29th November 2004, 1:00 PM
Ok I'm about 11 or 12 hours into the game and recently beat the spider ball guardian in Sanctuary Fortress, so here are some more impressions:
It's both better and worse than Metroid Prime. The better points are: graphics, architecture, art, music, and difficulty. The graphics are a bit better than Prime on a technical level, but because of the much-improved art and designs of the environments it's definitely the prettier game. The music is also a lot better overall, with some great SM remixes and some original ones as well. This is the best Metroid soundtrack after Super. The higher difficulty is also great, as it has been just the right toughness without being cheap.
However, at the same time is does things worse than Prime. The main problem I have with the game is not that it's very similar to Prime in almost every respect, but that the progression is flawed. One of the best parts of the Metroid series is the feeling of progression that you have throughout the entire experience. You start off with minimum armor, weapons, and abilities, and gradually gain new stuff which allows you to reach new areas in the game, and make you feel like a badass. All of the Metroid games do that wonderfully, all of them except for Echoes. I'm not far from the end of the game and I've only gotten one new visor (just an hour or two ago), one new suit (early in the game), two new weapons (early in the game), and a couple of suit/jump upgrades. I expect to see one more suit, one more weapon, and one more visor. As well as the screw attack. The problem isn't just that there are fewer upgrades than previous Metroid titles, but that they are spread out so unevenly. The sense of progression is messed up because of that. And to make matters worse the two extra beams that I have require ammo, which means that I can't use them very often. Much of this is because of the light/dark world theme of the game, and I think that if they nixed that idea the progression would have been much better. The whole collecting keys/artifacts thing isn't really necessary, either. There shouldn't be collecting junk, just gaining new items and abilities to gain access to new areas.
Prime 1 also had a bit of a problem with the beam system, as you had to switch between them non-stop. Echoes doesn't make you do that very often. A much better system would be the 2D Metroid way, where the upgrades literally just add to your current weapon. No tedious beam-switching. When more beam types are added to your single beam, it makes you feel like you're actually adding to your old weapon instead of replacing that. I hope Retro realizes this and fixes it for Metroid Revolution.
So while Echoes is a terrific game much like Prime, Retro Studios has much that they can improve upon and fix in order to make the ultimate 3D Metroid game.
And it's still too early to tell if this is the better game than Prime.
It's both better and worse than Metroid Prime. The better points are: graphics, architecture, art, music, and difficulty. The graphics are a bit better than Prime on a technical level, but because of the much-improved art and designs of the environments it's definitely the prettier game. The music is also a lot better overall, with some great SM remixes and some original ones as well. This is the best Metroid soundtrack after Super. The higher difficulty is also great, as it has been just the right toughness without being cheap.
However, at the same time is does things worse than Prime. The main problem I have with the game is not that it's very similar to Prime in almost every respect, but that the progression is flawed. One of the best parts of the Metroid series is the feeling of progression that you have throughout the entire experience. You start off with minimum armor, weapons, and abilities, and gradually gain new stuff which allows you to reach new areas in the game, and make you feel like a badass. All of the Metroid games do that wonderfully, all of them except for Echoes. I'm not far from the end of the game and I've only gotten one new visor (just an hour or two ago), one new suit (early in the game), two new weapons (early in the game), and a couple of suit/jump upgrades. I expect to see one more suit, one more weapon, and one more visor. As well as the screw attack. The problem isn't just that there are fewer upgrades than previous Metroid titles, but that they are spread out so unevenly. The sense of progression is messed up because of that. And to make matters worse the two extra beams that I have require ammo, which means that I can't use them very often. Much of this is because of the light/dark world theme of the game, and I think that if they nixed that idea the progression would have been much better. The whole collecting keys/artifacts thing isn't really necessary, either. There shouldn't be collecting junk, just gaining new items and abilities to gain access to new areas.
Prime 1 also had a bit of a problem with the beam system, as you had to switch between them non-stop. Echoes doesn't make you do that very often. A much better system would be the 2D Metroid way, where the upgrades literally just add to your current weapon. No tedious beam-switching. When more beam types are added to your single beam, it makes you feel like you're actually adding to your old weapon instead of replacing that. I hope Retro realizes this and fixes it for Metroid Revolution.
So while Echoes is a terrific game much like Prime, Retro Studios has much that they can improve upon and fix in order to make the ultimate 3D Metroid game.
And it's still too early to tell if this is the better game than Prime.