COUNTDOWN: Top Ten Switch Games I Played in 2023 #2 Metroid Prime: Remastered
When Nintendo revealed that Metroid Prime 4 was in development, rumors instantly began swirling around about a rerelease of some kind for the original trilogy. A series of first person adventure games that began on Gamecube and seemingly wrapped up on the Wii. Days turned into years without anything materializing, until that fateful moment in early February of 2023. When an official announcement was made that not only was there a remaster of the original installment on the way, it would be available like right then. A “shadow drop” as the children say, I believe.
Well that equaled yours truly frantically stumbling to close the living room blinds for one sexy happy dance.
Outside of an appearance in the original Super Smash Bros., Samus Aran and the Metroid franchise had skipped the N64 entirely. This was pretty rough for fans of the series as the legendary, iconic, perfection of gaming design otherwise known as Super Metroid for the SNES really left us dying to see where Nintendo would go next. This demand was made all the more fever pitched after seeing both Mario and Zelda exquisitely make the leap from 2D pixels to 3D polygons with the genre creating Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time games.
Once the curtain fell and it was shown that the series would be coming in the form of a first person game however, well…it was a bit of a head scratcher. I’m not sure what people were expecting but this was a legitimate surprise. Another surprise was that development of the title was being handled by Texas based Retro Studios and not in house at Nintendo. A lot of leaks reported struggles for the team with Miyamoto himself having to step in and course correct often and after multiple delays once the game finally arrived, could it possibly live up to the high standards that Nintendo had created for it’s first party IP?
Um, yeah, it kicked every flavor of ass.
I have vivid memories of playing that game all through the winter of 2002. I was 22 years old and living in the Mission District in San Francisco. Many cold nights were spent with my room lit with nothing but Christmas strands of light and the soft glow of my television as I spent hours having my mind absolutely blown. Listening to the score for Phendrana Drifts for example instantly takes me back to those evenings and this is where the remaster truly shines.
Sure it of course improves on what was already just about a perfect gameplay experience with a top to bottom visual remaster, featuring stunning new textures. But it also somehow manages to feel fresh and new and yes, exciting again. I’ll fondly remember the first few weeks of this year playing through the game again during an anomalous rainy season just as much as those nights in my early 20’s. It is a testament to how expertly realized Metroid Prime was to begin with, a piece of software that was truly ahead of it’s time and fits in just perfectly here in 2023 as a modern gaming experience.
Now bring on Metroid Prime 4 already.
