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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - The Flaws of the Metroid Prime Trilogy

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MTZehvor on 24 October 2015
Snoorlax said:

I am in the minority but even the designer of the Prime games thinks Echoes stinks! (actually he hates all of them) I didnt like the whole travel through light and dark world use light on dark and dark on light thing.

Also the tacked on multiplayer...Actually i had more fun with this than the boring single player mode.

Uhmm FEAR? Half Life 2? Killzone? Maybe Halo even t. All these shooters had great enemy A.I. especially Fear.

...I mean, if your argument is simply "it's boring," then I'm afraid there's precious little to discuss. Why is it boring? What exactly is bad about it? Classifying a game with a blanket statement like that doesn't leave any room for discussion.

Also, all the games you mentioned have excellent AI, I won't debate that, but it's a stretch to say that Prime's AI sucks simply because there are games with some excellent AI out there is a little far fetched.



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Snoorlax on 24 October 2015
MTZehvor said:
Snoorlax said:

Prime was really, the only great Metroid Prime game out there. Echoes sucked and Corruption was average.

Even so the whole trilogy shared flaws with the enemy a.i. the pirates would just run around then stand still then shoot, sometimes they would go all suicidal and run towards you to shoot you in the face risking their own already low life points.

The fetchquest were pretty lame as well but i started to dig the hints the second time around.

I liked the motion controls in Corruption and the silly bit of story but the cheap boss battles and the tacked on Phazon enemies kinda blew it.


Echoes is just a huge and boring flaw.

Enemy AI is actually pretty good for sixth gen games, with the only real exception being in Prime that certain Pirate groups won't aggro if you're shooting Pirates that don't belong to their specific "group."

Not sure what the "cheap boss battles," "tacked on Phazon enemies," or the flaws with Echoes are. Care to elaborate?

I don't agree with the enemy A.I. being good but that's just me.

I didnt like the boring areas, the navigation which between the worlds, the beam ammo< like really? good thing they came back to their senses in Prime 3. Pretty much everything (except Dark Samus) sucked about this game, really.

Well, i should have said the uncreative use of same enemies just on hyper drugs, like were they really any more menacing? They did more damage and forced you into hypermode but that only made it more annyoing as they were still easy to kill and i could easily get out of hyper mode by just mashing the A button. And the boss battles? well they were kinda easy but that just me. 



EpicLight on 24 October 2015

Only one flaw in my eyes. It's the same stuff.



Alkibiádēs on 24 October 2015
MTZehvor said:
Alkibiádēs said:

Cut down on the quote trees. Great argument about the jump thing. I could say the same about you and Torvus Bog. You're only once forced into the water in Torvus Bog until you enter the submerged temple (a section that lasts about a minute and is very straightforward). So that means you failed easy platforming challenges. The underwater spaceship in Prime 1 was rather annoying as well. To then find out I need to get to the final room of it again because an artifact is hidden there! Such an annoying part of the game. Very little to explore? There's just as much exploration in Prime 2 as Prime 1. There are in fact more energy tanks to find. I'm not sure about missiles though. The maps tell you all you need to know. I can't make it much clearer than that. Claustrophobic and cramped level design means small corridors. I can only think of Magmoor Caverns that fits that description. Besides, the game is supposed to be like that. It's called Metroid for a reason. Metro + Android. Metro = underground corridors.

Apologies on quote trees.

All I'm talking about on Torvus Bog is the subterranian section; and you're forced underwater on numerous occasions there. You have to go underwater initially when you arrive to enter the seeker missile door (before the Dark Samus cutscene), you have to jump in again after the cutscene, you have to go underwater to overturn a couple of platforms, you have to go in once again to enter and exit a dark portal, and you have to go back in once more to travel to the Gravity Boost. That's a grand total of 5 segments where you are forced into the water without the Gravity Boost. None of this is even accounting for the potential for falling in, and even if it is linear, it takes far more than a minute to get through and it's a pain to simply traverse.

I would agree with you about the downed frigate, but luckily, Prime gives you the Gravity Suit for the entirety of it. Also...there's no artifact hidden in the frigate. Not entirely sure what you're talking about there. There's one in the life grove, but there's far easier ways to access that then traversing the entirety of the frigate.

I'm going to try and make the point about exploration one more time; I'm honestly not sure how I can make this any clearer. In regards to the "big" rooms in Prime 2, the majority of them have little to nothing to actually explore. They simply require you to follow a straightforward path and there's very little else to do. The maps of the two games look similar in terms of room "bigness," but the vast majority of the bigger rooms shown off on the map have so little to do in them that it simply keeps them from adding to any real feel of exploration. That's the argument.

Yeah, sorry, English isn't my native language. I thought you were refering to the section before the submerged temple. But subterrarean means underground apparently, so I edited my post.

Oh and I was exploring the frigate before I got the gravity boost, so the game punished me for being curious. Which is one of the reasons I hate it so much. The artifact isn't in the frigate itself, but you need to go through it to reach that chamber. There's another way around it as well, but when I looked at the map that was even longer/more confusing. I hate traversing through the Chozo Ruins, I think it's a confusing mess. But yeah, of all the regions in Prime 2 Torvus Bog is my least favorite one, mostly because of the bosses. Sanctuary Fortress and Agon Wastes are my favorite two regions. I didn't feel there was much to do in the big rooms of Prime 1 either. I found the Chozo ruins and Phazon mines to be a chore to traverse through.



"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" - Thoukydides

Snoorlax on 24 October 2015
MTZehvor said:
Snoorlax said:

I am in the minority but even the designer of the Prime games thinks Echoes stinks! (actually he hates all of them) I didnt like the whole travel through light and dark world use light on dark and dark on light thing.

Also the tacked on multiplayer...Actually i had more fun with this than the boring single player mode.

Uhmm FEAR? Half Life 2? Killzone? Maybe Halo even t. All these shooters had great enemy A.I. especially Fear.

...I mean, if your argument is simply "it's boring," then I'm afraid there's precious little to discuss. Why is it boring? What exactly is bad about it? Classifying a game with a blanket statement like that doesn't leave any room for discussion.

Also, all the games you mentioned have excellent AI, I won't debate that, but it's a stretch to say that Prime's AI sucks simply because there are games with some excellent AI out there is a little far fetched.

Uhmm i never said that Prime's enemy AI sucks simply because "there were games with better AI out there". Dont rush it, I just answered Alkibiádēs question with these games as examples were enemy AI is done good.

I also already explained why i think Metrod Primes ai sucks in my previous post.



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MTZehvor on 24 October 2015
Snoorlax said:

I don't agree with the enemy A.I. being good but that's just me.

I didnt like the boring areas, the navigation which between the worlds, the beam ammo< like really? good thing they came back to their senses in Prime 3. Pretty much everything (except Dark Samus) sucked about this game, really.

Well, i should have said the uncreative use of same enemies just on hyper drugs, like were they really any more menacing? They did more damage and forced you into hypermode but that only made it more annyoing as they were still easy to kill and i could easily get out of hyper mode by just mashing the A button. And the boss battles? well they were kinda easy but that just me. 

...I guess if everything's going to be described as just "boring," then I'm not sure how exactly to proceed. I personally think that the areas were a bit blander myself, but the core gameplay is very much the same. I'm curious as to how someone who really enjoyed Prime suddenly hates Echoes for a couple more mistakes.

As for the enemies...they are the same enemies with hypermode. They put a twist on the formula by having the entire universe become more "corrupted" as time goes on, similar to what theoretically should be happening. It also encourages the player to use hypermode, which is good, considering it's the main new gameplay mechanic. Boss battles are a bit easier, perhaps, but I really don't see how easier boss battles and enemies having hypermode take a game you thought was great and make it "average."



Snoorlax on 24 October 2015
MTZehvor said:
Snoorlax said:

I don't agree with the enemy A.I. being good but that's just me.

I didnt like the boring areas, the navigation which between the worlds, the beam ammo< like really? good thing they came back to their senses in Prime 3. Pretty much everything (except Dark Samus) sucked about this game, really.

Well, i should have said the uncreative use of same enemies just on hyper drugs, like were they really any more menacing? They did more damage and forced you into hypermode but that only made it more annyoing as they were still easy to kill and i could easily get out of hyper mode by just mashing the A button. And the boss battles? well they were kinda easy but that just me. 

...I guess if everything's going to be described as just "boring," then I'm not sure how exactly to proceed. I personally think that the areas were a bit blander myself, but the core gameplay is very much the same. I'm curious as to how someone who really enjoyed Prime suddenly hates Echoes for a couple more mistakes.

As for the enemies...they are the same enemies with hypermode. They put a twist on the formula by having the entire universe become more "corrupted" as time goes on, similar to what theoretically should be happening. It also encourages the player to use hypermode, which is good, considering it's the main new gameplay mechanic. Boss battles are a bit easier, perhaps, but I really don't see how easier boss battles and enemies having hypermode take a game you thought was great and make it "average."

... I think i only described the areas as  "boring" in this post, not everything else. C'mon. 

Prime has the most memorable worlds in the whole trilogy, they were well designed, fun to explore and they were all perfectly connected to each other which is just not the case with Prime 2. Just as you think Prime 2 areas were a bit bland i think they were a chore to navigate through and boring. I just didn't like the game even if it had  "a couple of more mistakes" it's just my opinion. You liked it? Okay, good for you.

Again, I didn't like the easy boss battles and the annoying hyper mode enemies if it didn't bother you then cool. You think the motion controls were forced or overused? I think they were great definitely a innovation for the Prime games. The game itself was already linear, and on top of that too easy even on hyper mode difficulty that's why it wasnt as bad as Echoes but also not as good as Prime.



MTZehvor on 24 October 2015
Snoorlax said:
MTZehvor said:

...I guess if everything's going to be described as just "boring," then I'm not sure how exactly to proceed. I personally think that the areas were a bit blander myself, but the core gameplay is very much the same. I'm curious as to how someone who really enjoyed Prime suddenly hates Echoes for a couple more mistakes.

As for the enemies...they are the same enemies with hypermode. They put a twist on the formula by having the entire universe become more "corrupted" as time goes on, similar to what theoretically should be happening. It also encourages the player to use hypermode, which is good, considering it's the main new gameplay mechanic. Boss battles are a bit easier, perhaps, but I really don't see how easier boss battles and enemies having hypermode take a game you thought was great and make it "average."

... I think i only described the areas as  "boring" in this post, not everything else. C'mon. 

Prime has the most memorable worlds in the whole trilogy, they were well designed, fun to explore and they were all perfectly connected to each other which is just not the case with Prime 2. Just as you think Prime 2 areas were a bit bland i think they were a chore to navigate through and boring. I just didn't like the game even if it had  "a couple of more mistakes" it's just my opinion. You liked it? Okay, good for you.

Again, I didn't like the easy boss battles and the annoying hyper mode enemies if it didn't bother you then cool. You think the motion controls were forced or overused? I think they were great definitely a innovation for the Prime games. The game itself was already linear, and on top of that too easy even on hyper mode difficulty that's why it wasnt as bad as Echoes but also not as good as Prime.

You described the entirety of Echoes as a "huge and boring flaw." Yes, in that post specifically, only the areas were referenced to; I was referencing more than just the original post.

Here's what I'm trying to get at. Yes, I described Prime 2's areas as bland. I then went on to elaborate as to why they were bland; i.e. they're generally more linear, much smaller/cramped, they don't stand out quite as much, etc. What I'm looking for is some explanation. Why are the areas so annoying to traverse? What makes those few mistakes stand out so much? I'm not trying to crucify you on a point as I am just curious as to your reasoning.



osed125 on 24 October 2015

Prime's area design, for the most part, is spot on, but there's a couple areas where Retro went overboard and went from making a room that's challenging yet fair to navigate to one that is simply obnoxious. Most of these areas are found in the Phazon Mines leading up to the Omega Pirate, but one in particular that deserves mention is the big room in the Impact Crater before Metroid Prime. This is partially due to the existence of Fission Metroids, but most of what makes these rooms annoying is the fact that you are forced to return all the way to the very beginning if you screw up and begin the platforming process once again. As Prime goes on, it tends to make its rooms more difficult to traverse by simply making them more frustrating rather than fairly challenging.

 

Oh boy I still have nightmares over this....

I was never able to finish the first Prime when I was a kid. My first time finishing the game was when I revisited the game a few years later on my teen years. I actually beat Prime 2 before Prime 1 becuase of the hard time I had in Phazon Mines.....



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Exion8 on 25 October 2015

I don't know why, but I found that MP was a larger game in terms of visual depth than MPII.

The large areas from Echoes that I can remember are Sanctuary Fortress and about half of Torvus Bog. In MP, there were at least five rooms in every area with an enormous volume and stunning views; of course Phendrana Drifts blows it all away. Even though Phazon Mines is arguably the most cramped area in the game, it tries to make up for it by giving us amazing views of the entire impact crater from glass walls in the elevators.



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