I feel bad / guilty I abandoned MP on that annoying ice boss.
I never finished 1 either. Gave up when collecting the keys towards the end. Was pretty annoyed at that part repeating in 2. Teleporting made it better. Erroneous key location entries in a few walkthroughs made it much worse.
Edit 2025-06-20:
Prime 3 is a big step up. I'm at 45 % progress.
Improvements in controls:
- a bit of auto-targeting when firing at tiny swarming mobs,
- less push-back from hitting walls when using spin-attack and
- a bit of help with vertical alignment to the corridor levels when wall jumping
But: New challenges. I had to go from joypad to kb/mouse several times. Since it's a Wii game there's a bunch of mini-challenges that revolve around the pointer. Most of those, whether in combat or outside, I could do with the gamepad. But there's one that is related to traversal on one of the maps and it's timed. If you fail, you fall and have to restart.
Another change in controls would be the missing IMU. But thankfully the inputs related to waggling around the wiimote are taken care of by primehack, as it reduces them to a single directional input. Neat.
While the basic structure of the game stays roughly the same it's packaged much more interestingly. I feel more like a space bounty hunter in this game by
- interacting with fully voiced characters like federation forces and other hunters
- interacting with my space ship, it's smartly integrated as save point/recharge station, "teleport" between levels and part of the progress gating. And I even felt for Samus' ride on at least two occasions. Pretty good for something that doesn't get to have a personality. Or maybe I'm too much into space ships.
It looks stunning. Sure, "AI-enhanced" upscaled textures in 1440p on an OLED. But it has a timeless visual style that is taken to the next level with the amount of detail and sense of scale. I'm amazed this is a Wii game. Intricate mechanical and ornamental designs please my eyes.
Jury is still out on the gunplay gimmick.
Getting items focused in the scan visor is often wonky. But I guess that's an emulation thing.