Current Events > Been playing a bunch of Metroidvanias. ITT: I review and rate

(+) Yeah! (+)

Last year at some point I asked CE for Metroidvania recommendations and got a list of several dozen that Ive been buying as they go on sale. In a previous topic I reviewed a bunch of them, now Ive been playing some more and Ill review/discuss them here

also taking more recommendations

reviews will start in my next post

Blasphemous 2 is awesome and should be played

Tevi and Yohane the Parhelion when they launch next month

*tag to see if Axiom Verge or La Mulana get reviewed*

Rabi Ribi is a top 5 game for me. Can't wait for its spiritual successor, Tevi, to come out late November.

The Mummy Demastered

First of all, I love the title of this one. This game felt like a throwback to the licensed Game Boy/GBA games of the past, in a mostly good way, but with some of the drawbacks too. The main drawback being, it feels a little undercooked and small, like they were trying to get a game out in time for a movie release (iirc, they ended up delaying it and didnt).

Overall, it plays very well, with tight controls youd expect from a Wayforward game, and follows the MV formula pretty tightly. You get new weapons and items, unlock new areas. Boss fights are a highlight with good variety and decent challenge.

There is some tedium in this one as in addition to the expected backtracking, enemies cause an obnoxious amount of knock back, often knocking you to a floor below and having to redo large chunks of the game.

The only real gimmick this one has is when you die, you start playing as a new character that then has to find your previous undead corpse and kill it to get all your gear back. This adds to some more tedium since you lose movement abilities and all but your basic weapon, so getting back to the previous spot can be annoying, not to mention certain room layouts can make it challenging to kill the corpse with all your much weapons.

There is decent variety in weapons, but you can only carry two at a time and have to swap out at gear points, so I found myself not really changing them out much. Maybe someone else would like the shotgun, for example, but I found it useless

An undercooked aspect of the game is collectibles. There are 50 relics spread throughout the game, hidden in basically random breakable objects (that are sometimes hard to make out against the background), and they do literally nothing. There is no reward whatsoever for collecting them all, just a 100% on the game ending screen. Seems like they could have done literally anything to incentivize collecting these but theyre just theyre to give you something to do. The problem with that is theyre not hidden anywhere interesting, just arbitrarily placed in pots along your path.

The game is also very short. It took me about 6 hours to 100%. It definitely left me feeling like there should have been more, but overall it was a fun enough game that was worth playing for cheap. Nothing special, but definitely not a waste of time either.

6/10

Xatrion posted...

Rabi Ribi is a top 5 game for me. Can't wait for its spiritual successor, Tevi, to come out late November.

Just watched some clips of that and it looks pretty interesting, I'd never heard of it before.

Kaldrenthebold posted...

Blasphemous 2 is awesome and should be played

I played Blasphemous in my previous topic. I loved it. Blasphemous 2 is on my wishlist but at this point I have a bunch of other games and may wait for a sale.

rags_alt posted...

*tag to see if Axiom Verge or La Mulana get reviewed*

Ive played those a long time ago, great games probably 8.5/10 for both of them.

Xatrion posted...

Rabi Ribi is a top 5 game for me. Can't wait for its spiritual successor, Tevi, to come out late November.

This is on my wishlist but I havent pulled the trigger bc its embarrassing weeb shit

I'm not a huge Metroidvania buff. Only one I've gone through that's indie was Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. I enjoyed it though.

I kind of came to the personal conclusion that Souls games are 3d metroidvanias which is a weird thought.

check out timespinners

Dalthine posted...

I'm not a huge Metroidvania buff. Only one I've gone through that's indie was Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. I enjoyed it though.

I kind of came to the personal conclusion that Souls games are 3d metroidvanias which is a weird thought.

Yeah isnt that kinda part of the appeal of Souls games? Its one thing I like about them at least

AceMos posted...

check out timespinners

This is on my wishlist

Its going back a ways but honestly I think it holds up and its not just my nostalgia speaking. Original Blaster Master on NES is one of my favorite games of all time. Im not really a huge metroidvania fan but this game is so awesome. Took up about 2 years of my youth mastering this game in the late 80s.

archizzy posted...

Its going back a ways but honestly I think it holds up and its not just my nostalgia speaking. Original Blaster Master on NES is one of my favorite games of all time. Im not really a huge metroidvania fan but this game is so awesome. Took up about 2 years of my youth mastering this game in the late 80s.

never played the original but I really liked BM Zero and Zero 2. Dont think I played 3 yet

rags_alt posted...

*tag to see if Axiom Verge or La Mulana get reviewed*

la mulana is 10/10

8Doors: Arums Afterlife Adventure

Apparently based on Korean folklore, this game has a striking visual style that only uses only shades of white/gray/black and red. Other than that interesting visual gimmick (that is admittedly used to great effect, this game sticks pretty rigidly to the Metroidvania formula. Which is not a bad thing in its own right but I cant remember many specifics about it not long after beating it.

Theres a lot of story here about a girl entering purgatory to find her dead dad, but it amounted to a lot of text and a lot of wordy NPCs that I didnt find all that interesting. The translation also felt a little off at times.

But story isnt generally what you go to a MV for, and the gameplay here is solid if unremarkable. Everything works how it should, you gain the expected double jump, dash, swimming, etc abilities as you play. There is decent enemy variety by area and youre rewarded for killing enemies with coin that allows you to buy things like health upgrades and potions.

The game has solid level design with lots of hidden side areas. Each area has its own distinct feel and platforming challenges so things are varied throughout. Finding secrets rewards you with things like Dawn (used to buy skills on the skill tree) or Lost Souls (which you can trade in for coin and Dawn), and some are pretty well hidden. Some of the skills are pretty critical things like movement upgrades, and health potion increases (this game has a Souls-style healing mechanism though in the early game it heals so little as to be practically useless). However after I got some of those important upgrades I found myself not really caring much for future upgrades.

Boss fights are unusually hard compared to the rest of the game, with several of them taking me a bunch of tries. There are a lot of them, and they have decent variety but I think some of their health and damage output could have been adjusted to improve balance. The final boss is also a real gauntlet that I found pretty annoying. In addition, there are several optional bosses.

Throughout the game youll collect many different weapons, all with different side abilities, some important to traversal, which means that towards the end of the game there are places where you have to keep switching between weapons for traversal and fighting. It was fairly annoying to have to keep making sure you had the right weapon equipped or youd miss a jump or whatever

Overall I had fun, but there were some frustrating choices that held it back, and it didnt really seem to shoot for higher than a pretty good experience if you like Metroidvanias. On that level, it delivered

6.5/10

AceMos posted...

check out timespinners

Started it recently. Love it so far.

Yokus Island Express

This is one of the more unique games Ive played, combining the metroidvania genre with pinball. And somehow, it absolutely works. You play as a dung beetle which you can control with the left stick, but the bulk of movement is done from flippers and launchers throughout the game world, which is essentially a interconnected set of pinball rooms. This framework is used to surprising effect throughout the game, which opens up after a beginning linear area into a very open game with lots of NPC sidequests and optional collectibles.

As you advance youll gain some new abilities including swimming and a grappling hook, but progress is also gated by collecting fruit strewn across the pinball boards, which is used as currency to unlock certain flippers and purchase some upgrades. This is generally a clever way to get the player to engage with the optional parts of the pinball boards like bumpers and extra loops, although occasionally early game it can lead to needing to grind. Late game, I almost always had more fruit than I needed.

The game also manages to work in some boss fights, which are a fun change of pace and function almost as puzzle pinball boards. There is no death in the game, but you take damage from falling through the bottom of boards into spike traps. The game keeps track of how many times this happens which eventually has some ramifications in the story.

Visually, its also very impressive, with lots of different environments and well animated characters. Its particularly impressive considering this is the studios first game

There are some minor drawbacks. For one, backtracking can get confusing with lots of crisscrossing one-way tubes making it difficult to get to certain areas. The map is a little hard to read, essentially just being a zoomed out version of the whole game. This can cause some problems late game because some of the sidequests require a fair amount of backtracking. You unlock a fast travel system but its fairly limited.

Overall though, these are small problems in what is an impressive, and impressively unique game. I had a ton of fun 100%ing it, and some of the collectibles were very well hidden involving some clever puzzles. Easy to recommend for fans of pinball games or metroidvanias

8.5/10

Definitely check out Pseudoregalia

Headlander is still one of the most fun and unique ones i've played, I know I suggested it to you before.

Definitely tagging this topic. I probably posted in your last topic about MV's since I usually notice any topic about them on CE.

Try Bunny Must Die, lol.

You played Rusted Moss yet? It came out this year and I honestly think it's my favorite Metroidvania. Progression's less about getting specific 'keys' and more about using the movement tools at your disposal (especially the grappling hook) in creative ways to enter new areas and solve puzzles. Absolutely stellar game, on Steam for something like 20 bucks

Try Castlevania 2: Simons Quest

The one i always rec is Timespinner.

Everything about it is perfect.

F.I.S.T came out pretty recently and it was good, I played it on game pass. You are a cyborg rabbit of sorts, it plays pretty good.

MabusIncarnate posted...

Headlander is still one of the most fun and unique ones i've played, I know I suggested it to you before.

MabusIncarnate posted...

F.I.S.T came out pretty recently and it was good, I played it on game pass. You are a cyborg rabbit of sorts, it plays pretty good.

These are on my wishlist

Garioshi posted...

Definitely check out Pseudoregalia

Darkfire12 posted...

You played Rusted Moss yet? It came out this year and I honestly think it's my favorite Metroidvania. Progression's less about getting specific 'keys' and more about using the movement tools at your disposal (especially the grappling hook) in creative ways to enter new areas and solve puzzles. Absolutely stellar game, on Steam for something like 20 bucks

These seem cool. I havent updated my list in over a year since it was so long in the first place but I definitely need to check out some of the more recent ones

SaikyoStyle posted...

Try Castlevania 2: Simons Quest

I played this a long time ago when I was going through the Castlevania series

Metal_Gear_Raxis posted...

Try Bunny Must Die, lol.

see above re: Rabi Ribi

Bumping this so it doesnt die and Im gonna update it tomorrow

Ghost Song is really Super Metroidy, enjoyed it quite a bit.

Tried Timespinner when it was on gamepass a couple years ago and thought it was pretty meh.

Also, have you played the Ori games? They're fantastic. Guacamelee too.

Supraland

Metroidvania isnt the first genre that comes to mind when playing this game, but its description page touts its inspired by Metroid, Zelda, and Portal, which sets expectations pretty high. And while you do unlock some new gadgets as you go, I think this game is better described as what if Valve made an open world puzzle platformer?

Taking place in a literal sandbox in a first person perspective, gameplay is a pretty even mix of puzzling and platforming, with some Ill-conceived combat (more on that in a bit). Theres also some plot here thats presented through dialog that tries very hard to be funny and self aware but more often than not falls flat. But that doesnt really get in the way of anything.

The core gameplay consists of making your way through interconnected puzzle rooms to collect what the game literally just calls macguffinswhich are your new abilities. A gun, a grappling hook, and more. Along the way there are lots of hidden upgrades to find that add health, attack power, or even grant other abilities.

Controls definitely feels like they were designed with keyboard and mouse in mind. Playing on switch, the controls occasionally felt like they lacked the necessary precision as many of the puzzles involve triggering small buttons then quickly performing some task like shooting a target far away

Overall I found the game very satisfying, and the game constantly throws new ideas at you in the puzzles, many of which require some lateral thinking. The huge amount of secrets make exploring previous areas almost always worthwhile.

There were some drawbacks, though. Might just be a me thing, but I felt some of the puzzles were a little too obtuse, expecting you to use your moves in ways that arent shown to you and arent clear. Others are physics-based and rely on specific positioning of objects that can be hard to get just right.

My biggest complaint, though, is the combat. In most of the rooms of the game, enemies will repeatedly spawn from specific spawn points over time. And being first person, you cant always tell theyre coming. So in many cases I had cleared out a room, was working on figuring out the puzzle, when out of nowhere an enemy attack takes like, a third of my health. By the time I turn to see where the attack is coming from, Im hit again. I suffered a lot of deaths in this game, especially early on, from spawning enemies that needlessly do a whole bunch of damage. So periodically when doing these puzzles youll have to take the time to defeat a bunch of the 3 or 4 enemy types that constantly spawn. Eventually you gain enough health and the ability to do enough damage that enemies become just a chore you have to deal with.

This sort of leads into another more minor complaint, which is that upgrades are seemingly arbitrarily placed throughout the map. You might find an extremely well hidden upgrade, only for it to be a measly +1 damage, or it could be something super useful like the ability to certain destroy enemy spawn points. It felt completely random to me when I discovered these very useful upgrades, which hurt the overall feeling of progression a bit.

Finally, the game is pretty confusing to get around. In the switch version at least, there is no map, and many areas are connected by launch pads that bounce you from place to place. It was very hard to figure out how the major areas were interconnected as you flew past landmarks, and even by late game I was still getting confused trying to find specific areas.

Overall, it was a mostly fun experience. The puzzling definitely lived up to its inspiration from Portal. The game play loop of finding secrets and abilities and having a percentage counter go up is always super satisfying to me. I just wish they would have done away with most or even all of the combat.

7/10

Supraland has a sequel now also, I played the first, and pretty much agree with your rating. I didn't love it enough to jump on the 2nd one, maybe on sale someday.

MabusIncarnate posted...

Supraland has a sequel now also, I played the first, and pretty much agree with your rating. I didn't love it enough to jump on the 2nd one, maybe on sale someday.

The sequel isnt on switch, if it makes it there Id give it a try. I think I heard it tones down the combat which Id be interested in seeing

Reposting this one from my last topic, in anticipation of the next game

Shantae: Half Genie Hero

Technically not a metroidvania, but the rest of the series is, and most this games flaws stem from that it tries to use Metroidvania trappings in a level-based game, so Im including it here. this game started out promising, with the usual tight gameplay and level design of the Shantae series on full display in the straightforward levels but it quickly became a slog.

So unlike previous Shantae games, which used various degrees of open-ended design, this game consists of 5 levels and a hub town. The gameplay loop is essentially visit the hub town, find the NPC that tells you what your next goal is, then go to that level. As you unlock more abilities and return to levels, closed off sections become available to you (this is where the MV trappings come in)

however, the problem with doing this in a linear game is it means you are constantly replaying the same areas. The sections you unlock are almost exclusively small one-room areas that consist of a treasure box, so its not like youre returning for a new area; youre literally just re-playing a level for a fetch quest.

and this is where the flaws of the level design become apparent. Very early on, you can make enemies basically trivial by buying an item that halves damage and collecting a couple heart containers. So the main challenge is environmental hazards which are all one-hit kills that send you to the very beginning of an area (losing half a heart). And many of these environmental hazards are freaking SLOW. The timing of alternating platforms, lasers that turn on and off you have to navigate throughthey just feel sluggish, and make replaying a level a freaking chore. And they make replaying it again and again even worse

there are also too many redundant abilities, which just feel like padding in what is already a 5 level game stretched out to 6-7 hours. Several of them have literally one use (the spider, the bats secondary ability); several are just combat related and do far less damage then standard attacks. Just feels like they ran out of budget to make a game that truly uses the ideas on display here

bosses are pretty neat, which each one having a distinct gimmick and multiple phases; however by the end as noted its easy to basically trivialize boss fights because they dont do much damage (and the game showers you in healing items)

I wont even get into the last level which was basically just an extended flappy bird section for some reason

overall, this was a disappointment, especially from a series that is generally very good. Not sure if the design was an intentional experiment or simply a way to work within a limited budget, but having a more interconnected world where an unlocked area lead to more than just a single treasure room would have vastly improved the game. The format here just created even more of the tedious backtracking that critics of the genre point to.

as a side note, presentation (creepiness of all the characters having big bouncy boobs asidethats just what you get with this series) was very good, the game was frequently funny and well written, and played and ran very smoothly (on switch).

4/10

F.I.S.T is free on epic store end of next week.

Metroidvanias are so good lol. I might suggest Recompile, it's a 7.5/10 (imo) 3D metroidvania where you're in a virtual environment trying to fix bugs or whatever. Interesting story, really cool presentation/art style, okay-ish gameplay with some frustrating platforming elements

Rai_Jin posted...

F.I.S.T is free on epic store end of next week.

tbh Id rather pay for it on switch than get it free from the epic store

sauceje posted...

Metroidvanias are so good lol. I might suggest Recompile, it's a 7.5/10 (imo) 3D metroidvania where you're in a virtual environment trying to fix bugs or whatever. Interesting story, really cool presentation/art style, okay-ish gameplay with some frustrating platforming elements

This is on my list

Might as well post the list, huh?

• Blasphemous
• Axiom Verge 2
• The Mummy Demastered
• Apotheon
• Ender Lillies
• Deaths Gambit
• Time Spinner
• Outbuddies DX
• Gato Roboto
• Momodora Reverie Under the Moonlight
• Vigil The Longest Night
• Grime
• Shantae Half Genie Hero
• Shantae and the Seven Sirens
• Iconoclasts
• Dandara
• Phoenotopia Awakening
• Rabi Ribi
• Touhou Luna Nights
• Kunai
• Ghost 1.0
• Alwas Awakening
• Shinsekai: Into The Depths
• Mindseize
• Odallus
• Record of lodoss war
• Headlander
• Pronty
• The Messenger
• Lost Ruins
• FIST
• 8doors
• Cathedral
• Yoku's Island Express
• Supraland
• Recompile
• Monster Sanctuary
• Batbarian
• forma.8
• Pharaoh Rebirth+
• Magicians & Looters
• Strider
• Wuppo
• Indivisible (technically)
• Elliot Quest
• The Last Faith
• Gestalt Steam Cinder
• Aeterna noctis
• Afterimage
• Rusted moss
• Pseudoregalia

Very nice list, some quality choices for sure

sauceje posted...

Very nice list, some quality choices for sure

Played about half of them so far and found some classics (Ender Lillies, Blasphemous) but also some real duds (Wuppo, Half Genie Hero, Mindseize)

aw I thought Wuppo was alright

Shantae and the Seven Sirens

I was a little wary coming into this game for two reasons. First, although I generally like this series, the previous game, Half Genie Hero, was very bad. Second, this one was originally developed specifically for iPhone, and released in two parts. So I was surprised to discover that this is the best Shantae game yet, with perhaps the most fleshed out metroidvania world in the series.

The gimmick of this series has always been that you learn the ability to transform into different animals that increase your movement, here adding things like dash, swimming, double jump, etc. In all the previous games, most of these involved doing a dance to transform, which always involved taking a beat to transform. In this game, presumably due to its origins on iPhone, theyve streamlined the transformations to automatically happening when you perform whatever action, which speeds up gameplay a lot.

However, they still kept dancing in the form of magic fusion dances that can be used in combat or to move obstacles. For example, the electric dance powers devices and attacks enemies, while the refresh dance heals Shantae and clears poison from water. The game helps out by showing a face to tell you which dance works when you enter a room, which feels a little excessive and gets a little tedious near the end when basically every room has something.

The game itself is a mostly straightforward MV, but with several self-contained dungeons that have a boss at the end. Its also deceptively linear, with you returning to the central hub city between each dungeon, where youre told exactly where to go next. The game does incentivize you to explore previous areas to find hidden health power ups and more.

Unique to this game in the series is a card system, where every enemy has a chance of dropping a card that gives you some special bonus, and up to three can be equipped. Some of them are extremely situation as to be useless (such as faster digging) but others are OP, increasing your attack power, doubling your healing power, or more.

This leads to one of the problems with the game, which is a problem with most Shantae games: difficulty curve is way off. The game starts off fairly tough, with three hearts and enemies dealing a half or even full heart per attack. But as you get more and more hearts, enemy damage does not increase much. Likewise, with the card system and magic attack upgrades, by the end of the game I could pretty much just tank the bosses while doing constant damage. The bosses still take a while to kill, which makes it feel like they expect your damage to increase but didnt account for your extra health or something? It just feels off.

I also remain put off by the games innuendo and the fact that every female character has big bouncing boobs. The innuendo felt a little toned down this time around but I still feel a little bit like a creep playing this.

These arent deal breakers, though, and overall it was a very fun experience, with fluid movement, decently challenge, and good variety of enemies and bosses. Id definitely recommend checking this one out, even as an introduction to the series

8/10