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I don't think 2D is absolute, but it shouldn't be casually disregarded either. I've seen this elsewhere and then the next step is that the world doesn't have to be labyrinthine, and then no backtracking, and then now powers, and then....
Nowadays people groups things according to general, fuzzy criteria (e.g. saying any old game is like a RPG if it has "upgrades" when the kind of upgrades RPGs traditionally have are quite specific). Metroid was doing specific things that made it what it is, and then SotN added some things to that that were specific which lead to "metroidvania". So the more of those same specific things that a game does, the more it qualifies to be considered one of those, imo.
Yeah people keeping defending them saying to trust them, but these overly long dev cycles tend to be the result of mismanaged shitshows with scope creep or endless revisions that end up being an unfinished mess no matter how long they took. At some point you know the development took some sort of autistic turn and they started adding individual leaf physics and genetics to the trees or something.
Highly recommend people try out the Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus Demo. Left a very good first impression on me, to the point where I think we might finally have a true Hollow Knight contender. It just feels great to play, and the game is beautiful.
Anyone played this yet? It has rave reviews, 10/10s, but I don't trust 90% of gamers. I don't trust 90% of codexers either, but maybe the 10% will chime in.
I'm only a few hours in, but: It's 60% puzzles and 40% exploration. There doesn't seem to be any proper combat, the enemies are obstacles to be avoided or overcome by using your items(which so far have been unusual by genre standards, and have multiple applications). It feels like almost every screen has at least one hidden item or passageway. The difficulty curve has been reasonable so far, with simple secrets and puzzles gradually leading to tougher ones, and I imagine the truly bullshit challenges are reserved for the postgame. The game also appears to be almost entirely bug-free. My main criticisms are that the graphical style and sound are just okay, and I don't like that you play as a cute featureless blob; tired of that shit. If you enjoyed La Mulana, you'll probably appreciate Animal Well. Hell, I despised La Mulana and I'm having fun with Animal Well.
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness on the PS2 usually gets lumped with the "3D Castlevanias are bad" crowd, but it's a pleasant surprise. The different weapon systems, thieving mechanic, and familiar evolution trees, alongside that they're pretty obviously were going for a SotN 2 in 3D also helps, worth checking out if you like Devil May Cry etc. The previous game Castlevania: Lament of Innocence is a lot more basic, but probably has the most impressive Castlevania subweapon system going for it which I wasn't expecting too.
I played Animal Well (but I'm not the Kodex Konsensus, so this is just like my opinion man). Got the first ending. Used a guide to get the second ending. Then I lost interest. Well, technically, I lost interest even before I got the second ending, but I wanted to see what happens. There is still a lot more content.
First of all, hating this game because of dunkey is retarded. Dunkey didn't make the game. Billy Basso did. Any hate should be directed at Billy Basso.
Here is a spoiler-free-ish overview of everything up to the first ending: The goal is to collect 4 flames which are marked on the map. This took me 5-6 hours. The game is mostly a puzzle-platformer at this stage. You don't have to deal with any of the cryptic riddles. There is no real combat other than occasionally scaring animals away with a firecracker. You'll find items that you can use as tools for platforming, hitting switches, solving puzzles, etc. They are all children's toys (e.g. a bubble wand), and each of them has multiple functions that you have to discover for yourself. Some of them are unique (or rare) for Metroidvanias. Not sure if this is considered a spoiler, but here are some abilities you won't get in Animal Well: Double jump. Wall jump. Dash. Hookshot.
If this sounds interesting to you, you can have a good time with the first part and be satisfied. Maybe continue and find out how much farther you can get without a guide. But the price is a bit high if you're only going to see a fraction of the game.
The goal for the second ending is
to find all 64 eggs, and then ... do something.
Unlike the flames, the eggs are not marked on the map. There aren't even any hints that point you in the right direction (unless there is a trick I'm not aware of, which I wouldn't rule out in this game). When you are looking for the last few remaining eggs, they could be anywhere. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. And before someone mentions it: Yes, I know with the UV lamp you can see an egg symbol in rooms that have a hidden egg. But you still don't know which rooms to check, so it doesn't improve the situation much. The UV lamp is also probably the last item you will find and is not strictly required to get the eggs. So for the last 4 eggs, I decided to use a guide to show me in which rooms they were hidden to speed things up.
My total time: 13 hours.
New items later also have a tendency to practically force you to revisit every room because they may have potential uses everywhere. It's a pattern that repeats again and again.
There is a fast travel system, except I wouldn't call it fast. There are a few portals at the corners of the world that lead to a fast travel hub. But the path to the nearest portal and then from the exit portal to your destination is still a long way. You end up staring at the map for long times trying to find the shortest path. There is a trick that helps with fast travel, but it's also a riddle you have to solve, and you may not even realize that there is a riddle. I found it very late, so your experience may differ.
Then you may have to repeat puzzle sections again that you've already solved, which is boring. And since all your abilities come from the items (but you can only equip one at a time), you have to constantly switch between them. You can scroll through them with LB and RB, which isn't a problem at the beginning when you can still count the number of items on one hand. But that number keeps growing more than you'd expect. You often need item A for platforming, then item B for a different kind of platforming, but you also want to check every room with items C and D, and so on. Constantly scrolling left and right, trying to find the right item. It's so awkward to play. They should have copied Zelda and let you put multiple items on 3 or 4 different buttons for quick access.
Overall, this is an interesting game with some cool ideas. The first part is good. But I didn't find the later puzzles engaging enough to put up with all of these issues and continue. The later stages only work with a big community where there are always a few people that are autistic dedicated enough to spend over 100 hours with the game to search every pixel and share their findings. And there is at least one puzzle that is impossible to solve alone.
I played throguh the Supraland trilogy, they're First Person Metroidvania Puzzle games. Very good games, but probably not for me.
Supraland is described as a mix of Zelda, Metroid and Portal. Sort of an accurate description.
The Puzzles: many were great, some frustrated me. And it took me a long while to figure out why. Basically it's that I expected a certain degree of freedom in this game, but there isn't any really. You always have to solve the puzzle the way the developer intended.
The Exploration: Well... it's good. The problem I had was that most of the good traversal powers are found late game and exploration untill then is tedious.
The Combat: I absolutely hate the combat in Supraland. I don't want to go into details.
I played the DLC, Supraland Crash:
*More linear experience, for good and bad
*Less combat and enemies don't respawn, nice!
I played the stand alone expansion, Supraland Six Inches Under:
*Combat is actually better and no respawning, great!
*Half of the game is after you win the game. What's up with that?
With all that said, I'm the type of person who would like to 100% a game like this but for some reason I don't want to do that. I guess I have to get good at these kind of games...
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness on the PS2 usually gets lumped with the "3D Castlevanias are bad" crowd, but it's a pleasant surprise. The different weapon systems, thieving mechanic, and familiar evolution trees, alongside that they're pretty obviously were going for a SotN 2 in 3D also helps, worth checking out if you like Devil May Cry etc. The previous game Castlevania: Lament of Innocence is a lot more basic, but probably has the most impressive Castlevania subweapon system going for it which I wasn't expecting too.
I tried this game 15 year ago but gave up on it for two reasons:
1) the character moves very slowly, not a good thing for a metroidvania
2) at some point I got an OP summon
Playing Rebel Transmute and it's a good throwback to OG Metroid and contrary to what some might assume from the name, it has nothing to do with troons(i made sure to look into that).
