Metroid Prime Trilogy

It's kind of funny, thinking back to 2002. The US had yet to invade Iraq. The DVD generation had just kicked into full gear. Broadband internet was just starting to become mainstream. For those of us who were born in the 80s and grew up in the 90s, this was a defining year. A great deal of us were graduating high school during or around this time, and experiencing the freedom of living on our own with no parents around to tell us when to turn the games off.

It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.

Sega was gone - totally annihilated as far as its hardware business was concerned, and Sony and Microsoft were about to declare full scale war on Nintendo. It was an uncertain time for us Nintendo fans; most of us couldn't believe that our long time nemesis, yet honorable foe, was gone forever. It was what that grade school veteran of the Super NES/Genesis wars in me would've loved to see, but that veteran had long retired from the fanboy army, and this old man was not happy. Truth be told, I was pretty damn scared. The way Sega, an industry giant - a name, like Nintendo, that was synonymous with gaming for so long - crumbled like a house of cards was frightening. It was the end of an era, and the end of my childhood in more ways than one.

And of course, the one question on my mind - would Nintendo be next?

Externally, I was belligerent and dismissive when faced with the possibility.. but internally, that gnawing, nagging threat was there... especially when Microsoft came along. Microsoft, that vortex of money and greed... that gluttonous, Galactus-like creature which ate up so many other corporations over the years. When they released the Xbox, they made no secret their intent of eating up Nintendo. Together, with Sony, they were out to change the shape of the hardware business, where the game companies that had dominated for so many years were no longer the driving forces behind it.

This pervasive sense of dread among Nintendo fans wasn't merely limited to a potential hostile takeover from Sony or Microsoft, either. Nintendo had started doing things that were out and out... weird. When the N64, more specifically, Super Mario 64, launched, the Earth itself seemed to tremble and quake at the sheer awesomeness that had descended upon us. Granted, it was introducing us to full three dimensional gameplay - something that had never been done before on a home console - and the wow factor was certainly going to be less this time around... but it was almost as if Nintendo didn't even try with the launch of the Cube. Rather than spring another Mario or Zelda on us, we got a quirky game called Pikmin, and the utter failure that was Luigi's Mansion. Sure, Smash Bros. and Rouge Leader were there, too, and were great... but that Miyamoto blockbuster that wowed everyone who set eyes upon it was nowhere to be found.

When SpaceWorld 2001 came along, the resounding "wtfs" from Nintendo fans were loud and clear. Nintendo was selling Rareware to Microsoft. Mario was coming, but when he got here, he was going to be wearing a water-propelled jet pack and be cleaning up an island. The Legend of Zelda was literally going Loony Tunes. Oh, and a new Metroid game was being developed. In first person. By some Texas-based development studio that nobody had ever heard of before.

Of course, today, Retro Studios is a household name among Nintendo fans. We trust and value them as much as we do Nintendo itself, along with its other subsidiaries like Hal Labs and, previously, Rare. We hang on any news involving Retro with baited breath, and despair when we hear about things like the death of their lead developer, or the resignation of several other key staff. It's hard to imagine a time when Retro Studios wasn't such a proven talent... but hindsight is always 20/20.

When news about Metroid Prime first hit the airwaves, I didn't know what to think. I had only played one other Metroid game - Super Metroid - and while I loved it, it wasn't such a near and dear franchise as, say, Zelda was, and as I was keeping myself occupied enough by agonizing over the Wind Waker announcement, I didn't have much time to worry about a potentially "bad Metroid". I wasn't following the game that much in the months before its launch. In fact, it was only after my room mate brought it home and popped it in my GameCube that I even remembered it.

Again, it's funny how you see things in hindsight.

I won't bother writing on and on about how great Metroid Prime was, as this is already a full length article and I'm not even finished writing any "reviews" yet. I'll just say this much - there wasn't a moment, morning, noon or night, that my three room mates and I were not occupying the GameCube until all of us had finished the game - literally, if at any given time you had walked into our room, 8am, 2pm or midnight, you'd have seen one of us on the game. It was that engrossing to us. We didn't watch any TV for weeks, and some of us even found ourselves late for classes a couple times (*ahem* <.<) due to extensive bouts of "'Troidin".

I consider the original Prime to not only be the greatest GameCube game, but the greatest game of all of last generation. It was, without a doubt, the single biggest reason to own a GameCube and the only one any serious gamer could ever need.

But of course, Retro wasn't done there.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes wasn't the overlooked sleeper that its predecessor was. After the release of Prime, and the perfect 10s it received from quite a few gaming outlets, Retro was on the map. I scanned every magazine and internet article I could looking for news regarding a Metroid Prime sequel, and from the time it was announced until the time it was released, I was involved as much as an average fan could be. The sequel is slated by a lot of players to be far more difficult than the first Prime, although I never seemed to notice it very much. In fact, I'd say I had an easier time with Echoes as I knew the ropes so well from the first game. I didn't like it quite as much (it felt smaller - more claustrophobic - to me), but I still had the time of my life and spent many hours wasting hordes of evil critters and the discovering the secrets of Aether.

By the time Prime 3 came along, I had played every single Metroid ever released. The first Prime was a major motivator in tackling this previously untapped franchise, and in it I discovered some of the best games I had never played. The original Metroid and Metroid 2 were a tad dated, but still great. Metroid Fusion was more linear and organized than I would've liked, but was still fantastic. And Metroid: Zero Mission was as close to perfection as could be, taking me back to my memories of Super Metroid from all those years ago. I knew, of course, that Corruption was going to be a great game, but how much the game had improved over Echoes really took me by surprise.

The Wii controls were nothing short of glorious - it felt like it was how the game was meant to be played all along. The multiple worlds and varied environments created a universe which dwarfed the previous games in both scope and splendor. With four planets, each easily twice the size of any one of Tallon IVs six areas, there was plenty to do and see, and considering that you'd need to visit each of those planets multiple times throughout the course of the game, you were in for a long haul. The added extras, such as a screenshot tool and 'achievements', brought a sense of flair to the game that was previously missing, but didn't detract or change what was, at its core, a Metroid adventure.

So now, seven years after the original, we Nintendo fans can be comfortable again. We know that the gaming company we so adore not only has a future, but is at the head of the pack, for better or for worse, once again. And to mark the occasion, we get what is, in my opinion, the single best compilation of games on one disc.

It's funny, honestly, how Retro and Nintendo managed to surprise me all over again when I picked this up, just as they did those seven years ago when I first played Prime. The first surprise was the packaging - it's nice. I mean real nice. The front and back is solid aluminum, and makes the darn thing weigh almost a pound. It comes in a plastic sleeve that contains the Wii logo, the rating, and all the descriptive information on the back. Even this sleeve seems to shout 'I'm not cheap in any way, shape, or form', as it isn't flimsy or weak in the slightest bit. The inside of the tin is some of the nicest plastic DVD casing I've ever seen - if you own or have opened up any of the Lord of the Rings: Special Edition cases, you'll know what I'm talking about. The instruction booklet covers all three games, and from reading it I was surprised and delighted to discover that both the achievements and screenshot-taking ability from Corruption are now present in all of the games. The art booklet contains some brilliant imagery, along with a full detailed summary of all of the Primes' plots, including answering some hither-to unanswered questions regarding some storyline issues in the games.

In popping the disc in and getting my first taste of Wii-controlled Prime 1, there was little learning to be done. The controls are identical to Corruption's, so if you've played the third installation, you'll pick right up where you left off. The updated controls of the first two games are just as dazzling and precise as the third one was, making some of the best games ever to be released that much better.

Conclusion? This is not only a worthy buy, but probably the single best buy you can get on the Wii right now. If you don't own all of these games, you owe it to yourself to pick up Metroid Prime Trilogy as soon as possible, and even if you do have them all, with the updated controls, artwork and added features, this is a must buy for Metroid fans. Granted, there's two sides to the coin - if you didn't care for these games in their original forms, you probably won't care for them now... however the state of mind required to not enjoy these games exceeds my understanding.

All and all, Metroid Prime is even more fun to play in its compilation form as it was seven years ago. With the addition of Echoes and Corruption all on the same disc, it's a win-win compilation of three of the best games ever to be released, and three of the best reasons to be a Nintendo fan.

Score: 9.5