I just finished MP3 tonight. Having never played it before, I am quite exhausted... I'm a huge fan of MP1 and 2 (although 1 is my favorite) and MP3 was quite enjoyable to say the least. Visiting different worlds, hypermode, using the ship ect were all great. I have a few minor complaints. While the story is lacking, I never really considered this to be a feature of the metroid games. Story is kept to a minimal, but with the added narrative, it might have been nice to see a little development and surprises along the way. All goes as expected for the most part. I think I would have loved to see more metroid creatures, and at least one metroid boss (metroid spawner thing didn't really count). The game is still called Metroid after all, not Phazon Pirates, or revenge of Dark Samus (Did she really have a plot anyways?). The music wasn't entirely memorable for me either. But my biggest general complaint was the lack of difficulty. I never replayed a boss twice (with the exception of the last) and died maybe one other time in the whole game. That and the fact that you are always told where to go and what to do next in the game. I'm guessing this might have been, in part, due to the game releasing on a new console, with a new base of customers and kids not familiar with the franchise.
Despite this I still think I might have enjoyed myself the most with MP3, but I'm not sure yet. The gameplay is pretty spot on with near impeccable controls. Nice but not too frequent use of the Wii remote for levers and such. Decent puzzles (again too easy) and some good platform jumping here and there. The visuals are fan-fucking-tastic though! It isn't so much that the graphics impress (although they aren't terribly bad), but the art direction and level design has to been seen to be believed. Every fucking switch, door, floor mechanism, ball tunnel, swivel, cannon, tower, hallway, and lugnut has been custom made for each world, and all seem to be original and unique. The texture work is very artistic and the geometry (the creativity of it) is great. You really have to see it. It's beautiful. I think that some of the weapon upgrades are redundant (we've been given boost balls, spider-balls, grappling hooks ect in previous games) and I would have liked to see more original items and mechanisms personally although Hypermode was fun. So is rolling around in the ball and electrocuting everything. The visors were all uninventive this go around, but I guess summoning the ship is useful; it's just that it isn't always exciting. The most exciting feature was using the X-ray visor to target weak points on enemies and I feel that I didn't get to use it enough to get the full enjoyment out of it.
All said I still think this was a great game. There were some good moments, great locations, interesting creatures, the best and tightest controls, and a good sense of exploration, even if you knew what direction to head to. I guess the isolation factor was missing, but I can still live with it. I still love the Metroid Prime games. MP3 didn't disappoint me on the whole, but I hope if Retro makes any more Metroid games that they move on to a new format or style. As much as I enjoyed this I think I'm ready to move on...
