Any good metroidvania recommendations?

[J1M]

Has anyone mentioned RoboBlitz? I'd rather people play a good game that has metroid elements than bad imitators.

 

[mwnn85]

Axiom Verge is currently free on the Epic Store.

Don't think the world really needed another storefront/drm client though.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

Dead Cells. It's good!!

 

[Villagkouras]

What is an RPG a metroidvania?

 

[Grauken]

What is an RPG a metroidvania?

A miserable little pile of gameplay elements!

 

[Grauken]

 

[J1M]

Just finished Yoku's Island Express.

An interesting game that I would categorize as a Metroidvania in terms of structure. However, the jumping and shooting elements have been replaced with pinball. Not a difficult game, but enjoyable and it ends before it overstays its welcome.

 

[BlackGoat]

Gato Roboto just came out. Beat it in like 3 hours, pretty close to 100%. It's basically babby's first Metroid. Cute and enjoyable enough but for someone with any real experience with the genre it pretty much plays itself.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/916730/Gato_Roboto/

 

[Exhuminator]

It's hard to beat this:

 

[Momock]

It's hard to beat this:

It was beaten long ago, but not by many. So yeah it's hard.

I'm kind of worried about Bloodstained since I don't think that being another Castlevania game will be enougth anymore. Will see. Maybe it will be enougth to have at least a good time?

 

[Exhuminator]

It was beaten long ago, but not by many.

In your opinion, what metroidvanias beat Ecclesia as pinnacles of the genre?

 

[Grauken]

1. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
2. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
3. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
4. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
5. Castlevania: Spectral Interlude

 

[Momock]

In your opinion, what metroidvanias beat Ecclesia as pinnacles of the genre?

And don't know about "pinnacles", two games can be of the same genres and take different directions equally valids.

And define metroidvania just in case, depending of the person it can mean different things.
If it really is about metroid + RPG and only that then maybe Ecclesia is the best I guess, yeah.
If it's about everything metroidesque then there is Hollow Knight, Envinonmental Station Alpha, Ori, Knytt Underground, La-Mulana...

 

[Grauken]

Ecclesia is not a proper Metroidvania, instead of one massive world, its world is chopped into little pieces, similar to Clash at Demonhead or the Shaman King games, which means that the overall level design is far inferior in terms of path complexity

 

[Exhuminator]

And don't know about "pinnacles", two games can be of the same genres and take different directions equally valids.

And define metroidvania just in case, depending of the person it can mean different things.
If it really is about metroid + RPG and only that then maybe Ecclesia is the best I guess, yeah.

I wasn't being pedantic to that extent honestly.

Let me put it another way; what are the best metroidvanias in YOUR personal opinion, which were created after Ecclesia?

Example: I would put Guacamelee! up there as a 9/10 metroidvania which was created post-Ecclesia.

 

[Momock]

Let me put it another way; what are the best metroidvanias in YOUR personal opinion, which were created after Ecclesia?

Example: I would put Guacamelee! up there as a 9/10 metroidvania which was created post-Ecclesia.

I edited my post. I didn't put Guacamelee or Strider since I think they're very good but not great. Maybe because of the map? (it gives to much information, tells you where to go, etc)

Edit: Castle in the Darkness was awesomne too. Can't wait for Astalon.

 

[RoSoDude]

Order of Ecclesia is an excellent action game with the refined gameplay sensibilities we know and love from Igarashi. It's pretty poor as a Metroidvania, though. Its level design is characterized by linear and repetitive environments that only start to resemble the genre fundamentals near the end, but nonetheless fail to foster compelling exploration at almost any point. The suite of character upgrades is one of the most limited in the Igavania tradition, and rarely leads to a sense of discovery or exciting progression. I would also submit that it's got some of the weaker RPG elements of the post-SOTN games, with samey weapon choices, unsatisfying spells, weak itemization, and the awful increase-by-use attribute system. Don't get me wrong -- it's my third favorite in the series just for the combat and challenge on offer, but it's far from the first game I'd recommend for someone interested in the Metroidvania genre.

EDIT: It's got one of my favorite Yamane tracks, too.

 

[Grauken]

Recent ones I played, Gato Roboto mentioned by Black Goat, which is easy but a lot of fun and is very polished

Bobo Robot on itch.io, this one is even shorter than Gato Roboto, around 1-2 hours of gameplay or so, but its fun with some quirky humor. Don't expect too much going in though and the ending is awfully abrupt. Also, one of the abilities only works when using the keyboard, not the gamepad

 

[deama]

I recently played the new castlevania spiritual successor game, bloodstained: ritual of the night. It was ok, but I didn't finish it, I think I was about 40%-50%. Not quite sure why, I don't think I like leveling in metroidvanias, but I really enjoyed valdis story: abyssal city which had levels and skill upgrades? I donno, maybe I played too many castlevanias so I thought the gameplay was too similiar, because it was pretty similiar.

Also, anyone played TimeSpinner? It looks generic with some time gimmick, but maybe decent?

 

[Grauken]

Time ability is really just a gimmick in Timespinner to use enemies as platforms and it's not used all that often, the recent Touhou Luna Nights had time stop and slowing as well, and you really needed to master that to fight bosses

Also, if you got sick of the GBA/NDS Castlevania, Timespinner plays very close to those in terms of graphics (GBA) and overall approach

The biggest problem is though that its too easy, there's almost no fight that will be any challenge

That said, I did like the weapons system, lots of cool combinations of spheres, but since combat, in general, is a joke, the whole thing feels rather like a mechanic you can't really explore to the limits since most enemies die too fast

 

[deama]

Time ability is really just a gimmick in Timespinner to use enemies as platforms and it's not used all that often, the recent Touhou Luna Nights had time stop and slowing as well, and you really needed to master that to fight bosses

Also, if you got sick of the GBA/NDS Castlevania, Timespinner plays very close to those in terms of graphics (GBA) and overall approach

The biggest problem is though that its too easy, there's almost no fight that will be any challenge

That said, I did like the weapons system, lots of cool combinations of spheres, but since combat, in general, is a joke, the whole thing feels rather like a mechanic you can't really explore to the limits since most enemies die too fast

Have you played bloodstained ritual of the night? What's your review on that?

 

[Grauken]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...-metroidvania-game.90489/page-24#post-6185897

Good game if a bit too similiar to the GBA/NDS Castlevania

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...-metroidvania-game.90489/page-28#post-6191305

Has retarded puzzle logic

 

[deama]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...-metroidvania-game.90489/page-24#post-6185897

Good game if a bit too similiar to the GBA/NDS Castlevania

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...-metroidvania-game.90489/page-28#post-6191305

Has retarded puzzle logic

Ah, nice, thanks.

While we're at it, what's your opinion on valdis story: abyssal city? Have you played it?

 

[Grauken]

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

 

[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