Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

It’s time to strap on the Chozo armor and chase after Space Pirates again!  Kind of.

As MP2 opens, Samus Aran is hot on the heels of a group of Federation Marines that tracked a group of Space Pirates but was never heard from again after landing on Aether.  He story, advanced by in-game cut scenes and information scattered throughout the planet, unravels from there.  The mystery surrounding what is happening really helps push the story forward – you’re not always just on the look-out for something else to blow up.  Eventually Samus figures out that the Dark and Light Aethers are ripping the planet apart and it’s only by traveling between the two dimensions that Samus can uncover the Truth.

The control and graphics are virtually unchanged from the first game.  If it ain’t broke why try to fix it?  This makes it instantly familiar and playable.  Even the weapons are unchanged aside form the Dark and Light Aether beams.

The level design is again stellar, although a few more save rooms would have been appreciated.  Retro Studios still provides plenty of opportunity to roll around in a ball and solve environmental puzzles which sometimes necessitates traveling between Dark and Light Aethur dimensions and facing off against their own particular challenges, like the constant damage Samus’s armor takes when exposed to Dark Aether.

Although there’s a good story central to MP2, the action is great and eclipses the action found in the first game – a few of the boss battles are absolutely titanic.  Switching weapons with the C-stick is still streamlined and the lock-on mechanism gets constant use.

Maybe the most drastic addition is the vastly improved scanning mode, a feature that becomes glaring if you happen to go back and replay the original.  Items that haven’t been scanned show as blue, scanned items already logged are shown in green – this simple change eliminates accidentally rescanning the same object.