Batman: Arkham Asylum. It doesn’t come up a lot, because only that first game is a metroidvania and Arkham City might be most people’s favorite in the series, but it absolutely counts. I love Arkham combat. It’s better in the sequels due to some slight tweaks in game feel, but that combat in a metroidvania is just excellent, and the game is just so well paced. It’s a shame what WB did to that studio.
I loved the scarecrow sequences in that. I would love to play more games the effectively fuck with player but it’s very difficult to look for without spoiling yourself and then you’re expecting it.
Have you played the Metal Gear Solid series? If not, don’t look them up beforehand. And this might seem strange, but for the optimal effect, don’t pirate them either.
You know, I’ve always thought of Metroidvanias as 2D experiences - but reading your comment and mulling it over, I have to agree: Arkham Asylum is very much a Metroidvania, and a great one at that!
Metroid Prime. It’s the only series I know of that is fully in the genre and is also not a 2D platformer.
It’s insane to me how many Souls Likes could be 3D Metroidvanias if they used special powers to clear obstacles instead of just keys or random triggers to unlock new areas. That’s really the only thing I see that separates the genres.
Sekiro is closer than any other, but it’s mainly just 1 thing you don’t have in the prologue (the grappling hook). I would love a game that is 3D over a 2D platformer, but also has the unlockable traversal tools the way Metroid or Syphony of the Night had.
Batman: Arkham Asylum should count. Maybe not the later games as much, but definitely Asylum. It’s all about backtracking with new gear to unlock new areas and paths.
The Tomb Raider survivor trilogy scratches the itch a bit as well.
You have traversal tools, but also the different guns are used to solve puzzles and progression may be locked behind having the right guns. I only have 2 of the guns so far where I am in the game but I know there’s several more.
have you tried Supraland? it’s weirdly the closest thing to metroid prime i’ve played in a long time, and it’s got completely the opposite tone. it’s hilarious.
as noted in one of the steam reviews, don’t let the looks fool you. on first glance it seems to be a cheap asset flip, but it’s an extremely tightly designed game with something like 20 hours of content and almost everything is original assets. it has a mishmash of styles because it takes place in a kid’s sandbox, so the different kinds of toys don’t match eachother.
I have a list of Metroidvanias I’ve started but never completed. The only one that managed to hold my attention to completion that wasn’t an actual Metroid title was Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Which is a shame, because Ori and The Blind Forest is beautiful and Hollowknight is very cute, but neither could really hold my attention.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. IMO this is where the series peaked, perfected the formula and delivered a game packed with several large maps and three sets of bonus characters to replay the game with.
if you haven’t played Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night you really, really should. It’s made by the creators behind the Castevania games and is REALLY good.
Are you sure you aren’t confusing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night with Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon? The former is as fluid as SotN, if not more so. The latter is meant to emulate the stiff movement of the original 8-bit Castlevania games.
Edit: I would love for the downvote(s) to say (why/if) they didn’t like dead cells or if they don’t see it as metroidvania. (no discussion about opinions! ☺️)
I always cry internally when somebody doesn’t like the DS and 3DS gimmicks :(
Thanks to you guys we all will only have Steam Deck clones as handhelds from now on! /s
To be honest I think most of the people that don’t like the touch gimmicks are emulating… But I have heard people with stock hardware complaining too :/
The DS is quite literally the only system that I ever sold going as far back as the Atari 2600. I hate, hate , hate how they forced the touch screen gimmicks for it in games that it didn’t belong. It was the only blemish on an otherwise outstanding game in Dawn of Sorrow. It ruined all of the Zelda games made directly for the system IMO.
Yeah, the continued support and extra modes made me so happy to be an early supporter. I also like the more original NES style games of the series and I am very excited for the sequel.
Absolutely yes. It’s timelessly good. I played a bunch of the post-SotN Castlevanias on GBA and such and even with the more advanced systems and everything, none of them hit the same. It’s insane how well they nailed it on their first go.
There really isn’t a remaster, just ports. There’s very little to improve.
I think there may have been some voice re-recordings here or there, but otherwise most versions are pretty much the same. I think the Xbox 360 Live Arcade version is missing some unimportant FMVs and some other minor details, but it’s still completely decent.
It was a secret unlockable in the PSP game Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles with an added character and other stuff, but then you have to deal with the PSP emulation or whatever.
I’d suggest either emulating the original or getting it as a PSOne Classic on PlayStation Store unless some other route is more convenient.
I played it for the 1st time, no nostalgia googles and I didn’t really enjoy the back tracking that much (even using the quick travel spots), the way to get the powers (you kinda need to remember where the monsters are) and discovering the secret rooms felt like a chore to me.
The only Castlevania games that I have played to completion have been Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin of ruin for DS, and regarding the genre, additionally to that, it would be Metroid Zero Mission, Guacamelee! And I think those are the ones I can remember… And I didn’t feel that way with them.
I did enjoy the OST and the graphics a lot though.
I’ll admit that 100%ing (or rather “100%”ing it - iykyk) it can get pretty tiresome, but I actually found that the backtracking wasn’t too bad because the castle map was so good. For some reason I was able to remember a lot of routes in it, but I couldn’t find my way through the later games for the life of me without checking the map screen every five seconds.
As someone who played later entries first and then went back to SotN, IMO it's a bit rough around the edges in comparison. Still a fantastic game, but I think later games managed to improve on it.
You don’t have to have nostalgia for the game to appreciate how wonderfully crafted and expansive it is. It has one of the best soundtracks of any game, period, and its art is highly detailed and numerous. It has a ton of secrets (including one MAJOR secret) and a couple of extra game modes that enhance the replayability.
I would say the game seems to get better every time I play it. Is that nostalgia or something else? There are a lot of games I played before I had ever seen SOTN, yet I don’t feel the same desire to keep replaying them. I think it’s like a piece of classical music or a great movie. The more you replay it, the more details you come to appreciate. The original Deus Ex is like that for me as well.
It’s an fantastic game, as other have already told you. But I’d like to add that there’s a randomizer for it and this basically adds almost infinite replay value (at least for me!)
Played a lot of these in the last two years, with Ender Magnolia and Nine Sols being my favorites among them.
All-time I think I’d still go with Super Metroid, despite its age and having completed multiple playthroughs I still end up playing for hours anytime I boot it.
Honorable mentions for Rabi-Ribi (don’t let the cutesy anime artstyle fool you, this is a fantastic non-linear game with some of the best boss battles in the genre), the recent Momodoragames and the Team Ladybug games (with Touhou Luna Nights being my favorite of the three).
FYI Nine Sols has a “Story Mode” that lets you tweak damage numbers (and AFAIK only locks you out of a single achievement). Knowing that exists was one of the reasons I decided to try the game despite my PTSD from Silksong.
I ended absolutely loving it even though it was crazy hard, and haven’t lowered the difficulty yet. Though right now I’m stuck at the last boss and that may finally force me to do so. 😀
I may have to try putting an emulator on my Steam Deck
I always tought it was standard for pc players to have at least 1 emulator installed, usually Retroarch or Emulation Station.
But since you are willing to give them a shot, try Metroid Fusion too, I admit it’s heavily on rails, but it feels fun and the movement is improved over Super Metroid.
There is a patch to make Super Metroid behave somewhat like MF, but I think playing it vanilla first is fun on it’s own.
Yes. At least I didn’t hit any roadblocks like in Hollowknight where a lot of patience and concentration was required to beat certain bosses and not lose your sanity on the ridiculously long ways to the arena.
i found it when i was trying to do my Sub 3 hours Halo 3 Legendary run with friends. It was super handy for tracking it. I’ve also found the MCC Achievement Tracker pretty handy. It’s made collecting my 477/700 achievements just a little bit easier.
Good luck with CE Laso by the way. I did the first 2 levels with a friend and got stumped on the third, i know how hard it can be
I had an Ouya. I was hoping to use it as an open platform to play games on the TV, but yeah, that didn’t happen. The Raspberry Pi fulfilled that need until I got a Steam Deck.
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