Metroidvanias
Super Metroid · Metroid: Zero Mission · Metroid Fusion · Metroid: Samus Returns · Metroid Dread · Castlevania: Symphony of the Night · Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow · Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow · Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia · Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin · Ori and the Blind Forest · Ori and the Will of the Wisps · Hollow Knight
A classic, but not my favorite just due to the floatiness of jumping and how much of a pain in the ass the wall jumps are.
An excellent game, looks great, plays great.
This nails so many things about Metroid, the creepiness, the loneliness. This is the template of what comes later.
I think this might be my least favorite 2D Metroid (I'm only counting the most recent remakes of 1 and 2 in this) but it's still a really good game. The Aeion Pulse and frustrating, gotcha puzzle design were the low parts of this.
The best Metroid, but not perfect. It's great at instilling that titular sense of dread, it controls so well, and it does the best job of making you and Samus feel both afraid and powerful. It just feels good to play overall.
A great looking classic but poorly paced and ultimately frustrating. I'm glad I played this as a historical artifact but not my favorite of the genre.
Probably a bit of nostalgia help here, but probably still my favorite one. I just love gathering the souls as you go.
A worthy successor to Aria but the story isn't quite as interesting.
This game has so many good ideas but I just didn't love the execution of it overall. The early levels are just too flat and linear and there's just not enough actual castle (although this could be mitigated by making it a castle by committee). I also wish there was a radial menu to be able to switch between more loadouts (obviously not doable on original hardware). The idea to have a weaknesses system is good, I just spent too much time switching in menus.
Played this, beat it pretty quickly overall. It was a fun Metroidvania. Art style's great.
played this directly after the previous game but fell off after a few hours. I think maybe I was just a little burnt out on the formula.
Like an idiot I started this. I don't even know why. I just wanted to test the PSX emulator I guess. It's really fun though. Two seconds in I was like "oh this is basically exactly the Aria of Sorrow engine." And I love Aria.
Okay, so I started THIS to contrast with Symphony of the Night, since I think these two are the two ur-classics of the genre and well, I kind of immediately found it more fun. So much more fun that I might just immediately retire SOTN. I think a HUGE thing is that you can actually get more health while you're adventuring in Super Metroid so it doesn't feel like a really awful, attrition-y experience.
Another benefit is that exploration feels more rewarding and I feel like I grok the design language better. For whatever reason I just understand both where things are likely to be hidden, but what is likely. With SOTN, sometimes you find things and you expect it to be this huge upgrade and then it's a sword that I have better versions of. You don't get that really with Metroid, and when you do find tiny things they're always useful. I'll take a missile pack upgrade.
Neither game is so long so I might power through SOTN anyways, a little more, but I'm not about really forcing the fun here.
Of note, I am playing the Project Base version of the game.
I don't know if this game is going to have the distance for me. I find it pretty frustrating. I don't love traveling around and it feels like it's just very willing to waste a lot of your time and there's just no hand holding here at all. I can see the bones of why it's so good and so influential but I don't know exactly what it is. It's just not captivating me in the way that Aria of Sorrow did. I would be interested to try Aria again and see if I can figure out what it is (although of course the comparison will always be different because of the nostalgia). I did just play it last year I think, but it's hard for me to tell what's different, a more fresh comparison could help. Speaking of...
I think I figured out the problem with this game. It's fucking annoying. I played through more, I looked up some shit because I didn't want to keep going around this castle in a circle looking for some little hint that I missed the first time. Super Metroid like clearly advertises (HEY THIS DOOR IS A DIFFERENT COLOR COME BACK AT EXACTLY THIS TIME). I got the power of mist and the power of bat and it's just meh.
Like it's annoying to get around. The travelling and platforming doesn't feel great, and you're getting chipped at by these annoying ass armored fleas and then you're like "fuck I've actually lost a lot of health I guess it's not a good time to fight a boss" and then you have to backtrack your ass to the save point to reheal.
Also if you die you have to go through the world's longest screen and reload back into the game from the title. Thank god for save states. Me finishing this game seems unlikely but it's not long? I think I'm going to give myself the option to quit whenever since I think I've gotten what I need out of it.
So I kept going and beat the orb around Richter Belmont. I'm definitely using a walkthrough, this shit is too annoying otherwise. The inverted castle is kind of trippy and hard to get around.
Actually it's a giant pain in the ass. There are rooms here that seem designed to drive one to madness. I'm at three dracula parts so it would seem wasteful to not finish.
I found the alucard shield by accident. No guides in the inverted castle so far. It is hilariously broken in a way I don't really mind. Is it taking all the skill and everything out of the game? Yeah maybe, but it's funny and the game is so annoying in some sections here that it deserves it.
It's very funny melting death by walking at him. Collected another dracula part, just need to find one. This seems like the thing where you could go forever walking around in circles not stumbling across the one room you need. Which is crazy because I feel like I've gotten so many taking pretty random walks. I'm not like methodically going through, I just kind of go forward until I hit a dead end. If I missed it waaaaay back somewhere I'm going to be pissed (partially because I only found like one teleporter room.)
I really like this game except the controls suck so bad. First, I hate the select to switch between weapons thing it's so annoying. Second, Samus is so floaty and her platforming is so weird in general. Thirdly, there are occasional platforming sections that make me want to die.
Okay, I beat this last night, yes I did cheese stuff to death. I don't think I would have beaten it otherwise. I'm interested in putting Super Metroid more front and center to really compare and contrast.
Additionally, I found out that basically every Metroid and Castlevania tops out at tenish hours? I might just blast through a lot of these.
So after banging my head against a specific platforming section I just...went a different way. I think this game is so much better overall than SotN, I could do with slightly more signposting though because you know, I'm an adult. If I recall, this is something fusion did better, giving you a general heading. It also doesn't discuss the tools well enough. It took me this long to realize you could lengthen the grapple.
This game is also frustrating because it will make you feel like so many things are possible and maybe they are, maybe they aren't, and maybe you could but you shouldn't. There's no good indication of "no, you actually cannot make this jump I know it's really close but you're not like two pixels off you just can't."
Okay this game is really good (hot take), because as frustrating as it is sometimes (how the shit was I supposed to know to grapple beam the electricity on this boss to kill it) God damn does it feel so good and make you feel so smart sometimes.
I have beaten this now and I've said it before but man, it's really good! I got like just over 2/3rds completion which I'm saying is probably pretty decent. I have no metrics for this, that's just what I'm saying. There are a few frustrating parts where I think there could be more hand holding overall but you can really see why this thing is what set the standard and spawned a genre.
I'm definitely very interested in further exploring the genre, especially since these games are just so quick. I think Metroid Zero Mission is likely next, and then Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow on the other end.
I'm pretty interested to see how Zero Mission goes and I cannot for the life of me remember how Fusion worked, but like, I already felt like Super Metroid had too few buttons and the Advance has two fewer.
Yeah I started it big whoop. I also technically started Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow but I feel like I'll end up doing Zero Mission first.
Overall? So far I feel like the controls are really refined here, the platforming seems so much better.
Game is a blast. Super addictive and a great portable pick up and play game for a few minutes. This game is also pretty short feeling. I'm like two hours and some change in and I'm at Mother Brain? I assume this is basically the end of the game. I definitely haven't been as exhaustive as possible in finding every pickup but I think I'm doing a pretty reasonable job. I suppose I'm missing a lot of classic Metroid items that might point to this being longer (Power Bombs, Space Jump) but I suppose it's possible those didn't exist in the original and were Super Metroid innovations.
Love the platforming, although it's mildly more annoying with the screw attack. I keep killing things I want to stand on.
Yo fuck the Mother Brain room in this one.
And we beat this one too.
The final section is really fun, I really like the tension of having to be depowered and wandering the space pirate ship. It felt dangerous. Scary.
I think I'll do Samus Returns next. Really enjoying knocking these out. AM2R is also highly possible. Maybe after though. Should probably do a Castlevania too.
It's so fucking annoying to play this game after Zero Mission because the A and B buttons now do different things.
Aside from that this is pretty fun. I'm not totally sure how I feel about it in terms of ranking overall among the 2d Metroids. This Metroid fighting stuff is getting a bit repetitive.
Got stuck in one spot, had to look it up, felt like a total idiot for missing the thing. It was just so subtle. The thing where the Metroid DNA machine points you in the right direction is so misleading sometimes too. Like I don't think where it was pointing me was the next one, it was the one I ended up doing last.
Save states aren't working for whatever reason on Azahar either. Real pain in the ass for being able to stop and pick up wherever. Was stressing out trying to find a save spot when I was in a new area.
Super stuck on this one fight, I don't want to backtrack because I'm apparently far away from everything but fighting a gamma Metroid low on missiles and energy. Fuckers deal so much energy.
I think this one is my least favorite of the ones I've played recently. It feels like they dole out new function upgrades really slowly. It also just feels very samey as a result and I feel like there could be many fewer Metroids to have to kill on each level or at the very least they could be more different.
Totally lost, just backtracking now, seeing if I missed an upgrade I can now go get.
I think this is pretty easily my least favorite one. My backtracking has not yielded much. The game feels very stingy with upgrades and the path seems very fixed. Like I feel stuck and there are lots of things I can see I CAN'T do and I can't really tell which way to go from here without a new thing.
Yep. So I figured it out and got farther. I'm just very over the bog standard Metroid fights here. I did it once. Do I have to really keep doing it? This chasing me down the hallway thing also sucks and is infuriating.
There are other issues here. The Aeion Pulse thing has made the game worse. I thought this would be an “I’m stuck” button but they’ve used it to make the environments unreadable. Gone is the ability to check the environments with your eyes for vulnerable blocks. You just have to spam the pulse button. You can’t even opt to not use it. Some of the blocks just aren’t differentiable without it.
Additionally this grinder thingy chase through the tunnels sequence made me want to throw the game in the dumpster.
Got the gravity suit. Another annoyance about this game: it has a high number of puzzles that seemed designed to waste my time. "Haha there was no way for you to know that this was a floor that gave away try again idiot."
Defeated the Diggernaut. Good fight!
It took me a while to understand why I loved Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night felt kind of grueling to play through. In fact, I liked Super Metroid so much that as soon as I was done, I basically instantly fired up Zero Mission and the thought of playing a (probably better) Castlevania sequel made me recoil. I started playing these because I wanted to play these two foundational games that directly led to two things I loved playing growing up: Metroid Fusion and Aria of Sorrow.
read →I really thought I was so done with this game but then I beat this last big-ass Metroid and I got this little baby Metroid and I love it. Insert Brooklyn Nine-Nine meme of "I just met this but if anything happened to it I would kill everyone."
I went around and started gathering up a bunch of the old power-ups I missed just because now the Metroid unlocks, getting rid of all these crystal things that I never knew how to get past before.
It's been mostly fun, except for the fact that I got fed up by these long rows of spikes and I was like, "I have basically everything and I have to assume I am adjacent to the end of the game." How do I get past these long long rows of spikes? The answer is they don't tell you how but you're supposed to use the power bombs and use those to rocket you past it. I got so frustrated that, like, why would you gate this? What a stupid thing to do. The power bombs are like, you don't get so many of them to the point where it feels like you can just burn them on experimentation. Maybe that's just me
Beat this tonight. About 12 hours? Would have been shorter but I unlocked baby metroid and was like well, you can't give me this baby and then expect me to just end the game instantly. So I went back and got a bunch more upgrades which made the final boss significantly easier to boot! 92% completion.
On to Dread next.
Yep we started this right away.
Already I am getting Good Feelings from it. I started playing this a long long time ago, I'm not sure why I stopped. My progress was like 50% of items.
It feels good and looks sharp and like it has all the best things of Samus Returns. Let's see if it keeps the worst.
I've beaten the first boss, the decision to keep Morph Ball from you seems Very Intentional. Like you get the spider climb first, which is usually a Morph Ball thing.
Also the EMMIs are so fucking creepy and they nailed that. The designers know that the creepiest things are human shaped but act in ways humans don't. They're theoretically bipedal, but move on all fours with ease and contort their bodies in uncomfortable ways.
Got in about 45 minutes of this and it remains great. I think this is a strong frontrunner to be favorite.
Had a cute clever girl moment with an EMMI. Was charging the beam waiting for it to come so I could blow its face off and then it showed up behind me. You little fucker.
I dunno how I feel about super missiles superseding regular missiles! Seems like a skill gap! Also it makes them feel less impactful. Now it's just a "keeping up with the joneses" thing, things will become more powerful to compensate. And obviously they did in the other games, but they probably didn't assume as many missiles.
The X being out seems canonically bad.
Getting the ice missile directly after also makes it seem quite pointless. I actually think I have that issue with a lot of the upgrades. The pulse bomb(?) is nearly immediately outclassed by the power bomb. I know it's not limited but it feels like it supercedes.
The disliked Aeion Pulse returns. It doesn't feel as bad this time. I'm not sure why.
I have reached the point of no return. I'll go find some more stuff before ending.
I really don't know how I feel about this. I felt like maybe it wouldn't hold up, due to the pulse, the item acquisition issues (again, the pacing is weird, changing how they work), and the fact that it feels maybe a bit too hand holdy. It seems like it just directly shuts off other ways to go, it funnels you strongly.
Despite that, it feels really good. It looks good. The fights are great, they feel fair and I can feel myself learning them. Even the repetitive fights (the EMMI, the brain things, the X spear fighters) aren't too often, too clustered together like the metroids in Samus returns and they're kept fresh.
Like the EMMI are fucking annoying and I hate them...which means it feels great to beat them finally. There is a tension and a catharsis to beating them, beating them doesn't feel perfunctory, it feels like a triumph. I feel like an action hero, Ripley or Sarah Connor, having finally defeated this terror by the skin of my teeth, panting and exhausted in victory.
For all the flaws, it feels like this game gets Samus and the tone and atmosphere of what these games should be totally correct.
Metroid: Samus Returns is, going by release order, the game that makes Samus feel the most badass, the most powerful. She can now effortlessly aim in 360 degrees, she punches monsters fearlessly right in the face before finishing them off with a quick salvo. She's never been better at finding the traps and secrets and staying one step ahead of her enemies and environment.
read →Did some roaming around to gather some upgrades, now it's on to the final fight.
UGH, that second phase threw me for a loop! At least let me pick up from the midpoint cutscene!
I've been trying to think about why in spite of some of my gripes Dread succeeds in a lot of ways and I think he's a real contender for my favorite of the series. I think it comes down to storytelling. One thing I was mulling over was that I mechanically have issues as a player with how Samus gains her powers. I think the missiles, super missiles, ice missiles thing is the clearest example of how the progression feels weird but in the story Samus's progression feels really satisfying.
I think that's because really this is the most well-shown Metroid. We can feel the power that Samus feels and we can see her face as she gains these powers. I think the most notable example is when she defeats the EMMI and is able to absorb that power directly and then looks at herself with wonder. The advancements in being able to show real cutscenes with great detail help because Samus is so silent and the beats are so subtle.
We beat this. What a really good game. The ending really gets at what I was saying yesterday, it makes Samus feel powerful. That moment when she beats Raven Beak and just has that primal scream is so intense.
Also needed to continue our Metroidvania series! Soma moves like fuckin MOLASSES. Beat one boss.
Killed like four bosses now? It's pretty fun. Soma still moves sooooo slowwwwww.
I'm liking this a lot more. I'm not totally sure what's so different yet.
I cheated myself the soul getting ring because you know, fuck farming. I know it's more reliable now but dang there's still some farming!
Got through a massive chunk here, "beat" the game with the wrong ending, so had to go back and track down Paranoia and then I went around jumping into all the mirrors for a while before actually beating Dario.
Okay, stayed up a bit later than I should have to beat this, which I suppose is a good sign. I do like how fast it is to chunk through these.
This felt fine though overall. I think the evidence increasingly mounts that I need to replay Aria and Fusion to see how I still feel about both, although I'm pretty certain I beat Aria a few years ago. But I think Order of Ecclesia is next.
Playing these games now has really just shot up my love for Metroidvanias. I have some ideas for why I forgot about this but I think this is fodder for a Deep Thought so I don't want to give too much away right now.
Levels are really horizontal here at the start and I don't care for that. The glyph system is interesting, soul adjacent for Soma.
Game looks really good though, I love the flair in Shanoa's animations.
Also fuck these weird floating tentacle monsters.
The progression curve on this feels weird. I don't feel like my weapons are strong enough currently.
I'm not a giant fan of how I have to do these little quests to then get the upgrade. I am not really feeling this one currently.
I really don't know how I feel about this one. It's different and it's trying things. I feel like it's hard to get into a good flow with the glyph weapons and I'm not sure I like this early on distributed structure of the locations. I guess I do like having a hub it's relatively easy to zip back to.
Okay, so the type matching and resistances thing is a cool idea but if you're going to do that I feel like I need more slots for glyph loadouts. I gotta switch between slashing and smashing and poking and then I want something that's a bit more ranged and then I want a magic one.
It's just very annoying and breaks flow to have to be like "fuck it's a skeleton let me switch my sword glyphs for hammers."
I listened to a podcast recently, Triple Click, and they had the concept of a canon that they would come back to: ten games that are an example of what they like in games so someone could understand their perspective. I thought this was a fun idea! Another thing I liked was that this was a living document, it was meant for you to come back and update it to show how you've changed.
read →Rescued all the villagers baby. Still having a moderate amount of fun here. I think I'd say this slots in under Dawn of Sorrow but maybe only just?
We have made it to Dracula's castle. Every time I kill a boss and it doesn't have a cool new ability drop it makes me angry.
I'm really uncertain I'm going to finish this. I think I've seen enough to make a real judgment on it and it's "cool ideas kind of okay execution." What might get me to push through it is that I'm so very close to the end and Fortune's Weave is around the corner so am I going to start something NEW? Probably not. Although I'm so close to the end of this and DQV I'll probably have some left over time before Weave.
Lily wanted to watch me play a game on the big tv and when I was scrolling through Steam she saw this and wanted me to play it. Okay sure.
I ended up doing like an hour or so of this, I beat two (1.5?) bosses and had fun. I've owned this forever and played it a little and then bounced off it for some reason? I'm not sure why.
I do dislike all souls like oh no you died you lost all your shit hahahaha get wrecked but other than that it's pretty fun. It does extremely minimal handholding which I understand is it being a throwback to the genre but I think I like mine a little more authored.
If anything causes me to abandon Order of Ecclesia (and not start Portrait of Ruin) this is it, but according to HLTB it's just way too long for that.
Beat it today. I did use a cheat to just help me over the hump. I just wanted to see it through.
I think this game is fine. The Castlevania series is much weaker for me overall compared to Metroid. I think the backtracking is possibly weaker because the verb gaining is much weaker. In this game for example, you get paries and wings so late and there aren't many other traversal powers beyond the double jump.
Also getting weapon upgrades is pretty underwhelming. Once you have all the variety it's mostly just getting the slightly more powerful versions. And for me at least, not much got better than rapiers. They deal so much damage so quickly.
Metroid Dread tells you, right from the title, that it gets it. We're here because we want that feeling of exploring a space station alone. We're frightened and everything has gone to shit but there's no way out but through, and through we'll go. Like Ellen Ripley, Samus is a survivor. She'll find a way. Metroid Dread masterfully dances between making you feel powerful and powerless, flipping between Alien and Aliens effortlessly. That's what makes Metroid Dread the best Metroid game.
read →