Metroid Prime Trilogy

By Brent Oxford

Make quite possibly the greatest game compilation ever? Mission Accomplished. After Metroid Prime 3 Corruption got its release, fans have always hoped that Nintendo would throw the bounty hunter’s loyal followers a bone and release the legendary Prime trilogy as a compilation that nothing could ever rival. Two years later, we got exactly that, and it was worth the wait.

As you have already probably guessed by now, Metroid Prime Trilogy contains 2002’s Metroid Prime, 2004’s Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, and 2007’s Metroid Prime 3 Corruption; All three games on one disc. For those who are unaware, allow me to give you a short summary on all three games.

Metroid Prime was an almost inconceivable challenge: to bring the world of Metroid into a first person 3D perspective and still have it contain the essence of what made the series great. Not only was it pulled off, Metroid Prime became legendary. With beautiful graphics, stunning artwork and environments of Tallon IV that have held the test of time even by today’s standards, and a large world filled to the brim with secrets waiting to be discovered, Metroid Prime mocked those who thought the game couldn’t succeed, and then promptly took their cash so those same people could experience the game themselves.

Metroid Prime 2 Echoes is considered by many to be the weakest game in the trilogy, overusing backtracking that annoyed many players, and was also considered by most to have far less impressive artwork and environmental design than its predecessor. However, where Echoes rose above Prime was in its difficulty. Even normal enemies could put up a good fight, and the game sported some of the franchise’s hardest boss battles. Echoes also sported an alternate dimension known as Dark Aether, where Samus would take constant damage from the world’s atmosphere and could perform actions in Dark Aether that affected environments in Aether as well.

Metroid Prime 3 Corruption was charged to bring closure to the Prime series and Samus’ battle against the volatile, mutagenic substance known as Phazon. Being on the Wii, the game boasted an all new control scheme from its Gamecube predecessor, using the Wii remote to allow full control of Samus’ arm cannon to be aimed wherever you needed to aim. The game was also more action-oriented from prior games, putting you in the middle of a battle between the Galactic Federation and the Space Pirates, which annoyed Metroid purists. The game also featured multiple planets for you to explore, making backtracking more manageable than previous Prime titles.

Prime and Echoes come with many changes that were made in the PAL and JAP versions of the games, including being equipped with Corruption’s IR-pointer based control scheme in Trilogy, which allow for far greater accuracy for fights. They also come with a new 16:9 widescreen ratio, and multiple texture touch-ups that make the games look even better than they were before. Finally, they are equipped with Corruption’s achievement system, giving you tokens for defeated bosses and secret items. Some may find this to be an annoyance though if they were annoyed by it in Corruption, especially considering some of the unlockables need multiple tokens from all three games. Speedrunners be warned as well, the games have lost almost all of their major sequence breaking tricks, so if you loved the space jump first trick in Prime, you might wanna keep your Gamecube disc. However, several things are added that were not in the NTSC versions of the games, including some altered bosses and some fixed bugs, so if you weren’t into sequence breaking the games anyway, all you are getting is improved versions of the games.

Nintendo didn’t slack off with this compilation. The game comes in a beautiful metal case, complete with a small art book summarizing the story of the PrimeTrilogy and showing off various artwork from the game. The game itself features a new theme and menu interface for all three games, and for that extra bit of nice detail, the game will show a cut scene of Samus firing her arm cannon when starting up a game, the suit she is wearing dependent on what suit she has in the game.

For 50 dollars, you can’t ask for a better deal than three of the best games put on one disc with improved features. Anyone who never got into the Gamecube titles should definitely give this game a try. Hell, even those who already own the GC titles and Corruption should consider trading in their games and owning Trilogy instead. It’s not very often you get deals like this, so don’t let it go to waste.