NP: First can you tell us a bit on the story in Metroid Prime 3 and how it fits into the series?Mark Pacini (Director): Well, Corruption is a direct sequel to Metroid Prime 2. The goal of the game is to wrap up the storyline that deals with Phazon, which was featured in Prime and Prime 2, as the cause of what happened to the planets that Samus visited. So in Prime, it corrupted the planet and all the creatures there. In Prime 2, it actually seperated the planet into the light and dark worlds. In Prime 3, Phazon has a much more galaxy-wide effect. So the player will understand the fate of Phazon and why it's so important. And not only does it relate to Samus' goals in the game, but Samus herself also gets corrupted. So her ability set to change over the course of the gane and kind of tie into the storyline. "Corruption" is not only a story theme, but also a game mechanic that we're using throughout Prime 3.
NP: Can you share any examples of those game mechanics?MP: The main gimmick behind the corruption is the idea of hyper mode. Hyper mode has been something that we've used in the Prime series before, but it's also been in Super Metroid at the very end. Well, because of this Phazon corruption we're giving the player the ability to go into that mode at any time and become very powerful, which open up a subset of abilities that Samus will have based on this Phazon corruption. The caveat to that is while you're extremely powerful for a period of time, you also have the possibilty of dying. So you're kind of balancing the system at the same time. You would naturally time out of the system or you would use up all your Phazon while you're shooting your weapons and things like that. Your corruption fuels this hyper mode, so you shoot weapons your health bar switches to a different type of management system. So you can stay in hyper mode for a longer period of time or you can use all your Phazon and get out of hyper mode very quickly. But it's kind of up to the player to balance that system and the risk involved in it. So it's actually something the player will use fairly often during the game and that's kind of something new that we're offering for Prime 3.
NP: With the new control scheme that the Wii enables, will the game place a greater emphasis on action?Kensuke Tanabe (Producer): Well because it's part of the Metroid Prime series, it's imporant to keep a balance. It will still have many exploration elements as well as the shooting elements. But because of the new Wii controller, it may be easier and more intuitive for the player to shoot at enemies, so there is the possibilty that there will be a little bit more focus on the shooting than before.
NP: What are some of the most important things that the team learned from the first two games, and how are they applying those lessons to Corruption?MP: There are many things that we learned. One of them is what people maybe would like to see improved about the game. Certain parts, like the backtracking aspects. We always try to understand what parts of re-traversal are fun and what parts are frustrating for people. So we put alot of thought going into Prime 3 into how we can improve the way the player makes their way through the game backtracking and exploration are fundamental to the Metroid series, so that's really not going to change, but how the player does it and to what degree they do it is something that we're really making improvements on.
Also with the difficulty level. We think that Prime was more of a game for Metroid fans and gamers, and Prime 2 was for those fans as well. They were tuned a little bit on the difficult side. And I think that while the game is still going to be very challenging, we would like to make sure that a wide variety of people can play Corruption. But I don't think fundamentally it's going to change the way the game is. It's just something we're keeping in mind. We don't want to scare people away that might be intimidated by a game like this. Those are really two main things that we've learned over the past two titles.
NP: Judging by the demo, the game looks like it might be a little more cinematic the the first two. Is that the focus for the team?MP: Yeah, that was very much a conscious thing that we're doing because the system's more powerful [than the Gamecube]. It allows us to create larger enviornments that are just as detailed as Prime and Prime 2. So we get to tell the story, not always in cinematics. We can tell it by what's going on around you. I think that's extremely important, and we're doing that to all important, and we're doing that to all the locations that the player is going to be visited throughout this game. We're really making a concious effort to utilize the technology not to just make things look pretty, which they're going to, but actually for solid gameplay reasons. Like why can you see far into the distance?. Because it's actually important to what's happening in the game.
Brian Walker (Senior Producer): Samus is part of a bigger struggle.
NP: Can you talk a bit about the role of the other bounty hunters?MP: Maybe a little bit?. [laughs] There are other bounty hunters in the game that are heavily tied to what's happening in the story as far as corruption. So the things that are happening to Samus, she can possibly see through the result of what's happening to these other hunters as well. Again, this corruption theme is an underlying element to the entire game. These bounty hunters aren't just other characters in the game;they actually are important to telling the story of what could potentially happen to Samus.
NP: Prime is noted for being one of the most visually impressive series on the GameCube. What are your thoughts on Wii from a hardware horsepower standpoint.BW: It's obviously a more powerful machine. With Prime 3 we have been able to improve all aspects of the game as a result. Visually, we've got bloom lighting. We've been able to improve our animation system to take advantage of the new hardware, and the environments are also significantly bigger. Even better, it's a developer-friendly machine. Power is nothing if you can't use it, and that has been a big factor for us. We've been able to create better content very quickly with the Wii.
NP: Will Corruption be a launch title?BW: Yes.
NP: Will Samus visit multiple planets in the game, and will there be any ship-flying stages?MP: Yes, Samus will go to other planets. It's kind of important to the corruption theme and the storyline that Samus goes to other planets. She'll be able to use her ship, not necessarily for direct flying to these planets. But conversely to that, we are using the ship in a very unique way for Prime 3 in that there's a new visor called the Command Visor, which allows Samus to, from a third person view, command her ship remotely to do things in the enviornment. So the ship can come in and do bombing runs or it can come in and lift really huge objects for you, or you can actually use it to traverse areas as a platform. So it actually becomes another tool in Samus' arsenal. We thought that was a unique way of bringing in the ship.
NP: Will you be able to travel back and forth between planets?MP: Absolutely. Again, it's fundamental in Metroid to go back to previous areas and either explore more or unlock a different path. So that will definitely still be the case.
NP: Will there be other new visors in addition to the one you just mentioned, and can you talk a bit about those or any new beams in the game?MP: Beyond the Command Visor there's the Combat Visor and Scan Visor, which appeared in the previous games. We're also bringing back the X-Ray Visor for this game. In some of the previous Metroids, because of how the design turned out, sometimes people weren't able to use the visors to their fullest abilities because Samus has such a large ability set. So what we wanted to do was make sure that with the X-Ray Visor it's not just for looking through walls or for invisible platforms and stuff, which will still be there, but we also want [the visor] to have a relationship to her other ablities. For example, one of the beams that Samus will get allows her to shoot through walls, so you can use the X-Ray Visor to see through objects and maybe target certain things behind a wall that you wouldn't normally be able to see, and use the beam in conjunction with the visor.
Also with the beams, we're doing a little different system with Metroid Prime 3 then we did in Prime 1 and 2 where you had selectable beams. In Prime 3, we're going with a stacking system similar to, say, Super Metroid. It's kind of a harking back to that. We thought that system worked really well, especially for what we were trying to do with this game, so the beam will stack and keep all it's inherent abilities even though you're getting different weapons layered on top of it. And that goes for all weapons that Samus will have. Her beam stacks, her missles stacks, and also the grapple beam stacks.
NP: What role will the Metroids play in the game?MP: They'll be back. We've actually gotten a lot of comments about maube Metroids don't make enough apperences in the Metroid Prime games. Although the Metroid Prime series storyline doesn't necessarily revolve around Metroids, per se, we do feel they're important to the franchise. And people like seeing them; it's very nostalgic. So Metroids will defentely be back, but they also serve a definite story purpose and you will see more of them in this game.
NP: How about the Chozo? Will they play a role in this game?
MP: Umm... yes. [laughs]
NP: Will there be anything with the light and dark worlds like in Echoes?MP: No, that was for that particular planet.
NP: How about multilayer or Wi-Fi play?MP: We will not have multiplayer in Metroid Prime 3 in the same format that we had with Metroid Prime 2. However, we are excited about the WiiConnect24 brings to the table, and we're seriously considering a variety of different functions to take advantage of that.
NP: Anything else you would like our readers to know about the game?KT: As you may know, this is the last game in the Metroid Prime trilogy. But at the same time, we will continue expanding the franchise. You saw an example of that with Metroid Prime: Hunters on DS.
NP: What's in store for Retro in the future? Will you take Metroid in a different direction, or will it be something new?BW: Retro won't close down when we're finished with Metroid Prime 3 [laughs]. But we look forward to new challenges.
MP: What would you like to see us work on?
NP: I would be intrigued to see something new. I'd love to see what Retro can do with something original.BW: We're very fortunate that we have a lot of extremely talented developers, and I think a new challenge like you've described would be a great venue for them to really flex their creative muscle.
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