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Areas Covered:<\/strong> Landing Site Bravo<\/p>\n Discussion Points: <\/strong>Visual design of the Pirate Homeworld, space pirate lore scans, looping environments in the Metroid series, the use of acid rain, x-ray visor<\/p>\n Considering the Space Pirates’ feverish hate for federation bounty hunters named Samus Aran, it’s bewildering that they’d simply allow her to steer her ship right on through to their command and research centres without any kind of safeguard or inspection. In any case, we’re here now, let’s make the most of it!<\/p>\n Visually, the Pirate Homeworld shares the same dark, ominous tone of GFS Valhalla, the key exception being that the landscape is draped in a confronting, bloodshot red fog. Perhaps it’s over saturated, but, as with the Dark World in Metroid Prime 2<\/em>, it seems uncharacteristically dark by intentionally drawing together design elements which clash and overpower one another. It’s ugly enough to instill repulsion without the game appearing artistically flawed.<\/strong> The red is very overpowering, working with the enclosed architecture to almost suffocate the player.<\/p>\n The pirate lore scans in this area, as has been the case with the other pirate entries from the previous two games, are absolutely fascinating to read as they throw light on the fringe operations of the rogue group in a way characterized by the pirates themselves. The lore scans here also serve to fill in the blanks on the pirate’s exploits since Metroid Prime 2<\/em>, including their recent allegiance with Dark Samus. The scans, written from the perspective of the pirates, depict Dark Samus as something of a messiah, who through uniting the race with phazon, has finally given the pirates strength in the ongoing battle against the Galactic Federation. I know the space pirates are an over-zealous bunch\u2014the previous games have said this much\u2014but they seem of either complete desperation or completely warped by the involvement of Dark Samus. Maybe it’s got something to do with her influence over the processing of phazon. I’m curious to see how this whole saga ends.<\/p>\n The Metroid games always operate in a hub environment with an overworld connecting to a series of smaller areas. Each of these individual areas are designed so that the player ends up looping around, returning to their point of entry (or similar) in the overworld. This looping dynamic is either designed in a linear fashion, wherein the environment itself loops around or by relying on backtracking which\u2014on the reverse path\u2014rejigs the route so that the latest weapon upgrades can be utilized, thereby making the retread enjoyable. That’s not to say that the former doesn’t also tutor the newly-acquired weapon upgrades, it does, but it’s just progressional with the linear path, rather than relying on a rejigged environment etc.<\/strong> We’ve discussed both design techniques<\/a> and their application<\/a> numerous times before in this series, I just hadn’t really put it forward so discreetly yet. So in saying this, the Landing Site Bravo area relies on a linear route which loops through at the gate of the first floor elevator. It also ties in nicely with the map station which is concealed from players when they first make entry into the environment.<\/p>\nLanding Site Bravo (Pirate Homeworld)<\/h3>\n