Walkthroughs & Tips

Review by: Jake Delfeir

Reviewers Score: 7 / 10

Posted: November 14, 2005

Metroid Prime 2 - Echoes
System: Gamecube
Genre: Adventure/First-Person Shooter
Difficulty: Medium/Hard
Score: 7/10

I'm a big Metroid fan. I started with Super Metroid and eventually became hopelessly addicted to both it and the two GBA games. When they announced the original Metroid Prime, I was keen. I wasn't a fanboy, angsting about how the 3D nature would kill it. I played it, and liked it. It had faults, but what game doesn't? So I got the second one as well, and I've been playing that again recently. I find it a little less enjoyable than the original, but still not a bad game. Here's why...

Graphics (10/10)

This game is pretty, very pretty. While the graphics aren't perfect, the atmosphere that they create more than makes up for it. The settings are fairly bleak and dark, which creates a real sense of stepping into the unknown and helps accentuate the fact that you will be getting lost at some point in this game. The opponents all are nicely detailed and make for highly interesting targets. The scenery is usually pretty bleak, like I said, but usually fairly well detailed. Rock formations, water features, a variety of plants and so on make the game, at the very least, presentable.

Sound (10/10)

Unlike with emulators, I tend to play with the Gamecube sounds on. As a result, I hear the sounds a lot better. And I'll give it this - it can be very creepy. The music is often minimal, consisting of high-pitched noises over very faint, lower rumbles and little else. Along with the graphics and the in-your-face nature of the enemies, this once again helps create a very nice atmosphere. The sounds are usually realistic and at least partially-suited to their recipients - robots screech and shatter when destroyed, and enemies howl or scream when shot to pieces. All-in-all, it really works.

Story (6/10)

Minimal, as with all Metroid games. In the timeline, it sits immediately after Metroid Prime, which is in-between the first and second Metroid games. A Space Pirate frigate has been shot down onto the planet of Aether by a Galactic Federation ship, who followed them down. Bouny Hunter Samus Aran has been sent to go after them and give them a hand. She finds them all dead when she gets there, and learns of a bigger problem than the few Space Pirates - the planet has been split in half between the regular Aether, and an evil dimension called Dark Aether. From Dark Aether come the Ing, a race of dark creatures that have every intention of making Dark Aether the only Aether, before moving on to take over the entire Galaxy. So Samus steps in to kick ass and take names like she usually does.

There's a little more to it, but I won't go too much into it for fear of spoilers. There is more in there than just this, otherwise it wouldn't have scored like that. A bonus is that there is a large amount of backstory and planetary culture to be learned by scanning various items across the game and getting an insight into the deeper feeling in the game. Most people avoid this or do little about it, except to get the best ending and unlock everything, though, so it's not really all that great.

Gameplay (6/10)

This is where a game should shine, but Metroid Prime 2 only gives off an average one. The concept behind it works nicely - it's an adventure game through-and-through, just like Zelda games or something in that vein. However, it plays like a First-Person shooter. That is definitely not what it's supposed to be, though, and it's very different from the typical FPS. Anyway, you start to explore the early sections, shooting off enemies with your basic gun while trying to figure out where the Galactic Federation troops are. Pretty soon you learn of the basic ideas of the game - the war between the Ing and the original natives of Aether, the Luminoth. Then you get bossed around by one of the latter into saving Aether from the Ing. From there on in, you end up going back and forth between areas, generally in a search for the equipment you need to get further. Some of these are armour upgrades, others are new weapons and upgrades for those, and more are used for the puzzle elements of the game, such as the Morph Ball.

The main point of the game - you have to stop the Ing. The procedure - you have to go to each area, find some keys for a dark temple, steal the temple energy and return it to the normal Aether. The problem is, in order to get to a lot of these places and find all the keys, you have to backtrack. A lot. You might progress a few rooms, then find you need a new visor to see the lock to the door ahead. The visor is two areas back, as the hint system tells you at about the point, so back you go. When you finally crawl your way back there, you'll probably be confronted with a boss battle. These are normally very, very large, and very imposing. So you'll fight them... and half the time, they're extremely tough and will kill you. Now this wouldn't be so bad, but... the save points in this game are extremely few and far between. There's no temporary save if you need to stop, or on-the-spot save that you can use like in most PC games. So odds are that you'll have to load, and then trek through another fifteen minutes of territory that you just cleared to get to the boss. And die again. Rinse and repeat about five times, and by this point you're extremely frustrated. This makes it extremely annoying, especially considering how prevalent the backtracking and boss battles really are. The positive feature about this is that it can be a really good feeling when you finally blast the big boss into pieces. But then you start to dread the boss battles, and think that it really wasn't worth it. Oh, and I forgot to mention - you constantly take damage in Dark Aether. CONSTANTLY, unless you're standing in special areas that protect you from the dark atmosphere. Later on you get new suits that protect you more from it, but it's still extremely annoying at the start.

Another feature is that Samus has beam weapons, and visors. The new beam weapons are powerful and fun to play with, but unlike previous Metroid games... they have ammo. This is the big negative for many - unlike in the past where you could just shoot aimlessly and hopefully tear things to shreds, this time you have to be careful with your shots. This is a good idea in theory, but it somehow makes it a little too annoying. Attempting to clear out an Ing hive with only 20 ammo is not cool, and it can be very difficult to refill it... especially since you have to kill an enemy with the OPPOSITE beam to get the ammo. And since most Ing are resistant to the Dark Beam, but you need lots of Light Beam ammo to kill them... you get the picture. Among the visors is everyone's favourite
*sarcasm* Scan Visor! With this, you can scan practically everything to receive hints, a little depth into the game, and ways to kill certain enemies. But you usually have to scan EVERYTHING, and it can be a serious pain when you're trying to find an enemies weakness and there's three of them clawing you apart. And if you miss even one critical item, there goes the best ending and unlocking all the features! This is as frustrating as any boss battle.

Despite these glaring negatives, the game isn't all that bad. It's a fun adventure game, and it can be extremely satisfying to complete a tough puzzle or bash a huge, sprawling boss to bits. It'll keep you occupied for a time, and the general parts are fun... just make sure you know where the closest save point is, at all times, and keep an eye on your ammo.

Replayability (5/10)

This is a bad part of the game, really - there's enough to keep you replaying it for a while, but ultimately most people will find it way too frustrating to completely more than just once or twice. The key features are finding all the upgrades - there are 51 missile upgrades to get, five ammo upgrades for your backup weapons, four beam weapons and a slew of different collectibles. Finding and acquiring them all is tough, but rewarding when you are capable of plowing through monsters without breaking a sweat. Also, getting 100% scans is quite a challenge, but also one that will drive most people insane. Few will bother to complete this game a second time, which is why the low score - the points it gets is for at least HAVING the features. Also, it does have a four-player deathmatch mode, but this feels really tacked on and kinda dull. Fun for a while, but nothing on a game that's designed for multiplayer. Co-operative play would have been really nice...

Overall (7/10)

Metroid fans will delight in this game, but Metroid fanboys and non-Metroid fans will hate this game. For those who like it enough to get stuck into it and deal with the faults, this will be a great game and you will love every minute of it. Sadly, these people are few and far between, so the rest of us will play for about an hour at a time before stopping and not touching it for another fortnight. There are just a few too many problems to make it an excellent game, but I still like it somewhat. It's still fun, and has a very good atmosphere that really pulls you in. I suggest you rent it first, though, before buying. You never know.