This year is a very special occasion for the Metroid franchise as it’s been thirty years since the launch of the first video-game on the NES. It’s also been six years since the previous Metroid title, Metroid Other M, first came out on the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo is celebrating by releasing Metroid Prime: Federation Force on the Nintendo 3DS. Is it the birthday present that fans asked for?
Although it uses the Metroid Prime title, Federation Force is about the galactic corporation that hires bounty hunters like Samus to take on difficult missions. If anything, Samus is more like a guest star that occasionally drops by to save the day and briefly bask in the limelight. The main players in this story are the nameless foot soldiers who get inside experimental mechs and complete missions given by the Federation Force.
The story itself at least vaguely resembles Metroid as it consists of thwarting the various experiments that those pesky Space Pirates have been conducting in three different planets. Although it’s somewhat disappointing that most of the story is revealed either at the start/end of a mission when the commander provides details or by reading the very basic brief logs left behind by characters in missions.
If anything, Federation Force prides itself in the strict routine that it sets players. Complete a set of missions and more become available. Although the title offers a generous amount of twenty two missions it’s more of a case of substance over quality. Even the fact that there are a couple of different missions objectives doesn’t make this routine any less tedious.
The very fact that the missions don’t last that long isn’t helping either. Perhaps in an effort to make this more of a commuting adventure, the development team decided to focus on shorter missions. In fact, most times each of the missions can be completed in less than ten minutes. This wouldn’t matter so much if some of the objectives weren’t so dull. One such objective has the foot soldiers in mechs slowly pushing a cart and protecting it from incoming electrical storms by waiting inside shelters. Yes, it is as boring as it sounds and it’s one of many objectives that will test the patience of players. Samus definitely never had to put up with this.
Gone are the intricate puzzles that Metroid players have been spoiled with in previous titles. Federation Force favours simplified level design for its various short missions. Perhaps it’s to compensate for the unnecessarily complex control scheme. In fact, there are two of them to choose from and yet they both feel rather… unruly.
One control scheme favours the use of the gyroscope to look around and uses the left analog stick to move the character and the right analog stick to look up and down. The other control scheme confusingly enough uses the right analog stick for looking around which is good, but for some reason uses another button for the auto aim ability that makes it harder to use it. Obviously, the use of a right analog stick only applies to the latest models of the Nintendo 3DS handheld. Which means that players with older versions of the handheld will most likely have to use the gyroscope to look around. It just feels awkward to use these control schemes no matter how long the title has been played for. This becomes more evident during times where it’s necessary to quickly defeat large groups of enemies. Onne certain protection mission is made more difficult because of how difficult it is to quickly deal with large groups of enemies. The same applies to boss battles that require quick reflexes. It also feels like a couple of missions, such as one that involves taking down a giant turtle like creature hell bent on destroying a Federation post, were designed with cooperative play in mind and it makes it very frustrating to tackle them alone.
It’s possible to play through the whole adventure alone, although it’s clear that the idea is to do it with up to three other players. This can be done either with local play or by going online. It has to be said that the server/network code for the title is surprisingly good quality and there was no noticeable lag or any other issues whilst playing online. It’s also handy that any missions completed online and in local play will count towards the single player completion rate. It certainly makes it a bit less tedious to play some of the missions with others.
This being a Nintendo online enabled title means that there is no direct communication with random players. Instead players are limited to sending each other basic preset words and phrases. It certainly makes for a rather unique challenge to try and complete some of the missions without being able to directly organise strategies. This becomes amusing at times when one or more players falls behinds and the others are stuck waiting at sections where it’s necessary for all characters to be present to progress. All this whilst continuing to send friendly preset messages like “Good job!” and most likely just being sarcastic or fed up of waiting.
Dying when playing with others players means that one of them can revive the character and the mission is only failed when all player controlled characters are dead. In single player, dying will not only mean an instant game over (unless at least one certain item is equipped) and having to start the mission from the beginning. It’s somewhat annoying no matter how short and relatively simple most of the missions seem to be. This is made worse by the fact that some enemies, such as a piranha like boss creature, can kill the character with one hit. There are also missions where the foot soldier leaves the mech and they die so easily that it makes sense why the mechs were used in the first place.
Before starting a missions players get to choose what items they can take with them. Only a certain amount of items can be taken and each item uses a different amount of space. The maximum amount of items that can be taken into a mission increases after completing certain missions. The player can also equip AI combat drones to assist in missions. Completing certain objectives in missions results in being given point bonuses that make it easier to reach certain scores that unlock up to three medals per mission. These missions are then used to unlock slots that are used to equip modifications.
These modifications are found in all levels or are even given at certain points as rewards. They provide handy bonuses like making it possible to equip extra items and even resurrect the character. It’s worth noting that some of these modifications will break with use, it’s not possible to equip some of them at the same time and up to three modifications can be equipped.
Then there are paint jobs to change the appearance of the mechs and as usual Amiibo toys will can also be used to unlock paint jobs.
Although nothing particularly remarkable, at least the environments look decent for a handheld title. Even if most of the time is spent inside secrets bases. Despite all its flaws, Federation Force at the very least has the decency of making the areas in each of the planets look unique. There are also no signs of frame rate issues and the soundtrack does feel fitting enough for a proper Metroid Prime title.
Those inclined to do so can also make use of the Blast Ball mode that was made available for free on the eShop a few weeks before Metroid Prime: Federation Force came out. In it characters in mechs are divided in two teams and the team that manages to shoot a giant sphere inside a goal post a specific amount of times wins. It’s quite fun when played with other via local play or online.
Despite not being the train wreck that many claimed it would be when it was first announced, it’s also clear that it is no masterpiece either. Perhaps the main problems is that Nintendo, like many other publishers in recent times, attempted to make use of an existing franchise to promote what might have been better received as a new franchise – like what it did with popular title Splatoon. As it stands, Metroid Prime: Federation Force is average at best and not the most appropriate way to celebrate a franchise that has been around for thirty years.
