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Why Everyone Hates It: Metroid Prime 3 is a game which simply does not exist for a large number of people. To hear people discuss the availability of solid substantial games on the Wii, it was never made. The very concept of a 3D Metroid surely still horrifies a number of people, and a good number of Metroid Prime fans seem to have dropped this particular subseries partway through the second game.
Legitimate Issues With the Game: The opening segment of Metroid Prime 3 goes against the general thematic element of isolation that is so prevalent in the series by taking place on a space station which has not yet been turned into a floating graveyard. While fairly brief, and serving primarily as a tutorial, it is nonetheless highly disconcerting to have a Metroid game wherein it is possible to walk up to someone and talk to them.
Why I Like It Anyway: If Metroid Prime 3 were released today, it would come as a huge slap in the face to detractors of the Nintendo Wii. It is a very commonly held belief that the Wii is incapable of high graphic detail, features no substantial titles from Nintendo beyond Super Mario Galaxy (and arguably Twilight Princess), and that no one has ever made use of the Wii's unique control options for more than tacked on gimmicks and shallow minigames. Metroid Prime 3 handily disproves all of these, but unfortunately was released shortly after the platform launched, before these notions had taken hold in the general public consciousness. To phrase that less pretentiously, a good many people missed it because it took them forever to get their hands on the hardware.
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Before we begin our discussion of Prime 3 itself, let's take a brief moment to discuss the series as a whole. The original Metroid is, well, the first Metroid-style game. A free-roaming platformer, wherein various scattered power-ups can be found, allowing access to new portions of a single, contiguous, maze-like area. This was followed by a more combat oriented sequel on the Game Boy, and then a third game on the SNES, which to this day remains on the short list of games no one will ever stop praising. After this, the series took a bit of a hiatus, skipping right over an entire hardware generation. Those wanting their fix of Metroid-like gameplay were forced to migrate to the Castlevania series, which after some flailing attempts to embrace 3D decided to fill the vacant niche.
Eventually it was announced that two new Metroid games would finally be released. One, a traditional 2D platformer, by the original Metroid development team, the other, a 3D first person game by an unknown American developer. It was obvious that one of these would properly carry on the series legacy properly, providing a huge open maze of a planet to explore with the help of various power-ups, in at least a semi-non-linear fashion, while the other, while perhaps not a bad game when accepted on its own terms, would more or less completely miss the point. Which turned out to be which however came as something of a surprise.
Metroid Fusion on the GBA, while not a bad game by any means, is a bad Metroid game. Doors lock and unlock as the story progresses, text-based conversations constantly unfold between you and your computer's chatty computer, generally portraying our protagonist as a vulnerable, sentimental person. The whole experience, but particularly the forced linearity, feels out of place for the series. On the other hand, Metroid Prime, defying all odds, did a fantastic job of bringing everything one associates with Metroid into 3D, with no acquired baggage beyond rewarding the player for taking the time to scan more or less every single object in the game to flesh out the world and pick up the occasional hint.
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Prime 2 took the good will acquired by providing such a wonderfully faithful game, and immediately cashed it in by taking things in a slightly different direction. Instead of just providing more of the same, it dropped the standard Metroid bestiary and weapon selection to play with the sort of light world vs. dark world parallel exploration notion found in an increasingly large number of other games. Coupled with surprising difficulty and a stark, monochromatic visual style, it was somewhat poorly received.
This brings us, finally, to Metroid Prime 3. All the various unpopular aspects of Prime 2 were dropped, leaving a game visually and mechanically much more similar to the first Prime (and by extension, Super Metroid). This was then coupled with some graphical improvements, naturally, and a pair of interesting new innovations.
Firstly, the entire game is built around the Wii's controller. This obviously means that aiming your weapons is performed by pointing the remote at the screen, but every opportunity is also taken to instill verisimilitude with motion tracking. The grapple beam, which is featured prominently throughout the game, is activated by reaching out with the nunchuk and yanking back to grab various objects, often pulling armored plating off enemies in the process. Pulling pushing and rotating motions are also frequently used to interact with various devices, to do such things as open complex locks or prepare your ship for departure. This of course brings us to our other feature of note.
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While other games in the series take place almost entirely on a single planet, traveling between various thematically distinct regions by foot, with your ship serving only as a save point that refills your health and ammo, here we actually have several planets such planets (which while not quite as large as those from previous games come surprisingly close, and still each feature a variety of environments), and a few other objects of interest, with the ability to freely travel between them. In addition to being visually impressive and adding to variety, the multiple landing sites on each planet, and periodic need to hop from one to another after acquiring new items, means there is a refreshing lack of constant back tracking. Just find the nearest open area, call in your ship, and hitch a ride to where you need to be. Your ship itself is actually useful in solving various puzzles, being able to carry around huge objects with a tractor beam and bombard certain structures from orbit.
In short, this is the game every jaded Wii owner (or detractor) should play. It has everything you could want aside from the motion-sensitive swordplay which bafflingly has yet to be properly attempted by anyone, and more importantly, it's an excellent Metroid game. Just grit your teeth through the introductory segment, then enjoy.
