Metroid Prime - Retro Studios

This game is very important to my life and intertwined with my personality. I don't know why, seriously. This game is literally one of my very earliest memories. I remember being sick, I had to be around 4, which would be 2005. I remember playing this game but the first level was too scary for me so I never even made it past the first couple of rooms.

From then on out this game lingered in my mind for the next 4 or 5 years.  Third grade is when I decided that I was going to finally beat this game. This is probably the first game I ever beat, honestly. I remember playing it at my grandparents house on their Wii. I had brought my memory card with me and played it while my family ate dinner or some shit I don't know. I remember playing at my other grandmas house, my granny's house, and my sister used to always dance in the play room, so I would just have to play video games while my sister dances to 2000s pop music. I vividly remember the songs Poker Face and Circus playing one day while I was in Phendrana Drifts.

Okay sorry, that literally has nothing to do with the game. I'm just rambling about my childhood memories like a narcissistic dumb ass. I'm not going to get into the story because it's not important to the game whatsoever. Like, it's not bad or anything, but it's not great. The game starts with a tutorial level, tutorial boss, then you lose all your shit and start out on the planet Tallon IV. Cool name. You walk around, shoot some beetles and zoomers (funny name) and go to the Chozo Ruins, from there you get missiles, morph bomb, charge beam, bombs, Varia suit, boost ball, space jump, wave beam, thermal visor, spider ball, ice beam, gravity suit, power bombs, x-ray visor, grapple beam, plasma beam, Phazon suit, and uhhhh. I think that's it?

This game is a FPS. It controls very oddly, but at the same time it works perfectly. I can navigate the world as fluidly as if I had two analog sticks. The controls will be jarring for some players for sure, but you'll adapt. The game is linear but at the same time non-linear. You have open paths to explore but you can't break anything out of sequence unless you do glitches, which are awesome. Once you master scan dashes and the movement you can do some crazy skips and get items early. This unlocks the game and makes it like Super Metroid for me. Sure you can't kill bosses out of order or anything but who cares? All the areas are memorable, Magmoor Caverns definitely is the worst of them but the music is enjoyable and catchy.

This game has been a relic of my childhood so I am 100% biased and blinded by nostalgia. I'll start listing cons about the game. For one, this game is really easy once you understand its mechanics. The enemies just hop from left to right and shoot at you in a burst fire which barley damages you. Meanwhile, you can spam a billion power beam shots by mashing the A button uncontrollably while holding on to the lock-on button. It's too easy. 

The bosses are pretty easy too and sometimes can be a little boring. But then again, I know the strategies. I already know where to shoot to kill the boss, so there is no surprise or reward. 

I remember I was getting the plasma beam early by jumping off the stalagmite by the entrance, and jumping off the platforms onto other rocks and climbing to the top. I looked around the massive room, with the two giant reactor things sticking out of the lava pool below. I was mesmerized by it. It was so gray, red and ugly but at the same time the drugs made the lava glow and shimmer, and the doors did the same thing. Samus's arm cannon morphed like it was organic, and the charge beam effects looked great. I then pondered why I was doing this, "Why am I playing this game on acid right now?". 2020 was a turbulent year in everyone's life, I was a dumb 19 year old trying to find enlightenment by doing acid and other psychedelics, and one of my favorite things to do while tripping was indulge in nostalgia. I played Metroid, SpongeBob Battle for Bikini Bottom, Half-Life, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Minecraft while tripping and it changed the entire feel of the gaming experience. The drugs trick you into thinking you're in the game, so there is a lot more tension. Minecraft was scary, and obviously Amnesia was too. I am getting way off topic here. After I asked myself that question an answer popped into my head immediately. I am trying to relive the best moments of my childhood, that's why I was playing. Then I stopped after that because I felt uncomfortable.

I was just trying to live in the past, hide in my GameCube in the world of Tallon IV, instead of facing the reality of my situation. I was 19, in a relationship that was falling apart because of my toxic behavior, living in an apartment that I could barley afford because rent prices were so high. At the same time, I felt free. Alive, like an actual adult. But here I was playing Metroid like a kid. I just wanted to be a kid again.

In conclusion, I can't necessarily give an unbiased take of this game because it is ingrained in my life in more ways than one. It's weird. But it's definitely an amazing game for sure.