Metroid Prime (game)


 * This article is about the game. For the creature, see Metroid Prime (creature).
 * For other uses, see Metroid Prime (disambiguation).

Metroid Prime (メトロイドプライム, Metoroido Puraimu) is the first 3D Metroid game released on November 15, 2002. It was developed by Nintendo-owned Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo GameCube. It is officially classified by Nintendo as a first-person adventure, rather than a first-person shooter, due to the large exploration component to the game. It was also the first Metroid game to be released since Super Metroid, which was released nearly eight years earlier, though this only applies to North America as in all other markets, it was released after Metroid Fusion. Metroid Prime was the first of the four part Prime storyline, which takes place between the original Metroid and Metroid II: Return of Samus. The title was later bundled with the GameCube in 2004. Like the rest of the series, Metroid Prime has a science fiction setting, once again allowing you to play as the bounty hunter Samus Aran. The story follows Samus battling the Space Pirates and their biological experiments on planet Tallon IV.

The game was first announced at E3 2001 and was revealed shortly after to be played from a first-person perspective. Following the announcement and release of the first screenshots, some fans saw it as a disgraceful transition into 3D. In addition, due to frequent layoffs and corporate reorganization at Retro Studios during development, the game was believed to be a failure throughout gaming related message boards, publications, and magazines until near the point of retail release when it attained widespread critical acclaim from various publications. The game has proven to be a commercial success, selling over 1 million units in North America alone, reviving the Metroid franchise.

Story
Samus Aran, having destroyed the Space Pirate stronghold on Zebes three years prior in Metroid/Metroid: Zero Mission, starts traversing across the galaxy in search of a client when she intercepts a distress signal coming from a space station in orbit above Tallon IV. Upon investigation, she realizes it is one of the few Space Pirate frigates that escaped her attack on Zebes. The ship, the Orpheon, was maintained by the Space Pirate Science Team for the genetic enhancement of various creatures native to Tallon IV. However, most of the Pirates are dead, and those that remain are in weak physical condition. All of the escape pods had been launched 6 hours prior to Samus' arrival. Samus, after exploring the station, comes face to face with the cause of the distress signal: the Parasite Queen. Once defeated, the creature falls into the Reactor Core, causing a malfunction of the station's propulsion systems. Samus quickly escapes via the ventilation network, but not before an explosion damages her suit. She witnesses Ridley, genetically rebuilt after Samus' fight with him on Zebes, fly off towards Tallon IV. Once she gets to her ship, Samus follows, eager to destroy the Space Pirates once and for all.

After landing in the Tallon Overworld, Samus explores nearby areas of Tallon IV, such as the Chozo Ruins. In the Chozo Ruins, Samus finds that the local water supply has become extremely toxic, harming her even through her Power Suit. As she explores the ruins, she regains many of her lost abilities and learns that the Chozo on the planet had been killed or corrupted by a great poison brought to Tallon IV on a meteor many years ago. Eventually, Samus discovers the source of the toxic waters, which is located in the ruins. She destroys Flaahgra, a heavily mutated plant, and purifies the spring.

Samus next visits Magmoor Caverns and discovers that the Space Pirates are drawing large amounts of geothermal energy from the region. Samus leaves the caverns and arrives in the Phendrana Drifts, an icy area once home to another Chozo enclave. Samus acquires more abilities there, and soon infiltrates the main Space Pirate laboratories. Her arrival catches the Pirates off guard; they were unaware of her presence on Tallon IV, and the laboratories had relatively few guards. After fighting her way through the labs, Samus discovers that the Pirates have been conducting experiments with Phazon, the great poison the Chozo spoke of. She also finds out that the Space Pirates had brought some Metroids that had survived the destruction of Tourian to the planet. She then confronts Thardus, a Phazon entity brought to life by Space Pirate experiments. She defeats Thardus and continues on.

With her new abilities, Samus re-explores the places on Tallon IV where she has already been. She soon begins to encounter the spirits of Chozo corrupted by Phazon. As she continues, Samus finds the wreckage of the Space Pirate Frigate Orpheon, which had crashed into Tallon after its destruction. A massive operation is underway by the Pirates to try and salvage what they can from it, including some Phazon. Samus once again travels through the Orpheon. Upon emerging on the other side, she discovers the entrance to the Space Pirate Phazon Mines.

Samus enters the Phazon Mines, encountering massive amounts of Phazon and heavy Pirate defenses. She also discovers the outcome of the Phazon experimentation project: Elite Pirates, Pirates mutated to huge and dangerous forms with Phazon infusions. Later, she also learns of two other Phazon-based creatures: the Omega Pirate, an Elite Pirate that had grown to enormous size and power through its near-limitless capacity to absorb Phazon, and the Metroid Prime, a creature that had come to Tallon IV with the original meteor. The Metroid Prime was genetically similar to Metroids, though much more evolved. Like the Omega Pirate, there was no limit to its ability to absorb Phazon, but in this case, the massive doses of Phazon had absolutely no side effects. The Pirates had discovered the creature in their mining projects, and captured and studied it. They infused it with much Phazon in the hopes of creating an ultimate weapon, but the creature escaped back to its den. The Metroid Prime was the guardian of the Phazon core on the planet; while the creature survived, the Phazon could never be purged from the planet.

Samus soon reaches the lowest level of the mines. On this level, the Pirates had been conducting many experiments with their remaining Metroids. These Metroids had been so heavily mutated by Phazon that they no longer followed the natural life cycle of their species, instead forgoing all metamorphoses in favor of remaining in their larval stages. Samus fights her way through the Metroids and reaches the Omega Pirate. She defeats it, but as it dies, it collapses on her and dissolves into Phazon, which is absorbed into her Power Suit, creating the Phazon Suit. It provides Samus with immunity to Phazon, and is even capable of harnessing pure Phazon as a weapon.

With the Pirate operations in shambles, Samus sets out to find a way to rid the planet of Phazon. She discovers the ancient Chozo Temple, which she learns projects a shield which prevents access to the meteor's Impact Crater. It had contained most of the Phazon within the crater, but some was still able to seep out and begin to corrupt the environment. The shield had also contained the Metroid Prime, but it had not extended below the surface, which is how the Pirates breached it. Samus learns that in order to break the shield and access the crater, she must collect and unite twelve artifacts known as the Cipher. After much journeying and trouble, Samus unites the Cipher and prepares to fight the Metroid Prime. The central totem begins to lower the shield...

...but Meta Ridley flies in and destroys the totems and the Cipher. All hope of entering the crater appears lost, and Samus is forced to fight Ridley. After the battle, the statues of the Chozo on the temple blast Ridley with lasers and cause him to fall off the temple, leaving him for dead. The Chozo Ghosts (who are uncorrupted by Phazon) then use their collective energy to lower the shield and create a pathway to the Impact Crater, recognizing that Samus is their only hope.

In the Impact Crater, Samus encounters many heavily mutated creatures, including many Metroids. Samus soon finds Metroid Prime, which realizes that Samus is a major threat. Samus engages in a tough battle, but she eventually comes out on top. The Metroid Prime falls off a cliff, but Samus follows, not taking any chances. Indeed, when she discovers its apparently dead body, the core essence of the creature flies out, abandoning its shell and engaging Samus in its true form. Samus uses the abilities of her Phazon Suit to overload the creature with pure Phazon. In a last, desperate move, the dying Metroid Prime changes form again and absorbs Samus's Phazon Suit. It then explodes, releasing all of the Phazon in its body into the Phazon Core, sending it into a critical overload. Samus barely escapes and calls in her Gunship. She removes her helmet to watch as the crater collapses in on itself, purging all of the Phazon from Tallon IV. She then flies off to search for a new bounty to claim.

Some time after Samus leaves, a small puddle of Phazon is all that is left in the remains of the crater. Out of the puddle rises a hand wearing something that looks similar to Samus's Phazon Suit. On the back of the hand is an eye which looks around warily...

Gameplay
As in previous Metroid games, 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 gameplay revolves around solving puzzles to uncover secrets, platform jumping, and shooting foes with the help of a 'lock-on' mechanism that allows circle strafing while staying locked onto the enemy. The game is the first in the series to use a first-person view as opposed to a side-scrolling view. An exception is when Samus enters Morph Ball mode, where her suit transforms into an armored ball; the game uses a third-person camera angle at those times.

The protagonist, Samus, must travel through the world searching for twelve Chozo Artifacts that will open the path to the Phazon meteor Impact Crater while simultaneously collecting power-ups that enable the player to reach previously inaccessible areas. The Varia Suit, for example, protects Samus' armor against extreme heat, allowing her to enter volcanic regions. Some of the items are obtained after boss and mini-boss fights, present in all of Tallon IV's areas but the Magmoor Caverns.

The heads-up display simulates the inside of Samus's helmet, featuring a radar, a map, an ammunition meter for missiles, a health meter, and a health bar for bosses that also displays the boss's name. The display can be altered by switching visors, including one using thermal imaging, another with x-ray vision, and a scanner that searches for enemy weaknesses and interfaces with certain mechanisms such as force fields and elevators, allowing the player to operate them. Prime also introduces a hint system that provides the player with a general idea of where to go.

Items
Throughout the game, players must find and collect items that improve Samus' arsenal and suit, including weapons, armor upgrades for Samus' Power Suit, and items that grant abilities. Among these are the Morph Ball, which allows Samus to roll into narrow passages and drop energy bombs, and the Grapple Beam, which works similarly to a grappling hook by latching onto special hooks, called grapple nodes, and allowing Samus to swing from them across gaps.

Items from previous Metroid games make appearances with altered functions. Art galleries and different endings are unlockable if a player obtains a high percentage of collected items and Scan Visor logs. Prime is the first Metroid game to address the reason Samus does not start with power-ups. She begins the game with certain upgrades, but during an explosion in the Space Pirates' ship, they are all lost. The producers stated that starting with some power-ups was a way to give the player "different things to do" before settling into the core gameplay.

Manipulating the game's physics can allow experienced players to receive items much earlier than intended or to skip collecting them altogether.

Galleries
Completing Prime with a certain percentage of power-ups obtained and scans will allow you to view galleries that feature artwork of the game. Four galleries can be viewed, depending on how many power-ups you obtained.

Fusion Suit and Metroid
With the use of a Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Cable, you can gain two additional features. If Metroid Fusion is completed, Metroid can be unlocked for use within the game and can also use the GameCube's memory card to save progress. If Metroid Prime is completed, you can play as Samus in her Fusion Suit. The connection only has to be done once to gain the extra features. If the player starts a new game with the Fusion Suit bonus on, Samus' suit will take on all the physical apperances of her suit in Metroid Fusion, such as the changed color scheme for the Varia and Gravity Suit upgrades; the Morph Ball is also changed to its apperance in Metroid Fusion. The Phazon Suit is represented by the color scheme of the final form of the Fusion Suit in this mode.

Endings
Metroid Prime has three different endings. The ending that a player will view is determined by the number of items picked up during the game.

Development
After Super Metroid, Metroid fans eagerly awaited a sequel. It was supposedly slated for the Nintendo 64 or its ill-fated accessory, the 64DD, but while the game was mentioned, it never entered production. Developer Shigeru Miyamoto explained that it was because Nintendo "couldn't come out with any concrete ideas".

Metroid Prime was developed as a collaboration between Retro Studios and important Nintendo EAD and R&amp;D1 members. Retro Studios was created in 1998, by an alliance between Nintendo and former Iguana Entertainment founder Jeff Spangenberg. After establishing its offices in Austin, Texas in 1999, Retro received five game ideas for the future GameCube, among them a new Metroid, despite not even having development kits. Nintendo members, such as Shigeru Miyamoto, Kensuke Tanabe and Kenji Miki, as well as Metroid designer Yoshio Sakamoto, communicated with the Texas-based studio through emails, monthly phone conferences and personal gatherings. The game was originally envisioned as having third-person perspective gameplay, but this was changed to a first-person perspective after Miyamoto intervened, causing almost everything already developed to be scrapped. Among the reasons for leaving the third-person perspective were Rare's trouble with the camera in Jet Force Gemini, shooting in third-person "not being very intuitive", and exploration being easier using first-person. Director Mark Pacini said Retro tried to make the game so that the only difficult parts would be boss battles, so players would not be "afraid to explore", because "the challenge of the game was finding your way around".

In 2000, three games were canceled to establish focus on Prime, and in 2001, the fourth other project (an RPG called Raven Blade) was canceled, so that Prime would be the only game in development. The first public appearance of the game was a ten 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, Prime was officially announced by Nintendo, receiving mixed reactions due to the change from 2D side scrolling to 3D first-person.

Kenji Yamamoto, assisted by Kouichi Kyuma, composed the music for Prime. The soundtrack contains remixes of tracks from previous games in the series, because Yamamoto wanted "to satisfy old Metroid fans. It’s like a present for them." The initial Tallon Overworld theme is a remix of Metroid's 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 remix of the Ridley boss music first featured in Super Metroid, which has been remixed and featured in most Metroid games since. Tommy Tallarico Studios also aided in developing the sound effects.

Kraid, a boss from Metroid and Super Metroid, was intended to make an appearance in Prime, and designer Gene Kohler modeled and skinned him for that purpose. However, time constraints prevented him from being included in the final version of the game. Though the beta model displays him inside Phazon Mines, Kohler says he was not replaced by the Omega Pirate. A creature resembling the Ripper also exists within the game code, and the Screw Attack and Speed Booster were intended to appear in the game, but were scrapped.

Versions
Prime was released in three versions: the original North American version; a second version, released in North America and Japan, with resolved technical issues (such as a glitch that occasionally caused the game to freeze when using elevators connecting to Chozo Ruins); and the European version, with resolved glitches and altered certain elements of the gameplay to prevent sequence breaking.

The European translation had logs removed or changed, resulting in a slightly different storyline and log book. The only major change was that Space Pirate logs claimed that the Space Pirates never encountered Metroid Prime, but were still attempting to enter the Impact Crater in the European version, while in the NTSC version, the Space Pirates had already encountered the creature. A narrator was added in the opening and closing scenes. Some of the changes were in the NTSC region's Player's Choice re-release, along with more changes not in other releases.

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

New Play Control!
New Play Control! Metroid Prime was released in Japan on February 19, 2009. The Wii port of the highly acclaimed GameCube title featured slightly updated graphics and improved, Wii-specific controls similar to those found in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Aside from the few aesthetic changes there were also minimal changes in gameplay. The Spring Ball is present which eliminates the need for a Morph Ball Bomb jump much like in Metroid Prime 3 : Corruption, and the visor system from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption makes a return. Switching visors is done through the minus button and changing your current beam is done through the plus button. The game also features voice acting, such as in the opening sequence and when starting from a Save Station. The game also includes true 16:9 widescreen support. Also included is the same Credit system seen in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption; this is how extras in the game are unlocked, such as the Fusion Suit, which originally required a Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Cable. (This is also how the feature functions in the Trilogy game -- see below)

Metroid Prime Trilogy
Metroid Prime Trilogy was announced on May 22, 2009 for release in North America on August 24 of the same year. The Trilogy has also been announced for Europe and Australia and is to be released on September 4 and October 15 respectivley. The disc includes Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption with Wii controls, as well as new content, menus, and unlockable media.

Reception
Metroid Prime became one of the best-selling games on the GameCube, with about 1.49 million copies sold in the United States alone, earning more than $50 million in revenue. It is also the eighth best-selling GameCube game in Australia, and sold more than 78,000 copies in Japan and more than 250,000 copies in Europe, thus entering the Player's Choice line in the PAL region.

Critical response
After its release, the game received much critical acclaim, including a perfect review score from Electronic Gaming Monthly and Nintendo Power. IGN rated it high for its "very impressive graphics, amazing, innovative gameplay, how it stayed true to the classic Metroid formula, and its soundtrack." However, criticisms were also made, mostly for the unusual control scheme and backtracking.

Currently on Game Rankings, Metroid Prime stands as the sixth greatest game of all time and also the greatest game of the sixth console generation, with an average score of 96.26%. 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.

Metroid Prime was also included in several lists of best games: 24th in IGN's Top 100 and 1st in IGN's Top 25 Gamecube games of all time, 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 to share these speedruns.

Legacy
Metroid Prime was followed by two direct sequels in the same first-person adventure style, a pinball spin-off, and a portable Metroid game in first person perspective. The first sequel was Metroid Prime 2: Echoes for the GameCube released in November 2004, in which Samus travels to planet Aether and discovers that a Phazon meteor crash on the planet created a parallel universe; she is also pursued by Metroid Prime, now known as Dark Samus. Echoes was then followed by Metroid Prime Pinball, a spin-off game developed by Fuse Games and released in 2005 for the Nintendo DS. Metroid Prime Pinball is a pinball game that features all the locations and bosses of Metroid Prime.

The next game was Metroid Prime: Hunters for the Nintendo DS, with a storyline that happens between Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. 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 in North America and May 5, 2006 in Europe. The storyline follows Samus trying to discover an "ultimate power" while facing six rival bounty hunters. Hunters wasn't developed by Retro Studios, but by Redmond-based subsidiary Nintendo Software Technology (NST).

The high scores for a stage in the Nintendo GameCube game 1080º Avalanche (developed by the Metroid Prime Hunters team, NST) spell out: "MET "ROI" "D P".

The third sequel is Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, released on August 27, 2007 for the Wii. Corruption is the final installment in the Prime mini-series and introduces new hunters and characters, such as Rundas, another bounty hunter from the Galactic Federation. It follows Samus and the other hunters as they fight to stop the corruption of several planets by Phazon-rich Leviathans that threaten to turn the entire universe into Phazon. Super Smash Bros. Brawl features a level based on Frigate Orpheon with the Parasite Queen in the background, as well as various songs from the game as background music.

Metroid Prime contains several music pieces remixed from other Metroid games. The first Tallon Overworld is reminiscent of the original Metroid Brinstar music, and Magmoor Caverns features a remix of the music from Ridley's hideout in Super Metroid.

Trivia

 * The Metroids in the Space Pirate Research Lab are the ones evacuated from the destruction of the pirates' base on Zebes.
 * In the Metroid Prime Trilogy art booklet, it is stated that the events of this game take place three years after Metroid: Zero Mission.
 * In the Chozo Ruins, in one of the rooms where you get a Missile Expansion, one of the runes looks like the Legend of Zelda's Goron's Ruby.
 * In the Space Pirate Research Lab there is a Metroid named "Hunter Metroid ds", possibly a reference to Metroid Prime Hunters.