Metroid Prime 2 -- Sometimes Bigger Isn't Better.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes doesn't stray far from Metroid Prime's gameplay, in fact it's more of the same with one major twist. The control stick moves Samus around.  The A button fires, the B button jumps, the X button activates the morph ball mode, the Y button fires missiles. The R button allows Samus to look around. The L button locks on to enemies. The Z button brings up the map. The D-pad selects the current visor. The C stick selects the current beam weapon. From there it's straight up classic Metroid gameplay in 3D. You move through a gargantuan maze of a world on locked room pathways. There is three-dimensional movement within the rooms, but it's not a go anywhere do anything type of 3D game. Metroid works in a very controlled manner. You advance through the game finding locked paths. You further advance in the game looking for the power-ups that will get you into the locked paths. Very early on, you'll find more locked paths than open ones and eventually you'll find the item that lets you open a new path, usually guarded by a mini or major boss. So now you can go back and explore all these newly open paths in hopes of further power-ups that further open new paths. In the most general sense, The Metroid series plays out like one giant action puzzle. In whole, and in part. Most of the rooms have some sort of puzzle to figure out, and they all add to the whole. Metroid Prime added the concept of visors, which makes sense as the game is mostly played from Samus' perspective. There is the combat visor, which is the standard view. You can only fight in this view. There is the scan visor, which allows you to gain information and story details. You switch to this view, and start looking around. You'll see items that show up in blue and red. You hold down the L button in this view to scan the objects. You have to hold it down until the scan is complete.  Red objects are critical to the game, you can't advance without them. Blue objects offer up story and information, they're not required to finish the game. Objects will show up as green once they've been scanned. They added the dark visor, which allows Samus to see interdimensional objects and creatures. They also added the echo visor, which allows Samus to see sound. Samus' main weapon is the power beam, but they've added the dark, light, and annihilator beams. Each beam having a better effect against certain items and creatures. She will have use of missiles, super missiles, and seeker missiles. Her powerball also sees its share of upgrades, the boost ball, the spider ball, and the power bombs. You can also power-up the suit itself, with space jump boots, gravity boost, grapple beam, and the screw attack. There are standard power-ups to be had, like energy tanks and missile expansions. All of these things have to be found, and they all play a role in allowing Samus to move into new areas and advance the game. You can see how the complexity of this game is shaping up. They added to the complexity further with the story and its light and dark worlds. Samus is ordered to the planet Aether where a Federation ship tracked a fleeing Space Pirate. The Federation ship crashed from the violent weather upon entering the atmosphere. Samus arrives to investigate and finds a world torn in two by war. Quite literally torn in two. On a dimensional level. There is a light and dark Aether, with both sides fighting over the planets' shared energy resources. Samus enters the fray near the end of the centuries long struggle with the good-guys, the Luminoth, nearly being defeated by the bad-guys, the Ing. Samus' ship was damaged upon arrival on Aether, so she has little choice but to help the Luminoth. What that story does to the gameplay is double it up. There are light and dark versions of the world, much like in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. You'll spend a great amount of time jumping between them as the puzzles are stretched across both realms. What you do in one can have an effect in the other.  So not only are you having to think of every action and item combination in the puzzles themselves, but you have to think across the dark and light dimensions. The game is hard-core. It's not your typical Nintendo offering. It's not, shall we say, Nintendo friendly as most of their offerings are. The combat is very hard for a Nintendo game as well. But that's not all as far as the dark and light thing goes. See, the dark world is a very unfriendly place. It's poisoning Aether. It's just one toxic waste dump. So much so that just being there poisons Samus. Just being in the world hurts her, causing her to lose health constantly. That's right, essentially a timer. You can't mess around in the dark world. In their war with the Ing, the Luminoth figured out a way to move through dark Aether. They've left behind these beacons of light. They create little pockets of light where you're safe from the darkness and are slowly healed. Some are very strong and always on. Others are out and need to be shot with your power beam where they'll come on and give you protecting light for very short periods of time. You'll need to keep hitting them with the power beam to keep them on.  Now imagine this applied to combat. Yes, you have to run around the dark world, shooting at difficult enemies, while trying to keep pockets of light alit. As I said before, not as Nintendo friendly as most of their games. The sheer size of it is another factor. As of this entry, I'm at 36% of the world complete and at 13:36 for time put in. It might be a while before the next entry...