2.11.23 [RGV] - Metroid Prime Remastered and the Renewal of Wonder
I don't remember much of my early gaming life. I remember I had a Sega Genesis and a Playstation growing up and that one of my early childhood obsessions was Mega Man and, of all games, Battle Arena Toshinden 3. Yet I distinctly remember my first time I ever played Metroid Prime.
It was at a Wal-Mart demo kiosk somewhere in Texas, I believe; where I first laid eyes upon the game that I would fall in love with. I didn't understand much of the game, as I'm sure a lot of people didn't when they first played the game, but I liked what I saw. Shame I didn't have a GameCube at the time.
It wasn't that much longer later when we were visiting relatives in Arkansas, and my aunt Heidi visited at the same time and brought her GameCube and several games, one of which was Metroid Prime. I played through the first area of the game, the Frigate Orpheon, I beat the Parasite Queen, and then I escaped its destruction only to find that I would be flying down onto Tallon IV, where the game really took place.
That sense of wonder I experienced when Samus first touched down on Tallon IV... it sticks with you, and then you hear Tallon Overworld...
It's the choir that sells it. You're on a forgotten planet, but you don't care. You're going to explore the hell out of the place, finding lore details and upgrades to your Power Suit in all corners of this planet.
All this to say that when Metroid Prime Remastered got shadow-dropped onto the Nintendo Switch not even a few days ago, I lost my mind. Here was a game, my all-time favorite in fact, that promised so much on its proposal to return to Tallon IV. Then I saw That Trav Guy stream the game on his youtube page, and then I played the game for myself and I realized: Remastered nothing, they all but remade Metroid Prime. I'm going to preface the rest of the article with a statement that I am currently still working my way through Prime Remastered; as of this writing I had only now acquired the Space Jump Boots, which is a little of a fourth of the game, so my experiences are incomplete.
Remaking a classic is always a tricky business. Remake your game too soon, and people will wonder why you even bothered when you had the game already. Remake your game too poorly, and people will instead flock to the original for sure. The Last of Us Part 1 comes to mind. It's a game that was remade from the ground up, on a console you could already play The Last of Us on via its own Remastered edition.
Nintendo has a habit of remaking games after a certain point has passed, though granted they're nowhere close to new to remakes. Super Mario All-Stars was one of their earliest examples, but Metroid itself is not new to this itself. Metroid Zero Mission was a brilliant remake, and Metroid: Samus Returns breathed life back into the series.
Metroid Prime Remastered is not quite as dramatic a remake as those other two games. Metroid Zero Mission and Samus Returns were, effectively, brand new games using the groundwork of the first two Metroid games to present something new and fresh. Metroid Prime Remastered is, by contrast, the same game from 2002, just with entirely new models and assets.
and hot damn do these assets look beautiful.
A lot of people have concerns about the doors in this remake, but a lot of people also find the doors easier to see as a result of the alpha layer mistake. I myself don't mind the new doors. Would it have been nice to see the old doors come back? yes, but I'm not losing sleep when the rest of the game looks gorgeous, especially in motion. It's the little things, you know? The little details of the rain droplets in the Tallon Overworld falling down Samus' arm cannon as she looks up, the way Samus' charge beam now radiates with energy rather than simply charging a blast. If this game continues to impress me the way it's doing so far, we may have a Game of the Year contender on our hands.
It's that sense of wonder when you first lay eyes upon the Frigate Orpheon. it's that sense of wonder you feel when you touch down on Tallon IV. it's that sense of wonder when you first step foot into the snowy landscape of Phendrana Drifts. Metroid Prime already was a phenomenal game, and Remastered proves that it has only gotten better with time.
Comments
Post a Comment