Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

[Ab56 v2 aka Ash]

I just beat this game yesterday, and I'm thoroughly unimpressed. The controls are all gimmicky, the music is generally FAR weaker than the previous games, the level design wasn't particularly good (and man, fuck Skytown and its overly-difficult-to-use map). The game was too easy too. Ridley at least gave a challenge in Metroid Prime, but the bosses in this game barely made me lose 2 tanks. Didn't feel like Metroid either, with all these NPCs. The upgrades were pretty lame too.

Metroid Prime 1 was by far the best of the trilogy.

[PuRe-eViL]

Pssh best Prime game ever.

The only one that doesn't have a beginning involving you being all "Rawr lookit me, I's be Samus and I's got t3h powerups," then getting exploded on or raped by aliens and having all those removed so you're reduced to a feeble regular shot firing, no double jumping, unable to morph ball, missile lacking pansy cake.

Then again Samus would be overpowered with like 750 or so missiles, several charged shot upgrades, being able to quadruple jump or whatever. But if I was her I'd be kinda pissed at the stuff that happens.

"Well, the universe is safe again. I totally just owned that Metroid, bwah hah. Hey what's that? Oh noes not another explosi----" *blacks out*

*wakes up* "What.. Happened..."

"Charged shot offline. Morph ball offline. Missiles offline. Grapple beam offline. Dayum bitch, all yo' shit be offline."

"... Shit..."

Hypermode is cool.

[WesPip]

...

I don't see how the controls are gimmicky at all. Since I don't play PC FPS games, the controls on MP3 were probably the best FPS controls I've ever used. The music...that's a decent point. None of it stood out at all.

As for the difficulty, Ridley wasn't hard in the first Prime. I think you're just getting used to Prime games. I'd place 3 right in the middle of the trilogy, difficulty-wise.

As for the upgrades being lame...eh. The only thing I found particularly lame was how little you got to make use of the Nova Beam. Would've liked some more of that. It was so satisfying to snipe/one-hit guys once you had that and the X-Ray Visor. <3

[Raziellink]

Bought the game two weeks ago, but haven't played much of it due to WoW, but i have to say i am impressed with certain aspects.

I just got passed the Ice Beam upgrade (hard fight there, untill i said fuck it, and spammed him to death with Hyper mode). The controls...take some getting used to. I'm a lot better then when i started, but i still make an awful lot of mistakes.

The music...i dunno. Though they sound good, the music style just seems overdone, killing it. Graphicswise it's ok, but enviroments are top notch. Some of the best i've seen since the original Soul Reaver.

[Dunnowhathuh]

Game only just came out in Australia last week. I bought it but I can't even play it cuz of my stupid exams.

[Cecilff2]

I'm confused why everyone has trouble with the Ice upgrade boss. Even my first time through I had no trouble with him. He was even easier for me on Hyper difficulty. Then again I didn't have a problem with going into hyper mode while fighting him.

As for difficulty I'd say this one was about tied with MP1(Fricken Mogenar is annoying on any difficulty), and Metroid Prime 2 is the hardest.

[Penfold]

I just beat this game yesterday, and I'm thoroughly unimpressed. The controls are all gimmicky, the music is generally FAR weaker than the previous games, the level design wasn't particularly good (and man, fuck Skytown and its overly-difficult-to-use map). The game was too easy too. Ridley at least gave a challenge in Metroid Prime, but the bosses in this game barely made me lose 2 tanks. Didn't feel like Metroid either, with all these NPCs. The upgrades were pretty lame too.

Metroid Prime 1 was by far the best of the trilogy.

Personally, I disagree with the controls being gimmicky. I assume you're mainly referring to interacting with object and having to twist, thrust the wiimote forward/backward, etc...I thought these were rather cool additions and that they all worked well. While I agree the music wasn't as strong as especially the first Prime, I didn't find any of it particularly detracted from the experience (a little more generic perhaps). I think the level design was right in the middle of the trilogy, with Prime being the best and Prime 2 being the worst in this regard (and same here, I got pretty lost more than once thanks to the map in Skytown). For the most part I personally chalk up the ease of the game to the better, more action-oriented controls so I wouldn't be too quick to count that against it. Overall, the original Prime is still my favorite, but I was still quite impressed by Prime 3 and is a close second for me.

[AarowSwift]

One criticism I've seen pop up now and again from the Metroid Purist Faction (of which I'm perhaps a borderline member), is the lack of the Isolation Element in some recent Metroid games. I've made appeals for maintaining this element myself, and its lack in Corruption is one thing about the game that dismays me. However, I think that when "they" say isolation and when I say it, we're meaning different things.

I get the impression that many fans feel that in order to be a "true and pure Metroid game", Samus should be the only person in the game (well, aside from, you know, the enemy); said fans taking offense at the inclusion of other characters like GF marines and such. I don't feel this way at all. I say the more the merrier. I like seeing the Metroid universe populated and filled out. In Corruption, I enjoyed interacting with the other hunters during the game's first two acts. I loved the little area where I was rolling Samus through a morph ball tunnel while Rundas ran through the hallway above, or where I watched Ghor duke it out with a Berserker. I really enjoyed saving the marines and talking to them, even though they often had little to say (I really liked being thanked for saving their lives though). As far as I'm concerned, the only time additional characters could detract from Metroid is when they are competing with Samus for center stage. This is one reason I dislike Metroid Prime Hunters on the DS. Since the game was built for a multi-play aspect, all the characters needed to be on par with each other for fairness. This immediately made Samus generic amongst them (oh, so everybody has a morph ball equivalent?) and I hated that. But aside from this specific ill conceived instance, adding characters to Metroid does not negatively impact the "feeling of isolation" in Metroid. But I'll tell you what does...

Being yacked at by Admirals, intelligent computers, and my own damn ship while I'm on the job. Having my exploration interrupted by hints disguised as communiques that kick me out of the world and into the map so it can stamp a question mark on some room. Sure, you can ignore the hint messages sometimes but I hated that big "press the A button" text sitting there on the screen. Message to employer: I'm Samus Aran dammit, I don't need you to tell me how to do my job. Have you read my resume? I've explored many alien wolds on my own and I really don't need a guided tour thank you very much!

Every Metroid game post Super Metroid has added a hint system. In some games it was relatively unobtrusive, but not in Corruption. Even turning the hint system off didn't shut the damn computer up. What killed the feeling of isolation...no. Isolation is the wrong word. It's a bad word, let's never use it again. What killed the feeling of independence for me was constantly having somebody or something looking over my shoulder. I don't want to be told where to go, what to do, or what my health status is. What the heck? Is this thing monitoring my every breath? Now, I understand the point of a hint system, heck I even need to use it myself sometimes, but what I reject with great ire is an intrusive hint system. I don't want to be told what to do unless I ask for help.

Corruption introduced a singular wonderful mechanic. The ship, specifically, the ship visor that allowed Samus to make use of her ship in game. Let's add one more function to the ship visor. We'll call it Communicate. Communicate allows Samus to message her ship or computer or home base or whatever and have them scan the area, they do so and give you the location of your next objective. It's just like the current hint system, but it doesn't occur unless you explicitly ask for it. Yeah, I could really go for that approach.

So, in conclusion, adding characters to interact with, maybe even work with to a limited degree in Metroid is just swell. What kills the legendary bounty hunter's independence, however, is constantly interrupting her to tell her how to go about her own business. I really do hate that.

[Ab56 v2 aka Ash]

...

I don't see how the controls are gimmicky at all. Since I don't play PC FPS games, the controls on MP3 were probably the best FPS controls I've ever used. The music...that's a decent point. None of it stood out at all.

As for the difficulty, Ridley wasn't hard in the first Prime. I think you're just getting used to Prime games. I'd place 3 right in the middle of the trilogy, difficulty-wise.

As for the upgrades being lame...eh. The only thing I found particularly lame was how little you got to make use of the Nova Beam. Would've liked some more of that. It was so satisfying to snipe/one-hit guys once you had that and the X-Ray Visor. <3

Ridley in Prime 1 made me lose more than 2 tanks. He was more fun.

Using the wiimote to mess with levers and things didn't enhance the game in any particular way. It just created a few little extra things to do, which didn't cut it for me. It The only time I felt like they made those additional controls fun was when I had to speed-fix the broken wires on the emergency escape capsule. I feel like overall, the time spent on messing with gimmicks was supposed to make up for the puzzles being relatively pathetic.

The MOST gimmicky, and worse feature for that matter, was Hyper Mode. LAME. I used this as little as possible because it made an easy game even easier. Hyper Mode should not have replaced super missiles and power bombs. I would rather have collected power bomb expansions than ship missile expansions because those were pretty much worthless. At least power bombs let me blow up big glass tubes. Metroid's supposed to be about getting cool items and seeing what you could do with them in the expansive world, not getting lame upgrades that you need to use once or twice to advance ahead.

Being able to play the game like an proper FPS was great, but all the enemies were ridiculously easy to kill, and so were the bosses, even though I consider my aim to be pretty bad with a wiimote. The final showdown with Dark Samus was very disappointing as well. I think Prime 1 was moderately difficult, whereas Prime 2 upped the ante a bit. Prime 3 was just too easy. If I found Prime 2 harder than Prime 1, I don't think it's just me "getting used to" Prime games.

And missiles? Totally worthless. What's the point in having around 250 of them if you barely need them for anything other than seeker missile doors? Ridley alone in Prime 1 justified collecting the majority of missile expansions.

The upgrades were also very disappointing. In Prime 1, I felt pretty pumped every time I got a new upgrade. Varia Suit, Gravity Suit, Phazon suit, wave beam, ice beam, plasma beam, power bomb, super missiles, seeker missiles. In Prime 3, you get upgrades that you don't have much use for later. I had high hopes for beam stacking, but you only get 2 upgrades that are pretty similar to each other. I also thought there would be some cool suit upgrades, but after the PED, which you get at the very beginning of the game, you get the hazard shield which isn't is just a little mod to the PED suit. What gives?

One more thing about Metroid being "isolated". I don't know about that criticism, but Metroid Fusion used Adam, and he was just fine to me. I doubt the federation would've bothered anybody if they weren't so involved with your missions. Usually, they just told you to go do your missions and figure it out yourself. At worst, Fusion told you the general area of where to pick up items. Prime 3 basically made you the Federation's soldier. This isn't Doom 3. Not cool.

Pros: Neat FPS control, better graphics

Cons: Gimmicky controls, low difficulty, not enough cool upgrades and not enough puzzles requiring them, weak music, worlds felt... dead

[AarowSwift]

Ridley in Prime 1 made me lose more than 2 tanks. He was more fun.

Using the wiimote to mess with levers and things didn't enhance the game in any particular way. It just created a few little extra things to do, which didn't cut it for me. It The only time I felt like they made those additional controls fun was when I had to speed-fix the broken wires on the emergency escape capsule. I feel like overall, the time spent on messing with gimmicks was supposed to make up for the puzzles being relatively pathetic.

The MOST gimmicky, and worse feature for that matter, was Hyper Mode. LAME. I used this as little as possible because it made an easy game even easier. Hyper Mode should not have replaced super missiles and power bombs. I would rather have collected power bomb expansions than ship missile expansions because those were pretty much worthless. At least power bombs let me blow up big glass tubes. Metroid's supposed to be about getting cool items and seeing what you could do with them in the expansive world, not getting lame upgrades that you need to use once or twice to advance ahead.

Being able to play the game like an proper FPS was great, but all the enemies were ridiculously easy to kill, and so were the bosses, even though I consider my aim to be pretty bad with a wiimote. The final showdown with Dark Samus was very disappointing as well. I think Prime 1 was moderately difficult, whereas Prime 2 upped the ante a bit. Prime 3 was just too easy. If I found Prime 2 harder than Prime 1, I don't think it's just me "getting used to" Prime games.

And missiles? Totally worthless. What's the point in having around 250 of them if you barely need them for anything other than seeker missile doors? Ridley alone in Prime 1 justified collecting the majority of missile expansions.

The upgrades were also very disappointing. In Prime 1, I felt pretty pumped every time I got a new upgrade. Varia Suit, Gravity Suit, Phazon suit, wave beam, ice beam, plasma beam, power bomb, super missiles, seeker missiles. In Prime 3, you get upgrades that you don't have much use for later. I had high hopes for beam stacking, but you only get 2 upgrades that are pretty similar to each other. I also thought there would be some cool suit upgrades, but after the PED, which you get at the very beginning of the game, you get the hazard shield which isn't is just a little mod to the PED suit. What gives?

One more thing about Metroid being "isolated". I don't know about that criticism, but Metroid Fusion used Adam, and he was just fine to me. I doubt the federation would've bothered anybody if they weren't so involved with your missions. Usually, they just told you to go do your missions and figure it out yourself. At worst, Fusion told you the general area of where to pick up items. Prime 3 basically made you the Federation's soldier. This isn't Doom 3. Not cool.

Pros: Neat FPS control, better graphics

Cons: Gimmicky controls, low difficulty, not enough cool upgrades and not enough puzzles requiring them, weak music, worlds felt... dead

Hypermode is actually a neat mechanic (that I hope makes no more than a one time appearence in the Metroid series) but it only really comes into play on Hypermode Difficulty. I found Normal and even Veteran a bit too easy, Hypermode is something else again. Omega Ridley is the best Ridley fight I've ever had...but only on Hypermode Difficulty. He was milquetoast on Normal and only marginally improved on Veteran. Hyper Difficulty Ridley was the real Ridley.

It's sad you didn't enjoy the enhanced interactivity of the environments like I did. Ground breaking? No. A nice touch? Yes.

I agree the normal enhancements were a bit lacking this time around. I love all the new add-ons to the Grapple Beam though, and the tool functions of the beam cannon were great. But over all, Samus' power felt gimped, again, because of the hyper mode mechanic which is fine for this one game.

Yes, the cerebral elements and exploratory elements were very weak in this game. I put Prime in the number one slot for the trilogy while Echoes and Corruption share the number two spot. I like Echoes and Corruption roughly the same but for opposite reasons. They are rather like the antitheses of each other. Echoes has fantastic bosses, intricate environments, numerous involved puzzles, and extensive exploration, but suffers from very poor pacing that kills the momentum and drives up the tedium. Corruption tones down almost all of the thinking elements and focuses on action, simplifies the environments (almost too much) but has great momentum and is very fun. Prime balances these extremes which is why it's my best in the series, though both Echoes and Corruption do certain things better than Prime.

As for Adam from Fusion... I hated him quite passionately, more so than the nosy Aurora Units. I found him much more controlling and irritating than the AUs and Fusion was as much in my mind as Corruption when I made my post.

[OutSpoken]

For music in Prime 3, I don't think it was an outstanding job, but there was some great music like the Gandrayda battle, the music for that fight never got old and was quite unique for boss fight music. I don't see where nintendo can take metroid from here.

[WesPip]

Ridley in Prime 1 made me lose more than 2 tanks. He was more fun.

Using the wiimote to mess with levers and things didn't enhance the game in any particular way. It just created a few little extra things to do, which didn't cut it for me. It The only time I felt like they made those additional controls fun was when I had to speed-fix the broken wires on the emergency escape capsule. I feel like overall, the time spent on messing with gimmicks was supposed to make up for the puzzles being relatively pathetic.

The MOST gimmicky, and worse feature for that matter, was Hyper Mode. LAME. I used this as little as possible because it made an easy game even easier. Hyper Mode should not have replaced super missiles and power bombs. I would rather have collected power bomb expansions than ship missile expansions because those were pretty much worthless. At least power bombs let me blow up big glass tubes. Metroid's supposed to be about getting cool items and seeing what you could do with them in the expansive world, not getting lame upgrades that you need to use once or twice to advance ahead.

Being able to play the game like an proper FPS was great, but all the enemies were ridiculously easy to kill, and so were the bosses, even though I consider my aim to be pretty bad with a wiimote. The final showdown with Dark Samus was very disappointing as well. I think Prime 1 was moderately difficult, whereas Prime 2 upped the ante a bit. Prime 3 was just too easy. If I found Prime 2 harder than Prime 1, I don't think it's just me "getting used to" Prime games.

And missiles? Totally worthless. What's the point in having around 250 of them if you barely need them for anything other than seeker missile doors? Ridley alone in Prime 1 justified collecting the majority of missile expansions.

The upgrades were also very disappointing. In Prime 1, I felt pretty pumped every time I got a new upgrade. Varia Suit, Gravity Suit, Phazon suit, wave beam, ice beam, plasma beam, power bomb, super missiles, seeker missiles. In Prime 3, you get upgrades that you don't have much use for later. I had high hopes for beam stacking, but you only get 2 upgrades that are pretty similar to each other. I also thought there would be some cool suit upgrades, but after the PED, which you get at the very beginning of the game, you get the hazard shield which isn't is just a little mod to the PED suit. What gives?

One more thing about Metroid being "isolated". I don't know about that criticism, but Metroid Fusion used Adam, and he was just fine to me. I doubt the federation would've bothered anybody if they weren't so involved with your missions. Usually, they just told you to go do your missions and figure it out yourself. At worst, Fusion told you the general area of where to pick up items. Prime 3 basically made you the Federation's soldier. This isn't Doom 3. Not cool.

Pros: Neat FPS control, better graphics

Cons: Gimmicky controls, low difficulty, not enough cool upgrades and not enough puzzles requiring them, weak music, worlds felt... dead

While you've made your point clear with this post, I still disagree with most of the points you've made.

However, I agree with your opinion that the first Prime had the best upgrades. The most disapppointing part of the upgrade for Corruption, in my opinion, was the lack of visual change on Samus, aside from, as you mentioned, the PED.

Contrarily, I think I had more trouble with Ridley in Corruption than the first Metroid Prime, if no other reason than my constantly losing track of where he was.

[Ab56 v2 aka Ash]

You're supposed to look at the map in the top left corner to locate him, or the X-Ray visor.

[WesPip]

You're supposed to look at the map in the top left corner to locate him, or the X-Ray visor.

I think one of us is confused.

I meant during the battle, I'd frequently lose track of where he was because of the seemingly-random-come-out-of-some-hole-in-the-wall mechanic.

I dunno, maybe I missed something.

[The Author]

I think one of us is confused.

I meant during the battle, I'd frequently lose track of where he was because of the seemingly-random-come-out-of-some-hole-in-the-wall mechanic.

I dunno, maybe I missed something.

Map or X-ray visor...

[AarowSwift]

I think one of us is confused.

I meant during the battle, I'd frequently lose track of where he was because of the seemingly-random-come-out-of-some-hole-in-the-wall mechanic.

I dunno, maybe I missed something.

Samus has a little enemy radar on screen, enemies are orange blips on it. Ridley appears as a great big orange blob so you can track his location at all time.

[Devyn]

Okay, Sky Town was a pain in the ass, but the controls weren't gimmicky at all. I must admit that I would rather have had an adventure on 1 or 2 planets as opposed to multiple planets and ships, simply because I like that Metroid-y feeling of being lost in the subterranean depths of a creepy planet.

Anyway, MP3 is an excellent conclusion to the Prime series, despite its small flaws.

[WesPip]

Samus has a little enemy radar on screen, enemies are orange blips on it. Ridley appears as a great big orange blob so you can track his location at all time.

I'm aware, but when he was flying around, I'd still get confused and lose track of him, so for the flying bit...it probly didnt go by as fast as it should have.

[ZeroBass.Exe]

I love Metroid as much as anyone, and I ate up MP3 in no time. I'll admit, grudginly, that 3 wasn't the best, and Hypermode made everything into mincemeat, but some of the play mechanics I feel redeemed it. The grapple abilities were nice, the melees at all the wrong times kept the excitement up, and pimping your ride with Wii save file icons, particularly the Triforce, was a great touch. I think the moment that got me was the mad rush to fix the escape pod. I did not see that one coming at all, and the fact that you're breaking this on someone who is totally drunk and fumbling over this new "O SHI---"moment...adrenaline and alcohol are an interesting mix, let's leave it at that.

[FightinFilipino]

i hate to drag up an older thread, but i just started playing MP3 in earnest after getting my Wii back from repairs. i was wondering if anyone is still trading friend vouchers...

[Bigfoot]

So I bought a pretty sweet shirt on Monday

[linkspast]

i hate to drag up an older thread, but i just started playing MP3 in earnest after getting my Wii back from repairs. i was wondering if anyone is still trading friend vouchers...

I dont know what this is but when I get my copy ill trade... Ill just pm you when it gets here.

[Bigfoot]

I dont know what this is but when I get my copy ill trade... Ill just pm you when it gets here.

You earn them in game and trade them with players. They're used to unlock things.

[dsx100]

So I bought a pretty sweet shirt on Monday

Where did you get that from? I have been wanting a Metroid shirt since forever but I have never been able to find any.

[Drack]

So the Friend Voucher trades use the friend list in the Wii Console instead of its own set of friend codes?