Metroid Prime Remastered (Zero Punctuation) 

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Yahtz: Starts grumbling about respawning enemies Me: "Yeah like those damn ghosts!" Yahtz: "Fuck. Chozo. Ghosts." Me: Almost hurts myself laughing

I actually had my younger brother play this game himself and I was surprised to hear him say he didn't mind the lack of a fast travel because "It helped him feel like he was actually running through a real living world" as he put it

I remember playing this game for the first time and the steam blowing up in your face and the visor getting foggy blowing my mind. Same with the rain falling on the visor etc. They nailed so many things that even today some games don't do

Thank you, tommy tallarico, for building this game single handedly after being hand picked by god (miyamoto) himself

The recurring chozo ghosts are only a pain until you realize they will neither follow you or stop you from boost-balling across and exiting the room they are haunting. Just say “Not now! I’m backtracking!” and run past them.

Metroid Prime was one of the first games I played with a strong environmentalist tone. The insanely varied biomes combined with overhanging shade of the Space Pirates' industrialization dramatically polluting the natural beauty of the Tallon IV really struck a chord in me

Allow me to explain in extreme detail why I disagree with that divisive statement of, "Cake tastes nice!"

The Metroid staring at a wall could see the same inter dimensional beings cats constantly see when _they're_ staring at walls

There's this interesting dichotomy that I've noticed, where game critics and journalists are saying that the oldschool design of Prime would surely lead to new players bouncing off and becoming disinterested, and comments from new players saying the exact opposite (I haven't seen a single comment from a new player about Prime being too confusing). Prime really is so much better than it has any right to be, considering it's rocky development.

The really big mid-game boss was originally meant to be a cybernetic-ally enhanced and revived Kraid that you would face off against in Magmoor Caverns. They couldn't get it to work well enough with the limited mechanics they could put into a Gamecube game so they scrapped it. This is one of the reasons that Magmoor Caverns is notably missing ANY bosses at all.

First of all, I very much agree that chozo ghosts can fuck right off. Secondly, it may just be a visual improvement, but it's a damn anazing one. I have no problem at all calling this the new definitive version of _Metroid Prime._ Everything from the lighting and particle effects to the rain on Samus' visor look absolutely gorgeous, and the gameplay and controls are really good for the most part. If _Metroid Prime 4_ has anywhere near the same amount of effort put into it as this game, then the wait will have been worth it.

Fast Travel? We didn't need none of that back in 2002. Unlocking the connecting elevators that were tucked away in each sector _was_ our "fast travel." That was our reward! And we did it all while walking uphill through Phendrana Drifts, both ways, with a Thardus on our back and at least _three_ Chozo Ghosts glued to our keester. Yessir back in my day...

I really enjoyed going through the Pirates' complex in Phendrana Drifts with the thermal visor, especially whenever there'd be pirates hiding in a room with a Metroid tank or two. Pop off a missile to free the Metroid, wait a minute for it to start slaughtering pirates, then go through the room worry free while it's feeding on the last couple.

"FUCK CHOZO GHOSTS!" *Super Missiles:* "Way ahead of you, Yahtz."

I feel like 2008 Yahtzee would've taken that last joke in a very different direction.

4:08 The image of a totem pole with a giant finger sticking out of it saying "Go collect a big pile of bullshit" perfectly sums up this game.

It's been at least a decade since I last played Metroid Prime 1, so a lotta details have faded with time and bad memory. But what Yahtzee said strikes a very particular core memory that I thought I'd entirely forgotten- FUCK CHOZO GHOSTS

The flak for the podcast comment wasn't because you said it was a visual upgrade, it was because you said it was a cheap shitty HD filter slapped on with minimal effort. All that pushback about the new engine and textures and whatnot was making the argument that there was care and effort put into the visual upgrade

Fun fact: Retro studios originally designed Metroid Prime to be played with dual stick controls in mind, but when they actually received a Gamecube controller prototype, they were shocked by the tiny c-stick, deeming it unsuitable for fps aiming (one developper even quit his job over the issue), and they had to rework the controls to a single stick layout. So they probably just had to get the old layout out of the archive

I only have minor complaints about the remastered version. As much as I like the dual stick controls, I just can't get used to how you switch your beam weapons now. I always find myself accidentally swapping visors instead of beams mid combat. Also, charging your beam seems to be harder now, since you end up burst firing it first before charging. Don't remember if that was a thing in the original. Otherwise, I absolutely LOVE it. As an adult now, I find myself scanning and actually reading everything, since I now have a deeper appreciation for lore things than I did as a kid. And everything just looks so GOOD. And I forgot how much I love the BGM. What a great Remastering!!

I've been watching Zero Punctuation for over a decade and I still can't tell if Yahtzee likes games.

Goddammit Yahtzee play Pizza Tower already, its exactly like Hi Fi Rush in that it's got a refreshing, deliberate and high quality art style, fun gameplay and a solid soundtrack. It's the exact opposite of the remake trend you're complaining about.

Have you not played it on the Wii? The controls were as close to a VR game of 10 years later as they could get them. The best flat screen first person controls I've seen.

Yahtzee: It's a bit irritating when a game gives you exactly ZERO clue on where to go or what to do next. Also Yahtzee: *Loudly enjoys Dark Souls games*

I'm absolutely losing it at that depiction of "Omega Pirate".

Thankfully you can turn the hints off. Which I ended up doing because it kept popping up to tell me to go to the totem platform when I wasn't finished collecting the artifacts yet. And unlike Navi in Ocarina of Time, you can't ignore them they pop up in your face.

Metroid Prime is one of very few video games that were good enough to justify getting a console just for that one game.

You don't have to go back to the Chozo Temple after the Phazon Mines immediately, it's possible to collect all the Chozo Artifacts first, then head there and get the last one.

I’ve always found Metroid Prime to be kinda soothing, it only beat me, _a little._ Great Stuff, as always!

People were harping on you because you flat out said the game was just an upscale. Don't play revisionist.

"A metroid that was only divisible by itself, and one." 😂😂😂😂

Thank you for pronouncing "Aran" correctly, it is most appreciated.

Imagine stopping whenever time you see an enemy instead of sprinting past them at full speed

Actual remastered items: Morphball Springball. It’s available as soon as Morphball is, and makes completing some puzzles much more bearable. It even affects gameplay with some bosses in good ways! Three dimensional character models as extra unlockables not seen in the original game. Improved scan visor mechanics New game plus (saved scan states)

I thought I was a Nintendo Fanboy. I've played enough Smash Bros that Yahtzee even predicted me becoming a partial that-guy, seeking other that-guys for challenge and paying for my own cosplay. But who seriously took "Metroid Prime Remastered was like 95% aesthetic update" as worth getting up in arms over?

Basketballs for shoulder pads, a travel mug for an arm cannon, and a Cornish Pasty wearing sunglasses for the helmet Yep, it's still good ol' Zero Punctuation

If you're having trouble with the chozo ghosts, the Super Missle makes short work of them. But I imagine for most people it's not a struggle more than an annoyance which I have no solution for.

I’d be in total agreement with the statement “FUCK CHOZO GHOSTS”… If it weren’t for the fact that over multiple playthroughs of the game, I’ve gotten extremely used to how to kill them. At least on normal. Just Super Missile -> Charge Shot -> ded. Still doesn’t stop that shrill whisper when they first spawn being a jump scare, though. Even though I have perfect memory of every room they spawn in.

Metroid Prime came out and Mountain Dew Pitch Black came back to stores. For a bit it was like I time traveled. Yes. F the Chozo Ghosts.

PSA to everyone who hates Chozo Ghosts from someone who randomized himself into having to fight them without Charge Beam or X-Ray multiple times: - You don't have to fight literally every single ghost. If the doors aren't locked, they're not required, so you can just go. - If you do have to fight Chozo Ghosts, hit them with a Super Missile and a fully charged Power Beam shot. Kills them on the spot. Even better if you can lock-on with X-Ray so they can't dodge. If you don't have Missiles to spare, you can probably still "juggle" them with half-charged shots, but it's tricky. Bonus fun fact: Retro patched out the infamous "Early Space Jump" trick by sticking an invisible wall on the ledge you'd usually land on, just in case players somehow found another way to do it like in the previous three versions of Metroid Prime. Their efforts were thwarted for the fourth time as players discovered how to bomb jump to a part of the ledge the wall doesn't quite cover instead.

I very seldom disagree with Yahtzee, but I thoroughly enjoy/enjoyed the aiming controls for the original Metroid Prime. I replayed the original recently, (and it's definitely not as well designed as I remember) but I don't think twin stick aiming or motion control aiming are necessarily improvements. For me, immersion is not increased by accessibility. A good example is Resident Evil 4. They specifically chose to impose control limitations on the player in order to convey the tone of the game. I would think a similar tone and a similar approach applies to MP. Just the mere fact that it's a departure from our now homogenized FPS control schemes is a plus from me. You can feel that the developers made conscious decisions for how to deal with 3D space in a way that made the player feel like they were piloting an alien mecha suit as opposed to it feeling oh so natural because it's a video game and you're a video gamer. Just that one extra button press makes it feel like you have to actively do something we do unconsciously, and I think keeping the player active in even the most basic controls is a good way to stave off tedium. Backtracking through magmoor caverns for the 323rd time just to see if the thing you need to progress is jutting out of an ice cube halfway across the globe is not. Despite this, I can still see how even one extra button press would be annoying for a reviewer who just wants to get through the damn thing, especially if they paid full price for a texture pack of a game they've had since 2002???

Tommy Tallarico now has another game to add to his list of 350 games worked on

As someone who played the original dizzy series I appreciate Yahtzee putting them into the videos, and would love to watch him play through them for nostalgia

I used to watch you since 2006 or 2007. Since then the world has gotten crazy, or growing up has revealed to me that it was. It’s comforting how despite everything changing, your reviews are exactly as they were. The style, the editing, the animations, your voice, and even the intro are all the same. I think your videos are the most consistent thing in my life.

I swear, I watched this video at least twice already before his redesign of Samus actually registered with me. Normally he just renders her accurately in his normal cartoon style, but this time she has a Cornish pasty for a helmet with a pair of holographic wrap-around shades for a visor, a pair of basketballs for the Varia suit's pauldrons, and a thermos flask for an arm cannon. How did I not notice this before?! I must be getting old...

Damn, Yahtz sayin' ACAB up in here.

I'm glad Yahtzee noticed some weird stuff with enemy behavior, I've been noticing it myself. Particularly enemies getting stuck in ways I've never seen before. I actually had the rock boss get himself stuck inside some level geometry for the entire second half of the fight, which also conveniently blocked his main attack from working.

"Fuck Chozo Ghosts." For real. To this day, that damn music gives me PTSD every time I hear it.

The final gag is appreciated, throwing shade at the dismissive credit the Remaster gave to the original development team.

Roid rage, that’s a solid pun there. Good job

The enemy AI never really bugged out for me until the end boss. In the second phase it just kept doing that dodge move for almost a full minute and nothing else. Then it roared and the fight continued as normal. I was really worried that I might need to restart before it fixed itself.

I was the perfect age when Metroid Prime first came out and it was one of the biggest influences on me as a gamer. I cannot overstate how big of an impact that game had on my life. That said, I also distinctly remember being completely stuck for months trying to find the stupid Artifact of Elder. Which is a statement that only works in the context of it being 2002 because that meant you couldn't just go online and find a Reddit article with the answer.

Fuck Chazo Ghosts! Is definitely a true statement.

I agree about Chozo ghosts, and cake, but hey, you have to go *two* room away before enemies respawn!

5:33 Ouch!

Zingers like "Metroid Crime" are why you get the big bucks, Yahtz.

It's been so many years since I first started watching your reviews but somehow, you haven't fallen off. You are still just so damn good at what you do!

I absolutely love Metroid Prime and the remaster, but I do completely and wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment about Chozo Ghosts 🤝

They did an awesome job remastering the game. It has huge improvements over the original. I can’t wait for the remastered sequels.

Okay everything about the end card on this one is just absolute fucking gold.

My own notes... Metroid Prime was already re-released for the Wii and Wii U as part of the Metroid Prime Trilogy. I think this is the first time it has been REMASTERED, but this is the fourth time it has been released. It has been released on every Nintendo home console since its introduction. The GameCube lacked a second analog stick. While it did have the C-stick, it was not really intended for use as an analog stick and I don't recall playing any games that attempted to use it as such. Somehow I don't think it would have been very good. That said they did a pretty good job with what they had (the lock on mechanic was a way of improving the otherwise tank-style controls while you were in combat, at least), and of course the modern control schemes are appreciated, but it's worth nothing the original game had you switch visors with the d-pad and beams with the C stick, and the on-screen HUD reflected the location of these controls. Since you now can use the right analog stick to aim, there's no buttons for beam switching, leaving me quite confused and unsure where my beam switching went once I actually obtained the first beam weapon (It's X+ Dpad). And I then proceeded to mix up switching visors and beams for the rest of the game. The \hud should have been changed to reflect the different controls. I remember getting stuck trying to get to the Ice Beam, since if you follow the objective marker you end up in a room called "Furnace" with no accessible exits, and no clue how to access the room shown in your objective. I ended up wandering around until I realized some room exits don't have doors and thus aren't clearly marked on the map. Sure enough Furnace has a morph ball exit concealed in shadow. But this isn't really the remaster's fault... because when I said "I remember" I mean not only did it happen this playthrough, I definitely got stuck the same spot on a previous playthrough! The lighting could be improved in that spot., The rest of the game does a good job at highlighting morph ball spots with lights, to be fair.

Something I recently learned that makes the Chozo ghosts more bearable is that you can use super missiles on them

Seeing Eternal Darkness at 0:42 made my heart ache.

As a math grad student I want to thank you for the "divisible by itself and 1" pun. I feel seen.

One problem I have with the remaster is that it is yet another example of a game porting Wii pointer controls to the Switch by only mapping them to the right joy-con's gyro with no option to remap them to the left joy-con's gyro. I played Metroid Prime on the Wii U with the Wii Remote in my left hand since I'm left-handed and using my dominant hand made the aiming more precise for me. How hard is it to remap the controls from one gyro to another?

The reason the AI can get a bit funky sometimes in the Remaster is because their AI wasn't altered to keep up with how fast and aggressive the player can move and attack now with the improved controls. Enemy AI is still on that Gamecube speed.

If I had the ability, I would only change three things about the remaster: 1. No more having to fire off a few shots before the charge beam begins to rev up. 2. Fast travel between unlocked save points. 3. An option to switch the 'fire' and 'morph ball' buttons (I use hybrid controls). I prefer Y to fire, and A for the morph ball... I always switch A and Y up in the Switch's internal control options, but it'd just be nice to not have to change them back and forth every time I want to play a different game. Otherwise, it's pretty much flawless. I can even live without the various small lighting downgrades.

Ironically it's the controls that sold me on the awesomeness of the remaster. The beautiful visuals are the cherry on top. I didn't even grow up with dual analog but Prime just felt a little hard to control. I never had Prime Trilogy but the pointer control setup is high maintenance (ie, hard to play in bed.) It's great to see a remaster go "do whatever you want!" with the control settings.

"Just a visual improvement with some minor gameplay housekeeping" is exactly what a 10/10 like Prime needed.

Redoing the character and environment models make this game much more than most other remasters. Just updating textures is easy, but redoing all of the models is quite a bit of work.

I thought it was just me noticing the enemy AI is weird. Metroids will also regularly run into the giant spires of Phazon that instantly gibs them.

Great, now I'm imagining Space Pirates... "IT'S SAMUS!!" "KILL THE HUNTER!"" "LOOK AT MY NIPPLES!!"

There was really only one nitpick I had with the remaster…but it was a fairly big one- the Heat Visor.

So it's going in the good column but I can't imagine Yahtzee taking this remaster to top 5 status.

Here’s hoping we get Primes 2 and 3 Remastered at some point as well. And yeah, those ghosts can get bent.

That end gag(lol) was brilliant. 💀💀💀

Yeah, this is why I never bothered getting the remaster. I've played the whole trilogy through at least half a dozen times on the Wii. If I want to revisit metroid prime I'd rather have the option to revisit the entire series by setting that up again than to just replay the first one but with nicer lighting. The original still looks pretty great as it is, it's not like we're dealing with N64 graphics.

Oh god Eternal Darkness was a good/terrifying game that I desperately need to play again/never

You know Yahtzee loves a game when his biggest complaint is "I saw enemy AI bug out twice". I do disagree about the bosses thing though. Metroid games were always strongest in exploration and fun/interesting environments to navigate. The thing that prime introduced to Metroid that I think I love the most, is the inclusion of scanning things for lore and enemy information. This gave everything a form of significance as set pieces not only look cool, but are given a purpose in the world. It allows you to feel like the world is actually alive while maintaining the isolation feeling. You learn everything after the fact, as if you were just a bit to late to stop any of it. The world has long been settled into what it is. The Chozo lore makes you feel the love they had for Samus. They leave behind gifts for her in hopes she will find them, and feel terrible for the phazon madness consuming them, knowing she'll end up having to fight them (due to magic bird future sight), yet they cannot be more proud of the warrior and woman she becomes. You also get to learn how the pirates are scared shitless of Samus, and how they fuck up with so many experiments. Like killing around 20 of themselves trying to replicate her morph ball form lol. As a gameplay element scanning is extremely helpful if you're stuck on a puzzle or an enemy is giving you trouble. They'll always give you a lore description of why they are the way they are. How flora/fauna evolved to become like it is and the purpose it serves, or how space pirates devolped their technology and various forms to try and stop you. Even as a 12 year old I deeply appreciated the feeling this game conveyed and felt real emotional responses to what I learned. I cannot recommend this game enough to the current generation, and hope they get to experience the same thing.

At this point I am going to need Yahtzee to Retro Review Fantasy World Dizzy just so I can see why he keeps referencing it so much.

Maybe I’m absolutely crazy, but in the original Prime the charge beam would automate start charging the second you held the A button. Now, it seems to shoot like 2-3 shots THAN gets charged up.

Causing the pirate's ship to fall down to the planet is technically a deescalation.

it's not just a visual upgrade. the hud says your maximum number of missiles now

The pirates crowding you in the corner unfortunately was a part of the gamecube version too if im remembering right

I'm really glad I still get these in my recommendations

You forgot about the spring ball. That was a serious quality of life upgrade.

The basketball shoulderpads I get. The Calzonehelmet, not so much

I guess Yahtzee forgot you could play the entire Metroid Prime Trilogy on the Wii and Wii U with motion controls

I was a kid when I played it and all though I was ok with the fights during back tracking. The chozo ghosts were annoying because of how dangerous they are at first. And then how tedious when u get more health and power ups Also, my auto correct changed chozo to chocolate. So yeah, chocolate ghosts. There's a thought

You mix a Turok with a Miyamoto and get a Metroid Prime.

I cannot stress enough, FUCK THE CHOZO GHOSTS it's nice not having to break out my gamecube disk and wii to play the game now

At some point in my childhood playthrough I simply ignored the Ghosts, since they didn't lock the doors. Most of the time.

Aw, the Metroid didn't find a wall chicken.

When are we going to get a remaster of Metroid Choice? And when is Nintendo going to release Metroid Wagyu?

Yahtzee complained that a bunch of MELEE pirates were trying to crowd around him, next you are going tell me water is wet

The old control scheme had a speed hack where if you targeted something, jumped sideways and immediately released the lock, you could get a faster jump that covered more ground. It was enough to skip spots and get upgrades you weren’t yet supposed to. I wonder if that’s still possible.

"Just a visual spruce up" is all some older games need, honestly. As Yahtzee pointed out in Extra Punctuation and ToTK vids, almost all the development in the past couple DECADES has been so focused on graphics that the rest of the games are... pretty damn good, still. Look at Homeworld, too...

0:55 - Fun fact: it's pronounced "thee". The y in "ye" is a thorn (Þ), but since they didn't have a Þ on printing presses, they just used the letter y instead.

It really is funny that you never did a Retro review since the Prime Collection got and HD upgrade on Wii U and I believe all three games were originally remastered for the Wii. This game is like the Metroid Equivalent of Resident Evil 4.