Metroid and I sort of grew up together. It was released before I was old enough to know what a Nintendo was, but fortunately for the four year old Mr. Riley games back then remained popular for more than six days. When I was eight and received my first NES for Christmas, Metroid was still available for purchase. This was back in a simpler time, before we knew Samus was just a girl in a purple one piece. And I was a simpler man, as made clear by my frequent difficulties in obtaining the 'morph ball' power-up from the very first room in the game. My brother laughed at me. He was twelve and already going through the throes of puberty, which was certainly a cause for boast.

Two and a half years ago the celebrated Nintendo game was under a different sort of transition period with similar ungainly spots (but slightly less pubic hair). Metroid had been handed over to American born Retro Studios. As if that weren't enough, the franchise's first attempt by the Texas-based developer would shake Metriod up in a way nobody could have expected. Not only would Metroid Prime be the first 3D game in the sixteen year history of the series, but it'd take a giant leap past that by going where nobody would expect a 2D platformer to go. It was going to be more akin to a First Person Shooter. Fans, as they are often wont to do, bellyached and moaned about how their childhood memories would somehow be tarnished by this sudden gestalt shift.

Two and a half years ago I was in a bit of a gestalt shift myself. That Christmas break would be the last I spent in my childhood room at my parent's house in the middle of West Philadelphia. When school finally expired I would pack my bags up, box my meager possessions, and travel down the beaten path (only about ten blocks away) to my first apartment. My first experiences with rent, utilities, and the slumlords that occupy the rent sector that my pathetic college income could afford.

Hey, it's the Wave Beam! Wait... no...

So both Metroid and I entered our states of change together. Metroid Prime proved that just because an idea is new doesn't mean it's worthless and I... had a barbeque grill in my backyard. I'm willing to call it pretty much even.

Now a few months ago Metroid Prime 2 comes out and I'm excited about it, but due to fiscal instability, because of beer and beer-related expenses (cheese fries) I didn't rush to the counter to pick it up. It might've also helped that I was finalizing my senior thesis at the time. It wasn't until a roommate superceded my purchase by bringing it home one day that I really gave MP2 a second thought.

The game plays much like you might expect it to. Fans of the first one will recognize luxurious details like Samus's view screen fogging up and her hand shaking as she charges her power beam. They'll gaze quite fondly on Samus's hi-tech scanning visor, a breakout ability from Prime 1 that deluged the curious user with gluts of flavor text about the flora and fauna of the fictitious world of Tallon IV. They'll recognize familiar monsters, like war wasps, or monster stand-ins like the Kraylee, acting the very convincing part of the Voomer, a Metroid staple. In fact, basically every Space Pirate in the game is ripped directly from 2002.

You'll also recognize familiar power-ups like the double jump, the grappling hook, and the spider ball. Some are masquerading as something new, but seasoned Metroid players will see through their ruse. Instead of the "Gravity Suit" it's now the "Gravity Boost", but the operation and purpose is the same it ever was. I guess not making you recover the Varia suit for the billionth time is mark in the developer's favor, but only barely.

What I'm trying to intimate, obviously, is that very little has changed for Metroid Prime in the past two and a half years. Even new weapons like the Dark and Light beams just seem like re-skins of things like the Wave and Ice Beams from the first game. For a game that took two years to come out Metroid Prime 2 strikes the critical gamer as extremely lazy. At least half the enemies are, at best, loose re-interpretations of their ancestors and some, like the Grenchler, are almost carbon copies of their Metroid Prime predecessors. The very little that is new in the game, the alternate "Dark" world you travel to and from, is such a lame videogame cliche by this point that it's barely worth mentioning.

The gameplay has gotten no less exciting since the last time you've played it, however it's also still exactly the same as the last time you've played it. That's gonna be a blow to even stalwart Metroid fans like myself. Scanning is still just as fun and informative as it once was, but seriously... we spent fifteen hours being told about air purifiers and dangerous weeds in the last game. Without something to revolutionize it even the most intrepid, curious investigators are going to get a little hinky. I'm no stranger to tedium and my roommate practically redefines the word. I've seen him kill the same set of monsters in Final Fantasy X for hours at a time and even the two of us were becoming pretty antsy in the twilgiht hours of this game.

Hey, it's the Sheegoth! Wait... no...

The problem is everything that felt revolutionary and exciting last time isn't now, and with good reason. We've already been through it. In some cases we've been through it multiple times. I know I wasn't the only person who played through Metroid Prime trying to get all the power-ups. In fact, it seems like the only things that don't get rerun to death in Metroid Prime 2 is the glue that's held the Metroid series together. Metroids, most conspicuously, make only a cameo appearace in a singular out of the way locale. But there's another cardinal offense. Ridley, that giant (sometimes bionic) dinosaur that's just so easy to hate is dropped to the roadside without a second thought.

So I don't get it. It seems like the only things that have changed this time around are the things that make Metroid, you know, Metroid. The other day, while I ran my fingers woefully over a copy of Dino Crisis 3, my roommate quite admirably described my strange gaming wants. When I say 'I hate dinosaurs so much' there can be no higher accolade for games containing such things. For me 'hate' doesn't costitute a desire to avoid, it's more an inbred need to terminate, preferably with large bore rifles. Let me tell you, I LOVED to hate Ridley. When Metroid II came out, the only other game to be without Ridley, the game was still in its nascent stage. Nobody would've known what a phenomenon he and his blobby green minions would cause. Robot Ridleys, cybernetic Ridleys, parasitic Ridleys, Ridleys no bigger than you or I and Ridleys that took up more than the length of a tiny Gameboy screen, Ridleys with little purple fireballs and Ridleys with gigantic laser beams. I don't understand why they would want to deprieve me of such a thing. When the those final few hours of this game were boiling down I began to realize, in my heart of hearts, that there wasn't going to be a Ridley around the bend and my stomach shrunk three sizes. There was a hurt in me like one I could never explain.

This game is like a weird anachronism. Retro already proved to us that they could be creative. In the last game we have four weapons with varied purposes, ingenious newcomers to the series like the spider-ball, and even more creative ways to use those power-ups. Who would've ever thought they'd roll Samus back and forth in a half-pipe to reach higher ground? Not me! These are the same guys that made a Metroid you didn't kill with the Ice Beam.

Have we met?

Why can't Retro do it again? I'm at a point in my life, post-college pre-work, where everything is fresh and new, where I look forward to exciting changes and challenges ahead. I've got a few years yet before the drudge of the workaday world leaves me as nothing but a repetitive shell of my former self. Metroid is stuck in a premature rut. Why is every puzzle in this game the same as the one they already put out? There are relatively few "wow" moments in Metroid Prime 2, especially considering the road its forerunners paved before it. What little is done differently for MP2, like ammo meters for your beam weapons, will likely annoy more than it impresses. For people who have played Metroid Prime 1, Echoes might just strike them as a boring rehash. They're putting Metroid out to pasture, relying on fans to play the same slop with little or nothing in the way of new wrinkles to explore. Metroid Prime 2 was, very simply, an exhausting game. It's stunningly beautiful and it's stunningly mediocre. Why does it feel like work when I'm playing this? What happened to Metroid Prime? Where did all the excitement go? Why stop the train now?

And why kick Ridley off while you're at it?