Which Metroidvania's Progressed the Genre / Which Didn't?

[Deleted]

This question has been on my mind due to the latest monthly quiz topic, but I wanted to wait until that concluded to post it. Now, I'm not the most experienced in this genre and I know we have some users here who can add a lot of perspective, but despite the explosion in the amount of games released in the Metroidvania genre by indies in the last decade or so I feel like there hasn't been a great deal of progression since Symphony of the Night. Of course I'm aware that other games beyond Metroid and Castlevania contributed to the development of these kinds of games, and if you want to talk about those feel free, however I'm mostly concerned with ones that were released afterwards. I'm interested in which games added something that became a staple of the genre since these games, but I'm also interested in which games did something truly unique with the Metroidvania template and so stand out on their own. 

So the biggest addition to the genre in my mind is the Souls inspired type of game lead by Hollow Knight. Whilst previously we'd had a two pronged approach with games inspired by Metroid or Castlevania being pretty distinctive I see these as a new third pillar. These are as much about challenging players abilities within the skillset as they are exploration. So I'm contradicting myself here actually because this is a large addition to the overall genre, however I don't find it to be especially intertwined with the other two.



For more unique games that stand out I do have a couple of examples. One would be Toki Tori 2+, which isn't about gaining abilities at all, however it is built around simple interactive puzzles wherein your couple of moves available to you effect parts of the world and enemies around you. Progressing through the game is about learning how your abilities work with other objects and the Metroidvania structure comes from your learning. It makes for an interesting game for sure, though of course due to its discarding of the key genre element of item upgrades feels very much like an outlier.




The other example I have is Yoku's Island Express, which combines the Metroidvania structure with pinball based gameplay. As a hybrid kind of game it offers a really nice diversion from the usual, though not without it's own flaws as can be expected in a pinball game, accomplishing 100% exploration means making your way through some fiddly areas. 



Does anyone have any other examples of unique games in this genre? How about games you feel moved the genre forward? Or ones that didn't that were just fine additions? Perhaps you have a different perspective to myself on the genre overall? (Also - take a shot every time I say genre.....not really).

[ommadawnyawn2]

I actually asked a very similar question on reddit before, though it was apparently 2 years ago now!
https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/gawmsn/after_sotn_and_super_metroid_what_was_the_next/

A couple of years later it seems to me that Hollow Knight has had the biggest influence on later MV games since its release. Besides HK it's more of an even split between CV and Metroid series mixed with other influences like Zelda. For controls I would say the Mega Man games, even though the ZX games aren't that popular among MV fans.
Or more indirectly, the Souls series as you mentioned*, and Rogue-lites have had a big influence on indie games including MVs. It seems Ori 2 and Blasphemous are the most popular games after HK, so probably those too.

But that's not necessarily progression (though I do like HK for example), which I guess can be pretty subjective too. I made a short post fairly recently about what I'd like to see more of in future MVs, we'll see if something more recent delivers as I play more of them:
"*A living, immersive world (npc schedules, day/night cycles, enemies don't just sit around where the developer placed them, naturally connected and built areas)
*Dynamic difficulty curve
*Systemic elements (see Dark Messiah of M&M or Zelda: BotW for example)
*Good sequence breaking opportunities
*A good chunk of unique or uncommon abilities/tools, mechanics and level gimmicks or puzzles
*Have a personality
*Good execution of everything

When it comes to worldbuilding I think MVs in general are currently looking backwards a bit too much, with their static difficulty curves, bosses waiting to be slain in their boss rooms and enemies being placed like in an action platformer rather than being part of an ecosystem (Metroid did take some steps away from this but a lot of newer games draw from the CV games instead), NPCs mostly standing around in the same spots over the course of the game, metaphoric locked doors in the form of different colored blocks or obvious breakable walls, etc. They are also not paying too much attention to systemic developments in games, which might have to do with budget constraints or prioritizing other things like audiovisuals."

I think you have a couple of great picks there and it'll be interesting to see more Toki Tori 2-like games, or "knowledge gated" games as some call them. I believe there have been a few at least though they aren't 2D platformers.

I could mention several standout games but I'll go with Aquaria for now, which stood out as a mostly underwater-based MV, almost like an adaption of the Ecco games into that genre, for its musical and crafting elements, and because of its adotion of manual map markers from games like Ultima Underworld and System Shock (I actually consider SS a MV but it's a controversial opinion apparently). It's also pretty well executed in general with a partially non-linear map that sometimes uses two layers, on the fly transformations, good bosses overall and a good quick travel system. 


I've tried to highlight standout games on my site as well as mark the beginning of each era or generation with one, so I'll just refer to that If I may (for the '00s I ended up with Metroid Prime there). My fave of the more recent ones is Monster Boy, which wasn't all that unique besides some puzzles and minor mechanics, but just a really well executed example and I've been a big fan of that series since I was a kid. I also enjoyed Guacamelee and Ori 1. 


*Interestingly MV fans seem more fine with a game that's very hard with lots of bosses, but has almost no ability gating with movement abilities, such as Blasphemous, than they are with something like Dead Cells or A Robot Named Fight which are rogue-lites. I need to play those more to form an informed opinion on that.

[dsparil]

I've enjoyed the no-name micro Indies a whole lot more than anything anyone has ever heard of. You get more of the personality of the creator, and it feels less like they're just chasing trends. A problem I have with a lot of the bigger name ones is that they don't nail the execution which mainly means they did something to annoy me possibly to the point that I dropped it 😉 Hollow Knight spawned the ghost thing in a place that was literally unreachable so I dropped it and didn't like it enough to restart. Dead Cells has so many awful level layouts and progress is way too dependent on randomization. I'm just never giving Game Kitchen a single penny after the disaster The Last Door was on Switch. I kinda liked Toki Tori 2, but the original release had issues so I never finished it.

Yoku's Island Express is great though and a very unique concept that so easily could have been a total disaster.

For something that really did push things forward, Shinsekai: Into the Depths. It uses the underwater setting in many good ways with a lot of gameplay variety. I haven't played Aquaria, but it looks like a game where you might as well be flying although Metroidvanias that let you fly outright aren't that common either so that's not really a knock against it. The only other one I can think of is forma.8 which I liked some, but it's a little dull. The genre could use a lot more mobility variety in general.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the replies. I'll definitely be sure to pick up Monster Boy and Shinsekai in the next few months. They both look really great but at complete opposite ends of the spectrum as far as this topic is concerned. I'll have to grin and bear the cost of the former and the lack of physical on the latter. On Toki Tori 2 - I dropped the original after picking it up day one myself and was disappointed by it initially. I really grew to like it a lot after the 2+ upgrade though.

I agree with dsparil on Dead Cells, the layouts aren't great, nor are they really conductive to a Metroidvania since gaining an upgrade is reliant on chance so much. I do think that this kind of Roguelike is about as far as we've come to anything as dynamic as the suggestion of systemic elements that ommadawnyawn2 is looking for. I think for this kind of design we can of course look at Breath of the Wild, but in that game the developers chose to ensure you could travel anywhere and so eliminated the series usual ability gating that we'd expect if it were a Metroidvania. The question there then is if a game like Breath of the Wild could be created whilst allowing for this gating and I don't see why it couldn't happen. I think there is a great possibility for this kind of evolution in a 3D based environment, however I do wonder if the same is possible in a 2D setting. I'm sure it would be more challenging from a design perspective, but I'd love to see it attempted.

For me one of the main, and more obvious things I'm looking to see is more interesting abilities given to the player. The last Metroidvania I played was Timespinner, which has its strong points for sure, though the abilities given were incredibly basic jump enhancements or new ranged combat attacks and it felt so unimaginative. I feel like I'm seeing a fair amount of these very basic upgrades around. Personally I would love to see abilities built around transforming the environment, that can be applied to puzzle solving as well as simply action. The environments themselves can feel pretty stagnant at this point, so finding new ways to make them adaptable to the players actions seems like a good step forward. Of course this all ties in to the systemic elements already mentioned, though I don't think huge strides have to be made to make the world feel more alive and natural in this context.

[ommadawnyawn2]

Yep, that kind of gating is done to a degree in games like Deus Ex where you can open optional paths with gained abilities and you generally have several ways to tackle an obstacle. The tricky thing is managing the proportions of that and planning for different player choices.

I agree that environment transforming is kind of untapped and have been expecting to see more of it since games like Pixeljunk Shooter, World of Goo and LocoRoco.

A couple of more creative abilities in more recent ones that I've liked are the glitch gun and drone teleport from axiom verge (playing it now), dimension switching in Guacamelee (which I guess is based on Soul Reaver or Zelda 3), bash and light burst from Ori 1 (Bash seems based on an ability in beyond good & evil or the throw in guacamelee but further developed), and pulling (yourself or enemies) in Valdis Story. The glitch gun since it reacts differently to various enemies and objects is fun to experiment with.

[dsparil]

I guess I edited this out by accident, but instead of pure randomness I liked how Chasm had designed rooms with only layout randomized. It felt like a reasonable middle ground. I did have some problems with the game, but those stem from it being a lowish budget Kickstarted game rather than with the concept.

[vnisanian2001]

The Maze of Galious, The Goonies II, Simon's Quest. Can't think of any that didn't.