In terms of puzzles , bosses and art design , it ' s the best in the series . I feel that it squeezes the most out of the Prime trilogy ' s strengths , but is much less accessible than the other two games because of a few design choices . The slooooow start , slightly awkward beam system and contrived dual world system definitely held it back and probably contributed to the game not being as well received . The game goes uphill rapidly after the Amorbis boss fight because Dark Aether actually becomes possible to navigate in a less tedious fashion . Having your health drain rapidly in a game about exploration was an awful idea . After that point , it ' s an increasingly creative series of puzzles , challenging bosses and awesomely atmospheric environments . Torvus Submerged Temple and Sanctuary Fortress are astounding to this day . One aspect of the Prime trilogy I find interesting is they all use a different system for the beams , and each has its strength and weaknesses . Prime has the 4 different beams that vary on rate of firestrength which makes for good variety , but Plasma is a bit broken and IceWave feel way too slow to be practical . Prime 2 focuses on matching the beams depending on the world you ' re in , and encourages you to balance your usage of them to save ammo , however it can also make it so some players avoid using them at all . Prime 3 just stacks the beams and removes strategy entirely , making the beam more akin to the sword from a Zelda game , as it just gets better as you go .