Based critique on prime 2. It’s my favorite game of all time and I’m glad you were able to recognize everything it does so well despite 1 being your favorite. I still pray we get a prime 2 remaster in the same style as 1. The world prime 2 created deserves the hd remaster treatment so much.

"She has demonstrated that she values life and will do anything to protect it." I love how you've put together those bits, that's genuinely super funny.

I absolutely love your interpretation of Samus's feelings at the end of prime 1. Her staring at the burning temple, sorrowful that she couldn't save the chozo on T4. It flows so nicely into Prime 2, where she gets her redemption with the luminoth

Phendra Drifts is very inspired, almost simulating what real world snow days are like.
Calm, peaceful, well lit even in the night, and sounds are simply muffled.

What’s crazy to me, is that I was one of those people at the time that thought the first person perspective Metroid idea was bad.

But then I played it, and it blew my freaking socks off.

Truly masterpiece in gaming and adds so much to the series

There is no bad game in the prime trilogy. One of the best trilogies to exist in gaming.

It took me a long time to make it through Prime when I was younger. The exploration, the story of conquest and progress and yet, the all pervasive feeling of sadness and loneliness of being alone in the ruins of a once great civilization. I took plenty of time to take it all in and loved every second.

One small defense about Metroid Prime 3's combat:

In my opinion, Corruption's combat isn't a total loss, and that's specifically because of the corruption mechanic. If you purposely keep hypermode on long enough to go into corruption mode, your Phazon meter will start to automatically fill up, allowing you to spend more time in Hypermode than you would by just spamming, and jointly getting more shots out of the same amount of energy, all at the risk of running into enemies that can hit you with phazon-based attacks and fill that meter up faster than you can get rid of it. you're essentially trading more time with ultimate power for the risk of instant death. Towing this line was the heart of Prime 3's combat in my opinion, and using these tools judiciously can be really fun if you know what you're doing. Especially during boss fights.

Also, it seems like from what you said about Samus's ship, you didn't use the Ship missiles for anything except breaking the 2 or 3 walls it wants you to break with them. So incase you didn't know; in open, outdoors areas with enemies, you can turn on the Command visor and tell your ship to drop some ship missiles on them, instantly killing every enemy on one hit with very few exceptions. The only examples being enemies currently experiencing Hypermode, or enemies with shields. (also, if the room allows for it, enemies can also manually take cover to hide from the volley.)

That's why there are Ship Missile expansions despite their seeming underutilization; they replace Power Bombs. And I would argue they're better too, considering Power Bombs were quite cumbersome to use in combat unless you already had to switch to Morph Ball for a particular enemy. (Fission Metroids come to mind.)

Also, one of my favorite pieces of trivia about Corruption: If you sequence break and load both the "Rundas Fight Scenario" and the "Space Pirate Fight Scenario" in the Temple of Bryyo room at the same time, you can use Ship Missiles on Rundas, and he still gets instakilled by them, despite being a boss.

Ship Missiles are a seriously fun and satisfying addition to Prime 3's combat exclusively, (not to mention it also means the Command Visor isn't just for puzzles and opening doors.) and I've yet to meet a single other person who even knew they were a weapon at your disposal outside of Randomizer Junkies and Speedrunners.

Okay, so two defenses to Prime 3's combat.

The Energy Transfer Module binding to Samus' Power Suit was the most important event in Echoes and a catalyst to the balance of power in Aether as a whole. The Ing were moments away from reaching the final light of Aether and Samus just so happens to be passing by.

The whole sequence on Elysia where you use your ship to assemble a nuclear bomb always stands out to me as a highlight of Prime 3

In prime 3s defense, you DID play 1 and 2 right before prime 3, so you might've had prime fatigue, Altho every critique was extremely valid

Prime 3 was my favorite of the trilogy because I hated being alone and I loved seeing the federation and their big involvement.

The coolest thing about MP2 multiplayer was you could see Samus doing a spin jump every time she double jumps, which I choose to believe is how it is in all Prime games (you just can't see it as the player character cause that would mess up the camera)

The parallel you draw between Prime 1-2 and Ocarina of Time-Majoras Mask perfectly describes how I feel about these games, I never thought of it but you nailed it!

Metroid Prime 2 Echoes is my favorite because I like the light & dark concept!

One thing to note is that chozo ghosts can also be defeated with a super missile. You can also use a plasma beam charge shot on the ground where the ghost is standing to do splash damage and 1-shot it

The transition lines between each game go absolutely fucking crazy ✍️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Prime 2's theme always sends shivers down my spine, it's so fucking powerful

Corruption hit a special note for me. It’s not my favorite but it gets me the most excited to keep playing at times, I think it’s the cinematics. And the main menu theme and a lot of boss music goes crazy. 12/10 trilogy.
Prime 1-10/10
Prime2-10.5/10
Prime 3-9.999

Echoes is just on another level. Atmosphere always creeped me out. It just has something about it - I can't really put my finger on it but it definitely is my favorite.