Review: Metroid Prime: Federation Force

Metroid Prime: Federation Force does a lot to limit its accessibility, and that’s largely why it fails.

Next Level Games’ newest title takes place during the Metroid Prime franchise — smack in the middle between the first two, original Metroid titles. Sadly, Federation Force does away with the first-person, horrific feel of the Prime series and offers up a four-player co-operative shooter instead.

You’re going to need all four players, too.

Federation Force doesn’t work well as a solo affair. With around 25 levels spread over three distinct planets, each level throws your space marine against screens full of enemies. With diverse and colourful offerings presented in each level, you’re required to bounce around and destroy everything that’s thrown at you. The trouble is, the level of difficulty thrown at one person is the same as it is for four — and things have been balanced for the latter amount of players, too. On top of this, the fact that there isn’t a checkpoint system made me want to throw my 3DS across the room in frustration many, many times.

Making things worse, you’re able to team up with mates… provided you’re all at the same point in the main campaign’s story. If not, you’ll have to wait until everyone has caught up. Level select be damned, it seems.

Thankfully, Federation Force has a great, Rocket League-esque game mode called Blast Ball which can help alleviate boredom while you’re syncing main saves. The only portion of the title available for Download Play — which means that friends who don’t have a copy of the game can still join in — Blast Ball is a three-on-three affair that lets you use your blasters to try to score points in a sci-fi football affair. The mode is also a great tutorial for the main game itself.

Balancing issues aside, combat works well for any type of 3DS. While the New varieties can opt to use the c-nub-stick to aim rather than motion controls, it’s almost better not to; the default controls are aided by an auto-sim feature which is quite reliable. That being said, it does have a tendency to fail when there are too many baddies on the screen at one time. While you can opt for upgrades before each mission, they’re not really essential (though NPC helpers almost can bridge the gap if you’re playing solo). Nor, for that matter, is exploration — and both of these things help to make a Metroid title just that.

Who needs series’ staples when you have amiibo though, right? The game will offer up a special mech paintjob for any non-Metroid figurines, Samus’ armour and 10 extra missiles using that amiibo and a Zero Suit paintjob and more Slow Beam ammo with that particular figurine.

Federation Force isn’t bad — especially when you factor in Blast Ball — but it’s not going to fill the hunger felt by most franchise fans. It doesn’t work as a single-player offering, and those who want to play with friends will need to exert ridiculous levels of willpower and patience to get games in. If you’re willing to give it a go with mates, synch things up ahead of time for the least amount of stress.

Metroid Prime: Federation Force was reviewed using a promotional code on the New 3DS XL, as provided by the publisher.

Review: Metroid Prime: Federation Force

The good Blast Ball is the bomb. Diverse. Decent motion controls.	The bad Balanced for four players. Difficult to get four players actually playing. Little exploration and emphasis on upgrades.

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