Session 1 – Friday 9th August
I’d been thinking about starting Metroid Prime Remastered all day, but didn’t get around to it until returning home from a meal at the Admiral Hood pub in Mosterton. I was extremely full. The burger wasn’t especially large but the cheese in it was overwhelming to the point that I could feel it slithering through my veins and coagulating around my heart more and more after every bite. I added garlic mushrooms, too. They really add something special to a burger, you know?
Anyway, Metroid Prime Remastered was started on the evening of Friday 9th August. Things kicked off on a space station platform with a simple tutorial section, and then I directed Samus inside. I was really digging the atmosphere once we got to poking around the damaged hallways and science rooms. There’s nothing quite like seeing insectoid aliens in specimen tanks and dead critters scattered about the place before you get a chance to interact with the live ones.
It took most of this bout of space station exploration to get to grips with the scanning and firing mechanics, as I kept pressing the wrong trigger and trying to scan space pirates (which does give a bit of information) or blasting switches and info panels (which doesn’t achieve anything). Eventually, Samus and I faced off against a parasite queen and finished her off by blasting her through the gaps in a rotating light shield. The parasite queen fell down into some kind of reactor, which caused an explosion that started off a tense escape sequence, during which we were almost overwhelmed by the swarms of bugs in the tubes, and Samus lost all of her upgraded suit powers. We made it outside though, after freeing a pterodactyl-like creature that I know (just from general video game culture absorption) to be called Ridley, and Samus got to her super-cool ship and made planetfall.
I enjoyed exploring the opening areas of the planet (whose name I didn’t catch) and eventually made my way to the Chozo Ruins. Now, I know a bit about these Chozo fellows thanks to finishing Metroid Dread, the only other Metroid game I’ve played, but I must admit I wasn’t digging the atmosphere here as much as during the opening. For those not in the know; this area has a “desert ruins” vibe.
I found the missile and the ball upgrades, and then had a fight with an armoured bug, during which I could’ve sworn I saw a spooky face appear for a split second on the screen. After further investigation, it seems that Samus’ face reflects on the visor if an explosion goes off close enough to her helmet. A cool touch that initially made me think my TV was haunted.
Anyway, I found lots of places that I didn’t have the equipment to interact with yet, like a super-heated room and some half-pipe-looking things that seem to require a ball boost. Not long after fending off a horde of War Wasps summoned by a big, beaky, three-faced Chozo machine, I found a save room and called it a night.
Session 2 – Saturday 10th August
Session two was a handheld session because the family were playing loud music in the living room, but the earbud experience might have actually boosted the immersion a bit. If my eyesight wasn’t so shot handheld would possibly be my chosen way to play.
Samus and I continued our traversal through the Chozo Ruins, and I realised that the map screen is very interesting, again probably thanks to playing in handheld. It feels really sci-fi scrolling and rotating the 3D map. Oh, and the planet is called Tallon IV. Some ancient Chozo scriptures reminded me.
Anyway, the music is pretty cool in this area. I found the Charge Beam near a room filled with toxic fluid. I thought I’d accidentally let Samus die in the danger water but it turns out she had an extra health bar. I didn’t realise this until I found another health boost later on and saw that it adds 100 health. That is a not insubstantial health boost. There’s no chance I’ll ever let Samus die to anything now. That was foreshadowing.
Oh, and the constant low health alarm coupled with Samus’ laboured breathing is a bit much. I was desperately looking for bugs to shoot so that I could get a health pick-up and some peace and quiet.
We fought a wasp hive with a flamethrower drone underneath it. This drone was spewing fire at Samus and at the hive, agitating the wasps so that they came after Samus. Doesn’t seem fair. Beating that thing gave us bombs to use when Samus is rolled up into a ball, which also lets her hop around in ball form, opening up lots of new areas. We used these newfound traversal abilities to get some more missile capacity upgrades.
Eventually we made it to a big, flowery bug boss, and it was going pretty well early on, but then I couldn’t figure out how to get underneath the boss after I’d shot all the light-reflecting mirror things, and Samus was killed. Oh well, so much for all that health. The explosion and subsequent mini cut-scene with Samus’ shattered helmet was a bit intense.
I was too hot and sweaty to continue, so I decided to come back to it another time.
Session 3 – Saturday 10th August (evening)
I enjoyed this Metroid Prime Remastered session while also enjoying Co-Op smooth and creamy toffees. Encouraged by the sticky, sugary goodness, Samus and I killed the big flower thing. Third time lucky. I figured out what to do the second time around (turns out the boss was knocking the mirrors back into place and I didn’t notice), but had lost some health by falling into the toxic fluid in the previous room. Nailed it third time, and earned an armour upgrade in the shape of some meatier shoulder pads. They call it the Varia Suit, here on Talon IV. Beating this creature also made all the water turn nice, so I let Samus splash around a bit before moving on to the next distinct area.
This next area was called Magmoor Caverns, according to the elevator down to it. Magmoor sounds like magma, and I just got the heat resistant suit. It’s all adding up. I’m not usually a fan of lava areas in games, but we’ll see how it goes. The ominous chanting in the soundtrack as Samus started exploring the red-tinted caves gave a decent idea as to what’s to come.
Early on in the Magmoor Caverns I got Samus to scan a creature called a Grizby, and the game told me I’d filled 25% of my log book. Nice.
Anyway, sure enough, there was lots of lava deeper in. I did actually let Samus die again as we fell off an intricate ball-rolling area and couldn’t get out of the red stuff in time. I almost gave up for the night as the save point was miles away, but stuck with it. I got through that area on the second try and found an elevator to a different part of the overworld, before happening upon Samus’ ship again. It’s a save point, so I used it, and that was enough for this session.
Session 4 – Sunday 11th August
I found a snowy area. Something Drifts. Where’s the lava boss? I was expecting a lava boss, but I guess I got swerved. Anyway, the snow underfoot doesn’t show Samus’ footprints. Always disappointing.
I kinda like this area, but the little fellas with ice armour and ice breath are pricks. I sure hope there’s not a massive version of them that I have to fight later. That was foreshadowing.
Anyway, I finally got the boost ball.
Samus and me got a bit lost after this, and while we were wandering the computerised voice that gives us map hints sent us to the overworld, where Samus used a half-pipe to get a double jump upgrade! We did some more exploring and found an Impact Crater (I guess this is where the poison meteorite spoken of in the Chozo texts hit). This was a pretty cool area, and I liked the enclosed glass walkways. The area with all the artefact statues reminded me of an area in Halo 2. Also, from what I read in the Chozo texts, I’m not sure we should be collecting these artefacts. Won’t it unleash the poison? Gotta do what the game tells me, I guess.
Anyway, Samus and I did lots more exploring with the new ball boosters and double jump, and ended up back in the icy locale. We found an area with a power-up that was spirited away before Samus could pick it up, and we had to fight a small swarm of the aforementioned ice armour critters. Then we had to fight a massive one, but it got the better of us. Samus death number five. I hadn’t saved for ages. That one stung. Time to call it a day.
Session 5 – Friday 16th August
Time to fully discover how much my save point carelessness set me back last session. I had to rediscover the Impact Crater, re-find the artefact in the Magmoor Caverns, and re-get to the icy bit with the massive creature. Luckily, this time I remembered to visit the save point in the large, external icy area. The house-sized monster (a sheegoth) was still a prick to fight, though. I actually paused when Samus’ health got low to have a quick Google search and make sure I was going about the fight in the right way. I don’t feel guilty about this, because I don’t think the game was very good at indicating that I was doing damage. The sheegoth just went kind of purple for a moment and moved its head a bit. It turns out I was on the right track, though, and finally Samus and I squashed the big, icy bastard with around ten health left. An annoying fight.
Anyway, this gave Samus the Wave Beam, which lets her open purple doors and opens up new combat options, and enables her to kill those energy orbs that we had to run around previously. Not long after this, Samus and I found the Super Missile, but I couldn’t remember the controls to activate it so never actually used it.
After exploring some laboratories and finally encountering a titular metroid, I found another area that annoyed me. A visible missile upgrade lay at the end of a suspended length of metal grating that Samus had to roll over in ball form, and the camera angle kept changing, which changed the directional inputs along with it. I fell off a few too many times.
Not long later, Samus located the Thermal Visor (and I earned a pop-up stating I’d found 25% of items) and this was followed by a legitimately intense and elongated lights out section, where the visor was very much required. I also wasn’t sure if I was going the right way because there was a door Samus couldn’t open and I was aware of the possibility that it might have required the Super Missile thing, but there were new enemies and encounters on the way back, so we kept going. Eventually, Samus and I made it outside, and made our way all the way back to the overworld. I was keeping an eye on the map, looking for purple doors that we could open, but called it a day when we reached Samus’ ship again.
Still, progress was made, and that’s important.
Session 6 – Sunday 18th August
The search for purple doors!
Well, not really – we found a couple of missile upgrades (one of which we’d found already before the whole dying-to-the-sheegoth-without-saving incident) and then the map app bleeped and told us to go to the chilly area. You know, So-and-So Drifts.
At this point, I was forced to learn how to shoot Super Missiles to get through a certain door. I guess it had to happen eventually. We ended up in a big arena and fought an enormous rock monster. It was a bit of a pain in the arse because we ran out of missiles, but Samus got the big stony bastard first try. Her reward was the Spider Ball, which I was correct to assume was for the magnetic tracks.
Samus and I zipped around and found some areas where the Spider Ball was useful, and eventually came to a pillar-smashing set piece in the Chozo Ruins that needed 60 missiles to complete, and it spawned enemies that you could only kill with missiles and also had other enemies that deflected your missiles patrolling around the areas you had to hit with the missiles. We had to keep going back to a nearby corridor to farm missile ammo drops off of the little Metapod-looking things.
Anyway, we managed to solve it and the Wavebuster weapon was our reward.
Later, we found a room where a Chozo Ghost attacked us, and I found this fight to be very long and tough, because I misread the word “invulnerable” as “vulnerable” in the scan data and continuously attacked it with something it was immune to. Once I realised my mistake, Samus took it out pretty quickly.
Next was a half-pipe room with toad enemies in it, which led to the Ice Beam, which opened up lots more areas for us to explore. One such area was the inside of the big, crashed research ship on the overworld, which is mostly waterlogged. Samus and I were exploring this lovely, submerged area with its atmospheric, beautiful music and its Subnautica vibe, when I realised how late it was. Luckily, there was a save point deep inside, and I called it a night.
Samus will be alright standing around underwater until next time, right?
Session 7 – Wednesday 21st August
So, we had to turn back pretty much straight away. The very next room in the waterlogged vessel had a section that required a suit upgrade to progress. At least we found a nice Health Booster in there. This would be important later. Anyway, it looks like Samus and I have to go to What’s-its-Name Drifts next. Which elevator was that?
We found our way to a watery area in the Drifts, and I did not like being forced to go into an underwater tentacle nest with next to zero visibility. Samus took it like a pro, though, and we soon found her swimsuit! It’s more respectably known as the Gravity Suit, which would allow Samus to move unimpeded through water, and gives a visibility boost underwater too. It also gave Samus’ armour and visor a fetching blue tint.
We headed back to the submerged parts of the research vessel and made some progress, getting through lots of rooms with fiddly, tentacle-impeded platforming and using the heat vision visor to find power conduits for locked doors. At the end of all this was an elevator to the Phazon Mines. The “intense radiation” warning was ominous.
I quite like the Phazon Mines. The rock walls and metal walkways remind me of the queue areas in Disney World. Maybe it’s Nintendo’s trademark colourful take on gritty sci-fi. Anyway, unlike the Disney queue areas, it turns out you can shoot the pipes to get through blocked off areas.
We partially solved a Krypton Factor-style puzzle with different coloured ball tracks and reached an elevator to another area of the mines. Samus was doing fine, but I was flagging at this point, and was looking for a save point. Instead of a save point we found a gigantic elite pirate. We put him down and had lots of other fights across various complex rooms with variously-equipped pirates and no save point in sight. Eventually, we had to fight a very nasty invisible thing that Samus couldn’t scan or even lock onto. I was determined not to lose all of our progress, but things got pretty close. We beat it with 35 health left (told you that Health Booster would be important), but even that wasn’t the end. We had to do an electrified ball maze to get the bomb upgrade, and Samus’ health bar took a few more zaps before the end.
Luckily, the next room had a save point, and it was both literally and figuratively a light at the end of a tunnel. Session over.
Session 8 – Thursday 22nd August
Another handheld session today, and Samus and I went straight to exploding some rubble in the way of doors with the newly-acquired Power Bombs. We quickly learned that they have limited ammunition. How unnecessary! Anyway, we backtracked and found the map room, but every route forward seemed to take us through pure, sparkly blue, health-draining Phazon, so it was a bit of a no go.
I was finding the mines difficult to navigate in handheld mode. The map hint system was sending us back to the surface but then shortly after gave me a hint for a different room in the mine. It would later become apparent that this was the Krypton Factor room, but I couldn’t remember that room at the time and I was getting somewhat perplexed. There were lots of enemies too, including another gigantic Elite Pirate, and a bunch of different pirate types that forced constant beam changes.
Anyway, Samus and I were finally able to complete the Krypton Factor room thanks to the Power Bombs, and this led us to the Grapple Beam. Finally! That should open a few new routes. After fiddling about in the first large Phazon Mines room with the crane and getting nowhere, we headed back to the overworld for some grappling.
Almost immediately, the X-Ray Visor was located, and then we took a jaunt to the Chozo Ruins to find an artefact in the arena-looking area. We quickly made our way back to Samus’ ship after that, and I chose to call it a night. Playing Metroid Prime Remastered in handheld is not good for my demeanour.
Session 9 – Saturday 24th August
We kicked off today’s session by heading back to the Magmoor Caverns. I’ve realised the music here kind of feels like it could be in a Zelda game. Maybe in some kind of Goron settlement or something. The music just doesn’t feel all that sci-fi to me – it feels better-suited to a volcano dungeon or maybe a gigantic Dwarven forge town.
Anyway, Samus and I found the Plasma Beam after a particularly painful section in which Samus had to roll around on the walls with lots of lava below. It took us a while and a few tries to get to the top of this room, but I got a sense of accomplishment and the Plasma Beam is super powerful and fun to shoot things with, so it was totally worth it.
Except, we had to do the whole thing again because Samus fell into the Phazon after being attacked by a shitload of pirate troopers with different beam immunities while at fairly low health thanks to the repeated dips into the lava due to the aforementioned wall-based ball-rolling. Samus death number six.
After doing it all again and surviving the tricky room that claimed us last time, Samus and I explored the Phazon Mines a bit more, looking for places to swing with the Grapple Beam and red doors to bust with the Plasma Beam, but we ended up making our way to the Magmoor Caverns again and found a Power Bomb ammo upgrade, with the game informing me that Samus had found 50% of items.
I had to stop at this point to dispose of a giant spider that I spotted on the wall near the TV. I used a mug and a coaster. This harrowing experience will definitely negatively affect how I view Metroid Prime Remastered. Shame on you, Nintendo.
Back to the game, and back to the overworld, because I remembered seeing a red door on the map there. Samus jumped across some invisible platforms and found a missile ammo upgrade. Still no actual game progress, then. Luckily, the map hint system piped up once more and directed us back to the Phazon Mines. Looks like we missed something.
Sure enough, it was invisible platforms again. So the game let me find the invisible platforms in the overworld that are highlighted by rain falling on them before requiring me to find the ones in the Phazon Mines that have no visual clue that they’re there unless you use the X-Ray Visor. Is that good game design? Or are invisible platforms just bullshit? I’ll let the cosmos decide.
Anyway, not long after this invisible platform room I got Samus killed again after being careless in a rolling section with lots of Phazon spread around. I’d saved not long ago, so we decided to call it a night. Seven deaths in nine sessions. That sounds like a positive to me.
Session 10 – Tuesday 27th August
Back to the mines. I directed Samus through some very aggravating platforming from glowing mushroom to glowing mushroom over radioactive goop while trying to grapple onto a stupid flying creature of some kind. Luckily, we found a save point in one such room. Or at least, I thought we did. Turned out it was just a missile recharge machine. What the heck? There isn’t even anything nearby that needs a lot of missiles! What a dupe.
Unless the missiles were for the boss, maybe, but that was quite a few rooms away.
Anyway, I saw an artefact in a hole and tried to tank the Phazon damage to get it and Samus died again. That’s eight deaths. Definitely need Phazon immunity to get that particular shiny.
Next stop, the Omega Pirate. This thing was tough, but at least it was kind of clear what to do. Knowing what I had to shoot at didn’t stop me from getting Samus killed again, though. Twice. Yep, that’s ten untimely demises. Is this a decent average or am I absolutely pants at Metroid Prime Remastered? Maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that. We got the big jerk the third time anyway, and Samus was looking super cool in her sleek, black Phazon Suit that dropped from its radioactive corpse. With Phazon damage a thing of the past, we went back to get the artefact, but then got assailed by metroids painted all the hues of the rainbow.
These things were really annoying. They tended to get right up in your face no matter what, and switching between weapons and then getting head-slurped by the one you’re not equipped to deal with and having to morph and drop a bomb and then repeat multiple times was a pain in the ass. I did not like the rainbow metroids, and wanted to leave the Phazon Mines behind for good at this point.
Samus and I eventually managed to get the heck out, leaving a couple of mysteries unsolved that I was aware of (namely the unpowered crane in the first large room, and a red door behind a forcefield in the corridors with the destructible pipes across them). We then headed back to the overworld, as the map hint told us to get our asses back to the Impact Crater.
What will we find? Well, I’ll find out next time. Time for bed, and all that.
Session 11 – Thursday 29th August
To the place where the artefacts are!
Upon arriving at the artefact place, Samus and I found that the other clues were available, so we went on a little artefact hunt. Also, I noticed that you can really see Samus’ face better through the visor of the Phazon Suit. Am I imagining that? I just feel like her eyes are more visible. Anyway, we headed to the Chozo Ruins first, and picked up an artefact in the room once occupied by the flower boss.
On to Magmoor Caverns. Samus and I found an artefact in the lava lake, and then headed back to the Chozo Ruins and got the artefact gizmo below the Chozo statue in the Hall of Elders, then it was time to go to What-the-Heck Drifts again. We found an extremely cheekily hidden artefact doodah at the top of the tall cave in the drifts, and then found another artefact doohickey under an icy Chozo statue. Then we came to a bit of a grinding halt.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know how to get the other Drifts artefact. The clue mentions a tower to collapse, but there are two areas named “tower” on the map, situated very close together, and I couldn’t find any way to collapse either of them, and couldn’t find anything of note in the room that connects them. It also didn’t feel like there was anything hidden there. A bit of gamer’s intuition, you know? Still, there must be something somewhere.
Aside from that one, the last artefact is hidden in the Phazon Mines and seems like it’ll require another fight against another big boy pirate. I couldn’t be done with that tonight either, so Samus and I decided to save the game and call it a night.
Session 12 – Friday 30th August
This one was likely to be a shorter session, because I had plans coming up. I thought I’d see if I could find at least one more artefact, though.
Samus and I travelled back through the Phazon Mines and got said artefact from another oversized, elite jerk. This just left the artefact in the Drifts of Whatever, the one that refers to the “tower”, and I thought I’d have a go because we got the first artefact so quickly. We trotted back to the Drifts and made our way back to the towers area (and I now saw that three areas in the map are named “tower”, because of the Control Tower between the East and West Towers), but I still couldn’t work out what to do. I felt like I’d hit a bit of a dead end. No fake walls. No mysterious things I could scan. Nothing.
So, is it still cheating if your wife looks up the solution on her phone instead of you? At first I just asked her to check if I was in the right place, because I at least wanted to know that, but this progressed to her basically telling me the solution. I was supposed to look out of the window in the East Tower (the window area doesn’t even seem to be a proper place, it just kind of feels like it’s out of bounds) and melt some ice and then explode some fuel tanks attached to another tower in the background with a missile. Apparently, I’d already melted the ice in my past searches through these accursed towers, because I only needed to fire the missile. Tower toppled. Final artefact claimed.
Look, I’m a grown adult with plans and responsibilities. I can’t be pissing about chasing some vague clue about towers. Additionally, in my defence, that was quite an obscure solution that doesn’t really fit with any of the other methods I’d used to find hidden areas in other parts of the game, and the tower you have to topple isn’t on the map and just seems like some background dressing. I think I’d gotten to the point where it was look it up or play something else.
So we went back to the artefact place (saving at Samus’ ship on the way, of course) and Samus got killed by Meta Ridley when he had but a smidgen of health left. My eyes are tired. My plans were looming. I’ll pick it up from that ship save next time.
Session 13 – Friday 30th August
Plans done (we had some some people round for a board game evening), and I settled in for session 13! Samus and I swatted Ridley pretty easily this second time around, and the bird-like Chozo statues surrounding the arena finished him off with red lasers. Kill-stealers. A pillar of light appeared after that fight which I thought might give Samus another power-up, but it zapped us into the Impact Crater instead.
Two rooms later, and we’d found the most annoying room in the game. An elongated, drawn-out platforming section during which Samus is constantly being harried by endlessly respawning Rainbow Metroids. Really, Nintendo? That room can get directly into the space bin. To add insult to injury, it was located between the last save point and the final boss!
Speaking of which; here comes Metroid Prime! I like the title drop. The first stage of the boss was a giant, armoured spider-looking thing. It was quite cinematic, the way it kept retreating deeper underground. It was fiddly but doable, and then the second stage – a floating, squid-like thing with a vaguely human face and a sparkly, translucent body that put me in the mind of Subnautica’s Ghost Leviathans – got pretty overwhelming pretty quickly. Samus was killed. Death number twelve, and we have to negotiate the platformer room with the walls that look like teeth and the endlessly respawning multicoloured bastards again. I’m going to spoil it now, though; this was the last time Samus would fall in battle.
We went in for attempt number two with cool heads and steady trigger fingers, and beat the first stage with health to spare. We took our time in the second stage, harvested the summoned adds for health pick-ups, and used the power bombs when Metroid Prime – Ghost Edition started summoning those horrible multicoloured metroids. After a fraught final few moments, Samus came out on top, and the final boss exploded.
I was expecting a third boss stage, but there was none. I was then expecting a playable escape sequence, but there was none. Just some end credits and a lot of relief. Metroid Prime Remastered: complete.
I didn’t find all the items (I think my final completion percentage was 68), but I’m happy, and can now file this in my completed Switch games pile along with Metroid Dread. Incidentally, I think that was the better game. The bosses in that game were harder, and it took me more tries to get past most of them, but I enjoyed the process of learning the patterns more, whereas in Metroid Prime Remastered I wasn’t always clear with what I was doing, and often found myself just blasting away and tanking damage.
Metroid Prime Remastered certainly had some pain in the ass moments, and wasn’t exactly a stress-free gaming experience, but I definitely enjoyed it, and vibed with the atmosphere for the most part. I’m definitely not finished with this series, and will be looking forward to the next instalment. I’m glad I staved off that cheeseburger-induced heart attack for long enough to see it through. That’s a call back to session one, by the way.
Oh, and completing the game unlocked Hard Mode. I’m alright, thanks. Trying to avoid a heart attack, remember?
