Why are you still reading this? Go buy the game.
About four years ago, Radio Free Nintendo put together a list of games for the readers to vote on for the Game of the Decade (2000-2010) . Metroid Prime eked out a victory over Majora’s Mask to win that coveted title. Four years later, We hosted a March Madness-style tournament, with 68 “teams,” for readers to decide the best game of the last fifteen years. It came down to Metroid Prime and Super Mario Galaxy this time, but Metroid Prime defended its title and came out ahead in the end (by a larger margin than before). It, alone, is worth the price of admission.
But you’re also getting Echoes and Corruption. The GameCube games have been Retro-fitted (ha!) with Wii controls, which generally suit the old games just fine—the only thing that feels forced is visor-switching but you get used to it pretty quickly. The Trilogy’s only downfall is that you can’t unlock all the meta-game collectables anymore—previously, you had to swap certain tokens with folks on your Wii Friends List to unlock everything, but obviously that service is no longer available.
Echoes is the hardest Metroid game ever made, full stop. It makes the original look like a Leapfrog game. Our own Dr. Jonathan Metts has referred to it as “one of the most hardcore games ever,” and he’s right. It is outright difficult, obtuse, and at times frustrating. However, Echoes is also beautiful, staggering in scope, and mentally challenging. The puzzles in Echoes are among the best in the entire series. The Sonar Visor—acquired way too late in the game—is really cool, and Quadraxis is still my favorite Metroid series boss ever. The game’s light/dark world conceit is hampered somewhat by the fact that the dark world is always a bitch to navigate—everything is purple, Samus takes damage unless she’s within a force field, and the enemies are more punishing. But if you can push through the pain, there’s a lot of fun to be had with Echoes.
Corruption takes a lot of hindsight heat, but I still really enjoy it. Folks didn’t seem to appreciate traveling to separate planets rather than wandering several interconnected environments, but I thought it was a nice change of pace. Each planet is fully realized and lets Retro be as creative as they want to be. Elysia, in particular, continues to take my breath away. The game introduces only one truly original new power (the Grapple Lasso) while the rest are ridiculously limited in scope and feel like glorified keys, which is disappointing. However, the game’s plot does circle around to make a connection with that of the original game and I think Corruption has the best story of the trilogy. I can’t forgive Samus’ Galactic Federation commanding officer, however, who may as well be wearing a cowboy hat and riding a Clydesdale. Apparently, in a future where Earth is but one of several colonized worlds, there are still Texans. (Editor’s Note: Zach is an Alaskan, and if you know your history, Alaskans hate Texans for some reason.)
I’ll say one more thing: the Echoes multiplayer (up to four players, locally) is nearly worth the asking price alone (not really, but you should try it). Metroid Prime does NOT work as a serious, competitive multiplayer game, but it does work in really wonderful, hilarious ways . So I could say that you’re getting three single-player games, at roughly 20 hours apiece (more for Echoes), for free with the purchase of an amazingly broken local multiplayer game. Whatever you’ve got to tell yourself, the Metroid Prime Trilogy is absolutely worth it. And I got to tell you, if Retro ever remastered the Trilogy in HD? I’d buy it again, at full price. Because I’m that guy.