The tutorial’s over, and it’s time to get going.
In Metroid Prime 1 and 2, everything’s already happened by the time Samus shows up. The Chozo are totally gone before she gets there, and the Luminoth have all but lost their war to continue existing. There’s just one guy left and all he can really do is sit in a temple and hope Samus fixes things. However, this time, we at least get to prevent one ecological disaster. We’re a month late on two of them but that’s still better than a hundred years late like on Aether.
At this point, we can only guess what it was that Dark Samus did, but clearly it got most of the result she wanted: only Samus is still kind of okay, and that’s because she pushed herself too far and was out for a full month, unlike the two weeks for everyone else. I already know what’s up but that’s because I remember the plot. Rather, what I’ve forgotten since I last played is the layout of the game. I recognize rooms and objectives and know roughly what order to do things when we get to them, but I couldn’t give you an objectives list or even necessarily put all the upgrades in order. It’s more that I see something and think, “Oh, we won’t be back here for a while.”