Topic: Metroid Prime 1 Remastered

@Ninfan
No, the only way is by opening and inserting the cartridge

But consider this. The gold points would be worth 40 cents. The value lost from opening a sealed game surely exceeds 40 cents. So you're not really losing much.

@Colonel_Mustache
Oh ya, there's plenty of other games in the meantime. It's just... when you get the Metroid itch, nothing else quite satisfies it

[quote=JaxonH]@Ninfan
No, the only way is by opening and inserting the cartridge

But consider this. The gold points would be worth 40 cents. The value lost from opening a sealed game surely exceeds 40 cents. So you're not really losing much.

@JaxonH good point

Prime 2 is structured a bit more like this (although there's also an ALttP/ALBW-esque light/dark world mechanic and you can only travel between areas in the light world). There's a central hub sort of area and the remaining areas all branch off from it, with some shortcuts between the other areas you can unlock later in the game.

It's a shame that an idle animation that has Samus lower her arm cannon is tucked away in the control options rather than being a default, and then once that's figured out the target reticle doesn't follow the arm cannon when it's lowered. That's my experience with Prime Remastered though, several aspects are just not quite there. This is the best graphical release for the Metroid Series. It should be possible to take clear screenshots of the environment. They covered everything in the options (HUD, helmet, arm cannon) but a visual that will be centered in any shot.

I completed it last night! I thought it was excellent, the final "stages" were great. This is easily one of my top 5 favourite games on the Switch. I finished in 19:59 with 60%.

Still slowly working my way through this.

Defeated the Omega Pirate this afternoon. I didn't think it was all that tough luckily. Then again I had already collected most of the energy tanks by the time I fought it so that probably played a part (I was only missing two by the time I went into the fight, and the next one was located right after the fight, so I'm only missing one now).

@RR529 Nice! How are you doing with artefacts? By the Omega Pirate, I only had 3 or 4 so I spent a bit of time going back and find the rest.

@MarioBrickLayer, I had 6 of them at the time, and collected two more after I beat him. I have the clues to two more, so I'll go get those before going back to the crater to get the last two clues.

Finally finished this up tonight! Final boss was tough, but luckily I managed to beat it my first time (glad too, as it's long winded enough that it probably would have been more demoralizing to have to retry rather than being a "just one more try" type of feeling). Anyhow, I cleared it with an 88% completion.

Overall I think I prefer the (newer) 2D games with how they've been evolving to have a quick paced action feel rather than the more strategic angle this has (what with the more puzzle like combat requiring you to swap visors & beams), but I can totally understand why it has the reputation it does. It's quite frankly amazing how they pretty much nailed the transition to 3D on the first go, especially since Super is arguably really the only solid example of the formula to release before it.

@Colonel_Mustache, one thing I will say the game does better than any of the 2D games is the morph ball sections. The 3D space really opened up the possibilities of what they could do with it.

I'll admit my jaw kinda dropped when that section right before the Plasma Beam was revealed.

I give up.

The Meta Ridley stage is just one failure after another for me, all while I come so close time and again to getting it done. I get him right down to probably needing one last hit and he kills me - every time.

It's got to be one of the most deceptive and brutal endurance boss battles I've certainly encountered. The fight is a piece of piss until the last phase, where he just wears you down as the minutes tick by, as you dodge attack after attack and wait for the tiny window of opportunity to present in order to attack - and you'd better bloody nail it. I enter the last phase with almost full health, too.

I'm usually one to persist until the end but it's been that many tries that I feel like I'm now wasting time I could using playing other games that I won't really get the opportunity to once Tears of the Kingdom drops. I'm now no longer enjoying myself, either.

It's been great fun for the most part, but this is where I leave you, Prime. I've got a few to get through before TOTK, so from me, adios.

Beat this back on the GameCube 20 years ago.

Beat it a second time on the Switch Remastered version a couple of weeks ago.

Absolutely fell in love with it all again, so much so that I loaded up Hard Mode upon completion.

Not sure I like Hard Mode that much. Wish it was just enemies do double damage instead of double damage plus they have double HP. Got up to the dreaded Phazon Mines area and think I may jack Hard Mode in. Damage sponge enemies are annoying. Maybe I just need to get gud? Lol.

Either way, gonna take a break from the hard mode playthrough to play other games for a bit.

played it and its one of my all time fav metroid games for sure

I actually owned this back in the GC era but due to various circumstances I never got around to playing it. Had intentions of getting to it during the Wii era but again circumstances got in the way. Finally, after all these years I get my chance with the Remastered release and OH. MY. GOD. What an experience. What a game. Again, what the Switch is providing me for my gaming side of life (what little I have left as I age out) is close to being the undisputed champion of a console I've ever owned. If I die tomorrow, bury me with my Switch!

I don't get the obsession with this remake. Like yeah, Metroid Prime is great, and the improved graphics look great, but I'm not getting the "this is an amazing remake" vibe, it feels like your garden variety remake with slightly better graphics and almost no other improvements. It really felt like Metroid Prime needed something more like the Zero Mission/Samus Returns treatment (perhaps not that extreme because Prime's design is nowhere near as archaic as the likes of Metroid and Metroid II, but something more comparable to that with new areas/rooms and new powerups that weren't in the original) and all they really did was touch up the graphics and repackage it. And this is supposedly the "ambitious" remake and the rumored Prime 2 and 3 remasters are even worse? So what, are they literally just copy/pasting the original GC/Wii code onto a Switch cartridge or something? I really can't imagine them looking worse than this and still looking different from the GC/Wii originals.

@Bolt_Strike maybe the original doesn’t look quite as good as you remember - especially when blown up onto a screen 3-4 times the size and much sharper. The remaster does a lot graphically but it’s generally subtle.

Gameplay wise I’d argue that it didn’t need anything changing (an auto save maybe).

I’d expect the other 2 to be more like the recent Pikmin releases - sharper textures but not much else. If so they’ll look very good because the underlying assets are good but they won’t pass for a native Switch game like this one can.

I mean I can tell the difference... barely, but "subtle" is not how an "ambitious" remake should look. The difference should be night and day.

Auto save doesn't really make much sense for a Metroid because your ability to navigate the rooms safely is part of the challenge. It makes sense to limit saves to designated rest areas and challenge you to survive the trek in between.

The main improvement I think Prime needs is just more upgrades/abilities and new rooms that contain them. Some of the areas in the game aren't particularly well designed and could use major improvements. Magmoor Caverns is the biggest offender, you mainly only visit it to go to and from Phendrana Drifts and there's little to do there in and of itself, just one mandatory mission and 2 Chozo Artifacts that you could just pick up while you're passing through to Phendrana. There isn't even an a boss there. It just feels like pointless padding and the area could stand to be fleshed out.

Phazon Mines is another one, the area is a super linear gauntlet (unfortunately, it seems like Metroid falls into this habit for their penultimate areas where it's a linear gauntlet full of tough enemies to challenge the player, I've noticed similar issues with other Metroid games), and the linearity is unbefitting a Metroidvania. Furthermore, your journey through the Mines basically just boils down to two expeditions, one about halfway through to get the Power Bombs (picking up the Grapple Beam on the way back, which is pretty close to the main path you take to get there) and the other to go all the way to the bottom to get the Phazon Suit. This is not fun to explore, they should have more powerups there that have you go a bit more off the beaten path.

As for which of Samus' abilities they could add? Well they could simply throw in some of the ones from Prime 2 and 3. Seeker Missiles, Screw Attack, and Grapple Lasso would be nice additions to the game, potentially also Grapple Voltage if they need more (although the Grapple Voltage is a largely useless ability but they could throw in a few uses for it). There's also some QoL features from Prime 2 and 3 for some of Samus' existing abilities in the game that were ignored in the game, such as Samus using her free arm instead of her arm cannon for the Grapple Beam allowing her to shoot while grappling or allowing you to use the Boost Ball to boost away from Spider Ball tracks that would've been good improvements to include.

Lastly, I think the game needs a fast travel system. Some of the areas you have to visit are pretty spread out in the game and the backtracking can get pretty tedious as you are forced to trek through dozens of rooms that have nothing new for you to interact with just to get to the area that actually has new content. The biggest offender of this is the backtracking trip to get the Space Jump Boots (which granted is partially so bad because of the aforementioned issues with Magmoor Caverns being a largely pointless connecting area, but still) where you go on a relatively long and grueling trek to Phendrana to get the Boost Ball, then go ALL THE WAY back to Tallon Overworld for the Space Jump Boots, then have to go ALL THE WAY to Phendrana AGAIN to continue with the Wave Beam and the trip through Glacier One (the Phendrana Pirate base). This would all be so much less tedious if you could simply fast travel between Tallon and Phendrana at will. Now this does sort of contradict what I said about the autosave in that the challenge is in navigating the rooms safely, but they can still do that with fast travel by having the fast travel rooms be different from Save Stations and still retain the challenge. Fast travel should probably be a necessity here to make the game less boring and tedious, so that you're mostly only revisiting old areas if they have new content you can interact with when you've collected a new ability.

So basically, Metroid Prime has a lot of filler to it that artificially lengthens the experience and makes it a bit tedious. I wanted to see them trim the fat and add more meat to the game.

@Bolt_Strike i disagree - I don’t want a remaster to be a “new” game. I want it to be the game I remember. It should look “the same as I remember” - which means it needs to be improved significantly but in line with the original design.

This is exactly what happened with Metroid Prime.

I don’t generally want new power ups that weren’t there before. QoL is one thing (the updated controls offer this) but I don’t want the original design to be broken (the controls kind of do this but I think it’s a fair compromise - in part because it naturally makes the game easier which is more in line with modern sensibilities).

As to Metroidvania design principles more generally - I don’t generally like fast travel since I think it’s usually contrary to the design of a good Metroidvania (although I “get” why people want it and it is sometimes necessary for larger maps). Part of the appeal of the genre is constantly walking through a “boring” space many times and later passing through it in a different way with different skills.

Fast travel robs you of that. It makes a game feel very different.

Auto save - as in “checkpoints” rather than a hard save - don’t fundamentally change the game IMO. You still need to find the save points, you just aren’t as harshly punished for choosing the “wrong” path and accidentally missing a save station (which I personally find happens more often in the Prime games than 2d Metroidvania games).

The odd isolated “corridor” area late game is just part and parcel of the genre too. I don’t think it’s a design flaw - it’s almost baked into the genre. You have near enough the full skill set and you won’t be revisiting many times so those areas start to function like more traditional levels. They usually aren’t as memorable as earlier areas (or dedicated linear action games).

The very late game scavenger hunt is a waste of time to make the game go on longer - I’d agree on that - but it does have some value.

I agree on not having fast travel in a game like this. The map is veeeeery close to being a tad too big and needing perhaps a minor form of fast travel, but after playing Remastered (I only ever dabbled in the original), I'm ultimately glad there is no fast travel, even if I did a TON of backtracking. That is what a metroidvania is about, after all, and it adds to the immersion and feeling of accomplishment when you do get stuff done or find the path you were looking for. In general, lack of fast travel reminds me of what games used to be like, and how I still find retro gaming much more rewarding than modern gaming.

I think fast travel ruins a lot of games, though, so I'm pretty biased. BotW and TotK come to mind especially. Being able to fast travel to every shrine, tower, dungeon, etc. trivializes the beautiful world, in my opinion. I think they should have made fast travel only to the towers, but that's a discussion for another thread.

But you admitted the game's improvements were subtle. If they're subtle, that's not really a "significant" improvement, so why spend $60 on that? It'd be better to just have an NSO version of the original instead of opting for a remake/remaster (for the gamer I mean, Nintendo benefits more from this, but the gamer does not).

I really don't think you can significantly improve a game without improving the original design. The original design is just far too central to the experience and recycling it means you're mainly going to the same places and doing the same things. Not much wiggle room for improvements if you're keeping that the same. Maybe you could add optional content, but that was never Metroid's style so restricting it to the same design basically dooms it to feel like the improvements are insignificant.

Combine it with a marking map and you don't have that issue, you can mark an area that you know requires a later upgrade and remember to come back later when you have it. That removes the boring part of Metroidvanias and trims the fat.

Checkpoints are a specific type of auto save, not another name for them. Some auto saves ARE hard saves.

They don't need to go to that extreme. They can have several powerups located there and have you backtrack to another part of the level when you get a new one, while they make the enemies tough enough to provide a challenge (while keeping the last powerup strong enough to dispatch them easily). The corridor design detracts from the exploration and should really only be reserved for endgame areas like Impact Crater, Phaaze, or Tourian, not penultimate areas like Phazon Mines, Pirate Homeworld, or Maridia where you're still looking for the last few powerups.

I never mentioned the scavenger hunts and I like that part, it gives you one last opportunity to comb through the game at full power and demonstrate just how far you've come. I'm only concerned about the linearity of penultimate areas.