Metroid Prime is perhaps the only instance of a game that gracefully transfers a part of a character’s 2D-past-life essence into the realm of 3D. A smoothness and feeling of well-cornered interactions is what makes the transfer successful, and perhaps most surprising of all is that the game transfers even into another genre entirely. Despite the various complaints about what such a transfer means to the body of work, to what Metroid contributed to the now archetypal Metroidvania style of gameplay, Metroid Prime is an excellent evolution of a game concept into 3D.
From a standpoint of what 3D is actually good at in the realm of technical interactions, the first person and third-person perspective are now almost iconic. Taking on the character in 3D seems to make sense, whereas taking on a character in 2D makes it less so. Not to criticize Doom, but Doom was a launching point to a genre that would be taken much further, much more fully realized, when 3D became a reality. Though the Metroid style is always preserved invariably in the side-scroller as a style largely connected to Super Metroid, Metroid Prime is the face of Metroid in 3D, a game which successfully crossed the boundary rather than oddly remaining, or wanting to be, something else.
Effectively, within any 3D Mario or Sonic game, we see what is relevant in such an argument. These characters never needed 3D, which is to say they are still platformers, and even in 3D they often function entirely as platformers. But Metroid Prime needs 3D, it needs a certain perspective to smoothly interact and interface with a sprawling, beautiful world, full of requisitely harsh, alien environments. The lushness of a 3D world is explored, the beauty of movement and color and even a uniquely constructed system of puzzles and secrets.
As an open world, Metroid Prime explores the idea of a world half-opened, half-explored and generated, exceedingly well. The environment makes a creepy amount of sense, the intelligence is clear but also confounding, and the feeling of being there takes on a feeling of being strange. Samus is somehow empowered by wandering through these strange worlds, not only through exertion, but through the world, moving opens up wide arrays of living pieces of the world, places where aliens exist less than they live.
A key component to any great world is a feeling that something lives, or lived in a space at one time. It is important that we conceive the creature carving out an existence in that space, defending and working for that space against a harsh environment. Though a detail often overlooked, the creature’s spirit is felt. Possibly because players themselves find a relation to the creatures within, or perhaps to Samus, the most alien creature of all. As a viewer, or as the one being viewed, it is difficult to be comfortable in such a relationship.
Recommended: Yes