There is an element of boredom to Metroid Prime that is, it turns out, crucial.Įven when you do know where to “go,” Metroid Prime doesn’t set waypoints. Can it still stand up? When I watched my colleague, Rob Zacny, play the 2002 Resident Evil remake, he did not use tank controls, and still found incredible joy because the gunplay, atmosphere, and broader design is still incredibly strong. It might strip away some of the identity of both Resident Evil and Metroid Prime in the process, but the focus then moves to what’s left. Nintendo, however, was faced with the same conundrum as Capcom: players in 2023 would have certain expectations about how a first-person game, shooter or not, would control. In the remaster, enemies are stuck in a time warp, mounting an assault against a player with unfair advantages. Their logic, the way they dance with the player as they move between locations for the upteenth time, falls apart. The enemies, who to be fair were not exactly the center of attention in the original game anyway, make even less sense when you can run circles around them now. In this same way, Metroid Prime is now exposed to be a boring shooter, because being able to use both analog sticks was never part of the original plan. Shambling zombies are terrifying when you, the player, are also shambling. Playing the original Resident Evil without “tank controls” feels freeing and “normal,” but exposes how the game was balanced around players being slow, too, and is less itself in the process. Like Kasavin noted, Metroid Prime is not a shooter, and its controls were a choice made to reflect its design ethos. It’s reflectively tempting to call what happens next a “problem,” because what the modern controls expose is what Metroid Prime is at its core: an adventure game. It’s possible to play this version with the original controls, but most people, myself included, will find that feels too awkward and play with the greater liberation of movement with the updated options. It was possible to hold a button and look around, but this also made Samus’ feet turn into cement, as players could not freely move and look around simultaneously. Metroid Prime followed in the footsteps of Ocarina of Time, ditching aiming for lock-on. A “remake” is likely more ambitious, and may alter existing levels and systems, or introduce brand-new ones. A “remaster” is likely a visual update with some quality-of-life improvements to reduce friction from playing it in a modern context. When I interviewed several developers working on Capcom’s update to Resident Evil 4, which launches later this week, they specifically told me the project was a “remake.” The terms set expectations. Nintendo labeled this a “remaster,” not a “remake.” The terms are arbitrary but important. There is nothing else to scratch the itch of Metroid Prime except more Metroid Prime, and it’s what makes revisiting the game curious and rewarding, because it feels like playing it for the first time all over again. Instead, Metroid Prime, with its focus on patient and sometimes purposely frustrating exploration over all else, stands alone. Metroid Prime is broadly recognized as a masterpiece, but in its wake, we have not been flooded with dozens of imitators. A huge reason people clamored for Nintendo to revisit Metroid Prime, whether through a re-release or a new game, is because to this day, Metroid Prime feels wholly unique.
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