Metroid Prime Trilogy Hands-on

Don’t say Nintendo didn’t do anything for you: on August 24th, the publisher will release Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii. Metroid Prime Trilogy, releasing almost to the day of Metroid Prime 3 Corruption’s two year anniversary, is a jammed to the brim package that combines all of Retro’s first-person adventure games for the GameCube and Wii, on a single disc. And the two GameCube games – Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 Echoes — have been reworked with full widescreen, 480p support and feature the same awesome Wii Remote/Nunchuk control that made Metroid Prime 3 Corruption so tight. This is a far superior strategy than what Nintendo is doing in Japan with the Metroid Prime games, since in that territory Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 have been released separately with the “New Play Control” branding. North American gamers get all three for $49.99, an absolute bargain when you consider 2007’s Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is still one of the top titles on the Wii and you’re getting three great games for the price of a standard Wii release.

Earlier this month we had an opportunity to take a look at pretty much the final version of the compilation package. In our hands-on we could take a look at the brand new front end produced by Retro Studios that ties all three games together in a single menu. Players will set up a profile using one of the system Miis, and all progress in each game will be stored to this profile. You’ll be able to pull up how far you are, in percentage, in each of the games and the location of your save file. The front end also has an option menu that affects all three games, so if you’ve tweaked the controls or lock-on abilities, your settings will carry over into each of the products instead of requiring you to change it up every time. The front end has been designed with a bit of visual flair that matches the Metroid theme. As you work your way through the menus you’re digging through a mechanical tube, and when you select the game to load it’s obvious that you’re inside Samus’ cannon…and the camera pulls out to reveal Samus in the specific form/model of the game you’ll be playing. When you select the Metroid Prime 2 Echoes Multiplayer mode from this new front end, the camera pulls out to reveal four Samus characters before it jumps into the action.