Any good metroidvania recommendations?

[deama]

Alright so I just wanna play some decent metroidvania and I can't really find one atm, so maybe I missed one a couple years ago or maybe got the wrong impression? Anyway, here's what I've played so far and my general thoughts to help you along:

Super metroid -- ye, pretty good, not much else to say lol.

metroid fusion -- my first metroidvania, I like this one, and have played it several times, but I can see the problems with it. Just like a virgin can't let go of his first love, I can't either.

metroid zero mission -- was alright, kinda short though, and I didn't like the last sequence all too much.

AM2R -- I liked this one, but was kinda linear tbh, and samus' handling was kinda iffy.

Metroid prime -- hahahahahahha, controls were so dog shit, wtf.

castlevania symphony of the night -- was good, could have used some more upgrades though.

castlevania Aria of Sorrow -- was alright, I don't remember much, but I remember finishing it, so must have been decent at least. I have an itch telling me that the game could have used more upgrades though.

castlevania order of ecclesia -- I don't quiet remember why, but I stopped playing after about 5/6 hours, I think it might have been because I played aria of sorrow before, and was just burned out because they were so similiar?

Valdis story: abyssal city -- I liked this one, but it had some problems such as not having enough upgrades, and some mechanics I didn't like, e.g. the skill cancel thing was kinda annoying, they should have just made it regen even when in combat.

Rogue Legacy -- was alright, upgrades were a bit too weak though, and maybe not enough interesting upgrades? I can't remember, been a while, and only played it once.

Strider 2014 -- I liked this one, but again, not enough upgrades, and some of the upgrades were kinda annoying.

Steamworld dig 1/2 -- I kinda liked these, but they were fairly linear, could have also used some more upgrades.

salt and sanctuary -- dark souls but 2D... ye, I didn't like this one much and quit after about 5/6 hours. The leveling up was kinda underwhelming and there were barely any upgrades (from the 5/6 hours I played), or maybe there weren't any upgrades at all?

Hollow knight -- I don't remember exactly why, but I quit after about 3 hours. I don't seem to want to continue this one at all, I just donno why...

Dead cells -- I didn't like this one, the upgrades were just way too weak for me, and the roguelike part I didn't like the implementation of, so I quit after about 5 hours.

Shadow complex -- was alright, could have used more upgrades though and the locations could have been more varied.

Axiom Verge -- I didn't like this one much, though the concept was neat. For some reason, I remember getting pissed at the upgrades for being really shit or something; I quit after about 5/6 hours playing it.

ICEY -- I don't remember exactly why I quit, but I think it was because the combat seemed really complicated and the enemies seemed really spongy. Also, you seemed powerful from the get-go, so I wasn't expecting many upgrades anyway. I think I played this one for 2/3 hours?

Evil Genome -- I'm currently playing through this one, but I think I'll quit it; I've put in about 5 hours into it. The writing/voice-acting aside... there don't seem to be many upgrades. It also kinda feels like the enemies scale to you, or at least the increased ATK doesn't seem to do all that much.

I've mentioned that some games don't have enough upgrades even though they have big skill trees and such. Well, by upgrades I mean gameplay changing stuff, such as a double jump, triple jump, screw attack, wall jump, moph ball, super speed, invisibility, etc... upgrades such as +dmg or +hp are nice if it works for the game, but are fairly boring. Also, "now you can open door X" upgrade is a no-no either.

 

[Ash]

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. You'll probably be disappointed by the lack of upgrades (less than half that of Symphony of the Night, which itself you complained about) but the challenge is on-point and you're running out of noteworthy Metriodvanias.

Castlevania: PoR. It's like the other DS Castlevania games.

IJI: not bad for a free indie game, though the artwork is seriously primitive and the handling of the protag a bit restrictive and stiff. Possibly very consciously by design but it annoyed me.

Is there a metriodvania where you were satisfied with the upgrades, by the way?

 

[Scroo]

The Shantae games are pretty good. The best is probably Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. A very fun metroidvania with some actually not that bad jokes

Cave Story +. Seriously, it's quite amazing and has a great soundtrack too.

 

[Lazing Dirk]

Hollow knight -- I don't remember exactly why, but I quit after about 3 hours. I don't seem to want to continue this one at all, I just donno why...

 

[deama]

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. You'll probably be disappointed by the lack of upgrades (less than half that of Symphony of the Night, which itself you complained about) but the challenge is on-point and you're running out of noteworthy Metriodvanias.

Castlevania: PoR. It's like the other DS Castlevania games.

IJI: not bad for a free indie game, though the artwork is seriously primitive and the handling of the protag a bit restrictive and stiff. Possibly very consciously by design but it annoyed me.

Is there a metriodvania where you were satisfied with the upgrades, by the way?

I might give PoR a go, would you say it's same as aria of sorrow or better?

IJI, yeah I played it. Again, lack of upgrades, but I didn't mind it so much in this game because the story was kinda interesting. Some of the areas did start to feel a bit samey though.

In terms of upgrades, I think the most satisfaction I got was from AM2R, followed by super metroid.

The Shantae games are pretty good. The best is probably Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. A very fun metroidvania with some actually not that bad jokes

Cave Story +. Seriously, it's quite amazing and has a great soundtrack too.

Oh yeah, I remember cave story, forgot to put that in. I only played it for like 4 hours, it seemed ok. How are the upgrades there compared to something like super metroid?

I saw a review of Shantae, but the only upgrades were those animal transformations, is that it?

 

[Ivan]

Metroid prime -- hahahahahahha, controls were so dog shit, wtf.

Hollow knight -- I don't remember exactly why, but I quit after about 3 hours. I don't seem to want to continue this one at all, I just donno why...

Steamworld dig 1/2 -- I kinda liked these, but they're were fairly linear, could have also used some more upgrades.

 

[deama]

Metroid prime -- hahahahahahha, controls were so dog shit, wtf.

I did spend like 2 hours trying to configure the controls, but they were still shit!

 

[Ash]

I might give PoR a go, would you say it's same as aria of sorrow or better?

both PoR and OoE are better than Aria easily.

 

[Okagron]

I did spend like 2 hours trying to configure the controls, but they were still shit!

Took me 30 seconds to figure out the controls of Metroid Prime. And i played both Gamecube and Wii version.

 

[RoSoDude]

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin should not be ignored. If you're interested, I did a long writeup on my rankings of the Igavania games that I've played. I intend to play the rest of the Igavania games to assess where they fall, but for me it's easily Portrait of Ruin > Order of Ecclesia > Symphony of the Night > Dawn of Sorrow, owing to the challenge, upgrades, playstyle depth, and level design on offer. I hear some people like Aria of Sorrow better than its direct sequel, but I've also heard it's similarly unchallenging, and it seems much of the hype around it was for how much of SotN's customization and systemic depth it brought to the GBA, which may have been since outshone. That's just speculation on my part though.

You've played all the rest of the Metroidvanias I could recommend and then some, so I don't have much else to add. Metroid Fusion was my introduction to the genre too, actually. I agree it has some problems, but I think it gets an unfair shake for its linearity. It can be annoying to be caged in all the time, but I found the exploration within each level to be deeply compelling, and the linear, closed off nature of the game allowed them to change the environments as you progressed to make every return visit to a location full of new surprises and challenges. Plus it's probably got the best bosses of any Metroid game; there are some actually challenging fights that require you to master Samus' movment and attacks. I've probably replayed Fusion a couple dozen times since I was young, it's worn out its welcome a bit at this point but I still love it.

 

[lophiaspis]

Aquaria.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Aquaria.

Cave Story +. Seriously, it's quite amazing and has a great soundtrack too.

Seconded these, especially as they both have great soundtracks.

A few other Metroidvanias that haven't been mentioned (and might be worth a look):

UnEpic - You play a D&D teenage nerd that gets sucked into a D&D-esque gameworld. Adds light RPG elements, but it's not a faultless game. Oh, and a couple of the bosses are cheesefests that up-end most of the game's flow.

Owlboy - The controls could be better.

A Hat in Time - This one's a 3D platformer, but otherwise it ticks off all the boxes.

Iconoclasts - Kodex Konsensus seems to be that this one is average.

The Mummy: Demastered - I'm serious here, it's not a bad Metroidvania, though it's way too easy IMO.

 

[Latro]

Circle of the Moon is the best Castlevania.






it's so good IGA had to take it out of the canon, it made him look too weak!

 

[Valestein]

If you're looking for a challenge then this one is up your alley. It's a essentially a more hardcore Metroid Fusion.



I died.... a lot in my first run.

 

[lightbane]

What about Ori and the Blind Forest? And Ghost 1.0? And Dex (if you count that one as a Metroidvania)? Or Teslagrad?
You already mentioned the most known ones.

 

[Alex]

Hollow Knight is the first of these games I've played that does what Super Metroid did better than Super Metroid itself. It is really well made and I can't recommend you give it another try enough.

 

[Jason Liang]

The Battle of Olympus? NES classic.

Another one that got a recent remake is Wonder Boy 3: The Dragon's Trap (remade titled Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap), considered one of the best of all time.

Consulting the wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Metroidvania_games

It lists QuackShot (Genesis). I don't know if I would consider QuackShot a true Metroidvania but it is pretty satisfying to play through.

I see some other 8-bit/ 16-bit ones, but those are the only ones I can recommend. Some of the older titles make me shudder just thinking about them (Faxanadu, Dr. Chaos, Goonies II).

 

[CryptRat]

You could give Castlevania The Lecarde Chronicles 2 a try.

It's a fan game but on technical aspects as well as regarding amount of content it could totally be an official game. It's not that hard, unfortunately, but it's very fun especially the second half, although I don't remember what abilities you unlock besides a couple of dashs and jumps which really alterate the gameplay, maybe not that many since I believe I remember there's a bunch of key items and sometimes you just use your combat spells to unlock some parts.

Well, by upgrades I mean gameplay changing stuff, such as a double jump, triple jump, screw attack, wall jump, moph ball, super speed, invisibility, etc...

Bunny must die has some time manipulation abilities and an inconvenient heavy armor besides classic upgrades. The game is also hard, but unfortunately the controls are very weird so I couldn't ensure you would like it.

 

[Max Stats]

Metroid prime -- hahahahahahha, controls were so dog shit, wtf.

Believe it or not one of the few games to play better with the wii's waggle controls. (trilogy version)

 

[Siveon]

Jeez dude do you only play for upgrades?

 

[deama]

Jeez dude do you only play for upgrades?

Well, what else is there to a metroidvania if the upgrades aren't good enough? Exploration? Without decent upgrades it's just a walking simulator. Combat? Without upgrades it's just one of those shumps.

I guess you can then argue that a metroidvania without exploration would be pretty shit, but no, not really, at least you'd have fun experimenting with the combat and the upgrades, kinda like tyrian or one of those shumps with upgrades. If it had exploration and upgrades, but not combat then it you could enjoy the exploration part with the added interest of tackling zones in different ways via upgrades.

 

[RoSoDude]

That's all true of a game more on the Metroid side of things, but RPG and dungeon-crawling elements can help carry a Metroidvania experience as well, IMO. What I primarily like about the Igavania games is how platforming and combat challenges are intelligently gated by player abilities, as well as the depth and variety in combat playstyles on offer through gear and upgrades (there's a direct throughline between what I like about Castlevania and what I like about Dark Souls). I've also seen System Shock 1 described as a Metroidvania for how it structures progression with player-driven exploration and character upgrades (though much of it is admittedly just keycards), and the exploration there is made compelling by a survival horror lite resource economy where exploration through the dungeon-like levels of Citadel Station fuels not just character advancement and completion of your objectives but also replenishes the player's supplies drained by frequent enemy encounters and traps. To me there's plenty more that can drive engagement with exploration and combat than just upgrades, even if those are more or less vital to defining the genre.

 

[J1M]

The Mummy Demastered is amazingly good considering it was a movie license game. I also like the graphics, they look like the most beautiful SNES game that was never made.

 

[Brocken Jr.]

DISCLAIMER: I didn't play it, but my brother really loved Dust: An Elysian Tale. It received pretty great reviews from most sources, too. Supposed to have a real nice story and soundtrack.

 

[Siveon]

Aquaria.

I thought this was one was unbearably boring and slow.

Speaking of slow, La Mulana is a great metroidvania if you like old puzzles.