Metroid Prime 3 is… well I wouldn’t say it’s bad. Far from it really, I had a lot of fun with Prime 3, but of the trilogy it was by far the weakest. But that’s because the 2 prior games were amazing, so even a good game would be weaker in comparison. I think Prime 3 just has some major design flaws that leave it not feeling as good to explore like in Prime 1 and 2, and I found the game really easy as well. It took me slightly over 11 hours to beat the game, and I got 79% item completion, which isn’t too shabby for a first playthrough. I honestly think Prime 3 was really promising, and it has some interesting ideas that it plays with, though its execution is really hit or miss.
Much like with Prime 2, I played Prime 3 using Primehack. However unlike Prime 2, I feel like Prime 3 more necessitates Primehack, as a way to deal with motion controls. That being said, it’s not entirely perfect, though maybe I just didn’t fully understand how it worked. Most motion inputs activated whenever I pressed W, and shaking didn’t seem to work at all. Even then, I was able to beat the game like this, so it was nothing too difficult. What I will say as well is that much like Prime 2, Prime 3 feels ridiculously smooth with mouse and keyboard controls, to the point where I forget the game wasn’t made with it in mind.
Now, when it comes to Prime 3 proper, I find its structure promising, though not perfectly executed. Instead of one large world being explored, it’s divided into multiple, smaller worlds. And on paper, this is awesome! It reminds me of something like Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, where each portrait in that game was it’s own small area to explore. However, Prime 3’s planets are split into chunks as well, which is where I think it messes up. The individual worlds don’t feel connected, which is one of the best parts of any Metroid game. It also ends up making the game feel very linear, which yet again, is not what I look for in a Metroid title. There’s only maybe 1 or 2 moments of backtracking (as in going back to a previous planet) in Prime 3, but even then, it’s very obvious where you have to go.
Even then, the game will periodically remind you of where you need to go or what you need to do, which I found kind of annoying. In Prime 1 and 2, it was not only a one time thing, but it only happened after a long time. In Prime 3 however, it happens so much more often that I found it kind of frustrating. With those 1 or 2 moments of backtracking I mentioned prior, the game is not afraid to tell you where exactly it is, and on what plane it’s on. So rarely do you get the chance to explore and find something for yourself without the game pinpointing where the next point of progress is, which is kind of sad. In previous Metroids, I feel like I discovered something, but that sort of sense of discovery is lacking here.
But actually going through each planet is really interesting. Prime 3 feels like the game that involves the Grapple Beam the most out of any Metroid game I’ve played. And honestly I found it really fun. So often I found myself never using the Grapple Beam outside of utility in Metroid, almost or completely neglecting it upon obtaining the Gravity Jump and/or the Screw Attack. However Prime 3 utilizes it in more ways, which I found really interesting. You can grab shields off of enemies, rip and move things, and its used for a good number of bosses. The game also makes Samus’ ship an actual gameplay mechanic, being able to interact with the environment in certain ways. The big one of note is being able to use the ship to grapple large objects, and move them to different areas on the map. While there were very few puzzles like that that I encountered, they were really cool to see. While I say that, the ship has missile upgrades scattered throughout the game, but they feel rather redundant, because I so rarely used the ship missiles.
The other major mechanic with Prime 3 is Hypermode which is… complicated. It’s another thing I like in concept, but execution-wise it’s not perfect. At the sacrifice of an energy tank, you can use that energy while in Hypermode. You’re much stronger, have certain abilities while in Hypermode, and can break certain barriers only in Hypermode. The big thing though is that your beam attacks get ridiculously strong while in Hypermode, making combat really easy, especially against enemies weak to Phazon. And while you do sacrifice an Energy Tank in order to enter Hypermode, health pickups feel generally common, so it was never a major problem. That being said, Hypermode does have a “drawback”, if you stay in it for too long, it’ll begin to overload. If you don’t use up all of the Phazon you currently have stored in a certain amount of time, you game over. That sounds like an interesting system in question, but the problem is that you’d rarely be in a situation where overloading is an actual danger. To avoid overloading, you just have to shoot out all of the phazon, which you would be doing anyway if you were in Hypermode. That’s sort of the thing with Hypermode, its drawbacks are so inconsequential, that Hypermode is ridiculously powerful, and you have little reason not to use it.
And the criticism I have of Hypermode goes into my thoughts on the bosses in Prime 3. While a majority of them were fun to fight, they were also really simple and really easy. I loved the fights against bosses like Rundas and Gandrayda because they felt like proper tests of skill, and they were definitely some of the more engaging fights. On the other hand, all of the fights in the Leviathan Seeds were kind of lackluster which really sucks I feel. They all are really simply puzzles, and they’re mor of a waiting game to actually have access to their weakspots. Mogenarr constantly shuffled his weak points around, and Helios took a long time before you could hit hit, to name a few. And once these bosses could take damage, they got absolutely shredded by Hypermode (which is the only way to hurt them).
I think a thing that conflicts me as well with Prime 3 is the general story of the game. I don’t entirely hate it, in fact I think it’s rather interesting, however it’s just really odd. I think I’m just not used to a large cast of supporting characters in a Metroid game. There’s typically you know, at best like 2 characters alongside Samus, and a good number of times, Samus is the only non-villain character in the game. So having 3 bounty hunters, the Aurora Units, and some soldier guys all interacting with Samus and being involved with the story feels unnatural in a way. Aside from that, I do like the new bounty hunters introduced here, and it’s nice to actually see the Galactic Federation. It’s not really my favorite story when looking at Metroid in general, but I find it rather unique.
Yet again I must reiterate that I still think Prime 3 is good. Even if it’s the weakest of the trilogy, it’s still a good game in its own right, and with Primehack it’s a really fun experience. I just wish think the big Achilles heel for Prime 3 is the level design, and how linear it is compared to Prime 1 and 2. It’s partially why I didn’t go out of my way to 100% it like I did with Prime 2, I mainly felt like I had little reason to go back to previous areas. That being said, I’m still a big fan of Metroid in general, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I returned to this game in the future. However it’d probably be the one I return to the least out of the three. Now that I’m done with the main trilogy, I feel properly caught up for what Prime 4 will have to offer next year, and I am absolutely excited.
