"~ Dude, where are the Metroids? ~"

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

I'm sure everyone has heard of Metroid Prime. And from the large audience who knew Metroid Prime, a huge percentage from that huge percentage of the world loved it. It was a great game, different from the others but it still had many elements from the past Metroid games. Newcomers of Metroid even loved it. As being released as one of the GCN's first games, it really shocked the audience with it's beautiful graphics, storyline, and gameplay.

Now, two years later we meet Metroid Prime 2. How does it meet up to it's predecessor? Better? Worse? Find out.

Story: 10/10
Finally! A story for my reviews!!
The story is in two parts, but the Instruction Manual dosn't tell you that XP. The first part is about the Luminoth, a long forgotten race residing on the Planet Aether. They were a peace-loving group with advanced technoligy, who were great affilates with other races such as the Chozo. The Planet Aether they resided on was a very peaceful planet, with lush green forests, rivers and temples. But, like all of the other planets, lost all of it's peace when a giant meteor crash landed. This split the Planet into two, a Light one and a Dark one. A new race called the Ing also came to life. After many conflicts, trials, wars, the Luminoth eventually lost to the Ing, and the whole Planet fell to ruin.

Now, a few decades later, recently after Samus Aran eradicated all of the Metroids and the Great Evil residing on Tallon IV , she recieves *another* distess signal from the Galactic Federation. Recently, after being ambushed by Space Pirates, a Trooper Group crash landed on Planet Aether, and geuss what? You're sent to investiage. But as you find the Troopers, a new mission rises. And geuss what? You have to do something about it.

Graphics: 10/10
Compared to it's prequel, a little bit better. Compared to many of the recent GCN games, awesome! Everything is detailed. Everything from the enviorment to the enemies. Retro Studios did an awesome job putting in graphical surprises at places where you wouldn't expect it, like the reflection of Samus when you shoot at glass. Enviroments are cleaned out more, so ruins look like ruins, enemies look like they're supposed to and stuff like that.

Just like it's predeccesor, Metroid Prime 2 manages to continue on the line of good graphics. Hardly a lack of graphical capabilites. Samus Aran looks more sleeker, making it easier to tell that she's a she. And the returning objects, items, and enemies are made more detailed, anything that returns, including the Gun, is improved a lot. Nice job!

Controls: 9/10
The controls are basically the same as the prequel. It dosn't get too hard to control, and the new power-ups don't make it harder in any way. But, like all FPS games it is very hard to time your jumps. Space Jump *double jump* helps it a bit, but still, the jumping is a little hard to control. Locking on and Viewing is the same as it was in Metorid Prime. Hardly noticable at times though, after you get the hang of it, at least.

Gameplay: 10/10
Again, like it's predecessor it remains almost the same. There are a few tweaks here and there, but mainly to challenge the players more. It is still a shot-em-up game, with many, many elements from the past Metroid games which make it feel like any other Metroid games. But, this game captures even more stuff from the previous Metroid games, and the stuff from Prime I makes it even better.

Planet Aether is the place where you are stuck on, and is very big itself. Bigger than Tallon IV, there is also a counterpart of Aether. It is called Dark Aether, and it is just as big as Tallon IV, meaning it's very big. There is full exploration, but again, there is a Hint System telling you where to go next.

Most of the weapons and objects return from Metroid Prime, but this game features newer ones. Adding the already truckload from Metroid Prime and adding another truckload of new items, it makes collecting items funner. Scanning returns, and there are more scannable items, which terminates some of the brainless exploring. It is vital to scan anything and everything ;) Althought it may seem useless, learning more about the game gives more of a background to it.

But, this time around it is more mission based than it's original. Although not like Metroid Fusion, this one follows the same method for the 4 main levels you must explore. Get three Temple Keys while getting many Power-Ups and encounters on the way and restore energy by fighting the Big Boss at the end. But since each level is so different, it feels like a different mission for each level. The three main objects you must get are layed out nicely. It dosn't take just 5 minutes to get them, but rather, fight a boss, get an item, solve a whole lot of puzzles, fight another boss, explore, get the Key. Although it's more mission based, it is fully explorable, meaning you don't have to stick with the "mission" for the whole time you're there, but you have to get to it sometime.

Dark Aether is a counterpart of Light Aether. You must use protals to get between them *ala A Link to the Past . While Dark Aether is just a counterpart of the original Aether, it sometimes feels like a whole new levels, with different textures, enemies, music, puzzles, obstacles and stuff like that. Dark Aether is more challenging, as every breath you breathe takes away some of your health. You must get to Light Barriers (protection agains the poisonous air) to shield yourself. This makes the game more difficult, and more strategic. At times, you must complete the same puzzle for both worlds, but they both trigger different things. You have to remember what obstacle was there that you couldn't get across before, and with a new weapon you must go back and overcome it. Intellegent.

As for the enemies, some of them are just the Metroid Prime enemies with different abilites, while others are completely new. Enemies are effective against certain weapons. Speaking of weapons, there are 3 new beams in Metroid Prime 2, each with their own ammo, which brings up a word or so about the ammo system.

The ammo system uses ammo *derrr....*, thus meaning you have to conserve your supply of ammo for the right occasion. The new weapons are the Light Beam and the Dark Beam. The Light Beam is effective against Dark Aether creatures, while the Dark Beam is effective agains Light Aether creatures. You have to conserve their ammo, because they are needed to open doors and trigger crystals. Be more spareful than you were with the first game.

Overall, it's Metroid Prime with tons of added features. Taken away stuff and a bigger world to explore. The two games feel different, so it buying this dosn't mean buying Metroid Prime 1.

Difficulty: 9/10
A big enviorment means a lengthy game. Most of the time. Aether is so big, Save Stations are spread out more, and the enemies are just sheer annoying at times (GRENCHLERZ!!!!), but at the same time not too hard. It's gonna last you a LONG time, playing it over may be easier though.

Music and Sound: 9/10
Excellent. The sound effects of course, are much better than the cartridge games. The shot of a beam sounds like a shot of a gun, walking on metal sounds like it should, and the enemies sound like they look like. Much like it's original.

The music throws away some of the tracks with actual tunes that are cheery and adds more of a depressing, saddened song. It fits with the enviorment very well, but I don't really like the long drum solo for 6 minutes. Not that big of a problem though, none of the tunes gets very repetive.

Multiplayer: 10/10
<=D!! Multiplayer...in a Metroid game?! That's right. And though it may look stupid from screenshots and the sheer sound of multiplayer in a Metroid game, it works very well. There are two different modes to compete your 1-3 other buddies you play with and six total levels. Based on Single Player, the controls, graphics, sound and items are the same as the single player mode. You'll have tons of fun playing multi-player Metroid with your friends ;)

Replayability: 9/10
While not a pet-raising system (0o!!!) or Mini-Game mode, the game will last a lot, and going back to scan every single thing to record to your Logbook could give you a few extra hours. Also, getting the image galleries and the different endings is hard work. Multiplayer just adds a ton more to a Metroid game. I can't wait for Metroid Prime: Hunters to do this <=)

Overall: 10/10
:0! I never give out 10's. I seriously don't think that there is a perfect game, but this one is different. Although not perfect, you'll be coming back to play this game over and over after a time of frustration from the difficulty. Relentless, this works, and it tons of fun. If you don't have Metroid Prime 1, but this game, or vice versa, get both. They're both much fun, but in heart a totally different game. I did that and it was so much fun >=)

In closing, Metroid Prime 2 has it's pros and cons, but the pros overwhelm the cons by a thousandfold, so thats why it got it's deserving 10. Until next time, ciao!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/07/05