List is missing Pharaoh Rebirth+.
Also Hollow Knight is forever the goat. And I'll take a hardline stance in the sand that Shantae Pirate's Curse is the only good/Shantae game worth playing.
Hollow Knight and Toki Tori 2 should be 1 and 2 respectively in my opinion. There is nothing in the genre as ambitious as HK and as brilliant and cleverly designed as TT2. Except maybe Super Metroid and Prime in both cases, but those are not indies anyway.
Lyle in Cube Sector, perhaps? Definitely still one of the greats.There is a freeware Metroidvania from the era that the freeware Cave Story was released, which was very short, but great; and had many translation patches; but for the life of me I can't recall it's name. Was a great little game, like Wonder Boy.
Which is why dead cells is so good, absolutely superb combatI only played a bit of Guac, I like it a lot at first, but when the combat started getting harder I started enjoying it less.
Combat is always the Achilles Heel of Metroidvanias for me, even Metroids I'm not a big fan of the actual combat in them. And as much as I love SOTN, I never loved the combat in it (I grind for a long time to get that super powerful weapon so the rest of the game I can basically ignore the combat).
Yeah, that game feels fantastic.
Is this a puzzle thing or a tonal thing? I haven't run into any issues regarding clarity (haven't beaten it yet and it's hard to even tell how far I am so there's still time), but some of the more meme-ish dialog sucks and I could agree if that's what you mean.
How impossible is La Mulana 2?
Just as impossible as the first?
So is Dead Cells not Metrovania? What do we call it? Soulsvania?
So is Dead Cells not Metrovania? What do we call it? Soulsvania?
The thing a lot of people don't realize is that you could fairly easily expand this list to like 50 titles without the quality really dropping much at all.
It's a real pitty. People don't have enough memory or some just discovered metroidvanias through Ori and Hollow Knight. I'm fine with having more people loving this genre, but it comes with very gratting superlatives.
"Ori is the best metroidvania ever made!"
"Hollow Knight is the best indie metroidvania ever made".
And I feel like it's insulting for the genre. I admit I really don't like these holy cows for various reasons, but the most important one is that the people who discovered the genre remain on a surface level, waiting for next very shiny indie thing. A game like Owlboy is praised mostly for its looks, for Ori it was for the looks and the music, while HK is the king of the deals "wow 40 hours for just 15$, what a bargain!"
Being the contrarian I am, I'd include none of them in a potential top 10 indie metroidvania game list, even if I admit that Ori didn't do anything completely wrong and could take one of the bottom spots.
The simple reason for that is that despite their great visual qualities, none of these games make the map and the level design shine by itself (and when I mean level design, I'm not talking about looks of the levels). What makes a powerful metroidvania is the non linear exploration and how it tries to offer new ways to explore without falling back on already overused mechanics, and I think that Hollow Knight is the opposite of that, as Hollow Knight is a longer copy of Symphony of the Night, without the inverted castle. Sure the fights are good and tighter than in SotN, but it never goes beyond that: a big bug nest with plenty of linear levels very samey from a level design standpoint and a boss at the end of each area. I've read plenty of people calling it "the dark souls of metroidvanias" but too few to actually talk about the level design even though it's one of the real strengths of the Souls games. I had actually numerous flashbacks of the empty castlevania corridors while playing Hollow Knight.
I mean I'm once again fine with a small company getting recognition for an indie game, but it didn't help the metroidvania genre in itself and push toward better level design in those games even though it's one of the key components of the genre.
I mean, a list of the good metroidvanias excluding some great games like La Mulana 1, Valdis Story, Environmental Station Alpha, Rabi Ribi, Rain World, Aquaria, Treasure Adventure Game, VVVVVV but including the chasm, kinda misses the point.
I'm not hiding it. And I'm not asking for virtual hugs either. But there are great games outside of this list that deserve attention and are constantly forgotten in favour of games that were released in the past 3 years.Yep this is very much an elitist view of the genre. Somehow putting down the views of many by saying they havnt played any other Metroidvanias because they like HK and Ori is not a good outlook.
I'm not hiding it. And I'm not asking for virtual hugs either. But there are great games outside of this list that deserve attention and are constantly forgotten in favour of games that were released in the past 3 years.
I love both Steamworld Dig 2 and Hollow Knight but I must say this is the first time I see someone put the former ahead of the latter in any form of context. Imo Hollow Knight is the superior title
I'm not hiding it. And I'm not asking for virtual hugs either. But there are great games outside of this list that deserve attention and are constantly forgotten in favour of games that were released in the past 3 years.
I still say Axiom Verge has plot armor for not being obliterated by Nintendo's lawyer-ninjas.
heheheheheheheh....MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Also, this is a VERY underappreciated classic, and it was a crime that these guys went out of business due to that:
Ah, I guess reviews lied to me.
The maps looks like a metroidvania and there are certain items you get permanently that open up more areas of each map but the game is a run-based, sequential set of discrete levels. It's like 10% metroidvania at best.