![]() ![]() Metroid Prime, by contrast, wants you to feel inquisitive toward its lonely landscapes, to seek understanding of your enemies as much as mastery over them. Your central relation to the game world is that of anxiety and, yes, dread. In Metroid Dread, you are encouraged to sprint through, keeping clear of enemies that, at the outset, you have no means of defeating. Shriekbats are “fiercely territorial.” Reaper Vines “keep a constant vigil.” Unlike so many of the lore entries that fill up our pause screens, Metroid Prime conveys a sense of inquisitiveness on the part of its protagonist, and indeed empathy for the environments she finds herself traversing, both by its accumulation of what are, in terms of gameplay ramifications, extraneous details, and also its insistence on inquiry as a mode of moving through the world. The Sap Sac has evolved to be explosive in order to ward off hungry herbivores. The aforementioned Geemer changes his behavior when he feels threatened. Outside of these dramatic encounters with larger enemies, Samus’ entries reveal quieter details about the world and its inhabitants. What begins as a scientific observation ends with a dead plant monster and the Varia Suit, a welcome sight to the recently weakened Samus and your ticket to the next area. The deduction is confirmed when the player realizes that the arena is lined with solar panels, and that Samus can deactivate them. In doing so, it becomes clear to the player that one must deprive the creature of sunlight in order to make any meaningful progress. In assessing the creature that stands before her, Samus considers what is required for it to live, outside of the context of her current entanglement. While this boss battle does, indeed, more or less boil down to “shoot the butt,” before one can get to that phase, some deduction is required. Concentrated weapon fire can daze it for short periods. Its lower root system is unprotected and vulnerable, however. This exposure has made Flaahgra’s outer shell thick and durable. As a result, it requires near-constant exposure to solar energy to remain active. Take the Log Book entry for Flaahgra, an early boss, for example:įlaahgra’s growth cycle has been radically accelerated. Much of the text is inconsequential to the game’s mechanics but is hugely important with respect to character and the texture of Prime’s narrative. Crucially, however, Metroid Prime does not throw a big block of text up on the screen that just says “Shoot the butt.” Instead, it situates this information in-fiction alongside scientific observations. Scanning enemies and bosses reveals information essential to defeating them, which heavily incentivizes the action, since an enemy’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities are not always obvious just from blasting at them. You can scan trees and architecture and creepy crawlers and more in Metroid Prime. Image: Retro Studios/Nintendo via Polygon What remains unchanged, insofar as I can tell, are the game’s many, many text entries. Metroid Prime Remastered looks great and plays smoothly in both TV and handheld mode, with new models and textures that are obviously updated but feel faithful to your childhood memories. This is an alien world, and you are alien to it. The soundtrack and sound design of Prime still evoke a sense of loneliness that few games have achieved to date. Replaying the game now at 32, I find myself taking my time with it. What did I care about the behavioral patterns of something called a Geemer? What was there to know about a War Wasp beside the fact that I should kill it before it kills me? As such, I remember skipping almost all of the game’s inessential log entries, which are helpfully marked as orange squares on your HUD versus the progression-critical red boxes. I played the original release of Metroid Prime when I was 12, when I had significantly less patience for reading than I do now. ![]() Playing from the claustrophobic, in-helmet perspective of Samus, you glean information about the world and its assorted flora and fauna, presented as text, collecting the entries in the bounty hunter’s Log Book throughout your adventure. One of your first objectives in Prime, a game in which you explore, solve puzzles, backtrack, and combat the occasional enemy in search of Chozo artifacts, is to scan your environment. ![]() If you want curated lists of our favorite media, check out What to Play and What to Watch. When we award the Polygon Recommends badge, it’s because we believe the recipient is uniquely thought-provoking, entertaining, inventive, or fun - and worth fitting into your schedule. Polygon Recommends is our way of endorsing our favorite games, movies, TV shows, comics, tabletop books, and entertainment experiences. ![]()
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