I’d been waiting for this game for 18 years. I love the Metroid series, and the first Prime game is one of my favourites. This game seems to have had a very troubled development, it took eight years and they changed developer half way through from Bandai to the developer of the original trilogy, Retro.
The game has a central hub area which is surrounded by five dungeon style zones. It’s a little like The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time I think. Each one of the dungeons I thought was great, but could have been larger and less linear. Ice Belt in particular was a great sequence where you’re starting up the main generator again, and then are attacked by creatures that had been frozen in pods. Meanwhile you’re reading through the notes of the civilisation from this planet that has had a great collapse. I thought the boss fights were also excellent, with a lot of variety and inventiveness. In particular you fight a giant dragon worm thing whilst on your motorbike in the volcano area.
This game is absolutely gorgeous, it has some of the best art design I have ever seen in a game and the lighting is just incredible. The atmosphere in each of the main areas is excellent.
Online it seems like people are extremely down on the game, with all of the talk being extremely negative. Although this is far from the best Metroid game, I enjoyed it very much. I’m hoping that Retro get a chance to move straight onto 5, and can reuse the engine and learn from the development of this one.