Metroid Prime is a quality game with its fair share of flaws.
Enter Metroid Prime, the series' first 3-D installment. While this game does stay true to the spirit of the original, there's no denying that it's quite different, too.
Arguably the most noticable difference is the viewpoint. The entire game is played from the view of Samus, behind her visor. Metroid Prime has little in common with first-person shooters aside from the viewpoint. Combat is not the main focus of the game, and enemies serve more as obstacles in your path than formidable opponents that need to be engaged to move on. This is why enemies are most often killed through the use of lock-ons that direct your aim toward the creatures.
The game provides you with a substantial amount of equipment to aid your exploration. Most of them aren't available right from the start and must be acquired throughout your travels, however. Some of this equipment is weapons, such as the default power beam along with ice, electrical, and fire beams. Missiles and bombs are also present in Samus's arsenal. The morph ball allows her to roll into a ball to access otherwise unreachable areas too small for her normally. A grapple beam lets you swing from designated objects and the space jump boots give you the ability to perform a double jump. You'll also have a variety of visors at your disposal. One lets you scan objects, another to see the heat signatures of enemies and items not visible to the naked eye, and one that lets you see through walls.
All of these objects are incorporated into the game's puzzles. Some might help you with jumping challenges. The beams can affect certain items; the electrical wave beam can energize certain devices, the fire beam can melt ice, etc. Many of these puzzles are quite ingenious and some can be a bit challenging, although they never become frustrating.
The entire gameplay experience is very polished. Controls are responsive and the game is finely-tuned and balanced. Metroid Prime is very different from most games out there.
However, many of the game's flaws are because of this. There is no free-aim usually. A button exists for Samus to stand still and look about, but it's rather sluggish. This was meant to convey a sense of weight, but it doesn't make any sense considering Samus can move her arm cannon fast enough in the game's few cutscenes. Instead, all movement is limited to the left analog stick, which feels very strange. There really was no reason to make such a different control scheme since the existing one for first-person games works well enough already. The lock-on combat removes much of the challenge, which wouldn't have been too bad if the only enemies in the game were obstacles. As it stands, the boss battles aren't really that good if they involve standard combat. All you need to do is lock on, keep firing, and dodge oncoming attacks. The only reason some are challenging is because the boss has quite a bit of healh and can do substantial damage with his attacks, some of which are difficult to dodge.
And while the puzzles in the game can be brilliant at times, there don't seem to be enough of those really good ones. Many of them tend to repeat, such as the "energize the switches" one. Much of the time the only puzzle will be to go find the item you need to progress.
Several parts of the game feel like chores, too. Scanning isn't exactly mandatory most of the time, but if you want to get everything in the game you'll need to scan everything. This is very boring. While it does give some good insight into the game's backstory, it's not exactly enjoyable work. A Metroid game isn't Metroid without some form of backtracking, and Metroid Prime has it just liike its predecessors. It doesn't seem to have translated very well into 3-D, however. Backtracking was perfectly tolerable and quite interesting in the 2-D entries, but here it just feels tedious.
There is no flaw in Metroid Prime's graphics, though. The game's environments look astounding and believable. Nothing short of the word "breath-taking" can begin to describe the world in Metroid Prime. Aside from the strangeness of each area being radically different, the planet you explore feels like a living, breathing world. The architecture is believable and the whole thing just looks fantastic. From the frozen beauty of Phendrana Drifts to the industrial bases of the Space Pirates, this is one great-looking game. The astounding attention to detail here is something few games can claim.
Is the first 3-D entry in the Metroid franchise worth it? The answer is a resounding "YES!". It does contain its fair share of flaws, but the quality of the entire game more than makes up for them. This is Metroid for the new generation, and it still contains all the charm the old games had, and more.