Metroid Prime 2 is an improvement upon it's predecessor in nearly every way. Now I liked the first one, I gave it a 9.0 out of 10, and while I felt it did a great job of translating the series' trademark feel into the realm of 3D it suffered from some pretty major pacing issues near the end of the game. Here this has all been improved.
But no game is perfect and I'll start by nitpicking what I can about the game and the minor ways in which I preferred the first game. The main thing I can think of about Prime 2 that I didn't like as much is the new weapons and visors. Because of the limited ammo system I relied on my tried and true charge beam for about 90% of the game. This sounds like a pretty huge complaint, but the truth is that while playing the thought never crossed my mind once. Even in all the old metroids once you upgrade to the wave beam there's really never any reason to go back to the charge beam, so this lack of selection really hardly hurts anything at all. I also didn't care that much for the look of the dark visor, especially when compared to the thermal visor in the first game, but it's a VERY minory nitpick and at the very least helps distinguish the games. And the echo visor is about on par with the x-ray visor. I kinda liked it, but it's hardly used in the game anyhow.
I also mildly preferred the main bosses in the first game. They're close, but there is one boss in Prime 2 that is very easy, but still takes a long time to kill and is a pretty major dissapointment. That one boss alone is the tie breaker, but most of the bosses in Prime 2 are very good.
Oh, and also some of the writing near the beggining of the game is laughably bad. I'm speaking of the marine log books in particular where they refer to Samus. That stuffs terrible, but it's only very early in the game and a very minor nitpick at that. And it's not like anyone cares about the story anyway.
But now that that's out of the way I can write about all the ways Metroid Prime 2 is a vast improvement over the original.
First of all Aether just plain looks a lot more interesting than Tallon IV. Tallon IV did a good job of essentially updating the look of Super Metroid into 3D, but here the artists go for something a bit different and altogether more fascinating. The mix of dry desert wastes with archaic alien technology in the temple grounds and agon wastes is pretty original. A bit reminiscent of Riven, but that's never a bad thing. There's also a bog which is not too different from the Tallon Overworld in it's predecessor, and probably my least favorite area in the game, but still not bad at all. And the Sanctuary fortress s pretty darn fascinating with it's ultra futuristic technology. I was rather impressed with the graphics in the game and I'm not sure if they're technically much better than that in the first game, but the style of the planet made it that much more fun to explore.
And in addition to the way Aether looks it is also designed much better than Tallon IV in the first game. I felt that Metroid Prime had too much backtracking that was there just for the sake of backtracking and dragging the game out. Remember how frustrating it was when you made it most of the way through the phazon mines only to have to trek all the way back to mogmoor caverns for the plasma beam? I can only think of one point in Prime 2 that's anywhere near that bad. It all comes down to layout. The game world in the first prime was kind of a mess. Here there is one area on the center, and 3 areas around the permiter (think a nuclear symbol) and the goal of the game is to ressurrect the temple in each of these areas. Because of layout of the game it is a bit more linear, but also the backtracking is less intense. You will have to backtrack a lot, but usually only over short distances. In many ways the 3 areas of the game reminded me more of dungeons in Zelda than the constant running back and forth across the entire planet we saw in the first prime.
And because of the way the planet is split up the pacing is much improved over the first game. In the first "prime" it seemed that by the time you were two thirds through the game you'd basically seen it all. Here that is not the case. Even very late in the game I was amazed at some of the new areas and tricks the game designers had up their sleeves. While the "wow" factor does decline a bit in the last third or quarter of the game it's not nearly as bad as it was in the first game, and there's plenty more third person morph ball environmental puzzles to boot.
I mentioend before that I mildly preferred the main bosses in the first Metroid Prime. I'll stick by that, but what the game lacks in main bosses it makes up for in mini-bosses, and there sure are a lot of them. Many of which have interesting tricks, and there's one that you have to fight entirely in 2D morphball mode. My favorite boss battle (and possibly the hardest boss mini or otherwise in the game) is a mix of 3D shooting, and old fashioned 2D morphball fighting. Most of these mini-bosses are pretty darn easy, but the help to break up the monotony of fighting regular enemies for awhile.
Another improvment over it's predecessor is an improved scan mode. I found scanning a bit of a chore in the first game, but here the system is improved so much that I actually enjoyed scanning. The new system causes an entire object to glow when you place your scan reticule over it as opposed to a small orange or red icon like the the first game. And objects you've scanned already glow a bright green, so there's never any question as to whether or not you've scanned it yet. And when you scan something important like a creature or a log book entry it will tell you what percent of every category you've scanned so far. Like 63% of the creatures and 52% of the luminoth lore. When you pause the game it even tells you your overall percent of both scans and items so there's no confusion.
I did find this game quite a bit easier than the original "prime," but that may be because I've beaten the first game on hard mode and hence have a lot of experience with the controls. There also seemed to be more save points. There was nothing in this game that was anywhere near as frustrating as first arriving on the phazon mines in the first game. Many have said this game is harder than the original. I frankly didn't see it at all. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. It just is.
There's also a scavenger hunt near the end of the game that is a bit tedious, but less so than a similar scavenger hunt in the first game. In the first game you had to collect 11 artifacts near the end of the game. Here it's 9 keys. A key and an artifact take about the same amount of time to collect. Take that as you will.
Overall Metroid Prime 2 is a major improvement upon its predecessor. Many don't seem to think so and gave it a lower score due to it being less revolutionary. I had high, but cautious hopes for it and was worried about the limited ammo and dark world draining my energy, but none of that bothered me at all in the game, and I was amazed by how much I enjoyed it. If you liked the first game I can't imagine being dissapointed at this one.
Pros:
-A better looking planet to explore
-better layout/pacing
-more cool environmental puzzles
-lots of interesting mini-bosses
-scan mode is vastly improved
Cons:
-I liked of old beams better
-At least one pretty dissapointingly easy and long boss fight
Nuetral:
-an easier game than the first (I seem to think so anyway)
-a tedious scavenger hunt near the end that isn't quite as bad as in the first game
Overall 9.5
Note: I didn't review the multi-player because I've hardly had any experience with it. I tried it for about 10 minutes the other day and it sucked. But it's not part of the main game so you can be like me and choose to ignore it exists.
