At least I didn’t have to get everything for this!
In other Metroid Prime games, you need 100% item collection to see the true ending. In this game, you just have to remember obscure lore you see around the star system. There’s no logbook in the game for you to check like you could for artifact hints in the first game or Sky Temple Key hints in the second. Rather, you just have to remember the order and know this is where it applies, or else guess and test for a while (which is totally doable if you at least know it’s doing something, I guess. I tried shooting them on the first round but never got the first one, so I didn’t know it was just an order). There was no way I was going back to those locations to figure out the order, so I’m fine with having simply looked it up.
The Omega Cannon was a cool weapon to have at the end. It also gives the impression of being obscenely powerful, so I get why it would be locked away in the Oubliette like that. The Alimbics probably didn’t try it earlier because they thought it would just make Gorea immune to that, too. Good thing that wasn’t the case when Samus used it!
Overall, I can understand why this game got bad ratings. The controls hurt and the boss fights are absurdly long. There’s also effectively one set of instructions for all six hunters and only three separate boss fights, despite fighting nine bosses. At least they made the final boss its own thing? The only reason I went out of my way to pick it up is because apparently the Hunters appear once again in Metroid Prime 4. I think I could have made do with watching someone else’s videos, but there’s something to be said for experiencing the game myself. But this is one Metroid game that I can comfortably put away and never pull out ever again.