Metroid Prime (GameCube, 2002)

With Metroid Prime 4 finally about to drop, it seemed like a good time to revisit and fix up the one post I did for a Prime series game. While sometimes I prefer their darker follow-ups, Prime 2 and Fusion, I feel like Prime is nearly tied with Super Metroid for the title of "best game in the series". That's some tall praise right there. Super Metroid is probably easier to revisit and has a nice quick flow to it, so I'd probably put it just above this one.

Fun Fact: The reason Metroid Prime 4 has taken so long is because it took a while to secure the rights to the Seinfeld riff every time Myles makes a joke.

Originally posted April 2013, now redone for 2025 with some new HD shots added. There'll be a mix of those and 2013 camera shots here.

The file select screen in this game - in addition to having a really creepy background that looks like footage from a microscope slide of a deadly virus - has AWESOME MUSIC. The Metroid Prime Trilogy remake of this game made a terrible error: for some reason they omitted the game-specific file select entirely... which means this music is missing. I can't recommend MPT as a result, at least not for the first game. They didn't make the same mistake for Metroid Prime Remastered at least. MPT has other issues as well. Remastered is the way to go for the first one.

This game, like Super Metroid, starts you off on a doomed space station. Since this series completely skipped the N64, this was the first 3D Metroid. I remember playing this for the first time in 2002 and being completely blown away that one of my favorite game-verses was being fully realized this way.

As for items, we've got all the classics:

Morph Ball!

Charge Beam!

Here's the classic suit from Metroid 1, which is rarely seen in this series. Pretty much only that game, the first half of Metroid 2, and the first 20% or so of this game.

One of the biggest new additions to this game is the Scan Visor. With this you can scan almost everything in the game, be it creatures or computer screens or even plant life.

 The first boss is the Parasite Queen. It's freaky-looking, but it isn't a difficult fight. If anything, this is the training stage. This first area pretty much teaches you everything you need to know, and there's no Navi following you around explaining everything.

 The station explodes, Ridley escapes... it's a pretty awesome cinematic.

 Samus chases Ridley to the nearby planet of Tallon IV. This planet is a sister planet to the notorious Zebes; this one is far more hospitable, though. Zebesian Space Pirates have set up shop here.

Samus lands on Tallon IV, and the real adventure begins. And what an adventure this is. If you haven't played this game, go get it and play through it. Do it nao! I'll wait. Back now? Good times, yeah?

Tallon Overworld is the first area, and probably my favorite area in the game. The music here is very atmospheric. The area itself is stormy and lagoony, and if you look up at the falling rain it lands in droplets on Samus' visor. Not bad at all. It takes me back to the first time I ever played this game; I was on my last day off from work during the 2002 Thanksgiving break, I had a cold, and I was eating shrimp. I'd just had 3 days off before that, so it's a shame that I scored this on the last day of the break.

Very shortly after the outset, the game introduces you to the dusty Chozo Ruins. This is effectively the Brinstar of the game, all overgrown with vegetation. Far more of the early-game takes place here than Tallon Overworld, which is unfortunate. It isn't as interesting or awe-inspiring. It's still better than Agon Wastes (which is like the first third of Prime 2), at least.

The Remastered version of the game has some superb light effects.

There are a bunch of what I consider miniboss fights in this area. None of them are particularly interesting or memorable; this game takes a bit of time to really get rolling. For the most part, the first hour of the game consists of running back and forth in the ruins to collect power-ups. The Morph Ball, Missiles, and Bombs are all collected in this early stage, and every one of them is crucial to even start exploring.

The first truly major boss is found in the Sunchamber, a huge room at the top of the ruins. This would be Flaahgra, a giant plant from hell that seems to be poisoning all of the water in the ruins. How is it doing this? Do we want to know?

You defeat by depriving it of light sources, more or less. The music during this fight is one of the better tracks in the game, very creepy and only plays here.

As is tradition, beating the first major boss nets you the Varia suit. This is Samus' most iconic look, and lets her survive in super-heated areas, so naturally the next part is the lava area. Getting the Varia is an awesome moment in most Metroid games... aside from Other M where it consists of Samus finally getting permission from Adam to turn on the Varia after BURNING ALIVE IN SWELTERING HEAT for a while.

Magmoor Caverns is probably my least favorite area in the game. Just not really a fan of caves, though I do appreciate all of the lava.

I like the serpents that pop out of the lava and attack. They're similar to creatures from earlier games in the series, only three-dimensional. Magmoor Caverns is odd because it's the only area in the game that doesn't have a big boss.

2013 Note: If they ever do an HD remake of this game with new content, I think they should add a hidden postgame-style boss here. Crocomire or something. That'd be pretty sick. It'd be simple enough to implement, too. When restarting from a completed game save, a message could pop up saying "Seismic tremors detected in Magmoor region" or something along those lines, with a new cave opened up in one of the larger chambers.

2025 Note: Well, that didn't happen. But it's alright.

The attention to detail in this game is astounding. When Samus runs through steam, her visor fogs up for a moment. It's almost as cool as having raindrops land on the visor while outdoors.

Phendrana Drifts is the ice area of the game. Now there's something that was missing from Super Metroid, an ice area. This is without a doubt the most popular area in the game, and with good reason. The music here? Very, very good. Almost sounds like something from Yasunori Mitsuda.

There's constant snowfall here, and it's a huge zone with a lot to explore. While I personally like Tallon Overworld a bit more, I'll admit that Phendrana Drifts is the high point of the game.

The snowfall is a lot thicker in the original version of the game compared to Remastered, I noticed. One of the changes Remastered made that I'm not fond of. The light emitted by beams was also removed, so no more using the Wave Beam to light up dark rooms. That light effect is sorely missed in general. Well, time to go back to 2013 camera shots for a bit:

There are a lot of "side-scrolling" morph ball only areas in this game that are almost like traditional 2D areas.

Much like Metroid Fusion, I have never found 100% of the items in this game. I think my record is a measily 75% or so. As a result, every time I play this I find things that I've never found before. Here we see a precariously-placed Missile as I found it for the first time.

The Space Jump is one of the most important powerups in this game, as it lets you double jump. It's located in a grove very close to the starting point of the game, and it's actually possible to get it at the very beginning if you use a certain dashing glitch. The game is very different if you have the double jump from the start (I'd argue it's significantly more fun, and allows for tons of sequence breaking without you even necessarily meaning to)

Back in Phendrana, the menacing Sheegoth is one of the more memorable mini-bosses in this game. It guards...

...the Wave Beam. It takes awhile to get a new beam in this game, but when you do it's a big improvement. The Wave Beam has a much wider range than the standard beam and has the nice side effect of emitting a lot of light when you fire it. I use it a lot in dark areas to light things up.

Editor's Note: These light effects were removed for Remastered, unfortunately.

It wouldn't be a Metroid game without Zebesian Space Pirates, and this game has a lot of them. At first they aren't much of an issue to dispatch, but they quickly adapt to the threat posed by Samus. Soon you start encountering flying Zebesians with rocket launchers, Zebesians with cloaking devices, and multi-colored Zebesians that are only vulnerable to one weapon.

They're also breeding Metroids. The first time Samus finds one in stasis, it's a creepy moment. Without any dialogue, Samus reacts strongly to the presence of the vicious life-form. If this were Other M she'd launch into a lengthy monologue about motherhood and stuff while making Adam a sandwich. Keep it simple, folks. Metroids are basically the honey badgers of the cosmos.

The Thermal Visor is one of the cooler artifacts in the game, and gives you Predator-vision. Helps a lot when fighting Predator-cloaked Zebesians. That's right, this game borrows heavily from both Alien (per usual) AND Predator.

Thardus (a bizarre stone golem deal) is the big boss of Phendrana, and one of the more memorable fights in the game. You make full use of the Thermal Visor during this fight, and the music is yet another great track.

The Spider Ball is one of the cooler powerups in the Metroid canon. It made its debut in Metroid 2 for the Game Boy; in that game you could use it to literally cling to ANY walls in the game. As a kid I would roll across every surface that I could, bombing everywhere to try and find hidden stuff. The best part is, occasionally I WOULD find hidden items, rewarding my seemingly Quixotic efforts.

Chozo statues that send you to where you need to go if you roll up into a ball in their hands? Yeah, this game has that. One of my favorite conventions from Super Metroid. It just makes sense that if you see a statue with open hands, you'll want to roll into a ball there. I was doing that in Metroid 2, back before it even had any results. It just looked cool.

The Ice Beam is the next beam to get in this game. It actually isn't that useful in this game; the Wave Beam is more damaging and you can't use frozen enemies as steps like you can in the 2D games. Still, it has its uses, like grounding flying Zebesians. No love for the Spazer in this game, unfortunately.

One interesting thing this game does with the beams: elemental properties. New to this game, the Wave Beam is now electric-themed and the Plasma Beam is now fire-themed. It's cool to see the other beams besides Ice get elemental properties as well. Prime 2 gives us Dark, Light, and Sound elements which was also a pretty cool route to take things after this one. Prime 3 unfortunately more or less just goes back to basic element-less beams.

The Ice Beam looks nice, and frosts the cannon when charged.

The next part of the game features some pretty extensive trekking back and forth that gets a bit tiresome. On Tallon Overworld, there's a "sub-area" of sorts, the Crashed Frigate. It's clearly a reference to the Wrecked Ship of Super Metroid. It's the doomed space station from the intro of the game, only now it's sideways and flooded. Getting through here requires the Gravity Suit, which means trekking way back to Phendrana.

The deeper parts of Phendrana have new, funky music. A decade ago I was into this track, but now that I'm older and less hip, I prefer the lower-key theme from earlier.

The Gravity Suit is found in a frozen lake. It has the iconic Screw Attack emblem, for some reason. The Screw Attack isn't actually in this game, because they were saving it for Prime 2.

Here's a shot of the Gravity Suit. Players of Super Metroid no doubt remember it from that game. It has a particularly nice color scheme.

After trekking all the way back to the Crashed Frigate, it is now traversable. It involves a lot of Thermal Visor usage and powering conduits with the Wave Beam. Yeah, this part drags on a little bit, but that's okay because soon we're headed to the fun-mania known as...

NO! DON'T DO IT! DON'T STEP INTO THE HOLOGRAM!

The Phazon Mines are the most brutal, frustrating area in this game; best part is, you have to go through them twice.

Here's a little trick: Midway through the area, there's a room full of gas with endlessly spawning enemies. You can hide out by the doors and not be affected by the gas, and from there it's simple enough to snipe enemies until your health is refilled. At this point in the mines, it's a crucial bit of assistance.

An electrical maze leads to the Power Bombs, which are gained oddly late in this game. They're extremely useful since they can one-shot Metroids, but ammo for them is very scarce and only dropped by certain enemies.

Much like Super Metroid, the Power Bombs lead to the Grappling Beam. The latter is a lot of fun, as expected.

Again like Super Metroid, the Grappling Beam leads to an X-Ray scope... though in this case it's an actual visor that compliments the Thermal Visor by seeing things that it can't. While Thermal vision helps with spotting foes and power conduits, the X-Ray Visor lets you see walls that are breakable. One particularly cool little thing about this visor is that you can look through Samus' hand with it.

The big late-game goal here is to find the twelve artifacts of the Chozo. This is a scavenger hunt that annoys a lot of players, but it isn't anywhere near as bad as the similar Triforce Shard hunt in Wind Waker or the keys at the end of Metroid Prime 2.

For starters, you don't need like 4,000 rupees for this, plus this is actually fun. You can get started on it early, too. I usually wait until the end and then look for all of them at once, but this time around I got as many as I could before the endgame.

There's one in the Artifact Temple near the start of the game. Since this is basically a freebie, there are really just eleven of these things to look for throughout Tallon IV.

The chamber leading up to the Plasma Beam is a massive room full of Spider Ball tracks and various puzzles. This is my least favorite room in the game, because it's an ascent all the way and if you fall, you start over.

Another semi-menacing Chozo statue that triggers a pathway. The Chozo are interesting creatures, and it's unfortunate that they've all died off by the time of the Metroid series except for the few evil ones we got in Metroid Dread.

As if one jaunt through Phazon Mines weren't bad enough, the game sends you back there at the end. This time, you get to traverse the entire three-floor area, rather than just the (bad enough) first floor. Heavily-armed Zebesians attack by the half dozen in here.

The deepest level of the mines contains a lot of Phazon, the blue stuff seen here. It's radioactive and far deadlier than lava.


As if this weren't bad enough, the place is also crawling with Metroids. One Power Bomb will take out multiple Metroids at once (if they're all stacked up around you, as they tend to do)

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.

The boss of this area is the infamous Omega Pirate, who ends more than a few playthroughs of the game. This fight can be either very difficult or very not difficult, depending on how aggressively you attack.

Since the boss regenerates, staying on offense is the best thing to do here. In my case, I got completely destroyed the first two times I attempted the fight, then won easily on the third go by being relentless. Also, Super Missiles are key.

Note: This fight is as far as I was able to get in Hard Mode before tapping out and moving on from the game. Even if I had gotten past it, Ridley would have ended me. I'd say you need to go for 100% items if you're doing Hard Mode, because those extra few energy tanks would make all the difference in the lategame.  

Winning nets Samus the Phazon Suit, which is exclusive to this game. It turns her armor black and makes her invulnerable to Phazon. I wish more games had this suit, because it might well be the most badass suit in the entire series canon.

Speaking of, grabbing all twelve Triforce Shards artifacts means you can finally go on to the last area of the game, the Impact Crater. But first!

It wouldn't be a Metroid game without a Ridley fight. Unless this were Prime 2, I guess. In any case, the Space Pirate commander is no doubt enraged at Samus' decimation of the pirate base in the Phazon Mines, and he caught up with her just in time.

Samus proceeds to completely lose her mind in horror as Ridley approaches, flashing back to her childhood and becoming completely unable to fight back. Wait, that doesn't happen at all. In actuality, she completely whoops his ass without flinching while another great remix plays.

As the fight goes on, Ridley's wings burn off. Once he's grounded, he actually gets more powerful. This battle gets a bit difficult towards the end, as his weak point can be hard to zero in on. The last 15% or so of his HP, which is the grounded phase, takes longer than the first 85%. This is the hardest fight in the game and it isn't even close..mostly. Omega Pirate is the only other thing in this ballpark of threat level (yeah, even the final boss is pretty easy compared to these two)

Win the fight and the nearby Chozo statues blast him into oblivion. Maybe they could have done that DURING the fight?

After Ridley's demise - yet again, he has more lives than Sigma - a bunch of Chozo ghosts appear and open the way to the Impact Crater. The crashed meteor within is the source of the Phazon that wiped out the planet, and it's full of Metroids.

The crashed meteor is the final area of the game, and it's really bizarre. It looks like the inside of a massive creature, and some of the platforms look like teeth. It also contains red super-phazon that damages Samus even with her new suit.

In the last room, Metroid Prime lurks. This is the most powerful Metroid in existence, made that way by exposure to massive amounts of Phazon. After it uncurls, we can see that it looks a bit like a giant spider.

On a personal note, when I was a kid I "designed" Metroid IV in a notebook, and the final boss of that game was a highly-evolved Metroid that resembled a giant spider. I should find that notebook eventually, it probably had some good ideas in it.

Much like the Ridley fight before it, the finale of this game is pretty easy at first and gets more difficult as time goes by. Like so many of the late-game foes, this boss changes his weakness with increasing regularity as the fight goes on. Lots of weapon switching is needed.

Of course, the final boss has another form after that: this bizarre jellyfish-like apparition. This is another tricky battle since a lot of Metroids spawn in the room to mess things up. Power Bombs are key for taking them out. For this boss, we get what might be the best battle tune in the game.

Winning is a matter of jumping into the phazon pools and channeling that energy into Hyper Mode. This'll be seen again in Metroid Prime 3 except you have more control over it then.

After Samus vanquishes it again, Metroid Prime inflates into a gigantic Phazon blob that bears a fairly strong resemblance to the X Parasites in Fusion for some reason.

It pulls off the dark suit Spider-Man 3 style, leaving her with the Gravity Suit. How that works, I have no idea. I guess the dark armor was just a coating. We'll never wear the Phazon Suit again in this series, which is unfortunate because it's the best suit out of all of them IMO. That's because the Phazon Suit goes on to become a body for Dark Samus, the villain of the next couple of games.

Beyond that, Samus escapes as the temple implodes. This game lacks an escape sequence at the end. Most Metroid games have one. Not sure why this one doesn't, because Samus does indeed have to get off of the planet, but for some reason it transpires in cutscene rather than a playable escape sequence.

Credits roll, letting us know who is responsible for this. Retro Studios deserves a huge round of applause for this game.

Ten hours is about the norm for playthroughs if you're a little bit thorough. It's a ridiculously good game, there isn't much more to say about it.

Other Metroid-related posts from around the site:

Ranking all of Samus' Suits

Reviews
Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime 2
Metroid Prime 3

Metroid Other M

Metroid Prime Hunters

Playthroughs
Metroid
Metroid: Zero Mission
Metroid 2: Return of Samus

Super Metroid 
Metroid Fusion 
Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime Pinball