I haven’t played a Metroidvania in a while and I’m looking for suggestions of some good ones to try. Some I would recommend:
Ender’s: Lilies (Magnolias is good too, but play Lilies first. The setting and theme hits better.)
Ori and the Blind Forest / Will of the Wisps (Will of the Wisps did bring a tear to my eye)
Monster Sanctuary (a creature capture metroidvania)
Any system is good, interested to hear of other good ones that are out there.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
It’s only $3 on play store and iPhone store. The phone version has the advantage that you only have to cast/input each spell once, and then you have a button to press.
Symphony of the night is incredible. A bit dated now, but it truly established genre staples.
Hollow knight and silksong are both the best to ever do it IMO
Metroid dread
I would like it so much more if it didn’t have that dumb parry mechanic.
New school: Hollow Knight and Silksong
Old school: Super Metroid
when oldschool is actually more accessible than newschool
More accessible? Please explain.
As in easier?
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.
Hollow Knight didn’t really do it for me so I haven’t tried Silksong yet (I hated not having a map for each area until I purchased one).
I may have to try putting an emulator on my Steam Deck and seeing if Super Metroid holds up.
If you didn’t like Hollow Knight you probably won’t like Silksong either.
The game is good, and incredibly polished, but feels aimed at the people who 100% the first game and wanted more.
Good to know. I did play Hollow Knight for a while but drifted off of it, it is not something that I personally would want to 100%
I’d say the second one was even harder too.
Super Metroid definitely holds up
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.
I don’t care much for metroidvanias but Dust: An Elysian Tail was fun for a playthrough or two.
Besides all the already mentionend games: Shadow Complex (2009) was a good game back then. Nothing special without any real story. But it was fun to play
Seeing as I am old. Super Metroid and Castlevania II: Simom’s Quest. I can… and have played them dozens of times through at this point.
Some of my faves that aren’t Hollow Knight:
- Axiom Verge
- Astalon: Tears of the Earth
- Ender Lilies
- Blasphemous
La-Mulana 1 and 2. They have excellent music, and more importantly, the exploration is a lot more interesting than most metroidvania games. This is because these games are all about puzzles, which come in the form of riddles, lateral thinking, and so forth. You don’t complete any area in one go - rather, each place you can go has information about the other zones, so you criss-cross and cross-reference, completing them piecemeal. Plus, there is a great deal of cultural architecture for each area, making them very distinct. If you want an lengthy and difficult metroidvania that is all about the details, this fits the bill.
The original freeware version of La-Mulana is also worth playing, due to the audio and graphics resembling what could be on the MSX computer.
Its my no.1 genre… i have played A LOT of them. People have already hit on the “big three” - hollow knight, super metroid and castlevania SOTN… heres lesser mentioned gems… sure, they’re not as incredible as those 3 genre topping master pieces, but theyre super super good and worth a play.
- alwas awakening
- tunic*
- hyper light drifter*
- hob*
- Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R)
- Metroid Dread
- castlevania dawn of sorrows/aria of sorrow
- axiom verge
- metroid prime
- castlevania 3
- metroid zero mission
- SM: ancient chozo**
- SM: Ascent**
- 9 Sols
*yes, there could be called “zelda-likes” instead of metroid vanias, but i always felt those two game designs were kissing cousins… if you like one you might like the other.
** these are romhacks…,very very good ones. You need a rom of super metroid and emulator to play em.
Solid list!
but i always felt those two game designs were kissing cousin
I see them as the same genre. You have this “pushing the map’s frontier” mechanic, along with some power or item progression to enable that. The rest is find-and-seek to connect all those dots. IMO, the only major difference is a side vs top-down perspective.
Its true… i think the fundamental formula is that it makes you an explorer first- turns you loose with a very vague objective and lets you discover… map, traversal, sequence skips, w/e and gives you “clues” while letting you feel empowered to do things in your own order/way/time… thus making you feel clever.
Zeldas, you could say, are more linear, more “adventure” in progression than exploration… but its not black n white and each title has varying degrees of freedom
Axiom Verge. I don’t know how they managed to improve on the feeling of Super Metroid, but they did it.
If you havent played the sequel I would recommend it. It definitely is not the same as the original but is still really solid and hopefully there will be further games
Agreed both are really good games. One of the few games I’ve 100%
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The game so good it created the term “Metroidvania” even though the formula was basically “Metroid”.
Does it hold up well for someone who doesn’t have nostalgia for it?
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!)
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.
Should I look for a remaster or emulate the original?
I think the only recent re-release of that game was for the PS4, so unless you have that console it’s probably easier to emulate the original.
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.
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.
Usually old ps1 games just don’t do it for me, but sotn was one of the two exceptions.
Which is the other exception?
I’ll guess Metal Gear Solid but there are plenty of other bangers in the PS1 library.
For me a banger is the Toy Story 2 game, and I am not even joking lol.
I’ll have to try that sometime.
I still play it once every few years. Love that game. Tons of secrets, dont look at any guides until you beat it, and have explored thoroughly.
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.
Which one is your favorite?
Portrait of Ruin
Animal Well is stellar
Seconding Animal Well. I should go back and collect a few more achievements.
i can tell you the one that surprised me the most: Yoku’s Island Express! utterly adorable pinball metroidvania. you’re a little dung beetle pushing a big ball around to deliver mail.
i find that there is so much focus on dark and dreary in the metroidvania genre, which makes sense considering the roots of the genre. me, i get enough of that in my daily life. i want colorful and full of curiosity. the ori games are good for that too, as is supraland, but i don’t know of many more.
That one was a delightful surprise. I enjoyed it thoroughly because I’ve always liked digital pinball as well.
Yoku’s is my favorite pinball platformer metroidvania. I don’t hear about many other people playing it.
