Perfect Translation
The controls are perfect. I have heard from other reviews that they are offbeat for a first person shooter/adventure, but they work flawlessly. The wide array of weaponry is fantastic, from four different beams to missile combos to morph ball bombs... its all there and used consistently throughout the game.
Not that it truly matters, but the graphics really pushed the gamecube above and beyond anything it had produced before. It looks marvelous and really brings the superb art direction to life. The atmosphere is unlike any other game and that is really what keeps me coming back for more.
The story is told through scanning pirate data and chozo lore entry. The writing is excellent and the story, though told in short blurbs, is so interesting that the player will actually enjoy finding new data entries. You know its something special when a video game can do that. Scanning in general is a good thing, almost everything is scannable and has some kind of information attached to it.
Combat is slightly repetitive, the games only somewhat flaw. Enemies respawn quickly and those pirates and chozo ghosts can be a bit annoying. However, the boss fights make up for all of it. They are fantastic, grandeur, tricky, intense... they are beyond words, and there is always a building of suspense before taking one on. You can read about them before hand via scanning the pirates computers, especially omega pirate, making the actual fight that much greater.
Everything comes together so smoothely in MP. It all just clicks and thats so rare. There is so much work and detail put into the game, its impossible not to appreciate. This is 2D to 3D in all its perfection. Retro did a mind blowing job with the creation of this masterpiece. Playing it just once is impossible. You'll be playing it over and over again, just to reexperience the awesomeness that is Metroid Prime.