Hyper Beam the LIKE BUTTON if you enjoyed this in-depth Review of Metroid Prime Remastered for the Nintendo Switch. Thank you all very much for your support as always.
best remaster ever?.., almost => hard mode should have been accessible from the start.. ... and now fear MP4 will end up being too easy ... this is what happens, when too many complain about Dread being too hard ... and if we don't complain about MP Remaster being too easy on normal mode, MP4 might just be too easy too (MP Remaster normal mode = is what easy mode would have been for the OG NGC MP version)
I was overwhelmed with joy when I saw that it was dropping the same day it was announced. The fact that it still holds up with today's releases just speaks on how ahead of its time this masterpiece was. It's crazy that the og is more than 20 years old. I knew it would be good but Retro Studios knocked it out of the park with this remaster. It's a no brainer why this game is considered to be one of the highest scored games of all time. 10/10
I only got a switch maybe 3-4 months ago I got an OLED I was super disappointed to find out there was no metroid prime.. Sure enough a remastered dropped and it's just awesome exactly what I wanted
So was I. I've always Saud that if Nintendo did a Prime remater it was day one for me. Actually, day two is when I downloaded it. They did one hell of a remater.
Nintendo doing the right path, adding Metroid Fusion, Zero Mission on NSO and hopefully MP2&3. Aiming new players that never played those gems and for sure one of the best IP from Nintendo.
@@boccatosantos If only Nintendo would swallow their pride and take a page from Sega's book by allowing the masterpiece that is AM2R to be ported to the Switch.
Your level of detail when producing an almost documentary-like video like this is astonishing. You’re a true gift to all the Metroid Fans in the entire world. Thank you dave. Cheers from Brazil!
Can't wait to see dark splinters and prime 2 remaster, very impressed with this, couldn't stop telling my daughter I played this when I was her age and "that looks beautiful!" "I love how they updated the sap sac, oh, BTW there's a missle expansion under that bridge, man they did great with..." they set the bar high with this one, hope they blow my socks off again with prime 2
Yeah I've beat the game 100% multiple times, this was just showing the area for comparison purposes. If you want to see me beat the game watch my Live 100% complete playthrough here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uD7vwap2AMY.html
Slight error, metroids were created AFTER Samus was born, during her lifetime. They would be completely confined to SR388, where they were created. Metroids were brought to Tallon 4 by the Space Pirates, who had captured several specimens and were breeding them. They would begin feeding many of these metroids phazon. We later learn in Prime 3 that a metroid mutated by phazon gains the ability to become intangible and phase through solid objects, and then later mutates into a grounded, armored form that loses this ability. So: a metroid gets mutated by phazon, phases into the impact site, matures into the hard carapace form, trapping itself inside, and continues feeding on the massive supply of phazon until it becomes Metroid Prime. This is also where all the other metroids in the meteor come from, they are the offspring of Metroid Prime, who even births metroids as an attack in its final phase.
metroids were also created to deal with the x parasite. when samus exterminated them in samus returns it put the galaxy at risk. the chozo created the metroids to deal with the x parasite. metroid fusion was pretty scary getting chased by the sa-x parasite
@@eriknewton4656 Man, SA-X was some scary shit. Whenever it spotted me I'd have a heart attack while trying to escape it. Even when it didn't spot me and I was trying to sneak around it, I was still sweating bullets. Some good stuff in Fusion. They kind of tried to replicate that with the robots in Dread, but SA-X was just on another level.
I’m here for this. Loved this Remaster + I’ve never seen a remaster completely redo the character models, geography, textures, lighting, effects and controls. I’ve had a lot of fun playing this again. It’s rare that you enjoy a game more 20 years later. AND I’m enjoying all the RU-vid content covering it.
4:32 to be more specific on this, samus' mother pushed Samus out of the way when ridley (at the time a general of the space pirates) was about to kill Samus effectively killing samus' mother. the space pirates invaded the planet to obtain a plant or something (I don't know what it is but it was the reason the planet was thriving) and samus father sneaked on the ship that had all of this material. this material was highly flammable and in space (as the ship was leaving the planet) samus' father ignited the material causing the ship to explode as he'd rather die and have none of the material be in the wrong hands than well the material being in the wrong hands.
Fantastic video. I totally agree; this game is a timeless gem. I first played it xmas of 2002, when my folks got it for me along with the wave bird controller. I'll never forget how it made me feel. It still does, thanks to aging like fine wine.
What I find interesting about the beam light effects on walls in the remaster is that they are still there, but much much less noticeable. The best you can see them is if you cling to a nearby wall and fire into the distance. The beam will reflect onto the wall. It works best for ice beam and somewhat good for the power beam. But for some strange reason the power beam begins reflecting 5 meters away from samus The charge beam doesn’t reflect at all Which makes me even more confused. I think this is a bug, they can easily fix it. It works for the ice beam perfectly but the effects suffer for the Power Beam and are almost non existent for the Wave and Plasma beam As for ruin mirror reflections. They simply are completely missing
A minor but peculiarly common misconception I've been seeing tossed around is people calling the Frigate Orpheon a 'space station' when it's actually a ship. The reason it's got Frigate in its name is because Frigate is a classification of vessel. I just think it's an interesting detail.
I love that if you attempt to access the underwater frigate before having the correct suit, you’ll still get an energy tank for your trouble. You have to turn back, you don’t feel like you wasted your time backtracking. Great game design. Essential for any Metroidvania.
NGC was the last Nintendo era, that had insane soundtracks (Metroid P1&2, Zelda WW & TP).., after that the next Metroids & Zelda (SS & BOTW) didnt have such epical soundtracks anymore (the best tracks are like remakes of the older ones)
I really hope, they will finally add 3rd triggers to the back of the system / controller.., which you can access with your middle and/or ring finger.. Hori has 3rd party controllers, with additional triggers, you can assign buttons to.. ... and playing Metroid Prime Remaster, with those additional triggers, where you can don't have use/move your thumbs or index finger, so they can focus on the action & movement.., and let your middle/ring finger pull up the scan or jump feels soo gud & fluid!.. PLEASE ADD 3RD TRIGGERS, BUT ADD THEM LOW.., WHERE THE MIDDLE/ RING FINGERS ARE (not to be use with the index fingers, like the first two triggers)
One thing I hope is still in there is a detail that blew my mind when I noticed it. The hand symbols for the weapons on the visor are the hand positions Samus seems to use to choose the corresponding beams. With the X-ray visor, you can see inside your canon and see the hand position. Wave beam is fingers all outstretched, for instance. So cool.
I don't think Prime 2 and 3 will be getting this Remaster treatment, but I'll be content with just a Switch port with updated controls and 1080p resolution
@robertkenny1201 Prime 2 maybe, but I don't think they'll remake/remaster Prime 3. Just an updated Switch port that looks better than it did on the Wii.
Since launch, I'm on my 4th playthrough, let alone having beaten the gamecube, wii, and wiiu versions like 6+ times. To say that I love this version is a bit of an understatement. I still sport the original controls and I am totally okay with that. I bought both the digital and physical versions. I think I like Prime.
Removing the lighting effects should have very little to say about performance. For a game about immersion, the missing lights really breaks the illusion. You even see the beams light up the inside of the visor but not the world. All in all the original feels better to play and is still the version to get. Hopefully this oversight will get patched.
Still have my Nintendo power Metroid Prime guide when we got a GameCube on Christmas 2002 and now i have the physical copy of the remaster. What a good time to be alive 😭😭😭.
6:00 quick correction. There were never any Metroids on Tallon IV among the Chozo. Metroids did not appear on the planet until the Space Pirates of Frigate Orpheon brought them over.
The storyline you're giving was retconned with the PAL version. The trilogy version and remastered both follow the PAL version's story. Metroid Prime's origin was no longer a metroid (in fact, metroids weren't on the planet at all until the pirates arrived relatively recently). We...actually don't know what it was exactly. But you see similar husks on Phaaze. The reason all these retcons happened was because when the game was originally developed, we didn't know the origin of the metroids and they were more mysterious. In that version, it was a mutated metroid. But when Fusion came out on the same day, that storyline no longer fit (due to them being engineered by the Chozo), because metroids were not on Tallon IV until the pirates brought them. Fusion implied it, while Samus Returns and Dread confirmed that the Chozo confined metroids to SR388, and there were never anywhere else until the pirates got involved. So they went a different direction with the story. I was hoping Prime 3 would explain Prime/Dark Samus's origin, but other than the husks on Phaaze (which a scan indicates are similar to Metroid Prime's exoseketon), we still have no clue. The metroids on Phaaze were brought there recently by Dark Samus.
The water physics are even better than people realize. The riples will actually refract off of surfaces bouncing back. Especially in smaller bodies of water. The lighting off of bullets are still there but mutes which is probably more realistic where as the og release had more exadurated lighting. It is sad that they muted the lighting in the darkest areas but that will hopefully be rectified with patches on stronger hardware. I think the explosions of the seeds are fine. Its just a lens flash missing which I'm fine with. My issue is with the explosion of the flying space pirates. Those are severely muted and no reflection of samus face during the explosion. Sound and graphics are so good I wanna play this with my LABO VR lol this is definitely the best FPS VR experience!
They did have to add all they added, such as the 2d reflections and details such as the raindrops on the cannon in order for the game to come out as beautifully as it did.
Awesome analysis! My favorite video of all the ones I’ve seen on the remaster! Subscribed! Metroid Prime is one my all time favorite games and it’s such a treat to see a fan like me go in such depth 😊.
I think the dulling of the Sap Sac explosion and lens flare in Chozo Ruins is more-so a measure to prevent eye-strain in players with visual impairments or cognitive disabilities. I noticed a few similar VFX changes when I was playing, but nothing ruined my immersion. Great job on this video Dave!
@@yourehereforthatarentyou I hadn't even thought about that... jeez, that really sucks. I don't get why that's there either, because while I didn't get motion sick, it still makes the environment harder to see than it was in the original.
The artistry on display in this game can make me forget that the machine I’m playing it on is less powerful than my 4 year old phone. It is one of the VERY few games during which I’m not even conscious of my Switch’s puny power. I’m just appreciating an excellent experience. There’s an integrity to its entire presentation that’s very rare on Switch.
Great video Dave! I have a request actually, would you be willing to make Metroid Prime f4 recap video? Listing all of the talented people retro has hired to help work on this game. From developers, artist, story writers, etc.
Excellent and thorough review! What's your take on whether Retro Studios is Remastering Metroid Prime 2 and 3? Do you think Nintendo is just holding on to those for now and will release them when they finally get closer to a Metroid Prime 4 release?
I think Prime 2 and 3 are right around the corner, I imagine they'll be dropped with no warning in a very similar way to Prime 1, and it won't be much longer until we see Prime 4. This might all be part of a marketing plan for Prime 4 as well. The lead in. It's exciting :)
Hi Dave, thank a lot for this amazing in-depth review. I haven't played the remaster yet, since I wait for the physical release (which will be end of next week for us Europeans) and I can't wait to fall in love with this game all over again! I just have two remarks: 1. In the video you say the shadows are hand drawn by artists. That us not true. They are 'baked' meaning you make a light calculation for the room you create and then bake the shadows into the texture information, so that it becomes part of the texture. 2. You say that the reflection of the morphball is done by creating a new image and use it to fake a reflection. Those are screens space reflections. Meaning the game takes information of the currently created image and replicate them in the reflection. This is also why the effect looks weird when the arm cannon is reflected or why this technique can't be used to reflect Samus aran like in the one room in the gamecube version.
What you said in #1 is not true, as in, not all shadows are created in the way you are saying for "pre-baked" solutions. I probably should have said "appear to be hand drawn" but overall yes, some do appear hand drawn, which would save on using memory for actual shadows. Developers actually use that technique a lot, like in the game Journey on PS3, the developer said he hand drew the shadows himself: twitter.com/matt_nava/status/1503152810078052355?lang=en and it was one of the most visually beautiful games on the PS3. Also, sometimes the best solution is to "do it yourself" meaning that you (as a dev) need to artificially create a shadow to make it look the best in a given scenario. For #2, for the faked reflections, if they were "screen space" reflections they definitely are not truly "reflecting" is what I was trying to say. They were duplicating the same exact image, not mirrored and simply doubled on the ice, that is not a reflection, that is simply doubling the same image twice. It might look like a reflection at first glance sure, but when you look closely you can tell it's not really a reflection, it's fake. It might be hard to understand what I mean, but the point is, those aren't actually reflections, since a real screen space reflection would actually mirror the object and you'd see the opposite image of it just like how a reflection is supposed to look, in this game, it doesn't do that and copies 1 to 1 the same object without any mirrored effect.
Thanks for your thorough answers Dave! 1. Thanks for the link. I indeed haven't heard about the technique to hand draw shadows before and to me it sounds like unnecessary work. Maybe Journey did it to achieve a certain look. Prebaking shouldn't take more resources then hand drawing though since in both cases the shadows will just be part of the texture. 2. Thanks for clarifying. Now I understand better what you meant. You are right that it doesn't actually mirrors the morphball or the arm cannon and it also doesn't mirror the environment. But whatever technique they are using: I'm not sure why they would just mirror the image for the reflection. That shouldn't be expensive at all.
Awesome review!! Played original on game cube on 2002 and now the remaster 2x with 100%, still don't know which I prefer. Prime or Super Metroid 😂 two masterpieces
This is a very awesome take and detailed review for this game. I’m experiencing it for the first time. One of the frustration I had so far was the use of the dash ability of morph ball where you need to do the dance in half pipe. Tried so hard to finally get up to the other side. Other than that, awesome game so far.
Actually, the Chozo leave their physical forms and leave Tallon before the leviathan struck the planet. The violence of phazon brings the Chozo ghosts back to Tallon IV. Even as ghosts they became corrupted
Everyone please help let me know when they shadow drop the next one, also really curious to hear "they sold X copies in 2005 and now sold 3X for the remaster, love hearing that stuff"
I'd also love to see the grapple beam used to leach energy from near dead and stunned enemies or conduits rather than left over floating pickups. Bring back charging bombs for power bomb. sped energy for all weapon types rather than pickups. ie. 10 energy per missile. Have more use for morphball in combat. Greater defense, speed, and agility. Design combat around getting and out of morphball. I'll stop there.
I recommend getting an mClassic if you’re playing on a 4k tv, it looks even better. It upscales the signal and dials up the sharpness and saturation a notch.
I tried electrocuting a flying pirate before freezing to then finish off with a single missile and that doesn't work anymore. Well sometimes I can freeze them the moment after they are finished being electrocuted but that is usually jut luck. I'd love to see options to use your weapons in series like what I described in Prime 4. Doubt that is on anyone's mind but it would be awesome and keep everything relevant.
First game I ever played back in 2002. Imagine if you will: a 23 year old shmoe returning to monke when just the headline appears in the Nintendo Direct. Still my favorite game ever, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Couple of inaccurate statements in this video: The "reflections" you talk of in Phendrana are not that. They are simply screen space artifacts as a result of the transparent ice shader that is being used. The projectile dynamic lights are not actually removed from the remaster, just toned down in radius dramatically. This was probably not done to increase performance but rather a visual design choice in line with reducing the size and glare of the projectiles across the game in general. The next Nintendo console will have backward compatibility with Switch games. Switch games won't be "ported" to it and therefore won't have extra features or effects added. That's not how things work.
The trilogy with the original Wii pointer controls was my jam. It got me in the zone lime nothing else. The pointer controls here give me a taste of that, until it goes haywire no matter how much I recalibrate, and I’m forced to go back to dual analog.
I button mapped as close to the the Wii controls as I could and where I couldn't, tried to stay with the GameCube style. With the remapping, R & RZ are my beams and missiles (with X also being missiles like on GameCube for beam/missile combos) and the A button I have mapped to calibrate. This allows it to be done easily even while I'm in a tough fight. Also, I've found that exiting to the Switch home screen is more effective when calibrating through the system (not using the calibration button) like when it tells you to but the joycon down on a flat surface.
I stuck with he default controls assuming it will pretty much the the standard going into Prime 4. Though a different button for morphball vs non for jumping drives me crazy. I I don't know how many times I still accidentally fire and charge shot rather than a super missile. And I've played it from start to end 3 times over already. I still often fail to swap my beam instead swapping visor which can be a huge mess in combat. I hope they don't settle on this layout. It needs work and I'd love an update to the button timing on shifting the D-pad to visor select. I would use the free aim but Prime is not designed for it so unless you just want the added challenge it is pointless. I suspect however Prime 4 with have fine tuning your aim like Prime 2 and it will matter more. Extra credit note. Fine tuning you aim in Prime 2 while still locked on was my idea. As was how screw attack/ space jump and wall jump can work. I wrote Retro a letter while they were working on it and they replied good ideas they were sending it up the chain. Low and behold they did is all exactly how I said. I even specified the button actions. No name in credits and could be a massive coincidence but I know better. Makes me happy.
Thank you Sir! Very informative review. I loved the story part a lot! I am very happy that they put gyro controls. It is the best way tobplay in my opinion. I wish they make a solution so player never have to recenter it. 🤞Super Switch🤞
or u just play with pointer which is prob the easiest way ever to change the cannon with just the right stick. Felt really nice and smooth while in a fight compared to dual stick controls but of course now u have to aim urself haha
in hard difficult they predict where you will be and shoot to that point.. if you mash left and right while facing the enemy they 'll shoot to your side and miss every shot
I suspect This remake exists because it was a study case for Prime 4 while coders did their thing and or for new artists to get their feet wet. That art style though loved is a bit unrestrained. I also suspect we will see faster and more frenetic gameplay in Prime 4 borrowing inspiration from the new Doom games as well as the success of Dread. Samus will have more free rain in ledges to climb and it will be quick.
It is amazing how good og Prime looks by just upping the res to 4k. Then add in some antialiasing and oh boy that game still looks amazing! Just a bit low poly here and there.
Great video, Dave, as always. Really appreciate the story explanation! I bought both the digital and physical copies of Remastered. Question: do you think it’s possible that Nintendo would skip releasing Prime 2 & 3 and just jump to Prime 4? I know that seems crazy, but it is Nintendo.
Why is it whenever someone talks about Prime 4 they don't ask: how can there be a Prime 4 when the prime (dark samus) died in the third game? Also, the 4 they show off has blue all over it, that's representing phazon, but just like dark samus all phazon was destroyed in the third game. So, how can there be phazon or a prime in Prime 4? The fact they're hinting at phazon worries me. It seems like they're going to go lucasfilm and say "somehow, dark samus returned... and brought all the phazon back with it, sorry the third game was just a waste of time and doesn't matter anymore."
I never played the trilogy so I'm not sure if some of these changes are new or not. There is a lot of rebalancing going on with damage and health. Beams are slower and don't travel as far. But overall most actions seem to be sped up quite a bit. It feels much faster to play. I had just finished replaying og Prime a few times right before this remake dropped. As soon as charge for beam starts firing then seems no less powerful then a full charge in most cases. Though the burst fire instead of a single shot when starting a charge does slow down getting that that charge quite a bit the burst fire is pretty handy for small enemies. There are more obstructions to use power bombs on. scans are kept across new files. Love that. Using a missile on a frozen enemy doesn't work on all the enemies it used to. Like Ice Pirates. Not a fan of that change at all.
