What about it bums you out?
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I’m not sure about your criteria (Crateria?), as I haven’t played any of the games you have listed as not real Metroid-likes.
As far as I can tell, it’s a real Metroid-like, though there are definitely more linear, scripted segments at times. I’d say it’s about on par with Prime in that you usually know what your next objective is, but you rarely know how to get there. It sometimes traps you in an area you’ve found until you complete the objective, but the map is wide open, with tons of secrets, and there is some non-linearity in terms of boss order and side quests.
It’s less linear than Metroid Fusion or Dread, if that helps.
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I thought it was too difficult and too interested in doing things that are ‘like old games were’.
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It does, sounds like it’d be worth checking out for me!
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Another game I’d perhaps slightly disparagingly in this case call a Metroid-lite would be Ori and the Blind Forest, which is a game with nice art direction and nice feeling movement, but is also extremely Baby’s First Metroid-like to me. In my opinion, if you can’t ever get lost or not know how to get somewhere, it’s more of a Metroid-lite than a Metroid-like.
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You can definitely get lost in Nine Sols, and I did.
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I have a curious inclination with Metroid-likes, where at least for the early game, I always intuitively (or sometimes half on purpose) choose the Weird Route, and I do like to get lost. I don’t think I’ve ever played a Metroid-like with solid exploration and traversal mechanics without just accidentally trying to pseudo-sequence break.
For example, the half on purpose example I’m thinking of was with Hollow Knight, where I think just for a laugh I lured a flying enemy close enough to an ledge to be able to nail bounce (basically hit an enemy while descending from above with a downward melee attack to get a little bit of air) and sneak in. I can’t remember if it actually resulted in getting anything I wouldn’t have otherwise but I do remember just this constant sense that I was just not where I was “supposed” to be, and that is a big part of the fun in Metroid-likes for me.
Wait that reminds me, another possible GOTY PREDICTION for 2025: Hollow Knight Silksong!! Ain’t no way that Team Cherry are taking this long for any reason other than they are cooking up another Metroid-like GOAT.
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Another prediction for The Game Awards: Hollow Knight: Silksong release date announcement
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I like Hollow Knight a lot, but I think it’s too long. Metroid games should be about 6 -20 hours.
I’m afraid Silksong is going to have the same problem.
But if you think Hollow Knight is great, you should definitely play Nine Sols. (Everybody should).
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Man, I want to play Nine Sols now.
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Do it
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My PC stopped booting a few weeks ago so I’m pretty much done with 2024 games unless something comes out on Android.
Suika Game (Android) - number 6
Basic time waster, fun enough
Pacific Drive - number 5
I was really hoping for something different than what it ended up being. I like the environment I just didn’t like how much time you spend out of the car. I was imagining miles of cruising through scenery before finding something weird, instead it’s drive for 30 seconds, get out and walk for 5 minutes and fool around with your inventory, then go back to your car and drive another 30 seconds to restart the loop.
Wizardry Variants: Daphne - number 4
I had been looking for a Wizardry type game to play on my tablet for a while even though I’ve never actually played one for very long before. So far the gacha mechanics seem to fit in decently well with the dungeon crawler gameplay. Both genres have a lot of grinding right? But around the edges it does seem to be shading more into gacha style grinding where you just repeat easy content over and over for an incremental gain, rather than (uh honestly just what I imagine) dungeon crawler style grinding where you struggle against hard content until you can clear it.
Balatro - number 3
A much more interesting time waster. I tried to get my dad to play this but failed so far.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink - number 2
I wish there was more of this! I wish that this was the basis for a full games as a service Granblue 3d gacha world like the mihoyo games seem to be (haven’t tried any of those yet). What’s here was really great, a fun story and I’m happy that it left me wanting more. Combat was great too.
Shadows of the Erdtree - number 1
Loved this return to Elden Ring. Nothing much profound to say about it, just glad I could play it
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Try adding bullet points. That worked for mine.
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I think Silksong will have a lot of great stuff in it and probably be like twice as long as it needs to be
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The bigger the better, imo (well so long as the traversal, both mechanical on a character level and just abstract like fast travel, is also good). More places to get lost.
My favourite aspect of Hollow Knight was just the sense of the size of the place. A little part of me always feels sad when I feel that I’ve explored all of the map, and a big reason Hollow Knight was captivating to me was feeling like there was always a new area or a new connection, always a new hole to fall into an already staggeringly large feeling place. I absolutely loved that there was a greater sense of the extent of the whole place especially, how both sides of the greater area ended in similar rocky area. It really helped that feeling of enormity to have a clear frame of reference as to where the outer limits were. Like, in the sense that everything in between those two areas could always contain more than what I’d already found.
From what I remember Silksong’s grander topographical narrative is going to be about starting at the bottom of an enormous bug structure of some kind, and over the course of the game, climbing higher and higher (kind of the opposite from the first game which put you mostly on the surface at first and had you explore downward). I feel quite certain that if Team Cherry were already talking about that kind of sense of the game world being so intimately tied to progression through the game itself years ago, they are absolutely cooking up something special and appropriately grand in size and scope and complexity.
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I got Nine Sols, Anthology of the Killer in my Steam shopping cart rn (and Subnautica: Below Zero but that’s unrelated). Gonna see if the price on any drop on Cyber Monday maybe
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By the way, Nine Sols console release is this coming Tuesday, November 26.
Coming to Switch, PS4, PS5, XBONE, XBsX/S, and Game Pass day 1.
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For reasons I won’t get into yet, I’ve played ninety-nine video games released in 2024. I haven’t fully put my opinions together but here’s my current top five.
5: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Not my favorite Yakuza, but it’s somewhere in the top three. Held back a bit by the main story, which clearly had more Kiryu shoehorned in at some point in development in a way that overshadows Ichiban. You know this is a 2024 game because a major character streams regularly as a VTuber.
4: Tactical Breach Wizards
I’ve accepted that I’m not a big fan of tactics games in general, but I’m obsessed with whatever the heck this is. Cool action plot in a very unique world, and great character writing with probably my favorite RPG party this year (although Infinite Wealth is a close second). Pretty much every scene got a sensible chuckle out of me.
3: Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
Had a big smile on my face the entire game. Lots of fun new toys, a very impressive world map, and I loved all of the bosses except whichever one you’re thinking of. I have some minor complaints about the fragment system but overall it’s a great way to handle leveling in a game’s expansion.
2: Helldivers 2
People are still iterating on Left 4 Dead, and adding a bit of MGS5-like stealth action was the perfect choice. Equally good at horde combat and infiltration gameplay, with the multiplayer nonsense of Deep Rock Galactic.
1: Nine Sols
Hollow Knight but with Sekiro’s parry-based combat system. This is like mathematically the perfect video game. Some of the best boss designs I’ve ever seen, beautiful and creative environment art, a large cast of characters with interesting writing, and a huge metroidvania world to explore. My only complaint is that it starts off a little slow, because the game doesn’t really come alive until you unlock some of the movement/combat techs.
The rest of my top thirty in rough order from favorite to least favorite: Another Crab’s Treasure,
Rise of the Golden Idol, Age of Mythology: Retold, UFO 50, Indika, I Am Your Beast, Dread Delusion, Hades 2, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Animal Well, Crow Country, Frogmonster, Cataclismo, Coven, Balatro, Penny’s Big Breakaway, Abiotic Factor, Minishoot Adventures, Pacific Drive, Anthology of the Killer, 1000xRESIST, Judero, Ultros, Arctic Eggs, Thank Goodness You’re Here, Manor Lords.
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Well, time to use the Game Pass soon, then.
I don’t know if this will be as soon as next month since I have pending time and I’ll maybe play games through my backlog, but maybe it’s time.
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Interested to eventually learn of this reason when you’re ready to share because I thought my 20-odd was reasonably sizable but reading 99 made me audibly say, “fucking hell!” in astonishment.
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