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.
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 Momodora games and the Team Ladybug games (with Touhou Luna Nights being my favorite of the three).
Some titles here I haven’t heard before, thanks, I’ll check them out!
The combat in Nine Sols was too difficult for my tastes. Played for an hour or two and made very little progress repeatedly dying to normal enemies.
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. 😀