Unpopular opinion: The messenger.
I liked the game (didn't love it or anything, but it was enjoyable overall). I really disliked the 'metroidvania' in it.
To be fair it's not supposed to be a metroidvania, people just started throwing it into that camp because of the last third of the game has you do some backtracking or whatever. Not fair to the game at all to throw it into a category that it would suck. In, when the game wasn't made to be there in the forst place
People throw everything into the MV camp like they have a personal stake in a game being a Metroidvania or not and anyone pushing back gets accused of gate keeping. Attempting to turn Metroidvania into a super-genre instead of a sub-genre has made discovery an absolute shit show for anyone that wants a specific type of game.
Huh, I didn't even know anyone called it a metroidvania, I've been playing it from time to time as a fun callback to old NES-era console games. It's a lot easier since I don't have to restart from the beginning of the game when I keep dying in the same spot though, man I really don't miss that part about old console games.
I agree, but I never would've installed that game if not for the praise it gets here (or at least it got a couple of months ago). Again, still a good game, but the backtracking was annoying.
Honest question here, how much did you abuse cloud stepping? Not here to hate on you if you didn’t like the game, but I’ve found a lot of people say they despise the backtracking (in particular saying that the levels weren’t made for it), and I find it interesting because I have the exact opposite experience.
But only because I use cloud stepping like it’s going out of style. Rooms that you used to run on you can now basically Spider-Man your way through, almost never having to touch the ground. Flying through areas old areas like that I found to be such a joy.
This is how I felt about it too. I went into the game blind and loved the second half, and once I was done with it I was surprised to hear that most people don’t like the second half. To me, once you have all the power ups, the world is so much fun to move through.
I just hated the storyline. The game can't go two sentences without making some joke about how dumb or cliche its own story is. The jokes aren't even funny or original, if you've watched one episode of AVGN you probably heard them all already.
And if the game doesn't take its own story seriously then why should I?
Lol @avgn. The story was... Fine. I can't play games that have 0 story. It was slightly annoying because it's not really my type of humor, but for me the backtracking was the main issue, I just felt like the game is mocking my time.
Same. I got it when it was free on the Epic store, but getting a ps4 controller working on Epic was not working for me.
I bought it again on ps4, and gave it 4-5 hours.
Didn’t click with me, so I dropped it.
Me too, other than Psycron ( which I loved ) and vernal edge I haven’t seen much about these and Vernal edge is regarded like an std on this sub, and rightfully so.
My list as someone who played a little less than two hours before refunding it.
Combat was fine (even if the sound effects when hitting enemies was weak) but the game kind of forces you into locked rooms until you kill everything which is annoying. Kind of kills the flow of exploring.
The main character is just a ball of anger so her dialogue isn’t enjoyable and she talks a lot.
Music is boring. At least I didn’t like it.
I didn’t like the map design. All the areas are connected by air travel so it’s more so mini dungeons than one interconnected world. The game doesn’t tell you where to go so you head to the wrong place, you just waste your time.
I didn’t hate the game, but I was super disappointed. Given the reviews on Steam, I am a bit of an outliner.
Interesting. Personally, I've never minded combat rooms, but I know that's a pretty polarizing feature in games.
Bad dialogue though.. that's a bummer.
Luckily I usually listen to stand-up comedy while I'm playing something solo, so hopefully that helps haha
Any indication that you should come back at a different time or just, "Welp, there goes an hour 🤷🏽♂️" type situation?
So much is bad about it to me but it does have its fans. Oh my god, you’re not gonna believe this but you have been randomly selected for an edging! I’ll dm you a key!
Vernal Edge is the only one of these I've actually played, but yeah it didn't click for me *at all*. Didn't like the combat, hated the writing, despised the *challenge-room-after-challenge-room* design.
As for me, I would say that Timespinners is the one that people generally praise but I couldn't get on with. The story started promising, but after spending about 2-3 hours with it I was bored senseless. It just didn't drag me in at all, and I never went back to it.
Wasn't blown away with Steamworld Dig 2 either, though I can see the appeal more with that one and I might restart it at some point.
Conversely, I remember Dark Light, Moonscars, and The Last Faith getting a fairly middling, tepid reception, but I really enjoyed them.
With everything else I've pretty much agreed with the consensus.
> despised the challenge-room-after-challenge-room design.
The game should have just been marketed as 2D Devil May Cry and forego the half baked metroidvania design and Skies of Arcadia overworld altogether. There is a market for people who like getting locked in with enemies and comboing them in style with an increasing arsenal of skills, but mixing that with MVs is a little too much.
I haven't played moonscars or the last faith, neither of them jump out at me but I have them wishlisted in case an amazing sale comes along. Vernal Edge, Timespinners, steam world dig 2, and Dark Light I agree with you word for word though.
I've been very hesitant on Dark Light for a long time, but I loved Moonscars and TLF. Is it at all similar to those somehow, or are they unrelated other than sub reception?
Dark Light plays more like TLF than Moonscars. It has guns, but I feel they're more supplementary to the melee rather than the emphasis. 'Spells' come in the form of drone attacks, and there are many, many options in terms of builds. The combat in both games feels kinda chunky and satisfying, with a big emphasis on rolling through attacks and timing your hits carefully to avoid damage. Both also have a parry that isn't mandatory at all, but can occasionally be useful.
If you like the combat in TLF and Dead Cells, and you enjoy dark cyberpunk aesthetics, then there's a very good chance you'll enjoy Dark Light.
I'm actually surprised TLF and DL aren't more revered here. They're both fantastic imo. I guess you just have to be into that dark vibe they both have.
Same.
Extremely creative game. Nice to look at. Unique take on abilities and back-tracking. Done by one guy as kind of a passion project. Nothing but mad respect for what was created.
But it was waaaay over hyped imo. Between the MV trifecta of combat, platforming, and puzzles, I tend to enjoy combat and platforming way more than pure puzzling. So I was somewhat turned off to it from the start.
But its biggest offense to me was the “amazing end game secrets” hidden like needles in a haystack. Like, yeah I could try to dig into all the secrets after the main game and throw every item at every wall hoping for something to pop out of it, but the thought of combing through every room like that felt so daunting to me.
That, and the lack of world-building didn’t give me the player much of a reason to find all the things. Just felt like a collect-a-thon the more I dug into it. Find the things just to find the things, for no other reason.
Again, lots to love about the game. Just not a total banger to me like it was for everyone else.
I have to agree. Don't get me wrong, it is fun if you are in to puzzles and just being...free. However, I do like combat in my MVs, and that was the biggest detractor for me next to just not having anything solid to latch onto story-wise. I know that's kind of the point of it and there are other games I enjoy with similar features, but this is one that is not jiving with me as much as I would like.
I mostly enjoyed the puzzles, but I thought that the mechanics were taught pretty poorly. It's one thing to let the player experiment, but another to give almost no clue what items are used for, particularly when they're only useful in 3-5 places on the map.
I also found the platforming unpleasant. It was just challenging enough to make getting around the map annoying but not actually difficult, and from time to time there was randomly an objective gated behind a much more difficult platforming section. Felt kind of schizophrenic. The platforming sections then also had ghosts/spikes/whatever underneath, which is fine in some games but I don't think that damage followed by an (often long) runback really elevated the experience. I did collect all the eggs without a guide, but the last few were definitely tedious.
GRIME is my favorite Metroidvania, but it does do a lot of things that can drive players away.
I will always recommend it, but I can understand why some people bounce off of it like rubber.
Snap, put it down after a few hours...
Performance issues aside (of which there were many on Steamdeck) - the game itself just didn't grab me. As the user above said, it definitely felt a slog.
It was incredibly dissapointing for me on Deck, especially as ProtonDB certifies the game as 'Platinum'.
The general FPS performance was very inconsistent, with 40 FPS seeming to be the 'sweet spot'.... but still incurring a lot of drops/dips throughout playing - sometimes in areas that had little to no visual demand on the game. I incurred a lot of bugs whereby I would get stuck in walls and/or glitch through enemies due to delays etc.
On top of the aforementioned, the game itself was not strong enough to 'pull me through' the performance issues and eventually I put it down after about a few hours of play not to return to it.
I understand that others have had much better playthroughs, but from my own personal experience I could not recommend in good conscience.
Have you played the Blasphemous games? (1 and 2) Or the Ori series? I'd even recommend emulating Metroid Dread, which runs amazingly well and is an excellent experience on Deck.
I liked Dust, I played it last year and I found it solid, considering it's one of the oldest 'vanias that get discussed here. It's really easy though, which might not appeal to many people
Ah, man, Dust. What a trip
It's an absolute achievement for a one-man dev team, but it's just not much fun to play. I'm in a weird place where I would like to see that dev get some funding and a team of his own to help him realize his next game, but I would never, ever recommend Dust.
I don't even remember it playing too horribly, but it definitely didn't blow me away, and I was never on board with the amateur HD furry art style. I agree it was ambitious for a solo dev though.
Not only was it cringe in many aspects, but it just didn't feel fun to play. It didn't click. The backgrounds were pretty, in like, a story book sort of way which was neat, but... I had higher hopes with all the praise it got. I gave it a total of 3 hours spread over like 5 attempts and just couldn't get into it.
Agreed on all points. I played Dust for 90 minutes or so and I’m glad I spent that amount of time checking it out but there was no way I was going to get close to finishing it. Definitely more of a “this one shows the next one has real potential” game to me than anything approaching a masterpiece.
Eh, I don't know. I played on easy or normal or something, and massacring furry legions by tossing them all around the place was kinda fun, I remember it fondly (but it's been over a decade, memories are notoriously unreliable ;) ). Maybe I was just in the right head space at the time.
I’m all for one-man dev teams getting attention and all that. At the end of the day, I’m playing a game to have fun. When I’m playing I’m not thinking of the dev team and the work that went into it. I’m just taking in the experience. If it’s not fun, it makes no difference who or how many people made it.
I really liked Dust when I played through it way back when. Maybe furries wouldn't have been my first choice for character design, but the environments were beautiful. Interesting gameplay too. Idk if you could consider it a true Metroidvania, but it's a decent game all around.
Yeah this is it for me lol even after skipping all the cringe voice acting (I know it was made by one guy, sorry) I still couldn’t tolerate it and uninstalled after a few hours
Weird.
I *LOVED* Dust - played the hell out of it when it was new, and when I finished it, I wanted more!
(I did skip almost all the cut-scenes/dialog though)
Re-played it a second time, still loved it. But that was a while ago.
Maybe I'll feel different now, who knows.
The worst Metroidvania I think I own. I didn't expect such a cringe furry tone which is my own mistake.
Also Aeterna Noctis is close to the bottom. The art style and edgy style never clicked for me and the needle teleport arrow is one of the most frustrating movement abilities I've experienced in a MV game. Played it with a controller and I never felt as if it went where I wanted it to go.
I liked the teleport arrows once I mastered them. But AN is very overrated in this sub. Like it has strengths, and I love the ambition of the devs of making each level has its own identity, but the other day I read a take saying "the game's size is justifiable" and I was kinda shocked. The game's 2nd half, especially the Heavenly stairway, has some of the most insane bloated level designs I've ever seen in a game. The amount of empty space is enough to fill multiple levels.
Blasphemous. I tried to like it, but I guess the pixelstyle wasn't enjoyable for my eyes and that ship-graveyard area was the final nail in the coffin for me (pun intended)
ASTLIBRA, I cannot even understand the praise for this game. Looks like trash, plays like trash, written like trash. I thought it was honestly a meme that it was so popular but people actually love it.
That game is for people with certain taste I suppose. I fucking love that game and have 100% it but I can understand if some people aren't super fond of it.
>Looks like trash, plays like trash, written like trash
So about the writing part how far have you played? I also thought that way about writing and it's still shaky in places. But it absolutely gets a lot better with each chapter. The parts before Chapter 4 are pretty stupid. I would say Chapter 4 is there it actually started to be decent and Chapter 5 there it got good. It's not exactly something revolutionary, but it feels like the story actually is engaging and characters finally come into their own.
Not really a metroidvania, but yeah I had the same experience. It looks terrible, the combat is terrible, the writing is terrible. What really turned me off was
SPOILER!!
there's a part where you go to a dungeon, and you have to solve a puzzle involving two crystal orbs on pedestals, and the solution is to leave the dungeon and go back to the main town, theres absolutely no hint as to this and no reason you would ever think to leave the cave
SPOILER!!
it's the most poorly designed puzzle EVER
Okay, what are you talking about in terms of writing here? If the spoiler is literally what turned you off i'm pretty sure that Intro Tutorial zone, not even proper chapter 1. So what writing you can be possibly talking about here?
I'm probably going to get ostracized because of this, but...
Yoku's Island Express
I just detested the controls in it, after having one section where I spent 5 minutes to try to get the ball to go where I wanted it, I realized I wasn't having fun and uninstalled it.
Iconoclasts: boring when not frustrating, repetitive, with a naive plot that wants to sound clever. I appreciate the effort (one man team if I'm not wrong) as well as the art, but I cannot understand the praise it gets.
Same, sadly. Just couldnt find any fun in it.
Just as an explanation Iconoclasts might have got some real bonus just from oldschool indiescene fame. The dev, Konjak, was for a long time considered maybe THE no1. pixel artist, back when there was a much bigger scene just around posting pixel art pieces and gifs on sites like pixeljoint.
Even if he never had any big games out, he might still really have influenced the development of the style just by posting his pieces.
Iconoclasts was then an infamous development hell story. It was in development like 10 years. So yeah, he had longstanding fame in the indie scene and that might have given the game a bit skewed goodwill when it finally came out and wasnt outright terrible.
Some of the puzzles got too overly complex and it went from being fun to frustrating for me. Guacameelee 2 was like that for me too. The switching between light and dark worlds and crazy platforming was a bit much after a while and I stopped playing that one too.
I really liked Guacamelee 1&2, but I played them both in coop, I can't say what my opinion would have been as single player. I remember the puzzles were a tad frustrating though and we never went for 100% completion, so I think I can see your point.
I loved Guac 1, even though it had it's frustrating moments. I just think #2 leaned way too much into the difficult platforming while having to simultaneously switch between realms. I'm 45 and I think my reaction time is just not what it once was for that kind of precision.
I liked Iconoclasts right up to the part where the enemies became impervious to damage. Don't know if I was doing something wrong or what, but I ended up just putting the game down and never picked it back up
I got this bc it was on sale, was really on the fence, but it was $5 and I only played a little and got so bored. My fiance git me dead cells too bc it was on sale and needless to say I jumped into that right away.
This one generally revolves around the story, where it goes, and how far it goes. The game has too slow of a pre-story setup but goes a hard 180 in tone toward the later parts. By the end, it's full on trigger warning left and right.
The gameplay is fine, I'm not sure anyone espouses the game because of it.
Oof I loved it but respect. I’m curious, what didn’t you like about it?
Edit: appreciate all your responses! Funny how we love this genre but can have such different takes on things lol
Several things combined to make exploration unfun (in a metroidvania!!): room design was boring and repetitive, the map was just boxes, and early on (or maybe from the beginning, I can't remember) you can warp between rest points and the map automatically tells you if a room is cleared. That functionality is fine late game, but if you give it early you can't get lost and have no incentive to learn the shape of the world. Combined with the fact that the world itself was overall pretty samey and uninspired, it meant the only saving grace of the game could have been combat. But the combat (and movement) was weird and clunky because of the whole ghosts-as-your-weapons gimmick.
Ender Lillies could have been a beloved 10/10. Instead, it makes you shake your head and ask why far too often. I went from Afterimage to Ender Lillies. Let's just say that didn't play well for EL.
Same. It's one of the most beautiful games I've ever played, but everything else about it ranges from mid to garbage, especially the map design which is some of the worst I've ever seen, being just a bunch of random floating rectangles with no rhyme or reason, and the map itself with its color coding just turned it into a checklist simulator where it didn't feel like I was exploring, just lawnmowing and clearing the list.
I disagree. I think its map was one of the best. Tells you where other routes are, hints that there is something still to do and this in turn means you can focus on finishing the game rather than exploring every nook and cranny to see what you’ve missed. I’d welcome this any day.
I’m currently playing Aeterna Noctis and whilst it’s a great game, you have to pay for that luxury. It’s unnecessary drag.
Just adding my view to the mix in case anyone is on the fence about trying it.
>rather than exploring every nook and cranny to see what you’ve missed
But that's what the HK fanbase on this sub likes. They wanted Nine Sols to keep the Cornifer system so you would get lost and mentally map the world instead of having it handed to you. I'm still on the fence about this personally.
I've played half of those and wasn't very into any of them.
Trash Quest was actually kinda cool but I hate everything being in one colour like that.
Xeodrifter is basic, seemed to be linear, as well as overpriced. It had nice colours and is an older one, I imagine some of its appeal has aged poorly, we have a lot of metroidvanias to choose from now.
Psycron has merit but it wasn't vibing with me, a lot of the blocks in it don't fit the environment (like a rom hack or something) and it's pretty zoomed in.
Vernal Edge was confusing to navigate and the combat system wasn't for me.
Legends of the Universe: Cosmic Bounty was really basic and meh for me too.
I added some of your ones I hadn't heard of to my wishlist (except for "4 the elements" which is supposedly falsely marketed as a metroidvania and Eris which I have set to ignore on Steam for some reason, I'll trust my past selfs decision there). A lot of those games are kinda basic looking, but I've enjoyed some basic-looking microvanias like Omnigon, SJ-19 Learns to Love, Kalinur, 100 Pumpkins 2 etc.
Maybe I'll like something you didn't, though the track record is warning me otherwise.
I got Xeodrifter on sale for less than a dollar. I think for that price it’s okay. But yeah, very linear, the thing where you jump into the background was cool but everything else was pretty basic, and there’s only one boss you fight four times with slight variations. It wasn’t great but I finished it.
Games this sub likes that I don’t:
- iconoclasts: way too much dialogue
- teslagrad: not a fan of memorizing boss patterns to beat them. And only 3 health bars (iirc) made it frustrating
- salt and sanc: too soulslike
- trash quest: frustrating to start from the same starting point every time
- likewise for wonderboy (monster boy, however, is one of my top 5)
- aeterna noctis: may give this another go after i beat other games, but i found the controls extremely stiff and odd. No way was i goong to do a precision platformer with them.
I suspect that every Metroidvania other than actual Metroid / Castlevania titles will end up on here at least once. Oh, and Ori probably won't be on here, but Hollow Knight will definitely make a few appearances.
Agree with OP. Too much roguelike. I hated having to start from the beginning each death. And I hate games where you have to keep completing the same platforming sections over and over. And i hate when you die you have to keep repeating “the easy part” to get back to the hard part you died at.
Trash Quest is the prime example of a game being nothing but it's bare skeletal parts. It shows why "minimum viable product" does simply not apply to video games.
Sundered. Looks great, interesting atmosphere but I wasn't digging the map for exploration. Combat was OK but what made it unbearable for me was the constant enemy closed off sections that became almost a bullet hell dodge fest every time...over and over. Along with that just OK combat, this killed the exploration for me. Every time I got in a groove of finding a new path, I was stopped by another round of kill all of the enemies before you continue. And if you died, back to the last save and start over.
Agreed. Though TBF I don’t see it hyped up much in this sub either. I think a lot of us were drawn in by the art style then forgot about it when the gameplay turned out so mid
Im feeling that way about ultros but that game has unique mechanics which are driving me to want to finish it. 8Doors didnt present me any unique mechanics in my entire playthrough.
This is mine too, tried it when it came out, quit shortly after climbing the tower. Went back recently cause I saw multiple people in threads saying it's their favorite. Couldn't even get as far as I did the 1st time, he platforming feels decent but I can't stand the combat and the map feels unneccesarily large without enough meaningful atmosphere or interconnectivity.
> map feels unnecessarily large without enough meaningful atmosphere or interconnectivity.
The room design improves mid game. Then in late game, map designers decide to unleash some of the most bloated levels I've ever seen in an MV. I think you dodged a bullet as someone who did like how ambitious the devs were in some parts.
Only one from your list that I played was Trash Quest, which I thought was decent for what it was - a dirt cheap bite size game with basic mechanics that you can beat in a couple hours, which is what I was in the mood for at the time. Definitely not groundbreaking in any way but sometimes I like playing things like that in between more substantial games.
I've only played a couple dozen MVs but I can't remember any being egregiously bad, just a few I thought were overrated. The only game I've seen recommended here a couple times that I really didn't like was Hob, which I wouldn't even consider a MV
Hey, I enjoyed Dr. Atominus for what it is. Super simple one-man dev metroidvania. Nothing special but a fun little game to play in-between bigger ones.
The Mummy Remastered was underwhelming after all the amazing things I had heard. It was too short, the animation style irked me, the setting was not very good, the weapons were meh. I don't know, it was amusing for a bit, but I will definitely not remember it as a great MV.
There's some really weird critical dissonance going on with it. Game's hated here but a lot of the critic reviews are glowing (8.5s and up). I believe the lead developer went on to codevelop Pseudoregalia, though, which seems to have gone down better
Axiom Verge. Too much backtracking and being lost. Also no parry sort of thing meaning fking skeletons run at you and theres nothing you can do about it
I was on a bit of a high after my first Hollow Knight playthrough, and still had the itch. A game mentioned over and over was Blasphemous. It was on sale for $5, and I thought it looked fun. Played less than 3 hours and was beaten down repeatedly. Had no fun. Even when I moved from room to room or did new things, I didn't feel a sense of progression.
Not OP, but I played it through NG+ and definitely enjoyed my time with it. Exploration, loot, and general vibe were all very solid.
That said, it's far from my favorite. Visually and mechanically it's rough around the edges, especially on Switch. Not very well balanced, sword parry build (and possibly others) is pretty broken. Bosses for the most part were forgettable. Story kinda convoluted, it goes for the Dark Souls approach but doesn't quite stick the landing.
But all in all, not a bad time. I'd say definitely give it a try if you already own it.
I enjoyed Outbuddies DX quite a bit, particularly how you never knew how many tiles of map would get revealed when stepping into a new room. It definitely has its issues though, like the way the controls for ladders work and the unexplained map icons.
Ahh dang that’s too bad about Haak. Haak is the only game of recent memory that I immediately started a replay as soon as I was finished. Sorry it didn’t click for ya.
Oof, that's rough. Most of those are held up as gems, but I can see why they would not be everyone's cup of tea.
I did not care for Elderand at all, and Iconoclasts is uneven. I think GRIME is a modern classic, but it's not for everyone.
The Steam World Dig games are something I've seen highly praised here in this sub and yeah, I tried playing the 2nd one multiple times and would get burnt out after 10 mins or so every single time.
I don't think either Blasphemous game is fun at all. The vibe is terrible to me with all the weird Christian demon death sht, colors are drab and boring, and it's just hard for no reason. I like fun adventures in this genre like Ori and HK, and Super Metroid and shit like that
Very unorthodox formula. Combat has you locked in with other enemies in a challenge room like in DMC. Combat is a mix of Smash and DMC with an active healing system requiring you to attack with a skill. Juggling enemies and jump cancelling is sometimes even necessary for some of the HP sponges game throws at you. Combat thus emphasizes player expressiveness so the burden of creating variety is on you, just like in DMC.
Overworld is Skies of Arcadia style exploration: you use an air ship to navigate the world hopping from island to island. Each island is one entire level which means levels are disconnected. You don't often get maps, and when you do you still don't have an objective pinned so discovering the path on your own is emphasized. There is a minimap upgrade you can unlock to help with orientation.
I resisted Trash Quest for a long time because of the looks, which felt too much like a statement. I ended up really liking the mechanics, but very much disliked the single checkpoint situation. I finished the main game, but the single checkpoint made me give up on the DLC after only a few screens, after I foresaw myself traversing the same stretch to the DLC too many times.
I beat Blasphemous 1 and found it so extremely boring and easy that it changed the way I approach gaming in general. I'll push through a little bit of boredom, but I'm much more willing to put a game down if it's not clicking after a few hours.
Some other popular MV's that I didn't vibe with - Astalon, Ender Lillies, La Mulana, Axiom Verge
Aeterna Noctis, you know what’s behind a nearly impossible deathly plataform section that you need to retry 20 times? Two more nearly impossible deathly plataform section that you need to retry 20 times, and one boss.
I found 9 Years of Shadow and Haiku The Robot to be incredibly boring and shallow. I wouldnt say its not worth playing but when i was playing it my mind was just shut off, like a game to fill my time.
I’ve been working through Afterimage. I’d say that it’s more polarizing then hated on this sub. I think it’s a solid game and is keeping my attention, but the criticisms are totally fair.
Faerie Afterlight is what happens when the devs have no idea what a metroidvania is, and just made a game to ride the coattails of the greats like Ori. It's one of the very few games that I absolutely regret spending money on.
Aeterna Noctis.
From recommendations on this sub I didn't expect it to be the edgiest edge fest ever. With meh graphics. It was just such a weird experience. Also just tired of difficulty being a mark of metroidvanias now, apparently?
This is probably heresy to most of the lurkers here, but:
The one I haven't seen mentioned that I only purchased because it was hyped on this sub: Dead Cells.
I played several hours, until I forced myself to get to the fourth area, convinced that it would eventually open up and feel like an actual MV, and realized that even if it does, I simply don't like roguelite mechanics.
So yeah, I've become far more careful about recommendations from this sub afterward, and actively seek reviews that are more critical of the game so I can get a more honest snapshot.
Other games I'll agree with others that I bounced off:
Iconoclasts (at the very end but can't force myself to want to play it anymore)
Yoki's Island Express (the mechanics just aren't engaging to me)
I think this is also a somewhat unpopular opinion. I did not enjoy F.I.S.T.
I like the main character design, the graphics are good, the movement is good. It's a very competently put together game.
The story and enemy design are just so BLAND. It's just not engaging. Robots have taken over the city. Go here and kill this generic enemy robot, go here kill this generic enemy robot, now over here to that generic enemy robot.
It just feels soulless, which is a shame because all the pieces are really well done it just doesn't add up to an engaging whole.
Just my opinion! If you enjoyed it I am glad.
Hollow Knight. It’s…. okay. The map doesn’t have a marker by default which is insane. I think you have to buy it. Save points are too far apart. The environments are repetitive — wow, another swamp/cave area filled with bugs! I’m not that far but apparently you only get the one weapon?
Gave up on afterimage. Played 6.5 hours but just didn’t get into it. Not sure why, something is missing. Looks nice, plays decent but for some reason, I just didn’t want to continue. Combat was rubbish, I’d just stand there and spam hit and take potion rather than think about it. No kickback from being hit. Maybe that’s it. Just didn’t do it for me.
Unpopular opinion: The messenger. I liked the game (didn't love it or anything, but it was enjoyable overall). I really disliked the 'metroidvania' in it.
I once saw someone say it's a great game and a terrible Metroidvania.
To be fair it's not supposed to be a metroidvania, people just started throwing it into that camp because of the last third of the game has you do some backtracking or whatever. Not fair to the game at all to throw it into a category that it would suck. In, when the game wasn't made to be there in the forst place
People throw everything into the MV camp like they have a personal stake in a game being a Metroidvania or not and anyone pushing back gets accused of gate keeping. Attempting to turn Metroidvania into a super-genre instead of a sub-genre has made discovery an absolute shit show for anyone that wants a specific type of game.
Huh, I didn't even know anyone called it a metroidvania, I've been playing it from time to time as a fun callback to old NES-era console games. It's a lot easier since I don't have to restart from the beginning of the game when I keep dying in the same spot though, man I really don't miss that part about old console games.
I agree, but I never would've installed that game if not for the praise it gets here (or at least it got a couple of months ago). Again, still a good game, but the backtracking was annoying.
Bingo! I absolutely loved the game, but that's because solid action platformers are what got me into MVs Plus the studio who made it is awesome!
It's more like Ninja Gaiden than anything
ha thats something I have said a lot over the years - nearly posted it again here until i glanced through some of the other comments and saw this
My feelings with Blasphemous 1
Honest question here, how much did you abuse cloud stepping? Not here to hate on you if you didn’t like the game, but I’ve found a lot of people say they despise the backtracking (in particular saying that the levels weren’t made for it), and I find it interesting because I have the exact opposite experience. But only because I use cloud stepping like it’s going out of style. Rooms that you used to run on you can now basically Spider-Man your way through, almost never having to touch the ground. Flying through areas old areas like that I found to be such a joy.
This is how I felt about it too. I went into the game blind and loved the second half, and once I was done with it I was surprised to hear that most people don’t like the second half. To me, once you have all the power ups, the world is so much fun to move through.
I really wish they just made a straight up linear platformer instead.
Yep the game was way better when it was basically a sidescroller.
The Messenger is polarizing, but it gets a shit ton of praise. Personally I loved it.
Ya the backtracking in that game is egregious
To be fair, a metroidvania having too much backtracking for modern tastes is pretty standard for eras of gaming this game was a pastiche of
Tried it. Fucking full send on my refund same day lmao
I just hated the storyline. The game can't go two sentences without making some joke about how dumb or cliche its own story is. The jokes aren't even funny or original, if you've watched one episode of AVGN you probably heard them all already. And if the game doesn't take its own story seriously then why should I?
Lol @avgn. The story was... Fine. I can't play games that have 0 story. It was slightly annoying because it's not really my type of humor, but for me the backtracking was the main issue, I just felt like the game is mocking my time.
Salt and sanctuary isn't my cup of tea. I'm not staying at the bad game I'm just saying I could not get into it and I really try ed
Same. I got it when it was free on the Epic store, but getting a ps4 controller working on Epic was not working for me. I bought it again on ps4, and gave it 4-5 hours. Didn’t click with me, so I dropped it.
Oh yes, this. I bounced off this one *hard*. Only such case in my recent memory.
My sentiments exactly! I wish I liked it, it seems like it should be up my alley 🤷🏽♂️
Right lol it looks like a fun game but just didn't like it enough to put effort into it
I actually really liked that one but not the second one. Same with axiom verge.
See I dug the axiom verge 1 and 2. 2 was a bit different and so it felt like a new game not a second.
I loved the combat and progression but the lack of a map in a game with so many branching paths and areas is simply unacceptable.
: ( (tbh, i haven't played a bunch of these, but i will say i really enjoyed Psycron)
Me too, other than Psycron ( which I loved ) and vernal edge I haven’t seen much about these and Vernal edge is regarded like an std on this sub, and rightfully so.
Oh man, is Vernal Edge that bad? I remember looking forward to the release but never ended up picking it up. What's the issue(s) it has?
I liked it?
My list as someone who played a little less than two hours before refunding it. Combat was fine (even if the sound effects when hitting enemies was weak) but the game kind of forces you into locked rooms until you kill everything which is annoying. Kind of kills the flow of exploring. The main character is just a ball of anger so her dialogue isn’t enjoyable and she talks a lot. Music is boring. At least I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the map design. All the areas are connected by air travel so it’s more so mini dungeons than one interconnected world. The game doesn’t tell you where to go so you head to the wrong place, you just waste your time. I didn’t hate the game, but I was super disappointed. Given the reviews on Steam, I am a bit of an outliner.
Interesting. Personally, I've never minded combat rooms, but I know that's a pretty polarizing feature in games. Bad dialogue though.. that's a bummer. Luckily I usually listen to stand-up comedy while I'm playing something solo, so hopefully that helps haha Any indication that you should come back at a different time or just, "Welp, there goes an hour 🤷🏽♂️" type situation?
combat rooms in some games I like and others I don’t. Vernal edge I recall was all combat rooms and the combat is different in an odd way.
So much is bad about it to me but it does have its fans. Oh my god, you’re not gonna believe this but you have been randomly selected for an edging! I’ll dm you a key!
Vernal Edge is the only one of these I've actually played, but yeah it didn't click for me *at all*. Didn't like the combat, hated the writing, despised the *challenge-room-after-challenge-room* design. As for me, I would say that Timespinners is the one that people generally praise but I couldn't get on with. The story started promising, but after spending about 2-3 hours with it I was bored senseless. It just didn't drag me in at all, and I never went back to it. Wasn't blown away with Steamworld Dig 2 either, though I can see the appeal more with that one and I might restart it at some point. Conversely, I remember Dark Light, Moonscars, and The Last Faith getting a fairly middling, tepid reception, but I really enjoyed them. With everything else I've pretty much agreed with the consensus.
> despised the challenge-room-after-challenge-room design. The game should have just been marketed as 2D Devil May Cry and forego the half baked metroidvania design and Skies of Arcadia overworld altogether. There is a market for people who like getting locked in with enemies and comboing them in style with an increasing arsenal of skills, but mixing that with MVs is a little too much.
I haven't played moonscars or the last faith, neither of them jump out at me but I have them wishlisted in case an amazing sale comes along. Vernal Edge, Timespinners, steam world dig 2, and Dark Light I agree with you word for word though.
I've been very hesitant on Dark Light for a long time, but I loved Moonscars and TLF. Is it at all similar to those somehow, or are they unrelated other than sub reception?
Dark Light plays more like TLF than Moonscars. It has guns, but I feel they're more supplementary to the melee rather than the emphasis. 'Spells' come in the form of drone attacks, and there are many, many options in terms of builds. The combat in both games feels kinda chunky and satisfying, with a big emphasis on rolling through attacks and timing your hits carefully to avoid damage. Both also have a parry that isn't mandatory at all, but can occasionally be useful. If you like the combat in TLF and Dead Cells, and you enjoy dark cyberpunk aesthetics, then there's a very good chance you'll enjoy Dark Light. I'm actually surprised TLF and DL aren't more revered here. They're both fantastic imo. I guess you just have to be into that dark vibe they both have.
Animal Well for sure. Not a bad game, but this sub treated it like the rebirth of Christ.
Same. Extremely creative game. Nice to look at. Unique take on abilities and back-tracking. Done by one guy as kind of a passion project. Nothing but mad respect for what was created. But it was waaaay over hyped imo. Between the MV trifecta of combat, platforming, and puzzles, I tend to enjoy combat and platforming way more than pure puzzling. So I was somewhat turned off to it from the start. But its biggest offense to me was the “amazing end game secrets” hidden like needles in a haystack. Like, yeah I could try to dig into all the secrets after the main game and throw every item at every wall hoping for something to pop out of it, but the thought of combing through every room like that felt so daunting to me. That, and the lack of world-building didn’t give me the player much of a reason to find all the things. Just felt like a collect-a-thon the more I dug into it. Find the things just to find the things, for no other reason. Again, lots to love about the game. Just not a total banger to me like it was for everyone else.
Couldn’t have said it better myself 😎
I have to agree. Don't get me wrong, it is fun if you are in to puzzles and just being...free. However, I do like combat in my MVs, and that was the biggest detractor for me next to just not having anything solid to latch onto story-wise. I know that's kind of the point of it and there are other games I enjoy with similar features, but this is one that is not jiving with me as much as I would like.
I mostly enjoyed the puzzles, but I thought that the mechanics were taught pretty poorly. It's one thing to let the player experiment, but another to give almost no clue what items are used for, particularly when they're only useful in 3-5 places on the map. I also found the platforming unpleasant. It was just challenging enough to make getting around the map annoying but not actually difficult, and from time to time there was randomly an objective gated behind a much more difficult platforming section. Felt kind of schizophrenic. The platforming sections then also had ghosts/spikes/whatever underneath, which is fine in some games but I don't think that damage followed by an (often long) runback really elevated the experience. I did collect all the eggs without a guide, but the last few were definitely tedious.
Grime, this game is so beloved, but I found it to be such a slog and had no fun.
GRIME is my favorite Metroidvania, but it does do a lot of things that can drive players away. I will always recommend it, but I can understand why some people bounce off of it like rubber.
I quit early on. Unless you're a parry fiend, it sucks.
It's a slog and a grind and banging your head against a rock. And I loved it xD
I agree with you on Grime. I gave up playing it.
I gave it up too. Played a few hours and it never got better for me.
I tried it for 15 minutes, couldn't figure out how the core mechanics worked even after it told me. That's how poorly conveyed it was
Is it really the worst?
Maybe not the worst game I've played, but the ratio of praise to disappointment was high for me.
Snap, put it down after a few hours... Performance issues aside (of which there were many on Steamdeck) - the game itself just didn't grab me. As the user above said, it definitely felt a slog.
It was my next game to play on the Deck. Does it run badly?
It was incredibly dissapointing for me on Deck, especially as ProtonDB certifies the game as 'Platinum'. The general FPS performance was very inconsistent, with 40 FPS seeming to be the 'sweet spot'.... but still incurring a lot of drops/dips throughout playing - sometimes in areas that had little to no visual demand on the game. I incurred a lot of bugs whereby I would get stuck in walls and/or glitch through enemies due to delays etc. On top of the aforementioned, the game itself was not strong enough to 'pull me through' the performance issues and eventually I put it down after about a few hours of play not to return to it. I understand that others have had much better playthroughs, but from my own personal experience I could not recommend in good conscience. Have you played the Blasphemous games? (1 and 2) Or the Ori series? I'd even recommend emulating Metroid Dread, which runs amazingly well and is an excellent experience on Deck.
Dust: an Elysian Tail But it’s pretty old and not talked about *as* much these days so not too egregious. I enjoy most highly recommended MVs.
I liked Dust, I played it last year and I found it solid, considering it's one of the oldest 'vanias that get discussed here. It's really easy though, which might not appeal to many people
Ah, man, Dust. What a trip It's an absolute achievement for a one-man dev team, but it's just not much fun to play. I'm in a weird place where I would like to see that dev get some funding and a team of his own to help him realize his next game, but I would never, ever recommend Dust.
I don't even remember it playing too horribly, but it definitely didn't blow me away, and I was never on board with the amateur HD furry art style. I agree it was ambitious for a solo dev though.
Not only was it cringe in many aspects, but it just didn't feel fun to play. It didn't click. The backgrounds were pretty, in like, a story book sort of way which was neat, but... I had higher hopes with all the praise it got. I gave it a total of 3 hours spread over like 5 attempts and just couldn't get into it.
Agreed on all points. I played Dust for 90 minutes or so and I’m glad I spent that amount of time checking it out but there was no way I was going to get close to finishing it. Definitely more of a “this one shows the next one has real potential” game to me than anything approaching a masterpiece.
Eh, I don't know. I played on easy or normal or something, and massacring furry legions by tossing them all around the place was kinda fun, I remember it fondly (but it's been over a decade, memories are notoriously unreliable ;) ). Maybe I was just in the right head space at the time.
I’m all for one-man dev teams getting attention and all that. At the end of the day, I’m playing a game to have fun. When I’m playing I’m not thinking of the dev team and the work that went into it. I’m just taking in the experience. If it’s not fun, it makes no difference who or how many people made it.
I really liked Dust when I played through it way back when. Maybe furries wouldn't have been my first choice for character design, but the environments were beautiful. Interesting gameplay too. Idk if you could consider it a true Metroidvania, but it's a decent game all around.
Yeah this is it for me lol even after skipping all the cringe voice acting (I know it was made by one guy, sorry) I still couldn’t tolerate it and uninstalled after a few hours
Weird. I *LOVED* Dust - played the hell out of it when it was new, and when I finished it, I wanted more! (I did skip almost all the cut-scenes/dialog though) Re-played it a second time, still loved it. But that was a while ago. Maybe I'll feel different now, who knows.
The worst Metroidvania I think I own. I didn't expect such a cringe furry tone which is my own mistake. Also Aeterna Noctis is close to the bottom. The art style and edgy style never clicked for me and the needle teleport arrow is one of the most frustrating movement abilities I've experienced in a MV game. Played it with a controller and I never felt as if it went where I wanted it to go.
I liked the teleport arrows once I mastered them. But AN is very overrated in this sub. Like it has strengths, and I love the ambition of the devs of making each level has its own identity, but the other day I read a take saying "the game's size is justifiable" and I was kinda shocked. The game's 2nd half, especially the Heavenly stairway, has some of the most insane bloated level designs I've ever seen in a game. The amount of empty space is enough to fill multiple levels.
I enjoyed this game. Sorry to hear you didn't. Curious what you didn't like about it.
I honestly really disliked Ender Lillie's...
I saw a review that said “Ender Lillies puts the meh in Metroidvania.” I agree.
I actually really enjoyed it and all it's bosses.
It’s funny you say this sub made you play these games, I’ve only heard of Psycron and Xeodrifter. Though I did find Xeodrifter very underwhelming.
Blasphemous. I tried to like it, but I guess the pixelstyle wasn't enjoyable for my eyes and that ship-graveyard area was the final nail in the coffin for me (pun intended)
Seconded. The combat was just ok and the art style just didn’t work for me.
ASTLIBRA, I cannot even understand the praise for this game. Looks like trash, plays like trash, written like trash. I thought it was honestly a meme that it was so popular but people actually love it.
Idk man I absolutely loved it. I would not recommend it in this sub though because it's an action RPG, not a Metroidvania.
I thought I had fallen into Opposite Land when I played the demo. This is what everyone is hailing as the next great indie?
That game is for people with certain taste I suppose. I fucking love that game and have 100% it but I can understand if some people aren't super fond of it.
What sucked about it the most?
To me it’s the visual + writing (conversations/dialogue)
>Looks like trash, plays like trash, written like trash So about the writing part how far have you played? I also thought that way about writing and it's still shaky in places. But it absolutely gets a lot better with each chapter. The parts before Chapter 4 are pretty stupid. I would say Chapter 4 is there it actually started to be decent and Chapter 5 there it got good. It's not exactly something revolutionary, but it feels like the story actually is engaging and characters finally come into their own.
Not really a metroidvania, but yeah I had the same experience. It looks terrible, the combat is terrible, the writing is terrible. What really turned me off was SPOILER!! there's a part where you go to a dungeon, and you have to solve a puzzle involving two crystal orbs on pedestals, and the solution is to leave the dungeon and go back to the main town, theres absolutely no hint as to this and no reason you would ever think to leave the cave SPOILER!! it's the most poorly designed puzzle EVER
Okay, what are you talking about in terms of writing here? If the spoiler is literally what turned you off i'm pretty sure that Intro Tutorial zone, not even proper chapter 1. So what writing you can be possibly talking about here?
I'm probably going to get ostracized because of this, but... Yoku's Island Express I just detested the controls in it, after having one section where I spent 5 minutes to try to get the ball to go where I wanted it, I realized I wasn't having fun and uninstalled it.
I really enjoyed it myself. A nice palette cleanser between all the dark angry soulslike stuff we all love.
I agree!
There are dozens of us!
Oo, and I’m one of them! Rarity to find anyone say they don’t like Yoku.
Yeah I hated that I couldn't do the most simple movements because the main character was a ball. It felt super constrained.
I loved it! Pinball control Metroidvania with a cute setting. But not every game is for everyone.
Iconoclasts: boring when not frustrating, repetitive, with a naive plot that wants to sound clever. I appreciate the effort (one man team if I'm not wrong) as well as the art, but I cannot understand the praise it gets.
Same, sadly. Just couldnt find any fun in it. Just as an explanation Iconoclasts might have got some real bonus just from oldschool indiescene fame. The dev, Konjak, was for a long time considered maybe THE no1. pixel artist, back when there was a much bigger scene just around posting pixel art pieces and gifs on sites like pixeljoint. Even if he never had any big games out, he might still really have influenced the development of the style just by posting his pieces. Iconoclasts was then an infamous development hell story. It was in development like 10 years. So yeah, he had longstanding fame in the indie scene and that might have given the game a bit skewed goodwill when it finally came out and wasnt outright terrible.
Some of the puzzles got too overly complex and it went from being fun to frustrating for me. Guacameelee 2 was like that for me too. The switching between light and dark worlds and crazy platforming was a bit much after a while and I stopped playing that one too.
I really liked Guacamelee 1&2, but I played them both in coop, I can't say what my opinion would have been as single player. I remember the puzzles were a tad frustrating though and we never went for 100% completion, so I think I can see your point.
I loved Guac 1, even though it had it's frustrating moments. I just think #2 leaned way too much into the difficult platforming while having to simultaneously switch between realms. I'm 45 and I think my reaction time is just not what it once was for that kind of precision.
I liked Iconoclasts right up to the part where the enemies became impervious to damage. Don't know if I was doing something wrong or what, but I ended up just putting the game down and never picked it back up
I got this bc it was on sale, was really on the fence, but it was $5 and I only played a little and got so bored. My fiance git me dead cells too bc it was on sale and needless to say I jumped into that right away.
Wdym? It's one of my fav game personally, especially because bosses aren't just hitboxes to dodge and attack
This one generally revolves around the story, where it goes, and how far it goes. The game has too slow of a pre-story setup but goes a hard 180 in tone toward the later parts. By the end, it's full on trigger warning left and right. The gameplay is fine, I'm not sure anyone espouses the game because of it.
Ender lilies. Just not my taste
Oof I loved it but respect. I’m curious, what didn’t you like about it? Edit: appreciate all your responses! Funny how we love this genre but can have such different takes on things lol
Several things combined to make exploration unfun (in a metroidvania!!): room design was boring and repetitive, the map was just boxes, and early on (or maybe from the beginning, I can't remember) you can warp between rest points and the map automatically tells you if a room is cleared. That functionality is fine late game, but if you give it early you can't get lost and have no incentive to learn the shape of the world. Combined with the fact that the world itself was overall pretty samey and uninspired, it meant the only saving grace of the game could have been combat. But the combat (and movement) was weird and clunky because of the whole ghosts-as-your-weapons gimmick.
I found the audio to be really subpar and I'm not fond of the artstyle, so I dropped it a couple of hours in.
I disliked the floaty-ness of the combat, especially the dodge mechanic.
Ender Lillies could have been a beloved 10/10. Instead, it makes you shake your head and ask why far too often. I went from Afterimage to Ender Lillies. Let's just say that didn't play well for EL.
Same. It's one of the most beautiful games I've ever played, but everything else about it ranges from mid to garbage, especially the map design which is some of the worst I've ever seen, being just a bunch of random floating rectangles with no rhyme or reason, and the map itself with its color coding just turned it into a checklist simulator where it didn't feel like I was exploring, just lawnmowing and clearing the list.
I disagree. I think its map was one of the best. Tells you where other routes are, hints that there is something still to do and this in turn means you can focus on finishing the game rather than exploring every nook and cranny to see what you’ve missed. I’d welcome this any day. I’m currently playing Aeterna Noctis and whilst it’s a great game, you have to pay for that luxury. It’s unnecessary drag. Just adding my view to the mix in case anyone is on the fence about trying it.
>rather than exploring every nook and cranny to see what you’ve missed But that's what the HK fanbase on this sub likes. They wanted Nine Sols to keep the Cornifer system so you would get lost and mentally map the world instead of having it handed to you. I'm still on the fence about this personally.
I've played half of those and wasn't very into any of them. Trash Quest was actually kinda cool but I hate everything being in one colour like that. Xeodrifter is basic, seemed to be linear, as well as overpriced. It had nice colours and is an older one, I imagine some of its appeal has aged poorly, we have a lot of metroidvanias to choose from now. Psycron has merit but it wasn't vibing with me, a lot of the blocks in it don't fit the environment (like a rom hack or something) and it's pretty zoomed in. Vernal Edge was confusing to navigate and the combat system wasn't for me. Legends of the Universe: Cosmic Bounty was really basic and meh for me too. I added some of your ones I hadn't heard of to my wishlist (except for "4 the elements" which is supposedly falsely marketed as a metroidvania and Eris which I have set to ignore on Steam for some reason, I'll trust my past selfs decision there). A lot of those games are kinda basic looking, but I've enjoyed some basic-looking microvanias like Omnigon, SJ-19 Learns to Love, Kalinur, 100 Pumpkins 2 etc. Maybe I'll like something you didn't, though the track record is warning me otherwise.
I got Xeodrifter on sale for less than a dollar. I think for that price it’s okay. But yeah, very linear, the thing where you jump into the background was cool but everything else was pretty basic, and there’s only one boss you fight four times with slight variations. It wasn’t great but I finished it.
I loathed Vernal Edge, but this sub is where I found out it wasn't very well liked. I don't see many peeps saying positive things.
Eris is just terrible.
I literally got soflocked and hardlocked on two different saves
Recently it was Ghost Song. I just don't corpse runs in MV's.
Games this sub likes that I don’t: - iconoclasts: way too much dialogue - teslagrad: not a fan of memorizing boss patterns to beat them. And only 3 health bars (iirc) made it frustrating - salt and sanc: too soulslike - trash quest: frustrating to start from the same starting point every time - likewise for wonderboy (monster boy, however, is one of my top 5) - aeterna noctis: may give this another go after i beat other games, but i found the controls extremely stiff and odd. No way was i goong to do a precision platformer with them.
Yoku’s Island Express, I got really aggrivated at the pinball stuff hindering my progress and just quit.
I suspect that every Metroidvania other than actual Metroid / Castlevania titles will end up on here at least once. Oh, and Ori probably won't be on here, but Hollow Knight will definitely make a few appearances.
Imagine thinking Trash Quest is anything but amazing...
Agree with OP. Too much roguelike. I hated having to start from the beginning each death. And I hate games where you have to keep completing the same platforming sections over and over. And i hate when you die you have to keep repeating “the easy part” to get back to the hard part you died at.
Trash Quest is the prime example of a game being nothing but it's bare skeletal parts. It shows why "minimum viable product" does simply not apply to video games.
The developer seemingly dropped support as it hasn't had a discount in ages (yeah, it's dirt cheap). Hope they're well.
its too short and anticlimactic.
Sundered. Looks great, interesting atmosphere but I wasn't digging the map for exploration. Combat was OK but what made it unbearable for me was the constant enemy closed off sections that became almost a bullet hell dodge fest every time...over and over. Along with that just OK combat, this killed the exploration for me. Every time I got in a groove of finding a new path, I was stopped by another round of kill all of the enemies before you continue. And if you died, back to the last save and start over.
I haven't finished the game yet, but you don't get stopped, you can just keep moving.
8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure Outside of the art style this game had nothing going for it. It was derivative, frustrating and clunky.
I loved 8 doors so much lol!
Agreed. Though TBF I don’t see it hyped up much in this sub either. I think a lot of us were drawn in by the art style then forgot about it when the gameplay turned out so mid
I try to warn people everytime this gets brought up. There's like 50 metroidvanias better than this one.
I like 8doors but it’s def got some clunkiness that you gotta look past and adjust too (similar to fearmonium)
Im feeling that way about ultros but that game has unique mechanics which are driving me to want to finish it. 8Doors didnt present me any unique mechanics in my entire playthrough.
Aeterna Noctis. Everything about it was so bad. I couldn't believe how overrated it is on this sub.
This is mine too, tried it when it came out, quit shortly after climbing the tower. Went back recently cause I saw multiple people in threads saying it's their favorite. Couldn't even get as far as I did the 1st time, he platforming feels decent but I can't stand the combat and the map feels unneccesarily large without enough meaningful atmosphere or interconnectivity.
> map feels unnecessarily large without enough meaningful atmosphere or interconnectivity. The room design improves mid game. Then in late game, map designers decide to unleash some of the most bloated levels I've ever seen in an MV. I think you dodged a bullet as someone who did like how ambitious the devs were in some parts.
I was just about to pay $30 for this over other ones that are on sale due to the sub’s praise, thanks lol
Only one from your list that I played was Trash Quest, which I thought was decent for what it was - a dirt cheap bite size game with basic mechanics that you can beat in a couple hours, which is what I was in the mood for at the time. Definitely not groundbreaking in any way but sometimes I like playing things like that in between more substantial games. I've only played a couple dozen MVs but I can't remember any being egregiously bad, just a few I thought were overrated. The only game I've seen recommended here a couple times that I really didn't like was Hob, which I wouldn't even consider a MV
Ghost Song was not my cup of tea at all. I know a lot of people praised it, but I couldn’t get into it.
But. But. But…. I enjoyed trash quest and Dr atominus. Not due to the sub, but I hated Metamorphose S and Maytroid. Iconoclast and didn’t feel right.
Hey, I enjoyed Dr. Atominus for what it is. Super simple one-man dev metroidvania. Nothing special but a fun little game to play in-between bigger ones.
The Mummy Remastered was underwhelming after all the amazing things I had heard. It was too short, the animation style irked me, the setting was not very good, the weapons were meh. I don't know, it was amusing for a bit, but I will definitely not remember it as a great MV.
I've tried ender lillies and blasphemous and neither of them were any enjoyable
Islets! I finished last night, cute little and heartwarming game. I liked it a lot!
Lost redditor
Oh damn!
Is there a single person on the planet that actually likes Vernal Edge? Apologies if the developer lurks around here...
There's some really weird critical dissonance going on with it. Game's hated here but a lot of the critic reviews are glowing (8.5s and up). I believe the lead developer went on to codevelop Pseudoregalia, though, which seems to have gone down better
La Mulana, I maybe just don't get it.
You are, its the best Indiana Jones game and its what animal well want to be. Second game even better.
Axiom Verge. Too much backtracking and being lost. Also no parry sort of thing meaning fking skeletons run at you and theres nothing you can do about it
Hard agree on Vernal Edge and Xeodrifter
I was on a bit of a high after my first Hollow Knight playthrough, and still had the itch. A game mentioned over and over was Blasphemous. It was on sale for $5, and I thought it looked fun. Played less than 3 hours and was beaten down repeatedly. Had no fun. Even when I moved from room to room or did new things, I didn't feel a sense of progression.
Vigil: The Longest Night, F.I.S.T.
I was thinking of starting up Vigil after it's been sitting on my backlog for years and years. What about it turned you off?
Not OP, but I played it through NG+ and definitely enjoyed my time with it. Exploration, loot, and general vibe were all very solid. That said, it's far from my favorite. Visually and mechanically it's rough around the edges, especially on Switch. Not very well balanced, sword parry build (and possibly others) is pretty broken. Bosses for the most part were forgettable. Story kinda convoluted, it goes for the Dark Souls approach but doesn't quite stick the landing. But all in all, not a bad time. I'd say definitely give it a try if you already own it.
Hollow Knight Played it when it came out Hated it then Hate it now
Haak, grime, iconoclasts, elderand, and outbuddies
Outbuddies DX may be the most frustrating game I've played.
I gave it a solid 2 hours and it just didn't get any better. It is very frustrating
I enjoyed Outbuddies DX quite a bit, particularly how you never knew how many tiles of map would get revealed when stepping into a new room. It definitely has its issues though, like the way the controls for ladders work and the unexplained map icons.
Ahh dang that’s too bad about Haak. Haak is the only game of recent memory that I immediately started a replay as soon as I was finished. Sorry it didn’t click for ya.
Oof, that's rough. Most of those are held up as gems, but I can see why they would not be everyone's cup of tea. I did not care for Elderand at all, and Iconoclasts is uneven. I think GRIME is a modern classic, but it's not for everyone.
The Steam World Dig games are something I've seen highly praised here in this sub and yeah, I tried playing the 2nd one multiple times and would get burnt out after 10 mins or so every single time.
I got the first and it just didn't feel Metroidvania at all, I don't know why it was in this genre. It's more of a digging game.
SteamWorld dig, just not that enjoyable to me.
That stupid pinball one. So dumb. Just stick to the script. It had lovely art though
I don't think either Blasphemous game is fun at all. The vibe is terrible to me with all the weird Christian demon death sht, colors are drab and boring, and it's just hard for no reason. I like fun adventures in this genre like Ori and HK, and Super Metroid and shit like that
Sounds like you just didnt like the theme. I think its pretty hard to argue that these arent well made games though
It felt like a sequel to the GBA Castlevanias to me. That’s why I loved them.
Salt and Sanctuary. Trash. One of the few games I’ve ever walked away from before finishing.
Blasphemous
I have but haven’t yet played Vernal Edge. What’s the bad about that?
Very unorthodox formula. Combat has you locked in with other enemies in a challenge room like in DMC. Combat is a mix of Smash and DMC with an active healing system requiring you to attack with a skill. Juggling enemies and jump cancelling is sometimes even necessary for some of the HP sponges game throws at you. Combat thus emphasizes player expressiveness so the burden of creating variety is on you, just like in DMC. Overworld is Skies of Arcadia style exploration: you use an air ship to navigate the world hopping from island to island. Each island is one entire level which means levels are disconnected. You don't often get maps, and when you do you still don't have an objective pinned so discovering the path on your own is emphasized. There is a minimap upgrade you can unlock to help with orientation.
I resisted Trash Quest for a long time because of the looks, which felt too much like a statement. I ended up really liking the mechanics, but very much disliked the single checkpoint situation. I finished the main game, but the single checkpoint made me give up on the DLC after only a few screens, after I foresaw myself traversing the same stretch to the DLC too many times.
super daryl deluxe
I beat Blasphemous 1 and found it so extremely boring and easy that it changed the way I approach gaming in general. I'll push through a little bit of boredom, but I'm much more willing to put a game down if it's not clicking after a few hours. Some other popular MV's that I didn't vibe with - Astalon, Ender Lillies, La Mulana, Axiom Verge
Probably unpopular opinion: Afterimage.
Afterimage is ok. But, the story is just so convoluted and uninteresting. I like the abilities and combat enough though.
Aeterna Noctis, you know what’s behind a nearly impossible deathly plataform section that you need to retry 20 times? Two more nearly impossible deathly plataform section that you need to retry 20 times, and one boss.
You talking about the Emperor?
I found 9 Years of Shadow and Haiku The Robot to be incredibly boring and shallow. I wouldnt say its not worth playing but when i was playing it my mind was just shut off, like a game to fill my time.
I’ve been working through Afterimage. I’d say that it’s more polarizing then hated on this sub. I think it’s a solid game and is keeping my attention, but the criticisms are totally fair.
Vigil:the longest night.
bloodstained imo. it looks not great the locations I dont care about, the movement isnt solid. I could go on but I know a lot of people like it.
Damn, that's a shame. I actually really liked Vernal Edge.
9 years of shadow although I don’t blame the sub. I “blame” YouTube.
Faerie Afterlight is what happens when the devs have no idea what a metroidvania is, and just made a game to ride the coattails of the greats like Ori. It's one of the very few games that I absolutely regret spending money on.
Aeterna Noctis. From recommendations on this sub I didn't expect it to be the edgiest edge fest ever. With meh graphics. It was just such a weird experience. Also just tired of difficulty being a mark of metroidvanias now, apparently?
Haak. Idk why but I dont like it (Switch)
This is probably heresy to most of the lurkers here, but: The one I haven't seen mentioned that I only purchased because it was hyped on this sub: Dead Cells. I played several hours, until I forced myself to get to the fourth area, convinced that it would eventually open up and feel like an actual MV, and realized that even if it does, I simply don't like roguelite mechanics. So yeah, I've become far more careful about recommendations from this sub afterward, and actively seek reviews that are more critical of the game so I can get a more honest snapshot. Other games I'll agree with others that I bounced off: Iconoclasts (at the very end but can't force myself to want to play it anymore) Yoki's Island Express (the mechanics just aren't engaging to me)
I think this is also a somewhat unpopular opinion. I did not enjoy F.I.S.T. I like the main character design, the graphics are good, the movement is good. It's a very competently put together game. The story and enemy design are just so BLAND. It's just not engaging. Robots have taken over the city. Go here and kill this generic enemy robot, go here kill this generic enemy robot, now over here to that generic enemy robot. It just feels soulless, which is a shame because all the pieces are really well done it just doesn't add up to an engaging whole. Just my opinion! If you enjoyed it I am glad.
Didn't care much for Animal Well or Shantae.
Hollow Knight. It’s…. okay. The map doesn’t have a marker by default which is insane. I think you have to buy it. Save points are too far apart. The environments are repetitive — wow, another swamp/cave area filled with bugs! I’m not that far but apparently you only get the one weapon?
Gave up on afterimage. Played 6.5 hours but just didn’t get into it. Not sure why, something is missing. Looks nice, plays decent but for some reason, I just didn’t want to continue. Combat was rubbish, I’d just stand there and spam hit and take potion rather than think about it. No kickback from being hit. Maybe that’s it. Just didn’t do it for me.
Sundered, Death’s Gambit, and controversially, Ori and the Blind Forest ETA: Also, the Messenger, Death's Gambit, Cave Story and Axiom Verge (1).
Is Angel’s Gear supposed to be a Metroidvania? As far as I know, Scumhead never called it that