@captain I found all of these books at the local used book store in the video games shelf when I was really young. A little later on I would use the one that contained Final Fantasy 1 strategies to get through the GBA remake Dawn of Souls when I got stuck!!
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I’m curious what everyone’s favorite metroidvania (or “search action”) game is. Provided, of course, that you are a fan of that genre.
Mine is super metroid, which I’m currently replaying. The atmosphere and color palette really do it for me.
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my fav is one you referred to as a “tim burton ass game” on this forum
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That was my old avatar speaking
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For my dollar cave story of we’re counting it (I personally don’t but I like it most)
If I gotta go purest maybe it just is Hollow knight dude. Hollow knight is so good it felt like I was on a heroin bender
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Environmental Station Alpha is the only one of those I’ve played that I wished went on for longer
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If we’re talking Metroidvanias, I don’t know about favourite but Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is super good, and only 12ish hours long.
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I’m just going to give the boring answer, Hollow Knight.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom sure is chill as heck though. Also I want to play that Ender Magnolia game, because Ender Lilies was such a surprisingly good game.
Thinking about it, the amount of quality Metroidvanias is sorta stunning, because I can go three or four titles deep on my favorites before landing on a game that has “Metroid” or “Castlevania” in the title.
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Mine is Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (the prequel to Moonlit Farewell). Something about the way that game feels was absolutely perfect for me when I played it. I even went so far as to finish the game on its “one hit kill” difficulty because I just wanted more game and wanted to feel those controls. It’s also got Pardoner Fennel. No other game can say that.
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I’m interpreting “fave” to mean “one I wanna play now.” And that’d be Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist. The movement is rad and just jam packed with potential because it’s tied to the overall narrative and the central mystery of the protagonist. It has an immense depth-of-diorama coupled with a softer visual rendering that sparks curiosities without becoming overwhelming. And it’s got cool robots!
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Don’t make me choose among my darlings!
If I absolutely have to pick one, I guess Metroid Zero Mission.
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Are 3D search-action games admissible?
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My favorite is also just Super Metroid, but I also very much enjoy Dead Cells and Batman: Arkham Asylum which are both spins on the genre
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If you ask me, yes
Metroid Prime 2
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I don’t know why I don’t talk about it more, but Guacamelee is an outstanding metroidvania.
Gonna give it some love and say it’s my number 1
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I see my stealth request for metroidvanias worked exactly as intended. I’ve got a few of these queued up in the library already (I actually stole monster boy from a previous post from Herb, momodora from nabakov, and shout out bbtone for the alpha station recommendation).
I have to admit I’m surprised any castlevanias haven’t been mentioned, including forum favorite order of eccelsia.
Also stunned to not see nine sols from you!
As for the genre itself, I’ve been really enjoying it lately. Sometimes I’ll play 30 minutes of a game like Fire Emblem Echoes and lie to everyone that I’m “playing it” but in reality I’m working my way through a Metroid. There’s something really pleasing about the “genre” that makes it feel similar to detective novels. Formulaic enough to be comfortable, engaging enough to satisfy the deeper hungers. Like detective novels, however, there are now so many metroidvanias that it takes some real discernment to find “the good ones.”
I should probably give hollow knight another try now that I’m on a kick. Also I want to mention animal well. Maybe it’s recency bias, but the vibes are on par with super Metroid imo in that it’s “vibrant but gloomy”
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Also, what’s the forum’s thoughts on Metroid Dread? The podcast seemed sour on it but I had a very good time with that game.
Wishlisted! It’s half off right now and very cheap to begin with. If it’s half as good as the Moonlit Farewell, I’m already sold.
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Also a question for the history buffs: what metroidvanias exist that weren’t part of the indie boom? I never hear any discussed besides Metroid or Castlevania.
And I guess since the term metroidvania kinda came from the indie boom, I’ll broaden the question to include search action type games that are “sorta like Zelda but also not”
It’s not a bad game but it didn’t hook me, and the EMMI encounters were frustrating. I like parrying in games but not when every success feels like a fluke—that is, it feels this way against the EMMIs. With regular enemies parrying feels mandatory in order to proceed and any way around that is often inelegant and mash-y.
Also as a followup to Fusion, a game people are divided about for being linear and gate-y, I would have liked Dread to stretch the series even more and not just go back to the Super Metroid well.
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