Darn, I always miss the big arguments where I'd be able to cause more damage. =P
Anyway, being on holiday, and having a good chance to re-try it out, I find myself replaying through Metroid Prime, this time sober.
And I gotta say, I have a BIG newfond appreciation for it. I still have the same complaints about it as always, stuff like no strafing and having to stop to point still don't make much sense, and the overly big amount of scanning you have to do could have been reduced. But I can see that Retro Studios did a work of love in this game. Enough logs to seem like a Bioware game, a damn perfect translation of the Metroid gameplay into a first-person perspective, graphics that hold up with beauty even today, and damn, this shows Nintendo had the balls to do something amazingly new and excellent without being dicks and re-releasing Metroid with Metroid gameplay and Metroid design. It's pretty much the most perfect translation of a 2D franchise into 3D I've ever seen since Ocarina of Time.
The gameplay also feels like it should. Samus runs and jumps around naturally, the Morph Ball is a dream to move around, and everything fits so well I feel kinda guilty about not giving it the full appreciation it deserved earlier.
I'm hoping Team Ninja manage this big of a splash with Other M.