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[-Ross]

Oh, I got some of that, don't worry. I didn't "cheat" constantly. But there were many times when I had no clear goal and no idea where to go, which wasn't fun. Getting new abilities was cool, but also really aggravating because I knew I had passed several areas before that I needed the ability for, but I couldn't remember exactly where they were, so that led to tedious searching of areas I'd already explored to find the old dead ends that would now be passable.

The initial exploration part was great. Deepnest, the Abyss, those darn crystal mines . . . I definitely got some Dark Souls level concern for my own safety out of that game. And a nice sense of satisfaction once you learned the area and the enemies and could beat through them no problem. All-in-all it was great.

[ProfessorOFun]

I've been spending a lot more time on these forums over the past 2 months, and it seems to me like I can't bat an eye lash before seeing a new metroidvania pop up. What was the game that sparked this frenzy? Presently I can say I get at least 20% less interested off the bat is I see the term metroidvania in a game. I guess I like fun games but in general the story telling these days is what pulls me in considering many things that can be done in current gaming has been done, and I haven't necessarily known them to be renowned for their storytelling!

When I read "Metroidvania" I just think "Platformer". To me, there is no difference.

I feel this way about metroidvania games: Stop Making Platformers! The video where Tanya Short says "Stop Making Platformers" is a pretty fantastic one about procedural generation, btw. One of my all time favorites. Tarn Adams is a beast.

Of course if you really enjoy platformers, then by all means make whatever your dream is. I won't stop you - although I will strongly encourage you to try any other style for your game idea.

As a gamer and as a developer, my true thoughts on metroidvania and platformers are about the same:

"..Sigh...not another one...".

In that regard, I once again share the same general opinion as Tanya Short, "I don't like platformers, and especially not linear puzzle platformers, as a general rule."

Very often I will get a ton of excitement reading an awesome snippet about a game (text) before looking at the screenshots. Games which sound like EXACTLY what I want to play. It is especially exciting in a world which IMO has far too few games with any real depth or complexity. I take that excitement & dive in: Then I click the ad or see the screenshots: It's a platformer.

Immediately every single bit of that excitement is drained. All those complex features I was excited about? I immediately know they are nothing like what I imagined. 'Cause Platformer' I know the theme isn't really what was described. 'Cause Platformer'. I know that all the features it claims to have that excited me the most are barely even there or non-existent. 'Cause Platformer'.

As a developer, platformers & metroidvania games scream "Newbie" to me. I understand industry veterans work on platformers, and there are some wonderful platformers (no doubt about it). However every boy & his dog make their first game as a platformer. I don't know what the environment looks like today, but just a year ago if you were to browse the first few pages of DevLogs, you would get a majority platformers, metroidvania, and puzzle mobile games. With legit reasons: They are easy to make. Quick in development & they require very little of everything. Little story, little complexity in system, little programming, little art, etc. Although this can obviously change, it holds mostly true. Little is required of them. You can add to them, but don't necessarily have to. I won't argue that a platformer with crafting system can get quite complicated or have enormous amounts of art. I'm sure that some platformers have fantastic stories. However compared to other genres/formats, they are still a lighter load. And it is not merely my opinion that platformers very often have amazing descriptions but fail to provide what you'd imagine when reading their text. Compare that to genres like Sim games, the design & balance problems & higher expectations for graphics which come with competitive FPS games, or any game of any time which has an open world or anything with multiplayer. The complex genres are the ones which IMO have the highest demand. Especially by me. I want nothing but deep, complex, or innovative games. Metroidvania is the exact opposite of that. They are the anti-thesis of why I got into game development in the first place.

As a gamer, if I were to want to play a platformer? I'd load up an Emulator & play games that IMO are even to this day better than a lot of what you see. Even if just... 'Cause Nostalgia'.



And I don't think it is 'Cause Nostalgia'

Platformers which innovate seem to do very well for themselves. Nintendo still impresses with its Super Mario Bros platformers. However the majority of platformers (even some of the more innovative ones) are pretty much the same thing we've had decade after decade: but a lot of the times worse than what we had in the past. How many of us really do think Platformer#346 is better than Turtles in Time or Contra? Only a few games really change what 'Platformer' means, and when they do? They are kindof not really 'platformers' anymore & they are definitely far from 'Metroidvania' (ex. Terraria).

[Photon]

I'm more of the inclination that platformers/metroidvanias are just severely under-realized these days. They absolutely can be deep and complex, but a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes the "nostalgic" ones tick holds them down.

Take Super Metroid for instance. Super Metroid may have lots of upgrades, but having lots of upgrades does not guarantee you are a Super Metroid. There is so much more going on at a low level design-wise that the casual player doesn't even realize. To me, it seems like people just take one or two features from these classics and assume that that will sell their game (and sometimes it does.) Its not deliberate laziness so much as it selective attention given to the most memorable features.

As I already implied earlier in this topic, Axiom Verge is an example of this for me. It had backtracking, but everything was so abstract that thematically and functionally it was boring. There were some very creative upgrades, but they involved horribly unmemorable obstacles like generic wall #312 and generic ceiling #26. For me, Axiom Verge lacked not only charm, but functional cohesiveness that is seen in spades in Super Metroid.

As a counterexample, I've really been enjoying a newly released (non-Metroidvania) platformer called 20XX. Its MegaMan(X)-inspired, but it feels like a distinct offshoot of the series rather than a wholesale aping of it. This is seen most notably with how it handles player progression and the massive pool of upgrades. What it sacrifices in level design it makes up for in creative combat. What it sacrifices in personality it makes up for in replayability. What you value will determine whether those tradeoffs are worth it for you, but it feels like a distinct experience that stands on its own merits.

Personally, I still crave good platformers. I would love to get some fresh gaming highs such as what I got from classics like Yoshi's Island and Donkey Kong Country. Trying to find games that have "the touch," however, is easier said than done these days.

[s0]

I'm more of the inclination that platformers/metroidvanias are just severely under-realized these days. They absolutely can be deep and complex, but a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes the "nostalgic" ones tick holds them down.

i think that's pretty much what professoroffun is saying: lots of inexperienced devs making a platformer as their first game leads to lots of subpar platformers.

[Photon]

I'm more of the inclination that platformers/metroidvanias are just severely under-realized these days. They absolutely can be deep and complex, but a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes the "nostalgic" ones tick holds them down.

i think that's pretty much what professoroffun is saying: lots of inexperienced devs making a platformer as their first game leads to lots of subpar platformers.

Yes, but I don't think it means we should discourage the development of platformers, which is kind of the feeling I got when reading through his post. Granted, it may be harder to "sell" because of the stigma surrounding it, but if no one makes good platformers how do we get rid of that stigma? I suppose it could die out slowly as new platformers become scarcer, but that doesn't necessarily mean platformers themselves will be better off. If anything, the same mediocre platformers will just come back but people will be less fed up with them, at least temporarily.

[s0]

Yes, but I don't think it means we should discourage the development of platformers

agreed

[Raptor85]

I'm more of the inclination that platformers/metroidvanias are just severely under-realized these days. They absolutely can be deep and complex, but a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes the "nostalgic" ones tick holds them down.

i think that's pretty much what professoroffun is saying: lots of inexperienced devs making a platformer as their first game leads to lots of subpar platformers.

the same could really be said about a lot of genre's right now though, and of course there's the fact that you tend to see a lot more of the type of game you tend to look for then others.  With RPGmaker and UE4's ease of access, combined with an asset store for buying components to often build an entire game without a single line of code, people aren't just making platformers as their first games anymore, people are often jumping STRAIGHT IN to things like survival games and JRPG's, and of course "horror" games....and the quality is about what you'd expect.  Thankfully with the death of greenlight the number of these you see on steam is way down, as is the number of crappy platformers, but some are still making it through.

[s0]

i mean i don't think it's a big deal either way. i just ignore games that look like obvious garbage.

[J-Snake]

Does anyone know some top down metroidvanias?

[Schoq]

the legend of zelda

[J-Snake]

come on, not the obvious ones

[Schoq]

Guardian of Paradise

Rinku's Saturated Dreamers is an upcoming one

[Schoq]

the genre should really be called zeldatroid

[ProgramGamer]

Zeldoid

[Squire Grooktook]

I appreciate the genre and always have, but I never have felt particularly strongly for them. The exploration and sense of discovery Metroidvania's thrive on is fun, but they generally tend to lack replay value or true intensity, for me.

When it comes to side scrolling action, I much prefer the tight, single sitting "gauntlet" of arcade-style sidescrollers.

Contra, Ghouls and Ghosts, Ninja Spirit, Alien Soldier, etc. These are games I can play and replay throughout the years with just as much excitement as when I first discovered them.

Super Metroid and Symphony of The Night are nice, but I don't feel the same tension or drive to perform well when I replay them.

[Oskuro]

Super Metroid and Symphony of The Night are nice, but I don't feel the same tension or drive to perform well when I replay them.

I feel like a well designed metroidvania game should be flexible enough so that new playthroughs offer interesting challenges.

I, for example, often replay Metroid: Zero Mission to try and sequence break in new and exciting ways, or just speedrun it.

But, then again, Zero Mission you can complete in a couple hours if you know the game, Symphony of the Night or Super Metroid are so massive it feels like a chore to play through them again, regardless of how much I love them.

So I guess I both agree and disagree. Replayability is rather hard to achieve for any game, a tight structure means there won't be surprises or new challenges on a new playthrough, and games with more loose structures can end up feeling repetitive once the player gets used to the patterns.

[Squire Grooktook]

But, then again, Zero Mission you can complete in a couple hours if you know the game, Symphony of the Night or Super Metroid are so massive it feels like a chore to play through them again, regardless of how much I love them.

Yeah, that's the brunt of it: the length. Learning to speedrun is an option, but it's far too memorization intensive for me in longer games.

Don't get me wrong though. I do enjoy the best of the genre, and I do enjoy Super Metroid, SOTN, Zero Mission, several of the Igavania's, etc. It's more that they are the type of games that I only enjoy on occasional replay, and I don't have the same fervor that I do for games designed with pure depth and skill in mind.

I think Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight is my favorite recent Metroidvania. It has solid exploration, but length and pacing that's very well geared for intense single sitting playthroughs and speedruns.

A tight structure means there won't be surprises or new challenges on a new playthrough

The best way to address this in an action game format is careful and clever placement of RNG in enemy behavior and tactics.

There are many, many subtle random elements present in the way enemies move and behave in Contra, Ghouls and Ghosts, and Ninja Spirit. They ensure that every playthrough will be unique and exciting, since you will have to react and cleverly improvise each time.

I believe the Souls series does the same, though I haven't examined or researched the AI/patterns in those games as closely.

[Cobralad]

The best way to address this in an action game format is careful and clever placement of RNG in enemy behavior and tactics.
I believe the Souls series does the same, though I haven't examined or researched the AI/patterns in those games as closely.

U are fired

[Squire Grooktook]

U are fired

I know there's some random attack selection and movement in certain boss fights from watching speedrun commentary (IE which move Artorias "decides" to use at the start of his fight influences quick-kill strategies). Not sure how omnipresent or relevant it is in general, though. A lot of enemies and bosses in the games "feel" unpredictable to me, but I've never sat down to truly analyze them the way I have with some of the aforementioned games.

[Photon]

Don't get me wrong though. I do enjoy the best of the genre, and I do enjoy Super Metroid, SOTN, Zero Mission, several of the Igavania's, etc. It's more that they are the type of games that I only enjoy on occasional replay, and I don't have the same fervor that I do for games designed with pure depth and skill in mind.

Please explain what the bold words mean to you. Saying a good Metroidvania doesn't have depth just sounds a bit ridiculous to me, but I've a hunch that our definitions of "depth" are a little different here.