Metroid Prime even playing the game years after I beat it through an emulator is still the engaging and enjoyable game that it was all those years ago. To this day, the game is still the well designed 3D metroidvania as it was when it first released. Not many games after or since have the feel of that MP does.
The first thing I want to adress is the whole "first person adventure" the game gets labelled as. I disagree with this term pretty strongly and it's just nebulous at best, many games can be labelled from stuff like Half Life 2 all the way to Portal as well. What this game really is a metroidvania established by games like Castlevania SOTN and Super Metroid and is put forth in the third dimension.
Everything that you can find in a metroidvania game in 2D can be found here, an interconnected world with shortcuts, powerups to pick up that makes world traversal easier the more you play, pickups you can find scattered throughout the world like health and missiles, double jumps, and a grappling hook much like the one found in Super Metroid. What is impressive about MP is how it translates everything to the third dimension.
Sure the world design isn't as seemless as stuff you find in 2D games in the genre but the whole feeling of getting lost, barely scrapping by going through and traversing the world and then unlocking more of the powerups and making the world feel like an ocean that is much easier to swim in is what the gameplay of MP consists primarily of.
The game gives you an excellent feeling of discovery when you go through Tallon Overworld and then find the Chozo Ruins, reach a roadblock there and then backtrack to Tallon Overworld to find Magmoor Caverns and then find more of the powerups there and more of the world slowly gets unlocked.
When I got to Phendrana Drifts and hearing the melody that accompanied it was a somber and majestic feeling felt as great now as it did when I played it all those years ago. The soundtrack in the game is easily the best in the series of Metroid, it fits the game so well, and helps the wonder you have from exploration like the Tallon Overworld theme and before mentioned Phendrana Drifts. I did get stuck a few times but luckily it wasn't often, I did play with hints on and it probably wasn't the "right" way to play but at the same time, 90% of the time I had a general gist of where to go before the hint system activated.
The game also adds some since immersive touches to the first person perspective like alien blood getting on her visor that needs to be wiped off, her refection getting shown when light bounces off her visor, and seeing Samus' hand reach out when using the grappling hook.
I might as well discuss what I dislike about the game, the combat isn't very good or at least the feeling of combat isn't that great. This might be the part where you could compare it to first person shooters but honestly compared to FPS games of the era like Soldier of Fortune, FEAR, and Return to Castle Wolfestein, the damage animations and feedback for hitting enemies aren't as cathartic as you get with the above mentioned games. It gets the job done, but if you play Metroid Prime primarily as an FPS game it might "disappointing" going into the game as that. The combat is mainly supposed to show off how far you have gotten through the exploration of the world and getting powerups to show off how enemies that were once a challenge are now very easy to defeat. To the MP's credit, it does have decent boss fights for a game set in first person that had shooting in it. The bosses in MP at least require more to do to defeat them than, "spam strongest weapon and then win". You got attacks to dodge and attack patterns to recognize, and they have a puzzle element to them where you got to figure out how to damage them. The only boss that was really frustrating was the Ridley boss since his charge attack's telegraph could've been handled a lot better, since in order for me to dodge his charage, I have to do jump behind seconds before the telegrah is even done to effectively move out of the way.
Other issues with the game is how first time players can find the quirks later in the game to be "offputting". For example the infamous Phazon Mines sections has no save point of any kind during at least 30 minutes of the level. While playing it now, it might be my favorite portion of the game since it does a good job at making the player switch between the various beam types and it actively gives you decent exploration bits with some morph ball puzzles, and a hefty amount of platforming. The section where you got the Thermal Visor I found to be much more challenging since enemies where hitting you from all sides and it was harder to see where enemies were attacking you. On top of that the spiderbots blocking the door on the way back to the early part of the level after getting visor would kill me easily due to it being a cramped space where you would hit me and drain my health causing me to restart.
At the same time, I can see why the Phazon Mines would annoy a first time player, you need to fight two mini bosses, and a lot of challenging enemies and get past a 30 minute section before you even have to save. This remaster did very little to even allevate the issue. Maybe adding an aditional save point, maybe adding an autosave, or at the very least give the player a warning before going into mines to get more energy tanks and missile upgrades before going can at the very least make this less of an issue for first timers.
Another big issue is the fetch quest later in the game, this can catch first time players off guard if they are playing it blind. It sure did when I first played it. While I get what Retro was trying to do in concept where it's basically the player going through lots of exploration with all the collected power ups, the execution isn't that great. If you know to collect Chozo Artifacts before you beat the Omega Pirate then the blow could be lessened but still tedious nontheless. Where you will be going on the beaten path and then constantly have to remind myself, "did I get the Chozo Artifact along the way?" It slows down the pace of the game and after beating the Omega Pirate, I just wanted the game to wrap up already since I conquered the game's biggest challenges, now with the Artifact Hunt, the only thing being tested is my patience and how long I can look for them without a guide before giving up so I can get to the end faster.
Other smaller issues include the grappling hook being finicky and the morph ball controls can be less than tight when moving around tight corners but this only seems to be issues that would really annoy me if I tried to 100% the game.
Overall, Metroid Prime is a very good game back in 2002 and is a very good game today. I wish there were more 3D metroidvanias being released now. It's one of the most faithful transitions to 3D you can find for any series and genre of game. The Remastered version's controls aren't as good as the Wii's but at the same time, they are decent enough especially considering this is the easiest version of the game you can find as of right now. Just be warned, if you are playing this game for the first time there are some late game "quirks" that can turn you away from beating it but bear with it and you can find a very unique game that combines the first person person perspective, shooting, platforming and exploration better than many games.
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