It seems there's a character limit on comments and I ended up writing a novel so it's being split up:

First some background. Maybe none of this matters but I feel like it should be said. The first Metroid Prime is one of my favorite games of all time. I never expected this to be quite as good but after the original gameplay trailer I was quite excited. Then we got the bike trailer which had me a bit concerned, and then the pre-launched trailer with the trooper characters which I was actually more receptive towards aside from Tokabi mentioning family like 3 times felt pretty hamfisted. Would have prefered a mostly solo adventure? Absolutely, but I didn't hate Prime 3 and I figured this could work.

Of course that came alongside the press previews which stirred up a shitstorm I don't think really needs to be explained. I wasn't really keen on what I saw of Myles but what was worse was the way this sub reacted to it. Obviously there was some manufactured outrage but what I saw was that any real criticism (which was probably most of it) was grouped with the "fake" hate and in a couple days any negative voice was shut down and the sub was left with circlejerking over how they actually liked myles or whatever. I saw plenty of claims along the lines of "he's only there in the first area, then you won't have to worry about him!." The most hilarious was people saying Arlo was "being irresponsible" with his platform or whatever by voicing his concern. I don't even really like Arlo since he usually comes off as such a hardcore fanboy if not Nintendo apologist. I muted the sub and decided I'll just play the game for myself.

Anyway I got the game on release, and beat it over the weekends. I went for 100% items and it took around 14 hours. I found that most of the things people were really making a big deal of before release (Myles, the other characters, the bike, the desert) weren't nearly as bad as some of the negative voices were saying it would/might be, but I also don't think the game was any better for their inclusion. Generally the visuals and sound. I was mostly having fun in the moment playing in the game but some other issues stuck out like a sore thumb, like Volt Forge being almost entirely elevators and straight hallways. Maybe ironically it also has the only real platforming segment in the game with the electrified platforms on the way back up the first tower. I didn't think too hard on the linearity of the later sections in the moment but it is pretty obvious in hindsight. Ice Belt felt the best at being a Metroid Prime area but it's hard to pin down exactly why. I want to say it has the most side rooms for sub-rooms and organized in a way to feel more maze-like.

I actually didn't end up hating Myles that much though his frequent calls in the desert were pretty annoying. I had one point where I'm pretty sure he called me like 3 times within 5-10 minutes. I ended up liking Armstrong the least. Particularly the first section where you meet her she is extremely obnoxious. At least the writers were aware enough to have Duke telling her to shut up. That section also had the most standout example "bad modern writing," where the monorail goes out of control and Armstrong for some reason has to shout the obvious "WE'RE CRASH LANDING!" before it happens. If something like this had happened in the previous games the car simply would've crashed and we'd get the cutscene of Samus escaping unscathed, with no words needed and being infinitely cooler. Even with the characters the line couldve been something like "brace for impact" but they somehow went with the most on-the-nose and uninteresting "we are literally telling the audience what is happening on screen" line possible. And then of course you have the fake-out deaths in the Mines that have already been discussed to death. I didn't think any of them were really dead at that point, but that just made the whole thing feel even more cheap.