Metroid Prime

This article is about the game. For the creature, see Metroid Prime (creature).

Metroid Prime
Developer(s)	Retro Studios
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Platform(s)	Nintendo GameCube
Release	NA: November 15, 2002 JP: February 28, 2003 EU: March 21, 2003
Genre(s)	First-person action/adventure
Mode(s)	Single player

Metroid Prime is a video game developed by Nintendo-owned Retro Studios and released by Nintendo in 2002 for the GameCube (and later bundled with GameCube in 2004). It was the first 3D Metroid game and is officially classified by Nintendo as a first-person adventure rather than a first-person shooter due to the large exploration element in the game. It was also the first Metroid game to be released since Super Metroid, which was released nearly eight years earlier (this applies to North America only; in all other markets, it was released after Metroid Fusion). The four part Prime storyline, however, takes place between the original Metroid and Metroid II: Return of Samus (see the series timeline on the Metroid series main page). Metroid Prime is now available as a Player's Choice title, having sold over 250,000 copies in both the USA and Europe.

The game was first announced in 2001 E3 and was revealed shortly after to be played from a first-person perspective. Following the announcement and subsequent release of first screenshots, the nature of the game aroused the ire of Metroid fans who perceived it as a disgraceful transition into 3D. In addition, due to frequent layoffs and corporate reorganization at Retro Studios during development, the game was often feverishly considered a debacle throughout gaming related message boards, publications, and magazines until near the point of retail release when various publications claimed it as possibly the greatest video game of all time.

Plot

Template:Spoilers Some time after Samus Aran's mission of destroying the Metroid being raised by the Space Pirates as biological weapons, the bounty hunter capts a distress code that leads her to a Space Pirate vessel orbiting the planet Tallon IV. Inside, Samus discovers some biological experiments, including the Parasite Queen, that after being killed, triggers the ship's self destruction. While making her escape she stumbles upon Meta Ridley, a cybernetically enhanced Ridley, who wakes and escapes the vessel, but not before slamming Samus into a wall, damaging her Power Suit. It then goes down to the surface of Tallon IV.

Samus pursues Ridley down to the surface, where she discovers that the Chozo once had a colony there, but were hit by a meteor containing the mutagen called Phazon, the substance the Space Pirates were using on the Space Pirates vessel orbiting Tallon IV for their biological experiments. During her time on the planet, she finds out what happened to the Chozo, also uncovering the Space Pirates plans to try and mine Phazon to experiment and hopefully create enhanced soldiers, though most of their attempts were thwarted by the large containment structure built by the Chozo before they arrived, blocking access to the Phazon core. After putting a stop to the Space Pirate's plans, and finding all of the Chozo Artifacts, the keys to entering the temple, she finally faces off against Meta Ridley. After a long and difficult battle, eventually defeating Ridley, Samus is able to enter the impact crater and to fight Metroid Prime itself.

Some sources, like Gradiente, Brazil's then-distributor of Nintendo, and the Nintendo Power comics adaptation of Metroid Prime, incorrectly set the game as happening after Super Metroid. The Brazilian publicity even says that the Phazon meteor is a piece of Zebes, destroyed after SM.

Gameplay

Samus facing a Flying Pirate

As in previous Metroid games, Metroid Prime takes place in a large, open-ended world with different regions connected by elevators. Each region has an entire set of rooms separated by doors (that can be opened with a shot from the correct beam). The game is different from previous games in the series because of its use of first-person view as opposed to side-scrolling, being the first in the series to do so.

The protagonist Samus must travel through the world searching for power-ups that enable her to reach previously unaccessible areas (such as the Varia Suit, that takes away damage caused by heat) and 12 Chozo Artifacts that will open the way to the Phazon meteor impact crater. It is the first Metroid game to address the absence of the previous game's power-ups. Samus starts with them, but they are all lost during an explosion in the Space Pirate ship.

Metroid Prime also has a "Hint System" that provide the player with a general idea of where to go (for instance, indicating "Seismic activity" in a certain room). This was very contrary to the previous games in the series, which features no hints or direction whatsoever.

Items

Related article: Items in the Metroid series

Throughout the game, the player will find and collect many different items, ranging from weapons, to upgrades of Samus's Power Suit, to various other items that grant additional abilities (such as the Morph Ball and Grapple Beam). Most of the items from previous Metroid games make appearances here; however, the functions of many of them have been altered to suit the 3D environment. For example, the space jump only allows the player to perform a double jump, as opposed to jumping continuously as in previous games, to prevent the player from getting stuck or unwittingly triggering a glitch. Glitches can allow knowledgeable players to receive items much earlier than intended, or to bypass collecting them altogether. The current world record for lowest item pickup percentage at the end of the game is 22% .

Locations

Main articles: Tallon IV and Frigate Orpheon

The game starts in the Space Pirate Frigate Orpheon, where Samus discovers her enemies, the Space Pirates were conducing numerous experiments aboard this frigate on parasitic lifeforms. However many of these experiments went catastrophically wrong, as the gargantuan parasitic creatures escaped from their labs and wreaked havoc, destroying everything in their sight and leaving a trail of injured Space Pirates behind them. After Samus' visit and battle with the Parasite Queen, the frigate goes into critical meltdown and explodes. A large chunk of debris from the frigate plummets towards Tallon IV and crashes on the planet.

View overlooking the Phendrana Shorelines, located in the Phendrana Drifts.

Tallon IV is divided in 6 areas: Tallon Overworld, a rainforest-like area with poisonous mushrooms, exploding bags of sap, spiked beetles, and giant venomous plants, where Samus initially makes planetfall and leaves her gunship; the overworld houses the Artifact Temple, the sunken remains of Orpheon and elevators to other areas; Chozo Ruins, the remains of the Chozo civilization on Tallon IV that ended with the crash of the Phazon meteor, that initially in the game has its water poisoned by a giant plant; Magmoor Caverns, a kind of subway system with magma-filled tunnels that connect all the areas together with the exception of the Impact Crater, and houses the fire-breathing serpents that name the caverns, the Magmoor, mechanical drone guns, and organisms which release toxic gas into the air. The Space Pirates use the caverns as a source of geothermal power, and Magmoor is the only area in the game without a boss or miniboss to fight; Phendrana Drifts, a cold, mountainous location divided into an ancient Chozo ruin, some Space Pirate research labs (since the subzero temperatures make specimen containment easier, and also features the first Metroids), and ice caves and valleys, that is home to many electrical and ice based creatures; Phazon Mines, a complex of mining and research facility along with dark caves that is the center of the Space Pirates' Tallon IV operations; and Impact Crater, the final area of the game, completely corrupted by Phazon radiation and home of only three creatures, a parasite similar to others in Tallon IV, the mutated Fission Metroids (that have the ability to split into two when shot at) and the final boss, Metroid Prime.

Development

After Super Metroid, many Metroid fans were eagerly awaiting a sequel. It was supposedly slated for the Nintendo 64 (or the ill-fated accessory, the 64DD), but while the game was referenced several times, it never entered production, because "they couldn't come out with any concrete ideas".

Retro Studios was created in 1998, by an alliance between Nintendo and former Iguana Entertainment Jeff Spangenberg. After establishing their offices in Austin, Texas in 1999, Retro received five game ideas for the future GameCube, among them a new Metroid.

The game was developed as a collaboration between Retro Studios and important Nintendo EAD and R&D1 members, such as Shigeru Miyamoto, Kensuke Tanabe and Kenji Miki, as well as Metroid designer Yoshio Sakamoto, that communicated with Texas through e-mails, monthly phone conferences and several personal gatherings. First it was in third person perspective, but Miyamoto made them change the perspective to first-person, causing almost everything already developed to be scrapped.

In 2000, three games were canned in order to establish focus on Metroid Prime, and in 2001, the last project, an RPG called Raven Blade was cancelled, so Metroid Prime would be the only game in the works.

The first public appearance of the game was a 10-second video at SpaceWorld 2000. In November of the same year, Retro Studios confirmed in the "job application" part of its website its involvement with the game, and at E3 2001, Metroid Prime was officially announced by Nintendo, receiving mixed reactions due to the change from 2D sidescrolling to 3D first person.

Although the previous Metroid games' soundtracks were composed by "Hip" Tanaka, Kenji Yamamoto assisted by Kouichi Kyuma composed the music for Metroid Prime. The soundtrack contains some remixes of tracks from previous games in the series: the Tallon Overworld theme (after Samus's arrival) is a remix of the Brinstar theme, the music in Magmoor Caverns is a remix of Super Metroid's Lower Norfair area, and the music during the fight with Meta-Ridley is a re-mix of the Ridley boss music first featured in Super Metroid; it has been re-mixed and featured in most Metroid games since.

Allegedly, Kraid was intended to make an appearance in Metroid Prime as a boss, and was modeled and skinned by Gene Kohler for that purpose. However, time constraints prevented it from being included in the final version of the game. Though the beta model displays him inside Phazon Mines, he was not in fact replaced by the Omega Pirate (according to Kohler).

Versions

The European version had some gameplay changes to prevent sequence breaking, and fixing some glitches (that were carried over to the NTSC Player's Choice release). Also added was a narrator in the opening and closing scenes. .

During the European translation, some of the logs were removed or changed, resulting in a different storyline and log book.

Before the release of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes in 2004, Nintendo released a platinum-colored GameCube bundled with a copy of Metroid Prime containing a special second disc, featuring both a preview trailer and a demo for Echoes, a timeline of Metroid games and an art gallery.

Bonuses

With the use of a Nintendo GameCube-Game Boy Advance cable, players of the game can gain two additional features. If Metroid Fusion was completed, the original Metroid game would be unlocked for use within the game (also using the memory card to save progress). If Metroid Prime was completed, the Fusion Suit which Samus wears in Fusion would become available for display while playing Prime. The connection need only be performed once in order to gain the extra features.

Reception

Reviews and awards

Publication	Score	Comment
Famitsu	33 of 40
IGN	9.8 of 10	Editor's Choice
GameSpot	9.7 of 10	Editor's Choice, 2002 Game of the Year
GameSpy	96 out of 100	2002 Game of the Year
EGM	30 of 30	Platinum Award, Game of the Year (2002)
Nintendo Power	10 of 10	Game of the Year (2002)
Edge	9 of 10	Editor's Choice, 2002 Game of the Year
Compilations of multiple reviews
Game Rankings	96 of 100 (based on 96 reviews)
Metacritic	97 of 100 (based on 69 reviews)
Awards
6nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards	Console First-Person Action
2003 Game Developers Conference	Game of the Year, Excellence in Level Design

After its release, the game has received much critical acclaim (including a perfect review score from Electronic Gaming Monthly, a 9.7 from GameSpot and a 9.8/10 from IGN) for its "very impressive graphics . , amazing, innovative gameplay (yet still true to the classic Metroid formula), and excellent soundtrack.". Currently on Game Rankings, it stands as the third greatest game of all time and also the greatest game of the 21st century, with an average score of 96.4%. The video game countdown show Filter named Metroid Prime as having the Best Graphics of all time. It also won many 2002 Game of the Year awards from major publications and gaming sites, such as from GameSpot.

The game also became one of the best-selling games on the GameCube, with about 1.49 million copies sold in the United States alone..

Metroid Prime was also included in several lists of best games: 24th in IGN's Top 100, 29th in a 100-game list chosen by GameFAQs users, and 10th in Nintendo Power's "Top 200 Nintendo Games Ever".

Metroid Prime also became popular among hardcore gamers for speedrunning, with specialized communities being formed (see Speedrun for more information).

Sequels

• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, for the GameCube, is the sequel to Metroid Prime, released in November 2004. In the game, Samus travels to planet Aether and discovers that a Phazon meteor crash in the planet created an alternate reality. Meanwhile, she is pursued by a mysterious enemy called Dark Samus.
• Metroid Prime: Hunters, for the Nintendo DS, has a storyline that happens between Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and its gameplay is similar to both but with more FPS elements. A demo of the game was released with purchase of a Nintendo DS titled, Metroid Prime: Hunters - First Hunt, and the full game was released on March 20, 2006 (USA), and May 5, 2006 (Europe) for the Nintendo DS. The storyline follows Samus trying to discover an "ultimate power", while facing six rival bounty hunters.
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is due to be released sometime in 2007 for Nintendo's next generation console, Wii. Footage of this game was shown at E³ 2005 and E³ 2006, though the 2005 footage was later determined to have been running on GameCube hardware. New hunters and characters will be introduced in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, such as Rundus, another bounty hunter from the Galactic Federation.

Spinoffs

• Metroid Prime Pinball is a virtual pinball game for the Nintendo DS based on the first Metroid Prime with all of the same bosses and major locations. This game also has much of the same music.

See also

• Gunpei Yokoi, producer of the original Metroid trilogy
• Shigeru Miyamoto, associate producer of Metroid Prime and Nintendo's most well known designer

External links

• Metroid Prime's official website
• Template:Nintendo.com
• Metroid Prime wiki guide at StrategyWiki (previously hosted by Wikibooks)
• Metroid Prime at IMDb
• Metroid Prime at MobyGames
• Metroid Prime & Fusion Original Soundtracks at MusicBrainz
• Metroid Prime OST at MusicBrainz