Metroid Prime 2: Echoes [GCN]

Picking up my game again (man, has it been 10 months? geez, i'm getting worse), as I still intend to try and finish this game before Prime 3 hits at the end of August, and I must remark on the gorgeous music for this game- Prime 1's music was good, and appropriately atmopsheric but usually had that unnerving or irritating approach to techno, which worked given the whole "space pirate mad scientist lab" setting of the game, but the stuff for MP3 so far has been rather beautiful. Looking forward to Stemage's Metroid Metal project eventually covering some of these themes.

 

Nope- August 20th is the release date. 20 years to the month from the original Metroid's north american release.

 

I like that's there's a bit of humor in the log entries, these two Space Pirate ones I just came across in particular:

"Metroids are not pets. Metroids are not to be used for target practice. Do not feed the Metroids."

"[insert pirate name/designation] succumb to "phazon fever", by which we mean he claimed the phazon was his and held us at gunpoint until security arrived."

 

Just beat the first temple at 5:20 & 17%. I love worm bosses, hehe. Though it adds into the definite "Metroid Prime meets A Link to the Past" feel of the game, but ya know what? It really works very, very well. The Morph Ball puzzles and levels have also definitely been integrated much more naturally this time around too. Hopefully I can find the Boost Ball upgrade soon so i can tackle all these ramp areas that are out of reach.

 

So I've been facing the Boost Ball Guardian for the last hour... I'm going to enjoy turning him into pudding pops when this is all over...


EDIT- DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[image=http://ifelicious.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/JelloPuddingbillcosby.jpg]

Tastes like...victory. Sweet, sweet, delicious victory

Damn, that was one tough SOB!

EDIT 2- I forgot to scan the Morph Ball upgrade!

 

Yeah, it took me almost an hour and a half to finally down him. I haven't had that much trouble with a boss since Meta-Ridley in MP1.

 

Is that so? I hope not- yes, it is a bastard, but it's not impossible; it just takes some time and a little luck. It's far more satisfying a victory being harder.

 

Having just acquired the screw attack the other day, I felt compelled to comment that this game really gets my respect for it's complexity and unwillingness to sugar coat things.

I'm not ashamed to admit that this last stretch actually made me use a walkthrough for actual levels (versus hidden missile upgrades and energy tanks)- I usually don't have any problems with dual-world constructs (in fact, they are probably my favorite game mechanic of all time), nor Metroidvania backtracking, but the way they've been combined in this game sometimes just exceeds my capacity to fully calculate and process them. Most impressive.

I can't even begin to think of how long it would have taken me to figure out the backtracking through a half dozen+ portal jump-back-and-forths to get the screw attack on my own, if I could have at all.

I mean, it all made complete sense, yet to actually arrive at the point where you'd consider it would seem mighty elusive. But a great game design has the answer to a puzzle staring you right in the face once you look at it from the right angle or two (or six).

 

Rezbits, yeah, I hate them too- mostly because I kept forgetting what weapon kills them best, so I'd end up running out of dark energy and have to take them down with a ton of charged power shots from a distance. Thankfully the screw attack takes them down easy.

 

The difficulty level options were added to the trilogy version, right? I forget if they gave you an option ion the GCN version (which is what I'm playing) at the start.

 

Ah, well, I won't have time for that for like, a decade...

 

Quadraxis was an awesome boss fight.

Very creative combination of techniques, from the boost attack, to super missling the leg joints to using sonic attacks to disrupt the communication signal to stunning the head unit to then spider-boosting off the leg tracks onto the floating head and laying a bomb into a node.

That's one of the more unique/original boss fights this series has had in awhile. Boosting from spidertracks to other magnetic surfaces in general has really opened up a bunch of great puzzles and combat options. I think that may be the most lingering/significant addition to the series from this game.