When rumours of a resurgence of the Metroid Prime trilogy came about, in no way did I expect the original to just shadowdrop on Switch.

This is about as big of a reveal and announcement as we could have hoped for when looking back through the Nintendo archives.

Prime is a reimagining for Metroid and was a bold move from Nintendo at the time in an era when the FPS was the dominant genre on consoles and platformers were rapidly losing their crown.

From 2.5D platformer that kickstarted an entire genre, to a familiar FPS format with some tweaks. It worked. Wonderfully, in fact.

But that was twenty years ago and since then, inevitably, the genre has moved on quite a bit. We’ve gone from a single stick, to dual-sticks, lighting and post-processing is massively better and 60 FPS is a base requirement.

Metroid Prime Remastered accounts for all of those things, adapting itself for the modern era while still remaining wholly faithful to the classic game.

In fact, while some people were a bit disappointed by Super Mario 3D All Stars uplift on Switch, I can quite confidently say that this Remaster is the best recreation I’ve seen of any Nintendo title since the original Mario All Stars.

At first glimpse, you may not realise the level of detail that’s gone into this, but compared to the Gamecube original, it’s a massive transformation.

This looks, feels and plays as good as any FPS on the market today. It absolutely dazzles on a Switch OLED as rain particles splash against Samus glove, lava brightens up a dark cave and you bounce about freely without a hiccup, smooth as butter.

Docked gives you an even more crisp and refined experience on TV, really showcasing just how good this looks, arguably among the very best on the console.

Everything feels so much more alive in the background now, from blades of grass to computer screens, waterfalls flowing, and even fog effects. The draw distance is also massively improved which ultimately makes this an astonishing restoration and evolution over the original release.

Character models are smoother and more polished and details you loved from the original release are back and better than ever, like being able to see the reflection of Samus in the visor and having it fogged up or covered in gunk.

Working with Iron Galaxy on this, the game also has 60 FPS throughout, and I didn’t notice any performance dips at all which might just be the biggest selling point for people looking to play this one all over again. It’s so slick.

The content hasn’t changed, of course. You’ll still get the core Prime experience as you remember it, so there’s no Final Fantasy VII Remake or the like here. Instead, Nintendo have maintained what we loved, but modernised the experience with new control schemes.

The biggest change outside of the graphics is that Remastered has been configured for Twin Stick support by default. If you really wanted, you can go back to the original Tank Controls or even the gyro-inspired controls you were able to use on the Wii, but there’s something about being able to play this with two analogues now that just feels so naturally and infinitely much better.

Of course, with the content unchanged, you will encounter problems of games of the era with some difficulty spikes and backtracking, but preservation feels much more important here above anything else and this game will surprise you with how well its aged by how ahead of its time it was.

From using the Morph ball to get into small crevices, to scanning points of interest to fill out your log book and get information on your enemies, it still felt distinctly Metroid but done in a way that had more mass market appeal. And it is as an enjoyable adventure today as it’s ever been.

I never thought I’d get the chance to cover one of my all-time favourite games and, if nothing else, this has actually made the wait for Metroid Prime 4 even harder by reminding us just how damned good this trilogy is.

Verdict

Metroid Prime Remastered is exactly everything I’d hoped it would be and more. The game is jaw-droppingly beautiful on Switch OLED, the Remaster has made the game feel as if it was always made for dual-stick support, and it plays so smoothly that it’ll be hard to ever look back at it on old hardware again. Without question, this is Nintendo treating their legacy products with the highest amount of love and respect. While we’ve seen them do some fantastic upgrades, this is up there with Mario All-Stars in terms of the effort put in and the quality put out.

---

Pros

Metroid Prime Remastered is out now on Nintendo Switch

Code Kindly Provided by Nintendo