The World Design of Metroid Prime | Boss Keys 

Just want to point something about the hint system : it doesn't show the next upgrade all the time, but when you visit a certain numbers of room. So, basically, the more you explore, the more the game thinks that you may be completly lost, and finally gives you the hint. I think it's a very interesting way to let you explore like you want, but helping you when you don't feel like you progress anymore is very neat

I actually really liked the fact that a good chunk of the artifacts were gotten near the end of the game, because it gave me a bunch of time in-game to actually enjoy playing as a fully-decked out and upgraded Samus, and without it, I feel like I'd be missing out on that.

11:54 I feel like the phrase “Hopefully you’ll stumble upon this room” does a huge disservice to the subtler bits of Metroid Prime’s structure. The hallway leading to the artifact temple is literally the first door you see after touching down on the planet, and all you need to reach the temple itself is the missile launcher. Stumbling into the main endgame collectathon can be done obscenely early, and any player who doesn’t wander in after acquiring the Space Jump Boots is actively not exploring.

Even as a stupid kid I had no trouble understanding that the ultimate objective was collecting the Chozo Artifacts and accessing the crater. The Pirate data logs flat out tells you that the president of Metroids is waiting down there.

I always thought the reason it has you backtrack through the whole map is so you can marvel at how incredibly powerful you've become. It's not a repeat of old challenges and areas, it's a victory lap, where nothing outside of the crater can hurt you and no obstacle can slow you down.

You say the game doesn't make it clear that collecting Chozo Artifacts is important, but this is only the case if you don't read the log book. The Chozo lore mentions the Impact Crater housing "the Worm", the source of all phazon, which the Space Pirates (the other main antagonist) are after. Meanwhile, the game explicitly tells you that collecting all the Artifacts will unlock the path to the Impact Crater. Put two and two together, and it's pretty clear that the Artifacts should be collected at some point. And if you miss them until the end of the game, collecting them will be the only thing left to do. So I don't see a problem here.

I'm surprised you had so little to say about the effect of 3D on Prime's world design. Does Prime face any unique challenges or opportunities doing Metroidvania design in 3D?

hint systems are on by default because the people who need them won't look through the menus for it. what they should do is ask at the start of the game

Your comments on Magmoor are interesting, as the level was definitely designed as a "subway" of sorts and I'd argue actually helps with navigation. A trip to Magmoor gets you in close proximity to several important elevators and causes Magmoor to act more like the hub of this game. It's also worth noting that although you do go back to Magmoor multiple times, it is not as if each trip past the first is backtracking. Magmoor can more or less be divided into 4 sections between elevators. If you are playing efficiently, only a couple of those instances are actually backtracking. (Second trip to Phendrana, and your trip to get the Plasma beam). The rest is exploring new sections of the map.

I find it interesting you say that the "impact crater" is hidden away. When the very first door you see, coming out of your ship on Tallon IV is that door.

The Impact Crater is something that the Chozo Lore and Pirate Data constantly allude to as the source of all Phazon on the planet, which by the end the player should understand as incredibly dangerous, and that the creature guarding it is also the one producing it and should be destroyed, according to the Chozo anyway. The game informs the player about the scan visor's use for data collecting in the frigate when you reach a room with computers, that also allude to a series of experiments involving Phazon, so from here on you should be scanning similar computers throughout the pirate bases; as for the Chozo Lore, they stand out with the water looking texture they have when unscanned, they even put one directly in front of a door when you first visit the ruins.

Time spent in elevators is definitely to mask loading.

The Tony Hawk gag warmed my heart not only because Heck Yeah Tony Hawk, but also because we so rarely get to see you just goof a bit in your videos. Thanks for the laugh!

This video does a great job of making one of my favorite games sound sub-par.

The artifacts rush at the end of the game was interesting, because it reminds me of the Triforce quest at the end of The Wind Waker. It seems like Nintendo got really happy with that open-world design, where you're spending the whole game running around all over the place going and doing major things, then suddenly you have a fetchquest dumped on you right before the end of the game, slowing the pacing down to a screeching halt.

I seem to recall reading that a dev said one of the reasons Magmoor was lacking was because of time constraints, and they moved some things from Magmoor to Phendrana to fully flesh out one of the two zones (presumably at the time both were WIP) meaning Magmoor was "sacrificed" to finish Phendrana, the most notable being the Thardus boss which was originally going to be a lava rock monster, with the Phendrana boss originally being a Sheegoth Prime or something. I think this is why Magmoor is so heavily attached to Phendrana in regards to progression, and it makes me wonder how things may have been had they had a few more months to work on the game, or even if Phendrana was the sacrificial zone and we got a fully fleshed out Magmoor.

In reference to 5:45, in Tallon overworld the rain hits the invisible platforms after you get the X-Ray visor, to help you understand that from now on you are expected to rely more on the visors than before as an adventure component (because Thermal is used mostly for combat as far as i remember). It's true in the Phazon mines there is nothing to tell you the platforms are there (as far as i remember) but at this point you're very late into the game, the hint will tell you there's a way to cross the chasm with your current gear, and that's a breaking point that the game expects you to rely on your experience without tips or visual queues. Just like in your super metroid video when you say there are hidden doors behind walls that aren't mapped but you need to cross, at a certain moment, the metroid games cease to hold your hand invisibly and lets you enjoy the show on your own.

I feel like you've missed the point of the hint system. The game does not show you where to find something straight away, it gives you a fair amount of time to explore a bit yourself, almost always enough to go straight to a place you remember, but when you do get a hint it never tells you a route, but rather a room, isolated from other rooms, so that you know the general region, but have to explore it yourself to find the new path. In the case of the invisible platforms, once you have the xray visor, the game indicates a room in that general area, and you have to explore the most likely access points to work out the correct route. Once you see the big gap, you put two and two together, and know to try your xray visor.

I think the visors might be the most interesting innovation, in the sense that they have a lot of still untapped potential in first person games, both as an optional story telling venue and as a game play mechanic.

I think one stumbling block you skipped over in a major way is the Ice Beam -> Gravity Suit sequence. So, after you get through the second half of Chozo Ruins to acquire the Ice Beam, you come to a room with 4 doors in it. 1 of them leads back into the Ruins, one to a missile recharge, and 2 lead out of the Ruins. One of these, a regular blue door, takes you to an elevator down to Magmoor that's pretty close to an elevator to Phendrana, near the area with the Gravity Suit. It doesn't take all that long to do. _However_ , in that 4 door Chozo room, there's also a shiny white door which you can unlock with your brand new Ice Beam. That door leads to an elevator that takes you to the Tallon Overworld, in a direct path to the Crashed Ship, which you can now open with the Ice Beam. It's easy to get 2/3 or even 3/4 of the way through the Crashed Ship before you hit a proper dead end and the game mentions you can get the Gravity Suit...15-20 minutes of backtracking and 3 loading screen elevators away. I have to say, that moment was *very* frustrating. And all of that happened because I followed the maxim you mentioned that otherwise serves the player quite well in this game-"follow the dead end". Use the new item you get right away in this instance and you're just inconveniencing yourself later.

Still my favorite of the Prime trilogy and best Gamecube title

I think I have an idea on how the invisible platforms in the Phazon mines could have been improved. You're in a cave, right? When you reach this place the first time, have some rocks and debris fall from the ceiling onto the frontmost platform. With a loud metallic clank to draw your attention to it as well as the impact momentarily disrupting the platforms invisibility, this would both show the player that the platform is there, and make it memorable. On top of that, some debris might remain on the platform to give you a visual reminder.

Another good video, dude! Keeping in mind the three over-arching issues you pointed out in this video, it is even more impressive how targeted Retro Studios was in designing Echoes: 1) they made the dead ends stand out, often with bright lights and colors (translation doors, temple-key doors, large mechanical puzzles, even more obvious color-coding for scans) 2) they revamped the world design to make the starting section, Temple Grounds, the hub area for all world travel, simplifying navigation * they included many more and interesting obstacles in this hub area for you to overcome with each new ability, making the ease of your exploration of the hub area a clear indicator of your progression through the game * they added shortcut paths between areas that bypass the hub to make certain instances of backtracking more natural 3) they practically shout in your face what the final objective of the game is (get the light back from Dark Aether, kill the Ing) * they remind you of your progress towards returning the light to Aether each time you talk to U-Mos, literally showing you lasers pointing between temples (I think we know where The Witness got it's laser-mountain idea) * They made the hub area itself the location of the game's finale, so every time you move through it, you are reminded of the end goal. * They consolidated the final key fetch-quest into a single rush during thr game's ending chapter, letting you zip all over the world in your uber-power suit like a victory lap. I cannot wait for your report on Prime 2: Echoes. I hope you bring back the exploration flowchart for that one. I really like those. But... I have to jump on the pile here, and say that not mentioning the scan visor in this video was an oversight. Maybe you think it was a game-design crutch, but that visor was integral--even more so than the hint system--to giving the player insight into what the dead ends were and how to overcome them. You cannot criticize Metroid Prime's exploration without mentioning the difference the scan visor made. It was a real innovation that brought the clarity of 16-bit, 2D graphics into a fully-textured, 3D world. I also wish you had mentioned the full-room puzzles. That was another innovation Retro created for the 3D world, fitting full, complex puzzles into single rooms just by utilizing that 3rd spacial dimension. See the Plasma Processing area in Magmoor, the Tower of Light in Ruins, and the Ruined Courtyard in Phendrana for example. Each large room that you enter feels like a possibility for great experimentation and discovery. While in Super Metroid, the world overall is one large puzzle to navigate and the individual rooms only offer minute problems to solve, in Metroid Prime, the world overall is a puzzle to navigate AND each room you enter could be its own self-contained puzzle. In this way, Prime complements its world exploration--which I agree missed the mark in some ways--with other types of discovery to give the same, wonderful feeling of Metroid accomplishment.

What they could've done with the lens of truth visor is to let you walk on an invisible platform for a while before falling into the death pit. That would've hinted to you that there are things you can't see. Ocarina of time does this pretty well I think inside the well in kakariko. There's tons of stuff you know is happening but you can't see, like holes in the floor, hallways, and enemies.

I don't think they "effortlessly" turned it into 3D. They put a lot of effort into it.

The visual support, as always, make it so easy to follow and understand even if I never played a Metroid game before. The animations, graphs and game footage are so perfectly edited in. Best channel on the platform.

I disagree that Metroid Prime doesn't make it clear enough that the Impact Crater and the collection of the Chozo Artifacts is the ultimate end goal. The log entries you find from the Chozo and the Space Pirates keep referring to a giant monster and the source of the Phazon being sealed in the Impact Crater and needing to be unlocked by the Artifacts. Sure, it's not as obvious as obvious as The Witness's laser beams, but it works just as well.

In my opinion, gaming perfection. And Mark, while your point about the constant travelling through Magmoor is a valid one, every time you do, you’re stronger and can zip through it quicker. In my view this lends EXTREMELY well to the sense of progression and power that’s crucial to all metroidvanias. As for exploration and backtracking as a whole (including the key hunt), I’ll never mind retreading through the game when a developer makes traversal as fun and as well designed as Prime. I could write an essay about how flawlessly they executed jumps and why they feel so right, for example. The best in the genre. Looking forward to Echoes.

I feel like this analysis lacked some of the depth of other videos, and especially of the other boss keys videos. The transition to 3D and how that impacted the structure of the game is significant. The video itself, framed as "maybe we can learn from Metroid Prime's mistakes" feels inauthentic and overly cynical - to the point that some of your criticisms you admit have to do with the limits of technology, but seem to be thrown in just to fulfill the premise that was laid out in the beginning. Harping on how often you have to pass through areas while only quickly glossing over how fast traversal is sped up by the upgrades you obtain also seems to be reaching. The "Artifacts are mostly obtained at the end of the game" criticism is... perhaps valid? But relates so little to world design. The structure of the world wouldn't have been impacted by moving the artifacts around, so it feels like getting hung up on that seems to be cynicism layered on for the sake of cynicism and ultimately muddles the message of the video. I think something equally irksome is pointing out a "seeming" dead end when you get the spider ball because the map isn't filled in, and yet you can very clearly see a morph ball tunnel in the exact room you highlighted. Criticizing the game for a heavy handed hint and door-color system for their simplicity and ease and then turning around and criticizing the game for requiring you to apply visual and spacial reasoning seems like two points at odds with one another.

I know this is a small thing to comment on, but I like how you mentioned the aesthetics of the different areas! Part of the reasoning that drew me to Metroid Prime ( besides Smash Bros. ) was that the environments popped out and you could separate characters and enemies from the background. It is actually kind of brilliant, since Metroid Prime isn't just a first person shooter, but also has a strong focus on exploration. You feel this world living and breathing around you. I'm sure games like Call of Duty and Battlefield are fine, but as someone who is drawn to the artistic, the world of Metroid Prime is breathtaking.

I know how much you don’t like Samus Returns, but I feel that it did wonders with the simple addition of letting the player put markers on the map themselves. My play throughs of Metroidvania games involve me going down one path, finding a dead end and going down another path and finding another secret. So when I finally get the power up needed to beat the first dead end, I’ve completely turned myself around and can’t tell where on the map I found the dead end. With Samus Returns, I would mark interesting locations and then explore, making me feel like I was actually exploring an area and mapping it out instead of running around a maze. That little bit of player agency made the game so much better in my opinion, and I really hope that future Metroidvania designers take it into account.

Uh, you say make dead ends memorable, yet you criticize the way the end goal of the game is presented. The VERY FIRST THING you are "encouraged" to scan/explore when you drop to Tallon IV is the door to the artifact temple. You get blocked by a dead end, and it hints at what you what you need to get past it: missiles, which are one of the first things you find. Right away the game teaches you its basic principles. The items you gain throughout the game tell you what they're used for, so when you get it, you....wait for it....REMEMBER, 'Oh yeah, this is what I needed to get through the dead end near the temple.' Then when you do, you scan the remaining lore rock statues and realize that a) these are clues to locations of the remaining artifacts, and b) you've already been to one of these locations. The game design is far more brilliant than you're realizing....I said you are "encouraged" to scan because the game lets the player move at his/her own pace. If you want to get lost and ignore what the game tries to tell you, you can. If you want to be efficient at traveling, you can. So if you're complaining about the amount of backtracking in a Metroid, you clearly don't get the point, and you aren't learning well enough to avoid going through the same spot a million times (I've 100% completed the game on hard mode in 8 hours without glitch exploits). Also, stop calling Metroid Prime a Metroidvania. It's a frickin Metroid game. There's nothing Castlevania about it. Disappointing criticisms.

Love your point about the elevators disconnecting your mental map. It's sorta like living in a city and taking the subway / train all the time. The city becomes all these separate chunks of suburbs and it isn't until you walk between them that it all comes together in your head. Excited for the next episode about the best Metroid Prime game!

Prime 2 is my favorite (it was my first Metroid game) so I'm excited for the next episode and I'm ready to listen to Sky Temple's keys complains. The worst part of the game is traversing Magmoor Caverns 5 times like you said, I think Phendrana needed an elevator to Chozo or Tallon. While the game doesn't "lock" you in an area like Super Metroid's "Red Tower" there's 3 points in the game where you do tons of exploring in 1 singular area and get many upgrades or just explore a lot of the big areas and these are where the gameplay truly shines. These are the Chozo Ruins (recovering most of the lost powerups), the Chozo Temple+Space Pirate Lab combo in Phendrana (this might be the best section of the game) and the first exploration of the Phazon Mines (and with a difficulty spike without save stations in between). Notice how after these sections there's a Boss (the ones with health bars, not like the mini bosses) to help segment the game in chunks (Introduction, Recovery of powerups, Journey in Phendrana, Blasting through the Mines, Chozo Artifact hunt, Final Boss). Finally, I agree sparcing more the Artifacts throughout the game would help alleviate the complains to this section about hunting mcguffins (honestly, I can't understand why people HATE with a passion hunts like these when they're done good like this game or Wind Waker's Triforce hunt. Like you always hear "this is the worst part of the game" but if you masquerade the hunt better you wouldn't hear any complains).

LOVE YOUR EDITING! Esp. with text that match game's UI

A few of the problems were fixed by the remake, namely the collectathon. The chino statues that you scan for hints don’t become active until you have the powers needed to collect the item, so it gives you a feel for what you can do and made me feel like I was making progress as I could visit that room as I passed through the hub. Totally agree with the magmoor caverns though, it feels like the fast travel system LOL. One thing I did notice that was missed is each upgrade usually has a nearby path that leads you to the next area you should be exploring, so there is a subtle flow, I only got super lost twice, and was very thankful for the ship scan being like, oh hay there is a gravimetric disturbance in phendrana. It shows you a remote room but it’s up to you to figure out how to get there. I think it was an ideal way to nudge the player without it feeling to hand holdy

Two disagreements-- 1) Reading door colors on a map is not following an objective marker... it's reading a map. You still have to use your brain to see where to go and figure out the best path to take. 2) Clustering the artifacts near the end of the game gives the impression (at least to me) of a victory lap through the world you've conquered. Yes they could have telegraphed more heavily that it is the central goal, but I personally didn't misunderstand the intent. Perhaps it's because I've played too many RPGs. But you yourself spoke to how much the world opens up as you progress and gather upgrades. I won't disagree that it can be tedious, but that's more a problem with the world's layout (as you described), not in the doing of the thing. The breadcrumbing of the artifacts near the beginning spurs curiosity. Maybe you missed the Impact Crater, but still stumble upon an artifact. Their non-obvious nature makes the player question their purpose-- leading *them* to figure out what to do. It doesn't have to be telegraphed to be effective. If anything, the way the artifacts are presented pull the player into the world more, leading them to figure it out themselves.

I'm looking forward to MP2's episode of Boss Keys. Echoes was my very first Metroid game, and I still love it to this day. In my opinion, it's better than both it's predecessor and it's successor, even after having played through the trilogy multiple times. Interested in hearing your take on it!

Don’t usually comment. Nice vid as always I agree with most of this. But heavily disagree with the artifact hunt and “explore the map” part. Those are my favorite parts. Also I think it’s flaws are very minor and is still the best game on the cube.

It's not Var-eye-a Suit, it's Var -ee-a Suit. As in Barrier, but with a Japanese accent (BAARIA) and then mistranslated into Varia.

I feel like the backtracking through Magmoor Caverns helps highlight the power of your new tools by demonstrating how it can create faster navigation. This can also create anticipation for the next item so that traversal through Magmoor is further cut down through new and interesting ways. Magmoor presents the problem and each new item forms the solution.

The artifact hunt was one of my favorite parts, if not my favorite, of a Metroid game, EVER. Yes, I think they should have drawn more attention to the crater, but I think it's good to go through the entire map after being fully loaded on items with a new objective.

I'm glad that you were critical on this; it's a pretty rough attempt to bring the SM formula into 3D that I don't think even comes close to Zero Mission, Dread or Fusion, let alone Super. Another issue worth mentioning that harms how backtracking is handled is just how slowly Samus traverses environments compared with the Intelligent System games. Some of this is inherent to the nature of 3D and first-person, but a lot is due to design problems (the game really needed an item equivalent to the Speed Booster that allows you to rush through cleared room quickly), contingent technical issues (room loading that can prevent doors opening for several seconds) or a combination of the two (the engine seemingly not being able to support the kind dynamically destructible environments that the 2D games often use to open up shortcuts). Regardless of the specific causes, these issues mean that even when you do know where to go, executing the backtracking there is often obnoxiously slow and tedious, hurting the pacing of the game even more. I really hope that Prime 4 is able to add faster movement options and massively destructible environments (e.g. blowing away large parts of room geometry with power bombs, etc). Based on Dread, significant loading times probably will remain until we get an SSD-based Switch successor.

I feel like if you designed a game using these tips it would end up being a "where do I go game" to which you would reply with an essay how the player should know where to go because they made the next steps "memorable" I don't think you can ever count on something universally being "memorable" which means you gotta use map hints.

I'm someone who has a lot of appreciation for good communication, and I really appreciate your little graphics and maps that you use to communicate. Very clean, attractive and effective.

I agree the ultimate goal isn't crystal clear, but I love how it's presented to you through chozo lore. You first discover the artifact temple and find out you need to find 12 artifacts to get to a place called the Impact Crater. At first you don't know what that really means but then you read the lore that tells you about how a creature had emerged from the meteor and was spreading corruption. Followed by how the chozo sealed it within the Impact Crater using the artifacts, hoping one day someone known as the entrusted one would find these artifacts, enter the Impact Crater, defeat this creature and save their home. You learn by exploring the world and finding out about it's history that the chozo artifacts and the artifact temple itself are vital to completing your quest and I think that's a great way for your goal to present itself.

You're right about making dead ends memorable, and I would add that I want a way to annotate the map. If this kind of adventure took place in the real physical world and I had a map handy, I would definitely make notes on it about whatever noteworthy place I come across, so why not in the game? The colored badges in Hollow Knight did a decent job of this, as I was able to make my own color-code with them for different obstacles and features, though I think you should be able to just write out some kind of worded message if you choose. Or, in keeping with Samus' advanced equipment, you could have a picture function (like in Zelda BOTW) that is 'geotagged' within the world map and could serve the same purpose.

A few points: 1) Doesn’t the fact that Magmoor doesn’t have much and is structured like a subway what you want if it’s the sole path to Phendrana? You’d rather it take longer to traverse through it or something? 2) There’s a compass on the map menu. Elevator problem solved. 3) The game tells you that the keys unlock the barrier that’s containing “the evil” inside. Not just once, but like 10-20 times in the game. Hell, the hologram that you scan right before the temple says this. Hell, even the back of the case literally says in large bold text: “EVIL WAITS BELOW THE SURFACE.” Unless you have room temperature IQ or can’t read English, it’s obvious that your goal is to gather the keys and fight the Metroid Prime.

If it seems like Mark is being very critical of Prime 1, it's because he is. There are so many potential reasons for why the problems he pointed out exist, short dev cycle, brand new studio, etc. But keep in mind that, as stated in the beginning about learning from the games mistakes, this is meant to be a criticism, and isn't bashing/blaming. Appreciate what you do! Love these videos, and that you've expanded Boss Keys to my favorite franchise of Metroid :)... and us Texans forgive ya, southern hospitality after all.

Something neat about the X-ray platforms in Phazon Mines that not everyone may have known about, but you can actually see roughly where they are with the THERMAL visor. You can see the "propulsion" fumes coming out of the bottom of them when looking through the thermal visor.

I always regarded - and still do - Metroid Prime as one of the best examples of excellent game design. Yes, it does have its lengths and the video is very clear about it. However, judging only from the video, one might think that Metroid Prime was a lackluster game. It was not, not in any capacity. From the world design to the audio, the puzzles, the bosses, the powerups - this game was (and still is) brilliant, albeit not free of hassles. A greatness which the successors failed to match. Metroid Prime 2 lacked enough visual differentiation between the three major areas (temple, swamp and high-tech fortress), suffered from the poorly thought-through ammo system (enemies will always drop ammo for the opposing element of the beam you use on them, i.e. always the ammo you DON'T need right now), and even punishes the player for exploring in the dark world, for as long as you don't have the light suit, which just happens to be one of the last power-ups in the entire game. And even if places had a distinct look in the light world, everything just blends together into an unrecognizable mess in the dark world. Whenever I had to go from the light world to the dark world, it had a bad feeling to it - not a feeling of fear or respect (as in " I'll have to tread carefully") but rather a feeling of annoyance ("This will be a pain in the a**, please let's get this over with quickly). MP2 in and on itself is not that bad, but it completely pales in comparison with the first game. One thing Prime 2 had going for it is the fact that you could unlock map markers for all the optional stuff you missed towards the end of the game, which was immensely useful (some might say it ruined the fun for them though). Metroid Prime 3 accomplished a feat which has been observed only very rarely: it successfully incorporated motion controls into a classic game in a way that felt neither forced, nor out of place or awkward. It also managed to introduce some more story and a couple of memorable NPCs, as well as some new locations. However, as the game takes place on three planets, and as cool as travelling between them in your space ship is (honourable mention for the power ups you can get for the space ship this time around), it made each individual planet feel too small with respect to the explorable area. This great sense of being a lonely pioneer in an unknown world which Metroid Prime 1 so brilliantly conveyed was gone in 3. You had a clear mission from the get-go, there were NPCs organized in factions, there was a rather linear story to follow - somewhere along all of this, the player got eliminated from the equation. With all of this being said, if Nintendo decides to release a Metroid Prime trilogy for the switch, preferrably even without motion controls, I'd be the first person to buy it the moment it hits the stores.

Of course you had Samus doing a "Boneless" when she's squeezed into a small metal ball. One thing I'm reminded of in watching your footage is how tedious those dead ends are at times. You can go pretty far into Magmoor or the Ruined Frigate before you find out there's nothing to do there, and just have to turn your ass around. Other times, the thing you're supposed to remember isn't shown very well. You already mentioned the Spider Ball Track you need to use in the Furnace, but that hole after you get missiles isn't even the right way to go. A lot of the world's design feels like it discourages exploration, and just assumes you're gonna follow the hints when you don't know where to go. The Frigate in particular would've been better if you couldn't even get to the door without the Gravity Suit, because the player is guaranteed to see the Frigate coming out of the Chozo Ruins elevator, and the room is so unique in design and shape on the map that they'll definitely remember it. Not to mention withholding the inside of the Frigate until the player got the Gravity Suit would've arguably made it stick out better in their head from the suspense of what could be inside. One thing I did like about Prime is how the player doesn't ever need to leave Chozo Ruins until they get the Varia Suit. It means they get the taste of what a Metroidvania is in a relatively smaller space, before moving on to apply that thinking to the world at large. Super Metroid kinda had that, but there was only one major case of backtracking in Crateria followed by a very linear path in Green/Pink Brinstar, while Norfair and Red Brinstar were the only part of the game where you really had to backtrack heavily. Prime puts that part right at the beginning when you've started exploring the world, which gets the player used to exploring, and sets the expectations for the rest of the game. However, I feel like the game falls apart after that. Super Metroid has three acts: The linear and locked off Crateria/Brinstar; the more backtracky and sequence-break-friendly Norfair, with optional backtracking through the first act; and the self-contained areas of the Wrecked Ship, Maridia, Lower Norfair, and Tourian. Prime is a lot more disjointed, with the initial Ruins area, followed by a series of linear paths broken up by moving between them across the world. In the end, I feel like Prime was trying to make a beautiful world full of life, but forgot to make a fun game. From the messy form to the mediocre gunplay and platforming, the game really just looks pretty. Not to mention the Scans are actually really cool when you take the time to read them; it's funny to read the Pirates assuming Samus must have cloaking on her ship, despite the fact it's in the open right beside the giant crater, or some of them making reports filled with snark that others aren't doing their fucking job right. There's even one female soldier at the start of Prime 2 who looks up to Samus as a role model, which I thought was really neat. Sidenote: I disagree with your complaints on the map system. I've personally had a few times where my depth perception goes totally haywire and I can't tell which way is up because it's so simplistic, but it's actually pretty easy to tell how the areas link up to one another, because they're adjacent on the map of the whole world. When you zoom out at 10:39 in the footage, you can kinda see the camera lock to a certain hexagon, which happens to be right next to one in the corner of Phendrana. If you moved the cursor over that area and zoomed in, you'd be looking at the right elevator. Even if you weren't that exact, you can see one elevator is in the middle of Magmoor, and leads to the end of Phendrana, while the other is in the middle of Phendrana, and leads to the end of Magmoor, and this is shown by their proximity on the larger map. I think a worse example is Chozo Ruins to Tallon Overworld, as there are two elevators right next to each other around the Ice Beam, but they lead to two completely different ends of the Frigate in Tallon.

A couple of thoughts. The hint system *needed* to be on by default, so as to protect overconfident players from themselves. I think you might be being a little too hard on the "lack of weight" surrounding both the Chozo Artifacts & the Artifact Temple. Simply put, their significance is explained rather well, it's just not done through world design. Metroid Prime explains much of its backstory & world through "optional" data logs. Both the Chozo Lore & Pirate Data mention the Artifacts and their relevance. As you move forward to Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, please remember that not everything needs to be (or will be) explained through world design alone.

So glad you're doing a vid on Prime 2, I personally felt it fixed a LOT of Prime 1's problems and is the best game in the Prime series.

I was actually introduced to Metroid with Prime. my first experience was in either a Meijer or a Target looking at a display at the age of 12, in 2002. My dad was firm when it came to game or movie ratings, so of course, I wasn't allowed to get the game that amazed me so much in the demo console. Fast forward to my 13th birthday, and me opening my presents, only to find Metroid Prime in the wrapping paper. I fell in love with the series and went on to play the other games in the series. And so, here I am now, commenting on a video about Metroid Prime about how it was my first experience with the series that helped give me a love for outer space.

The exploration is the fun of Metroid Prime.

I always thought of Magmoor itself as a shortcut. Think about getting the Boost Ball and going back to Tallon Overworld. You *could* go back the way you came, to the "left" when you get back to Magmoor. Or, you could go to the right using your new powerups, find a new entrance directly to Tallon Overworld (one that is conveniently near your ship) and get the Space Jump that way. Indeed, I used that entrance to Magmoor extremely often, to the point where the main entrance became kind of pointless. Going to Magmoor never felt like it was wasting my time; on the contrary, it felt like it saved me time.

Damn I was waiting for a Prime video, thanks!

The invisible platforms for the Xray visor are telegraphed a little bit if you've got sharp eyes (or get lucky). There's an area in the Talon Overworld where you can see rain bouncing off the platforms. They also can be hit by beams, leaving a glowing spot mid-air if you happen to shoot towards them.

13:30 I disagree entirely. More than half of the lore scans and even some ecology scans specifically refer to the Impact Crater multiple times throughout the adventure. The question of "What is in the crater??" is asked multiple times and the area is linked to Samus' ship, which is the easiest area to return to.

Great video but I feel like you should have talked about the scan visor at least a bit. I find some of the problems you point out can be solved by scanning your surroundings. Especially with the artifact temple. It also definitely applies to the world design and adds a whole new level of depth and immersion.

The artifact hunt in Prime 1 still isn't nearly as bad as the Sky Temple keys in Prime 2. Five out of nine require the very final item, and all require the Dark Visor, which isn't even obtained until defeating the second of three major bosses.The Sky Temple entrance where the clues lie is much more out of the way than Prime 1's artifact temple, and the keybearers add an awkward middle step between the hints and keys. They're also all hidden in the exact same unceremonious manner, as opposed to Prime 1 where you might need to fight a powerful enemy or discover a unique secret. Fuck the Sky Temple keys. (Also the chozo artifacts are often really easy to sequence break so for an experienced player they can all be obtained with minimal backtracking. I get that this isn't really a fair argument but I just wanted to throw that out there.)

In defense of the Chozo Artifacts near the end of the game: 1.) It fits storywise. The complaint was that they came out of nowhere near the end of the game, but if you're reading the Chozo Lore throughout the game, then it is actually very well built up to. First, you start your time on Tallon searching for Ridley until you come across these ruins of a fallen civilization. This sparks curiosity as you begin to explore. You are quickly met with the Chozo Lore, which talks of a great poison that destroyed their society. You explore the ruins and come across this toxic water. This must be the poison. The lore says the poison came from an asteroid impact and you must destroy a strange creature in order to get rid of the poison, so you do that, find the varia suit, and the toxic water does return to normal water. Mission accomplished. Let's go back to looking for Ridley. You continue onward to find Space Pirates who have dropped a case of this strange substance called phazon that hurts you if you touch it. You continue to explore the Space Pirate activity on Tallon and find they are harvesting this phazon and implementing it with creatures to create biological weapons. It is around this time you discover the Impact Crater, where the "great poison" began, and the temple there talks about creating a gate to lock away this strange creature which must be destroyed to save the world from the poison. The artifacts are given as the key to open the gate. You then find the Pirate's Phazon Mines where they harvest this material from the Impact Crater. All the pieces come together: the poison that destroyed the Chozo society came from this asteroid that struck at the Impact Crater, where the Pirates are harvesting this substance called phazon and using it to mutate life forms. Collect the keys to open the gate so you can destroy the creature causing the poison, which you now know is phazon. 2.) Although having the artifacts come at the end of the game does cause a lot of backtracking, it also gives you the time to really enjoy all your upgrades. Rather than finally unlocking everything there is to get and then being bored, it gives you one final task to complete now that you are fully powered up. This is something many games (specifically MMORPGs) fail at. If you're last upgrade now completes the game, then it makes you wonder what it was all for. 3.) The Chozo Artifacts really transition you into the third act of the story. It is a natural transition into the end-game and is the last hurrah before the game is complete. I think my main complaint on this regard is the fact that mobs respawn every time you go more than 1 room away. Having to clear the same room out 500 times because you keep walking past it is annoying and gets old really quickly. Being able to just run past rooms that you've already cleared out recently would save so much time and keep the pacing going much better, especially on the artifact quest as everything is really easy to kill now, and isn't worth the time.

10:11 It's important to note that this wasn't possible in the first versions of the game.

You comment about the elevator masking loading of the common area data got me thinking about the original Metroid on NES. A key feature was never blacking the screen out; the whole game always shows Samus. On the NES the elevator track was to hide switching of graphics tile sets. The later 2D Metroid did screen fade outs; Super Metroid on SNES would fade everything out except the doorway as it scrolled across. Metroid Prime does a good job of avoiding loading screens, save for the elevators. It even loads the next room you traverse the current room (and is the source of the freezing bug in the first revisions of the game). The door system, having to shoot it and wait for it to open, allowed for extra delay while the next room loaded. Even though it wasn't needed on earlier systems, it proved useful for the 3D versions.

Mark I respect your work too much but today I have to disagree in some aspects about the chozo temple with the artifacts. I don`t think it's a mistake to give it the mystery aura that it has, If you scan the Lore (I can agree that's kinda of boring for some people) you can slowly solve the mystery bit by bit, and that completely works with the solitary mission that the game puts you in. This game will not hold your hand and make objectives crystal clear and that's one of the things that makes it even greater. But you got a point, I never noticed the mini-HUB that is magmoor caverns, that could be solved with one more elevator imo. But the design is too intricate for me to see if that could really solve the problem. Disagreements apart, kudos for the video mate!

I think magmoor caverns doesn't just serve as annoying subway room, but it also functions as an advanced tutorial. Each time you traverse it, it gives you a way to do so more quickly using a new item. It's using the annoyance of having to go through the room AGAIN, as an incentive to find a faster way through. I agree that it didn't really work to hide the tedium, but it did seem at least clever.

That Chozo spirit boss fight was a pain.

I seriously can't wait for Prime 2 to be unfolded. This is my favorite game of the Prime series! The world feels more interconnected, memorable and therefore makes backtracking so much better!

Great video as always Mark, however I disagree about the part about the hint system. I think it works fine with the game.

One of the fun things about Metroid prime for the gamecube release was the ability to sequence break. It is technically possible to grab the space jump boots as soon as you land on Tallon IV, thus making the majority of the first act rather moot. You can then skip the first boss by jumping over the barrier. The varia suit boss becomes an exercise in timing your jumps right to plant a morphball bomb at the base of the plant. Those were the good old days.

I enjoyed almost every highlighted elements you spot it out, my only comment that I need to share with you was the Chozo Arthefacts, yes, it was not a tempting idea and probebly for each keys discorvered before meeting The Impact Crater does feel like not clear it was the ultimate goal, however, from my personal first gameplay, back when I was a kiddo, once reaching the bridge connecting between the Landing Site to the Arthefact Temple, Highlighting "The Impact Crater" like any new locations and as soon explored, noticing that was the whole of it, just a small area, I told myself; "Wait, that does not sound right, this is basically a dead-end but also it feels too small, and why there is a gigantic crater larger then anything else as a landmarks in the whole game?" and the best part is I didn't go right away at the the Arthefact Temple, I only did it mid way in the game and starting collecting a bit more keys, they may be meaningless, but as a player back then, my instinct always told me; "Those are like Mario 64 Stars, I have to "gotta catch-em all!"" LoL XD That is my comment, pretty large though just to share one idea. :P

Can we get a Boss Keys on Hollow Knight?

14:00 In my mind it's a very clever thing and it's reminiscent of the triforce fragment you have to find at the end of Wind Waker. It gives you an oportunity to visit the hole game's world one last time before you finally say goodbye to this world. It gives you closure, it's nice !

kind of reminds me of the game "Within a Deep Forest" where you take controll over a jumping ball. You constantly have to search for new materials for your ball and have to choose the right material with its unique properties to solve certain problems. A glass ball for example is fast, very prone to wind currents, doesn't pop on spikes, can traverse lasers but breaks if you jump too high. Whilst the iron ball doesn't care about wind, can't jump that high, but is capable of breaking some stone bridges. There is also a "powerless" ball which is needed at some point to be allowed to enter an area by it's guardian, however it has a very low falling speed which might be usefull at other places. Each area is memorable. There is a UFO which you have to climb up to, in which you only traverse sideways. There is a tower in which you have to guide a spider to the lowest floor. There is a time machine which lets you play in a familiar level which is covered in ice through a catastrophy. And there are very mysterious other stages. Everything with great music. And it's free to play. But don't expect it to be longer than a few hours ;)

I haven't played any of the games on Boss Keys, but I still watch every one of them

I watched your video on SoTN and came to this one and have really enjoyed the content so far. Subbed, keep it up man, great work.

One underappreciateed piece of design from the Prime games comes in the form of a text queue: Whereas destructible terrain in sidescrolling metroid games are represented by nondiegetic symbols of the respective weapon needed to destroy the terrain on blocks, Prime does away with any visual symbols that would take you out of the world in favor of the scanner's descriptions using key-words representing what *material* the destructible terrain is made of. This, unlike the symbol blocks, integrates the mechanic of destroying terrain into the lore of the world, reinforcing believability, while also integrating Prime's unique scanning mechanic, making its use have real utility. It also allows the player a sense of problem solving in unision with Samus herself when they memorize what each material keyword means. "aha! I know that this material is vulnerable to missiles!" Or "oh, that sounds like a unique material I haven't destroyed before. I'd better find a new weapon." All without breaking kayfabe.

Good analysis otherwise, but you lost me at "Scanning the chozo artifacts telling you they lead to the impact crater doesn't mean anything". No dude. Unless you're a brand new, neophyte gamer, seeing that you need to collect a whole bunch of hard to get items should indicate that this is important and needs to be done. Ignoring the lore, just looking at the name "Impact Crater" should indicate that something happened there that is of interest. Of course, if you're scanning and reading the Chozo lore and Pirate data, then it's very clear that the impact crater is where Metroid Prime first landed on the planet and where it is currently, so access to the impact crater means a whole heck of a lot.

Another great way to solve the "tedious traversal through Magmoor Caverns" issue is to just give that environment a meaningful state change over time. Hollow Knight did this really well with The Forgotten Crossroads turning into The Infected Crossroads halfway through the game. It's an area you traverse through a LOT to get from one side of the map to the other, or to simply get above ground. It's also the first and most familiar area you're introduced to that sets the tone for the rest of the areas. They made it more dangerous, more interesting, and more unique by switching up what players THOUGHT would be a safe boring trip through the first area of the game into a tense shitshow where you get cornered by Primal Aspids and die two feet from a bench. It really amps up the tension because in the second half of the game, you've got a lot more power-ups and are just better at the game, so I loved how they dealt with this.

So you don't like when the game tells you where to go but you also don't like it when the game doesn't tell you? Sure

Another way to help players remember where they can use a new item is to have them travel past it recently. For example after the boost ball you get the space jump boots. And on the way from the boost ball room to the space jump room you must pass through multiple rooms that have platforms too far away for you to jump to, putting the idea of needing to be able to jump further fresh in the player’s mind immediately before giving them that exact upgrade.

Yes!! I was waiting for this, thank you!!

I think the Artifact hunt at the end reinforces the focus in exploration of the game. Is like a big final challenge to see if the player got familiar with the map and understands how the world works. I understand the frustration and agree that the final objective could be more clear, but I also think that it being so hidden adds some mystery to it. IMO it makes the game feel more natural, with no big hints or someone telling you what you do, you really feel like you're alone in an unknown planet, learning everything about it by yourself like some sort of space archaeologist.

Great stuff! Metroid Prime is one of my favorite games of all time so its great to hear analysis over its pros and cons. I think you have a lot of great points, as well as some noted flaws that I managed to avoid since I originally played the game when I was little and had a player’s guide haha

I think one of the biggest considerations with Metroidvanias is balance between hints about where to go next, how many things you can do next, and how cryptic to make your goals and the world in general. For example, some Metroidvanias make you really dig into the lore and explore every nook and cranny to figure things out and find things, and a lot of Metroidvania fans LOVE this. Many fans of the genre adore backtracking, finding obscure super-hidden items, and piecing together the story and background from the in-game lore (Hollow Knight is more like this, as is Prime 1, kind of to a lesser extent). They also love doing things like going around the whole map one last time to get the Chozo Artifacts, as it feels like a last victory lap or goodbye tour to the game as they explore everywhere they've been before, but while feeling uber-powerful and amazing. However, that's only one small subset of fans. Many other people don't like things to be so cryptic, and want your goals to be clear right from the start. Metroid Prime 2, for example, is a bit more linear and gives you the game's main objective and plot in much more direct terms right off the bat, and Prime 3 does this even more so, exchanging a lot of lore and exploration-based discoveries for cutscenes with other characters. And the thing is, this kind of Metroidvania can ALSO be a great game, it's just a different style. It all depends on how much toward one direction or the other you want to swing the game. I guess theoretically the best Metroidvanias would be somewhere in-between the two extremes, being the best of both worlds as it were. But I think that everyone is different, and most people will have a preference one way or the other, and so to them, the best Metroidvanias are the ones that focus more on their favorite style. Which is part of why the debate about 'best metroidvanias' often has so much variability in it, depending on personal preferences about exploration, levels of obscurity, and so on (among other things, obviously).

"After getting the spider ball the place to use it isnt shown on your map" but the room next to it, the furnace, has a spider ball path literally right in your face as you walk in the door and you'll see it most likely right after getting the bombs making it extremely memorable

The backtracking is part of the fun! It makes it feel like you're actually going on a trip somewhere.

Thanks for making this video, Marc! Retro Studios has been out of the series for so long it's nice of you to have made an easy refresher course for them to get up speed real quick now that they're starting from the beginning again, haha

I love Metroid Prime and Echoes. Getting lost in their worlds and dying a lot was a big part of my childhood, and even though I haven't touched those games in years I still know them like the back of my hand. I'm a little sad that this was such a lackluster Boss Keys video compared the other Metroid ones you did, especially for how long we've waited. Here's to hoping my favorite Metroid game does better in the next video in this series. Y'know, funny thing: Metroid Prime used to be my favorite Metroid game when I was younger, and I hated Echoes and thought it was ugly and terrifying, as well as way harder. However, when I was older I ended up replaying it and finally beating it, appreciating the lore and the difficulty immensely more than I was when I was younger. You could say it grew on me, and now Echoes is one of my favorite Metroid games of all time, right in front of Prime, AM2R and Fusion.

Fan from Texas here. Proud Houstonian who’s never been shot, trampled by a horse or stabbed by a cactus. As long as you’re in one of the big cities (excluding Dallas) Texas isn’t that bad.

One thing I noticed in your area connections diagram was that you had 3 elevators between the tallon overworld and chozo ruins. However, one of those elevators only works one way since it dumps you out at a cliff that is too high to climb back up, so the navigation is even more difficult than it seems at first glance.

The temple and the Cipher being the ultimate goal of the game is made abundantly clear if you are paying attention to the lore scattered around. Even if you only read either the pirates' or the Chozo's side of things, everything points towards the impact site. If things as they ended up being were too subtle according to some ethereal "design principles", I fear a more clear-cut version would just be over-designed and ruin part of the consistency with which the world tells its story. Having literal lasers pointing you were you need to go doesn't really jive with the ancient, dead civilization schtick, as well as going against the core tenets of exploring on your own (which is only ever going to be so pure without turning off the hint system in the menu). I have long harbored the sentiment that these kinds of design dogmas concerning, in the end, entirely creative endeavors (not just games, but music, film and literature too) don't have a place outside of a clinical setting in which a team tries to make sure their product appeals to as wide an audience as possible. But when has that ever gone hand in hand with true, unbridled creativity? I'm not saying that Metroid Prime revolutionized anything, but applying these arbitrary rules for how it's supposed to be designed which for some reason are to be followed just seems really out of place without at the same time acknowledging the very niche field of application of such thought. Some try to argue for why certain sets of these kinds of rules are, in fact, universal. But those arguments fail already in their premise, on a purely philosophical level, since if that were true, it would mean that there are avenues of creativity which are disqualified, for no other reason than - at the end of the day - someone just didn't like it. Fuken sigh.

No offense taken, on behalf of us Texans. :3

Metroid Prime is still my favorite, memorable Video Game for GameCube. I still love it.

Damn, watching a bunch of videos on the metroid series for game design inspiration, starting to feel like I'm the only weirdo who enjoys the treasure hunts in the prime series. I totally understand why they're a pain to most people but I kinda prefer slowly exploring a world and looking around old areas for something new or noticing a door I missed. For some reason I just seem to develop a stronger bond with a location I visit more often.

14:04 You're spot on. I absolutely loved Metroid Prime, but I never actually finished it. I was borrowing it from a friend, and after I stopped playing it, I felt guilty for keeping it and gave it back. I never realized how close I was to finishing the game power-up-wise (don't remember how many artifacts I had), but around the Gravity suit, the game felt like a chore to play. I wanted to finish it (I still do want to get it again and finish it) but it started feeling too much like a dredge than an experience.

I think more games that explore the medium of a 3D Metroidvania would be really interesting as it really is under used

Hello everybody, I'm not Mark Brown, and this is Game Maker's Toolkit.

My favorite game ever. Music's perfect imo and gameplay is a joy. Good review Mark, cheers.