Metroid Prime 3: Corruption ~ First Impressions

WARNING! Contains minor spoilers of the introductory chapters of the game! I got MP3 on its first day out and only got through the first two sections before it really opens up. I got a busy two weeks here so I don't think I'll get much play time with it. Instead then I want to give my first impressions of it since this is the first really BIG game for the Wii.

You begin in your ship with the controls in front and side. Learning how to control your ship is one of MP3's new features, but the game tells you what you must do to do whatever needs to be done. I don't see my Mii bobble-head though, which I saw in a video review. As a lefty who had to play with a right-handed Link (who is traditionally a lefty), I was concerned about the controls. Kid ya not, some of Samus movements with a right-handed remote is done with her left hand, so that isn't much of an issue.

The introduction is in two parts: a Federation ship which your ship enters after waking up and the planet below. After exiting your ship, typical tutorial stuff begins as you make your way to see Admiral Dane. I had some typical control problems. Pressed A instead of B. That is to be expected. The screen was smooth at its default. Z-targeting by default is turned on for the hud display but off for auto-aiming. A trooper does point you to a save point before seeing the admiral which was nice. You start out with morph ball, bombs, Varia suit, Space Jump boots, charge beam, and no missiles. I notice though sometimes charging isn't as effecting as just firing off a number of standard shots. You do have the scan visor, and when activated, you see Samus face and can see her move her eyes as you move the cursor around the screen.

As for the story, there is two. The space pirates has put in a virus into several computers that needs fixing. The other is Dark Samus, aka Metroid Prime, the main villain in the Primes sub series. Its like Mother Brain being the villain for the universe, while Ridley is for Samus. There is three other hunters. One has ice like powers (Rundas), one can change her looks to look like someone else (Gandrayda), and the other is in a big mech (Ghor).

After this, the pirates attack and you see one ship go boom-boom. The admiral orders you to your ship and go planet side, as a major defensive weapon was knocked out. Taking a longer route, you get back to your ship. Nothing too difficult. Save before getting to your ship and face your first boss battle. I got an energy tank and missiles en route and barely made it. In the original Prime, I often loose the first battle just because I need to scan and find out how to beat the boss, getting clobbered at the same time.

Part two is on the surface. You need to get the cannon online, and to do that, you need to get three generators back online also. You get the grapple lasso early here, allowing you to rip off things. No grapple beam yet. Your first target is Conduit A. You get another energy tank and later face off with several waves of pirates. Rundas helps out and tells introduce a new feature, calling your ship. Saving and restocking here, you continue to the conduit and get a third of the power back on. Rundas heads to B to fix that while you go to C. Exit and... you see Ridley, your old pal and friend, fly to C section.

Before entering Conduit C section, Ghor is shown in a battle, which opens the area up. On the way there, you morph to a ball and, ugh, Ridley traps you. Now I thought this was a minor battle like the one in Super Metroid where he gets bored and fly off. Nope! After loosing two-thirds of my available energy, I realized you can escape when his claw moves up.

Save at a station then on to the conduit. Gandrayda takes out a few pirates while disguised as one of them. Solve a morph ball puzzle and you're done. Wait! Boss fight! With... RIDLEY?!? Come on! He is supposed to be the next to last boss fight! You are both falling down and before you hit bottom (yes, its timed) you need to shoot his mouth. Sometimes you get close and need to shoot a hand held bomb thing. Just rapid fire, not charge shot, and you will get him. It ends with Samus sticking her gun arm deep in his throat, firing (I cracked up), and Rundas comes to save your decent.

During all of this, a large rock of phazon came out of a worm hole threatening everything. From here a time limit starts in pure Metroid fashion, minus the timer. Instead you hear "3 minutes remaining" from the computer. I backed tracked because I forgot to save and made it in time. You and the other hunters was about to put it online when Dark Samus shows up, blows everyone up, and Samus barely got the system online.

You wake up a month later. The three hunters left already to do other missions, but nothing was heard from them. The Federation also gave you a phazon module for your suit. How it works is the phazon takes on of your energy tanks when you enter hypermode. Every time you shoot, it eats energy from that tank. When you go out of hypermode, the unspent energy is returned, unless you ate up your entire tank.

From here, you do Rundas mission. I did went to planet side since a third of the station I haven't explored, but its still off limits. I have 2 energy tanks and 5 missles.