Developer : Nintendo
Release date : November 15, 2004
Synopsis :
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is an action-adventure game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. The sequel to Metroid Prime (2002) and the first Metroid game with a multiplayer feature, Echoes was released in North America, Europe and Australia in 2004 and in Japan under the name Metroid Prime 2: Dark Echoes[a] in May 2005.
The story of Echoes follows bounty hunter Samus Aran after she is sent to rescue Galactic Federation Marines from a ship near Aether, a planet inhabited by a race known as the Luminoth. She discovers that the troops were slaughtered by the Ing, a hostile race that came from an alternate dimension of Aether. Samus must travel to four temples to ensure the destruction of the Ing, while battling the Ing, wild creatures, Space Pirates, and her mysterious doppelgänger Dark Samus.
Retro sought to differentiate the game from its predecessor, with a heavier focus on storytelling and new gameplay mechanics. Nintendo launched a viral marketing campaign to promote the game that included several websites written as if taking place in the Metroid universe. The game’s single-player mode was acclaimed by critics, citing its graphics, atmosphere and music, though its steep difficulty and multiplayer mode were met less positively. Since its release, Echoes has received several video game industry awards, as well as spots on “top games” lists by Nintendo Power and IGN. Over 800,000 copies of the game were sold worldwide. In 2009, an enhanced version was released for Wii as a standalone game in Japan and as part of Metroid Prime: Trilogy internationally.
While looking for the Marines near Aether, Samus’s ship is damaged by severe lightning storms from the planet. Said storms have caused electromagnetic interference that prevented the Marines from communicating with the Federation. Samus finds the troops dead and surrounded by hive creatures called Splinters. The deceased Marines suddenly rise and attack her, apparently possessed, and she fights them off. Samus then encounters her evil doppelgänger, Dark Samus, for the first time, and after a small skirmish Dark Samus jumps through a portal. Samus decides to follow her through it and ends up on Dark Aether, a vile trans-dimensional duplicate of Aether, where she is attacked by a group of dark creatures called Ing, who capture Samus and after stealing the weapons from her suit, throw her back through the portal.
Upon returning to Aether, Samus learns that the Marines were attacked and killed by Ing-possessed Splinters, and decides to enter a nearby alien temple structure to look for clues. When she reaches the structure, she meets U-Mos, the last remaining sentinel of the Luminoth, an alien race that have fought against the Ing for decades. They are now on the verge of defeat. He tells Samus that after a meteor struck Aether, the impact was so devastating, it created “Dark Aether”, from which the Ing spawned. He also tells Samus that the Ing have taken virtually all of the ‘Light of Aether’, the entire collective planetary energy for Aether that keeps the planet stable, and begs her to retrieve it, for if either world gains all this energy, the other will perish. To help reclaim the part of Aether’s energy taken by the Ing, she makes use of an energy transfer module, which the Ing that possessed the Alpha Splinter she fought just before the structure just so happened to have.
Samus goes to three regions—the Agon Wastes, a parched, rocky, desert wasteland region; Torvus Bog, a drenched swamp area that houses a partially submerged hydrosubstation; and the Sanctuary Fortress, a highly advanced cliffside fortress built by the Luminoth filled with corrupted robots that serves as the Ing hive in Dark Aether—to retrieve the Light of Aether and return it to the Luminoth temples. Samus fights Space Pirates, Dark Samus, and monstrous Ing guardians on her mission. After Samus retrieves three pieces of the Light of Aether, she enters the Ing’s Sky Temple and faces the Emperor Ing, the strongest Ing who guards the remaining Light of Aether. Samus defeats the creature and retrieves the last remaining energy, causing Dark Aether to become critically unstable and begin to collapse; however, her path out of the temple’s gateway is blocked by a horribly altered and unstable Dark Samus. After defeating her foe in the final battle, Samus is surrounded by a group of Warrior Ing desperate to save their world and their lives; she escapes to Aether through a newly revealed portal just before Dark Aether and the Ing disappear.
Returning to U-Mos, Samus finds that the Luminoth were in a state of hibernation but have now awakened. After a brief celebration, Samus leaves Aether in her repaired gunship. If the player completes the game with all of the items obtained, Dark Samus is shown reforming herself above Aether.
Source : Wikipedia
