Friday, February 22, 2013

Flawed Giants (Part I): Metroid 07/24/06

Has anyone ever noticed that no matter how great a game is it always has one more than minor flaw? Periodically, I'll be viewing some of the best series' worst flaws. Yes, my in-depth reviews and these will be my... "feature blogs". Metroid Prime I don't know what I would have done the first time around. Don't get me wrong i beat it 100% and on hard eventually, but man was it hard to figure out where to go at first. See I was new to Metroid and thought it was an FPS. That you're supposed to explore, they should tell you these things. Ok the problem wasn't so bad here as it was in Prime 2: Echoes where that heads up on where you were to go next was so few and far between I was often literally on the other side of the map from where I was supposed to be. Another thing that gets too ramped up here is difficulty. Actually the bosses, enemies, and graphics here were even more awesome than part 1 but that dark world was a total bitch. So much so that it was more frustrating than enjoyable. Now if you can get over the difficulty in the Primes you'll find yourself some damn good games. Some of the best actually. But yeah they are kind of hard, and you don't get much of a story for completing them. Plus having to scan everything gets annoying. Metroid: Zero Mission The bosses here, well they don't require much strategy. You're pretty much guaranteed to get hit and once you find a weak point you'll pretty much just aim, shoot missiles, repeat. Basically whether you win has no bearing on your skill, just how stocked up you are on missiles and energy. Metroid(the original) Now this is understandable seeing as how it was ambitious as hell for NES but it is really glitchy. Enemies go through doors your in, leaving you defenseless from attack, impossible numbers of every creature come roaring at you with no place to dodge(ok maybe that's just too hard not glitchy) etc etc. Oh yeah and Kraid's totally a cheap bitch. Super Metroid While I haven't played this so I can't judge its gameplay(it's on my top ten Virtual Console choices though), I will say one thing: it starts off with once again almost identical room designs to Zero Mission and Metroid(original). Did we really need to have the same setting three times(granted Zero Mission's a remake, but why here?) to open the games? Metroid Fusion: Ok, this might be a doozy to some of you. But this is by far the best 2D Metroid I've played. That may change with Super Metroid, but right now I still just love this game. So the only flaws I can give it are the ones that plague ALL Metroids: lack of an interesting storyline(despite Prime 2's more cinematic efforts) and too much backtracking. So, if you will tell me what you think and if you like this stuff tell me what great and highly regarded series you'd like to be picked apart next

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