The Atmosphere of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes 👻
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- čas přidán 29. 10. 2020
- It's that time of year where I study how Metroid games create their atmosphere of isolation, fear and dread.
Oh, and it's 2-for-1 this time, with this video being one part of a double-video special, the other being Metroid Zero Mission: • The Atmosphere of Metr...
Enjoy, gang!
#MetroidPrime2 #MetroidZeroMission #MetroidDread - Hry
![Stories Retold - Metroid Prime 2: Echoes [Part 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Fadkho7DHfY/mqdefault.jpg)
*it's just,like...a chair.really.*
Samus' Scanner has a sassy side to it lol
One thing I loved about the Prime Trilogy was how it handled the Space Pirates. When they're introduced in MP's prologue, you can scan them and see all the different injuries they have from the accident. The first one's injured and slumped over a wall, and can be saved from being nibbled on by a few parasites. But still starts trying to shoot you. Perfect intro. Plus the logs were legendary ("Please don't feed the Metroids!" "Science team has vapour for brains!" "Two Hunters! We're truly cursed!").
The Primes did a great job at giving Space Pirates both purpose and personality. Reading about their studies on what exactly metroids actually consume (and still having no idea) is my most vivid memory of the trilogy.
The Pirate Logs of Prime 2 are absolutely amazing, man I wish the amount of personality they had in that game appears in Prime 4.
Yeah, I loved the Space Pirate logs!
My favorite log is the one where they tried to recreate the morph ball but gave up after four pirates were completely mangled.
I've started reading some of the scans that aren't put towards your 100% and there's some gnarly stuff. In the room where you get power bombs in prime 1, one computer talks about how "Due to phazon induced madness, all pets must be terminated immediately. Those who don't comply will lose all pay and reduced rations for 1 cycle." I'm obviously paraphrasing here, but its fucked. Right next to it, they talk about how other space pirates with phazon madness induced dementia make "adequate training dummies" for their elite pirate forces. Crazy stuff.
My favorite part is reading the disgruntled pirate log on the ONE tech guy who freely admits that he barely scraped together some wind turbine generators to get basic systems running, only for the science crew to keep using all the power to power the portal tech, and he caps it off by basically saying "let's see how much they like it when the powered latrines stop working."
On a more serious note, reading the logs that foretell Dark Samus' actions are impressive since the first game involved hearing what the pirates think of Samus, only for them to initially mistake Dark Samus for you in this game, then losing their mind at TWO hunters coming after them and them fully admitting that they are beyond screwed.
YES exactly! It always fascinates me just how feared and powerful Samus is in this world.
@@ABSsponds Yeah, and it was that fear and power that was lost when Other M came out, thus the negative backlash.
I mean, Samus was seen as a myth to Galactic Federation Troopers, that's how infrequently she mingles with authorities.
Nice Makuta mask.
@@shellrael8364 A most rare mask.
@@legionbeast Well its more so that the federation is really big so most people haven't met her personally, and the feats that she has done seem so grand that it wouldn't seem reasonable to believe them. But she works with the federation ALL the time even then. Even Prime 3 has her working directly with a part of the federation. Plus, Prime 1 and 2 take place right after Zero Mission so it makes sense that she wouldn't be as well known at the time. Surely after the events of 2/Super she would be more well known (especially since in Other M she speaks to the Galactic Parliament after waking up from after Super, so her actions are likely known galaxy wide by then). And on top of that, the group she is working with in Other M are comprised of several members of her old team that she knew personally prior to being a bounty hunter, so they would know her more than anyone else.
Prime 2 is a masterpiece. Some of the scan logs for the dead Luminoth warriors are particularly brutal. For instance, one just outside of the room where you get the Seeker Missiles reads that it "died of starvation while waiting at its post." These are very real wartime casualties, and in a Nintendo game, no less! God, I love Prime 2. All-time classic, especially in the trilogy version.
There's an especially depressing scan for dead Luminoth in the Dark Temple Grounds. In this cave partially blocked by an Ingstorm and leading out to a crevice with some Dark Metroids, you can find 2 dead Luminoth, who apparently died hugging. Scanning them reveals that they were father and daughter.
There's another log like those, a Luminoth being possessed by an Ing commits suicide before it happens. In the same room, but Dark version you will find a Key, if I'm correct.
@@bluecaptainIT You know, this elicits a strange thought: We never see possessed dead Luminoth by my recall, despite the Ing handily reanimating the corpses of many other creatures, I forgot if they ever slipped an answer for that in the scans
@@syrelian I believe there was originally supposed to be Dark Luminoth enemies in prime 2, but they are cut-content. As for why suicide might stop possession, I don't know. My head-canon is that since Ing are technically still a separate entity during assimilation, it is more like firing a gun at the Ing, which just so happens to be seeping into you. Brutal.
Hope they can make this game again one day
Everytime I replay Prime 2 it gets better. Dark Lower Torvus is one of the most oppressive atmospheres I've ever experienced in a video game. The caustic atmosphere, toxic water, claustrophobic undertransit tunnels, the droning, omninous music, the realization that not only are you deep underground, but deep underground in the Dark World - it all combines to make it an absolutely suffocating part of the game. When you finally return to the Light World , it feels like you'd just escaped drowning.
Back then when I was younger, seeing that one trooper that is shown in a cinematic with the shattered visor was striking. If I recall correctly, Samus shuts his eyes after the cinematic plays. Really somber, and another example of Metroid storytelling without any explicit dialogue.
I just started playing the game and can confirm samus did close his eyes.
Think my favorite detail is how the actual atmosphere of all the areas shifts when you bring the light source back to it. The rain in Torvus Bog going away and replaced with the sun is especially striking
Oh I don't think I realised that before!!
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy Yeah it's very subtle but it happens across the whole game. Also happens when you take the light out of the dark worlds but that change is super drastic and apparent
It is so true, the atmosphere shifts because of the changes you bring to the world. It is a phenomenal design of how much impact you have on the in game environment.
And the dark world there gets darker too.
That change is a little sad honestly. Getting rid of the storm in Agon to make it sunny is nice, but the rain in Torvus just adds so much to the ambience.
Not related to the horror logs, but in terms of the Cathartic Release: Scanning your ship at different points of the game makes comments about its recovery progress.
If you scan it once you have the Light Suit, beaten all 3 bosses & have all 9 Keys, the log reads something along the lines of
"Ship repairs 99% complete. You know what must be done." or something like that.
In addition, as a cool "attention to detail bit", after you defeat the 1st world boss, Amorbis, & take the light energy from the dark Agon Temple, when you go back into the arena 3 Warrior Ing spawn in & attack you; The same 3 Ing that possessed all 3 of Amorbis' worm-head-things!
Something else Prime 2 does very effectively is using the Ing possession to establish them as a serious threat. Not only do they kill the Federation Troopers in the intro, but they also start possessing Space Pirates to attack you as well, showing how powerless the pirates are themselves.
& agreed on Quadraxis being one of the most intense & best "puzzle-boss" in the series. It's phenominal.
Didn't realise about the ship scan thing! Interesting!
And I do like the attention to detail, such as those warrior Ing!
Yeah, same! Though, it took me a couple tries to beat Quadraxis (and haven't beat the emperor, lol.)
My preferred thing about the ship logs is how it's repaired enough for you to leave quite a while before you're anywhere near beating the game. It just makes the point - Metroid games aren't ones where you're *stuck* on an alien world fighting to survive; Samus commits herself to this stuff even when it's literally taken out a small army that preceded her (Prime 2, but also Metroid 2 in the manual).
@@qwertystop that makes me miss manuals even more, there are mini story details strewn together, and open up the narrative outside of the game.
@@qwertystop Remember the Ing were 2 ROOMS away from victory. Samus stumbles into a room with a possessed Alpha Splinter and just randomly grabs the energy module. She no idea what it is until she walks through a hallway and talks to Cmos.
I really like MP2. I think its my favourite of the trilogy, and maybe of all the metroid games. I really, really like the luminoth, I love their history and the records of their struggles, and how HARD they tried to fight back against the ing but just kept getting pushed farther and farther back until only U-Mos is left protecting the final light energy device, the remaining civilians unable to fight waiting in hibernation cocoons on the level below. You can see and scan them, and you realize this is all that's left of this once prosperous race.
I haven't seen it mentioned in the comments but one thing I realized in my last playthrough of this game is that if Samus hadn't shown up when she did, that would have been it. The dark alpha splinter you fight as a boss before reaching the Great Temple Light energy device has the module that allows Samus to absorb the planet's light energy (the energy transfer module i think?). It's subtle, and it is never explicitly stated, but the ing were coming for U-Mos. They were coming for the final energy device. U-Mos, hardcore as he was, would have been slaughtered just like the other sentinels of the other temples (side note; I love how you can scan their bodies and see how much they struggled to stand their ground and protect the devices. One scan reveals that one of them resisted multiple possession attempts, which requires insane levels of mental fortitude).
Samus really was just in the nick of time, but not in a heroic triumphant way. Its a desperate, uphill struggle the entire game. You're on the losing side of a war that is just about over. And the enemy knows that you're the last bit of resistance standing between them and victory, and they make sure you EARN every inch of ground you claw back from Dark Aether.
That's the kind of oppression this game throws you into. I don't usually enjoy horror, in fact I'm a real baby when it comes to scary things (I absolutely HATE jumpscares and I think they're so cheap and they're just awful) but Metroid... that kind of oppressive, sinister, desperate tension is really fantastic and I dont think other Metroid games nail it as well as MP2 does. Maybe Metroid Fusion, but i haven't actually played that one so I can't say.
Thanks for reading. Sorry for the novel. I love MP2. Great video, dude!
Yes! Someone else who gets it! Metroid Prime 2 is meant to be oppressive, tense and constantly keeping you in a sense of unease. It's a different experience from Prime 1, which as a world mostly felt forgotten whilst being retaken by nature. Prime 2 is a world on the brink of death, about to be swallowed by dark forces. The atmosphere is perfection, just like the original game. The start of the game is fantastic like you said. And I'll never forget that first boss battle with Dark Samus, such an amazing scene. So many nice touches in this game. Great video.
Totally correct, in Prime 2 it felt like everything was against many times. Even worse when you get to dark aether. Even though prime 1 its my favorite prime 2 its a wonderful experience.
I agree with everything however Tallon 4 is also a world on the brink. You can scan a holographic projection of Talon 4 somewhere at the space pirate research area in phendrana drifts. It speaks of how the ecosystems and environment are slowly dying from the Phazon
@@v2153 Yeah I remember that now and it's a good point, but it's certainly not on the same near imminent and catastrophic level as Aether is and how Prime 2 really tries to push that on you.
@@v2153 yes, tallon 4 was slowly dying, chozo ruins for example was getting contaminanted with hazards and poisonous water. Yet thanks for the chozos effort in sealing the crater the planet resist enough for samus to destroy the phazon meteorite. In the case of Aether I would say it was more threatening because of the Ing horde, also the impact on the planet was worse by creating a dark aether. Still I think we can agree both games showed us different effects of what the phazon could do to a planet how it felt to explored them. Also in Prime 3 we got places like pirate homeworld, g.f.s valhalla, Elysia metroid labs and phaaze which were really creepy, specially for me g.f.s valhalla.
People bag on the linearity of Prime 3 but aside from the nunchuck gimmicks I really appreciate what innovations Retro made in that game especially with the corruption of the hunters. Reluctantly executing Rundus was the most memorable moment/battle in the franchise to me. More so than THE BABY dieing in Super Metroid.
Echoes is so underrated. It is to Prime 1 what Majora's Mask is to Ocarina of Time - a sequel that had little time to be finished, but used drastic changes to the formula and darker design elements to make it feel like a completely different experience
I was really pumped to replay Echoes again but when I got to the whole keys shenanigans I was ready to give up. Already forgot how of a chore echoes sometimes is
@@HaohmaruHL the end game key hunt isnt that bad. You get clues from the sky temple gateway and from the corpses of the luminoth key bearers and you can get a few before the light suit. It is irritating that almost all of them recquire the light suit though
@@meta9492
That's not the problem.
All 3 Primes have a "Key" Quest. 1 has the Chozo Artifacts. 2 has Sky Temple Keys. 3 has Energy Cells. The difference is that 1 and 3 have their quests start early into the game, and a good chunk of the "Keys" can be acquired well before they're needed. 3 is even generous to give you like 4 of them as main story progress and only needing 5 to get the main thing you need to finish the story assuming you know the route.
Sky Temple Keys on the other hands don't become a proper quest until endgame, giving context to the dead Luminoth scans (most of which I don't think make mention of the keys that much for you to get the hint until you find the actual hints), and while you can get some earlier on, that'd practically require a repeat playthrough or you at least already having knowledge of the keys' existence. Also those early keys are very few, the earliest I think being in the room with the Ing Webtrap and the Warrior Ings guarding an Agon Key. And even then, that'd require you to be able to navigate invisible platforms and find the invisible Cache, or come back with Dark Visor, but before Sanctuary to make that easy.
What I'm saying is that they way the Sky Temple Keys are designed, they get backloaded to the end of the game, turning them into a big chore between Quadraxis and the final boss (actual cool content) unless you go hella out the way to get them early whereas Chozo Artifacts and Energy Cells are spread out enough to where natural progress and a bit of sidetracking while backtracking can net you most of them before they're need, 3 practically setting you up to complete the quest once you get the call about it were it not for Nova Beam doors and other Ability Checks gating your progress.
It also helps that Prime 1 is pretty broken between Scan Dash, Early Space Jump, and Infinite Speed allowing you to get some Artifacts real early.
I see what you're going for there, but I disagree in one area. OoT was FAR better then MM lol. I freaking hated MM, that damn time limit gimmick ruined it. Unlike Prime 2 which was better then Prime 1.
@@ItApproaches oh i never said it was better than Prime 1 lol, just that it felt fresh and different
I have difficulty engaging with horror. The area between pathos and disdain is razor thin for me. This is probably why MP:2 hit me so hard. I've never played a game so suffused with failure and suffering.
It starts with with the crash landing. Samus's ship is severely damaged and will take some time to repair. This has no gameplay impact, but it means this planet has already harmed and trapped you here. Then I found the fallen marines. This is the first time I'd seen other humans in a Metroid game. Humanity is treated as precious in Metroid, rarely glimpsed only in Samus's eyes reflected in her visor. As you explore, you find the remains of more marines where they fell in course of fortifying their base camp. You read their personal logs, perform autopsy scans, and learn more about their final days. Finally, you reach the GFS Tyr, the ship you were sent to assist. Everyone is dead. You have failed. It was your job to save them, and you didn't. Could you have run faster? Could you have landed closer? Could you have saved even one of them? You find Capt. Exeter's body leaned against some equipment. In the cutscene, that plays, you learn about the marines' last stand. Exeter's visor has been damaged, revealing his closed eye. Human. Precious. Lost. Failure. Guilt. We don't get to see Samus's expression as she reaches out to touch him. Her armor protects her too well.
As the game continues, the display of suffering continues. You see the devastation inflicted upon the Luminoth in personal detail. You find the remains of a Luminoth woman who starved to death at her post rather than abandon it. You find the bodies of an old man and adolescent guarding the seeker missiles. The cost of the war against the Ing isn't measured in ruined buildings and equipment, but in individual lives.
At the end of the game, as the Luminoth hail her as their hero, I don't think she was just being a nonchalant badass. I think that after all she'd seen on Aether, all she'd been through, she found a quiet, private spot, and had a good long cry. I know I did. Metroid Prime 2 isn't a game where the hero wins. It's a game where the hero survives.
And as if that wasn't enough, in the next game we have to kill Rundas.
Yeah Prime 3 really hits hard with the whole "killing your friends" thing 😭
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy can you do a video on the atmosphere of prime 3 Samus returns and prime hunters?
That's generally the idea of the series, I've been going in game order.
This comment perfectly summed up my experience playing it alone as a teen.
Metroid Prime 2 is definitely my favorite Metroid of all time.
However, a moment that stuck with me was in Metroid Prime 3 in Bryyo.
I am quite the scanning person, so I spent a lot of time scanning and reading the logs about the las Science Lord, all the Bryyo structures, and such, and I got quite attached to its culture.
When I went back there to get the screw attack into ice Bryyo, after scanning the last piece of log about the prophetess, I immediately received that corrupted signal and thought that she wanted to contact me.
The deeper I walked into the area and the more signals I received. I became desperate, trying to find her or, at least, just like in Metroid Prime, find her ghost. I remember I was so adamant about finding her.
When I finally left the area and the AU told me it was itself and the Federation trying to contact me, all the tension was gone and I realized that the prophetess was probably long gone.
I never hear anyone talk about that particular situation in the game but for me, it was the most memorable thing to ever happen to me in a video game.
EDIT: I changed some spelling mistakes, sorry, English is not my first language.
I thought the suit was picking up enemy coms and there would be a special fight when going back.
The sound design of the Prime series is a masterpiece. There are sounds I've never heard anywhere else. o_*'
One thing Echoes is great at is foreshadowing. There's a lot of details which allude to future locations, abilities and other elements. Like the Space Pirate logs mentioning an attack on a location in the cliffs and how it coincided with a rise in Aether's instability. It took me ages to realise this was actually talking about the Sanctuary Fortress.
There's other things like the pieces of Quadraxis in Aether and how they're even scaleable with the Spider Ball, just like you have to do in the boss fight or the dead Grenchlers you find in the GF base alluding to those enemies for later on.
But my one of my personal favourite bits is an obscure luminoth corpse you find in the room you get the Dark Burst. When scanned you learn he was blind and used a "Sonic Imaging System" to see. This single extremely out of the way scan foreshadows the Echo Visor you get much later in the game.
It's extreme attention to detail like that which makes Prime 2 one of the best Metroid games imo.
TWO VIDEOS in one day?! You legend, sir! A winner is you 💚
Two videos in 5 minutes actually!
And they are both about metroid
One of the choices I think also creates dread is having you pass by some of the boss arenas before you fight them.
In lower Torvus Bog, you can see and even scan the Alpha Blogg before you fight it. You pass by this a few times in your travels, leading you to wonder when you’ll have to go in and face the creature for yourself.
Then I think this plays into the Dark World well too. Once you’ve fought the boss in the light world’s chamber, you start to wonder what kind of boss will be waiting for you in its dark counterpart. Really good stuff!
ive never played a prime game and i feel like im missing out
You should try them, for real, this are some of the best games out there, at least in terms of atmosphere. I would just give you a warning, because they are very tense games, they are all about isolation, and prime 2 feels almost like horror because is really hard to fight back sometimes. It used to make me feel like playing resident evil 1.
Prime 3 is all about action though, and more story focused. And this is another warning xd. This games don't have a lot of story, all you'll get to learn will be through the scan visor, reading about the stuff that happened.
You should definitely give it a try!
@@ivanaviNiebla woah, hold on. In Prime 3, when you first get to the pirate homeworld, that is mwah, a masterpiece. Felt like I was back on Dark Aether
@@tvoyager7 Oh yeah, I loved the style of seeing a world of the enemy, as well as seeing the entire planet running rampant with Phazon, as that's what would have happened if you didn't destroy the other Leviathan seeds. Cool to see the effect of your actions in play.
If you have a Wii U, you can get the entire trilogy for $20 (US.)
Metroid prime 2 was the only prime game that had me constantly nervous. Everything about the dark world is out for your blood, even the atmosphere! Everything before you get the dark suit seems to almost kill you and I was constantly standing around for minutes in the light bubbles waiting to heal up. Something I really like was seeing the bosses right before the fight, like with the alpha blogg and grapple guardian, really gives a sense of progression.
The Safe Zones really do create this sense of Exhaustion and Enervation, of Samus having to constantly catch her breath in a way that mere damage never does, the world is hostile and the only solace that exists is small motes of light to push back the shadows, fragile little areas that could be snuffed out forever someday
I think one of my favorite details about Prime 2 is the way room names change between Light and Dark Aether. In particular, the room where the Pirates enter Dark Agon? The dark version is called Doomed Entry, and their corspes are scattered around the room. Scans reveal one of them was shot in the back several times, which is traditionally the Space Pirate punishment for cowardice.
The scene that really stuck with me was the video playback Samus accesses at the grounded Federation ship where it shows exactly what happened when a massive swarm of Ing Splinters quickly overrun the place. The sheer numbers of them marching up the ramp to board the ship is unsettling.
Metroid Prime 2 was the first game in my life I didn't want to play a second time.
Because it meant going through that hellish intro, which scared me so much !
And indeed, many times in the game, I didn't experience anger or frustration in boss fights.
It was fear. Nothing else. And you explain very well all the reasons.
Great video !
The boost guardian on hypermode difficulty is literally hell.
it’s giving me PTSD
Dude for real on boost guardian I remember going back and looking for more tanks and ammo. Did you guys have difficulty with hypermode final battle with the Aurora Unit? I swear the most frustrating battle.
I remember I used to think the boost guardian was hard, until I realised that you don't have to stay in morphball mode the whole time he's boosting around. You can just keep jumping around to avoid him until he turns into a puddle, then you can quickly turn into a ball and bomb him. Once I figured that out, he went from being one of the hardest to one of the easiest bosses in the game lol
@@muskrat5oup144 Even with that knowledge he's still pretty hard because of how little health you have at that point and how quickly it drains in dark Aether's atmosphere.
@@Mabra51 Really? I feel like most of the damage I take is from him boosting, since he doesn't stay in his ing form long enough to do any real damage before going back to the boosting phase
I find Prime 2 to be the darkest (no pun intended) out of the trilogy. There are more set peices and events that make it clear this isnt some fun little romp. Sure, the other entries make it clear that this is dangerous and you need to be ready but here.....Your logs tell you, in detail, how some creatures and troopers die and even the game over screen shows that Samus's life support system is failing.
Every time I hear about the Prime games' use of the Scan Vizor to allow players to look for lore and hints to defeat enemies, I wonder why more games don't use a similar function to encourage more organic storytelling. With the Scan Vizor, collecting lore was tied to a far more functional and relevant mechanic than simply pressing a button to pick it up.
Though I didn't use it as way to look into the lore beyond anything related to an enemy encounter, I do remember more from Metroid Prime than other lore-based games which encourage me to pick up tons of books and audio logs.
Because rarely does a studio care enough to put that much detail into the little things. That's why I love Metroid. And that's also why I hope Metroid Prime 4 isn't a degradation of the franchise because of how poorly games are made now.
Sometimes games put in things like audio logs or collectible lore pages/letters, but it never works quite the same way as it does in Metroid Prime. Every room in that game is unique, and there's much more than just logbook entries can be scanned. Aside from helping you solve puzzles (and allowing the developers to mix up puzzles visually), there's bits of machinery, statues, tiny ecosystems, all placed there with care and intention by a level designer, with its story punched into 1 or 2 sentences the player can choose to read if they want. Reading logbook entries feels like an integral part of the game in ways it just doesn't in others.
@@botekate Prey kinda do
@@PacdemonStudios1 Also hundreds of objects that tell stories but aren't logged, where you just scan a tree and get something like "The recent scratches on this tree seem to have an unusual withering effect", it doesn't Mean Anything mechanically but it builds omens, it foreshadows encounters
Sadly, there is a sentiment that the game "forces" too much scanning. This is often perpetuated by the fans no less, who tell their friends that there is a lot of scanning and encourage them to not scan everything for fear that reading 2 lines of text will annoy them too much to play the whole game. This has then caused people who haven't played the game to automatically become annoyed by all the scanning because they've been convinced ahead of time that it would be annoying (by people who love the game).
I've seen this a lot now that the Remaster is out. One person who was a fan of the Resident Evil series (known for its large amounts of readables) was making jokes about how much scanning there was because so many people were warning him ahead of time that there was a bunch, making it seem worse than it is. Another person is barely scanning because his friends were trying to be encouraging by telling him that he doesn't have to scan everything, but now he is so forgetful of the mechanic that they have to constantly remind him to do it.
I think going forward the fans need to be far more encouraging to scan often and make it seem like a good thing and not act like they are embarrassed to be fans of a game with "too much text". People love these games BECAUSE of the scanning, so it's so weird that they are so worried about people hating the game because of it. And it's this sentiment that concerns me that MP4 will have FAR less scanning in it.
A great analysis. I loved the Prime Triology. Echoes was by far the most difficult of the three for me at least, as well as the most unsettling. It bordered on horror and I was a bit squeamish back when I first played. The music, lore and set pieces really do lend into the atmosphere and feeling of isolation and constant uneasiness. No matter how far I got into it, I never, ever felt "safe" in this one, not even with the light suit equipped and all of the upgrades near the end of the game. You constantly feel like you're oppressed, that something will pop out of nowhere and getcha. Echoes is the only one out of the three I never attempted (and will never) to play on hard mode mainly because I barely got through it on normal difficulty in the first place.
Quadraxis! What an awe inspiring yet terrible sight. I died many times when I got to his final phase simply because I had no idea what I was supposed to do and I ran out of time. I must say, the Boost Guardian and the Alpha Blogg were moments I will avoid ever having to re-experience. I still have nightmares. Not only were they terrifying in their own right, but rage inducing. I played it on the Gamecube so I don't know if the difficulty was adjusted when it came out on the Wii later. Overall it's still a masterful game, but a little too much for me if you know what I mean. Lol. I see that Nintendo seem to have a pattern in making their second entry the "darkest" one, just take Zelda OOT and Majora's mask for example.
2:35 "It's just, like...a chair, really." Thought you could slip that in there without anybody noticing?
Oooh, I just finished Prime 1 on Hard mode, that means I have to play Prime 2 for the first time tomorrow!!
Enjoy!
may Neptune have mercy on your soul
@@darthvaderdylan what do you mean?
@@DanielAyy just wishing you well on your journey through this game
@@darthvaderdylan thanks, it seems to have worked since it went pretty well! :)
Prime 2 has the best scan logs of any game in my opinion. and possibly the most scannable objects of any game in the trilogy, but I could be wrong on that. I'm glad you mentioned the part where you watch the pirates rum through the dark portal, but my favorite part of the game (spoilers) is when you go through that portal later to see all their bodies scattered, instantly killed by the toxic atmosphere, the game shows you the aftermath, and makes you imagine the horrific scene for yourself. Something the whole series does really well.
I remember one bit at the very beginning. Some of your first steps on this new world see you walking through broad daylight - but suddenly, for a few seconds, the sky and lighting turn purple! Really good foreshadowing of just how huge whatever's going on there is!
2 words : Sanctuary Fortress. Its music, aesthetics, level design, enemies, how everything looks like a part of many mechanisms. The bright lights under the main structure the first time you get there. Quadraxis, what a boss.
Agon waste and torvus were really good, but sanctuary fortress was something else.
The way it nails the atmosphere is why I love the game so much. And boy, you said it on Quadraxis. Easily my favorite boss fight in the entire Metroid series. It's such a fantastic battle.
Yay Metroid! Love your Metroid videos!
I always loved how weak and powerless the space pirates are against the Ing and Dark Samus in all interactions. Seeing all the dead bodies in dark Aether meaning their expeditions completely failed is also haunting in a way.
I've played through metroid prime 2 several times but the 2nd Dark Samus fight really stands out to me.
It's forshadowed by the scene where Dark Samus fights a trio of pirates troopers over a supply of phazon, once she defeats them in one blow she begins to consume that phazon supply if you decide to sit back and watch it unfold. A very interesting but easily missed detail about this scene is that those are not normal pirate troopers, they are actually dark pirate troopers; pirate troopers that had been possessed by the Ing! This is the only subtle hint in the game that Dark Samus is not an Ing or a Darkling of any kind as one might assume.
By the time you round the corner to enter that room she will have already consumed that phazon and moved on.
You encounter her a couple rooms later to find her consume another stockpile of phazon, the two of you stand off for a moment and the fight kicks off with Dark Samus hitting an elevator switch and the arena basically shoots off toward the skies. During the intense fight the elevator reaches its destination in a larger room at the top of a high tower, the arena walls are clear with a night sky and the fight continues on. You defeat Dark Samus and she disappears in an explosion whose shockwave shatters the glass walls of the arena.
You are left with an astonishing view of the brightly lit fortress very far below that stretches far and wide. After claiming the power up in the area I invariably stay up there for a while to take in the view, maybe it's the nostalgia but that view feels like a well deserved reward in and of itself.
For how old the game is that area has aged really well, you can really tell someone in the dev team really outdid themselves doing this sequence of the game.
... Then you go back down the elevator and the illusion of the incredible height you were just on is suddenly ruined since that particular elevator now behaves exactly like any other elevator for the rest of the game; moving somewhat slowly and appearing to travel only a couple floors, lol.
There are survival horror games that are less terrifying than Metroid games and especially this one.
I couldn't play this game myself. I was too afraid of ... everything really.
It's a testament to how great this franchise is when it manages to out-horror Horror games.
I have high hopes that Prime 4 manages to reestablish Metroid as the atmospheric powerhouse that it always has been before Other M had showed us an unwanted, different kind of horror.
*the baby*
“Fear, Dread and Isolation” that sums up 2020 as a whole. I love your Metroid Videos and I’ve been trying to find a copy of the Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii... I really want to play them unless Nintendo ports them to Switch.
My favorite part of the atmosphere was seeing the storm come in. I was really confused because everything got dark. I didn't make anything of it at the time but when it happened again a few minutes later, I looked up and saw the whole skybox changing, with clouds rolling in and occasional lightning that would light up the darkness from the storm.
Unpopular opinion:
Metroid Prime 2 was imo the best Metroid game with both Super Metroid and Metroid Prime 1 very close on a 2nd and 3rd place respectively.
Don't get me wrong, I love this franchise and especially these 3 games can be considered as some of the best games of all time.
But MP2 did one thing the best of all the Metroid Games: ATMOSPHERE.
I'm a huge fan of great atmosphere in games and MP2 absolutely nailed it.
From the creepy "Aliens" like opening with all the dead space marines all the way to the climatic 3rd battle against Dark Samus while the dark dimension was about to collapse.. The atmosphere was of the charts.
You absolutely dreaded to enter the dark dimension and not only because of the great and creepy atmosphere, but because said atmosphere could actually kill you!
So it started to invoke the feeling of dread and MP2 at some points almost played and felt like a Sci Fi horror game.
Truly a stroke of genius by the developers (although some critics and fans hated the dark dimension)
But every part of it was done to perfection.. The eerie music, extremely though enemies at certain points and the constant danger adding to the horror feel of the game.
And Light Aether wasn't devoid of great atmosphere either btw.
Especially Torvus Bog and Sanctuary Fortress were beautiful and extremely wel made designwise.
Imo its one of the best games ever made and sadly criminally underrated.
there cannot be enough videos about the first two metroid prime games :)
Definitely a part missed on explaining is the morph ball bomb guardian. The alpha Sandigger pops out, a portal opens up and an ing possession happens right in front of you. It’s normal body becoming rigid and spiked, it’s tail transforming into a bulbous pink tumor. Quite a sight when I was six
Quadraxis is easily one of my all-time favorite boss-battles in a video game. It's got everything that makes a good Metroid or Zelda-boss so memorable.
Best game in the trilogy, really bums me out that 4 will probably play it safe with the locales since I greatly enjoy the switches up locations in this one
Yeah it's really hard to say what they'll go for in 4. Sanctuary Fortress was such a breath of fresh air.
Though having said that, Temple Grounds, Again Wastes and Chozo Ruins all blur together to me.
I just fundamentally love the sense of clostraphobia that the dark world mechanics create, and would rank this as one of my top two games of all time (along with Hollow Knight)
at 9:27 , you mention watching the pirates enter the portal, but what's more is when you go through it yourself soon after, you see their corpses littered throughout the area. reading the scans about their gruesome deaths shows you just how unprepared they were, and creates a bigger sense of foreboding.
You did a good job on the video, thanks for making this.
I grew up playing the Metroid Prime Trilogy since I was 10(?) and it's still one of my favorite series of FPS games, even after playing the Half-Life, Quake, and DOOM series. The level of atmosphere in these games in particular felt like I was actually involved with the game. The immersion was really good and the gameplay was solid, so even after playing the entire series about 12-15 times (I think) I can still have fun whenever I pick them up again.
I recently started playing Corruption and it's my first Metroid game, and also my first "not meant to be played by kids" game and stepping into a corridor to find dead bodies kind of got me. I was like "alright something is not right, maybe if I get closer they'll tell me what happened" but the "press A to talk" didn't appear so I was like "uh-oh...I...I think they're dead.." then the scan confirmed it and I was pretty upset for a few seconds.
Yeah I love scanning in Prime, you get so much crazy info. Even the half dead pirates at the start of Prime are pretty graphic.
Currently in the middle of beating this game to 100% and it's great~ It has no issues if you have hints turned on.
I need to play this again. It's easily my favorite Metroid game.
My favourite memory of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes was not actually playing the game but being so hyped about it (I bought the Nintendo Official Mag UK to read the review), used to go to the local Woolworth's and tease myself by staring at the box. I got it for Christmas in '04. I got up so early on Christmas day and begged my mum to let me open one gift (it was too early for her to get up)... It was not MP2: Echoes but it was San Andreas (I was grateful because I was bullied for my love of Metroid and everyone in my class had San Andreas). The actual game itself? Torvus Bog was the standout, as was Sanctuary Fortress. I love how they contrast each other, where one feels organic, one is a complete cyberscape right down to it's enemy designs who attempt to hack you, use electrical disruptive weaponry. Not even the Space Pirates were as advanced as the Luminoth, and the Chozo whilst they are technologically advanced, they are also Ancient, it's like looking back to Ancient Human Civilizations and seeing them as advanced for their time. Perhaps my favourite thing about Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is the fact that it introduces humans outside of Samus with the Galactic Federation Marines. For the longest time I was under the impression Samus was the last human left.
I love you too, Dan!
Personally, the Echo Visor in this game has always fascinated me, and I would love to some day attempt a playthrough where you get the Echo Visor right off the bat (maybe even in place of the normal Visor) and experience as much of the game through that Visor as possible just to see what that kind of perspective would be like.
The music in Agon Wastes is especially great in setting up a sense of dread. In Light Aether, the music has a rhythmic "thump-thump" sound laid in with the beat, almost like a heartbeat. The area feels alive, a bit unstable and dissonant, but still alive.
But when you enter the Dark Aether version, you hear this creepy "bo-weeeeeeeeep" sound. It sounds like a flatline in a medical heart rate monitor. The area feels dead, twisted, hostile and even hellish.
This is awesome man! Hope you have a great Halloween!
One of the best things about the Prime Trilogy, and perhaps my personal favorite aspect as a whole - the scans. The lore was top shelf, I love the Prime Trilogy's universe. But the Trooper logs from Prime 2's opening are my favorite thing, learning about all the dead GF soldiers and learning about the crazy bug-filled environment was creepy as hell. Wish they did dead soldier scans more often in Metroid.
9:28 To expand on these pirates, after you use that portal yourself a bit later, you see a bunch of Space Pirate corpses around, with one right in front of you. It shows that Dark Aether is indeed very dangerous and even the pirates are weak to it.
There's a save station on Dark Torvus bog's surface where the sky grows super unstable. It's the only place in the game that has the most storms after taking its energy.
Honestly Dark Agon is always one of my favorite parts of Prime 2. It's....horrifying. The safe areas are clustered together, but they're only so big, and you only have so much health. And that area off to the right when you're coming out of the portal. A whole room with no light crystals. Always a mad dash to get to the other side and regen my health. And it really takes all the way to the Sky Temple to break the habit of looking out for safety. There's always the anxiety when facing Boost Guardian and Quadraxis that you have to stay on your toes, you have to keep moving forward, otherwise you'll just die. Even with the Dark Suit I always find myself fighting in the safety of the light. And it's such a cathartic release to get Annihilator Beam because now it just takes a single shot to deal with most Ing. Supercharge the crystals and they all run right to their doom.
This game is phenomenal. Love the atmosphere, controls, visuals, interactivity, and the soundtrack. Every area is alive. Plus the sound design is a marvel, experiencing it with headphones + Dolby surround... Holy cow
When I was playing the Prime Trilogy, I HATED this game once I got to the dark world. Inevitable constant damage that I could do nothing to stop completely was something I wasn't used to. I also thought the enemies had way too much health (but that was my fault for "conserving" my beams.) But as I went on, I really started to appreciate the game, and now I think it's my favorite of the trilogy.
My favorite part would have to be the lumimoth holograms in each area, telling how them and there armys and machine faught the Ing to no avail. ARMIES loosing, and you are alone. It made me truely feel i was against a nearly unstopable force
I used to not like Prime 2 because the environments looked very boring and moody, but I never noticed the superb atmosphere the game... I was very stupid back then, I really need to replay the Prime games xd
Great analysis video!
One of my other favorite parts would be the cutscene flashback to the Federation marines' plight on Aether, how they were able to set up outposts and checkpoints and were doing fine until an army of Ing-possessed Splinters came at them. As always you can find lots of marine logs among the corpses, and one of them, Angseth, is fangirling for Samus Aran while the others view her as a mere 'legend'.
Beyond that, this is one of those games that really shows how higher difficulty can also help add to the tension. Like after you take down the first two heads of Amorbis, seeing all three rear up out of the sand at once you feel an acute sense of foreboding, knowing how tough just two heads were... and then they pull out a new combination attack that chases you, as well as the ability to corrupt the safe zones. Same thing with using phazon particles in the air to foreshadow Dark Samus' presence.
MP2 was easily my favorite of the Trilogy I loved the twisted alternate reality of Dark Aether and everything you've said about the locations and aesthetic are what i love about it. As for locatons, hmm you pretty much covered the best parts i can think of right now though a few memorable puzzles were the spinning ring puzzle and that giant electric ball room thing before you get to the light world Quadraxis arena. There were also a few other little things I got a kick out of, like this one corridor where an ing drops down from the ceiling into a spot you can cast a light sphere and if you hit it with a light shot it just drops to an instant and satisfying kill. and another sillier one in the same area as that area before light world Quadraxis theres three doors in a row with the outer two needing the dark beam. If you shoot at the door while standing in the middle one the regular beam just bounces back and forth until it just disappears. God I loved this game.
Something that gives chills and love the design detail is that you can deactivate the crystals or safe zones in dark aether. I remember playing it as a kid and shooting it with the dark beam be ause I was scared and didn't know what to do. The crystal shut down, the safe zone is deactivated, and you can only wait to get it turned back on or move to another safe zone. That taught me that by hitting it with the light beam, something would happen and actually happen and it did. Got super charged and even damaged the Ing that get inside of the bubble. Also the small energy zone has the same effect. Pretty cool for my young mind back then.
Prime 2 takes what every other metroid does well, and has a great atmosphere ontop of it, for that reason it's easily my favourite metroid game. I wish I could have played it back in the day, I only got the chance a couple years ago.
I love that it tried something new with the weapons, I applaud that!
This game has been my favorite game for the last 16 years.
This one sets itself apart from the rest of the trilogy by being not only the most difficult in terms of mechanics, but also it genuinely has the most unique and different experience. I compare this one alot to the original M2.
You touched on it initially but there was so much about the federation troopers that was missed. If you scanned them all you could piece together alot of the story so you were dreading the moment you arrived at the landing site. You imagine their final stance and as you traverse the next areas, you see what became of the last few. How far they didn't get.
And Dark Samus was also a threat. The lore showed her working with the pirates and using their for her exploits. So after the first time you meet you don't know when you'll see her again. And most of the time it's just for a moment. The final battle at first is a fun revelation.
And the more you traverse the lands the more you realize just how damaged this world is. The Agon Plains are now an apocalyptic wasteland, the Torvus forest is now a flooded bog. And their once mighty fortress that they so bravely died to defend is now their hive.
This game was awesome in its atmosphere. On the first run I wasn't confident enough to run through the game; I always looked at my ammo and my health. Because sometimes you didn't know where the next one was. For example I always waited for 100% health for Quadraxis, just in case.
The repossessed Troopers scared me on my first play through. Boost Guardian was crazy.
The first time I had to reboot samus's systems, it felt so cool and immersive, seeing all the programs boot back up on the lower left corner was so awesome! and it was totally unessesary, in a technical view, but add so much character to the game.
To this day I dread the Boost Guardian battle. Love this game.
I also like the small platoon of Space Pirates entering the Dark World. But when you get there, you find them all dead in the first couple of rooms. Great way of showing how dangerous Dark Aether is.
This is why I love this metroid and why is my favorite one
I also liked how the sky and light sometimes changes to purple, announcing the collapse of aether
Ahhh I'm so excited!! I'll watch this in a bit, this video needs to be celebrated with sweets and hot chocolate 😤💗
Thank you so much!!
Been thinkin about how amazing itd be if you covered prime 2s atmosphere and how ominous and immersive it is, was so happy when i saw this in my subcription box!
Edit: Couldnt stop smiling throughout the entire video, I love this game so much
Great video. Completed prime 2 about a couple weeks ago for the first time, something I always wanted to complete. Anyways.
Something I really like about Prime 2 is the use of whistling in some of the tracks like the Chykka music, and the Mutated Emperor Ing music. It reminds me of the Icon of Sin music from Doom, it's very eerie. Each game's music perfectly complements their respective atmosphere. I think the incorporation of the whistling is meant to drive home the whole "Echoes" thing.
Another part I really like that adds to Echoes uneasiness is finding the Dark missle trooper, where you find yourself plopping down in that GF hive camp/base whatever, and you ask yourself, "Was that, Marine's body there before?" Like, was HE the last living Marine, then walk there and then die of injuries, or did he die and then the Ing make him walk over there? I just find that part really creepy. Speaking of the last living Marine, PFC Denys log and where he died. At the end of his log he says "... Wait, something's moving down there... Hello?" The final words of the last Marine. What killed him, the war wasps? The Ing? I find that more creepy than I should. I read all the Trooper logs when going through the first part of the game, it sets the mood and you get to understand that the Marines get this feeling of dread, and uncertainty. Like they know, they aren't going to make off this planet.
Metroid Prime 2 might be my favourite in the series. Glad to see it get some recognition.
Prime 2 was easily the scariest game in the series for me. Something about the atmosphere is just really bleak and oppressive, especially the dark world. Was genuinely kinda uneasy playing this at night in the dark.
An element I think you missed was Ammo, once you understand how the Beam Ammo drops work its not a legitimate issue in the field, but your Alt-Beams being tethered to ammo pools generates that resource scarcity anxiety Resident Evil leveraged in the past, and in bosses its very possible to blow all your Light Ammo, especially if you're using Sunburst
Samus's systems can dredge up a smidge of juice when needed, but if you're out, that gun is down
As a kid I got stuck at that part at the beginning when you find the Federation space ship and watch the video of how they were overwhelmed by those creatures. When reaching that point I was already too tense because of all the previous encounters and how hard was for me to play, and the atmosphere made it all too creepy. It was like playing a horror game. And I dind´t understad english either xd.
Ultimately I got stuck in the first protal to dark Aether, the fight against the dark pirates was to hard for me and the dark world was already too much with the toxic atmosphere.
Oh boy, I can't wait for Metroid Prime 4. I really hope they can at least match Prime 1 or 2. I like the third one, but I feel is the weakest of the bunch (the other ones are way too good to be fair).
You forgot to mention the bit of the pirates preparing to enter Dark Aether, you can see how deadly dark aether is to apparently any creature on the galaxy by looking at the bodies of the pirates on the other side, as they were immediately annihilated by the ing, their spines broken, their air supplys destroyed, them being possesed, phazon burns and all other hazardous materials that you may find in their bodies across dark aether.
My favorite bit of environmental storytelling in Echoes is this: the Energy Transfer Module.
When you get to the Great Temple, you fight an Alpha Splinter. But it gets possessed by an Ing, which after killing it, drops the Energy Transfer Module. That's nifty, but think about what this *means* for the world.
At this point, all three of the Luminoth strongholds have fallen and had their energy taken away. The remaining Luminoth (mostly civilians) have taken refuge in their last place of power: the Great Temple.
That Ing was clearly the vanguard of the final attack on the Great Temple, the end of their war with the Luminoth. The Ing was carrying the Energy Transfer Module because it's mission was to breach the Temple, take the Light of Aether, and leave the Light world to die.
And it was mere *minutes* from doing precisely that.
Until Samus showed up, coincidentally at the nick of time. And she was just roaming around, after having already found what she came there to find, waiting for her ship's repair systems to finish.
I just love your channel, thanks for the content!
While Prime 2 didn’t blow me away like the first prime did! I had some awesome memories of this game too! It didn’t stop it from being one of my favorite sequels of all time! Metroid prime may have had the best overall gameplay. Prime 2 had the best art work and style to it! I loved the diversity of every environment you got to explore. The attention to detail in each room, area and chamber is just as impressive as the other day. This game has held up very well, even by todays standards! Such a shiny, polished masterpiece. Both dark and light suits are so cool and unique in design! Despite a couple of annoying sub bosses, I absolutely loved this game. In fact, I’m going through it again as I type this! I was in highschool being so hyped for this game! Everyone else talked about Halo 2 and GTA, I was one of the few who played this one to death!
I love metroid prime 2 echoes. It's the hardest of the primes. I only used power beam and missiles. I only used the other beams to open doors or if I was forced to use them for some sort of forced mechanic. When I played metroid prime 3 I had to play it on the hardest difficulty to get any satisfaction. Prime 3 on the hardest difficulty is equivalent to normal on prime 2 lol.
I first played Prime 2 when I was a kid and when I got to the Hydro Dynamo Station in Torvus Bog, I think I just quit lol. Too scary. You can’t see anything and there’s a huge monster in there. Uh-uh. I did end up beating it on the Wii a few years later, though.
Metroid is a legendary franchise and now with Dread is going to rise even more
Love this channel ❤️
The Luminoth logs you read talk about how desperate, yet brave they were in the final stand against the Ing. One of the Luminoth was getting possessed and chose to "self-terminate" to deny the Ing its victory.
I loved this game. Best in the metroid prime series for me :) The combination weapons especially!
Even after having played Dread, and loving it btw, Metroid Prime 2 still remains my favorite Metroid game.
The Prie trilogy are one of those games i wish i could replay for the first time.
Definitely one of my top favorite games. Scanning everything is a pain in the ass though, but fun.
I remember seeing the storyboarding for the sequence when Samus first enters Dark Aether, it's terrific to see how well their intent carried into the cutscene.
Where is this storyboard?? 😦
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy it's in an old Game Informer magazine. I might still have it lying around somewhere
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy I think you're also able to see it in the extras menu, assuming you have enough tokens to unlock them
That storyboard is amazing. Pretty much shot for shot
I just found it, if you'd like I can send it your way on twitter
Something that also adds to this oppressing atmosphere is the possibility to run out of ammo. No light beam on Dark Aether sucks.
The countdown boss battle at the end is reminiscent of fighting certain bosses without safe spots. Like Boost Guardian or Quadraxis
Instead of HP ticking down, it's a timer that you can't reverse with HP pickups
The Alpha Blogg is particularly burned into my memory from this game, and kinda felt like a boss battle with a timer because I could not for the life of me dodge the thing.
Also yes yes yes Quadraxis is an absolutely amazing boss battle. One of my favorites in any game. It's like combining the best parts of Shadow of the Colossus and Being a Super Powered Space Lady: The Game.
I just beat Prime 2 and honestly, aside from a couple of sections where I thought the devs wanted me to buy a fucking Prima Guide, I had a really good time with it, ammo system and obnoxious spider guardian included. An underrated chapter in this series
6:50 in an eventual remaster, this effect will confuse many First timers. The Reboot effect really impresses
This is my favorite Metroid game. Thanks for the video.
I always love Echoes for the fact that rather than Samus arriving after some tragic event, she arrives and helps to prevent a calamity on a much more personal scale than the other games. Sure all Metroids have Samus save the galaxy from the threat of Space Pirates or otherworld creatures, but to actually see firsthand the tragic events of the game and have a much more personal investment in the end outcome really elevates Echoes (and Corruption) above the other games in a story sense.
My favorite bit is how that one GF Trooper is a huge Samus fan, while another doesn't believe Samus could have done all that she did and equates believing in her to believing in Santa Clause.