Video games need to be enjoyable. What makes a game enjoyable, however, is entirely dependent upon the player’s taste. Some people prefer first person shooters, some people third. Some people prefer single player games with a lot of nuance while others prefer in and out multiplayer experiences. Everyone has their own taste. My taste, sadly, didn’t align with Metroid Prime as much as I would have liked. Funnily enough, as I went through the game I often told myself; “this is fantastically done.” Metroid Prime is great. Phenomenal, even. It’s bursting with creativity, its platforming is second to none and there’s a real sense of adventure as you play through it. It’s honestly one of the best games I’ve played in a while. Despite all of that though, it didn’t click with me. I couldn’t help but find myself bored often while playing. I often had to take breaks. Beginning to question my sanity the fifth or so time this happened, I played another game, Doom (a game I will certainly write an article for,) and found myself immersed at the very first second. I had a lot of fun, much more fun than I had with Metroid. When you have to force yourself to play through a game – that’s not a good thing.

Metroid is a first-person shooter, but that’s far from its focus. It encompasses shooting with platforming and exploration in order to create an immersive experience. You often revisit places that you’ve been to before, but that is actually to the game’s benefit, as it is designed for that exactly. Often places will have certain doors that you can access and others that you cannot. Revising those places with more power-ups in the future will allow you to then access other places that you’ve never visited before. It’s pretty cool, in that it acts as a partial open-world and makes backtracking feel like it has purpose. Metroid is kind of ingenious in that way, actually. The multiple layers it has makes it so that revisiting previously viewed places feels like a new experience every time. The addition of new enemies here and there certainly helps as well.

Metroid doesn’t have much of a story. There is barely any story to it actually, and from what I played I don’t think there was a single line of dialogue. If you are interested in story though you can use one of your many abilities, an ability that allows you to scan your surroundings, to find out more about the world you reside in. I didn’t personally do so as it didn’t appeal to me (I prefer stories being told to me in a more typical fashion), but I could definitely see it being appealing to a lot of people. That is one of the many nuances of Metroid Prime. Metroid is a very layered game. This is because you gain abilities as you go, which, as previously stated, allows you to do things you couldn’t do before. This allows for, again, exploration beyond what you initially thought you could explore. That’s how Metroid is made – with the intent of exploration, and platforming as well.

Metroid’s combat is fun. One complaint I have is that after a few hours of playing I begun to feel ambivalent toward its combat. It should have engaged me, but didn’t. I saw the ingenuity behind it but didn’t feel a visceral reaction to that ingenuity. Sure, it’s not the point. Metroid is a game about platforming and exploration. Its combat is simply a vehicle to its other elements. But I would have obviously rathered be immersed in it. Despite my ambivalence, Metroid’s combat is rather unique in its concepts. It’s very, very puzzle focused. Enemies always act in a unique fashion which differentiates them from others and adds a lot of strategy as you try to remember what an enemies’ particular skillset is. Some will wear a coat of armor, which will force you to attack them from – say – behind, while others have different ways of dying that could potentially hurt you are you not careful. Every enemy in Metroid, basically, has a unique feature that differentiates them from the rest. This adds a layer of strategy as you often, upon initial contact, have to figure out how to fight that enemy in particular, and afterward have to remember what his particular skillset is.

Metroid’s graphics are fantastic. Considering it’s a GameCube game (obviously) I was really, really impressed. Its art style is second to none. It helps form the game and, alongside the soundtrack, gives it an atmosphere that wouldn’t be there otherwise. While at first I was a bit turned off by the graphics in a way, as I was coming off of multiple PS4 games, I very quickly got adjusted to them and quickly grew to tremendously appreciate them. They’re amazing. It running at sixty frames per second makes everything all the more impressive. Overall this is one of the game’s considerable strengths.

My primary complaint with Metroid Prime, beyond my inability to truly find the game enjoyable despite its many advantages, is its lack of save stations. Metroid Prime’s save stations are not numerous. Quite the opposite. They’re scattered and infrequent. This is really, really annoying. I don’t want to have to go through half of a map just to get to a save station. That annoys me. I’d at the very least find it good if it saved after every boss fight or something but it doesn’t even do that. The reason as to why I stopped playing – actually – is because I went through a considerable amount of deaths solely because there weren’t enough save stations. It actually is what made me stop playing, as my quest to get the next item was rendered practically impossible solely because I couldn’t find a single save station in a twenty-five-minute period. This was annoying, and I wish the save thing had been fixed during development.

Ultimately, despite my very apparent recognition of Metroid Prime’s numerous advantages, I didn’t find it that enjoyable. I think it’s a fun game, but as I was playing I often found myself having to think the advantages through just to notice them. They wouldn’t stand out to me like, say, Super Mario Odyssey’s would. I personally think there should be both surface level and deeper positives to a game. Some things that make playing fun and some things that make thinking about the experience in retrospect fun as well. Metroid barely achieved the former. The latter was plentiful, sure, but the immediate enjoyment that I experience from most games I didn’t experience from Metroid.

Despite that, I have nothing but great things to say. I firmly believe this is a fantastic game. Granted, subjectivity will take a toll on my overall score, but this was undoubtedly fantastically designed and executed. Metroid Prime just didn’t click with me, unfortunately.

8.5/10.