"Corruption has virtually no dynamic lighting."
There's a virtually absolute statement. And it doesn't hold up.
"I also tested bombs and morph ball mode. Bombs make a big pretty explosion with a giant glowing halo effect, but that's not dynamic lighting that's just a glowing texture."
The "dynamic lighting" in the previous Prime games were just glowing triangles, that lit up and travelled along with some source, whether it's a standard Power Beam pellet or a rolling Morph Ball. They lit up per triangle, not exclusively the texture. The different speeds produce different impressions, but it's the same principle effect among all 3 games. We're dealing with the same GameCube tech in all 3 games, afterall. The same technique is emphasized for flashlight lighting in Resident Evil 4 and Eternal Darkness. The lighting appearance looks more appealing and gradual when there's an abundance of triangles, traditionally on main characters (Prime 2, REmake, RE4).
Prime3 just has clearly different aesthetic priorities. Beam Weapon lighting may have been a big deal in the first Prime in the first year of GameCube's life, but it's old news. Bloom is the new baby, and dynamic triangle gimmicks have been de-emphasized. Sanctuary Fortress in Prime2 comprised a good 1/3 of the game, and the majority of Prime3 became a techno-wonderland (as opposed to earthy-organic), with many surfaces blooming just for the sake of blooming. Additionally, Prime3 surfaces don't light up unless the "source" is close enough -- in Prime1&2, everything seemed to want to light up anyway, otherwise you just didn't see other eye candy alternatives applied, just reliable dull surfaces.
I'm also under the suspicion that bloom lighting isn't "compatible" with the glowing triangle method, and bloom will have priority. The bloom on a surface can be sufficiently bright, and I won't see them lit by Beam Weapons at all -- no superposition, no combined color values to produce greater brightness intensity.
Prime3 has no depth-of-field blurring.
StarFox Adventures > Metroid Prime 3
What's missing in Prime3 isn't the dynamic lighting, it's those dark earthy/organic environments that we spent so much time in the previous games that helped highlight the lighting. WE ALSO DON'T HAVE A WATER STAGE.
"Are there some good YouTube videos we can look at for comparison? That would be helpful."
No.