Well, it turned out wife had a Wii that was at their parent's house all this time, so she got that one day when picking up the kiddos from babysitting duty, and I got Prime Trilogy for Wii and I finally got to play Echoes and Corruption.
Echoes I liked, but I didn't love it. I liked the story and the lore, but the game itself I had several issues with. The idea of the Dark World is awesome. But in practice, I found myself devolving into sitting in the light bubbles to heal and going into another room to like make a sandwich, do my taxes, etc way too much. Halted the pace of the game for me, and the bosses largely just ended up being bigger version of henchmen I fought too often. I also didn't love the lack of save points. So when I am like nearly dead from the Alpha Bog or Spider Guardian and I don't want to do those tedious fights again, I have to hope I can find a safe light bubble and make a sandwich and do tedious work to get to a save. Emperor Ing was a cool final fight, but I had a lot more trouble with Metroid Prime in the 1st game. I don't mind this game was way harder overall than Prime was, but too many things made this one a bit of a slog. Also, they found a way to take the worst part of Prime 1 (the Chozo Artifact fetch quest) and make it even worse with the Light Keys. I wanted to love it for the lore and the cool Sanctuary Fortress level, but I just merely liked it.
And my hot take is Echoes is the worst of the Prime Trilogy for me, cause Corruption was awesome! I dislike the Wii mote in general, but Prime 3 made me like them in that game. It was too easy, I would agree there. But far more fun to play. Bosses had more variety, always felt like the game had momentum and I didn't have to sit and wait, and it was just more intuitive. I would agree that the game doesn't emphasize exploration like Metroid games should, but as a finale to the Phazon Trilogy, I am okay with this one being grander in scale and more story/action focused. Reminded me of Fusion in that way. I wouldn't want every Metroid game like this, but I don't hate this one being that way. Levels are awesome, especially Sky Town. Hypermode does make the game too easy and it should have been nerfed somewhat, but even so the game was just so much more fun to play.
So I was a big fan of Corruption, and luke warm on Echoes. I would play both if they remastered them for Switch though. Maybe the Prime Remastered controls would help alleviate some issues I had with Echoes. In particular the faulty Morph Ball jumping/bombing (which made the Spider Guardian boss fight a wall punching experience in that last puzzle) or the Screw Attack which just didn't work in Echoes half the time for me (but in Corruption, it was smooth as butter).
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