I got Phantom Brave. My dad stopped in on a whim to check after work and Gamespot had one copy. I played what I estimate is close to half of the first playthrough story. I'm really enjoying it so far and I really wish I could have gotten it a few days sooner.

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The reason I say this is because I also got Metroid Prime Trilogy. I had it the day my nearest Gamestop received it, Tuesday the 25th (it's really unfortunate that we rarely get games on their release dates where I live.) I preordered and as a result got a t-shirt and surprisingly a poster too (the latter was supposed to be for those who preordered it on the website.) I have to say this is a pretty darn good compilation. Three great game on one disc for the price of one new Wii title.

I've made it known on numerous occassions that I was never a fan of Metroid Prime. Back in my SW days, often times I'd rip on Halo on someone would start tearing into Metroid Prime as if that offended me. And I'd laugh at them for assuming I was a Nintendo drone that would praise anything on the Gamecube. I have played Prime and Echoes and on the GC and honestly haven't been thrilled by the controls. I think the graphics are fantastic to this day, both technically and artistically. The music is also fantastic and unforgetable, something that is true of most of the series. So the controls are really the only thing I didn't like. I'm not sure what it was, I just didn't care for it.

I put the two games in the back of my mind and dismissed them as titles I would never own and probably never play again. And for a while, this distaste prevented me from having any desire to play anything else in the series. Well then along comes Metroid Prime Hunters. I played it in an Electronics Boutique (geez remember those?) and once again was not thrilled by the controls. This was the first time I had tried a Nintendo DS (the original). I thought the system was uncomforatble to hold and because it was a store model the screens were probably a bit off (something I releaize today that I didn't then). So once again I put it in the back of my mind. Well, impressed by the DS Lite's looks I bought it on a whim and fell in love (figuratively, you sicko). One of my friends suggested we play Hunters on multiplayer. I was a bit hessitent but I agree to it. And holy crap did I get hooked. We played the multiplayer for hours. And my friend and I were fairly evenly matched. He was better at finding the weapons and going on the offensive, while I was much better at taking cover and escaping (something that I seem to be exceptional at in most games). I played a little of the campaign and felt the game was much better suited for the fast moving and more accurate stylus aiming system than dual analog. It was still lacking a little but I was content with it. Unfortunately, I put off buying the game and playing it further because I feared not knowing the full plot of the first two Prime games would hamper my experience.

Then along comes Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. I see videos of gameplay and I'm blown away. This had to be the perfect system. Every good point the first two Primes featured, combined with point and shoot controls. And having played Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition, I felt dual analog games could be strengthened by point and shoot when done properly. I was confident that I would enjoy Corruption. However, having not fully played the previous titles, I passed on this one too.

Some time later I bought Super Metroid (once again on a whim). I thoroughly enjoyed it, and played quite a bit of it, though to date I haven't finished it (I'm having diffuclty beating Ridley, he moves too damn fast). Normally I prefer the 3D offerings of long-standing action series over the 2D games, but this case was the opposite.

Then I hear about the first two Metroid Primes being reworked and relreleased as part of the New Play Control! series. I was excited. Now I could enjoy all of them. But time passed and nothing more was mentioned of them. Pikmin and Mario Tennis saw their transition to Wii but the Prime games were nowhere to be found. Where were they? Metroid Prime Trilogy. Nintendo beat offering two reduced price games with Wii controls by offering 3 for the price of one new game on one disc. How did it turn out? Fantastic.

Obviously I started with the first game. It was everything I imagined it would be. The control was fluid, it was easy to get used to, and before long I was plowing through Space Prirates, Sheegoths, and even those damn Metroids. I beat the game about a couple hours agao and I'm on my way to start the second. I'm probably going to review Trilogy when I'm done with it so keep and eye out for that.