Re: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Yarrr this post has spoilers and I think the "don't spoil things" limitation on this thread has expired anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
vegeta1215
Anyone get the yellow credit for safely escorting all 12 demolition men to the gate? I am able to make it to the last room without any of them dying, but once the Commander Pirate (the guy in red with a pointy head) summons the Elite Pirates (which can go invisible), I lose one or two of them.
The Elite Pirates are usually easy at this point because when you use the X-Ray visor and Nova beam, you can one-hit KO them, but when I tried to do that I just get a lot of static interference and can't see a thing. I tried to kill them by going Hyper, but it's not fast enough.
Any tips?
That part. That part.
I had 12/12 until the berserker knight appeared. "Oh your shots go right through his mask don't worry it'll be easy" said the player's guide. Then one of those stupid demolition soldiers got the notion that he'd take the berserker knight on. 3 seconds into that fight I saw the first guy go down; 2 seconds later the second guy got the same idea with the same results. Somehow I lost 2 other guys in that fight, but I never saw them and it wasn't the berserker knight that killed them.
That particular area was annoying because they had those "knock-you-out-of -hypermode" grenades. The problem was intensified because for some reason you lose your radar in hypermode. The pirate commander was particularly annoying because it involves keeping track of 3 different entities that are able to quickly move in circles, meanwhile Samus turns like the 18-wheeler in that Super FX chip racing game for the SNES. A simple "180 degree turn" key + gesture combo would have gone a long way to making that fight more winnable. As it is I don't even know how I killed the commander; I just started engaging hypermode and shooting anything that moved and at some point a cutscene started.
It was only during the fight with Omega Ridley that I had a revelation and stumbled upon the mindset that is key to being invincible in that game: missiles are useless and hyper missiles' primary function is to get rid of a lot of phazon really fast. If you mash the A button super fast, your damage output is something on par with missiles, what with the ~1.5 second delay for your gun to "transform" to missile mode, then the delay for the missile to reach its target, then the high probability that whatever enemy you are shooting at can dodge missiles. I could put out 10-15 beam shots in the time it took me to fire one missile, and on a small, fast-moving target like a boss's weak point the odds that I'll actually hit it are much higher.
I smoked Omega Ridley and only used 3 hyper missiles. Dark Samus was a joke since she wasn't using the techniques that made the Gandrayda version of Samus difficult. I maybe hit her with 2 hyper missiles, but won the battle in maybe 2 or 3 minutes with a relentless river of phazon. The aurora unit? Please. Try hitting the antennae with a missile, much less the little yellow spot that flashes for a second. Once again, once I got the weak spot open the strategy was the same as for Ridley:
Code:
Relentless stream of phazon beam as I get lined up for a clear shot
Hyper Missile
While (boss is not moving)
Relentless stream of phazon beam
Something about making you practically invincible for the final boss fight really took a lot out of it.
Maybe it's better on harder difficulties but this was kind of disappointing for a Metroid game. I'm used to getting beaten within an inch of my life by Metroid bosses because I tend to be better at focusing on one thing rather than a lot; the Metroid 1 Kraid and Ridley were practically impossible for me; balancing 6 projectiles and moving platforms while waiting for Kraid to open his mouth was a ridiculous challenge for me. Any multi-participant combat in this game cost me a lot of health due to poor level layout, Samus's inability to turn, and the fact that I can really only dodge projectiles that I can see. What really took the fun out of it though was when I figured out it was easier to hit hypermode and lose an energy tank than it was to spend 5 minutes killing 8 dudes that were going to cost me more than that one energy tank.
I finished with 97% pickups, and probably could have got 100% because I didn't feel like backtracking the Pirate Homeworld for gold credits, missiles that were difficult to use, and gunship missile expansions that honestly didn't do anything at all for the game anyway. It was midnight and I was stoked to get into the final battle, forget an hour of fighting stupid red phazoids for a cutscene I can watch on Youtube.
I don't think I'll go back for the gold credits I missed; all I missed was the "don't take damage from Ridley" one, the "save these soldiers from the pirates" ones, and the "protect all 12 demolition soldiers" one. The first three I failed because I wasn't used to the controls and half the time by the time I saw the pirates the soldiers were dead. None of the first challenges are close enough to a save point to make me feel like it's worth going back to do it. The final challenge is at the tail end of the game, and that berserker knight pissed me off so much I think I'll just pass. Up until that point so long as you stay in front of the demolition dudes and rain fire upon anything you can keep the fire drawn to you instead of them. I cannot stand the fact that I was forced to watch a cutscene where I let them burst into the room ahead of me, giving me 2 seconds to distract the gigantic berserker knight from turning them into meat because they decided they could so take that guy in melee.
Also I wonder what my completion time would have been if I didn't have to wait 30 seconds for doors to open?
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the game, and once I learned the other bounty hunters were targets rather than companions I had a delightful time murdering them all. Some of the puzzles were clever and enjoyable, and I really enjoyed a lot of the spider ball stuff. They did a good job with your first phazon metroid encounter, so far every game I play makes me hate metroids that much more. I want them all dead, and then possibly Samus too since after Fusion she is technically part metroid and some wiseguy scientist could clone a metroid from her.
I just found some elements of the controls particularly frustrating when combined with the cramped corridors. Metroid is still a 2-D game, and I'd love to see more 2-D incarnations.
I'm curious how the sequel is going to roll; the timeline is getting kind of cluttered and we're running out of enemies.
By the way, I need 4 friend vouchers but I'm uncertain how many I have to give out in return. I am pretty sure I have at least 2 because I hit 800 and 900 kills in my last run. If anyone feels like sharing the wealth, I'll do what I can to reciprocate.
Re: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AtmaWeapon
I'm curious how the sequel is going to roll; the timeline is getting kind of cluttered and we're running out of enemies.
Samus murders the entire federation for continuously being sent on insane, complex, galaxy-saving missions, and not getting paid enough to retire yet.
Re: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
That element of the plot also kind of bothers me, in fact the more the Prime series progresses the worse this gets.
Metroid is a game about being a lonely person in a metal suit deep within the bowels of an alien planet and the only way anyone will ever find out about your fate is they assume if you don't come back within a week you're dead. No one is ever going to find your remains or any evidence of your fate because they'll be too busy getting murdered or oppressed if you fail, and no one is going to thank you if you succeed.
In previous incarnations, the "Federation" was just a plot entity that existed to ask Samus to bail them out. One could kind of explain that they sent Samus instead of an army because they didn't know how serious the problem was, and it just so happened that Samus was extraordinarily talented and lucky to have her Chozo suit.
From what I remember of Prime 1, the Federation was there but still kind of detached. Samus was still a bounty hunter, and really only sent because she had expertise with the Space Pirates. Now, it's more like Samus is a soldier in the Federation Army the way she just shows up for a briefing and does what the general says.
I like the Metroid Prime series, but I don't like what it is doing to the Metroid franchise. I used to feel like a freelance mercenary who got caught up in an epic struggle; in the later series I feel more like an enlisted marine being dispatched to accomplish this or that directive.
Also while the level design was certainly not uninspired, I felt like the game was a bit too linear. The only unessential items were missile upgrades; everything else must be obtained to progress. Twilight Princess had a similar problem; it seems like the more complex the presentation of the game becomes the more we lose the ability to explore the game in a non-linear fashion.
Re: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
heh, Mogenar is as hard as I feared him to be on Hypermode. However, knowing the trick that you can evade damage in hypermode while in morphball form while dropping bombs to elimimate his phazon-laced boots has done wonders for my health during those phases. I never take damage anymore during those phases. Good times.
And Mogenar bites the dust in hypermode, awesome.
And now I'm having trouble with an unlikely candidate: Steamlord.
Re: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Atma, what difficulty did you play in when you smoked Dark Samus and the Aurora Unit? Normal mode was cake, but Veteran is providing the kind of challenge I would expect from a Prime game (the Defense Drone and Gandrayda were really close calls). I'm sure Hyper difficulty will be great fun.
In the 3rd room in the "escort the demolition soldiers" part, the Berzerker Lord was easy. Use the X-Ray visor/Nova Beam and nail him with a charged shot right when he breaks through the wall. He won't even touch you. After him you have to worry about the 2 pirates right around the corner, and finally the 3 pirates that the leader summons that go invisible (those are the ones that always kill my guys). I think you're right about just using regular shots on them - Hyper Missiles take too long and could miss, and charged shots in Hyper mode are slow too. I will say charged Hyper mode shots are the way to go for clearing the first two rooms, mainly cause it homes in on the nearest foe once you kill the one you're aiming at.
As for the colored credits, there are just enough red, blue, and yellow in the game to unlock everything, whereas you can get 26 friend vouchers and only need 15 friend credits. The Ridley morph ball escape-with-no-damage actually nets you a friend voucher, the 3 soldiers on the Olympus that you can save yield blue credits, and the demolition squad escort is a yellow one. There are few other yellow credit events aside from bosses, including about 10 from red phaazoids (there are three spots to find red phaazoids on both Bryyo and Elysia, and four on the Pirate home world)
You don't need to have a 1:1 exchange of friend credits. I've given more than I've gotten in return, but it's a kind gesture to reciprocate if someone sends you some. I have two right now, and can get two more on this file. Once I get them all, I'll decide where to send'em ;)
Re: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
FYI regarding the GF:
This game inspired me to go back and replay Metroid Fusion. And as god-aweful as that game is (for a Metroid game anyways), if you can look past the annoyingness the story is actually very interesting.
One thing in particular I liked is that the Galactic Federation is not exactly pictured as the squeaky clean organization they would like to have you believe they are. Samus works to wipe out the Metroid population, and here they are breeding the damn things, "for peaceful applications of course". They've even developed a way to speed their evolution - causing a full larva to Omega mutation in something like a day. On top of this, they were seeking to capture SA-X and the X Parasites to study and use for their own purposes. They purposefully withhold suit upgrades from you just to prevent you from fighting SA-X for this reason.
And so now, Samus is in big trouble. She discovered the Metroid breeding program, she crashed the whole space station into SR388, destroying the X Parasites, and basically completely betrayed the GF. I'm actually really interested to see the next game (in the timeline). I think it'd be pretty interesting if they actually made Samus an outlaw from the GF - could prove a very cool storyline.
P.S. - But oh, hopefully she'll run back to some Chozo world first and replace her damn suit. I do NOT want to walk around in that ugly blue (well now orange) POS again :P
Re: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Well, thanks for spoiling Fusion for me. :P Not that I'll ever finish it. Can never master bomb jumping in that game to save my life to move forward. Regardless....At Helios in the second Seed on Hypermode. Thus far, no 'real' consistent problems with any areas just yet. But I've been hearing horror stories of the last three bosses or more particular, the first of the last three in hypermode. So this should be interesting.
Re: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Warlock
FYI regarding the GF:
This game inspired me to go back and replay Metroid Fusion. And as god-aweful as that game is (for a Metroid game anyways), if you can look past the annoyingness the story is actually very interesting.
Being told where to go and what to do in Fusion is very un-Metroid like imo (and MP3 reminds of Fusion for that same reason. Plus being able to grabs those green ledges is just like in Fusion), but otherwise I thought it was a really good game. The story is probably one of the best parts about it, but the levels, boss fights, etc are all great. I started a 1% game a long time ago, but could never beat the Spider boss, and I can't even imagine trying to get past the past right after. (you know)
The only Metroid game I would say is awful is Metroid Prime: Hunters. The original Metroid and Metroid II are hard to go back to after playing later games, but they are very good in their own ways.
Re: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
vegeta I agree with you pretty much. The one thing that has really grated on my nerves about MP3 is how linear the blasted game is, and Twilight Princess had the same thing going for it. You don't even really need the GF to make sure you stay on the right track, because every upgrade that is not missiles is required to progress. You can barely even skip energy cells.
On the other hand, in Super Metroid (which was the best one in my opinion), I always lose several hours because they were careful to make sure that upgrades opened up many different places, only one of which was important for proper progression and some of which could be abused to skip large portions of the game.
To put it another way, I like a game that caters to multiple types of players; the Bartle Test hits on the types of players that pop up in online games, but you only have diamonds, spades, and clubs in most console games. Let's compare how MP3 and Metroid 3 cater to each type of player.
Diamonds
Both games cater to diamonds well. You have a counter at the end of the game that shows how many items you got, and in Metroid 3 you get to see how long it took you. Different (better) endings are given to successful diamonds.
Spades
Both games did fairly well here, but in my opinion Metroid 3 was a little better at hiding things. The single thing Metroid Prime has done to hurt the game for a spade is making sure that if a powerup is in the room you can hear it. Metroid 3 in my opinion went too far marking powerups on the map, but then it also had plenty of secrets tucked away in regions that were not on the map. To completely spade the game you had to pull out the X-Ray visor and examine every wall; in MP3 it's more a matter of wandering around with your scan visor on and the volume up.
Clubs
The club environment in both games is markedly different than in online games; instead of trying to kill each other, players fight to see who can get the lowest percentage, lowest time, or all items with the lowest time. This leads players to hone their skills and try to abuse any trick the game gives them. Every move the player makes, every item that they decide to take, affects their time and percentage which directly affects their bragging rights. Don't want to take item X? Fine, you're going to have to learn how to shinespark really well. Want to skip a good 3 hours of the game? If you do this you get into that room before the game has changed it to this... you get the picture.
How does MP3 facilitate this kind of competition? The lowest number of items required takes no calculation; the list of required items is pretty much every powerup. You can't skip bosses. You can't even charge through a room full of enemies and dodge them because odds are the enemies are there so that it takes you 45+ seconds to kill them and the next room is already loaded when you try to open the door. Try to open it too soon and you'll have to fight the enemies anyway.
Unfortunately for me I am mostly a spade/diamond and I like to be a club after I've finished a game. I'm not very talented, but I like to try and mimic what other people do in speedruns. Metroid Fusion was awesome for this kind of thing; it's almost as if they buillt it for clubs. It sucked as a Metroid game but I have to admit what I have read about the people who play it as clubs it has a lot to offer. MP3, on the other hand, doesn't really seem to encourage this kind of play. Sure, they discourage you from backtracking to pick up items by having Navi--er General Dane remind you that you need to be on the pirate homeworld every time you land, but for a true club experience there should be more than one path through the game, even if it requires glitches.
I still had a lot of fun playing it and it is a very high quality game. Compare MP3 to the games people are playing right now and it's in the cream of the crop. A poor Metroid still beats the snot out of most other games but at the same time it is a disappointment to the Metroid fan.
*edit* Also I found out Retro Studios is in my hometown, what do you think the odds are they take visitors and if they do, should I try to swipe the Samus statue they have?
Re: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Nah, Metroid: Zero Mission - now that was built for just about everyone. I honestly think it's the best Metroid since Super Metroid. It's pretty much the only one where they actually take sequence breaking into account and design the game around letting people exploit that. Heck, they even have special endings for playing low item games (and doing so is absolutely fun as hell, I have to say).
Whereas, look at Fusion. Wall Jumping was nerfed to become practically useless, bomb jumping was completely removed...
Anyways, Fusion wasn't a *bad* game, but I do think it's one of the worst Metroid games (except Prime 2, that was the worst :P Or maybe Hunters :P). The fact you constantly have to stop at the computer for "instructions" and the linear-ness of the game are both annoying. On top of that, all the environments are extremely small. There's more of them, so that's supposed to "make up for it", but I dunno, I went back and played Super Metroid and I'd take that game's "quality over quantity" approach over Fusion. There's just something about getting lost in big, open environments :P