Any good metroidvania recommendations?

[Grauken]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/252030/discussions/0/684839199108143812/

Spoiler

Timed event

The biggest event that is on a timer happen quite early on. Once you reach the first town you need to go back where you came from asap to fight an optional boss, or he'll disapear after 2 hour of in game time and this will lock you out of a town that you can acces very late in the game.

Another one is the town of hysk (I believe that's the name, the one above the fire temple), one character will eventually ask you to find two items for him, once you do give him these two items everyone in the town will leave after a certain amount of time (which is modified by the amount of retry you used), this means that the shop and the ability to upgrade some armor/weapon will be gone forever. You can give him these item very late in the game.

Also at some point you'll need to re-visit the elder in the first town, otherwise that town will be gone forever. I'm not sure when it is, or what's the time limit (it's pretty long) or when the timer start, just come back here once in awhile, it'll be oubvious when you save the town.

 

[Damned Registrations]

If you haven't played it, Metroid for the NES is a masterpiece. Everyone seems to think it's overshadowed by its descendants now (and for fair enough reasons, because Super Metroid is real good), but in design it's very different from them. It's a devious and hostile game with a weird sense of humour. What's great about it is that it's not afraid to frustrate and disorient the player. There are countless dead-ends and false paths the game leads you on, and rooms that look identical to others. You have so little health initially that it's inevitable you're going to be stumbling around not knowing where to go and dying a lot on first playthrough. There's no guarantee that the room you're going through, full of annoying as fuck enemies that shred your health, will lead to something rewarding 100% of the time, so there's this real atmosphere of dread. And the environment actually feels "alien" in that sense, because games typically try to lead the player to do certain things in a certain order, with level design that rewards exploration etc., whereas Metroid doesn't care about guiding the player at all and is just as likely to punish you for exploration. Upgrades are just things to help alleviate the challenge in some way rather than a new toy to play with.

On paper all this sounds like a shit game, but it's not. I went through a spell of not being interested in games for about five years, then I played Metroid and it made me remember how good games can be

Yep, mixing in 'fuck you' with 'btw now you're a god for the next 2 hours' is what makes exploring fun. Fuck steady, guaranteed progression. If I wanted that I'd play a level based platformer or something.

 

[Grauken]

I recommend Celeste, easy and relaxing

 

[deama]

Played it when it came out and liked it quite a bit, but I remember I stopped playing when I found out there's time-locked content that isn't spelled out anywhere, which pissed me off so much I put off finishing it.
Probably go back to it at some point, felt pretty good in terms of handling and the graphics were good

Oh, I didn't even realise that lol.

 

[Jezal_k23]

I recommend Celeste, easy and relaxing

Celeste is the very opposite of relaxing. 6B, 8B, 5C, 7C, 8C will haunt my dreams forever.

 

[Momock]

B sides and some strawberries are hard (and C sides very hard), but the main game is on the easy side and... relaxing, yes. I think that everybody can finish it.

 

[Nutmeg]

One of the tenents of good game design is that a good player should be rewarded with more challenge, not less.

At best, Metroidvanias don't go against this principle.

I haven't found one that adheres to it.

 

[Damned Registrations]

One of the tenents of good game design is that a good player should be rewarded with more challenge, not less.

At best, Metroidvanias don't go against this principle.

I haven't found one that adheres to it.

Have you heard the word of our lord and saviour, Hollow Knight?

 

[Grauken]

B sides and some strawberries are hard (and C sides very hard), but the main game is on the easy side and... relaxing, yes. I think that everybody can finish it.

Yeah, haha, very unlikely, you seem to have no idea of the skill of the common player

That said, for me playing the game is sorta relaxing once I get into the flow of it, but it really depends on your skill level, if you're not used to these kind of games its probably not relaxing

 

[Grauken]

One of the tenents of good game design is that a good player should be rewarded with more challenge, not less.

At best, Metroidvanias don't go against this principle.

I haven't found one that adheres to it.

Eternal Daughter is pretty hard, made by the guy who also made Spelunky
http://www.derekyu.com/games.html

An Untitled Story, this is harder than Hollow Knight, parts of the whole game are basically the White Palace difficulty level, made by the guy who made Celeste
http://www.mattmakesgames.com/

 

[Damned Registrations]

I played Untitled Story, but I don't remember much of it, certainly not anything teeth gnashingly difficult. Well, white palace is a bit overblown anyways. Didn't know he made Celeste too, maybe I'll give that a shot as well.

Oh, and while I don't consider it a Metroidvania per se, (it's stage based) Iji has a lot in common with the genre and is a very, very good game with some brutal difficulty options.

 

[Grauken]

Iji is hard, but Untitled Story is not, something is wrong with your calibration man, I mean Iji is nice cinematic platformer, but there's nothing difficult about it

 

[Momock]

One of the tenents of good game design is that a good player should be rewarded with more challenge, not less.

Ooooh, so that's why all RPGs are shit? I wondered for so many years!

 

[Damned Registrations]

Iji is hard, but Untitled Story is not, something is wrong with your calibration man, I mean Iji is nice cinematic platformer, but there's nothing difficult about it

 

[Grauken]

Very different kind of difficulty, one battle with basic pattern memorization vs maybe 60% of hard environmental challenges, Untitled Story wins this one hands down

 

[Damned Registrations]

I mostly remember being able to just tank through the environmental 'challenges' and have incredibly frequent checkpoints. Maybe I never bothered with the hardest difficulty? On the hardest difficulty, Iji requires weaving through tons of enemies on every level, with a timer, and not a lot of room for error. Finding secrets requires some stuff like damage boosting as well.

I didn't bring it up as an example of difficulty anyways though, the game is just really good in general. The pain in the ass difficulty just happens to be an option if you're into that, much like Hollow Knight.

 

[Grauken]

I recommend Celeste, easy and relaxing

Celeste is the very opposite of relaxing. 6B, 8B, 5C, 7C, 8C will haunt my dreams forever.

I expect this to give you more content to haunt your dreams forever

 

[Jezal_k23]

I'll play Chapter 9. Let's see what kind of sadistic clusterfuck is in store for us this time...

 

[deama]

Alright so I finished Touhou Luna Nights and it was pretty good actually. It was kinda short though, but good nevertherless. The graze mechanic it has I wasn't sure about, but I quite like it now. Not to mention the time mechanics I thought were done well. Although I do think that the leveling mechanic was kinda useless, you only get very small damage increments, it would have been better if they just removed it and added damage+ items around levels for you to find, and they would give you like +1 or +2 to your damage.

Here's a video for anyone in the future who can't be assed to google:

Spoiler

 

[deuxhero]

If you haven't played it, Metroid for the NES is a masterpiece. Everyone seems to think it's overshadowed by its descendants now (and for fair enough reasons, because Super Metroid is real good), but in design it's very different from them. It's a devious and hostile game with a weird sense of humour. What's great about it is that it's not afraid to frustrate and disorient the player. There are countless dead-ends and false paths the game leads you on, and rooms that look identical to others. You have so little health initially that it's inevitable you're going to be stumbling around not knowing where to go and dying a lot on first playthrough. There's no guarantee that the room you're going through, full of annoying as fuck enemies that shred your health, will lead to something rewarding 100% of the time, so there's this real atmosphere of dread. And the environment actually feels "alien" in that sense, because games typically try to lead the player to do certain things in a certain order, with level design that rewards exploration etc., whereas Metroid doesn't care about guiding the player at all and is just as likely to punish you for exploration. Upgrades are just things to help alleviate the challenge in some way rather than a new toy to play with.

On paper all this sounds like a shit game, but it's not. I went through a spell of not being interested in games for about five years, then I played Metroid and it made me remember how good games can be

The biggest issue with OG Metroid is the world is vertically designed but your shooting directions are extremely limited.

 

[Talby]

On Timespinner, I enjoyed it for the most part, though it is way too easy (I didn't die a single time, not even on bosses, and this was made more infuriating by the game having a Hard mode, but it requires beating it on normal to unlock it) but has very pretty art. It was an OK length for an indie game, about 10 hours.

One thing that kind of soured me to the game towards the end was the sidequests for the band of survivors. It starts off well enough, with you running errands to help them establish a place to live on this hostile planet, but shortly after the quests become strangely fixated on a gay relationship between two male characters, which is written like some dumb teen soap opera thing with you setting up dates and finding gifts, when these are supposed to be two adult soldiers in medieval society. It was really jarring and at odds with the rest of the game which was mostly well written and kept me interested in the main plot.

 

[Dickie_Anderson]

If you haven't played it, Metroid for the NES is a masterpiece. Everyone seems to think it's overshadowed by its descendants now (and for fair enough reasons, because Super Metroid is real good), but in design it's very different from them. It's a devious and hostile game with a weird sense of humour. What's great about it is that it's not afraid to frustrate and disorient the player. There are countless dead-ends and false paths the game leads you on, and rooms that look identical to others. You have so little health initially that it's inevitable you're going to be stumbling around not knowing where to go and dying a lot on first playthrough. There's no guarantee that the room you're going through, full of annoying as fuck enemies that shred your health, will lead to something rewarding 100% of the time, so there's this real atmosphere of dread. And the environment actually feels "alien" in that sense, because games typically try to lead the player to do certain things in a certain order, with level design that rewards exploration etc., whereas Metroid doesn't care about guiding the player at all and is just as likely to punish you for exploration. Upgrades are just things to help alleviate the challenge in some way rather than a new toy to play with.

On paper all this sounds like a shit game, but it's not. I went through a spell of not being interested in games for about five years, then I played Metroid and it made me remember how good games can be

The biggest issue with OG Metroid is the world is vertically designed but your shooting directions are extremely limited.

That's why it's meaningful to get the wave beam, since you have a spread that can get the enemies you usually can't with the normal gun. One of the beautiful things about that game is the way all these frustrating limitations are shed as you get upgrades, and the levels accommodate them. E.g. after you get the screw attack you no longer have to wait and line-up your shot to kill the little spiked enemies that rotate around the platforms in the long vertical rooms, you're just jumping up and killing them effortlessly

 

[flyingjohn]

So here is a pretty stupid question.I am wondering is there any point in trying get into metroidvanias if you are not interested into 2d platformers.
Does the exploration element alone give it a big edge over normal platformers?

 

[Tehdagah]

So here is a pretty stupid question.I am wondering is there any point in trying get into metroidvanias if you are not interested into 2d platformers.
Does the exploration element alone give it a big edge over normal platformers?

Usually Metroidvanias have shallow platfoming so why not.

 

[Grauken]

So here is a pretty stupid question.I am wondering is there any point in trying get into metroidvanias if you are not interested into 2d platformers.
Does the exploration element alone give it a big edge over normal platformers?

Some metroidvanias, say Symphony of the Night for example, have no significant platforming in terms of jumping from platform to platform to avoid damage. You can jump, but the game is more about combat unlike some other games in the genre where pixel-perfect jumping is a required skill.

Just don't start with Hollow Knight or Super Metroid