The Metroid Prime Trilogy finally went live on the Wii U eShop yesterday after being announced during the latest Nintendo Direct. It will take up a solid 8GB of your precious Wii U’s flash memory, but it’s worth every Megabit, especially for the outrageously low price.
For those who are unaware, the Metroid Prime Trilogy released as a Limited Edition retail game on the Wii. After the game sold out, that was it, no more copies were ever going to be produced. This is a game that sold regularly on eBay for $300 sealed, and easily $100 or more for a used copy.
When Nintendo announced that they were releasing Metroid Prime Trilogy on the Wii U eShop as a downloadable Wii title, everyone went bonkers, it was by far the most exciting news out of their January Nintendo Direct. If you own a Wii U and are missing a copy of Metroid Prime Trilogy, then I’m baffled by the fact that you haven’t started downloading it already.
Well, what is the Metroid Prime Trilogy anyway?
If you have trouble answering that question, then please feel free to read on!
Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime, the first game in the Trilogy, blew fans away when it came out originally for the Gamecube in 2002. This game took a unique spin on the Metroid series and brought it to the 3D world after skipping the N64 generation–and it looked great. Hell, it still looks fantastic, the style has definitely aged well.
Metroid Prime is, at the core, a first-person shooter–but don’t write it off right away. You play as an intergalactic bounty hunter named Samus Aran–one of the most badass women to ever appear in gaming. The game plays in first-person, for the most part, and controls really well with the Wii controls adapted from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
This is like a Sci-Fi Zelda that just feels a lot more open–at least at first. Exploring and retrieving all of your missing abilities feels like such a huge accomplishment, and the combat is far from dull. Metroid Prime is so different from other first-person shooters (FPS) that it seems to create its own genre.
I downloaded it yesterday, as a first-time Metroid player, and playing through it today has just been one of the loveliest experiences I’ve had in a game in a long time. The world is so rich with lore and is extremely unique, I can’t seem to get enough of it.
Other 2002 Games
It is absolutely astonishing how well Metroid Prime stands up to 13 years of age, when other games quite obviously didn’t. Take The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, for example, another “masterpiece” that came out within the same year.
Morrowind is pretty dated. The graphics are okay but paired with the ugly body models, the game just looks plain bad without any sort of modification. Not to mention the hardcore combat algorithms that go into whether you even hit your target–you heard me right, it lacks real-time combat. That has turned me away from the game many times.
It’s like tabletop Dungeons and Dragons vamped up to extreme levels with some mediocre graphics and clunky animations. Luckily, to those willing to put in the time of downloading 80+ mods–guess what I spent my day doing–you can come out the other side with an adventure more suited to your tastes that is full of fantastic depth and lore.
First Impressions
Metroid Prime Trilogy is an excellent Wii U eShop release and a Masterpiece in its own rite.
I’ve spent a good part of my day playing Metroid Prime Trilogy, and I have to say, having never played a Metroid game before, I am having a blast. After the opening sequence, the game leaves you to your own devices to explore and recover your lost abilities. The game world is immersive as well. You can scan a lot of things to read up on the lore behind it. I never thought reading up on sci-fi lore could be so interesting!
I’m so glad I got the chance add Metroid Prime Trilogy to my collection.
