Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Author's Rating:

Pros: Interface, amazing Metroid gameplay

Cons: Too easy for words

The Bottom Line: 
8.8/10

Author's Review
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is the third and last of the Metroid trilogy. It's about as good as the other games, it edges out Echoes due to ease of use, it's the easiest of the three games but has the most comfortable interface as well. The gameplay is the same as the prior two Metroid games with few differences other than Wiimote controls. Shoot things, upgrade weapons to missiles, get various suit addons and two other visors, and change into morph ball mode when things get tough. The biggest add on is injecting an energy tank to go into "hyper mode" and kill everything, at the expense of a portion of health.

That's not a problem because this is an easy, easy game. I never died once on two playthroughs. As long as you carefully observe not injecting the energy tank, it's a cake walk. Even the puzzles are easy, though clever as can be. Like the other games, they're environmental puzzles. Nothing in the way of block pushing, instead know what to press or destroy and you're fine. They're clever to work through though even though they're exceedingly easy and often boil down to little more than a matching game.

The game itself is broken up into a few huge segments instead of an overworld like in prior games. You play as Samus Aran. The plot is aliens are doing alien things, blah blah blah and you've got to stop them! You have three "teammates" you could consider them, though not really that. They don't belong in the Metroid world but I guess Metroid was becoming more like a newer more standard game series anyway since "Other M" was recently released. What was the need to reboot this series so quickly anyway? There are plenty of great Nintendo series like Earthbound which would sell well given the fanbase but get no love from Nintendo whatsoever. It's evil.

The game drastically overhauls the atmosphere by creating a large docking ship you spend the first 1/5 of the game exploring and repairing. It's kind of surreal. Going around, dropping into the undersides of this ship as a morph ball while actual talking humans stand around and do human things. I never expect that in a Metroid game. It destroys the mystery and the ambience, but it makes up for it with a more polished experience overall. You have a "ship" visor which allows you to call your ship in certain segments. You can get into your ship and visit other planets which is very cool. This is also odd since you only seem to visit planets once or twice. It destroys almost all backtracking, though that's a good thing. Still, the idea of Metroid is to uncover the map piece by piece and find the next upgrade. The satisfaction comes from being stuck and figuring out where to go by exploring.

Here, there's never even a question on where to go 90% of the time. At least the locales are some of the best of the series. A planet of molten plasma, a planet of machines in the clouds, the aforementioned ship and my favorite, a space pirate base. There aren't many locales but the game is still decent length, a little shorter than Prime but still long. You can complete it in a dedicated weekend. The game's upgrades involve the wiimote sensor. First of all, you interact with displays and panels a lot, using them to enter keycodes and pull out switches using the wii remote. It's easy but very cool. The best upgrade is the grapple, which was a novelty in Prime but here is very important. You yank doors open, yank switches and yank shields off of enemies to blow them to pieces before they can recover. The game is more combat oriented which is strange because it's so easy. Aside from a simple battery collection bit, it's hard to feel stuck or frustrated. But it's fun. The battle segments are easy but ridiculously polished. You battle Ridley (A giant bird...thing) at the beginning of the game literally in midair as you're falling through a tube, and the tube is counting down the number of meters before you hit the ground. This is extremely cool. There are a lot of highly cinematic segments though most are at the start of the game. You've still got all the fauna of the other games, bugs, bugs...bugs...most of them look like bugs. And then there are the space pirates. They're mean but easy as all hell. It's kind of sad seeing  how you can destroy their entire defenses and ships single handedly while they've only taken maybe 1/10th of your health.

Instead of different guns for the most part you get one tht has a special "hyper mode" that injects a healing tank into your body for sustinence. You can cancel it any time but sometimes it overheats. If you don't know how to use this, you can die. You have to rapidly tap the button to stop if from overheating. If you figure out how it works, it's easy, though hardly used since the bosses are so easy themselves.

The boss fights are no longer big, menacing creatures, which is somewhat disappointing. They're mostly arena type battles. I miss the big plantoid insects, but I digress. Graphically, it's obviously the best of the three. Brryo is full of orange plants that look delicious for some reason. The ship areas are polished and shiny. Explosions and minor effects are everywhere to make the whole game look fascinatingly beautiful. The architecture is more refined and careful and the levels look like miniature mazes to explore at times. The sound is equally great, with solid voice acting and great music. The mysterious, ambient feel to the music is missing though. It's still there in shadows, but no longer does it seem like Samus is in the middle of the cosmos hunting various alien beings. Shame.

I like that it's a natural explorable environment. If you know you need to get somewhere to blow it up, observe the surroundings and you can find a natural path. It's cool and that's when Metroid is at its best, so it still feels like metroid. You'll probably never get stuck, but if you pay attention you'll complete the game a lot quicker. It's hard not to if you try. The last boss is a pushover and nothing in this game has anything to wrack the nerves. It's very relaxing, probably since you never get close to dying. The last boss is an offensive joke, especially since you can run right up to him and kill him in about two minutes. Compared to Prime's final boss, both bosses in the sequels aren't nearly up to par. The fun factor remains high regardless and it's another excellent Metroid game and a great way to end the trilogy.