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[Brickhunt]

So I got pneumonia these last days and found myself with lot of time to spare. So I decided to revisit Metroid Prime 3. I can't help but think that Retro was wrong in adding the Hypermode mechanic, or at the very least, they made it severely imbalanced. It is very easy to master it, and once you do, the game turn into a cake walk and what would be enjoyable encounters become essentially cakewalk.

When you enter Hypermode, your energy tank becomes ammunition. Sounds fair, I guess. However, any damage you take in the initial stage doesn't count. You don't take any damage at all. You will only take "damage" if you fire a few shots and quits the mode, or depletes the energy tank. So if you are under heavy fire, you can just enter hypermode to take the shots, and then exit without taking any damage.

And then it comes the corruption phase, when you are locked in the mode and risk game over, so you must deplete your bar or keep shooting until the suit auto-vents the mode. In this phase, you will lose a energy tank, but in these 25 seconds you can essentially turn any damage you receive into ammunition and just keep shooting to avoid game over. It's like a Super Mode from the God of War series, but instead of being tied to a "phazon meter" and being more difficult to access, it is instead tied to your health bar, which is easy to replenish. It offers far more benefits than consequences.

For example, there is the Rundas boss battle. Personally, I think this would be one of my favorite boss battles ever if it wasn't for the hypermode. When you hold yourself from using hypermode until the game demands it, you can really appreciate the details Retro put on him. Besides the great music, he flies, takes cover, freezes you and try to melee you, throwing Icebergs at you. And the more damage you do, the more aggressive he becomes. However, thanks to hypermode, you can beat him in 30 seconds in normal and in one minute in hard mode.
If you happen to have mastered hypermode before this boss, you may not appreciate how well crafted this fight is. I would have preferred to beat him without Hypermode at all.

The only time where it becomes balanced is at the end game, when you are locked in the mode and you actually take damage. Essentially, you can no longer "cheat" at the final boss and actually have to fight carefully.

I really like Retro Studios, but I think they dropped the ball here. If you happen to master this mode, you may have to hold yourself to appreciate the rest of the game. Personally, I think it's a very bad case of "super mode" game design. Hopefully, developers can learn from it to avoid mistakes.

 

[popyea]

Who cares, enemies are just a formality in these games anyway. I never used hypermode in my first playthough unless I was prompted (the idea of losing life just scared me), and enemy encounters were still just basic strafe and shoot affairs.

 

[abstract alien]

It's been so long since I've played Prime 3 that I forgot about it having this mechanic. Actually, I'm not sure if I ever used it. Quite a while has passed.

 

[NewGame]

I remember the end bosses being quite difficult even with hypermode, the golem one with all the phazon orbs on it? That was crazy hard.

 

[Otakumegane]

I was just thinking about this.

They should have made Hypermode get stronger the more phazon you had accumulated in your body but weaken it early by a lot.

 

[Shiggy]

I remember the end bosses being quite difficult even with hypermode, the golem one with all the phazon orbs on it? That was crazy hard.

They took like infinite damage, pretty annoying.

 

[Brickhunt]

I remember the end bosses being quite difficult even with hypermode, the golem one with all the phazon orbs on it? That was crazy hard.

I thought the same until figured that I could enter and exit Hypermode to avoid damage. The worst part was the crystals on his feet, that needed bombs to break. So entered Hypermode, bombed the feet before being locked in, and without losing any energy. Once you figure this, it becomes much easier.

 

[Davey Cakes]

I think it's REALLY imbalanced in the starting difficulties, even as you're still getting the hang of it.

Once you play on the unlockable Hypermode Difficulty you realize more what Retro were going for. The ability becomes absolutely essential for survival. You really learn how to push its limits.

Even then the "Orb Boss" was definitely a bitch though.

After you've close to mastered Hypermode, you could go back to normal difficulty and basically be a god.

 

[Oidisco]

I never used it unless I was forced to, like during the Leviathan boss battles. Even on the hardest difficulties it was just so freakin overpowered that it really pissed me off.

 

[Azure J]

I remember the end bosses being quite difficult even with hypermode, the golem one with all the phazon orbs on it? That was crazy hard.

This guy was the epitome of frustrating boss design for me when I played the game over in Hypermode. Bullet sponge + specific weakpoints that changed in highly variable frequencies + could potentially recover faster than you could destroy things equaled a not very fun experience.

Spoiler

That is until you learned that keeping the orbs at a near broken state and managing them that way was more effective, which then made the entire fight a non-issue. :/

 

[Prototype]

I didn't use it the 1st time I went thru the game but it was mostly because I thought the mechanic was stupid as well as a lot of hate I read about it from various metroid forums.

In subsequent plays I did use it and I found it to be really fun. Makes Samus feel like a badass and let me concentrate on exploring and finding things and not worrying about fighting enemies.

 

[PixelNinja]

They have 3 days to patch it or it'll never be officially patched.

 

[ErrorMacro]

Hypermode was essentialy the super guide of Metroid Prime 3. I ended never using it!

 

[rjc571]

I think it's REALLY imbalanced in the starting difficulties, even as you're still getting the hang of it.

Once you play on the unlockable Hypermode Difficulty you realize more what Retro were going for. The ability becomes absolutely essential for survival. You really learn how to push its limits.

Even then the "Orb Boss" was definitely a bitch though.

After you've close to mastered Hypermode, you could go back to normal difficulty and basically be a god.

Yeah, I never made it very far in Hypermode difficulty. Shit was insane. Sounds like the OP might want to give it a shot.

 

[Slambot6]

Thanks for reminding, OP. I liked Hypermode because it added more gunplay to the game, but I think you are right; Hypermode was far too unbalanced to properly enjoy the game design with bosses, and made enemy encounters too easy.

If there was more of a risk-vs-reward mechanic in place, it would've been fine.

 

[Iolo]

Now I want to go replay the game and use hypermode a lot more --- I used it as little as possible during my first 2 playthroughs.

 

[iirate]

Hypermode was *really* unbalanced, but at the same time, was really satisfying to use. I still sorta liked it for that reason alone.

It probably helps that I don't play Prime for its gunplay at all.

 

[Nocturnowl]

Hypermode is the worst thing about Prime 3 and one of the main reasons I find the game noticeably weaker than the other two Prime games.
But for me it isn't because of how quick it tears through enemies, it's more because if you don't use it then any enemy that goes into hypermode itself from space pirates to even crab walker turret things become sponges of the highest order (said walker things go from death in one charged shot to like 12 if I recall) so you're kind of obligated to use hypermode unless spongy shootouts are something you enjoy. Combine this with Prime 3 having a heavier combat focus which i'd say was a no-no in the first pace you'll be diving in and out of hypermode in the majority of enemy encounters and there's nothing engaging about most of these encounters, your actual health bar becomes secondary to the phazon bar.

Beyond this Hypermode is necessary in the seed bosses which leaves these boss battles in this odd position of having them need to supply you with health so you can actually use hypermode in the first place in case you go down to your last tank of health, and in the rare event of that actually happening you kind of need to avoid weakening the boss until it does the health giving attack or else the window you open to manage them is pointless. I get that they wanted to implement it in some bosses as an actual feature instead of just the easy way to rinse through boss health in seconds as the Rundas example in the opening post details but it just doesn't feel entirely thought through here either.

Lastly there's all those hypermode upgrades which are pretty much useless in the face of the standard beam ability you start with, most hyper abilities are just limited use "keys" to access a locked area and never feel like a handy piece of Samus' arsenal in combat applications.
In the end hypermode gets implementation all over the game yet doesn't ever come across as a positive change to the formula at all, I could say that it makes the standard enemy combat quicker to get through but this game has that much more space pirate encounters in the first place.
I do like the fact that some pirates try to overload you with phazon grenades as well as maximising the use of a whole tank when you spend long enough in the mode that you have to forcibly discharge the phazon so it has its moments.

I guess it's worth pointing out that when playing on the hardest difficulty hypermode actually carries that greater level of risk/reward that it seems to imply, unfortunately the game felt like that much more of a chore to me since it magnifies those first two points of mine further, especially the likes of Mogenar.

 

[TheSpaceBetween]

Well, Nintendo kept shooting down Retro's original ideas for the game (Samus taking bounty missions, Samus becoming evil, etc) so this is what we were left with. You can cheese Rundas in about five seconds with Hypermode, Metroids become cannon fodder, and every difficulty besides Hypermode is a cakewalk. Luckily, you can ignore it, which I do, unless enemies themselves go into Hypermode, in which case you pretty much have to use it unless you want to spend five minutes shooting them with missiles and normal shots. It's funny that even despite this, it's probably my favorite of the trilogy.

 

[Green Mamba]

This is a problem I have always had with Prime 3 (among many). One thing I really like about Metroid is the progression of power--you start out comparably weak and slowly build up to a god. Prime 3 completely throws that out the window by giving you far and away the most powerful ability near the beginning. Everything else is just incrementally small in comparison.

I had originally thought Prime 2 was bad in this regard with the Dark and Light Beams being the best abilities, but Prime 3's imbalance is a whole 'nother ball game.

No Metroid Prime hit the power curve as right as the first did, not even close.

 

[The Hermit]

Prime 3 is by far the worst of the trilogy and the way they used the hyper mode is one of them.

I always though that every time I used it, she will become more corrupted so I avoided using it unless I had to.

Unfortunately that isn't computed in the end game whatsoever.

 

[Appleman]

This is a problem I have always had with Prime 3 (among many). One thing I really like about Metroid is the progression of power--you start out comparably weak and slowly build up to a god. Prime 3 completely throws that out the window by giving you far and away the most powerful ability near the beginning. Everything else is just incrementally small in comparison.

I had originally thought Prime 2 was bad in this regard with the Dark and Light Beams being the best abilities, but Prime 3's imbalance is a whole 'nother ball game.

No Metroid Prime hit the power curve as right as the first did, not even close.

Yep, Prime 3 is a terrible disappointment compared to the rest of the trilogy. They don't take away any of your abilities at the start, so the upgrades introduced throughout the game completely lack excitement. Grapple beam is split into three abilities, there's hyper- versions of a bunch of abilities that you hardly end up even using.... So many boss battles just feel unrewarding to beat

 

[Azure J]

This is a problem I have always had with Prime 3 (among many). One thing I really like about Metroid is the progression of power--you start out comparably weak and slowly build up to a god. Prime 3 completely throws that out the window by giving you far and away the most powerful ability near the beginning. Everything else is just incrementally small in comparison.

I had originally thought Prime 2 was bad in this regard with the Dark and Light Beams being the best abilities, but Prime 3's imbalance is a whole 'nother ball game.

No Metroid Prime hit the power curve as right as the first did, not even close.

First time I've ever seen this opinion expressed like ever. Interesting. The most broken thing about having both of those beams available early game (imo) was spamming Entangler + Missile for foot soldier pirates in the light world and charged light beacons in the dark world (which still relied on you getting lucky and tricking enemy AI into the safe zones). FWIW, I feel like even after playing that game countless times and squeezing every last ounce of nuance from it, the power scale/sense of empowerment doesn't swing back to Samus' side of things until you have Power Bombs (fairly late into the game).

 

[Otakumegane]

Well, Nintendo kept shooting down Retro's original ideas for the game (Samus taking bounty missions, Samus becoming evil, etc) so this is what we were left with. You can cheese Rundas in about five seconds with Hypermode, Metroids become cannon fodder, and every difficulty besides Hypermode is a cakewalk. Luckily, you can ignore it, which I do, unless enemies themselves go into Hypermode, in which case you pretty much have to use it unless you want to spend five minutes shooting them with missiles and normal shots. It's funny that even despite this, it's probably my favorite of the trilogy.

Awwww........

I would have LOVED to see some phazon induced halluciations Spec Ops the line style and it turns out she was battling galactic fed troopers instead.