#I never did do a hypermode run of all 3....

[300iqprower]

Prime 3 is still easily the worst of the trilogy but damn if it's OST and worldbuilding didn't knock it out of the park

[fedorasaurus]

Thoughts on The First Part of Metroid Prime 3

Thoughts on the beginning of the game, but that said, some spoilers to follow:

This opening sequence with the glitchy/corrupted text is 2 spoopy 4 me. Not sure what else is going on here, or rather, how. 

Playing this on the Trilogy, I’d forgotten that this was the first Metroid game on the Wii, so it was humorously jarring that this one suddenly has a lot of motion control features in it. I spent a few minutes just pushing all the buttons in the ship to see what they do. Also, I need to be careful not to accidentally punch anyone/anything while thrusting the controller toward the screen and back.

“Welcome back, Samus,” made me smile. I feel like it’s also Nintendo’s way of welcoming the player back after the 3 years between the release of Prime 2 and Prime 3. I have to wonder how they’ll greet us in Prime 4 next year!

So much dialogue and people to interact with! I love it. There sure are a lot of [white] humans working for the Galactic Federation of Planets, though. You’d think it would be a little more diverse! Give me a Luminoth or two, man.

Weirdly, everyone refers to Samus as a “bounty hunter,” which I know is just a semantic thing, but I hope that in future games they acknowledge that she’s more of a “space warrior.” Still, it’s fun to headcanon that everyone calls her a bounty hunter, but she never corrects them because they are offering jobs that benefit the universe, so it’s all the same.

Finally, some aliens! We’ve got a cryokinetic, a shape-shifter, and a cyborg who can merge with machines. Huh. I bet you ten space dollars that I’m gonna end up fighting each one o’ them fellers.

Sidenote: How long was Gandrayda pretending to be Samus before she walked in? Because Dane sounds pretty pissed when he calls her out on it. I take it that this is a thing that has happened more than once. Imagine every time Samus turns her back, Gandrayda turns into her and silently mocks/imitates whatever she is doing, and Samus is just like WOW DUDE REAL MATURE.

Sidenote: After reading the logs, Gandrayda’s immaturity is apparently A Thing; she’s either literally a child or just incredibly unprofessional.

At first impression, Ghor is my favorite of the Bounty Hunters. I love the idea of one’s personality turning rude/aggressive when physically bonded with weaponized machines. It’s as though objects built for war have an inherent “soul” of violence that he taps into as a consequence of the merging. I think they could have done a little more to play up the contrast between this aggression when merged against his gentle, compassionate, non-merged self. I guess he always sounds slightly agitated and just sort of raises his voice a little more when merged to his battle suit.

Too busy trying to scan everything to realize I am supposed to be protecting the Troopers from the Pirate attack. Feels bad man. I’m tempted to restart, but I should be genuine with this playthrough.

No idea if this “immanent meteor impact” part is actually timed, but I’m sufficiently stressed, so okay I’ll hoof it.

OH MY GOD IT’S RIDLEY. I MISSED YOU, MY ARCH NEMESIS.

I’M FIGHTING A DRAGON WHILE FALLING THROUGH A TUNNEL. WHAT A COOL BATTLE.

I’m positive that this isn’t going to be the only time I see Ridley in this game, but I’ll be disappointed if it is. DON’T TEASE US LIKE THAT, NINTENDO.

I had a feeling that this mission wouldn’t go off without a hitch, although that’s a pretty big hitch, and that’s an enormous time skip to go with it.

Okay, why did the Federation think using Phazon-infused suits was a good idea? I get that they have a 25-second safety shutdown, and only their most experienced fighters are authorized to use them, but the Chozo called it the Great Poison for a reason, and I guarantee Samus wouldn’t have accepted the PED Suit if it were up to her. Still, she’s got a job to do, and it’s better than running around in the Zero Suit, so I admire her tolerance for the nonsense.

Sidenote: My level of Phazon corruption is already at 10%? Is this going to be one of those things where if you enter Hypermode too often, you get a Game Over/Bad Ending? I’ll play it safe for now and only use it when I have to.

Theory: If I killed the Metroid Prime / Dark Samus on Aether, and Aether is where the Federation found Phazon Crystals that seemed to have organic characteristics, WHAT IF the Metroid Prime is still “alive” in the PED suits? What if that thing at the beginning that resembled Dark Samus is actually someone who was the result of complete Phazon corruption/madness? Oh no.

Also, the PED Suit is so ugly. It looks like someone just kinda scratched the paint off of the Power Suit and welded a box onto the chestplate. Galactic Federation, I respect you, but your aesthetic is terrible. Please let the Luminoth design y’alls armor. Honestly, you go to Aether to mine for radioactive minerals but not to get fashion tips from the locals. HONESTLY.

I’m digging the use of the ship to dock at different planets/locations in this one. It makes the world(s) feel much bigger. I’m wondering how much more they’ll be doing with that, given that there’s a whole visor dedicated to her ship now.

Anyway, off to Bryyo to finish Rundas’ mission because I’m SURE he’s TOTALLY AND ACTUALLY NOT ALIVE RIGHT NOW. You can’t fool me, video game.

Some hardware criticisms: my WiiU clicks a lot when I play this one, especially during lags when I try to open doors. The first two games in the Trilogy didn’t have this issue, or at least not as much. I don’t know if this means I should just play it on a regular Wii, or if Corruption is just a more console-intensive game, or if my system is now being corrupted by Phazon and will turn into a terrible alien creature the next time I turn it on. Talk about a creepypasta!

[mznb]

The games I played in 2018

As another year comes to a close, I take a look back at the games I’ve played in the past year. Spoiler alert: not as many as last year... but I do have things to say about some of the ones that I did.

Games beaten:

Assassin’s Creed: Director’s Cut

Assassin’s Creed 2

Batman: Arkham Knight + All single-player DLC

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition

Dying Light

Far Cry 3

Gift

Halo: Combat Evolved

Metroid

Metroid II: Return of Samus

Super Metroid

Metroid Fusion

Oni

Pokémon Crystal Version

Pokémon White Version

Rune Classic

Shadow Warrior Classic Redux

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

Games replayed:

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Hypermode, 100%)

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Hypermode, 100%)

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (100% items) + two randomizer runs

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (100% items)

F.E.A.R. (Extreme difficulty)

Assassin’s Creed

I had never played any Assassin’s Creed -games until this past month, now I’ve beaten the first two games of the franchise. So, what can I say about AC1? It’s got a lot of neat stuff, but the game becomes so repetitive it’s almost comical. It didn’t put me off on the second game, beacause I had heard that it’s a vast improvement over the first. And after finishing AC2 I can confirm this, and I’m interested in playing further entries in the series at some point.

Dark Souls

I played a couple hours of Dark Souls on my brother’s PS3 copy in 2013, and left it there. Early 2016 I decided to get the PC-version on Steam sale, played it a decent amount, abandoned it for a while. Came back early 2018 and made some more progress, but stopped again. Then, in October I decided to check back at my PS3 save for some reason, and I kept playing... eventually I found myself far enough in the game, that I might as well finish it. And I did, and quite enjoyed it.

Eventually I’ll come back to that unfinished PC playthrough, as well as other Souls-games, but that’ll be a while...

Metroid

After really getting into Metroid Prime Trilogy, I decided to go to the series origins and work my way up.

The original Metroid is a bit tough to get into due to how the game has aged. Certain copy-pasted areas make navigation a pain, but I eventually got through.

Metroid 2 on the other hand was much more enjoyable to me. Sure, there is still some copy-paste here and there, but overall it’s far less confusing. I really liked the game.

Super Metroid is “the big one” in the series, and everyone and their mom has said everything there is to say about this game, so I’m struggling to say anything meaningful about it... Well, I guess I could say the game is great, and has some really well hidden secrets. I don’t remember what my completion percentage was at the end, but I had missed a decent amount of minor upgrades (Missile expansions etc.).

And finally, Metroid Fusion. I was a little surprised by all the dialogue, previous games’ approach to story was minimal to say the least. I enjoyed the game quite a bit, despite feeling a little more linear compared to Super Metroid.

Help I can’t stop playing Zelda

It seems I keep circulating back to Zelda-games after marathoning the whole series last year. Well, the two N64 entries of the series, at least. I can’t quite explain why I find those two in particular so compelling...

Replayed both OoT and Majora, the latter which I had a bit of an ordeal involving a heart piece. More recently I got into Oot Randomizer, which I’ve enjoyed immensely.