I haven’t played a Metroidvania in a while and I’m looking for suggestions of some good ones to try. Some I would recommend:
Ender’s: Lilies (Magnolias is good too, but play Lilies first. The setting and theme hits better.)
Ori and the Blind Forest / Will of the Wisps (Will of the Wisps did bring a tear to my eye)
Monster Sanctuary (a creature capture metroidvania)
Any system is good, interested to hear of other good ones that are out there.
Symphony of the night is incredible. A bit dated now, but it truly established genre staples.
Darksiders is very good
Seeing as I am old. Super Metroid and Castlevania II: Simom’s Quest. I can… and have played them dozens of times through at this point.
I don’t care much for metroidvanias but Dust: An Elysian Tail was fun for a playthrough or two.
Aquaria. Very retro indie game from 2007. Underwater theme.
Some of my faves that aren’t Hollow Knight:
- Axiom Verge
- Astalon: Tears of the Earth
- Ender Lilies
- Blasphemous
Hollow Knight. It’s the only one I actually played to the end.
La-Mulana was great. Maybe not for everyone. It’s loaded with puzzles.
That’s a gentle way to put it 😆. But I agree it’s so great. Need to get back into it at some point.
Can I half-cheat and say Control?
Is it a metroidvania?
Ori. Both of them.
They are works of high art.
| love super metroid even if the control scheme is dated
Supraland
I wanted to enjoy this game, but it gave me hardcore motion sickness after about 10 minutes. I haven’t had that happen in very many games, so it was notable in this one.
Axiom Verge. I don’t know how they managed to improve on the feeling of Super Metroid, but they did it.
If you havent played the sequel I would recommend it. It definitely is not the same as the original but is still really solid and hopefully there will be further games
Agreed both are really good games. One of the few games I’ve 100%
Its my no.1 genre… i have played A LOT of them. People have already hit on the “big three” - hollow knight, super metroid and castlevania SOTN… heres lesser mentioned gems… sure, they’re not as incredible as those 3 genre topping master pieces, but theyre super super good and worth a play.
- alwas awakening
- tunic*
- hyper light drifter*
- hob*
- Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R)
- Metroid Dread
- castlevania dawn of sorrows/aria of sorrow
- axiom verge
- metroid prime
- castlevania 3
- metroid zero mission
- SM: ancient chozo**
- SM: Ascent**
- 9 Sols
*yes, there could be called “zelda-likes” instead of metroid vanias, but i always felt those two game designs were kissing cousins… if you like one you might like the other.
** these are romhacks…,very very good ones. You need a rom of super metroid and emulator to play em.
Solid list!
but i always felt those two game designs were kissing cousin
I see them as the same genre. You have this “pushing the map’s frontier” mechanic, along with some power or item progression to enable that. The rest is find-and-seek to connect all those dots. IMO, the only major difference is a side vs top-down perspective.
Its true… i think the fundamental formula is that it makes you an explorer first- turns you loose with a very vague objective and lets you discover… map, traversal, sequence skips, w/e and gives you “clues” while letting you feel empowered to do things in your own order/way/time… thus making you feel clever.
Zeldas, you could say, are more linear, more “adventure” in progression than exploration… but its not black n white and each title has varying degrees of freedom
It’s a little old and more Metroid- than -vania: A Robot Named Fight
