The Holtonian

Metroid 2: Echoes Review

I've been postponing my Metroid Prime 2 Echoes post upon beating the game, but as I've had it a few weeks and still seem not that close to beating it I figured I'd just go ahead and throw my 2 cents out there.

First off the first Metroid on the Gamecube was a tremendous game that really sold the system for me. I had only had two games prior to Metroid, Smash Bros and Starwars, but after I came back from my honeymoon I found Metroid Prime for 12 bucks and has been the best 12 bucks ever spent. It was a great game, so hard, so engrossing on the story, and so well done on graphics and game play.

Well the second, Echoes, basically takes place right after the last one. Basically you're leaving the planet of the first one, hear a distress beacon from some space marines on another planet and being the good little mercenary she is, Samus jets off to this new world to investigate. You crash land, you always crash land, and begin to explore this honey comb type insect hive. All the space marines are thrashed and trashed but a few spring to life like zombies and try to take you down. Then a dark figure that resembles you comes forth and steals all your powers and you're basically back to square one.

The story behind the game is basically there's this atomic radioactive meteor that struck the first planet in the first game, well a similar asteroid/meteor thing has struck this plannet. But instead of reaking radioactive ooze all over the planet like the first one, it basically took one world and made two dimensions of the world, a light and dark world. The light is filled with an intelligent, powerful and locust like race of beings called the Luminoth. They are much like the Chozo (race of beings that created your space suit and inhabited the planet in the first game and were reminscent of a bird type creature). Being like the chozo they're far superior to humans in both their physical attributes and achievements, aka they make killer weapons and amazing technology, and are also in tune with nature and their surroundings much like some sort of zen like being that has achieved harmony on many levels.

Well they live harmoniously till the asteroid hits and splits the world into two. The dark world is inhabited by this other bug like race called the "Ing" no relation to the online bank I used to work for. They're pretty nasty little dudes that can basically possess anything they want. They can turn themselves into blobs and basically envelop you with their dark ways and you become one of them. You can imagine this can be a little annoying as you encounter a difficult bad guy in the light world, said baddy will be harder in the dark world. Plus if the dark world wasn't dark enough, the environment hurts you and you are only protected by beacons of light energy placed by the Luminoth during their war with the Ing.

Basically you come in when the chips are down, the Luminoth have had all their energy stolen by the Ing, they've only got one of their leaders left awake, the rest are in hybernation and the others are all slain and their bodies are all about the world like beacons of info. The last remaining Luminoth guy bids you to take it to the Ing Samus style and basically you go out and bust some heads.

This game has been really entertaining, dang hard, and very challenging on the mind. As Nintendo goes their games rely more on puzzles and strategy than all out weaponry. The game is completely similar to the first in gameplay with the slight change of the Dark and Light beams. These are the new weapons in the game but unlike the old fire, ice, and wave beams of old metroids these have limited ammo. So you have to rely upon the old trusty power beam for day to day combat and bust out the big guns for the big occasions.

Its games like this that make me glad I have a nintendo, I've gotten a lot of good game time out of it, much to the dismay of the wife. But the game has so much depth and fun exploring and learning the story. I'm not sure how far I'm into it but as the end draws closer the game gets harder. Comparing this to Halo 2 it seems this game made a good sequal by taking a great game and making another great story and changing a few bits of game play. Whereas Halo 2 changed the story to a rediculous one and took out some of the fun things of the first. Though Halo 1&2 is more fun to play multiplayer with hands down.