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.
I haven’t seen Shadow Complex on here yet.
It’s an older title (2009) and even the remastered version is from 2016.
Still one of my favorite Metroidvania type games.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/385560/Shadow_Complex_Remastered/
A few other good ones that come to mind:
Axiom Verge
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Guacamelee
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
Rabi-Ribi
A Robot Named Fight (it’s basically if super metroid was a roguelike)
Touhou Luna Nights
Cave Story
Also, the Castlevania Advance Collection is three GBA metroidvanias, definitely worth getting if you wanna play/replay any of those.
I haven’t played very many, and these might not be pure Metroidvanias, but I recommend:
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.
Animal Well is stellar
Rogue Legacy 2, if it counts. Otherwise, Axiom Verge.
Axiom verge had such a cool atmosphere. Never finished the 2nd one, not sure why it didn’t grab me.
New school: Hollow Knight and Silksong
Old school: Super Metroid
when oldschool is actually more accessible than newschool
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%
carrion is a reverse horror game where you play as the monster
The only one I’ve played is Dead Cells, and it’s fantastic. I haven’t even bought any of the DLC, the base game is already endlessly replayable. I also listen to the soundtrack at least once a week.
I definitely want to get around to playing Hollow Knight and Animal Well at some point.
Not sure I’d categorize Dead Cells as a metroidvania myself. More of a rogue lite.
I’ve always thought it was both. I’m definitely no expert on Metroidvanias, since I’ve only played the one (if Dead Cells counts as one). I actually thought the term “Metroidvania” was about the movement and combat – today I just learned that it’s about the exploration and finding things. You do at least have to do that in the bank level, if I remember right. And the castle level.
There are also areas you can’t access until you have beaten a specific boss which gives you exploration abilities for future runs (ground pound, grow vines)
Metroid Prime. It’s the only series I know of that is fully in the genre and is also not a 2D platformer.
It’s insane to me how many Souls Likes could be 3D Metroidvanias if they used special powers to clear obstacles instead of just keys or random triggers to unlock new areas. That’s really the only thing I see that separates the genres.
Sekiro is closer than any other, but it’s mainly just 1 thing you don’t have in the prologue (the grappling hook). I would love a game that is 3D over a 2D platformer, but also has the unlockable traversal tools the way Metroid or Syphony of the Night had.
Batman: Arkham Asylum should count. Maybe not the later games as much, but definitely Asylum. It’s all about backtracking with new gear to unlock new areas and paths.
The Tomb Raider survivor trilogy scratches the itch a bit as well.
I’ve heard High on Life is a metroidvania, but I haven’t played it myself. You’re right that 3D metroidvanias are exceptionally rare.
I suppose it is. 🤔
You have traversal tools, but also the different guns are used to solve puzzles and progression may be locked behind having the right guns. I only have 2 of the guns so far where I am in the game but I know there’s several more.
3D games are still pretty difficult for a small team to pull off with a small budget.
have you tried Supraland? it’s weirdly the closest thing to metroid prime i’ve played in a long time, and it’s got completely the opposite tone. it’s hilarious.
as noted in one of the steam reviews, don’t let the looks fool you. on first glance it seems to be a cheap asset flip, but it’s an extremely tightly designed game with something like 20 hours of content and almost everything is original assets. it has a mishmash of styles because it takes place in a kid’s sandbox, so the different kinds of toys don’t match eachother.
Metroid Prime
A fantastic game, and has one of the best remasters I’ve ever seen.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is top tier.
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?
Usually old ps1 games just don’t do it for me, but sotn was one of the two exceptions.
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.
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
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. 😀
Batman: Arkham Asylum. It doesn’t come up a lot, because only that first game is a metroidvania and Arkham City might be most people’s favorite in the series, but it absolutely counts. I love Arkham combat. It’s better in the sequels due to some slight tweaks in game feel, but that combat in a metroidvania is just excellent, and the game is just so well paced. It’s a shame what WB did to that studio.
You know, I’ve always thought of Metroidvanias as 2D experiences - but reading your comment and mulling it over, I have to agree: Arkham Asylum is very much a Metroidvania, and a great one at that!
I loved the scarecrow sequences in that. I would love to play more games the effectively fuck with player but it’s very difficult to look for without spoiling yourself and then you’re expecting it.
A bunch of good ones have already been mentioned (SOTN, Nine Sols, Super Metroid), so I’ll just mention some that were missed.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (sequel to SOTN, just as good if you can get past the DS touchscreen BS. The new remaster might get rid of it)
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (made by Iga, creator of Castlevania: SOTN, Dawn of Sorrow, and others)
Salt and Sanctuary
The Messenger
I love the more “linear” first half of The Messenger, but didn’t enjoy the “metroidvania” second half nearly as much.
Still a great game though.
