Topic: Trying to beat Prime 3 by September

@Amorous+Badger: You got stuck on the Meta Ridley battle? What difficulty were you playing on?

The most credits for Prime's excellency should go for NIntendo, not Retro Studios. Before NIntendo started to direct Retro's job, first Prime was looking like a very mediocre fps shooter. Same thing goes for Team NInja developing Other M COLLABORATIVELY with Nintendo: if the big N weren't there, we'd propably get a NInja Gaiden instead of Metroid.

How are you so sure of any of this?

http://www.next-gen.biz/features/interview-retro-studios

trust me, it's not so hard compared to the other two. mogenar was the only tough part, and you're already done with that.

@romulux: I don't know, I recall getting my butt kicked by Dark Samus and the other boss the first time I passed it, and it was on Easy. And yeah, Mogenar was annoying to beat, he handed me my Power Suit-clad butt a few times before I finally got him...

So they had a little help making a 2-D game into 3-D, trying to fit Samus's characteristics, and making a Nintendo quality game. Big woop. I personally couldn't see anyone else doing as good of a job than Retro with Metroid. They did such a great job with it and only needed some guidance on what to put in the game and sharing their many ideas which goes to show you that they were creative and self efficient. Plus do you know some of the people who make up Retro Studios? Developers from the Turok franchise.

Ofcourse give Nintendo credit for what they did but give Retro more credit for doing what Nintendo couldn't. Make a 3-D Metroid game.

I've never read anywhere that Team Ninja had trouble making Other M. Other M never looked mediocre. E3 2009, the trailer blew everyone away. And the trailers just kept getting better and better.

Retro didn't get "a little" help from nintendo, nintendo got a little help from Retro. Metroid is a NIntendo franchise. Turok 2 was a great game, so a homage for that to Retro. And you're right, only Retro could have made Prime work so well in 3D. Other M have never looked mediocre, because nintendo has been working with Team Ninja all the time with that project. It's a 50/50 project, and that's why it's just annoyin to hear how people give ALL the credits for Team Ninja, or Retro considering the Prime games. Giving all the credits may mean just the phrase: "Other M is developed by Team Ninja." That's just wrong.

Really?

On the Metroid Prime titles, we were one team – part of which just happened to be in Japan. We work with Kensuke Tanabe, of Nintendo’s Software Planning Division. He helps us to ensure we’re making Nintendo-quality games and had a tremendous amount of creative influence on the Metroid Prime titles. Sakamoto didn’t have a lot of day-to-day interaction with us, but he was the sounding board if we wanted to add anything that would affect Samus as a character.

Well there you go. That's who Nintendo sent in to help with Metroid Prime, so giving Nintendo as a whole credit for one man's job isn't right.

You see your forgetting the fact that Retro Studios developed it and Nintendo published it. Nintendo only helped with the character "Samus", the storyline, and they checked for quality too, to see if there was any glitches or if anything was wrong. That's it. Retro did the graphics engine, the controls, the bosses, enemies, they did it all. (Or the rest in this case.)

As for Team Ninja? I'm not sure, but you have to give them credit too.

Of course you have to give credits for both Team Ninja and Nintendo. I never denied that. You are right about that Retro did pretty much everything that's technical stuff (except music, which came from nintendo's representative) in Prime games. However, if nintendo wouldn't have give their "creative influence", we would propably have a normal FPS instead of a masterpiece that is Metroid Prime. In other interwiev i read that Retro wouldn't have added even a morph ball in the game if Shigeru Miyamoto hadn't insisted it. So, basically what i'm saying is that without nintendo's stake the Prime series would be better if it never existed, even though Retro deserves all the praise for the wonderful job they did with the game (in technical level).

I can't actually remember - was quite a while ago now. I think I had beaten a water themed stage and then was stuck wandering around the world map for countless months. The problem with these games is you can be lost for ages and forget the last thing you did meaning guides arn't much help as you have no idea which point in the guide you need to look. Anyway, no problem, I've beaten Wind Waker and Twilight Princess since so I'll go back to it once I've finished Super Metroid and Prime 3 - after all, I'll want to finish it before the new Zelda comes out ...

I have to find "the federation landing site" in Sky Town. I've visited every area I can find using the map system on all planets/locations and the only blue areas on the map or doors I haven't yet past require an item I don't have. I think I know roughly where the landing site is but there's a gate blocking it that says something like it needs an energy overload (none of my weapons work) and there's another exit that has a morph ball hologram with some kind of hook on it, which is an item I don't think I have. I also found a path with a trackball track leading somewhere but, alas, no trackball either. Oh, also the doors on the other planets I can't get through require either a multi-shot missle, energy cells to insert into a wall or the ship's grapple beam - I don't have any of those either.

This is making me feel like I'm really bad at games. I'm betting these things that get me stuck are something really simple staring me in the face.

@madgear: The federation landing site in Skytown is close to where the Aurora unit is, you just keep going to the right and it should be there. I think you need something in order to take down the shield, though, the plasma beam to weld some busted circuits or something...

After a day of solid play, I finally managed to pass the point in Prime 3 I was stuck on. It was so simple - the hologram with the hook on it that I thought was a morph ball upgrade actually wasn't. It's just a damn lift you walk on to! Every time I tried accessing it I had been in morph ball form (understandable since it was a ball shaped hologram) and it only activates when you're stood up. Figured that out completely on accident when I deactivated the morph ball instead of laying a mine there.

No wonder I couldn't find out what to do in the guides - they just said to use the lift. Sigh - well it's sorted now. This time I made it considerable portion through. I got up to the point after I defeated the morphing enemy and gained the power drain grapple upgrade. This time I didn't quit because I was stuck, but because I felt I had played enough (know where to go next which is encouraging).

I notice there's a bank holiday weekend coming up before the end of the month - maybe if I try and set aside enough time over it I could get it finished before it ends. Unfortunately I don't get much time to play games during the week - if at all, so this is going to be tight. Oh and then there's Super Metroid on top of that too - damn.

I am also trying to beat Prime 3 at the moment. I've got an FAQ bookmarked and use it frequently... If I'm stuck for longer than a couple of minutes I go straight to it :] I'd like to beat the game without any assistance but I don't have the time. Too many other games to play!

@Faron
It wasn't Miyamoto that suggested anything. In your link and the things I quoted (which you obviously over looked), Sakamoto was the one who influenced Retro. Metroid was like his baby (which can be read in your link), not Miyamoto. Miyamotoe didn't make Metroid. I agree they both deserve credit, but you have to realize that Retro deserves more for doing more work. Just because Nintendo owns Metroid doesn't mean they get all the credit. Retro developed it. They did more work. Nintendo did some work, just enough to help them out to make a Metroid game. Hell, it was their first game making a Metroid, it's not like their some kind of prophet that could go in and just make a masterpiece.

Without Nintendo's stakes, er... I mean Sakamoto's stakes they would've made a weird Metroid game with new items and things we've never seen before. They had help from Sakamoto capturing that Metroid feel. That Metroid atmosphere. Oh and I believe Retro did the music.

Miyamoto did affect to the first Prime game (as did Sakamoto). Just google about it. And Kenji Yamamoto who works for Nintendo did the music. So there were no less than three Moto's at least affecting to the game

Even so, that's 3 people doing 3 things. Miyamoto watched over the game and checked the quality obviously. Yamamoto did the music which was the biggest help, and Saka helped retain that Metroid feel of the game. Retro did the rest.

@Chrono Cross
^That's pretty much how it propably went. I just read more about the subject and learned that it was actually Miyamoto who decided that the game should be FPS after he was dissapointed to the current 3rd person camera system. He also invented the visors, and ordered them to put into the game. Same goes for morphing ball, he insisted that the transition from Samus to ball should absolutely be seamless. These are just some things how he affected the game, and i'm pretty sure that there are more, so he did give the ending product quite a lot after all. Oh, and we shouldn't forget about Kensuke Tanabe either (whatever his creative influence was).

@Faron
Haha that's pretty interesting. The original Metroid creator I believe died in 1996 (the year the N64 came out here in the U.S) and is the reason why there were no Metroid titles the N64.

The thing is, is like I said before, Retro Studios never developed a Metroid game before and needed some guidance. And like you said, Miyamoto wanted this and wanted that in Prime. Which was good by all means.

I did it! I've just beaten Prime 3 - that's the entire Prime trilogy done with now! Wasn't so tough at the end - I beat the final boss on my first attempt! The Wii remote controls really do make the Prime games a hell of a lot easier when you can just point at what you want to shoot at. I have to say I think I enjoyed Prime 3 the most out of all the games.

Now I have 2 days to finished Super Metroid, which I think would be possible if I knew where the hell to go. Been in every room, bombed every wall I can find but no idea. There's some areas in blue I'm yet to explore but can tell I need the grapple beam for them. There's one other, however, that is filled with water and has a pit filled with quicksand and narrow pillars going accross that you can jump on. I take it I need an item to get past this bit as the controls are so awful that there's no way to successfully get to the other side because if you hit the sand once, it's near impossible to jump back out (and to make it worse, there's monsters popping out to shoot at you and knock you off the pillars). I have to say this is quite a frustrating game!