Retro were not planning on making another Metroid Prime game after Echoes. But Nintendo wanted a game to show off the potential of the Nintendo Wii. Who did they call? Retro Studios, who delivered to hell and back. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was a successful entry into the shining era of the Wii, closing off the story that Killer App Metroid Prime started while getting bigger and more ambitious with the gameplay elements and storytelling. And no hint of Waggle to boot!
Hold on, we get to finally experience the interior of Samus' Gunship? Amazing. Clicking the buttons and pulling the handles around the ship to activate thrusters and radio communications is such a small but neat touch. It's clearly just to show off the motion control gimmick, but you can't deny it's a fun idea.
Seeing Samus interact with the Galactic Federation for the first time is also very cool. It's fun to watch the grunts and marines express varying levels of respect and familiarity with Samus, and the dynamic between Samus and Admiral Dane makes it feel like the two have been working together for years.
One minor example: all 3 Metroid Prime games have multiple animations for getting out of the Morph Ball, but the animations for getting out while in the air in Prime 1 & 2 were static and just not present respectively. In Prime 3 however, when getting out of Morph Ball in mid air, Samus does a cool somersault
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The game opens with Samus Aran, in Federation space, casually checking in for a briefing with a respected Admiral for her next contract work. Cue motion controls and a good look at the inside of Samus' gunship, previously unseen in 3D, and an amazing scene of Samus driving up onto a landing pad and being welcomed with open arms by the Federation military.
The sheer amount of respect for Samus Aran that oozes out of the game. By this point, she has to be known around the galaxy as a capable and worthy hero, and you can tell everyone knows it, to the point of Samus effectively being The Hero in all but spoken word. Two cutscenes have Ms. Aran completely owning a platoon of Space Pirates with almost Offhand Backhand gestures of her arm cannon, sure it's Cutscene Power to the Max but it's also — undeniably — awesome as Samus sends those monstrous marauders flailing back with a single shot each even as they leap at her en masse.
She also puts Ghor on his ass later in a similar scene, after which the corrupted hunter immediately backs off, since he's already done the damage to Sky-Town's AU network and knows when to fold em'.
The Federation in this game are not the lackeys they've been portrayed as up until now. Having acquired access to Phazon, they've started using it to even out the fight with the Space Pirates, and did so without wasting time with genetic experiments with horrible success rates, thank you very much. The military might of the Federation is great enough that, unlike other planets seen, they (with some help) become the first to successfully defend against a Leviathan attack. Also, a nameless member of the Redshirt Army gets one in an early scene- cornered by Space Pirates who kill all his squadmates, he coolly activates Hypermode and blasts his enemies away. Notable as this is the first time you see Hypermode in action, before you gain it for yourself.
When the GFS Olympus and Norion get attacked there are several moments where you get to see your coworkers in action. Ghor personally takes on a Berserker Knight, Gandrayda infiltrates the Space Pirate ranks and sabotages them, and Rundas directly helps Samus on multiple occasions. Rundas even gets one of the three generators online for Samus, making him one of the few video game helpers who actually accomplishes an objective!
Rundas saving Samus from the Pirate dropships is amazing, what with the graceful backflip and resulting explosion.
Samus has one generator left to successfully save Norion. No sooner has she walked out of the junction area than, shortly following that PED Marine's Moment of Awesome, a huge shadow rockets past, and the dragon himself shows up to begin blasting the Federation's defenses. Ridley, ever cunning, has the good sense to try to ambush her while she's in morph ball form, and when that fails, moves along to wait for her at the generator. When she arrives, he plunges down on her, shatters the seal on the generator shaft, and boom, epic boss fight.
Just to reiterate that; Samus Aran. Fights Ridley. In free-fall. Down a 17,000-meter shaft that leads to the planet's core. That sound you just heard was the Cool Versus Awesome continuum wetting itself in envy.
It should be noted Samus has enough time to fire a few shots at Ridley before he tackles her.
Additionally, the other hunters get right back up after that, giving Dark Samus an Oh, Crap! moment of her own.
...Until she turns it around by unleashing a massive blast that floors all four hunters. Samus, who took the entire blast, rather than splash damage like the others, then proceeds to crawl to the control panel and complete their objective. The entire scene is one crowning moment after another.
This scene alone makes Dark Samus a force to be reckoned with. Already established as a credible threat in Echoes, here Dark Samus proves she isn't to be treated with less than pants-wetting fear by bursting in at the last second and blowing Samus and friends away.
Really, the sheer escalation into full-time villain that Dark Samus takes in Corruption. She doesn't just have firepower, she has a full working plan for galactic domination.
Once she revives herself in the space pirates' Phazon storage, she immediately starts taking over, corrupting the pirates and using Phazon madness to turn them into her slaves who worship her as a savior.
Once she took over the pirate forces manning the Colossus, she goes AWOL for a while until returning riding her own personal Leviathan meteor, and god knows how she did that.
She then arms her forces, and has them attack an Olympus-class battleship she knew would be understaffed, storm it, and forcefully rip out the Aurora Unit. Then she implants it into Phaaze, using it to control the living planet and turn its Leviathan seeds, previously random pieces of itself launched into space every few decades, into guided missiles.
She turns these Seeds first on the Pirate Homeworld to both corrupt and supercharge its inhabitants and expand her army, and then on locations important to the Federation, including their fuel supply on Bryyo, their surveillance network on Elysia, and their military outpost on Norion.
Though the effort to impact a Leviathan into Norion fails, she successfully corrupts four bounty hunters, including Samus herself, with a steadily growing Phazon influence that begins taking them over. Once they're turned to her servants, she uses them against their previous employers and, once Samus puts them down, absorbs their powers for her own use, gathering strength should an eventual confrontation come. The only reason Dark Samus loses is because Samus Aran is so much the Determinator that she staves off terminal corruption long enough to beat her outright.
Samus Aran, after circumventing Phazon on two missions and successfully clearing two planets of its influence, is successfully corrupted. With a little help from the Federation, this is turned to an advantage as she can use it to power her armor's defensive and offensive capabilities, becoming an absolute juggernaut that blasts away foes like a one-woman starship. There is no enemy in the game—not even bosses—that can't be smashed into pulp with smart application of Hypermode attacks, so long as you know when to use them.
Samus is tasked with investigating the planets where the other hunters went missing and finishing their tasks for them if necessary. The first one in line is Bryyo, and it's there that Samus first learns what Dark Samus has done to them. The fight with Rundas is epic, sorrowful, and challenging—unless you remember you have Hypermode, and render him a trivial fight. Nonetheless, there's something amazingly memorable about the battle, as Rundas flies around on an ice stream and swings gigantic icicles around like a flail.
Then it's time to get to the Seed. The only problem is that it's protected by a shield powered by two massive generators, themselves guarded by anti-air cannons. So naturally, for Samus, this means strolling right into the pirates' base and personally blowing up those cannons so she can call in her ship for a couple bombing runs. The pirates are left gobsmacked and embarrassed once again.
The fight with Mogenar is great. After using Bryyonian golems to traverse the dangers of Bryyo, now it's time to fight one super-charged on Phazon. This results in one of the game's most grueling encounters, especially for how early on in the journey it is. Mogenar, far from what you'd expect of a stone-carved golem, is fast, aggressive, and jumpy, and will actively try to prevent the player from dealing meaningful damage. Lore about Leviathans backs this up, as Mogenar was chosen by the leviathan to protect it before it was charged up on Phazon.
After the battle with Mogenar. This is where you first start to suspect that something is really, terribly wrong with Samus, and that the corruption may well, in fact, kill her. What does she do? Take her helmet off, throw up concentrated Phazon, wipe her mouth off, put her helmet back on and go back to work, now sporting a visible Phazon scar down her nose and right cheek. Just another day at the office.
The destruction of the Bryyo seed is the first time Samus and the player have a real, undaunted victory on their hands, and the presentation matches. After unveiling and overloading the Leviathan's core with Phazon energy, she gently lands on the ground, turns around, and cocks her head to listen for the sound of the core hitting the ground. Thud. And then, while it glows and explodes behind her, she walks away, casual as anything.
Elysia. Just...Elysia. Without question, this is the moment Corruption cements itself as a worthy Prime game. Mixing a sky-high city environment with a Steampunk and Clock Punk aesthetic is just genius. It's a gorgeous world, with floating bridges, gazebos, and even satellites hanging out in clear view. Notably, Jack Matthews, technical lead engineer for the trilogy, was against the concept and how much emphasis it placed on outside environments, but nonetheless made it work to brilliant effect and the betterment of the game.
Wandering through Skytown will eventually take you across a bridge full of hostiles that you can only pass by pulling (apart) gates. You could stop to deal with the troops of enemies as they come...or you could stroll past them, tear loose the last gate, and watch the whole bridge and everything on it go plummeting into oblivion...followed by a shot of Samus continuing on her peaceful walk, completely unbothered. You get a 'Stylish Kill' friend voucher for this.
On Elysia, you have to meet up with the Aurora Unit stationed there to get data on the planet-corrupting Leviathan Seed so that you can destroy it. However, AU 217 is offline due to Phazon corruption, and while trying to cure him, Samus is set upon by a brainwashed Ghor. Ghor gets knocked on his ass in the ensuing confrontation, but it doesn't matter, because he successfully knocked out the AU's network and control over Skytown. The only thing to be done after that is to, in 217's words, hunt him down, take his plasma cannon, and weld the circuit boards back together yourself. Although if you think Ghor's going to let you get away with it that easily, just keep an ear out for what he's doing to your ship on the way there...
Elysia is a gas giant and the Seed, along with its shield generators, lie beneath a whole atmospheric layer of dense gases that make conventional methods of destroying them impossible. 217's plan in response? Build a nuclear bomb and drop it on the shield, destroying it outright. You have to tag along, of course, to make sure the Pirates don't blow it up prematurely, and just when you think Ghor's finished sabotaging everything, you find out after the engines start powering down that he sliced up the circuits for the escape pod. Hope you're good at welding on the fly!
The Pirate Homeworld has been located thanks to Gandrayda, but by now the player knows she'll be waiting for them when they make planetfall. Sure enough, Gandrayda pulls a disguise ploy (that Samus doesn't fall for even for an instant), and then it's on. The kicker is that Gandrayda is probably the toughest boss yet, less for copying previous bosses than for leaping, flipping, and cartwheeling all over the battlefield to be an evasive target. And it works! Players who try following her without watching where they're going, or get too trigger-happy with Hypermode, will end up easy prey for her.
The Nova Beam is the last major power-up the player will get before the finale. Its primary benefit is being used in conjunction with the X-Ray visor to hit objects behind otherwise-impassable Phazite barriers due to the beam's high frequency waves. Guess what? That includes enemies' heads. Several of the game's more frustrating enemies, including Pirate Commandos and Phazon Metroids, can have their brains sniped thanks to the Nova Beam rendering their armor basically worthless. In other words, you basically get to lobotomize the enemies that have been giving you hell since you first met them. Revenge is awesome.
In the last act of the game, Galactic Federation military finally goes all in, when they invade the Space Pirate homeworld. As Admiral Dane puts it, they bring the fight to the Pirates, and directly assist Samus with gaining access to the Seed so she can purge the corruption on the planet. Admiral Dane has the good sense to supply Samus with an overage of detonator-wielding soldiers, who follow her through the skyway to blow open the barrier there. It's given every bit of badass flair it deserves, and successfully balances giving the marines their spotlight while still showing everyone why Samus is known and feared as "The Hunter".
Escort Missions are never fun. The escortee is useless, dies in one hit, and seems to go out of his/her way to get into trouble. That is, unless you are playing Corruption. The Escort Mission near the end of the game is a Moment of Awesome for the escortees. You are tasked with protecting 12 Demolition Troopers as you make your way through a series of transit stations while being assaulted endlessly by an onslaught of Space Pirates of all ranks, and even a Berserker Knight towards the end. However, it turns out that these troopers are pretty damned skilled at battling. They can go toe-to-toe with many of the pirates. Sometimes, even turn the tide. Finding yourself cornered by five super pissed Space Pirates with nearly full health and their armor still attached? The troopers will assist you, shooting at the pirates until their armor comes off, and keep firing, draining the pirates health, possibly even killing them. This is how an escort mission should be.
Oh yeah, the Berserker Knight. Remember how Berserkers are a long, involved boss fight dependent on turning the boss' attacks against it? Not anymore. The Nova Beam and X-Ray Visor combo strikes again, and you can successfully One-Hit Kill a miniboss that is seconds away from pulping you and your little marine buddies, which feels as awesome as it sounds!
Speaking of, the Metroid Hatcher is an obnoxious tentacled Phazite-plated Metroid boss. Much like the Berserkers, it's a chaotic fight and fairly harrowing every time you fight one. However, by the time you fight the third aboard the Valhalla (or all three if you doubled back for the Nova Beam beforehand), Samus comes equipped with aforementioned One-Hit Kill. There's nothing quite like having a particularly annoying boss, with a health bar and everything, pop up in front of you, only to kill it with one shot.
The Pirate Commander. He's spotted several times while deploying troops on the Homeworld, but always teleports away. Just when it looks like there's nothing left to stand in the way of Samus' path to the seed, he comes out of nowhere as she's scaling a ledge and knocks her several stories to the ground! Samus hits the steel hard, too, and doesn't stick the landing, making him one of the only characters in the series to get the drop on Samus! He puts up the toughest fight she'll have outside of bosses, too, and wearing red Phazite armor means no shortcuts with the Nova Beam.
The very end of Corruption. The planet Samus was last seen on just exploded (surprise) and the battle is won, but Samus is nowhere to be found. She is presumed dead, and Admiral Dane looks ready to give the eulogy right then and there. Cue Samus flying past the window, giving a thumbs up, and transmitting a single message. "Mission Complete."
trailer shows us a GF Marine who kills a Berserker Knight in only two shots when his PED is activated. Holy crap!