Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii, 2007)
Graphics-8 Sound-7.5 Control-8/7.5* Challenge-6 Story-6
Level Design-7 Frustration-7 Fun-7 Originality-6
Overall Score-7
*Original Wii controls
+
Pretty cool intro gameplay (escape segment after a short briefing)
Fleshes out the federation a lot and introduces some rival bounty hunters
Free look and examine viewing modes (see Ultima Underworld and System Shock 1-2)*
Difficulty options (normal, hard/veteran, unlockable very hard/hyper)
Stats menu inside your ship
Start with the morph ball, morph ball jumping, bombs and space jump (double jump)+they don't get taken away after the intro here (you also gain missiles during the intro)
Various scripted scenes (NPC marines getting attacked and some brief fighting alongside them (later on there's a longer segment where you have to protect a group of them which is pretty cool if a bit too easy), falling debris)
Some good environmental storytelling (marine corpses, broken down machinery and falling debris, seeing Ridley attacking NPCs off in the distance in the same area (and foreshadowing of later rooms in some sub areas like Bryyo west and east, some neutral creatures and machines (the data pods), )
Can use the grapple beam (or lasso rather, it's divided into two upgrades here) for some combat situations here - grab and pull away enemy shields and manipulate certain smaller objects to solve basic puzzles
At certain outdoors locations you can call on your ship to use it as a mobile base (save+heal, )
Good variety overall (meta ridley fight during the Norion generator mission - rail shooter style, zipline segments in Skytown on Elysia; gets a bit repetitive towards the end)
Get harassed by some bosses before fighting them properly (meta ridley)
New enemies appear when backtracking through areas
Some decent puzzles (having the small bugs attach to your morph ball form and lifting you up like a balloon towards a ceiling creature (lets you reach some new paths) - a bit like the ones in Half-Life, bridge between two areas for the fourth energy cell))
Good main bosses overall (Rundas unless you overuse hyper mode, Korakk fight and sucking beam fight are more like puzzles, freezing the fuel pools to make Ghor spin and knock himself out, Gandrayda - transforms into some of the previous bosses)
A few fast travel points within sub areas and some shortcuts (there could've been some more of both however and/or some of the one-way ones could've been two-way)
Some optional bosses
Decent sense of vulnerability in skytown (your ship getting attacked and being temporarily stranded there, later on when you defend the bomb inside the spire against the pirates and then have to escape the spire using an escape pod although this part is a bit too easy)
Some sequence breaking opportunities (minor skips using an unintended triple jump (jump towards the camera in ball form then transform and jump again), earlier Grapple Voltage after reaching the pirate homeworld - can immediately go to Pirate Research through Transit Station 3-B by getting over the gate in Lift Hub with a precise 2BSJ (2 bomb jump into space jump - tricky to pull off however) and carefully moving through the middle part while avoiding the acid rain), Hazard Shield "skip" - can disable the barrier in command courtyard by standing in the corner of the barrier without getting hit by the rain; a lot more with glitches (early elysia exploration by going out of bounds near the entrance for example))
One optional boss (metroid hatcher - very easy though)
Can use the x-ray visor to find weak spots on certain enemies (a bit OP but it's at least a viable alternative to hyper mode)
Some memorable areas (Bryyo Ice, GFS Valhalla Depths, parts of the pirate homeworld and skytown)
Some nice visual effects (breaking ice, melting rock, liquid enemies)
+/-
Linear overarching structure up until the end of the game besides exploring (most of) the valhalla ship** (can only go to Norion after the intro gameplay and there you only have one mission to choose from at a time there+the spoke areas connecting in the middle of it are very straightforward, the first few upgrades are basically handed to you without exploration, can choose between two planets after Norion however you can't really get anywhere on Elysia without hyper ball so you might as well go to Bryyo (and you get that upgrade after basically completing Bryyo), after getting the grappling hook and the map in the first sub area on Bryyo you can choose between two new areas there but can't get far in the western one until exploring most of the eastern, sub area to sub area progression stays linear until ?, **can explore more and more of the ship as you find energy cells and you need only 6/9 in total to get to the room that lets you get the password to the space pirates' battleship+you can get most of these cells in any order (after getting to eastern skytown that is) - however you still need to finish all other areas before you can complete it since you'll need the hyper grapple and nova beam to do so, can also explore the rest of Norion (generator b area) after getting the weilding beam+ice missile+multi lock-on, need ship carrying upgrade (from skytown federation landing site) to fully complete bryyo)
Less interconnected world - interplanetary travel here (5 planet locations and 2 space stations in total) and sub areas don't interconnect as much. Sub areas are a bit more straighforward overall as well
Some backtracking to previous planets to progress (screw attack, spider ball) as well as previously visited parts of sub areas
Sub objectives are marked on the map and often given to you by a superior (the Aurora computer) via voiced transmissions (but not the path there thankfully, not optional like in previous games)
Human NPC interaction in-game (silent protagonist however)
Fairly unique but also confusing intro gameplay in the spacecraft (a bit like Captain Blood; you interact by manually moving your arm and pressing unexplained buttons (you also press some alien language buttons to interact with some NPCs) - odd in that the game explains roughly the context of a part of the dashboard but not what the language buttons mean for example). The language mechanic is almost unused afterwards
Your shots sometimes bounce off of NPCs but sometimes triggers a defense system
Occasionally gimmicky use of the wiimote (pulling, twisting and pushing to unlock or active some objects - simplified w/ PrimeHack to a button press though and it's not particularly intrusive on Wii either)
Various death pits however like in Zelda you just lose a bit of HP and respawn where you jumped/fell off
Has more of a cartoony feel to it at times (especially the interactions with the other hunters)
Can't play as the other bounty hunters
Can't double jump after using the grapple hook to swing (only before hooking onto a grappling point)
Can't fly the gunship (your spaceship) manually - only used like a teleporter when traveling with it
New beams and missile types stack here (good for obstacles (although they could've made it so later beams also open earlier elemental doors) but removes a bit of strategy from the combat)
The giant robots/golems opening paths for you is visually cool but it would've been cooler if you could control them a bit (see Darksiders 2)
Hyper mode (start wasting an energy tank to temporarily do more damage, if you stay in it for too long you have to button mash to remove phazon corruption) - OP however since you can manually cancel it before wasting a full tank and it does so much damage, usually resulting in wasting less HP than you would've otherwise)
Can't duck and have to lock on to side step dodge (limits combat potential a bit)
-
Still has some issues with delays on opened doors after shooting them! (these mask loading times however they could've done it more like Soul Reaver or something where it gradually loads the next area as you're travelling through a transitional room, if using a bomb in mid-air then ball jumping into the blast to reach higher the camera doesn't follow your avatar)
Some control/interface issues (see the spacecraft interface above, no jump height control, the database in the intro base's info is in VA only (slow) and the terminals being diegetic means less detail on things you're looking at, having to hold the scan button to read the short description on something and then another button to go into the logbook for a longer description is a little clunky, the mini-map is still too zoomed in and shows the current room only, can't speed up dialogue scenes (in-game cutscenes) on a per sentence/paragraph basis, can't place map markers, still can't see the mini-map while in TP view, just minor slopes will make you roll in ball form which discourages using it to bomb jump or experiment with other shortcuts, low rate of fire on the missiles and you can't quickly follow up a beam shot with one, kinda slow movement speed and no speed boots here, so-so camera control in ball form (PrimeHack issue? - can't rotate it which becomes a problem at times such as during the Ghor fight), screw attack jump has the same control issues and limitations as before (wall jumping feels dumbed down compared to Mario 64 and you break out of multi-jumping too easily from touching obstacles), being too close to fuel gel makes your ice missiles not have effect on it, )
Kinda slow start although it doesn't take long until the action gets going
Using the grapple hook to remove certain obstacles is a cool idea that would've been more fun if it was more free like the tractor beam/grav gun in Half-Life 2 (here you tend to just pull the control back and forth to watch a short cutscene of pulling the obstacle away from the wall or pull objects in a very controlled manner; can't grab items like e-tanks even with line of sight and nothing in the way)
Some tedious aspects (unskippable cutscenes (usually short but pretty frequent, some slows ones such as when traveling by ship between sub areas), dead space, some boring backtracking (eastern bryyo) - generally no fast travel within sub areas, too much minor stuff to scan at times, the energy cell fetch quest near the finale however you do get generous hints towards their locations here, kinda drawn out seed boss on Bryyo, machineworks bridge - connecting room that needs to be backtracked to twice before you can finish the gunship carrying sidequest here+you should do the quest in the northern region first or you'll have to backtrack yet again, one way elevator at flux control, the final dungeon/segment is kinda repetitive and lacks puzzles and exploration)
Some trial & error (the voiced countdown during the Norion generator mission really is a countdown - could've shown the timer on screen as well, some one-way shortcuts such as in Bryyo west, since you don't know which doors are necessary you might waste some aboard the valhalla and end up having to backtrack for more, some of the zipline parts in skytown)
About 20 seconds of loading when traveling between areas on the hub map
Achievement pop-ups (for getting 100 kills for example) - breaks immersion
The game is a bit too obvious about puzzle clues when scanning objects in the early-mid game (or sometimes about where to find the next upgrade in a pretty jarring way (communicated as voice messages from the computer aurora)+these instructions also can't be turned off)
Some plot conveniences and oddities (the other hunters were all sent to one planet each while you were in a coma..., )
The irony of the federation putting a giant brain in command
Kinda silly "simon says" shooting mini-games for opening certain doors and removing certain obstacles - too basic to be engaging
Low contrast visuals in the logbook when scanning something (Dolphin issue?)
The grab ledges feel gimmicky (let you grab and pull yourself up at certain clearly marked leges only, at least you don't need an upgrade for them here though)
Scanning tends to spoil puzzles
There's sometimes a disconnect between gameplay or where you're standing before or after a cutscene triggers
Doesn't have optional weapons like the charge combos in Prime 1-2
Can't use the boost ball on the travel cannon mechanisms to actually aim them in a direction of your choosing (letting you, you know, explore?)
Overly small Bryyo Ice area (nice atmosphere here)
The seed finishers don't feel that satisfying (basically a super simple QTE)
Planet ecosystems don't really change after getting tid of the corrupting seeds (at the norion base you'll find mechanics repairing it after your mission there at least)
Some items don't feel worth going back to later on (too many missile tanks, gold credits that unlock concept art and a music test)
Don't get to explore the jungle parts of Norion
Hyper beam (green beam) is too similar to the previous one and not much stronger
Some invisible walls when trying to explore using screw attack
Pretty easy final boss and mostly easy Metroid enemies
Notes:
-Played in Dolphin (PrimeHack ver. for FPS-style M&KB controls on PC)
-*Not there if using PrimeHack
-Version diferences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmWdesjo3tI
-Sequence breaks+glitches speedrun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALmhn141h_w
Bugs:
-Minor issues with scanning or using the grappling lasso when near something not registering (dolphin primehack issue?)
-At one point I couldn't enter the ship and had to replay from the last save (dolphin primehack?)
Level Design-7 Frustration-7 Fun-7 Originality-6
Overall Score-7
*Original Wii controls
+
Pretty cool intro gameplay (escape segment after a short briefing)
Fleshes out the federation a lot and introduces some rival bounty hunters
Free look and examine viewing modes (see Ultima Underworld and System Shock 1-2)*
Difficulty options (normal, hard/veteran, unlockable very hard/hyper)
Stats menu inside your ship
Start with the morph ball, morph ball jumping, bombs and space jump (double jump)+they don't get taken away after the intro here (you also gain missiles during the intro)
Various scripted scenes (NPC marines getting attacked and some brief fighting alongside them (later on there's a longer segment where you have to protect a group of them which is pretty cool if a bit too easy), falling debris)
Some good environmental storytelling (marine corpses, broken down machinery and falling debris, seeing Ridley attacking NPCs off in the distance in the same area (and foreshadowing of later rooms in some sub areas like Bryyo west and east, some neutral creatures and machines (the data pods), )
Can use the grapple beam (or lasso rather, it's divided into two upgrades here) for some combat situations here - grab and pull away enemy shields and manipulate certain smaller objects to solve basic puzzles
At certain outdoors locations you can call on your ship to use it as a mobile base (save+heal, )
Good variety overall (meta ridley fight during the Norion generator mission - rail shooter style, zipline segments in Skytown on Elysia; gets a bit repetitive towards the end)
Get harassed by some bosses before fighting them properly (meta ridley)
New enemies appear when backtracking through areas
Some decent puzzles (having the small bugs attach to your morph ball form and lifting you up like a balloon towards a ceiling creature (lets you reach some new paths) - a bit like the ones in Half-Life, bridge between two areas for the fourth energy cell))
Good main bosses overall (Rundas unless you overuse hyper mode, Korakk fight and sucking beam fight are more like puzzles, freezing the fuel pools to make Ghor spin and knock himself out, Gandrayda - transforms into some of the previous bosses)
A few fast travel points within sub areas and some shortcuts (there could've been some more of both however and/or some of the one-way ones could've been two-way)
Some optional bosses
Decent sense of vulnerability in skytown (your ship getting attacked and being temporarily stranded there, later on when you defend the bomb inside the spire against the pirates and then have to escape the spire using an escape pod although this part is a bit too easy)
Some sequence breaking opportunities (minor skips using an unintended triple jump (jump towards the camera in ball form then transform and jump again), earlier Grapple Voltage after reaching the pirate homeworld - can immediately go to Pirate Research through Transit Station 3-B by getting over the gate in Lift Hub with a precise 2BSJ (2 bomb jump into space jump - tricky to pull off however) and carefully moving through the middle part while avoiding the acid rain), Hazard Shield "skip" - can disable the barrier in command courtyard by standing in the corner of the barrier without getting hit by the rain; a lot more with glitches (early elysia exploration by going out of bounds near the entrance for example))
One optional boss (metroid hatcher - very easy though)
Can use the x-ray visor to find weak spots on certain enemies (a bit OP but it's at least a viable alternative to hyper mode)
Some memorable areas (Bryyo Ice, GFS Valhalla Depths, parts of the pirate homeworld and skytown)
Some nice visual effects (breaking ice, melting rock, liquid enemies)
+/-
Linear overarching structure up until the end of the game besides exploring (most of) the valhalla ship** (can only go to Norion after the intro gameplay and there you only have one mission to choose from at a time there+the spoke areas connecting in the middle of it are very straightforward, the first few upgrades are basically handed to you without exploration, can choose between two planets after Norion however you can't really get anywhere on Elysia without hyper ball so you might as well go to Bryyo (and you get that upgrade after basically completing Bryyo), after getting the grappling hook and the map in the first sub area on Bryyo you can choose between two new areas there but can't get far in the western one until exploring most of the eastern, sub area to sub area progression stays linear until ?, **can explore more and more of the ship as you find energy cells and you need only 6/9 in total to get to the room that lets you get the password to the space pirates' battleship+you can get most of these cells in any order (after getting to eastern skytown that is) - however you still need to finish all other areas before you can complete it since you'll need the hyper grapple and nova beam to do so, can also explore the rest of Norion (generator b area) after getting the weilding beam+ice missile+multi lock-on, need ship carrying upgrade (from skytown federation landing site) to fully complete bryyo)
Less interconnected world - interplanetary travel here (5 planet locations and 2 space stations in total) and sub areas don't interconnect as much. Sub areas are a bit more straighforward overall as well
Some backtracking to previous planets to progress (screw attack, spider ball) as well as previously visited parts of sub areas
Sub objectives are marked on the map and often given to you by a superior (the Aurora computer) via voiced transmissions (but not the path there thankfully, not optional like in previous games)
Human NPC interaction in-game (silent protagonist however)
Fairly unique but also confusing intro gameplay in the spacecraft (a bit like Captain Blood; you interact by manually moving your arm and pressing unexplained buttons (you also press some alien language buttons to interact with some NPCs) - odd in that the game explains roughly the context of a part of the dashboard but not what the language buttons mean for example). The language mechanic is almost unused afterwards
Your shots sometimes bounce off of NPCs but sometimes triggers a defense system
Occasionally gimmicky use of the wiimote (pulling, twisting and pushing to unlock or active some objects - simplified w/ PrimeHack to a button press though and it's not particularly intrusive on Wii either)
Various death pits however like in Zelda you just lose a bit of HP and respawn where you jumped/fell off
Has more of a cartoony feel to it at times (especially the interactions with the other hunters)
Can't play as the other bounty hunters
Can't double jump after using the grapple hook to swing (only before hooking onto a grappling point)
Can't fly the gunship (your spaceship) manually - only used like a teleporter when traveling with it
New beams and missile types stack here (good for obstacles (although they could've made it so later beams also open earlier elemental doors) but removes a bit of strategy from the combat)
The giant robots/golems opening paths for you is visually cool but it would've been cooler if you could control them a bit (see Darksiders 2)
Hyper mode (start wasting an energy tank to temporarily do more damage, if you stay in it for too long you have to button mash to remove phazon corruption) - OP however since you can manually cancel it before wasting a full tank and it does so much damage, usually resulting in wasting less HP than you would've otherwise)
Can't duck and have to lock on to side step dodge (limits combat potential a bit)
-
Still has some issues with delays on opened doors after shooting them! (these mask loading times however they could've done it more like Soul Reaver or something where it gradually loads the next area as you're travelling through a transitional room, if using a bomb in mid-air then ball jumping into the blast to reach higher the camera doesn't follow your avatar)
Some control/interface issues (see the spacecraft interface above, no jump height control, the database in the intro base's info is in VA only (slow) and the terminals being diegetic means less detail on things you're looking at, having to hold the scan button to read the short description on something and then another button to go into the logbook for a longer description is a little clunky, the mini-map is still too zoomed in and shows the current room only, can't speed up dialogue scenes (in-game cutscenes) on a per sentence/paragraph basis, can't place map markers, still can't see the mini-map while in TP view, just minor slopes will make you roll in ball form which discourages using it to bomb jump or experiment with other shortcuts, low rate of fire on the missiles and you can't quickly follow up a beam shot with one, kinda slow movement speed and no speed boots here, so-so camera control in ball form (PrimeHack issue? - can't rotate it which becomes a problem at times such as during the Ghor fight), screw attack jump has the same control issues and limitations as before (wall jumping feels dumbed down compared to Mario 64 and you break out of multi-jumping too easily from touching obstacles), being too close to fuel gel makes your ice missiles not have effect on it, )
Kinda slow start although it doesn't take long until the action gets going
Using the grapple hook to remove certain obstacles is a cool idea that would've been more fun if it was more free like the tractor beam/grav gun in Half-Life 2 (here you tend to just pull the control back and forth to watch a short cutscene of pulling the obstacle away from the wall or pull objects in a very controlled manner; can't grab items like e-tanks even with line of sight and nothing in the way)
Some tedious aspects (unskippable cutscenes (usually short but pretty frequent, some slows ones such as when traveling by ship between sub areas), dead space, some boring backtracking (eastern bryyo) - generally no fast travel within sub areas, too much minor stuff to scan at times, the energy cell fetch quest near the finale however you do get generous hints towards their locations here, kinda drawn out seed boss on Bryyo, machineworks bridge - connecting room that needs to be backtracked to twice before you can finish the gunship carrying sidequest here+you should do the quest in the northern region first or you'll have to backtrack yet again, one way elevator at flux control, the final dungeon/segment is kinda repetitive and lacks puzzles and exploration)
Some trial & error (the voiced countdown during the Norion generator mission really is a countdown - could've shown the timer on screen as well, some one-way shortcuts such as in Bryyo west, since you don't know which doors are necessary you might waste some aboard the valhalla and end up having to backtrack for more, some of the zipline parts in skytown)
About 20 seconds of loading when traveling between areas on the hub map
Achievement pop-ups (for getting 100 kills for example) - breaks immersion
The game is a bit too obvious about puzzle clues when scanning objects in the early-mid game (or sometimes about where to find the next upgrade in a pretty jarring way (communicated as voice messages from the computer aurora)+these instructions also can't be turned off)
Some plot conveniences and oddities (the other hunters were all sent to one planet each while you were in a coma..., )
The irony of the federation putting a giant brain in command
Kinda silly "simon says" shooting mini-games for opening certain doors and removing certain obstacles - too basic to be engaging
Low contrast visuals in the logbook when scanning something (Dolphin issue?)
The grab ledges feel gimmicky (let you grab and pull yourself up at certain clearly marked leges only, at least you don't need an upgrade for them here though)
Scanning tends to spoil puzzles
There's sometimes a disconnect between gameplay or where you're standing before or after a cutscene triggers
Doesn't have optional weapons like the charge combos in Prime 1-2
Can't use the boost ball on the travel cannon mechanisms to actually aim them in a direction of your choosing (letting you, you know, explore?)
Overly small Bryyo Ice area (nice atmosphere here)
The seed finishers don't feel that satisfying (basically a super simple QTE)
Planet ecosystems don't really change after getting tid of the corrupting seeds (at the norion base you'll find mechanics repairing it after your mission there at least)
Some items don't feel worth going back to later on (too many missile tanks, gold credits that unlock concept art and a music test)
Don't get to explore the jungle parts of Norion
Hyper beam (green beam) is too similar to the previous one and not much stronger
Some invisible walls when trying to explore using screw attack
Pretty easy final boss and mostly easy Metroid enemies
Notes:
-Played in Dolphin (PrimeHack ver. for FPS-style M&KB controls on PC)
-*Not there if using PrimeHack
-Version diferences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmWdesjo3tI
-Sequence breaks+glitches speedrun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALmhn141h_w
Bugs:
-Minor issues with scanning or using the grappling lasso when near something not registering (dolphin primehack issue?)
-At one point I couldn't enter the ship and had to replay from the last save (dolphin primehack?)