Prime 3 Fact Sheet

2006-06-07 12:20:53 am

What luck, there's french fry stuck in my beard.

It's supposed to be an eye-catching trailer for the people to look at while they wait in long lines at E3. Of course they're going to juxtapose a bunch of action as opposed to exploration. Grabs their attention better.

Banjonator

2006-06-07 04:06:37 am

Quote from SamusAranLuver:

I'm kinda fence sitting...I like the game alot but the grapics ands stuff look a bit more like Halo then metroid prime..

That's correct. I thought the same while watching this new video.
But it looks really good to ME. (Or maybe I am just excited about a new Metroid game... Rolling Eyes

...)

Prime Hunter

2006-06-07 10:50:29 am

Seeing as how I've never really played the singleplayer Halos, I can't make that comparison. 8-) I love what I have been seeing, and I would have to agree with GreenMamba on why they are showing these particular clips. (Of course, I also think part of why I am excited is what Banjonator said about it being a new Metroid game... Wink

)

ajbolt89

2006-06-07 07:38:52 pm

lol no way

Personally, I've always seen similarities between the Prime games and the Halo games as far as basic graphics goes. They're both realistic looking. They're both in space. The only thing that bothers me about this trailer is how much less planetary exploring there seems to be, which is something that bothered me even in Echoes. The less organic things look (or rather, the more forced the organics seem to be... the more poorly done they are), the less it feels like a Metroid game, as that's what (to me) distinguishes Metroid.
Course, Fusion took place entirely on a space station, and it's still a great game. Naysayers aside, you can't deny how well it was made.

UchihaSasuke

2006-06-07 08:12:53 pm

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

that trailer looks interesting.

*gets more excited to play mp3*

Fyeten

2006-06-07 11:43:51 pm

Lemon Zinger Weapon

Well I for one don't really care what people are saying before the game is out. Reminds me of before MP came out. But the game does look like it's going to be more fun than watching a flickerbat fly into phazon. laugh new

Edit: Also, might I be bold enough to say that I suspect that that thing flying through space at the end of that intro video thingy was maybe DS? Just saying because DS IS MP afterall, and it wouldn't be suprising in my eyes...

rekameohs

2006-06-08 12:16:59 am

Anywhere, everywhere

Quote from Fyeten:

Well I for one don't really care what people are saying before the game is out. Reminds me of before MP came out.

Yeah, that's exactly how I feel. Everyone thought that Prime would be a disaster and that Fusion would be good and would stay closer to the "Metroid formula" than Prime would. Look at what happened.

Next, everyone thought that Echoes would be amazing, even better than the first and they thought there would be an awesome multiplayer. Look at what happened.

So I still have faith.

Prime Hunter

2006-06-08 12:51:21 am

Either way, I feel that it will still be a good game. Maybe not a good Metroid game, but a good game. So I too, still have faith.

Rox

2006-06-08 08:49:32 am

Well, so far, Retro has made exactly no bad games, so I wouldn't expect this to be any worse.

It will be different, though. That's obvious. And also a good thing. It's the end of the Phazon saga, and what we've seen so far shows just how huge it is. Creatures from all over the universe seem to be involved, most probably in an attempt to stop the pirates and the spreading of the phazon. I'm not really expecting a new Metroid Prime 1, I'm expecting a completely new game that's nothing like the others. That's what makes a series worth buying.

I mean, Halo 3 looks to be the same... I don't doubt the gameplay will change much in that case, but the story and setting and style is radically different... in a good way.

trh

2006-06-08 09:11:27 am

Quote from Rox:

Well, so far, Retro has made exactly no bad games, so I wouldn't expect this to be any worse.

Metroid Prime 2 was pretty bad, dull throughout the entire game. Almost nothing new, collecting keys, gimped physics. They pretty much just took everything from Metroid Prime and removed the fun stuff.

Corruption on the other hand looks really awesome. :D

Rox

2006-06-08 10:52:30 am

I'd still say Echoes is a game worth buying if you're into Metroid. So it's not a bad game. I'd rather play Echoes again than, say, Fusion or RoS. It's definitely not a bad game.

Fyeten

2006-06-08 11:14:21 am

Lemon Zinger Weapon

Not to stop a good topic, but wasn't this topic about MP3C facts?

13M13

2006-06-08 12:36:41 pm

l'appel du vide

Do you have any new facts you'd like to share?

ajbolt89

2006-06-08 04:17:30 pm

lol no way

One SkreeHunter over at the Metroid DataBase board gave me permission to copy+paste his (large) post detailing the latest trailer, previously talked about in this topic. Here's his post:

I found a higher quality trailer and went through it frame by frame to see what I could find. It's all just speculation.

Scene by Scene

1) Samus is in hyper mode (There's a hyper mode bar at the top of the screen.)

2) Dark Samus firing at two Bounty Hunters. That is not Samus in hyper mode actually. If you look at Samus's arm cannon earlier on in hyper mode, it looks nothing like the one that Dark Samus is using. One of the bounty hunters is the one that looks like Sylux from Metroid Prime Hunters. I'm just going to call him "Sylux" for now on, for ease of my writing. There is also a female bounty hunter who has an energy sword and shield.

3) Samus fights a large four armed monster with some kind of grapple beam like whip on two of its right arms. At its end, it looks like there's some dark energy coming off of it. It doesn't look like a Space Pirate but could possibly be a creature seen later in the trailer.

4) A large Stone-Rhino falls from a shaft with a wall jump apparatus on it. Some of his joints are held together by energy beams.

5) Samus rolls down a hallway in hyper mode filled with what looks to be Space Pirate Commandos. They look like they have energy shields in front of their chests like the ones Samus had to rip off in one of the game play trailers. Hyper mode for her is only able to last for four seconds after those four seconds in says "Hyper Mode Corrupted" and it counts down from 40.

6) Samus, "Sylux", the female bounty hunter, and the large robot bounty hunter are running away from something. I originally thought he was a boss, but in the scene after next he's being attacked by Dark Samus so he's probably friendly.

7) Samus's ship uses a grapple beam to lift a heavy object. It looks like a monolith of an elephant. The area looks very alien, with a gusher of yellow liquid coming out of a wall and weird spiky things near the top of the hole in the ground that she's in.

8) The three bounty hunters and Samus are being Phazon-electrocuted by Dark Samus and Dark Samus flies away.

9) A rift opens up in space.

10) A door explodes and hits the robot hunter and outcomes a Phazon-enhanced creature that originally had the two whips.

11) Ridley jumps on top of a pipe that Samus is rolling through and closes off the way she came in and breaks the glass.

12) The female bounty hunter has some sort of suit on and turns it off.

13) The large Stone Rhino walks around and has a hole in his stomach that suggests that Samus can ride in side him.

14) Samus swings down railing with her grapple beam. There are a few floating buildings in the sky. They are unconnected so I imagine one would have to Screw Attack to get to each one.

15) Samus is in a rocky cliff and apparently no longer needs magnetic rails to use the spider ball. She is grabbed by a spider like creature that I don't recognize from any other games. The creature projects a green laser from its mouth and looks as if Samus trips the laser, that she gets sucked in by it and gets chewed on.

16) Wall jumping on the snow planet.

17) Samus's ship drops some bombs on a big wall on the same planet where her ship had to pick up that big rock.

18) Samus fights a Phazon infected bulky alien. It may possibly be the Stone Rhino. Its joints connect similarly to the Stone Rhino's.

19) Dark Samus.

20) A large meteor covered in Phazon flies by from most likely the portal that was opened up earlier in the video. It has organic parts and floppy tentacles on its back. At the last frame, a white planet, or portal can bee seen in the corner.

New things I’ve noticed

Characters-
Dark Samus: Dark Samus’s suit has definitely changed and looks much more like Samus’s. She now looks like she’s wearing a suit instead of her being a fusion of flesh and metal. She can also shoot Phazon electricity from her chest and fly. I would note that her boots glow before she takes off. Maybe their Dark Samus’s version of the Hi-Jump boots.

“Sylux”: Someone please remind me of what his real name was. This trailer doesn’t show much about him except that he’s much taller than Samus.

Female Hunter: She reminds me of Cortana from Halo. She has an energy sword and possibly shield. The shield could be some kind of gun or boomerang. She also has a suit that she can turn off or on. It may have something to do about Phazon.

Robot Hunter: This is a very large, robotic, possibly cyborg, hunter. Not much about him here but he does get into a fight with some Phazon-enhanced creature. The thing I like about this guy is that he’s huge. Most of the aliens, or at least main characters in many Sci-Fi series are always very humanoid and humansized but I like the fact that this guy is rather large.

Abilites-
Hypermode- We all know about that. Samus seems to have electricity shooting off of her while she’s in morphball mode. Maybe it’s always that way?

Grapple Beam- Looks like she can ride down magnetic rails but I don’t imagine this being used all that often.

Spider ball- It looks like Samus can use the Spiderball off of magnetic tracks

Ship Visor- We know about that one already.

Areas- From what I can gather from the trailer, there are new areas. There is the forested area with the GF base on it that was from the other gameplay videos. A rocky area that resembles Agon Wastes. There’s also a snow area and then a weird kind of alien area that reminds me of Brinstar. Don’t forget about the Cloud City like one!

As far as higher res... what he linked to looks to be the same video. Every scene is clear though in the vid we've already linked to here, and here's that link again: http://www.gameinformer.com/Images/downloads/movies/2006/e3/nintendo/metroid-1.mp4

One SkreeHunter over at the Metroid DataBase board gave me permission to copy+paste his (large) post detailing the latest trailer, previously talked about in this topic. Here's his post:

[i]I found a higher quality trailer and went through it frame by frame to see what I could find. It's all just speculation.

Scene by Scene

1) Samus is in hyper mode (There's a hyper mode bar at the top of the screen.)

2) Dark Samus firing at two Bounty Hunters. That is not Samus in hyper mode actually. If you look at Samus's arm cannon earlier on in hyper mode, it looks nothing like the one that Dark Samus is using. One of the bounty hunters is the one that looks like Sylux from Metroid Prime Hunters. I'm just going to call him "Sylux" for now on, for ease of my writing. There is also a female bounty hunter who has an energy sword and shield.

3) Samus fights a large four armed monster with some kind of grapple beam like whip on two of its right arms. At its end, it looks like there's some dark energy coming off of it. It doesn't look like a Space Pirate but could possibly be a creature seen later in the trailer.

4) A large Stone-Rhino falls from a shaft with a wall jump apparatus on it. Some of his joints are held together by energy beams.

5) Samus rolls down a hallway in hyper mode filled with what looks to be Space Pirate Commandos. They look like they have energy shields in front of their chests like the ones Samus had to rip off in one of the game play trailers. Hyper mode for her is only able to last for four seconds after those four seconds in says "Hyper Mode Corrupted" and it counts down from 40.

6) Samus, "Sylux", the female bounty hunter, and the large robot bounty hunter are running away from something. I originally thought he was a boss, but in the scene after next he's being attacked by Dark Samus so he's probably friendly.

7) Samus's ship uses a grapple beam to lift a heavy object. It looks like a monolith of an elephant. The area looks very alien, with a gusher of yellow liquid coming out of a wall and weird spiky things near the top of the hole in the ground that she's in.

8) The three bounty hunters and Samus are being Phazon-electrocuted by Dark Samus and Dark Samus flies away.

9) A rift opens up in space.

10) A door explodes and hits the robot hunter and outcomes a Phazon-enhanced creature that originally had the two whips.

11) Ridley jumps on top of a pipe that Samus is rolling through and closes off the way she came in and breaks the glass.

12) The female bounty hunter has some sort of suit on and turns it off.

13) The large Stone Rhino walks around and has a hole in his stomach that suggests that Samus can ride in side him.

14) Samus swings down railing with her grapple beam. There are a few floating buildings in the sky. They are unconnected so I imagine one would have to Screw Attack to get to each one.

15) Samus is in a rocky cliff and apparently no longer needs magnetic rails to use the spider ball. She is grabbed by a spider like creature that I don't recognize from any other games. The creature projects a green laser from its mouth and looks as if Samus trips the laser, that she gets sucked in by it and gets chewed on.

16) Wall jumping on the snow planet.

17) Samus's ship drops some bombs on a big wall on the same planet where her ship had to pick up that big rock.

18) Samus fights a Phazon infected bulky alien. It may possibly be the Stone Rhino. Its joints connect similarly to the Stone Rhino's.

19) Dark Samus.

20) A large meteor covered in Phazon flies by from most likely the portal that was opened up earlier in the video. It has organic parts and floppy tentacles on its back. At the last frame, a white planet, or portal can bee seen in the corner.

New things I’ve noticed

Characters-
Dark Samus: Dark Samus’s suit has definitely changed and looks much more like Samus’s. She now looks like she’s wearing a suit instead of her being a fusion of flesh and metal. She can also shoot Phazon electricity from her chest and fly. I would note that her boots glow before she takes off. Maybe their Dark Samus’s version of the Hi-Jump boots.

“Sylux”: Someone please remind me of what his real name was. This trailer doesn’t show much about him except that he’s much taller than Samus.

Female Hunter: She reminds me of Cortana from Halo. She has an energy sword and possibly shield. The shield could be some kind of gun or boomerang. She also has a suit that she can turn off or on. It may have something to do about Phazon.

Robot Hunter: This is a very large, robotic, possibly cyborg, hunter. Not much about him here but he does get into a fight with some Phazon-enhanced creature. The thing I like about this guy is that he’s huge. Most of the aliens, or at least main characters in many Sci-Fi series are always very humanoid and humansized but I like the fact that this guy is rather large.

Abilites-
Hypermode- We all know about that. Samus seems to have electricity shooting off of her while she’s in morphball mode. Maybe it’s always that way?

Grapple Beam- Looks like she can ride down magnetic rails but I don’t imagine this being used all that often.

Spider ball- It looks like Samus can use the Spiderball off of magnetic tracks

Ship Visor- We know about that one already.

Areas- From what I can gather from the trailer, there are new areas. There is the forested area with the GF base on it that was from the other gameplay videos. A rocky area that resembles Agon Wastes. There’s also a snow area and then a weird kind of alien area that reminds me of Brinstar. Don’t forget about the Cloud City like one![/i]

As far as higher res... what he linked to looks to be the same video. Every scene is clear though in the vid we've already linked to here, and here's that link again: [url]http://www.gameinformer.com/Images/downloads/movies/2006/e3/nintendo/metroid-1.mp4[/url]

SkippyJr

2006-06-08 05:59:36 pm

The giant robot guy appears 3 times in the attract videos (twice with the iridescent woman and once breaking out through a wall fighting anther one at 0:30) and once at the begenning of the intro in metroid-2 at 0:20. The claws match, for instance. But in the metroid-2 video, there is a guy getting ready to climb into it. So it/they are GF related mechs!

Here is another video which shows the *full* intro (adds ~10 seconds). The sound and quality aren't that all that great in comparison. The last line reads: "We are under attack."
http://www.mygamer.com/index.php?page=articles&mode=viewarticles&id=258

Rox

2006-06-08 06:35:46 pm

I think you mean Noxus, not Sylux. The ice guy. His name is Rundus.

Lazylen

(user is banned)

2006-06-08 11:07:10 pm

Quote from Rox:

I think you mean Noxus, not Sylux. The ice guy. His name is Rundus.

rundus looks more like sylux than noxus.

rekameohs

2006-06-20 07:33:02 pm

Anywhere, everywhere

New interview with Retro in Nintendo Power.

Quote:

NP: First can you tell us a bit on the story in Metroid Prime 3 and how it fits into the series?

Mark Pacini(Director): Well, Corruption is a direct sequel to Metroid Prime 2. The goal of the game is to wrap up the storyline that deals with Phazon, which was featured in Prime and Prime 2, as the cause of what happened to the planets that Samus visited. So in Prime, it corrupted the planet and all the creatures there. In Prime 2, it actually seperated the planet into the light and dark worlds. In Prime 3, Phazon has a much more galaxy-wide effect. So the player will understand the fate of Phazon and why it's so important. And not only does it relate to Samus' goals in the game, but Samus herself also gets corrupted. So her ability set to change over the course of the gane and kind of tie into the storyline. "Corruption" is not only a story theme, but also a game mechanic that we're using throughout Prime 3.

NP: Can you share any examples of those game mechanics?

MP: The main gimmick behind the corruption is the idea of hyper mode. Hyper mode has been something that we've used in the Prime series before, but it's also been in Super Metroid at the very end. Well, because of this Phazon corruptionm we're giving the player the ability to go into that mode at any time and become very powerful, which open up a subset of abilities that Samus will have based on this Phazoncorruption. The caveat to that is while you're extremely powerful for a period of time, you also have the possibilty of dying. So you're kind of balancing the system at the same time. You would naturally time out of the system or you would use up all your Phazon while you're shooting your weapons and things like that. Your corruption fuels this hyper mode, so you shoot weapons your health bar switches to a different type of management system. So you can stay in hyper mode for a longer period of time or you can use all your Phazon and get out of hyper mode very quickly. But it's kind of up to the player to balance that system and the risk involved in it. So it's actually something the player will use fairly often during the game anf that's kind of something new that we're offering for Prime 3.

NP: With the new contole scheme that the Wii enables, will the game place a greater emphasis on action?

Kensuke Tanabe(Producer): Well because it's part of the Metroid Prime series, it's importto keep a balance. It will still have many exploration elements as well as the shooting elements. But because of the new Wii controller, it may be easier and more intuitive for the player to shoot at enemies, so there is the possibilty that there will be a little bit more focus on the shooting then before.

NP: What are some of the most important things that the ream learned from the first two games, and how are they applying those lessons to Corruption?

MP: There are many things that we learned. One of them is what people maybe would like to see improved about the game. Certain parts, like the re-traversal aspects. We always try to understand what parts of re-traversal are fun and what parts are frustrating for people. So we put alot of thought going into Prime 3 into how we can improve the way the player makes their way through the game Re-traversal and exploration are fundamental to the Metroid series, so that's really not going to change, but how the player does it and to what degree they do it is something that we're really making improvements on. Also with the difficulty level. We think that Prime was more of a game for Metroid fans and gamers, and Prime 2 was for those fans as well. They were tuned a little bit on the difficult side. And I think that while the game is still going to be very challenging, we would like to make sure that a wide variety of people can play Corruption. But I don't think fundamentally it's going to change the way the game is. It's just something we're keeping in mind. We don't want to scare people away that might be intimidated by a game like this. Those are really two main things that we've learned over the past two titles.

NP: Judging by the demo, the game looks like it might be a little more cinematic the the first two. Is that the focus for the team?

MP:. It allows us to create larger enviornments that are just as detailed as Prime and Prime 2. So we get to tell the story, not always in cinematics. We can tell it by what's going on around you. I think that's extremely important, and we're doing that to all important, and we're doing that to all the locations that the player is going to be visited throughout this game. We're really making a concious effort to utilize the technology not to just make things look pretty, which they're going to, but actually for solid gameplay reasons. Like why can you see far into the distance?. Because it's actually important to what's happening in the game.
Brian Walker(Senior Producer):
Samus is part of a bigger struggle.

NP: Can you talk a bit about the role of the other bounty hunters?.

MP: There are other bounty hunters in the game that are heavily tied to what's happening in the story as far as corruption. So the things that are happening to Samus, she can possibly see through the result of what's happening to these other hunters as well. Again, this corruption theme is an underlying element to the entire game. These bounty hunters aren't just other characters in the game;they actually are important to telling the story of what could potentially happen to Samus.

NP: Prime is noted for being one of the most vissualy impressive series on the Gamecuber. What are your thoughts on Wii from a hardware horsepower standpoint.

BW: It's obviously a more powerful machine. With Prime 3 we have been able to improve all aspects of the game as a result. Vissualy we've got bloom lighting. We've been able to improve our animation system to take advantage of the new hardware. And the enviornments are also significantly bigger. Even better, it's a developer friendly machine. Power is nothing if you can't use it. And that has been a big factor for us. We've been able to create better content very quickly with the Wii.

NP: Will Corruption be a launch title?

BW: Yes.

NP: Will Samus visit multiple planets in the game, and will there be any ship-flying stages?

MP: Yes, Samus will go to other planets. It's kind of important to the corruption theme and the storyline that Samus goes to other planets. She'll be able to use her ship, not necessarily for direct flying to these planets. But conversely to that, we are using the ship in a very unique way for Prime 3 in that there's a new visor called the Command Visor, which allows Samus to, from a third person view, command her ship remotely to do things in the enviornment. So the ship can come in and do bombing runs or it can come in and lift really huge objects for you, or you can actually use it to traverse areas as a platform. So it actually becomes another tool in Samus' arsenal. We thought that was a unique way of bringing in the ship.

NP: Will you be able to travel back and forth between planets?

MP: Absolutely. Again, it's fundamental in Metroid to go back to previous areas and either explore more or unlock a different path. So that will definitely still be the case.

NP: Will there be other new visors in addition to the one you just mentioned, and can you talk a bit about those or any new beams in the game?

MP: to have a relationship to her other ablities. For example, one of the beams that Samus will get allows her to shoot through walls, so you can use the X-Ray Visor to see through objects and maybe target certain things behind a wall that you wouldn't normally be able to see, and use the beam in conjunction with the visor. Also with the beams, we're doing a little different system with Metroid Prime 3 then we did in Prime 1 and 2 where you had selectable beams. In Prime 3, we're going with a stacking system similat to, say, Super Metroid. It's kind of a harkening back to that. We thought that system worked really well, especially for what we were trying to do with this game, so the beam will stack and keep all it's inherent abilities even though you're getting different weapons layered on top of it. And that goes for all weapons that Samus will have. Her beam stacks, her missles stacks, and also the grapple beam stacks.

NP: What role will the Metroids play in the game?

MP: They'll be back. We've actually gotten a lot of comments about maube Metroids don't make enough apperences in the Metroid Prime games. Although the Metroid Prime series storyline doesn't necessarily revolve around Metroids, per se, we do fell thet're important to the franchise. And people like seeing them; it's very nostalgic. So Metroids will defentely be back, but they also serve a definite story purpose and you will see more of them in this game.

NP: How about the Chozo? Will they play a role in this game?

MP: Yes.

NP: Will there be anything witth the light and dark worlds like in Echoes?

MP: No, that was for that particular planet.

NP: How about multilayer or Wi-i play?

MP: We will not have multiplayer in Metroid Prime 3 in the same format that we had with Metroid Prime 2. However, we are excited about the Wiiconnect24 brings to the table, and we're seriously considering a variety of different functions to take advantage of that.

NP: Anything else you would like our readers to know about the game?

KT: As you may know, this is the last game in the Metroid Prime trilogy. But at the same time, we will continue expanding the franchise. You saw an example of that with Metroid Prime Hunters on DS.

NP: What's in the future for Retro? Will you take Metroid in a different direction, or will it be something new?

BW: But we look forward to new challenges.
MP: What would you like to see us work on?.

NP: I would be intrigued to see something new. I'd love to see what Retro can do with something original.

BW: We're very fortunate that we have a lot of extremely talented developers, and I think a new challenge like you've described would be a great venue for them to really flex their creative muscle.

New interview with Retro in Nintendo Power.

[quote]NP: First can you tell us a bit on the story in Metroid Prime 3 and how it fits into the series?

Mark Pacini(Director): Well, Corruption is a direct sequel to Metroid Prime 2. The goal of the game is to wrap up the storyline that deals with Phazon, which was featured in Prime and Prime 2, as the cause of what happened to the planets that Samus visited. So in Prime, it corrupted the planet and all the creatures there. In Prime 2, it actually seperated the planet into the light and dark worlds. In Prime 3, Phazon has a much more galaxy-wide effect. So the player will understand the fate of Phazon and why it's so important. And not only does it relate to Samus' goals in the game, but Samus herself also gets corrupted. So her ability set to change over the course of the gane and kind of tie into the storyline. "Corruption" is not only a story theme, but also a game mechanic that we're using throughout Prime 3.

NP: Can you share any examples of those game mechanics?

MP: The main gimmick behind the corruption is the idea of hyper mode. Hyper mode has been something that we've used in the Prime series before, but it's also been in Super Metroid at the very end. Well, because of this Phazon corruptionm we're giving the player the ability to go into that mode at any time and become very powerful, which open up a subset of abilities that Samus will have based on this Phazoncorruption. The caveat to that is while you're extremely powerful for a period of time, you also have the possibilty of dying. So you're kind of balancing the system at the same time. You would naturally time out of the system or you would use up all your Phazon while you're shooting your weapons and things like that. Your corruption fuels this hyper mode, so you shoot weapons your health bar switches to a different type of management system. So you can stay in hyper mode for a longer period of time or you can use all your Phazon and get out of hyper mode very quickly. But it's kind of up to the player to balance that system and the risk involved in it. So it's actually something the player will use fairly often during the game anf that's kind of something new that we're offering for Prime 3.

NP: With the new contole scheme that the Wii enables, will the game place a greater emphasis on action?

Kensuke Tanabe(Producer): Well because it's part of the Metroid Prime series, it's importto keep a balance. It will still have many exploration elements as well as the shooting elements. But because of the new Wii controller, it may be easier and more intuitive for the player to shoot at enemies, so there is the possibilty that there will be a little bit more focus on the shooting then before.

NP: What are some of the most important things that the ream learned from the first two games, and how are they applying those lessons to Corruption?

MP: There are many things that we learned. One of them is what people maybe would like to see improved about the game. Certain parts, like the re-traversal aspects. We always try to understand what parts of re-traversal are fun and what parts are frustrating for people. So we put alot of thought going into Prime 3 into how we can improve the way the player makes their way through the game Re-traversal and exploration are fundamental to the Metroid series, so that's really not going to change, but how the player does it and to what degree they do it is something that we're really making improvements on. Also with the difficulty level. We think that Prime was more of a game for Metroid fans and gamers, and Prime 2 was for those fans as well. They were tuned a little bit on the difficult side. And I think that while the game is still going to be very challenging, we would like to make sure that a wide variety of people can play Corruption. But I don't think fundamentally it's going to change the way the game is. It's just something we're keeping in mind. We don't want to scare people away that might be intimidated by a game like this. Those are really two main things that we've learned over the past two titles.

NP: Judging by the demo, the game looks like it might be a little more cinematic the the first two. Is that the focus for the team?

MP:. It allows us to create larger enviornments that are just as detailed as Prime and Prime 2. So we get to tell the story, not always in cinematics. We can tell it by what's going on around you. I think that's extremely important, and we're doing that to all important, and we're doing that to all the locations that the player is going to be visited throughout this game. We're really making a concious effort to utilize the technology not to just make things look pretty, which they're going to, but actually for solid gameplay reasons. Like why can you see far into the distance?. Because it's actually important to what's happening in the game. 
Brian Walker(Senior Producer): 
Samus is part of a bigger struggle.

NP: Can you talk a bit about the role of the other bounty hunters?.

MP: There are other bounty hunters in the game that are heavily tied to what's happening in the story as far as corruption. So the things that are happening to Samus, she can possibly see through the result of what's happening to these other hunters as well. Again, this corruption theme is an underlying element to the entire game. These bounty hunters aren't just other characters in the game;they actually are important to telling the story of what could potentially happen to Samus.

NP: Prime is noted for being one of the most vissualy impressive series on the Gamecuber. What are your thoughts on Wii from a hardware horsepower standpoint.

BW: It's obviously a more powerful machine. With Prime 3 we have been able to improve all aspects of the game as a result. Vissualy we've got bloom lighting. We've been able to improve our animation system to take advantage of the new hardware. And the enviornments are also significantly bigger. Even better, it's a developer friendly machine. Power is nothing if you can't use it. And that has been a big factor for us. We've been able to create better content very quickly with the Wii.

NP: Will Corruption be a launch title?

BW: Yes.

NP: Will Samus visit multiple planets in the game, and will there be any ship-flying stages?

MP: Yes, Samus will go to other planets. It's kind of important to the corruption theme and the storyline that Samus goes to other planets. She'll be able to use her ship, not necessarily for direct flying to these planets. But conversely to that, we are using the ship in a very unique way for Prime 3 in that there's a new visor called the Command Visor, which allows Samus to, from a third person view, command her ship remotely to do things in the enviornment. So the ship can come in and do bombing runs or it can come in and lift really huge objects for you, or you can actually use it to traverse areas as a platform. So it actually becomes another tool in Samus' arsenal. We thought that was a unique way of bringing in the ship.

NP: Will you be able to travel back and forth between planets?

MP: Absolutely. Again, it's fundamental in Metroid to go back to previous areas and either explore more or unlock a different path. So that will definitely still be the case.

NP: Will there be other new visors in addition to the one you just mentioned, and can you talk a bit about those or any new beams in the game?

MP: to have a relationship to her other ablities. For example, one of the beams that Samus will get allows her to shoot through walls, so you can use the X-Ray Visor to see through objects and maybe target certain things behind a wall that you wouldn't normally be able to see, and use the beam in conjunction with the visor. Also with the beams, we're doing a little different system with Metroid Prime 3 then we did in Prime 1 and 2 where you had selectable beams. In Prime 3, we're going with a stacking system similat to, say, Super Metroid. It's kind of a harkening back to that. We thought that system worked really well, especially for what we were trying to do with this game, so the beam will stack and keep all it's inherent abilities even though you're getting different weapons layered on top of it. And that goes for all weapons that Samus will have. Her beam stacks, her missles stacks, and also the grapple beam stacks.

NP: What role will the Metroids play in the game?

MP: They'll be back. We've actually gotten a lot of comments about maube Metroids don't make enough apperences in the Metroid Prime games. Although the Metroid Prime series storyline doesn't necessarily revolve around Metroids, per se, we do fell thet're important to the franchise. And people like seeing them; it's very nostalgic. So Metroids will defentely be back, but they also serve a definite story purpose and you will see more of them in this game.

NP: How about the Chozo? Will they play a role in this game?

MP: Yes.

NP: Will there be anything witth the light and dark worlds like in Echoes?

MP: No, that was for that particular planet.

NP: How about multilayer or Wi-i play?

MP: We will not have multiplayer in Metroid Prime 3 in the same format that we had with Metroid Prime 2. However, we are excited about the Wiiconnect24 brings to the table, and we're seriously considering a variety of different functions to take advantage of that.

NP: Anything else you would like our readers to know about the game?

KT: As you may know, this is the last game in the Metroid Prime trilogy. But at the same time, we will continue expanding the franchise. You saw an example of that with Metroid Prime Hunters on DS.

NP: What's in the future for Retro? Will you take Metroid in a different direction, or will it be something new?

BW: But we look forward to new challenges. 
MP: What would you like to see us work on?.

NP: I would be intrigued to see something new. I'd love to see what Retro can do with something original.

BW: We're very fortunate that we have a lot of extremely talented developers, and I think a new challenge like you've described would be a great venue for them to really flex their creative muscle. [/quote]

nate

2006-06-20 08:32:01 pm

did anyone see anything new? i didn't ...

Mr. Aran

2006-06-20 08:35:44 pm

everybody knows it's true

Now if each of those planets are as big as Tallon IV...

nate

2006-06-20 08:41:08 pm

something tells me no.

Yoshi348

2006-06-20 10:21:15 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Quote from nate:

did anyone see anything new? i didn't ...

The discussion of Metroids was new. There was also the Chozo line, but "Yes" isn't exactly very revealing...

Prime Hunter

2006-06-20 10:39:36 pm

...and the fact that supposedly a lot of people thought Prime and Echoes were very difficult? And that it looks like they are going to make Corruption a little easier than those two to accomidate this fact?

Not that the Metroid series has been overly difficult before, but it's still not something I like to hear.

SABERinBLUE

2006-06-21 12:13:41 am

Cook of the Sea

The trailer link seems borked. Anyone want to upload the vid?

BlueGlass

2006-06-21 01:00:07 am

They gave more detailed info about how the Command Visor works, and I must've missed it before but

Quote:

However, we are excited about the Wiiconnect24 brings to the table, and we're seriously considering a variety of different functions to take advantage of that.

I hope I hope none of these "diffenent functions" include eliminating SBs as soon as they're discovered.