Just Like Metroid Prime 1, but slightly better. It was worth the wait.
User Rating: 9.4 | Metroid Prime 2: Echoes GC
Ok. Metroid Prime. Recived my highest personal score of a 9.9. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes does everything it does, only better. I'll break it down into it's core components. Gameplay: 9\10 Story: As always, you play through the eyes of Samus Aran, the kick-ass female bounty hunter that wears a Chozo Power Suit that was given to her. You're alone on a planet, again, while on a rescue mission. You're sent to a planet called Aether, where a Federation warship filled with troops has crash landed. At least it starts out that way, later on you recive your real mission. The Luminoth and Ing, who live in seperate realms from each other, are at war. The Luminoth were here first, until a Phazon Meteor crashed into the planet, riping it into a Dark World and a Light World. It's up to you to restore the peace. Like Metroid Prime 1, most of the story is uncovered using the famous Scan Visor, where you'll scan everything from creatures and bosses to Federation Trooper log entries and Space Pirate recordings. However, unlike last time, some of the story in shown in beautiful FMV cutscenes that will blow your mind. Also, this game has the Space Pirates, who play a small role in the plot, Metroid, who were brought here by the Space Pirates, and a mysterious Dark Samus, though some people have already figured out who it is. Controls: The controls haven't changed much. You still use a single stick for movement and aiming, and you use the L for locking onto the enemy. R still activates "Look Around" mode. Z is your map, though I rarely use it. Your C-Stick still controls your current weapon, and you still have only four possible beams. You also have four possible Visors, which are controled with the Directional Pad. A little history lesson. Strangely enough, the D-Pad was invented by Gunpei Yokoi, the original creator of Metroid. Anyway, you still jump with B and shoot with A, and you still have missiles on Y and Morph Ball on X. If you liked these controls on Metroid Prime, you'll like them here. Difficulty: They jacked the difficulty up on this one, making weak spots harder to find at times. I had major problems with it until I threw out all the tricks I learned with Metroid Prime 1 and started using new tricks. I think they went a little too far on difficulty on some things, but it makes for a nice pinwheel center if you hate it. I sure didn't. Multiplayer: Didn't expect this in a Metroid game, did you? It plays a lot like the single player mode, though you and up to three friends can fight each outher in a total of two modes and six maps. You have the normal Deathmatch, where kills are the key to victory. You also have the Bounty mode, which plays like Super Smash Bros. Melee's Coin Mode. You hurt your opponents to get coins, and the person with the most coins wins. You get almost all of the powerups from the single player mode, plus some new ones to replace what you lost, such as Deathball and Hacker Mode. Also, you won't have everything unlocked at first. You have to unlock four maps and several music tracks through the single player mode. Reason for score: The difficulty is the reason I docked a point, though, as it targets only a certian group of people because of the way it's made. The difficulty will have most people wanting to hurt whoever is sitting next to them. Graphics: 9\10 The graphis are wonderful, just like in the last Metroid Prime, but they really didn't improve them enough for my tastes. Maybe if they used some Bump Maps and maybe fixed the collision detection in some areas, it would have been better. The level of detail is still pretty much the same, though noticable in some areas. It would have been better if the Dark World areas didn't look exactly alike in each area you went into. The Power Suit has never looked better, though. Reason for score: The docked point is due to the limited improvements, few and far inbetween as they are. Sound: 9\10 Sounds effects were mainly reused, though rightfully so. The sounds in this game make up some of the best heard on the Gamecube. I have only stereo sound which produces a Psudo-Surround Sound experience, and the ambient sounds were great. The enemies made sounds that will scare the **** out of you at times. The music is great, though it was repetitive at times. Some will even notice that some songs are remixes of music from past Metroid games. I did have to shut off the music at one point, though, as it just got on my nerves. Reason for score: I docked a point due to the repetitiveness of the music. Value: 10\10 Ah, this game is amazing, and will have you playing it for hours at a time. The multiplayer mode is fantastic, the story mode will have you playing hours on end, and there's enough of a challenge to have you on the edge of your seat. Overall: I love the Metroid series. I have a copy of EVERY game for it, meaning Metroid 1 for NES, Metroid 2 for GameBoy, Super Metroid for the SNES, Metroids Fusion and Zero Mission fo the GBA, and Metroid Primes 1 and 2 for the Gamecube. None of them have scored under a 9.2. I'm no fanboy, don't get me wrong, I just love this series. Metroid Prime 2 continues to impress me every time I look at it. I would like to make three small points, though. 1) Please don't gripe about another person's review or opinion. I see fanboys do this a lot, and it really does make some people feel down. Please, respect the opinions of others and they will respect your's. Remember, this review is what I see the game as. Weither or not you agree is up to you. 2) To Retro. If you read this, DON'T make it harder for sequence breakers to break the game. Sequence Breaking adds to the replay value, so please, all I ask is for you do do us a favor and make it a little more Sequence Breaker friendly. 3) I just want to say that I appreciate what Gunpei Yokoi has done for us. He's created many great inventions, including the Directional pad and the Metroid series. He may be in heaven now, but I hope he knows how much we appreciate what he has done, even if some people don't. I'll end this by saying that this game is worth the money that I paid for it. Go get it. NOW! -Yameneko549 (aka Tera\Dyne) 
