Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Metroid prime was a 9 cause 10 it's impossible to give to a game. But this game deserve a 10 cause it was made IN 1 YEAR. Ye 1 year no joke. And i **** love it (the keys in the end was disgusting but meh)

This game did not age well, but it still has it’s fun moments. The premise, lore/worldbuilding, and concepts are new, exciting, and fresh. Light/dark ammo is a cool spin, and travelling to the dark dimension gives it’s own sense of otherworldliness. The bosses are in a weird place, as some of them are really enjoyable, while the others are SO frustrating. Not even hard, just frustrating, which is even worse. Unfortunately the backtracking is tedious, somehow they messed up this core feature of Metroid games. Witnessing everything for the first time was definitely worth the play, but because of some frustrating elements I will not do the usual Hard difficulty run again.

The world with its light and dark sides is exciting. It's often a bit difficult to find out exactly what you have to do or where the next destination is. Sometimes it's even very frustrating. The sandy, dusty world is less varied than in its predecessor. The saving stations are very rare, luckily I'm playing on an emulator. Sometimes it's really annoying that the locked doors have to be opened again with special weapons, but there's no ammunition available. Then you can go everything back again. As player, this game is sometimes more like a labyrinth than a shooter. For those, who really like to walk, search, walk, search and walk again, it's good. But I by myself liked the game more when watching it to streamers.

Metroid Prime 2 is a slog. The backtracking is ridiculous and the map is deceptive too. Many times I didn’t know where to go or what to do, so I would consult my useless map only to be led astray. Oh look there’s a coloured door that I haven’t been through which requires super missiles. I just acquired super missiles. Let’s go! (A few moments later) Looks like I also need the spider ball to access that unreachable door. Thanks for nothing map! But don’t worry folks, this is part of the Metroid process. You would’ve never found those hidden missiles without backtracking to the same room 5 times right? Don’t question it. Hey it looks like I’m missing a translation. Let’s head over there! Yeah sorry there is ANOTHER unforeseen barrier in the hallway that your map didn't warn you about. You’ll need the grapple hook this time. Don’t worry, this is all part of the process. Are you enjoying the dull environments? It was a design choice! You can’t criticize the dark world because it fits the theme of the game! Spider Guardian was a fun boss fight too, wasn’t it? 30 minutes of starring at the screen while trying to find the proper timing. Amazing fight! And the best part is you can brag to your friends about how you beat it on your first try in 30 seconds. 4/10. That’s what this game deserves.

In time for Metroid Prime 4's announcement I decided to warn people about this game. As a long time fan of the Metroid franchise it's frustrating that this game was designed for a narrow audience that likes their games brutally unforgiving. Nintendo typically makes games with a balanced difficulty to challenge the player. I've completed every Prime & mainline Metroid game to this date. I've only given up several times one the NES original for being unfair & frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind hard. I've defeated the Unamed King in Dark Souls 3 & felt rewarded. In Prime 2 we get leeway to ease the challenge only by collecting every hidden upgrade in the game. That's fine but this game punishes for exploration. When you revisit sections you have to battle enemies who like to run around at top speed, that lock you in rooms, which then go invisible, & take way too long to inflict damage upon. Not till the end of the game when I combined light & dark suit power into my inventory was I able to cope with exploration. There are some boss battles that require you to switch between ball & suit. It becomes so riddled with difficulty spikes that I wanted to actually smash my controller. I had not been that angry while playing games in years. Every time a boss got too hard, I would dread back tracking to get better items because it's so easy to get lost. Not only that but the dark world drains health by roaming in it. By the time I got to the end, the boss fights became more and more unforgivable. They would place me in long winded battles depleting health bar after bar. When I died, I got sent all the way back to a save station. Had to hike back to the boss, watch cutscene, & face trial while experimenting to find weak spots during battle. When I fought my doppelgänger, the boss was impossible. It turned invisible & required pin point timing to inflict a small amount of damage on. The biggest slap in the face was before I got to end game. Just like other Prime games you need to find every hidden artifact possible. First game was mellow by comparison. I mean, the sky keys are like finding buried treasure while being blind folded. This game is overrated to no end. As a positive I wouldn't mind replaying this game if they ended up remaking it with less frustrating bits. Under the difficulty lies a gem. It **** to hate this game over a programming decision like that. But then again how did Nintendo not think they would alienate a lot of fans by choosing to go this route? PS. The Prime series had some moments, but I've never seen any enemy from the original except for Ridley. In 2 we don't even get that. No basic enemy types are familiar. We never got Mother Brain once. Just some odd looking thing at the end of 3 that needed to be shot in the back of its head while pointing up with a Wii remote that couldn't detect off TV motions.