But partly it's because I'm not with Samus anymore - I'm in the suit. Partly it's the horrors, and that throbbing soundtrack, those skittering enemy animations. Down on Tallon IV I feel singularly nervous, oppressed even when I'm pretty near the surface and with a view of the sky. This is maybe why Metroid Prime isn't just my favourite Metroid, but the game that has gripped me the most and made me feel the most afraid. And her obvious heroism and panoramic sense of ability, I think it just made me feel better. We never felt like quite the same person. She was wearing such bright colours to this horror show! She could turn into a ball! If I stuck with her I'd be okay.Īnd that's what it felt like, I think: I know I controlled Samus in Super Metroid, but I also felt like I was wandering along these haunted tunnels with her. I may be a cowardly idiot, but look at her up there on the screen. Samus, so tall, so capable, so undaunted, always felt like an ideal travelling companion. But look who I was taking with me! This giant space hero in yellow and red armour. I was going deep underground, into abandoned spaces where un-named horrors lurked. But one thing I now realise I always brought to Super Metroid was a brisk, and perhaps misplaced, confidence. Super Metroid, like Metroid Prime, is a rather scary game. And to get at this, we have to go back a bit, back to the impossibly stylish and atmospheric game that always seemed like such a hard act to follow: Super Metroid. (It's also worth remembering, of course, that the game is the result of pretty awful crunch.)īut the more I've watched over the past few nights - Metroid Prime walkthroughs are made for the dark hours - I have started to think about something central to the game that I'd never thought about before. It's no wonder that the best way to celebrate this anniversary is by reading through the tweeted memories of one of its designers, talking about why Morph Ball tunnels exist, or where the game's static came from. Specific enemies, bosses, rooms: this is a game of details, of pieces. The brilliant - never beaten - 3D map, that wriggles around in the top right of the screen when you walk and makes the environment seem alive. The way the screen pauses when you scan part of the landscape. I see the starting screen, with its bubbling microscopic horrors and I wonder if any new games will steal this unsettling method of introduction and build on it.Īnd this is the thing about Metroid Prime: I don't have one singular memory of it, but dozens, maybe hundreds of little memories. Is that the same thing? Anyway: I watch the Morph Ball rushing through a ruined space station, the gold light on its equator lingering on the screen like burn-in, and I think: cor, those graphics are a bit special. Is Metroid Prime timeless? I'd put it slightly differently - it has an enduring sheen of recent-ness. But when I see the GameCube logo, I always think, really? Back then? I know that this shouldn't surprise me - I know that I'm watching these videos in part because this game is 20 years old. Every video, there's always a shock right near the start: the GameCube logo. My controllers have been scattered, my discs are in the loft, and this is as close as I can get to this vivid, potent, unsettling classic. In the run up to the 20th anniversary of Metroid Prime's release, I've been watching and rewatching playthroughs on Youtube.
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