Last night beat the Ice Belt and gained the ice shot, also completed a few of the Sol Valley "shrines" and cashed in my green crystals for the power beam upgrade.
While it may not be traditional for a Metroid game, I think the whole BOTW-esque idea of self-contained shrines scattered around the open world actually works well here; my only issue is that in a game where you will often find yourself blocked from progressing and have to leave and come back later, the size of the world means backtracking takes longer here than in say Prime 2 or 3, and the game could have benefitted from more of those Lamorn travel pods that shoot you from Sol Valley to near base camp in Fury Green.
Just finished my evening session now; started working my way through Flare Pool and met Sergeant Duke. He's easily the best of the troopers so far, being better acted (by Jason Kelley, voice of the Doom Slayer among other things) and less corny than Myles and the Sniper at Ice Belt.
Flare Pool is also brilliantly atmospheric, strongly evoking Prime 1's Magmoor Caverns but with shades of Prime 3's Pirate Homeworld. Great stuff.
