Video: Digital Foundry Takes a Retrospective Look at Metroid Prime

To my shame I've never finished this!! I found the controls on the gamecube a little confusing. I'm looking forward to playing through the trilogy on my Wii u 😁

@ULTRA-64 Good choice! Metroid Prime series is probably the best game series to use the wiimote with, it simplifies the controls and improves immersion.

Metroid Prime is great but it's far from perfect. To me it's not 100% Metroid. Several of Samus's abilities are either missing or severely nerfed in the transition from 2D to 3D. She also moves like a tank and has no agility. And there's a reason why they first tried to make this game from the third person perspective. The team couldn't handle it though so it was moved to first person. The ideal game would mix both views and not just on the morph ball. Metroid: Other Prime would be an ideal combination and sequel. Mario and Zelda have comfortably made the move to 3D, Metroid hasn't fully.

Bought the prime trilogy back on wii but work, study and kids got in the way. One day I'll get back to play this through and no doubt I will kick myself that I missed this when it first came out.

Perfect Game.

This game still holds up. Fantastic art direction from retro studios. I love all three of them. They perfected the motion in corruption. Release another prime like these and its a day one purchase.

Playing through the trilogy right now I'm on corruption so nearly finished😁 And once corruption is completed I would happily play through all three again! #love it!! The motion controls are perfect. Get some good speakers when playing this it's essential and turn them up to 11

@SLIGEACH_EIRE What a load of bull.

"Several of Samus's abilities are either missing or severely nerfed in the transition from 2D to 3D."

A game's quality isn't defined by its feature bloat. Additionally, you can't compare a 2D, side-scrolling game to a 3D, first person one. That's like saying Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time aren't as good as their predecessors - it doesn't make sense. It's an entirely new style of gameplay on an entirely new dimension.

"She also moves like a tank and has no agility."

How do you expect her to move? Like Bayonetta? Samus' movement was remarkably smooth for a console FPS at the time, thanks to the ability to lock-on and double jump. Really, she moves pretty much as any player of the 2D games can expect her to move on a 3D plane.

"The ideal game would mix both views and not just on the morph ball. Metroid: Other Prime would be an ideal combination and sequel. Mario and Zelda have comfortably made the move to 3D, Metroid hasn't fully."

Haha. No. You can't plug your ears with your fingers and pretend Metroid Prime wasn't a radical success, just because it doesn't fit what YOU think it should've been.

i luv these df retro videos. in this one, they show footage of an emulator with graphical enhancements and the huge difference it makes while using the same assets. but the nintendo policy is always 'to provide the original gaming experience' which is a euphemism for 'we cannot be bothered to enhance it in any way'. even my vita can add texture filtering to old games, but nintendo, sheesh.

It's sad knowing I will probably never again have the feeling I got when playing this game for the first time. The best game ever made for the best console ever made, in my humble opinion.

Great! Now i want to replay the MP trilogy on my wii, but i have some work left from yesterday... So, it's a pretty hard choice... What dhould i do?

@ULTRA-64 youre not the only one. I only played the 1st game and never finished. Its a good game and the graphics are timeless. This game as an example that HD graphics arent really needed for a good game

@ULTRA-64 there is a learning curve to the controls as they aren't standard FPS, but they become second nature!

I completed it years ago, along with F Zero GX but a bug in Spiderman corrupted my memory card!

To think Nintendo released this without any advertising or PR.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE INMO Metroid Prime captures the Metroid perfectly and improves upon the formula. The atmosphere is superior in Prime as is the depth, sound, and unfolding story.

Some things have to change, what works in 2D doesn't work in 3D. Metroid Prime is the pinacle of the Metroid series.

I think this is good timing to look back on the success of Metroid Prime considering ReCore has recently been released by some of the same developers.
Both games share a number of similarities, but ReCore falls short in a number of areas where Metroid Prime excels, which were almost certainly a result of Nintendo's guidance.
I can't help but think that if they'd had similar guidance on ReCore, then it could have been as amazing as Metroid Prime was.

@yomanation If you're considering them in retrospect, then I'd agree, but if you consider each game at the time they were released, then Metroid Prime deserves to come out on top.
Metroid Prime featured a number of innovative firsts that set it apart from other games at the time... it would have been extremely difficult to do any better than that at the time... while Corruption merely expanded upon the existing formula... not really adding much to the existing formula... more like upgrading it for the latest technology.
And for the record, I actually played Corruption first, as I could never get the hang of GC shooting controls, but I still appreciate Prime for what it was when it was released.

Wow, the game still looks lovely! I liked the first Metroid on Wii, but didn't complete it. Then I bought the trilogy on Wii U VC and often told myself to play it, but never actually did.
Well guess this is one of many examples for why I could continue playing Wii U for years, because of the huge backlog.

Currently playing Metroid prime Wii version and although Samus can feel a bit clunky at times when jumping from object to object. I am still amazed at how the art work and music draws you into the game. The creatures and bosses created for the game are some of the most original and fascinating I have seen in any game so far. Totally love this game and highly rate it and recommend it for gamers who love adventurers.

Ughhhhh looking at what they accomplished on GC makes me dream of how great the series could be on Switch. At this point I'd be more than happy for HD remake of the trilogy if we aren't ever getting a 4th Prime. Aside from that I still wonder what shape a Metroid game would take on the Switch. It's a tragedy that they've put this series on the back burner since Other M. We just need to know there's a game in development, so we know they're at least trying. All we've had was a spin-off which, while interesting, lacked that Metroid magic we've been desperate for.

I bought the Gamecube on the strength of the reviews for Metroid Prime. I wasn't disappointed at all. I really loved the game. I thought they did a great job figuring out what worked in 3D. I also like the size/length of the game, as it's not overly long like many 3D games tend to be. I may be in the minority, but I found the pad controls in the cube games to be very intuitive. The motion controls in part three are one of several things I didn't like about that one. A shame Nintendo didn't keep gamepad control as an option.

@liveswired Just No!

@Kage_88 I'm not wasting my time reading that.

It's on par with Super Metroid, that's how amazing Metroid Prime was at the time and even now. Retro proved how great they were when they made this, IMO.

I got Prime back on release day on the Cube and it's held a special place for me ever since. I still get chills thinking about walking in to a new area and having it go dark as Chozo Ghosts come out to play. Still get creeped-out remembering those dark rooms in the space pirate base in Phendrana Drifts with the Metroids lurking about (the build-up to Metroids as enemies was phenomenal). The on-the-fly beam switching. The unique super charge attacks of each of the beams. The atmospheric underwater exploration. The insane diversity in flora and fauna. I could go on and on.

Prime is an absolute classic. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is also incredibly good and a legitimately challenging game, especially for its time.

@link3710 And since it's IR based (pointing) rather than using motion, it's pretty accurate too. Not frustrating like some Wii titles.

I still have yet to beat Echoes, but I did finish both Prime and Corruption. Great games! I hope that I can eventually go back and play the Trilogy... assuming I ever have the free time.

However, I REALLY hate that DF encourages people to use emulation in this case. You should never encourage piracy, especially when the official game is still able to be purchased on an official platform. No, I don't need your explanations about "if you own the game, it's not illegal" and all that, because thats not the case. At least with PS2 emulation, you can play your physical disc. In fact I did just that for a while when my PS3 was busted and before I could get a PS2 to replace it. Dolphin is 100% emulated. Most people who use emulators aren't gonna be those kind citizens who own all of the games they are playing. That's just not how it works.

I really like Prime and have beaten it around 10 times.
However, I consider Echoes a vastly superior game. Possibly my favorite game of all time, in fact.

Classic game. Beat it and was worth every second I put into it! Great graphics. Awesome music. Good story!

For me personally Metroid Prime really is one of the best games. Not just in the Metroid series. The Gamecube were at it's finest.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE @Kage_88
I feel like you are both just exaggerating for attention but there is some useful examination in what both of you have said.

Super Metroid and Metroid Prime are both fantastic games but I did miss the agility of jumping/shooting/maneuvering from 2D games when moving to Metroid Prime. Mario felt more agile in the 3D game, though clumsy in the platforming. Link definitely felt more agile and adventurous in his move but that's because the top-down view games were less about fast action movement and the combat element was brand new and very fun.

Metroid Prime, however, amped up the atmosphere, the immersion, the exploration, the lore, the detail, the feeling of isolation and kept the exploration, slowly growing abilities, and shooting action. It also somehow made the morph ball even more fun to play with even when it seemed like the least likely thing to make more "realistic".

Metroid: Other M is very hard to talk about without overblown reactions, but they were really onto something with the play style. I think there is a middle ground somewhere.

Personally, I think Nintendo just needs to make an excellent 2D Metroid to win back some favor and lead up to something daring in the 3D space. I'd say do Prime, but the Federation Force explosion online may very well have nailed shut the coffin on a Prime sequel. At least in Nintendo's collective mind.

@Jayvir
I hear you on emulation and people not using it the right way, but I think there are plenty of people who would be happy to play it legally only. I'm one of them. I did try dolphin for awhile and it was really exciting at first. Wind Waker in stereoscopic 3D was fantastic. Skyward Sword in high resolution. The problem is that it's still more trouble than it's worth. I'd rather just sit and play and the emulators generally aren't good enough yet. I mean, I've bought each individual prime game and the trilogy and I've been tempted to buy the trilogy digitally again (but didn't).

If Nintendo released an updated Prime Trilogy for Switch, I'd buy it in a heartbeat and then see how good it is when I boot it up.

Before Zero Mission was available to play on Wii U, I bought a GameBoy Player just to play it because the GBA screen was such garbage (even when I installed aftermarket frontlighting in it). Then, I played it all the way through in an emulator. Then, I bought it again recently and played through it on the Wii U.

I bought every device and game Nintendo would sell about Metroid Zero mission and did it multiple times, but somehow I shouldn't emulate it?

Not only that emulation in general is keeping some game hardware and games alive that don't exist anywhere. It's preserving an art as far as I'm concerned. I'm glad to see games like Herzog Zwei from Technosoft get into the hands of people who can sell it again, but for awhile there it would be on the way to extinction without emulation.

It has a place.

The argument I agree with is that you shouldn't just download a bunch of ROMs and start playing games for free without considering the message you are sending: your favorite pastime isn't worth supporting with money. Especially when you don't pay for the specific games you really like. Genres come into popularity and fade based on interest and that is shown by paying in most situations. Not only are you harming businesses in an industry you enjoy but you are harming your own interests by not showing companies you are willing to pay for the types of games you like.

But emulators are fine.

It even looks awesome in wireframe-mode!