Any good metroidvania recommendations?

[Siveon]

The older I get the more I dislike dark souls.

Controller gives you arthritis?

 

[DraQ]

The older I get the more I dislike dark souls.

Controller gives you arthritis?

I never could into controller.

When playing Ori I resorted to defining a custom control scheme - as befits the member of the Glorious PC Master Race - using KB and mouse, since the original KB controls are made with spider or octopus in mind.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

The older I get the more I dislike dark souls.

Well it's a known fact that as one gets older one loses taste

 

[deama]

The older I get the more I dislike dark souls.

Controller gives you arthritis?

Oh no, I hate controllers/consoles with a passion!
It's to do with me just not being as good at high grade reflex games the older I get, especially when one or two hits from bosses just kill you.

The older I get the more I dislike dark souls.

Well it's a known fact that as one gets older one loses taste

More like my tastes just get more refined and I start seeing more problems with the game.

 

[Beastro]

FWIW, the wraith blade has a slow wind up to kill a vamp, that if the vamp came out of a daze, they could easily dodge or another could interrupt, making the spears a good back up to grab and keep with you even if you had max health. The spears remained my primary weapon with the wriath blade being a back up until the reaver could shoot bolts allowing me to by pass most combat from then on.

Unless augmented with TK and imbued with fire, the Reaver also can't snipe vamps dead from a distance.
Thrown staves/spears/stakes can.

Which is the final upgrade in the games path for it, but one that still is countered by the fact that the fire effect is lost going to the spectral realm and so you're stuck having to rely on what little fire you can find in dungeons towards the end.

Before finishing Rahab for swimming to the fire forge I'd just spam the TK effect until all the vamps in my path were dazed before running by.

 

[Grauken]

Just finished Yoku's Island Express, a sort of fusion of exploration-driven 2d game and a pinball machine. I'm not saying metroidvania (although it's billed as one), as there are only two major abilities you get that lets you go into new areas (diving and swinging around), but you have to collect various colors for your dung ball (your character is a dung beetle) and use them like in an adventure, to get past certain situations. It's not a platformer, you never get the ability to jump, either you propel yourself forward by using the various flippers all over the island or you catch a slug and then explode them in such a way that you're propelled wherever you want to go.

The game is certainly one of odder combinations of gameplay elements I've seen, but once you get over the hurdle of not being able to jump (that drove me a bit crazy in the beginning as its just so ingrained in 2d games), it's a lot of fun. Probably helps if you like pinball machines. The graphic style is a bit too much one the cute side, but otherwise everything looks nice.

And while the game is pretty easy, some of the challenges can be somewhat tricky (the swinging around mechanic expect a precision that is unusual in a game that is otherwise pretty lenient) and the constant presence of new pinball challenges make the game fun to play right up to the end.

I don't think it's for everyone (most people here probably get stopped cold by the graphics) but its such an unusual mix that actually works quite well, so if this sounds like your thing, definitely worth the time.

 

[Esteban5XG]

Dead Cells. No doubts! Really good gameplay, lots of hours playing the game. Highly recommended.

 

[Grauken]

Jason mentioned the remake of Wonder Boy III: Dragon's Trap on page one. I recently played through all the old version (89 SMS, 90 PCE and the 91 GG) and the Steam remake, and while I would say that shit controls and terrible hit boxes make the original less fun to play (although the PCE ones has much better controls than the SMS one and the GG was completely redesigned to fit the small screen and feels a bit different), the Steam remake pretty much rectified 90% of all those issues and is just a joy to play. Sadly, it's also a very short game (Steam tells me I played 4 hours, and at least 1 or more of those was spent farming money), but what is there, is just fun and the remade graphics looks awesome. I wish there were more remakes like this that improve controls and visuals, while still remaining pretty faithful to the original.

 

[J1M]

Dust is amazing if you go into it knowing that it was made entirely by one guy.

 

[deama]

Dead Cells. No doubts! Really good gameplay, lots of hours playing the game. Highly recommended.

God no, not dead cells... I hate it!

 

[Grauken]

Played a bit of A Robot Named Fight, and for me its biggest flaw is its roguelike nature. I don't mind this in Spelunky for example, its a fast game and each death just motivates you to try again and again, and often dying feels hilarious. In ARNF death feels just like I wasted a lot of time. The gameplay is really slow and deliberate, with a big map, and seeing all the progress undone just doesn't entice me to play more

And while it's probably the best roguelike metroidvania map generation I've seen, it's still a far cry from hand-crafted levels. I really wish they included a single campaign with a fixed map with all the content and save points, and the roguelike mode as an extra. For me this just shows that you can't really mix metroidvania level structure and roguelike and make it look good

 

[Wunderbar]

Anyone played Darksiders 3 yet?
I heard that you can beat bosses in different order and there are powers that open the world for you (like ability to swim in lava).

 

[deama]

Anyone played Darksiders 3 yet?
I heard that you can beat bosses in different order and there are powers that open the world for you (like ability to swim in lava).

I heard darksiders 3 is shit though.

 

[Grauken]

Played a bit of A Robot Named Fight, and for me its biggest flaw is its roguelike nature. I don't mind this in Spelunky for example, its a fast game and each death just motivates you to try again and again, and often dying feels hilarious. In ARNF death feels just like I wasted a lot of time. The gameplay is really slow and deliberate, with a big map, and seeing all the progress undone just doesn't entice me to play more

And while it's probably the best roguelike metroidvania map generation I've seen, it's still a far cry from hand-crafted levels. I really wish they included a single campaign with a fixed map with all the content and save points, and the roguelike mode as an extra. For me this just shows that you can't really mix metroidvania level structure and roguelike and make it look good

All that said (which is still true), the game is fucking addictive, can't stop playing. So if roguelike + metroidvania scratch your itch, this is pretty good, just expect to have lots of rage-inducing moments when a run goes well and you die because you fall into a pit in a dark level and can't find the exit

 

[Damned Registrations]

Played a bit of A Robot Named Fight, and for me its biggest flaw is its roguelike nature. I don't mind this in Spelunky for example, its a fast game and each death just motivates you to try again and again, and often dying feels hilarious. In ARNF death feels just like I wasted a lot of time. The gameplay is really slow and deliberate, with a big map, and seeing all the progress undone just doesn't entice me to play more

And while it's probably the best roguelike metroidvania map generation I've seen, it's still a far cry from hand-crafted levels. I really wish they included a single campaign with a fixed map with all the content and save points, and the roguelike mode as an extra. For me this just shows that you can't really mix metroidvania level structure and roguelike and make it look good

All that said (which is still true), the game is fucking addictive, can't stop playing. So if roguelike + metroidvania scratch your itch, this is pretty good, just expect to have lots of rage-inducing moments when a run goes well and you die because you fall into a pit in a dark level and can't find the exit

You know, what someone really needs to do is make a 'metroidvania maker'. Even if you couldn't make your own items and enemies, just being able to place everything and draw your own map would result in a good variety of really good map layouts from people that enjoy that sort of thing. And you could do clever things like make boss rush variants or layouts where you have to pick mutually exclusive upgrades or paths.

 

[Grauken]

Maybe, but then a few years later everybody would complain about countless, cheap, samey metroidvanias from that engine. Just look at RPGMaker games, they flood the market so much that even people who like old-school jRPGs don't touch them because the ratio of quality to dross is just too prohibitive for many to try to find the few good gems

 

[Siveon]

Maybe, but then a few years later everybody would complain about countless, cheap, samey metroidvanias from that engine. Just look at RPGMaker games, they flood the market so much that even people who like old-school jRPGs don't touch them because the ratio of quality to dross is just too prohibitive for many to try to find the few good gems

Well, they complain about the obvious ones, typically. Stock assets is bad form, and RPG Maker tends to play wrong too. I'm talking poor controller support, sprites that don't scale to high resolutions, sharp as hell movement that feels NES-like, and a really clunky default combat engine everyone uses.

There are good RPG Maker games though, and with enough care people can overlook 'em.

 

[Grauken]

What I really want is a Wizardry-type maker

 

[Siveon]

What I really want is a Wizardry-type maker

That exists, in Java, IIRC. And I believe there's templates that let RPG Maker form as a Wizardry-maker of sorts.

 

[deama]

Played a bit of A Robot Named Fight, and for me its biggest flaw is its roguelike nature. I don't mind this in Spelunky for example, its a fast game and each death just motivates you to try again and again, and often dying feels hilarious. In ARNF death feels just like I wasted a lot of time. The gameplay is really slow and deliberate, with a big map, and seeing all the progress undone just doesn't entice me to play more

And while it's probably the best roguelike metroidvania map generation I've seen, it's still a far cry from hand-crafted levels. I really wish they included a single campaign with a fixed map with all the content and save points, and the roguelike mode as an extra. For me this just shows that you can't really mix metroidvania level structure and roguelike and make it look good

All that said (which is still true), the game is fucking addictive, can't stop playing. So if roguelike + metroidvania scratch your itch, this is pretty good, just expect to have lots of rage-inducing moments when a run goes well and you die because you fall into a pit in a dark level and can't find the exit

You know, what someone really needs to do is make a 'metroidvania maker'. Even if you couldn't make your own items and enemies, just being able to place everything and draw your own map would result in a good variety of really good map layouts from people that enjoy that sort of thing. And you could do clever things like make boss rush variants or layouts where you have to pick mutually exclusive upgrades or paths.

I think that's released in japan, it's I think called action maker MV? Allows you to make top down or side scrolling action based games, which shouldn't be too hard to add in some metroidvania things to it.
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/action-game-maker-mv-announced-for-pc.121731/
Might get translated soon.

EDIT: Doesn't seem that great so far:

 

[Damned Registrations]

What I had in mind was less long the lines of RPG Maker and more along the lines of Mario maker: a simple map editor built on top of a good engine. There's a fair number of randomly generated action platformy games these days, but often their problem is as much bad mechanics as it is bad map layouts.

 

[lightbane]

One obscure and recent Metroidvania game I recommend is Orphan. In development for several years, it's pretty much an one-man only project and it shows (there's only one voice-acted character for example but it's done quite well), but the game has its charm. Imagine Limbo combined with Prey (the classic one, not the new one), Abe's Oddyssey, Axiom Verge and you'll have something like it. Too bad the game is quite short and with no replay value.

 

[Grauken]

One obscure and recent Metroidvania game I recommend is Orphan. In development for several years, it's pretty much an one-man only project and it shows (there's only one voice-acted character for example but it's done quite well), but the game has its charm. Imagine Limbo combined with Prey (the classic one, not the new one), Abe's Oddyssey, Axiom Verge and you'll have something like it. Too bad the game is quite short and with no replay value.

You mean this one https://store.steampowered.com/app/549700/Orphan/?

It looks more like a cinematic platformer (aka Flashback, Another World, BlackThorne) than a metroidvania. Can you give a bit more feedback why you think it fits the metroidvania label? Just wanna sure before I get it

 

[lightbane]

There's a small hub with different zones that you must travel to collect a special device in each place. Said devices are always protected by bosses that you have to defeat. Then you must bring them back to a certain zone in order to continue and unlock new weapons.

Now that I think about it, you could consider it "metroidvania-lite", as what you unlock are in most cases new weaponry to deal with your foes (and bosses) better. There are a few items hidden here and there that give you a small boost in some way (ie: More health, a bigger backpack to carry more stuff, a miner's helmet to have a flashlight to let you have your hands free, etc.). Theoretically you can do most of the subzones in any order IIRC, although therere's a certain boss that will sodomize you to death if you don't go back and acquire all other weapons before facing him, since the last one you acquire before facing him (a rapid-fire plasma gun with a static shield) is a must to survive its highly damaging and precise attacks.

The game world is a bit small, but there are many hidden rooms that will give you rewards for finding them.

The best part of the game IMO is the atmosphere and absolute lack of hand-holding: There are no checkpoints and you must save manually in specific places, you're told the bare minimum and expect to discover the rest yourself, if you're killed you will go back to the last place you saved no matter how far that is, etc.

 

[Grauken]

Something really clever A Robot Named Fight is doing is having multiple upgrades with the same purpose, even if they are slightly different mechanically. Say, you need to get to high places, so you can get either infinite jumps, a jetpack or a suit that reverse gravity. You need to get through tiny passages, you get either an upgrade that lets you slide on the ground, or one that transform you into a little spider-drone. So far, that makes each run really feel different, added with all the multiple weapons you can get, various utility and attack drones and so on.