Metroidvania 2D Action/RPG Catch-All

ccesarano wrote:

Full release of Deedlit in Wonderlabyrinth on March 27th, currently on sale for half off release price, or bundled with Touhou Luna Nights. Source.

Sweet, I picked it up last time it was on sale (thinking it would likely be going up in price soon) and have been eyeing it, but wanted to wait to play. Glad I have a time frame on that wait now. Although, based on the time it took you to get through stage 1 and 2, it seems like a very short game with only 6 stages. I guess short, focused games are Team Ladybug's MO.

Yeah, stages 3 and 4 also took around 2 hours, so I'd average around 6 hours.

Which, honestly, is a good length for a Metroidvania for me. Increases the replay value and likelihood I'll make regular return trips back. In fact, I've been replaying Bloodstained before it goes off of PC Game Pass, and it's nice to know that there are a growing number of games that I can return to and get that Metroid-ish feel while there's an absence of Metroid games. Bloodstained, Deedlit in Wonderlabyrinth, Touhou Luna Nights, Hollow Knight... all of these games scratch a pretty good itch I've been feeling.

If the first 2/3rds of the game are to be believed, Deedlit might be my favorite of the bunch, though, in part because of that aforementioned shorter length.

That looks fun. Just picked it up.

That does look fun, but I haven't gotten around to Touhou Luna Nights, which is currently on Game Pass. I should probably just play that first.

Did Supraland come up here earlier?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/8...

An FPS puzzle game that is also a metroidvania. Puzzles are (in the main) great, world is well designed and realised and it's pretty funny in places. I would say the combat is not great but it isn't really the focus thankfully. There is a pretty good DLC out already. And a kind of extra game that grew out of the 2nd DLC and a sequel coming too. Oh, and the closing credits song is the catchiest thing ever

That looks great, thanks DanB!

aspect wrote:

That looks great, thanks DanB!

FYI, Supraland just got added to Game Pass PC.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
aspect wrote:

That looks great, thanks DanB!

FYI, Supraland just got added to Game Pass PC.

That looks great, thanks mrtomaytohead!

aspect wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:
aspect wrote:

That looks great, thanks DanB!

FYI, Supraland just got added to Game Pass PC.

That looks great, thanks mrtomaytohead!

And by just got added, I stand corrected. I looked and it's available on 3/24

mrtomaytohead wrote:
aspect wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:
aspect wrote:

That looks great, thanks DanB!

FYI, Supraland just got added to Game Pass PC.

That looks great, thanks mrtomaytohead!

And by just got added, I stand corrected. I looked and it's available on 3/24

Yeah I looked too but I was too lazy to change my comment. =)

Just a reminder that the full release of Deedlit in Wonderlabyrinth was today.

Since I just recently finished & enjoyed Axiom Verge here is a new video at the recent Future Games Show with Tom Happ talking about the follow up, due very soon it looks like. Mechanically looks superior to the orginal & I like the colour palette much better.

Brilliant! I do like the new colour palette. It seems to compliment better times in a different era. Hope. Prosperity. I also appreciated the darker ominous tones presented by the original. It was eerie and dense in atmosphere. Desolation. Despair.

I've conflicting views on the mechanics from the original. They were arguably a design choice, rather than a skill limitation, per Tom Happ's own words - a love letter to (the NES Classics) Metroid, Blaster Master, and Contra - and in that regard Axiom Verge was a magnificent work. Trace, or rather we, the player, were to work within those authentic and classic confines. So, whilst Axiom Verge is "inferior" to let's say, Hollow Knight, for ease and for freedom of movement, that was actually an intended feature. If Trace were as agile and as weightless with seemingly instantaneous inertia adjustment, not only would that be jarring per this character, but the entire game may possibly need to be reconstructed and rebalanced. To conform to "modern standards" at the expense of artistic vision. It's a strange objective x subjective one.

Anyway. I'm glad to see the sequel evolve much like those referenced influences with their follow up titles. Indra, our protagonist, certainly seems to get about with more grace, and better mobility. I'm looking forward to going hands on. Day one.

Stele in Feb wrote:
Stele back in Sept wrote:

Well I had fun with maybe an hour of the Blasphemous demo. It seems much more a traditional Metroidvania and not really a roguelite/like. You get to save points, and when you die you respawn at the save point. The only thing is that your death spot is marked and returning to it replenishes some resources, similar to Dark Souls. But otherwise it appears all items, coins, upgrades, etc. that you find between the save spot and death are yours to keep.

Kind of forgot how nice that is with a lot of the games lately.

Moved to wishlist. Not sure if I'm buying this weekend or waiting until the next sale, based on the size of the pile. But definitely want to play the rest after the demo.

And the next sale is here this weekend. $10 on Steam. $12.50 on Nintendo eShop. Haven't checked reviews to see how Switch performance is.

I think my pile is even bigger than Sept. But this was really fun. Hm...

So forgot to post that it was free on Prime Gaming right after that. Hope everyone got it who wanted it. Has anyone else dove further in the last few months?

I've been playing a bit the last week. Finished the first 3 bosses, and then this punk on a bridge, Edras... whew. Apparently that fight is a blocker for a lot of people, but I managed it after a solid 30 minutes tonight. Had him almost beat multiple times but he changes up this one attack to a different timing in the last quarter of his health and I kept blocking the original timing, and getting hit hard. And then one time I was really kicking his ass and got him down 25% without using either of my health flasks and then whoops, died with both still. But at least that is over for now.

Anyway, the game is fun, but some of the stuff is really hidden. There are NPCs you run into, or items you find over here that you donate to someone over there. None of it really telegraphed or obvious what goes where. Just feels kind of random. There's a couple of things, a hidden platform, and a grapple hook, that I could tell I needed, but couldn't find the items for the life of me. Had to check a map, and found one of them at least, but still not sure about the other, even with a map. There's a also a lot of hidden walls... just have to hit your sword on what looks like nothing and then there's a room there. But nothing so obvious as a crack like a Zelda bomb wall. Just... look at a map and KNOW there's a room... or hit every wall that you come across? A bit more clues in general would be nice.

The combat is really fun though, so I am sticking with it. The other annoyances haven't made me quit yet.

The "whack-a-wall" thing seems to be an inspiration from Castlevania, and if not that then of Dark Souls. I've seen that in Bloodstained, Touhou Luna Nights, and Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, all of which are inspired by Symphony of the Night quite heavily. I can only assume that's the origin, though there's also plenty of bombable walls in Metroid that don't have the greatest of clues (I think most of them, however, have something to call attention or make them look suspicious).

I haven't given Blasphemous a try yet. I was playing a bunch of stuff off of Game Pass, including The Messenger, which is part Metroidvania itself. Same with Cyber-Shadow, now that I think about it. I'm warmer on The Messenger because it was ultimately less punishing, but in the end it felt a bit too long. In addition, by designing maybe 1/3rd of your game to play like a linear, obstacle-course driven action game from the NES, you make back-tracking during the Metroidvania a pain in the butt. I still largely had fun, but there were moments of frustration and where I just quit out because I didn't feel like wandering back through a bunch of obstacles again, and so saved it for later.

Cyber-Shadow just has some really garbage checkpoints at times and requires some mad precision at others, in addition to having to restart at the beginning of a difficult three-phase final boss if you die. But that's barely Metroidvania since you have to really go out of your way to backtrack.

I took a long weekend vacation and took my Switch with me. Finally decided to give Axiom Verge a try and I'm what appears to be the last area

Spoiler:

Climbing up the tower of bosses

.

I'm finding it to be just OK. It has solid Metroid fundamentals and the exploration has been pretty fun but it just feels like it could have used a bit more TLC.

I never loved the 8-bit art style and it hasn't grew on me. I felt it made finding secrets more of a pixel hunt than anything else. Controls aren't very good especially having a dash on directional double tap on a platformer. The Joycons were pretty bad so when I got home I tried both the Pro and 8Bitdo and they were a little better but design issues still remained. 5% of the time it felt it just wasn't responding to what I was trying to do ending in accidental moves.

The map was also basic and not super helpful when I got stuck. A couple times I found out from the internets that the next area, that I needed to go, was a door on the map that was hard to see because it blended in with an adjacent square.

It's likely if I went back and played the first few Metroids I would have had some of the same issues but I'm just expecting more in Metroidvania's these days. There is just too much other good stuff out there so hopefully their next game takes a more modern approach. For this one I think I'll just power through this end area, not think much about it, and move on to the next game.

Lodoss War and Blasphemous are on the table.

Your take on Axiom Verge is pretty spot on with mine in regards to the art style. I really felt it just wasn't really up to the task the game presented it with. As for the first few Metroids, I can only speak to 2 and Super and 2 is definitely a pixel hunt and slog. 2 on the original GB was so bad I cannot return to it and when I tried AM2R, I got all kinds of feelings about those big cavern spaces that it made me stop. Super Metroid at least gives you a scan visor so you can locate secrets without having to poke at every block. In that regard, it was much improved. I was ok with it when I played a couple years ago, and just had to power through Meridia with a guide because that's the worst and longest part of that game.

Lodoss is fairly short from what I've seen. I was expecting it to lean longer, but the team that made it keeps their games short, it seems.

I would really love to try Metroid: Samus Returns so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will get a Switch port.

EvilDead wrote:

I would really love to try Metroid: Samus Returns so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will get a Switch port.

It's so very good. Better than Zero Mission I think.

Looks like we're getting Metroid 5:

Metroid: Dread. Interesting. I like the whole being stalked by a robot angle.

Fusion was 4. It said so in the credits, though I forget whether opening or closing. The fact that Dread is 5 tells me they've disavowed Other M.

Technically no. Other M took place before Fusion. However, it wouldn't surprise me if they choose to ignore its existence.

Though Sakamoto was the one that wrote the story of Other M, which was the absolute worst part of the game, and he's still producer on Dread and was responsible for Fusion, of which Other M had received its worst narrative ideas. So... hopefully they've done a better job of managing his input.

Well that was a timely announcement. I still want to play the 3DS one but this makes me happy.

ccesarano wrote:

Though Sakamoto was the one that wrote the story of Other M, which was the absolute worst part of the game, and he's still producer on Dread and was responsible for Fusion, of which Other M had received its worst narrative ideas. So... hopefully they've done a better job of managing his input.

We can hope. Still it's exciting to finally get an actual continuation to the Metroid saga, rather than a story squeeze in between games.

There was something about the artwork, music, and sound of Axiom Verge that affected me more than the gameplay which I still found to be good. The vacant, dead, and slightly glitchy world really pulled me in.

FYI there is a Metroid Series thread.

I've been registered here for over a decade and I still don't quite understand what "catch-all" means.

Vargen wrote:

I've been registered here for over a decade and I still don't quite understand what "catch-all" means. :P

It's a term to let people know that this is the only thread we need to be able to discuss everything about said game/topic. I think it's derived from the fact that other forums tend to get new thread after new thread about one question at a time and it becomes very cluttered and hard to find anything. It helps keep finding info / conversations a lot easier. In this case, it is a bit confusing as a Metroid game would indeed fall into the metroidvania category, but is also a series that warranted it's own thread. Other reasons for breaking up a discussion thread are for games that have very distinct parts where the discussion on either part was big enough to disrupt the other at some point, like modded Minecraft vs vanilla Minecraft. At least that's my understanding.

Yeah for instance there was a JRPG catch all but people won't shut up about Final Fantasy, so it gets its own thread and then all non-FF JRPG games stay in the original thread.

Some new release games get talked about in the Switch games catch all or the PS5 games catch all. While some games get their own thread. Just a matter of how much discussion.

Also, often single player game threads die off after a bit. I think that's why there's a Metroid catch all and not individual games in the series threads.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
Vargen wrote:

I've been registered here for over a decade and I still don't quite understand what "catch-all" means. :P

It's a term to let people know that this is the only thread we need to be able to discuss everything about said game/topic. I think it's derived from the fact that other forums tend to get new thread after new thread about one question at a time and it becomes very cluttered and hard to find anything.

As opposed to missing a useful answer because it's buried in the middle of a discussion about a different question. I'm not saying that the current setup doesn't have advantages and good reasons for why it works the way it does. I'm also not going to not complain when one of the disadvantages shows up to irk me. When I first showed up the tag system rewarded me for erring on the side of posting instead of not posting and now I'm conditioned.

Stele wrote:

Yeah for instance there was a JRPG catch all but people won't shut up about Final Fantasy, so it gets its own thread and then all non-FF JRPG games stay in the original thread.

There's no way to communicate that that split has happened without popping in and telling someone "you're doing it wrong." Even if there's a post made at the time of the split, it's going to get lost as the megathread progresses.

That's really what I mean by "don't understand what 'catch-all' means."

EvilDead wrote:

I took a long weekend vacation and took my Switch with me. Finally decided to give Axiom Verge a try and I'm what appears to be the last area

Spoiler:

Climbing up the tower of bosses

.

I'm finding it to be just OK. It has solid Metroid fundamentals and the exploration has been pretty fun but it just feels like it could have used a bit more TLC.

I never loved the 8-bit art style and it hasn't grew on me. I felt it made finding secrets more of a pixel hunt than anything else. Controls aren't very good especially having a dash on directional double tap on a platformer. The Joycons were pretty bad so when I got home I tried both the Pro and 8Bitdo and they were a little better but design issues still remained. 5% of the time it felt it just wasn't responding to what I was trying to do ending in accidental moves.

The map was also basic and not super helpful when I got stuck. A couple times I found out from the internets that the next area, that I needed to go, was a door on the map that was hard to see because it blended in with an adjacent square.

It's likely if I went back and played the first few Metroids I would have had some of the same issues but I'm just expecting more in Metroidvania's these days. There is just too much other good stuff out there so hopefully their next game takes a more modern approach. For this one I think I'll just power through this end area, not think much about it, and move on to the next game.

Lodoss War and Blasphemous are on the table.

Yeah I enjoyed axiom verge well enough but all of your criticism here is exactly how I felt about it. But it did leave me curious about the sequel, hopefully it'll fix some of these issues.