As a revolutionary 3D adaptation of a Nintendo property, Metroid Prime managed to leave a lasting impact on many who played it. Despite being over two decades old, fans of the Metroid Prime series have remained active to this very day. Recently, a group of gamers managed to enhance Metroid Prime on a visual scale that rivals current games.
While originally released on the GameCube back in 2002, for a number of players, Metroid Prime has aged quite well in terms of both gameplay and visuals. Though, in terms of both resolution and frame rate, the hardware of both the GameCube and Wii held back the visual quality of Metroid Prime quite a bit. Now, a small team has created a version of Metroid Prime that is held to modern standards.
A modder named Samus Prime, along with a small group of developers called Team MPR, created an enhanced version of Metroid Prime that runs at 60 fps at a 4K resolution. Gameplay footage was uploaded onto YouTube of this version of Metroid Prime running on the Dolphin Emulator, and the difference in quality is absolutely staggering.
In addition to the enhanced graphics and visual quality, Samus Prime stated that the mod will include restored features from the GameCube release that were removed in the Metroid Prime Trilogy on the Wii, as well as an adjustable field of view slider, and UI customization that allows players to not only customize button inputs but change or remove various aspects of the onscreen HUD.
It's amazing to see how fans have taken it upon themselves to remaster beloved older titles in ways that surpass what the technology was capable of when these older games were first made. Though, it's unfortunate to see some of these fan-made projects shut down by studios, such as the fan remake of Goldeneye 007 that was ended by Nintendo a couple of years back.
In any case, the sheer level of artistry that went into making this mod for Metroid Prime is extremely impressive. The fact that the team used entirely new textures, lighting, and particle effects go to show how much passion the team clearly had when making this. While Metroid Prime 4 won't be able to run at the same resolution as this mod, due to the Nintendo Switch's hardware limitations, it will still be interesting to see what the upcoming fourth installment will bring to the table.
Metroid Prime is available for the Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Wii.