Metroid Prime on Gamecube

Yeah, that's right... Gamecube! The least popular of the big three systems that were available at the time is also the one system I was the most enthusiastic about. Competing with the PS2, Xbox, and to a much lessor degree the Final Sega system, the Dreamcast; I enjoyed Nintendo's exclusive titles and felt like they did a good job with them.

The Gamecube was not an exception and Metroid Prime was one of the best games released for the Gamecube.

I can't remember why, but I wasn't very enthusiastic about Metroid moving over to a first-person 3-D style of game. I would imagine it was probably because the original gameplay for previous titles all being side-scrollers were so perfect and I had a hard time imagining that they would be able to improve upon this. It was actually one of the most perfect transitions of that sort ever performed. This game was fantastic.

It followed in the same footsteps as the games previous in that they gradually gave you the upgrades that would allow you to reach areas on the map that previously were inaccessible. This lead to a lot of repeat exploration, but it wasn't too often that you were simply stuck and didn't know where to go next. The map would flash and indicate which general direction you were meant to go anyway and if you didn't belong somewhere it would quickly become evident that this was the case because some sort of environmental hazard would be gradually killing you.

The boss fights were fantastic and except for when you encounter "Ridley" I wouldn't say they were too easy or too hard, they were just the right level of difficult and some of them seem impossible until you figure out the one thing that gives it away such as a boss that you can't even see unless you put on a particular visor. Once you do that, it is relatively easy to defeat.

We need to keep in mind that this game was released nearly 20 years ago, yet in my mind, a lot of these graphics would still hold up today in gaming, it was that well-made.

If I was forced to pick anything that I could consider annoying about this game it would be that all the enemies will respawn on "rooms" you just cleared after a certain amount of time. This makes returning to areas a bit annoying at times because there is no XP incentive to re killing them. So many times the enemies just end up being a nuisance on certain boards that you find yourself returning to time and time again. I suppose they had to do this though because otherwise the entire game would just be one big empty hallway of sorts eventually.

If i had to make a list of top 10 games ever made (based on the time period they were released in,) Metroid Prime for the Gamecube would be a strong candidate for that list and it was one of the main reasons that I purchased a Gamecube. The Metroid games have never been released on any other system and likely never will be.

The ROM for the game (which I've heard can be a bit problematic so, heads up!) can be downloaded here