Board 8 > Pick a metroidvania for me

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'd love to see why people put these games at the top of their lists.

Edit: Oh, I skipped the Yoku's suggestion. Whoops. Pinball-vania sounds so weird. I'd love to know more about it.

The atmosphere and plot are good enough but I'd love to see why people put these games at the top of their lists.

Also if you miss a jump or mess up on the platforming sections you just take a little bit of spike damage and you can just jump onto the next platform with no penalty 95% of the time.

I was not very impressed with Yoku's Island Express, even though I wanted to like it. I just found the pinball elements more tedious than fun.

Super hot take: the Ori games are nothing special. The first one has god awful combat (which isn't improved a TON by the 2nd one) and the platforming focuses way too much on Ori's bash move.
The atmosphere and plot are good enough but I'd love to see why people put these games at the top of their lists.

Wonder Labyrinth

Super hot take: the Ori games are nothing special. The first one has god awful combat (which isn't improved a TON by the 2nd one) and the platforming focuses way too much on Ori's bash move. Also if you miss a jump or mess up on the platforming sections you just take a little bit of spike damage and you can just jump onto the next platform with no penalty 95% of the time.

Like I don't need every game to be impossible levels of challenge but it kinda takes the piss out when you can just damage boost through all of the spikes/lasers to get through a platforming section.

The atmosphere and plot are good enough but I'd love to see why people put these games at the top of their lists.

As for Ori, I thought it was an incredibly charming game, and I understand why people love it, but it wasn't so amazing to me that playing Ori 2 was just an automatic, braindead obvious decision. I don't think I can properly articulate why, but I wasn't a huge fan of the combat, the way a lot of secrets were implemented, or especially the bash mechanic. I also got stonewalled in a couple escape sequences because I had to interact with something that I would have never imagined was part of the game itself, and died about 50 times in a row because there's no way to pause those to properly look at what you have to work with. Basically, it felt like a game that was designed to be easy and disarming, and then it would periodically punch you in the mouth.

I don't like metroidvanias where it feels the power upside are mundane and backtracking is only for health upgrades etc

Which ones don't do this? Ori 2 has more dramatic powers than Hollow Knight, and backtracking is mostly for vanilla upgrades like Health and Secondary Weapon Ammo in all of them, like in Super Metroid or Metroid Dread or whatever. I guess there's stuff like the Castlevania games and Bloodstained where you backtrack to farm weapons/souls for magic powers? Is that really that much better? I guess if you're in it for the RPG elements.

Movement in that game is mostly terrible with only pogoing being any fun and its not used enough. Combat doesn't have enough options in it, and while most of the bosses patterns are pretty fun once you get to the end of the base game and get into the DLC bosses it becomes so hard it isn't fun. Also the story sucked massively.

Mega Man Zero / ZX Legacy Collection (play Mega Man ZX and Mega Man ZX Advent)

• Everything is gorgeous. I'd expect no less.
• Opening sequence less depressing than the first game.
• The little owl isn't tragically allergic to light or something?
• Little shadow Oris are funny. Scary wolf is obvious villain even before the chase sequence begins.
• Fighting with a torch is just button mashing.
• Quite a few places that I can't get to right now, but the game isn't even being coy about it. It's more like "you better write this down so you come back when you get bash/swimming/triple jump/some way to break this pillar thing." Aren't games supposed to have a little more finesse about the stuff you backtrack for?
• Miniquests feel weird.
• Early game of WotW feels easier than Blind Forest, but maybe that's just because I'm familiar with the controls already.
• I got stuck for a while trying to figure out how to put the eyestone in the statue. Had no idea there was a second one. I saw where it was, but ran out of energy and didn't recognize this was another item just like the one I grabbed, so I backtracked everywhere looking for other paths.
• Got dash, double jump, and maybe another skill? Also completed a combat challenge and a race. The latter feel out of place as immersion-breaking.
• I kinda miss not having the skill tree from before, although purchasing upgrades with currency works too, I guess. Everything about this game is much more "mainstream" and I also understand why it draws accusations of copying Hollow Knight, considering the charm slots.
• Had at least one puzzle where I felt like I was supposed to be able to do the secret and wasn't being clever enough on how to do it.
• Speaking of clever puzzles, I liked the chameleon tongue things.

like in Super Metroid or Metroid Dread or whatever.

• Met a giant toad, who told me to fix a waterwheel
• Got the bash skill. Most people would be happy. I was less than excited.
• Went to the area with the wheel and figured out a bunch of interesting puzzles with rotating areas. A couple really well designed parts to that.
• Completed an escape sequence on the first try! Seemed much easier than the ones in the first game.
• Water is purified. I still can't attack underwater, but at least I don't die just because I touched the purple soup.
• Bought some new shards, including investing heavily in one that will triple the cash I get from enemies.
• Got a grappling hook. This is interesting. It also heavily replaces bash so long as the game gives me something I can grapple to. Was starting to wonder what all the blue plants in the ceiling were for.
• Went to the silent forest, met a big scary bird, and found my friend. Finished that area and got warped back out with a new main quest. I thought the wolf was going to be the big bad, but this bird thing is like a skeletal demon version of the owl in the first game.
• Bought triple jump and did some backtracking. Cleared out some areas I needed bash or clear water to reach. I'm honestly not sure where I'm supposed to go next, but I think I've addressed most of the backfilling.
• Also paid for a bunch of the ore projects, because why not?

Super Metroid/Link to the Past combo randomizer rom hack

By far the coolest thing I have ever found. Just google it and all you need is the URL and a ROM of each game.