Blah blah blee boo. Uh, what is worth talking about? It’s hot in my room and it’s making me unhappy. I dunno, anyone played any good “Metroidvania” games lately? Or ever, I guess. I want to play one that’s not so hard it’s frustrating, but also a good game. I finally played most of Blasphemous and that one came right up to the line of being so hard it wasn’t fun, but didn’t cross the line like Hollow Knight did. That’s the range I’m looking for. Also the art can’t suck. Honestly I’m up for any game that is good, but not so hard it’s frustrating. Or just a neat concept, like Graveyard Keeper. Since games journalism is straight garbage in the modern age I feel like I’m missing out on things. Also, it needs to be on Switch, or Xbox One. I hate Steam.

Whatever, not important really. I hope you’re ready for a new week of low stakes sequential art. I know I am. Keep an eye out for the forces of evil and I’ll see you Wednesday.

43 Comments

Welp this is adorable

My friend was recently playing Nine Years of Shadows, which seems to have inspirations from Metroid, Castlevania, and Mega Man. I’m not sure about how the difficulty is because I’m bad at Metroidvanias, and comparing, but it’s certainly a very pretty game. It’s on Switch and Xbox One from what I can find.

Have you tried The Messenger yet? gorgeous game, great music. very fun. not super duper hard. playable on switch or xbox

Loving this night so far and can’t wait to see where it goes!

You may enjoy The Last Faith, it’s not without faults but I found the art to be incredible and difficulty to be a nice balance of challenging and rewarding with lots of build options.

Metroidvanias…let’s see…

I know “Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night” is at the top of my list, but I’ll admit, it’s for a biased reason – I like some of the voices. Ben Diskin, Erica Lindbeck, David Hayter, to name but a few…

Bloodstained is great. And I love that even several years after release they keep adding little bits of content here and there for it.

Thirding Bloodstained – I haven’t played the Switch version, but I believe they ironed out the issues it had on its launch (the Switch launch was a bit rushed but this was years ago). It’s a kickstarter project from the man responsible for SOTN, and it delivers.

Owlboy. It’s a beautiful game!

I’ve heard Owlboy is extremely difficult though.

The “buddy battle” system takes some getting used to, especially with a game controller, which can make the game difficult at first. But, once you DO get the hang of it, the game becomes an amazing journey!

Ori and the Blind Forest? I think it qualifies as a Metroidvania, though it leans more toward platforming than combat.

Yes! This gets my vote as well. Ori and the Blind Forest, and its sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps, are both outstanding Metroidvanias. Beautiful art and music in addition to the heartwarming storylines.

Have you tried Hyper Light Drifter?

Its not exactly a metroidvania game but its damn close and a damned good game. Also the storytelling is very unique. Gameplay is simple, a bit hard, but nothing like hollow knight levels of hard.

The art and theme are also very inspiring and i would say its my favorite game I’ve played on switch.

I don’t know, if it qualifies as Metroidvania, but I liked SteamWorld Dig 1 and 2.
(and also SteamWorld Heist, but that’s a different genre)

Also Kena: Bridge of Spirits (although in my case it was puzzles and exploring that I liked, not combat, eventually I toned down the difficulty to easiest and left it there; also the graphics were very pretty, not handsome ;) ).

Since you mentioned Graveyard Keeper, have you tried playing Stardew Valley?
I really liked that one, and may return to it yet (probably after the announced final content patch, when it gets here). Well, I disliked fishing and modded it for automatic success, yes, it’s technically cheating, sue me. ;)
(My opinion is, that there’s no such thing as cheating in single player games, I’m the only player, so who would I cheat? And it’s my fun, that counts.)

I don’t know about Switch or Xbox, but Stardew Valley and SteamWorld games series are also available on GOG.com, if it’s Steam and not PCs in general you hate.
(also you’d need the PC version of Stardew Valley to be able to mod it – modding is not officially supported, but someone created a SMAPI tool, which runs mods for the game)

I 100% agree. “Cheating” in a single-player game is just modding the experience to your taste.

Cheating in a multiplayer game should be punishable by public flogging.

Not unless everyone in the multiplayer game agrees to the cheat impelmentations.

Concur entirely. I bought it, I’ll play it in a way that’s fun for me. I don’t understand people who get themselves in a twist about how other people play their single-player games.

On the GYK side, I like Littlewood, which is very GYK/STV/Animal Crossing. The conceit is that you have saved the world–now what?
Well, now you rebuild your home and your life with the power of urban planning.

Cheating in a single-player game cheapens the experience of the game itself. I can understand cheating if the game has bugs in it that can distort the proper gameplay experience as intended by the original developers, but if you cheat because you want more convenience than what the gameplay intends, then you’re creating a false impression of the game itself, fun or no fun.

But, hey! You do you! Just don’t try to pass off the “cheating” in a single-player as a shortcoming for the game itself upon the developers. Nobody likes that shit and it gives the gaming community a bad name.

That’s a pretty bold claim. I like that shit very much. Almost every game has at least one purposeful design choice that does nothing but pad game time. Or some stupid timer that makes you play faster when you just want to noodle around in a pretty world.

I’m not saying that people are not allowed to cheat, I’m saying that every player should at least see how the game is played according to developer interests barring any bugs or rushed development shortcomings at least once to get an impression for the game itself. If the game is genuinely unplayable to the player after that, then fine, they are free to implement whatever means necessary to improve the experience. Just don’t use such implementations to pass yourself off as a “pro” over it.

I dunno about metroidvania, but I’ve been having waaay more fun with “Contraband Police” than I should be. It’s basically “Papers Please” but evolved in every way except emotional impact.

Oh man, metroidvanias are one of my main jams. I just finished
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, and that’s a strong recommend.
Yoku’s Island Express is a pinball metroidvania. It’s bizarre but great.
Axiom Verge 1 & 2 are both good.
Dead Cells is a Roguelite Metroidvania, which I enjoyed, but never got to the end.
Time Spinner was good.
Cave Story – very good, though there’s some caveats. Any version you pay for is basically giving $0 to the original creator, but the original version has no fast traveling or interconnectedness that makes going back for missed items tolerable. The original also has several points where you’re locked out of collectibles or specific weapons.

The following games mentioned by other comments definitely qualify as metroidvanias: Ori and the Blind Forest (and it’s sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps).
metroidvania-adjacent: Steamworld Dig 1 & 2 – cross between a Metroidvania and a mining game. Both good, though play them in order.

I’ll probably comment again once my friend who’s even more obsessed with metroidvanias than I am gets back to me.

Yeah, the order for SteamWorld games is Dig 1&2, then Heist, if you decide to also play it. (the plot of Heist follows the events of Dig series)

I Second Dead Cells, and the Ori series. Cave Story is good as well.

I did not see Hollow Knight on anyone’s list. (Great story, phenomenally tight controls.)

Sundered & Grime Are kind of new and look great, but also look like they can get too busy (I do not like game that are extremely complex)

Shovel Knight
Guacamelee

All those should be considered in the very least.

Have you considered the vast field of Super Metroid and Castlevania ROM hacks? You can pick and choose hacks based on difficulty, and there’s some with really awesome art. Some, such as Super Junkoid, mod the game so much it really feels like a whole new game.

I don’t have a ROM cart and can’t afford a good one ATM. I’ve been trying to mod my 3ds but I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.

Haak is a great metroidvannia I’ve played recently. It’s very light on combat and focuses on exploration and mobility skills to make map traversal really fun. It’s not hard at all except for ana optional challenge which is honestly doable even for someone who isn’t that great at precision platforming like me. It’s also got a decent enough, if not mindblowing story, which is rare in this kind of game. I really enjoyed my time with it and would recommend to anyone who likes the genre.

Also, I’m currently playing Ultros and it’s a very weird, very chill, if a bit flawed game. But it makes up for the flaws wth a refreshing originiality in terms of mechanics and gameplay focus. Although it has combat, it’s really not combat oriented and is not hard at all. It does have a time loop mechanic, though, so be aware if you don’t like this sort of thing, although it does have ways to keep skills and equipment from one loop to the next. All in all, I’ve been liking it a lot.

Axiom Verge 2 was very good Metroidvania I played recently. I played the first one as well but that one was kind of a mess. The 2nd one was a more cohesive experience and not too tricky.

Evrina is killing that waitress’ outfit and I’m all for it lol

I’ve been playing a lot a metroidvanias fairly recently, among the last ten games I completed are both Axiom Verge games, Hollow Knight, both Ori games, and Timespinner. Hollow Knight and the Ori games are amazing, I have a few qualms about the Axiom Verve games, but they are still great, and Timespinner… is by far the worst of the ones here, but I still had fun playing it. Also noteworthy is Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which I played less recently, but is really good, and the Shantae games, which I’m currently plying through and aren’t outright metroidvanias (at least, not the ones I’ve gotten through), but have metroidvania-like elements and are really good, albeit short.

Remember those specialty pastries shaped like a cross? Cherry was in them as a stand-in for the Savior’s blood.

There’s hot cross buns, which seem to be seasonal where I live.

…I empathize about games journalism these days. It feels like there’s nothing coming out, or happening in general, and all games journalism has to talk about is who did who wrong for reasons no one can understand.

I’m basically down to watching trailers on YouTube then searching for release dates immediately thereafter.

Someone mentioned Dead Cells, that’s a pretty fun roguelike with an extremely wide variety of weapons and items to use. There are a range of difficulty options, so if you didn’t like Hollow Knight you probably would only enjoy difficulty level 1-2/5.

It’s more zelda-esqe than a metroidvania, but Phoenotopia: Awakening is a really awesome game. Its biggest strength is probably the extreme amount of polish honestly. Every element has been very carefully designed, all the way down to changing camera zoom and different color palettes between area. It has a fairly basic overall story, but some fun characters and tight (not too tough) platformer combat, and lots of collectables.

One more I forgot to mention: Crosscode. Again, it’s not strictly a metroidvania since each main area only has a couple connections to other areas, but it’s pretty close. Conceptually, it’s a single-player game imitating an MMO, which sounds odd but actually works pretty well. Mechanically it’s a puzzle/combat game. It has a solid storyline, but you aren’t about to spend the next decade with a corkboard and red string connecting lore snippets. The one critique I have is that equipment has no cosmetic effect, but there’s a lot of different equipment in the game so I understand why they didn’t design it that way. Difficulty of both the combat and puzzles can be tweaked to your liking.

I personally recommend Chasm. It’s got a really nice pixel art style and animations, is lower on the difficulty scale for MVRs (MetroidVania Roguelikes), and controls really well.

I just finished it. It’s not terrible but it has a weird feeling of not being complete. It also disincentivizes exploration with a timer while having rare drops you can grind for. It falls just short of being really good.

Gonna be a third vote for Dead Cells; it’s scalable difficulty, there’s lots of postrelease content, you can actually disable background lore and just game if you want, and other fun changes in the custom modes.

They also literally have a partnered Castlevania DLC, if you want to be Extra MetroidVania(tm) about it.

I like chocolate, cherries, spice, racks, lips, the best burgers in town, extra entendres, and having money, but dislike working, mornings that aren’t ridiculously gorgeous, and metroidvanias. The only one I ever completed was Return of Samus. Not even metroid or castlevania. Not even with Justin Bailey’s assistance. I love nintendo games but I don’t love getting lost in side-scrolling mazes.

I guess count that as a reco for Return of Samus? And I definitely suggest following a map.

I’ll happily recommend Indivisible. Hand drawn, very pretty, with an interesting cast of characters (a 16-year-old girl who hates money and has her own internal world, a water elemental empath, a fire witch who likes gross stuff… and that’s just the ones I remember off the top of my head).

He controls the spice rack controls the universe

2642 Spice Rack.

43 Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply