LogFAQs > #962517026

first, the honourable mentions:

Tres-Bashers (ondydev)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNNYFIT0fBs

Tres-Bashers is a metroidvania in which you play a little mouse kid beating up cryptids who have taken over the school. Everything just looks, sounds, and feels really good in this game from the chunky pixels, to the banging soundtrack, to the crunch in all the sound effects. The controls are responsive and have quite a distinctive feel. Theres a dash that you really have to commit to, and carries a lot of momentum. One of the first mobility upgrades you could get is a backflip that lets you jump higher and it involves dashing in one direction then jumping while pulling in the opposite direction, which feels weight-y, and a bit frantic during combat. Its not a scary game, but it has a cute-spooky aesthetic that especially carries through in one of its major mechanics, which is your flashlight. A lot of monsters hide in the shadows and cant be attacked until youve shine a flashlight on them, so youll run through a room catching a glimpse of something or hearing some scuttling in an unknown direction.

Its a relatively short game (took me 6 hrs to do everything) with a small scope, but its packed nonetheless with secrets, and weapons variety. I also really like that there are a finite number of monsters, which makes it satisfying to clear an area. I dont really consider myself a metroidvania person, or at least not to the extent a lot of people are. Its not a structure that inherently appeals to me, and its a malleable enough term, that I never quite knew which were the ones for me. Ive played a decent amount of modern ones, but I credit that more to how every 5th indie game being recommended is a metroidvania so Im bound to hit a few. This year, two landed for me and yeah, Ive forgotten that I quite like filling in little squares on a map. I should have known since I did really love the GBA and DS metroids and especially the vanias once upon a time, but there are so many of them now that a lot if it has washed over me, and I should definitely look into a few more of them.