

In doing so, it becomes clear to the player that one must deprive the creature of sunlight in order to make any meaningful progress. In assessing the creature that stands before her, Samus considers what is required for it to live, outside of the context of her current entanglement. While this boss battle does, indeed, more or less boil down to “shoot the butt,” before one can get to that phase, some deduction is required. Concentrated weapon fire can daze it for short periods. Its lower root system is unprotected and vulnerable, however. This exposure has made Flaahgra’s outer shell thick and durable. As a result, it requires near-constant exposure to solar energy to remain active. Take the Log Book entry for Flaahgra, an early boss, for example:įlaahgra’s growth cycle has been radically accelerated. Much of the text is inconsequential to the game’s mechanics but is hugely important with respect to character and the texture of Prime’s narrative. Crucially, however, Metroid Prime does not throw a big block of text up on the screen that just says “Shoot the butt.” Instead, it situates this information in-fiction alongside scientific observations. Scanning enemies and bosses reveals information essential to defeating them, which heavily incentivizes the action, since an enemy’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities are not always obvious just from blasting at them. You can scan trees and architecture and creepy crawlers and more in Metroid Prime. Image: Retro Studios/Nintendo via Polygon What remains unchanged, insofar as I can tell, are the game’s many, many text entries.
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Metroid Prime Remastered looks great and plays smoothly in both TV and handheld mode, with new models and textures that are obviously updated but feel faithful to your childhood memories. This is an alien world, and you are alien to it. The soundtrack and sound design of Prime still evoke a sense of loneliness that few games have achieved to date. Replaying the game now at 32, I find myself taking my time with it. What did I care about the behavioral patterns of something called a Geemer? What was there to know about a War Wasp beside the fact that I should kill it before it kills me? As such, I remember skipping almost all of the game’s inessential log entries, which are helpfully marked as orange squares on your HUD versus the progression-critical red boxes. I played the original release of Metroid Prime when I was 12, when I had significantly less patience for reading than I do now. Playing from the claustrophobic, in-helmet perspective of Samus, you glean information about the world and its assorted flora and fauna, presented as text, collecting the entries in the bounty hunter’s Log Book throughout your adventure. One of your first objectives in Prime, a game in which you explore, solve puzzles, backtrack, and combat the occasional enemy in search of Chozo artifacts, is to scan your environment. If you want curated lists of our favorite media, check out What to Play and What to Watch. When we award the Polygon Recommends badge, it’s because we believe the recipient is uniquely thought-provoking, entertaining, inventive, or fun - and worth fitting into your schedule.



You're buying the 21 year-old experience.Polygon Recommends is our way of endorsing our favorite games, movies, TV shows, comics, tabletop books, and entertainment experiences. It's the old game, but the controls and visuals are better. It's the kind of unintuitive design that Grezzo would have addressed in a Zelda remake, but Metroid Prime Remastered hasn't been approached with the same kind of intention. There's no modern day conveniences like a user-determined waypoint marker, and the artifact hints are buried quite deeply within a submenu on the pause menu. The hints give you just enough information to determine where you need to go and what you need to do. A last farewell to Tallon IV, and a last opportunity to stumble upon upgrades you missed. It's Samus making fuller use of all her abilities, and that includes the map. It's something I found frustrating when I previously played the game, but I've gained some appreciation for it now.
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Lots of games use large maps that you can fully explore at any point, but you never had to follow a series of clues to find hidden trinkets scattered throughout Vice City's most unassuming alleyways before Sonny Forelli would recognise your right to a duel. Many see it as padding for padding's sake. Before the final stretch of the game, Samus is tasked with searching the whole map for 12 artifacts. It's kind of overblown, but I understand. The artifact quest is a part of the game that gets a lot of criticism.
