Any good metroidvania recommendations?

[Ivan]

Aeterna Noctis
A mechanically sound metroidvania featuring smooth platforming, decent combat, and solid exploration. The endgame amps up the Super Meat Boy/End Is Nigh precision platforming, so if you like those games or the White Palace from Hollow Knight, there's a lot of that shit in this game (if you play on the hard mode, which I think was the intended experience before they produced a nerfed/easier mode). The game does outstay its welcome, the endgame levels play with antigravity and the encounter design gets super lazy. All in all, I'm impressed by the breadth of the world, it just doesn't feel cohesive nor does it encourage me to go back and explore every nook and cranny to 100% it. The quest/journal system is so vague I was happy to just move on after I rolled credits.
I do look forward to what the dev team cook sup next, as the foundation here is strong, they just gotta deliver a tighter experience without so much fat.

 

[Ivan]

Ender Lilies

I liked how the powers you acquired had some theming and connection to the world and its history. Other than that, it was your standard metroidvania fare. Things I found lacking: audio design, death animations, and some annoying backtracking, especially toward the end game. It reminded me a bit of the scavenger hunts from the Metroid Prime trilogy, except here you don't get hints abourt where the key items are, so you just have to retread the map. Also, a bit of a shame that you can't annotate your map at all. Overall, I expected more and I came away quite a bit disappointed by this one. The game kinda felt like playing a Diablo-like RPG in that most of you abilities are governed by cooldowns. I liked dueling the knights as those were probably the only enemies that really test your reflexes. Other than that, I didn't find the bestiary too exciting or engaging. Bosses were adequately challenging. I only finished it (got all endings) out of sheer stubbornness.

 

[Jenkem]

opinions on Lost Ruins?

 

[Momock]

opinions on Lost Ruins?

Good game, I had fun with equipment and synergies. Good replayability too (once finished, you unlock new classes) The metroid aspect is nonexistent, though.

 

[Jenkem]

opinions on Lost Ruins?

Good game, I had fun with equipment and synergies. Good replayability too (once finished, you unlock new classes) The metroid aspect is nonexistent, though.

non-existant? it's tagged as a metroidvania

 

[JarlFrank]

it's tagged as a metroidvania

Steam tags are given by users, and your average player has no idea about genre.

 

[Abu Antar]

The real "developer" tags are far down to the right on the store page.

 

[Grauken]

The real "developer" tags are far down to the right on the store page.

Sadly some devs are just as clueless about genres

 

[ferratilis]

I tried the demo for this Bloodborne-inspired metroidvania, it's not bad. Some of the combat animations are a bit wonky, and the parry window needs to be tuned a bit, but it nails the atmosphere and exploration. For some reason, it has full voice acting, which was unexpected. Optimistic.

Spoiler

 

[Häyhä]

Gunbrella



Published by Devolver Digital and made by Doinksoft, available now on PC & Nintendo Switch.

I'm not sure if this is actually technically a "Metroidvania" (there's no map for example and it is mostly linear in progression), but it's a fun, 2D action/platformer/adventure in any case. The titular "gunbrella" is a combination of a gun and umbrella which can be used to navigate the game world in multiple ways, you can jump/glide, pogo-stick with it Uncle Scrooge style, block/reflect enemy fire etc. The world is dark, lovecraftian, steampunk where everything is powered by "Crude" an oil-like fuel mined in deep, dark mines under the earth. The story is about a nameless gunslinger going to get revenge for his murdered family, his only clue being the Gunbrella which was left at the scene of the crime.

The graphics are quite good pixel-graphics with plenty of little details, animations and nice colour palette. Soundtrack is also nice with some moody jazzy tunes and more hectic combat tracks. Gameplay is solid, and movement with the gunbrella and shooting feels responsive and satisfying. The gameplay consists of visiting towns and talking to NPCs who can give quests and upgrade your items/weapons and dungeon-like levels which are filled with combat, platforming and light puzzles. I'm only in quite the beginning of the game and have no idea how long it is, but it's definitely worth checking out, it's also priced only about 15$.

 

[janior]

Finished samus returns couple of weeks ago, it was meh, very clamped up and pretty much forces you to use parry to play effectively, AM2R was much better.

 

[Ash]

I played some 30% of AM2R a couple weeks ago. While it is a high quality remake and clearly somewhat of a good game, I just got bored. Happens to me every time I play a Metroid game apparently. They're good but not great.

 

[Grauken]

They're good but not great.

 

[janior]

Super Metroid is great

 

[Grauken]

Super Metroid is great

It's one of the best metroidvania of all time

 

[CryptRat]

I've never known what to think of Super Metroid. I thought it was great with actually good level design which most of the games copying it lack, yet at some point I spent one evening trying to wall-jump then never touched the game again.

 

[biffthestiff]

Posted a mini-review of Blasphemous in its thread: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...g-religious-horror-metroidvania.115448/page-7 . TLDR: play it. Even if you're not taken by the gameplay, the audio and visuals are worth experiencing.

 

[Grauken]

I've never known what to think of Super Metroid. I thought it was great with actually good level design which most of the games copying it lack, yet at some point I spent one evening trying to wall-jump then never touched the game again.

Super Metroid is well known for having one of the worst implementations of a wall jump ever, the devs seems to have been aware of that since you get it, only have to leave one deep well and then never need to use it in the game again.

 

[Häyhä]

Super Metroid is well known for having one of the worst implementations of a wall jump ever, the devs seems to have been aware of that since you get it, only have to leave one deep well and then never need to use it in the game again.

It's actually not a "power" you get, you can perform it from the start, but it's hard as fuck to do, even a single time. Probably the worst part of the entire game and it speaks for itself that you don't need it at all to finish the game. Still, it was probably one of the first games to implement it.

 

[Alex]

You can wall jump?!

 

[Nutmeg]

Still, it was probably one of the first games to implement it.

Sunsoft's Batman from 1989 had wall jumping, and it was fantastically implemented.

 

[Häyhä]

Still, it was probably one of the first games to implement it.

Sunsoft's Batman from 1989 had wall jumping, and it was fantastically implemented.

Yes and probably the original Ninja Gaiden too, yeah. Super Metroid wall-jump suck ass anyway.

Edit: It's so badly implemented, that it's hidden in that one part of game where you can only get with speed run if I recall correctly and those cutesy aliens "teach you" to do it, and in fact when I played the game for the first time I escaped from that pit with morph-ball bomb-jumping which takes fucking ages to do, but still easier than the shitty wall-jump.

 

[janior]

skill issue

 

[Ghost Goat]

I just finished Alwa's Legacy (picked up after reading this thread).

Highly Recommend.

 

[Neuromancer]

Edit: It's so badly implemented, that it's hidden in that one part of game where you can only get with speed run if I recall correctly and those cutesy aliens "teach you" to do it, and in fact when I played the game for the first time I escaped from that pit with morph-ball bomb-jumping which takes fucking ages to do, but still easier than the shitty wall-jump.

Aren't you supposed to escape that pit by using the Spineshark?
That is what the animals teach you. You already have to know who to use the Speed Booster before that to get into the pit.

As far as I know, you don't need Wall Jumping at all for the whole game.