Metroid Prime Pinball Review

That is obviously when the main action begins, and it’s truly unbelievable how many things you can do on any one table. Nevertheless, your main objective is to obtain 12 artifacts, just like in Metroid Prime. You can do this a mind blowing number of ways. Just a small number includes mini games, Combat Mode, Wall Jump and Boss Fights. Mini games involve the hole that has a blue hologram of a common Metroid enemy displayed above it. If you get Samus in there, you have to eliminate whatever is displayed. This can be Metroids, Space Pirates or Triclops. Combat Mode is activated by lighting up each letter in Samus’ name by rolling through a certain path on the table. Once you do that, the combat saucer in the middle of her current energy display allows you to turn into her suit form. Then a certain enemy such as Beetles comes out of the ground and you have to direct her with the D Pad and eliminate the lot with your arm cannon. Wall Jump is simply an area that you use L and R to do wall jumps to grab an artifact at the top. Boss Fights are pretty self-explanatory, as you use whatever means available to take down a Metroid Prime boss like Thardus. All these will net you artifacts as well as the other ways you can do it.

Of course this wouldn’t be a Metroid game though without Samus’ trademark weapons and items. Pretty much all the normal things Samus has used throughout her years have some kind of use in MPP. You will find her Missile launcher, her Power Bomb and various others. When you do unlock these weapons, enemies will begin to drop their replacements. Missile replacements look like the actual expansions from other Metroid games, and Power Ball replacements look like little blue buzzing balls. Of course energy is always a common drop as well, and they are the trademark purple balls seen in other franchise iterations. MPP is more or less just like any other Metroid game, you are simply in morph ball mode 95% of the time and environments are in pinball table form.

There really is only one frustrating aspect of MPP. In Multi Mission, the most important mode, it can be extremely tough to get through the entire thing. You have to get all 12 artifacts and get yourself transported to two final boards without dying or failing in order to complete the whole deal. At times you will absolutely stink at this game, especially at the beginning. You will lose your morph ball a lot and have not too much of an impressive score. But once you learn how everything works in regards to gaining artifacts, it becomes a little easier to get the game to work in your favor. Obviously you can’t control how everything works, so you might get frustrated a lot when you lose at the worst time. The game is fun enough however, so it should never get bad enough that you won’t want to play anymore.

The music and sound effects are also excellent in MPP. Themes are taken not only from Metroid Prime and redone in some fashion, but some retro ones from the original Metroid are present as well. If you’ve played Metroid Prime and any of the retro titles, you are bound to recognize the music immediately. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Metroid, the music is geared towards a sort of sci-fi/spacey and techno rhythm. Not at all of the themes are done that way, as some have a more action-oriented feel to them, but generally they are of the sci-fi genre. The sound effects are great too, as all the ones generated from the table and Rumble Pack make this truly feel like an authentic pinball game. If you’re familiar with pinball at all, you can easily imagine what the game sounds like. All the electronic buzzes and other such effects that come with a pinball machine are here as well.

So speaking of the Rumble Pack, just what is it? Well MPP is the first game for the DS to really be dedicated to utilizing it, so if you don’t have the game you won’t have it. The game actually comes bundled with one, as it’s nothing more than a GBA cartridge built to be a rumble pack. It works along the same lines as the Nintendo 64 rumble pack, but instead of putting it into a controller, you stick it in the GBA slot on the DS system. The Rumble Pack is really what makes it feel like pinball the most, as all the major activity generated by the table you’re playing on works with the rumble pack. You will literally feel the DS shake a little bit any time something like that happens and it’s just really cool. Let’s just hope Nintendo decides to use the nifty device in future DS games because that will make our experiences feel that much more interactive.

MPP is a really addictive experience too, and that drives some great replay value. Now there are only four main tables granted (Tallon, Frigate, Phendrana & Phazon), but that hardly hurts how fun and addictive the game can be. Yes it was slightly disappointing to only have four main tables, but you eventually get six in Single Mission because of what happens when you truly get through Multi Mission. They may not all be available in Multi Mission, but having them all in Single Mission is always nice. Single Mission more or less has you trying to beat the default staff scores with either total points or a time limit. The tables that don’t feature bosses are based on your score, but it’s time that matters in the ones with them. Even after you play as much as you feel you need to in order to have a good status on the leaderboards, it’s just fun to keep on playing.

Metroid Prime Pinball is without a doubt a huge stray from the norm with the Metroid franchise. Retro Studios took enough of a huge risk with the GameCube titles and pitting Samus in a 3D environment. Fuse Games really went one step further by delivering one of the most bizarre yet intuitive DS concepts of this year. As strange as it may have seemed at first, we got a true quality title for our beloved handheld and one that you could easily pick up at any time and just start playing. If you enjoy pinball on any level, there’s absolutely no reason why you couldn’t like this game. Then if you’re a Metroid fan as well, there’s that much more fun to have.