I don't know what made me seek refuge in Metroid Prime again, months after I had lost all interest in anything related to videogaming in general. When I first bought the game I was instantly immensed in the wonderful gameplay and stunningly beautiful environment, yet due to a busy schedule at the time the game was declared a classic and instantly discarded amongst the rest of imcompleted games.

Maybe it was Retro Studios amazing creativity, design, and implementation, or even the masterful guidance of Nintendo throughout the development cycle that was the reason for relaunching into a game I immediately loved, yet never had the time to persist with. Whatever the motive may be upon stepping into the shoes of Samus again I rediscovered just how brilliant the game was, and still is.

My question(s) to other owners or players of this classic is: Do you believe that this game still is the pinnacle of Gamecube console and the most influential game for the console to date? How does it stand up to today's emerging releases and is it outdated as far as graphical effects are concerned?

Personally I believe the game is still remarkable, the graphics literally blew me away again today, well over a year since its original release and the gameplay is still just as compelling and enjoyable as it was upon first reaction and impressions. In my perception the game stands the test of a rapidly expanding industry exceptionally well in regards to the graphical and audio aspects and is quite simply the best 2D to 3D transition from a videogame franchise since the launch of Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64.

Ultimately, I am loving my re-discovery of quite simply one of the best videogames of all time.

-- Your turn for a retrospective report.

I'd be inlined to give 2nd place to Zelda: ooT (N64). But you're right. Metroid's shift to 3D was a particularly successful one.

I'd probably agree that MP is still the best GCN title, though how influential it is remains to be seen.

DC, I know exactly what you mean by discarding it as an instant classic. I originally played it very briefly and due to my lack of time at the time, put it aside thinking "man, this game kicks ass and I’m going to save it a while".

As far as pinnacle goes - yeah, it's definitely still the leader in my estimation. Even though it has seen very few challenges to its thrown, due to the relative flop the GameCube has become, I still think it would stand above or at least level with any game on any console. It's simply a brilliant game.

Most influential? Hmm, I don't know about this one. Unfortunately, I don't think it was ever really picked up by the casual gamers as well as it was the more dedicated. It's a very complex game that does require the gamer to invest a lot of thought into and I'm not sure if that works too well for your casual gamers. Unfortunately, I think crud like Mario Party 4, 5 etc. will always be the casual gamers choice as they are very accessible, can be left in a draw for months, brought out and played well in an instant and contain a lot of popular characters. I hope that Prime is one of the more influential games when it comes to developers taking it to the next level. It certainly raised the bar for what can be done.

I still strongly believe it matches anything in its class today. Obviously the Xbox has more graphical grunt, but I think Prime is a cut above the rest when you compare the relative technologies and what they've been able to do thus far.

I like many of you had shun Metroid Prime, although my reasons were that it was so hard to finish Metroid Prime, getting it down to the tiniest bit of health, only for me to die, the frustration got me. I will be returning to it sometime soon, although with Year 11 taking it's toll on my gaming, it may not be for a long time.

Metroid Prime. One of the reasons that i got a gameCube (also i'm a giant fanboy :D) Did not let my expectations down one iota. from the minute i started to play i was in love. the graphics, music, gameplay all were spot on for a metroid game. The transition from 2D - 3D as well moving to a first person view was absolutely perfect. and all this from a new studio. amazing.

recently i've gone back and tried hard mode. more of a challenge but as enjoyable. Stupid rock boss has been kicking my ass though :(

I predict that this game will stand up to the test of time like the other classics

For my part, I definitely believe Metroid Prime is the pinnacle of Game Cube gaming. I was not really a Nintendo gamer until I bought a GCN almost a year ago. In my long gaming history I'd never played a Metroid game before, or a Zelda game, and the only Mario game I'd played was Mario 64, which my nephews owned. And now, I'm still not particulary enamoured of Mario, Zelda pretty much leaves me cold, but Metroid Prime simply rocks.

It is an uncomplicated game, almost old school in what it sets out to achieve, and it does it all brilliantly. The controls feel a bit awkward to start with, but they are actually marvelous once you get the hang of them. And I found the difficulty to be perfectly pitched. I often felt under pressure, knowing that I'd have to play (comparativel) skilfully to succeed, but I was never frustrated.

After I finished MP for the first time (which wasn't long after it came out) I put it away and wondered if I'd ever bother playing through it again. Well, just recently I did, and I was floored all over again by just how cool and compelling it was. So yeah, for me it's still easily the best Cube game.

Absolutly. This game will, and as far as I'm concerned, always will be the GCN's best game.
As I've said before at Hyper and other forums, this game was my entry into the Metroid universe, and I was literally speechless when I first played through.
As soon as I reached the first boss, I knew that this game was going to be one of my favourites of all time, and I knew I would play through it over and over again. The exact same feeling I recieved while going through FFVIII.

I honestly cannot see why some people felt the game was too hard, and because of the challenge, they left it on their shelves.
Yes the game was challenging, but never fustrating, and if I died while versing heaps of space pirates, or versing a boss or whatever, it just made me feel more compelled to attempt it again.

I think the overall package of the game was just brilliant, it had the right controls, graphics, sound, and gameplay to immerse the player from start to finish.
I loved it from the day I purchased it, I continue to love it (and play it) currently, and I know I'll still be playing through it in the years to come.
I could go on forever about this game, pure bliss. :D

When I borrowed a cube off my friend I loved MP. Now that I've gotten a cube myself, I've been able to revist Prime, and it's still just as good as when I played it before. Although Wind Waker is getting more screen time right now, I just love the whole feel of that game :)

I hadn't touched Metroid Prime since a couple of weeks after it came out when I finished it.

Just the other day though, I threw it in because I wanted to test the GCN-GBA connectivity between Prime and Fusion, and for the short amount of time I was playing it, it was just as exciting as the day I bought it.

For me, most games lose their edge once I complete them, but playing MP again for that brief time really took me back, and i'm definately going to play it again when there's a gaming drought.

i love prime. if i ever have a perio with no new games to play/finish i am sooo going back to finish prime for my 3rd time. id lik eot say its by far my favorite game on the cube but with the amount of time ive spent on ikaruga i thinkits time ill have to accept that prime is in 2nd.

It is without a doubt the Gamecube's current benchmark and continues to impress me every time I play it. It just seems like your booting it up for the first time again, every single time you play. However, my personal favourite is Zelda: WW. It's probably because I'm such a Zelda fanboy but I just feel I've had a lot more fun with it, minus the difficulty which is a little dissapointing, but made up for with Prime.

Favourite game ever. So many postives. Here's 3 of the main ones -
1. The only game on my Cube that I've ever bothered to finish.
2. Puzzle and level design = genius.
3. Morph ball.

I picked up Super Metroid the other day. She's obviously similar to Prime, but oh so much more crappier. Long live next gen!

I too love this game it is simply so compelling. The graphics might be beat in other games on a techinal(sp) level but he artist quailty is yet to be out done. Nothing is there just to look pretty it's all there to further entrench you in the game world.

The sound was my favorite thing about the game really made the astmosphere work for me the the classic bomb explosions to the wonderful melancholy music.

The gameplay also was great I never once wanted to stop playing for more than a day, often I'd die decide I needed to do the dishes, get up and turn the cube off just to turn back on again for one last go.(the dishes got done[by the room mate])

I love this game it is great and I will be playing this game for a long time to come.

I have never played it... but now i'm thinking I have to.

meh......this game basically didnt do it for me, i found the story boring as shit. Plus i always was wondering around doing nothing, then all the sudden i'd be in a totally different place. Genius level design? I think not. I dunno, maybe my expectations were to high. Oh that, and the fact that i dont like FPS.....

Was "Retrospective analysis" an unintended pun?

Anyway, I started playing Metroid for the third time about a week ago. Metroid, SSBM, and Wind Waker are the only three games that have given me their worth in game playing on the Gamecube, so it's needless to say that Metroid is somewhat of a heaven sent game in maintaining my 13-year faith in Nintendo.

I can't pinpoint exactly why I love this game, though I think the 'cool' factor is something which few games can hold a candle to. I realised that I was going to love this game the moment that I came up against the Queen Parasite. I remember facing off against that huge bitch thinking "God-DAMN! This is the tutorial boss!?". Of course, needless to say - the bosses maintain a constant quality from thereon and are always extremely fun to verse (with the possible exception of the Elite Pirate, who was a freaking pushover). The rest of the game compliments have already been mentioned - great graphics, level design, 2D-3D transition, etc.

Minor Spoilers:
My only problem with the game is that I found it far too easy. When I played hard mode, I managed to defeat Metroid Prime (the boss) on my first shot. Earlier this week I beat Thardus on Hard losing less than two tanks of health. The only other minor flaw was that the final beam weapon is so powerful that it tends to make the other weapons useless - it used to be fun doing the Ice Beam + Missile shatter combo to defeat Pirates, but that is made somewhat useless by the easy kill of a charged Plasma shot. I suppose I also would've liked to see the visors incorporated in a few more interesting ways.

I do believe it's the pinnacle of graphical design and arguably gameplay, but I don't think it's as innovative or influential as Wind Waker. Emerging releases, I can't say - I haven't played that much recently.

Don't say that, dude, hello thought that he was damn good for being able to finish the game :P . At the time I found it bloody difficult, but now that I've played Super Metroid - I can't even beat the 1st boss - my thoughts have changed.

The first boss actually is kinda difficult. You need to be able to leap left/right fairly quickly to dodge her. Oh, unless you're talking about Super Metroid...

Minor Spoiler:
Anyway, I realised yesterday that the Omega Pirate is a fucking bitch. I've got 14 energy tanks and 235 missiles and I still can't defeat the fat bastard. The difficult part is when he unleashes two wave pirates and a plasma pirate, and you're leaping around trying to find where he's rejuvinating and you just end up playing in a pool of Phazon... blah!

Intended. :P

I bought a Logitech z640 5.1 speaker system and decided to play my old games that support Pro Logic II (whilst the system is actually "true" Pro Logic II decoded it's close enough compared to my TV speakers and I'm not an audio whore) Metroid Prime was obviously one of the games I played. ANd WOW!! It's amazing how new hardware brings new life in your old games, I got the wow factor with many games, but with Metroid Prime I wanted to keep playing :).

I never got around to really playing through again in Hard mode, so I have been doing that lately and it's just as fun as it was when I first played it. Truly one of the GCN's best games thus far!!

Somethimes Prime can get frustrating, when you have obtained a few new items and what not, and there isn't a Save station near by, so you decide to continue on, and then all of a sudden you get killed :evil: !! Forcing you to replay what you already did!!
Worse than that was though, after I got the Plasma Beam on my first play through, I immediatly headed for a Save Point, and what happened on my way? My TV screen went black with the message "an error has occured, consult your instruction manual for further details". Argh!!! :angry: :cross:

I don't think I ever died once in the entire game. How good am I? But that's what I liked most about Prime: the difficulty wasn't in fighting loads of bosses and enemies, but mostly to do with puzzles and exploration. More games should focus less on fighting (*I'm looking at you Prince of Persia!).