new expansions and collectibles that opened up in those return visits either, so you were mainly just passing through instead of re-exploring them with newer powerups)! Now due to Prime 1's smaller size I actually wasn't bothered by this too much in Prime 1 itself, but if Prime 4 is as big as I want it and they pull the same crap in that game? Yeah, that'd be a huge problem. Fast travel points should be a must at this point.
Don't make scans missable. Another trim the fat sort of criticism is the concept of missable scans, with some logbook entries being flat out inaccessible past a certain point in the game if you don't get them before a certain point in the game. Nintendo and Retro probably love this because it gets you to play the game more, but they really shouldn't because it doesn't make the game more fun if you're replaying it to find something you missed. You should only want to replay a game if you enjoyed it that much that you want to play it again. They should simply keep every scan accessible throughout the game instead of having some disappear, and for bosses they could simply implement a simulator or time machine to let you rematch them (this could even add a boss rush mode to the game and tie into the side mission system by rewarding you with currency for beating them).
Avoid pointless filler areas. Prime 1 does have more areas than 2 and 3 which is great, but they didn't quite make use of them well and several of them feel like filler. The biggest offender here is Magmoor Caverns, which seems to exist as little more than a connecting area between Phendrana and Tallon Overworld/Chozo Ruins. Magmoor Caverns, from a design standpoint, is really the weakest area of the game because there's little to do. There's one mission to get the Plasma Beam late in the game, the optional Ice Spreader, and a few Artifacts, but that's it. I checked the guide and there aren't even that many expansions to collect either. Tallon Overworld also feels a bit bloated, and especially the crashed Frigate Orpheon, while great narratively and environmentally (I do love the feeling of re-exploring the game's tutorial area in an underwater setting with new abilities you didn't have the first time), was similarly tedious design wise and feels like it exists more to add filler content before Phazon Mines than anything else. They really shouldn't design areas like this, it makes them feel pointless and tedious, simply adding to the problems I mentioned in previous points about having to simply trek through them to reach the areas you really want to explore. Every area in the game, with the exception of the final stretch leading to the final boss, should have at least about 2 or 3 missions with powerups to collect (they can get away with 1 if it's really small, but Magmoor is not).
Don't make the penultimate area a linear gauntlet. Metroid games have an unfortunate habit of making the second to last area of the game (i.e. like Maridia, Phazon Mines, Pirate Homeworld, not Tourian, Impact Crater, or Phaaze) a linear gauntlet full of tough enemies. And I get it, they want to make it a challenge befitting the late game, but this doesn't feel like the right way to make a Metroidvania challenging. Metroidvanias are exploration based, so making the late game linear feels inappropriate, you should really have multiple options on how to progress and try and explore them seeing if that's the right way to go. Now having long stretches full of tough enemies and few to no Save Points is still a great challenge and I think that part of it should stay, but there should be a little more mystery on where to go, Phazon Mines mainly just feels like a giant string of rooms with a defined beginning and end and you just go halfway through on your first trip to get the Power Bombs, backtrack, then go the full length to reach the Omega Pirate. They really shouldn't be taking their foot off the gas when it comes to non-linear exploration in these areas, in fact it can add even more challenge when you have no idea where to go and choosing wrong could mean dealing with those tough enemies again instead of simply having a defined beginning and end.

Really wish they'd have done a full remake, not just a remaster, to address some of the latter issues and provide something closer to a Zero Mission/Samus Returns sort of experience (now I don't think they can or should go full ZM/SR, but something in between this and those remakes where the game map is mainly the same but has a few updates and additions here and there would've been better), but what's still on offer from 2002 is not bad in the slightest.

Glad to read it's not just me hitting the wall at Phazon Mines. I've died twice so far. The second time came as a bigger blow as I'd defeated a boss among all sorts of things, making it a fair way in. Wondered at the time if it was worth backtracking all the way to the save point and whether it would make any difference or not, or if I'd have to fight many of the enemies again.
First playthrough here after an unfinished Gamecube attempt of about three hours, so Phazon Mines has been a bit of a shock to the system, considering I've found the rest of the game quite mild in terms of difficulty.

"A boss"? There's really no formal "boss" in that stretch. Are you talking about the invisible Sentry Drone or the Elite Pirate? Because if you've made it to the invisible Sentry Drone there's a Save Station off to the right (and that room is really your destination anyway). If it's the Elite Pirate... well you've still got a bit longer to go.

Not sure I can give much help to the people struggling with Phazon Mines, there's no real trick to make it easier. If you're low in Energy Tanks and Missile Expansions you might want to go back and find more (like, you should have roughly 5+ Energy Tanks and 50+ Missiles, if you have less than that you're probably not going to survive), but other than that you'll just have to keep trying.

As for returning to the Save Point, enemies respawn every time you move 2 rooms away from them. So no, returning to the original Save Point won't help and you'll need to trudge through the enemies in one sitting.

EDIT: Just checked the guide and if I counted right you can have a maximum of 10 Energy Tanks and 140 Missiles before you go to Phazon Mines (you can also obtain 3 more Missile Expansions as you explore the Mines on your first trip for a total of 155). That should give you a good idea of how you stack up. You don't need every single one to progress, but if you find yourself having far less than that you might want to try looking for more of them. There's a decent number of them that you can obtain from older areas with the Spider Ball, so if you find yourself lacking, that might be a good place to check.

Talking about the elite pirate pretty sure. Apologies for the confusion. I made it well past there. And I've well over five energy tanks and well over 50 missiles. I'll keep pushing.

The Elite Pirate is the giant bulky Space Pirate that pops out of a stasis tank. That's not a boss (at best it's a miniboss), you'll be fighting multiple of them throughout the Mines (there's also several more in stasis tanks that you can optionally free and defeat, but for the most part there's no reward for doing so, so you should just ignore them).

@Ulysses Other than re-doing the doors (ha) what sort of updates are you expecting? This will be the fourth release of Prime (to my knowledge) so you'd think they'd have it locked-in by now. With the NA release completely gummed up (or maybe stuck in scalper hell) I'm considering the JP release as well.

@TurboGrafx99 If it ends up being that the Pokemon Presents announces mainline Pokemon additions to GB/GBA NSO with Pokemon HOME support, I could see there end up being a Prime update that allows you to unlock the Fusion Suit in Prime Remastered if you beat Fusion on GBA NSO essentially replicating the original GC to GBA connectivity back in 2002.

He made one comment on Twitter saying he disagreed with the change and now some people have decided he's whining and needs to grow up? Nah, he's entitled to that opinion even if you and I both agree the new doors are better. 🙄

What I'm more interested in is why there's some people waiting for a patch before playing when the remastered version of the doors is clearly here to stay. Like even that original designer has played through the remaster and praised everything else. The idea there's a few people who aren't going to play because of doors is actually quite hilarious actually.

Oh well there loss. I've already finished it. Masterpiece of a game and just as good as I remember. Maybe they can play again in another 20 years if Nintendo ever remakes the game again and includes both the classic and remastered versions as unlockables. 🤣

Honestly. F*** this. C*** of a thing.

@Phornix Some people are really quite sad. The doors are clearly a design choice and not a mistake so there’s not going to be a patch. Pretty sure it would have happened by now if the game did ever need patches especially as it’s apparently been sitting in Nintendo’s vaults for a good while waiting for the right time to release it.

This is some remaster. Metroid has long been my favorite Nintendo franchise but I tend to go for the 2D entries more than first person, this one being the exception, it's easily one of the top in the series and still holds up phenomenally well 21 years later. I loved it back in 2002 and the dualstick controls make it even better. The updated graphics and sound are also terrific. Really appreciate Retro went the extra mile, I would've been happy with a straight port of Prime Trilogy but this is better.