Talking Point: Can Metroid Prime 4’s Title Screen Go As Hard As The Others?

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes features one of the finest title screens of all time.

It kicks off with glowing edges and shadows, reminiscent of a Bond opening. However, instead of bare bodies and was-that-a-nipple, there’s something grotesque, alien, and strikingly FMV hidden in the gloom.

There are those signature Prime-like choir synthesizers, which could be the sorrowful echoes of a long-lost civilization or merely a planet’s history voiced.

Furthermore, the text comes with such incredible panning, scanning, and an overall UI extravagance, featuring a honeycombed screen texture and darting letters flickering on and off — some letters from Retro Studios Game morph into Metroid — along with sounds that are half hacking and half insect-like trills, accompanied by a heartbeat sound underneath.

The choir hits one note higher for the fourth tone, with two more lub-dub beats before a pivotal pause, and then that drop of the main theme, crystal clear and vibrant – a signal from the cosmos. Then comes the best part! That peculiar shimmer-shudder noise as the Metroid Prime 2 title materializes on the screen. You can sense it in your ASMR gland.

And don’t get me started on the feeling of grand heroism when the last two notes of the phrase rise as the melody repeats.

A significant portion of the Prime series’ charm is found here. The ambiance, music, the mechanical scanning, and interacting with worlds both historical and natural, and you haven’t even hit Start! (You should hit Start.)

However, perhaps you prefer the original Prime more; the eerie crackle and fade-in of Nintendo and Retro Studios presents, the Lucozade orange that may resemble a Metroid’s innards, and the haunting adaptation of the main theme.

The 2023 remaster ‘adjusts’ the brief animation cycle, causing the tendril to sway up and down but it appears somewhat silly. That abrupt VHS loop in the original had the unsettling essence of found footage, akin to a crime scene.

Yet, the title screen was beyond a mere flashy entryway, a pleasing corridor to the abode (read: perilous planet). It established the mood, outlined the game. And in my recollection, it’s now an integral part of the game’s texture and movement: When you hit Start, it makes that little swing into another part of the Metroid (with more bioelectric fizzing), and then after selecting your save, there’s that swooping guided tour and slow fade-out.

This sequence of that spacey intro theme followed by the more upbeat choral blast of the file selection, preceding Samus’s emergence to that iconic five-note fanfare, is a rhythm as inseparably entwined in my mind as the track order on an album. After In The End comes A Place For My Head.

Goodness, I haven’t even played Prime 3 yet somehow I ‘remember’ the title screen, likely just from some YouTube exploration. But it still resonated because it rocks, with that tragic, vaguely feminine siren synth and an ink blot of infestation across text that’s unified like cells.

Distinctly Prime, with that fusion of the organic and the technological, and you can overlook that overly lengthy fade-to-black and the silly font of ‘Corruption’ because in the latter part of the tune, there’s that desperate high note wail as the Terminator drums make their entrance.

So impressive. Who even needs to engage with the game?! (I do, Nintendo – please unveil those remasters.)

Yet, perhaps you lean towards the 2D Metroid title screens, and I can appreciate that.

You might favor the cinematic Super Metroid, with its piercing alarm escalation before that full-screen unveiling of bodies eerily still beside a motioning (but still confined?) Metroid at the center, the rich bass rolling in waves resembling a planet’s heartbeat.

Or the stars and surface of the original Metroid and Zero Mission, commencing with the crust of the world before delving beneath. Or the impressively eerie off-key discordance of the Metroid 2 screen, that transitions into a tune that incorporates the low health alarm as a sample/anxiety trigger. Wild!

Or perhaps you enjoy the more straightforward Metroid font seen in the Mercury Steam games, lacking the slant that provides that Star Wars-style sense of vastness and adventure. (Why would you favor this?)

Some individuals are wary about Prime 4 due to a motorbike in a PS2 desert, which is understandable, I suppose. I personally think it looks cool, and am thrilled at the potential for more Prime. More of that gradual accumulation of knowledge and skills, the substantial sensation of squelching and crunching as you wander through breathtaking biomes, the organic curve of alien design.

But also the joy of interacting with something so beautiful and evocative that I might still contemplate its title screen 20 years down the line.