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BoneSnapDeez wrote:Yeah, I tend to think of the term as being synonymous with "nonlinear platformer with backtracking." Most Metroidvanias don't feel too much like either Metroid or Castlevania, .

This is a good summary of what most people think of when they hear metroidvania. Basically non-linear and backtracking with new powers to unlock new areas is really all a game needs to be classified as a metroidvania.

A good example is something like guacamelee, definitely a metroidvania but plays nothing like either metroid or castlevania.

PresidentLeever wrote:Spyro 2 was a recent borderline case that I covered on my site. What do y'all think of that one?

The points against it for me are that a couple of things reset between level visits and levels only have one entry point. Since it has the other elements, some RPG/AA elements as well as a variety of sequence breaking opportunities I think it still counts, although the sequence breaking is more like an advanced optional feature that not all MVs have but fans of the genre tend to appreciate.

I never played Spyro 2 but I also never considered 3d platformers as contenders for metroidvanias, in my mind a metroid vania is always a 2d game, but that certainly is something interesting for people to discuss, and I would be curious to hear others thoughts on that.

PresidentLeever wrote:Yeah it's something I've com to accept very recently but thinking about it, we don't divide other genres by the dimensions so why MV? And MV fans tend to accept Metroid Prime which are also FP view, an even bigger difference.

I'd say that while it is not impossible for a 3D title to be a Metroidvania (e.g. Metroid Prime), it's harder for it to be definitively a Metroidvania vs. just a nonlinear platformer. 3D games in general are more likely to be non-linear because the third dimension encourages design that is more open. When you have a more linear design, like Crash Bandicoot, it stands out more than with a 2D game. So since 3D games can be considered to have a measure of non-linearity by default you now have to look closer at some of the spices that make a Metroidvania a Metroidvania. And I think the deep exploration bit ends up being the thing that will push a 3D game into Metroidvania. Because many 3D games will have areas that are gated behind a mobility; SM64 has things like the Wing Cap, DK64 has the Kong abilities, etc. But the games don't have that sense of trailblazing that Metroid Prime does, with little nooks and crannies. I'd say Dark Souls ends up capturing that aspect of things, but then doesn't really have the backtracking and mobility component; rather, you have multiple paths you can start with and then once you've finished one you do the other (and maybe one of them gives you a key to open a third path behind a door).

Just found out something I didn't know before. I was never a fan of the anime Shaman King. It turns out that the Gameboy Advance game, "Shaman King: Master of Spirits" was a metroidvania game made by some of the same people who worked on Konami's Castlevania GBA games. From the reviews I'm reading, it seems like a metroidvania-lite: a short, but enjoyable metroidvania that you could knock out in relatively short order. I guess when I was a teenager I would have passed over this as a baby game. Now that I'm a thirty something with limited time, a short easy metroidvania sounds like an attractive idea to me. I might have to check this one out.

I have the game and it is fun, but I got stuck in the game midway through and I don't know how to proceed. So there may be some confusion. Also, it's level-based, but you can go back and forth between levels. It's sort of a weird hybrid between Metroid and a standard stage-based platformer.

marurun wrote:I have the game and it is fun, but I got stuck in the game midway through and I don't know how to proceed. So there may be some confusion. Also, it's level-based, but you can go back and forth between levels. It's sort of a weird hybrid between Metroid and a standard stage-based platformer.

So it fits into this topic perfectly!