The last time I posted this picture, I had completed part 1 of the Metroid Prime trilogy. The game was great, and I wondered how part 2, Echoes could live up to the first. Most reviews seemed to say that Prime 2 was a very good game, but not at the level of Prime 1. I disagree- Prime 2 to me was even better. The few flaws from the first were corrected and the whole game had a much better flow to it. First off, I never felt limited like I did in Prime 1. In that game, it seemed like everywhere I turned I needed a new upgrade to get anywhere, and didn't feel very powerful until the end of the game. In Prime 2 the first few upgrades are given rapid fire and before you know it, you're kicking bosses' asses. Don't get me wrong, I love a good challenge, but Metroid is typically challenging due to it's puzzles. No one wants to spend a good portion of the game thinking "I could be doing so much better if I only had the double jump." Anyway, second, the whole game just seems so much better organized. Where Prime 1 has Samus jumping around from level to level with no rhyme or reason, Prime 2 actually has a pattern to it and emphasizes beating one level at a time before going back to explore old ones for powerups. This helped me keep track of where I had and hadn't explored, making a much more enjoyable final powerup search before the final boss. This leads me to the third improvement- incredible boss fights. While the first few bosses in the game are nothing special, later boss fights were especially memorably due to some innovative techniques- I'll remember a late boss fight where Samus boost jumps back and forth on a circular magnetic track, whacking pieces of debris off of a robot boss for a long time. There were some great ones here that were more puzzles than fights, exactly what a Metroid boss should be. The game made a few more changes, to varying degrees of success, such as a decent plot and a dark world based off of the normal environment. Overall while Echoes may not have reinvented the wheel, I feel like it was the best of the trio. But of course if you have time, just go play the whole trilogy.
November 22, 2009
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
The last time I posted this picture, I had completed part 1 of the Metroid Prime trilogy. The game was great, and I wondered how part 2, Echoes could live up to the first. Most reviews seemed to say that Prime 2 was a very good game, but not at the level of Prime 1. I disagree- Prime 2 to me was even better. The few flaws from the first were corrected and the whole game had a much better flow to it. First off, I never felt limited like I did in Prime 1. In that game, it seemed like everywhere I turned I needed a new upgrade to get anywhere, and didn't feel very powerful until the end of the game. In Prime 2 the first few upgrades are given rapid fire and before you know it, you're kicking bosses' asses. Don't get me wrong, I love a good challenge, but Metroid is typically challenging due to it's puzzles. No one wants to spend a good portion of the game thinking "I could be doing so much better if I only had the double jump." Anyway, second, the whole game just seems so much better organized. Where Prime 1 has Samus jumping around from level to level with no rhyme or reason, Prime 2 actually has a pattern to it and emphasizes beating one level at a time before going back to explore old ones for powerups. This helped me keep track of where I had and hadn't explored, making a much more enjoyable final powerup search before the final boss. This leads me to the third improvement- incredible boss fights. While the first few bosses in the game are nothing special, later boss fights were especially memorably due to some innovative techniques- I'll remember a late boss fight where Samus boost jumps back and forth on a circular magnetic track, whacking pieces of debris off of a robot boss for a long time. There were some great ones here that were more puzzles than fights, exactly what a Metroid boss should be. The game made a few more changes, to varying degrees of success, such as a decent plot and a dark world based off of the normal environment. Overall while Echoes may not have reinvented the wheel, I feel like it was the best of the trio. But of course if you have time, just go play the whole trilogy.
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