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Metroid Prime Remastered: completed!

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The very first time I ever posted to this blog, back in 2005, was to talk about Metroid Prime.  Reading back, my writing skills were a little lacking, with the post being almost entirely descriptive.  It appears that that was my second time of playing the game; the first time I’d got to a “plant boss” which I couldn’t defeat, whereas the second time I progressed past this for a couple of hours.  Assuming that the plant boss was Flaahgra, that means that I’d hardly touched the game either time; I’d have managed to explore most of the Chozo Ruins, maybe, but probably barely got to Magmoor Caverns. It’s all speculation; I can’t remember 19 years ago.

It’s all academic now in any case.  About a year ago, Nintendo released an updated version of Metroid Prime for the Switch, and I’ve been playing through it over the last month.  The game structure itself is identical, but it’s had a major graphical revamp and (more importantly) controls have been adjusted.  One thing I did recall about the Gamecube game was the difficulty I had in controlling Samus, not so much in terms of movement but in terms of looking around and finding enemies or points of interest.  The new game allows you to use classic controls, but having tried these against the standard dual stick controls, there’s a night and day difference.  I was able to get Samus to do what I wanted, and also look around to see what to do next.

And it was certainly worth looking around.  The original game was known as being good looking on the Gamecube, but this remaster has had a huge amount of effort poured into it which makes the world look astounding.  There’s so much detail to see and interact with; at times it seems a shame that the visor obscures your view a little so you lose some of the magnificence.

All the areas you explore are made of small rooms; there are no expansive vistas here. This is fortunate, given that you need to retrace your steps many times over as you unlock new doors and abilities; somehow they have made the world seem small yet simultaneously very expansive. This is helped by the variety in the levels – what my son would refer to as biomes – with snow and lava settings giving a diversity to the visuals.

What was interesting was seeing this very modern game with a slightly anachronistic structure.  Defined save points, signposted boss battles, secret pickups and upgrades – after the freedom afforded in Breath of the Wild and other open world games, this seemed quite old fashioned … yet this was at times to its benefit, with genuine tension arising from exploring the world and trying to find the next save room.

Everything was cleverly designed.  Enemies are varied and require different techniques to defeat (or, as you progress through the game, avoid and run past).  Platforming and traversal, particularly in the morph ball, had a lot of thought put into it, especially the mazes on magnetic rails.  When fighting a boss, I knew there was a way of avoiding attacks – even if I couldn’t actually do it consistently.

There are endless clever touches and one-off events.  I particularly liked the room which held a hologram of the solar system.

Looking at this was pretty tense, because each time I scanned something new I thought enemies were about to attack.  Tension was quite thick throughout the game, partially caused by the save system, but also because the enemies – particularly metroids – were generally quite unpredictable.  I’m not a huge fan of scary games, but this just landed on the right side for me.

The scanning mechanic was a bit tiresome.  Having to make sure you scan everything in order to get 100% completion, quickly became unrealistic after I forgot to scan one of the earlier bosses.  That’s probably a good thing, as otherwise I imagine I would have become quite obsessed, and a final number of 99% is probably worse than the 91% I ended up with.  I also didn’t find all the upgrades.  Going by the HUD at the end, I estimate that there was one energy pack I didn’t find, and there must have been quite a few missile and power bomb expansions left unfound.  I am also assuming [and I don’t want to know otherwise] that there weren’t map stations (to reveal unexplored rooms) in every region, since I only found them in three.

It’s taken me 20 years or 19 years or four weeks, depending on your starting point, but I have completed the game.  I didn’t have much of an issue with any of the normal enemies, and faltered at only a couple of the bosses.  The omega pirate took a few attempts before I realised that he was recharging his health from time to time.  Meta Ridley just took far too long to kill.  The first time I got to the core of Metroid Prime I had a single energy tank remaining, and died before I worked out how to do any damage.  Otherwise, the difficulty was pitched exactly right to make it challenging but not disheartening.

Now to wait for the remaster of the second game.

Portal 2 Co-op (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Why yes, I did decide to play Portal 2 after Portal. And yes, I have played Portal 2 before. But! I haven’t played this Portal 2 before. I shall explain.

What I’d never realised before, is that co-op mode in Portal 2 is not Portal 2 with two players. No, it’s a completely separate game. Different levels, different plot, different player character(s), just all set in the same world as Lonely Boi Portal 2. With two players at the same time.

With two players, you get two pairs of portals. Although they’re not linked (so player 1’s two portals operate independently to player 2’s), they can be entered by either player. What this means, is that the level puzzles aren’t just twice as complicated, they’re exponentially more complicated to solve. That, and you absolutely must work more closely as a team than any other game I’ve ever played before. Yes, even more so than something like Overcooked, where one player can pick up the slack for the other – you can’t so that here.

To illustrate this, I present A Video.

And that was a pretty simple example.

I played through the game with my daughter, and coming up with solutions together was great. There’s a fantastic “point at somewhere and the other player will see the marker” feature, which is invaluable for “put a portal right there” moments. It certainly meant less marker pen on the TV, anyway. There are also a number of useless but fun emotes the two robots (Atlas and P-Body) you play as can perform, like dances and high-fives, and you can’t not play something like this without accidentally on purpose pushing, or portalling, your co-op partner into the acid or ineffectually shooting them over and over with your portal gun for no reason whatsoever.

An added complication with two players was that because you have two players, often the solution to get one player to the goal doesn’t match the solution for the second player, meaning that we needed two solutions much of the time. Things were made somewhat harder for us because, somehow, we started the game by playing through Area 6 without realising, and that’s the final set of levels in the game and certainly the most difficult. A bit of a baptism by fire, really, but it did mean we were absolute pros when it came to playing Area 1 immediately afterwards.

Such a great game, and also a massive shame there’s no follow up. More co-op games like this please.

Portal (Switch): COMPLETED!

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It has been a while. I’ve often thought about playing through Portal again, especially since I have it on Steam and so could play it on my Steam Deck. So, naturally, I bought it for the Switch. To be fair, it was a bundle of Portal and Portal 2, and it was on sale for under £3. And you can’t own the same game on too many platforms.

Although it looks a little dated now, perhaps not as much as it would otherwise thanks to the graphic style and mostly “plain” areas, Portal still holds up really well as both clever and a game that makes you feel clever for solving the puzzles. I still remembered the overall plot, but had almost completely forgotten each level’s puzzles so in some ways it felt like playing a new Portal game. Which is nice.

It’s still funny, the cake is still a lie (or not), and I very much enjoyed it. Again.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Donkey Kong ’94 on the Game Boy is one of my favourite platformers. After the first four levels, which are the same as the original Donkey Kong arcade game, it becomes this massive puzzle platformer with a very agile Mario up against Donkey Kong. Mario vs. Donkey Kong, the Game Boy Advance sequel, was also great, but it introduced levels with mini Mario toys in it that you have to help to the exit in a very Troddlers/Krusty’s Super Fun House sort of way. I didn’t enjoy those as much, but the majority of the levels are in the “original” style so it was fine.

Later follow-ups focus almost entirely on these mini Mario type levels and I lost interest in the series. While I’d love a new one just like Donkey Kong ’94, that isn’t happening so I took a punt on this – a remake of the GBA game. And, as it turns out, it’s bloody good.

Of course, it’s pretty much the same game as it was before, only with extra polish on the graphics. It was too long ago that I played the GBA version to remember how the puzzles were solved, so it’s nearly new to me anyway.

If you’ve never played any in this Mario spin-off series, then the purpose of each small level is to firstly get to the key and drop it into a keyhole, followed by another short level where you have to rescue a mini Mario toy. Puzzles come in the form of coloured switches that make platforms, barrier and ladders appear (or disappear), conveyor belts, lasers, and various enemies you have to avoid or make use of as steps. Mario has various jumps and backflips and can handstand so feels really athletic. Not quite Mario 64, but fun to throw around the screen. The gameplay remains intact from the GBA game, but added cut scenes and improved music help make it feel like a new game.

Now Nintendo, make another one only without the mini Marios. Thanks xx.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age (Switch): COMPLETED!

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With the original Golden Sun ending on a cliff-hanger, and The Lost Age carrying on directly from it (or rather, from slightly before the end of the first game), I didn’t really have a choice but to start it immediately afterwards. Well, not quite immediately, as you can transfer your saved game from the first game to the follow-up but this required half an hour of password input and correction.

Not that you see the benefit of the password for some 30+ hours of gameplay, because you don’t start as the same characters. Instead, you take on the role of one of the antagonists of the first game, Felix. He’s not really bad, and was assisting the real bad guys under extreme duress, but his goal is still the same if for a different reason: to light the lighthouses. Of which there are two remaining after the original title, if you recall.

The basic gameplay remains the same as the original, and in terms of art, music, and even most of the baddies encountered, there’s not much different here. It’s very clear that both games were planned to be a single game but then for Reasons (cartridge size, development deadlines, MONEY, whatever) it was split in two, Sonic 3 & Knuckles style. What is new includes a couple of new characters for your party, some additional “magic” moves (like being able to make ropes span gaps), and – much later in the game – boating.

Yes, at some point in the story you gain access to a ship, which lets you travel most of the world by sea, docking at beaches and (I didn’t realise for a long time until I did it by accident) sailing up rivers. Later still, your ship gets the ability to fly allowing access to even more areas although you can’t fly over cliffs, trees or mountains so you still have to initiate “flying over land” from a river or beach.

Dungeons and towers are similar to the first game, although I found them generally more puzzle-focussed than before. I also found it less obvious where, on the overworld, I was supposed to go next. It is, especially once the boat gets involved, a less linear game, but it’s harder to discern exactly where the next sensible location to visit would be. That is part of the reason why I took about 40 hours to complete The Lost Age, compared to about 20 for the original, but the game is obviously far bigger anyway. The map is larger, there’s more to do, and you seem to spend much more time back-tracking and revisiting towns than you did before.

The final boss was an imposing three headed dragon, who could attach sometimes four times in one round. That sounds tricky, but actually, a combination of “heal everyone” Alchemy and the odd djinn heal/buff/defend every turn and actually, it was easy. I made much more use of djinn this time around (spoiler: the saved game transfer pulls in those you found previously once your party is bolstered somewhat in the later part of the game, so you end up with loads), mainly in the form of Massive Summons for bosses.

With the full game, as both parts are, complete, I can say it is still fantastic. I don’t think I ever got round to The Lost Age when it first came out (I bought it, but Other Things were played), so I’ve come to this after playing more modern JRPGs and can say it still holds up well. There’s no point playing The Lost Age without the first game though, so you really need to treat it as a single massive adventure.