Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

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JaySevenZero
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Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for Metroid Prime 2: Echoes for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.
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Buskalilly
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Re: 592: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by Buskalilly »

Excepting perhaps the Pokemons, Metroid Prime 2 is my earliest memory of a Big Christmas Game. I was an avid reader of the Nintendo Official Magazine at the time, and for months I was presented with the most luscious looking screenshots and the most effusive praise. Their Christmas issue had joke features about making sure you got Metroid Prime 2, or how to trade in whatever guff your parents bought instead.

When it arrived, I was beyond excited. And I bloody loved it, though I never actually completed it. I was still living a one-TV-household, allowed to use my Gamecube one hour a day kind of lifestyle and this game was too big and too difficult for me at the time.

I'm keen to revisit the Metroid Primes, and though I could probably figure out a way to do so, I continue to hold out hope for the long-rumoured Switch remasters.
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Iain[Ian]Ianson
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Re: 592: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by Iain[Ian]Ianson »

I devoured this game on release.

Having loved the first Prime so much, and having loads of free time on my hands, I was able to dive in fully, not rush a single moment, and in-so-doing had a brilliant time, with none of the friction that I hear many people talk about when discussing this sequel.

I’ve never revisited it fully since that first time. I think I’m a bit scared that I’ll engage with it too glancingly, feel frustrations I didn’t have before, and sour my excellent memories.

Or maybe the few hour-long sessions over the years, having not translated into any full playthroughs, suggests it is a lesser game in the series. I’m not quite sure.
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Magical_Isopod
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Re: 592: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by Magical_Isopod »

I really loved the first Metroid Prime, but I could never really get on with this one... I found the dual ammo system and health-draining death fog to be elements that added tedium and discouraged exploration. This is one of those games I've rebought a few times thinking, "I should give this one another shot, I love Metroid Prime." And every time, I come away feeling frustrated. Oh well.

As an aside though, I do remember my brother and his friends playing the heck out of the multiplayer. I never partook myself, but I distinctly remember they'd have a ball of a time playing it. Pun intended.
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Jobobonobo
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Re: 592: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by Jobobonobo »

A strange thing for me with this game is that I managed to complete it before the original Metroid Prime. I think I got stuck at the part where you hunt for the Chozo artifacts and I just dropped it for a while. Conversely, with this I stuck it out all the way through. I did go back to the original Prime a good couple of months afterwards but I was very pleased when I eventually beat it. I remember enjoying it well enough but constantly having to shift out of different dimensions could be a bit tiresome especially as you would get damaged if you hung out in the dark dimension too long. But this game also contains several elements of what makes Metroid great. The exploration is generally satisfying, the atmosphere is oppressive with beautiful environments, the screw attack was fun to play with and the multiplayer was surprisingly decent as well if I recall. Also worthy of praise were the bosses. I have not played this in well over a decade and a half and I still remember how much of a intense spectacle going up against Quadraxis was.

While I think the first Prime is far more well balanced on the whole and of course was revolutionary in introducing Samus to 3D, Echoes is something I would recommend to the more hardened veterans of the series. It assumes you are now familiar with how Samus works in three dimensions and it ratchets up the difficulty in response to that. Echoes can be frustrating at times but on the whole, it is a more than competent entry in the series.

Three word review: Not for beginners
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seansthomas
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Re: 592: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by seansthomas »

Upon completing Metroid Prime when it was rereleased as the Trilogy on Wii, I instantly needed more and moved straight onto Echoes.

Maybe that was a mistake, as this felt like a real slog after Prime. It was bleaker and harder, featuring less colourful environments, more finicky weapons switching and a steep difficulty curve.

When I think back on it, I struggle to recall any landmark moments as I do in other Metroid games. There were a couple of impressive boss battles, a cool new visor and Dark Samus' appearance was exciting, but beyond that I don't have any real lasting affection for this one.

That being said, the fact I completed it and would start playing Corruption within a few days, shows that the Prime formula was still alive and well, under the prickly facade.
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Nicktendo
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Re: 592: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by Nicktendo »

I got Metroid Prime 2 on launch day in November 2004. I was eagerly awaiting it's release since Metroid Prime was one of Nintendo's greatest games ever at the time or since. Nevertheless, I remember being disappointed at the time because it didn't seem to elevate it's gameplay above MP1 and the light/dark world schtick was overdone. I remember really enjoying the screw attacks return, but that's about it. Fast-forward to 2020 when I decided to pick it up and replay it and I honestly forgot how challenging and engrossing it was. I now find it's an excellent follow up to MP1. The lore is fascinating, the boss battles epic and the constant dread of dark samus carried the sense of urgency throughout the play-through.
Three Word Review:
Another Retro Masterpiece
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MattL
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Re: 592: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by MattL »

I have to agree with much of what has already been said about Prime 2. After loving Prime 1, this totally fell flat. The limited ammo felt out of place in a Metroid game. The world was less visually interesting. The story was far less engaging. The health draining environments were tedious. The bosses were overly difficult considering the limitations of the Prime combat systems. And in general, the light/dark world mechanic felt like either (a) a way to artificially lengthen the game or (b) a way to quickly churn out a sequel. In total, it just seems like Retro either wanted to try something new with the franchise or were told they needed to try and attract the Halo audience and neither worked.
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AndrewElmore
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Re: 592: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by AndrewElmore »

I don't know that I particularly like Metroid Prime 2: Echoes very much, but I do know that I love it. It's a bit of a complicated relationship, because there are aspects of the entire Prime trilogy that I quite often find a bit exhausting, in addition to everything that endears me to them. But Prime 2 is special. One of the most important key elements of Metroid, to me, is the idea of being trapped in a space that is passively hostile to your presence in it, and I think Echoes does the best job of selling that idea from an immersive first-person perspective.

This isn't intended to dismiss the experience of anyone who played it, but I do think there's a bit of a knee-jerk reaction some people have in regard to games that place explicit limits on your interaction with them through a danger-inducing mechanic. For Far Cry 2, it's malaria, a mechanic that serves to remind the player on occasion that they can't even rely on their own two feet. For Breath of the Wild, it's weapon degradation, a system that encourages improvisation and experimentation. For Majora's Mask, it's a looping time limit that serves as an ever-present reminder of the fact that existence itself is at stake. For Metroid Prime 2, it's the Dark World, a mirror of the game's normal map, where even the air itself is corrosive and violent towards Samus. In all of these games, the player is introduced to the mechanic in a very direct manner that communicates the imperative danger that said mechanic represents.

For the sake of simplicity and getting back on topic, I'll focus on Prime 2's Dark World. After you've spent some time navigating it, running from safety bubble to safety bubble, you're likely to understand (at least on an unconscious level) that the game is not going to ask you to do anything without giving you the tools to do it. The early Dark World areas are aesthetically simple, but they're masterfully designed and laid out to ensure that even in an extra hazardous environment, Samus always has the resources available to stay alive, and to fight back against her various aggressors. As you progress and gain new items and abilities, Samus will also acquire new suits of armor that dramatically mitigate the corrosive effects of navigation in the Dark World, until she's finally immune to its dangerous nature altogether. Retro Studios does an excellent job (in my opinion) of laying out that progression. They let you experience the new system in a controlled environment where the danger is clearly communicated, but safeguards are available. Then they slowly ramp up both the danger itself by giving you more to do in the Dark World with exploration and boss fights and the like, while also increasing your armor's resistance to darkness and damage in general, and increasing the density of safe zones. One particularly interesting side effect of that is that it begins by drastically limiting Samus' mobility in a space, which is a very alien sensation in a Metroid game, especially within areas that already strongly resemble areas you already recognize with internalized familiarity from your time exploring them in the Light world. This allows the level designers to begin playing with your familiarity and expectations as you progress throughout the game, and gives them the opportunity to vary up the puzzle design quite a bit more, given the different rules of reality at play between the two mirrored worlds. In practice it's a bit bumpy at times, but I think what they were able to do is absurdly fascinating as a work to be deconstructed and studied in great detail.

I'd love to go on about the overall change in tone, the way the zombie troopers put me on edge when I received this game for Christmas along with a GameCube in 2004, the unsettling nature of Samus' dark clone and how that relates to the SA-X of Fusion, how atrocious of an experience it is to play with a Wii remote (particularly for those with chronic pain issues), the overall atmosphere and how much more interesting the art direction is to me over the other two games, etc., but I've already written too much for a podcast submission, I think, and I don't want to give Jay a bigger headache than I have to! The only other thing I will say before wrapping up is that I think Kenji Yamamoto's work on the soundtrack for Prime 2 is some of the best and most interesting of his career. I've been studying his music work on the Prime trilogy very intently as of late, recreating specific sounds where I can, using the same old rack-mounted synthesizers and PCM instruments. It's been incredibly fulfilling to try and reverse engineer his work.

Every trilogy needs a weird middle entry that most people bounce off of due to the odd angles and edges of it, leading sickos like me who love those odd angles and edges to adopt it into our home of media misfits where it will be appreciated for the charm in its flaws, and endeared for its idiosyncrasies.
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Sun Chocolate
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Re: 592: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by Sun Chocolate »

For what it’s worth Echos is my favorite of the prime games. And if I had to point to individual aspects to say why, a lot of it is stuff other players dislike. The toxic air, the tough enemies, the muted colour pallet. These things make Echos stand out for me. Because all those little annoyances lay the groundwork for the game’s atmosphere. It’s hostile, isolating, and it pulls off those classic Metroid feelings better than most Metroid games. Yes, the dark world is uninviting, there’s a lot of signs telling you to get out. Personally I don’t like being in there for too long. And that’s the point. It’s a dangerous place. It doesn’t just look that way, you feel it in the gameplay. Even basic enemies can give players a challenge.

I’ve always appreciated that about Echos. Because the enemies could’ve simply been, implied to be threatening. Players could’ve seen that the space marines were massacred, that the moth-people were massacred, that the space pirates were also massacred, and that would be enough. The monsters are good at killing, we got it. But Retro Studios actually went there and made the murderous creatures a threat. Aside from the gamecube version of the spider guardian and the boost guardian, the challenging enemies, the toxic air, and all the rest, it gives Echos some weight that players have to push through.

One other thing (if you have time for it). Echos has really good pacing. Compared to Prime 1 it’s a massive improvement. I don’t think anyone enjoys that moment where you travel all the way to the bottom of the sunken ship, only for the game to say you need a power up on the other side of the world before you can progress some more. The fact that stuff like that happens regularly in Prime 1 always dragged down the game for me. But Echos does away with it by keeping you, and your next objective in the same area. It’s really that simple. You get to enjoy the fun parts of Metroid Prime more often and longer. So there’s a lot less planet sized marathons, and a lot more quality time with Metroid.
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Re: Our next podcast recording (22.10.23) - 592: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Post by Wuqinglong »

Overall I enjoyed Echoes more compared to its predecessor. Simultaneously after having played all 3 of the prime trilogy and completed 2 of them I've come to realize I vastly prefer the 2D Metroid experience over the 3D offerings. In spite of the much better pacing of Echoes over Prime 1 I still really felt it dragging on in the middle of the game and eventually, to curb frustration waiting for the hint system to kick in at points, ended up looking up hints on the next main objective. I did end up with many more powerups compared to Prime 1 so I feel I either was intuiting the main path more poorly or it was possibly less obvious in Echoes.

Having heard tales of the dark world and the constant life drain mechanic I was prepared for the worst. I was very surprised when I found the dark world segments to be some of the easiest as there was always a relatively obvious path to follow littered with objects to destroy for health pickups. Revisiting the same areas in the dark world did end up feeling a bit repetitive especially in the latter part of the game. It didn't help it wasn't particularly novel as many other games had done a similar concept before and after this title. Unfortunately the game also did not have the initial technical wow factor Prime 1 had to lean on.

Gripes aside, the final main area of the game was a welcome breath of fresh air contrasted against the drab alien planet environments you had been exploring in the series up until now. It was easily my favorite area to explore in the Prime series up to this point. Some of the puzzles with the screw attack are probably what I will remember most clearly as my memory of this game grows murkier over time.

Much like the original Prime, Echoes is a game I'm glad I played but don't particularly have any interest in ever revisiting.
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