Metroid Prime was undoubtedly a game ahead of its time. It delivers a level of immersion unmatched by any other game of the generation, and I would argue still looks great today... or at least, that was until the remaster came along looking so beautiful that I'd probably find it hard to ever go back to the original if I played it. Tallon IV delivers an excellent atmosphere throughout each of its areas, no doubt helped by the game's superb sound design, and the story paints a somber tone of a long dead civilization, the job of finishing what they started falling to you. That's if you choose to engage with it, of course, as the scanning system provides a mountain of details about the world that are entirely optional to read. I'm personally someone who likes to scan everything, but anybody who finds that to be a pace-killer can largely ignore the feature (...so long as they're not going for 100% completion). Metroid may have slept through the 3D craze of the 90s, but when the series finally woke back up, the result was hailed a masterpiece.
Prime's structure is, however, decidedly different from the series's last supposed masterpiece, Super Metroid. For one, Prime is linear (besides the endgame McGuffin hunt that'd become a Prime series staple). In fact, later releases of the game would specifically patch out exploits that could be used for sequence breaking... perhaps more than any other Metroid game, Prime is explicit that there's a correct way to play it, and it won't tolerate anything else. Metroid Prime drops you in this great, big, diverse world filled with wonder and amazing atmosphere, and then says, “Okay, this is exactly the way you will explore it.”
Linearity is by no means a bad thing, though, regardless of how obsessed the games industry today might be with the term “open world”. Prime's failing comes from the linear path itself that it draws through its world. The game near constantly ping pongs you across the world from one upgrade to the next, forcing you to run from Point A to Point B without the path connecting them changing at all. This comes as a product of the world design, in which Phendrana Drifts and the Tallon Overworld have absolutely no points of direct connection, forcing you to run back and forth the exact same rooms in Magmoor Caverns to get from one area to the other. The game asks you to do this frequently. The entire segment surrounding the acquisition of the Gravity Suit encapsulates this frustration perfectly, as the game funnels you straight to the downed frigate after getting the Ice Beam, an area that made my jaw drop in amazement my first time playing the game, only to place a wall in your way once you get down inside of it and promptly inform you that the upgrade you need to continue is on the exact opposite end of the world. The game has taunted you with a new area to explore, then cut you off before you can actually do so. After the tedious climb out and the journey all the way to Phendrana Drifts for the suit, you quite simply have to turn around and walk the exact same way you came back to the frigate. There is nothing new to explore along the way—the game has done nothing but waste your time and frustrate you.
Metroid Prime is a game that delivered such a sense of wonder playing it as a kid, but now it just feels tedious to get through. I can't deny the fantastic world and atmosphere the game builds, but it feels like the progression is designed to be a slog. Prime is a great experience when you can play the actual game, but too much of it is spent running through the exact same rooms back and forth to get from the place you had to be to the place you have to be.