I Still Don't Get How Metroidvania Games Are Good

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Metroidvania games.

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While I love the openness of games like prey, there's no denying that even prey has metroidvania elements built into it. While your environment changes, you still have to backtrack for story sake (you know wich point I'm talking about).

Comparing Metroidvanias with a Playstyle like Prey (Immersive Sim) is like Comparing Trees to Mushrooms, or a Fighter game with a Racing Game.

I personally don't like Metroidvania Games. The only two I've finished are Ori and the Blind Forest and Metroid Zero Mission. I tried multiple ones but I learned, that Metroidvania aren't just my cup of tea. If I want a really open Playstyle, No restrictions and stuff like that, I don't pick a Metroidvania.

MaisistkeinGemuese
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4:25 here’s the problem making upgrade optional, can suppress creativity due to the fact that if they want a unique boss fight with ability’s that you get I could seem unfair to people who know nothing about the game

Tweetymeany
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I know what you’re talking about, but it’s kind of an aspect of the genre that’s a key subjective appeal. The world is a puzzle to an extent, and you’re actively solving it as you play the game more or less.

It’s kind of like the difficulty in Souls games. The fanbase desires it, regulars can enjoy the novelty of the experience, and non-fans simply aren’t gonna vibe with it by nature of opinions.

Personally, I don’t necessarily _dislike_ the layout of Metroidvanias, but I’ve found myself burnt out with getting lost in many them… kind of similar to how I get burnt out with getting my face smashed in with Souls-likes.

Yet despite this, I still feel compelled to give Bloodborne a crack every now and then, which is a horrifying blend of both genres. I don’t know if this makes me a masochist, or a sucker for it’s grimdark and generally challenges I’m informed of. (As opposed to random difficulty spikes that break the flow of a game, which never fails it severely annoy me.)

necrowmancerowo
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"Power fantasy intrinsic in all games"
Play outlast or classic thief trilogy or amnesia etc
Whatcha talkin about

colombiasupremo
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Hollow Knight doesn’t exactly fall under this formula though.
There are many skips that can be done without the required item. You can fight the Brooding Mawlek as soon as you start the game by bouncing off of the spikes on the path to reach it. You can cross small gaps (such as to reach the ledge where you first spot Hornet) using Vengeful Spirit. You also don’t require Desolate Dive at all, since there’s an alternate entrance to Crystal Peaks. You can outright skip Isma’s Tear by using the Crystal Heart to cross those bodies of water. And the Monarch Wings are only needed at one location to get the first ending of the game, and that location technically doesn’t need them since you can pogo off the background decorations to get up there.

On the topic of backtracking, you’re not defining the problem correctly. Backtracking isn’t tedious in the slightest if you return to an area with an ability that allows you to traverse the area much easier. Ex: Returning to Greenpath with the Mothwing Cloak, returning to the Fungal Wastes with Isma’s Tear, etc.
Good metroidvania design wouldn’t just be to design an area around what the player would have at that time, but also what the player would have in the future in order to eliminate, or at the very least, significantly lessen, the tedium or backtracking.

Furthermore, backtracking is inevitable in any game that promotes exploration. There will always be scenarios where the player will miss the main prize of the area, or, in your example, be gatekept by the challenge of a boss that wasn’t intended to be fought at that point in the game. This will inevitably necessitate backtracking at some point.

5:42
This point puzzles me. Would it be better if these areas WEREN’T made known to you, and you had to endlessly comb through an area you’ve already been to trying to find a path that wasn’t communicated to the player rather than be empowered to speed past everything on the way to the path that you have clearly seen?

I think the primary disconnect here is that you go into metroidvanias expecting them to be open world games. They aren’t. And gatekeeping the fun is huge part of game design. Though it isn’t a metroidvania, Devil May Cry, for example, locks many of its attacks behind an in-game shop because if the player were to get all of them at once, they’d be overwhelmed and would just pick one option that works moderately well and stick with it. Not to mention that unlocking those moves is a form of progression in and of itself. It’s the same for metroidvanias. All games have their ups and downs, and a big downside of open world games is that they have poor difficulty scaling. If a player can be anywhere at anytime, how can you make sure they aren’t getting bodied all the time without making the area too easy for people who get there later? More linear games don’t have this issue.

6:29
Huh?
Are all linear games akin to movies now? Are the locked chests in A Link to the Past too similar to JJ Abram’s mystery boxes? Lmao
You engage in the two mediums in fundamentally different ways. To compare the two would be disingenuous.

Liverator
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"dont gatekeep the fun" - don't you, yourself, gatekeep what should be fun for others?
The valid point you got - is that metroidvanias generally have predictable upgrades and that undermines the surprise you ideally should have when you get a new tool to tackle the obstacles

colombiasupremo
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That's how i know the old metroid games were the best.

BestSpartansForever
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I think your complaints are true but I feel like these problems are not exclusive to the metroidvania formula, most games are like this. For example the open parts of Resident Evil style games are basically metroidvanias but instead of getting a cool ability that helps you find a new path in an earlier zone you find a key that opens a specific door. Same with keycards in boomer shooters. Or in open world games when you find an endgame enemy and it's made clear that you're not meant to be there.
The part about hiding the challenge is true in all lineal games aswell, it's just hidden in a different way.
In an ideal world I think the abilities whould make exploration *easier*, not just *possible*. Ex: Opening shortcuts or something like flying through a gap instead of pogo-jumping through it. But I guess you're right that when it comes to exploration most metroidvanias treat abilities as lock-and-keys instead of new tools to tackle problems. I'd just argue that most games are like this, it's not an inherent problem of the format.
Honestly mad props for posting a video with this title haha.

bagandtag
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The problem are metroidvanias by their nature and how they are programmed and all. Super Metroid is an intense action adventure with a unique atmosphere. Castlevania Symphony of the Night is a comfort game. It has a comfortable atmosphere, with a neat gothic novel look. When people say something is a metroidvania (dumb term anyway) I always wonder how the games they label such are meeting both criteria, from Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night, to make the game uniquely tense and charmingly comforting at the same time, and also recreating anything else that made both games really good on their own.

niemand
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its not insulting its just part of the type of game. furthermore i disagree with pretty much most of what you are talking about

PDR
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ok the title says all i need to know because ori and hk are both great games amazing even in my opinion but just because you don't like a game doesn't make it a bad game but it's your opinion and everything you said even though i disagree it is pretty reasonable and i could see why you don't like those parts of a game even though i do.

Crmsn_Kn
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I prefer games like the messenger where its about skill to progress to new areas, not backtracking thru already passed areas the whole time, gets boring very fast for me

Shishlik
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Well for me the backtrackingand the closed paths that need abilities that ill get later are something i like about these games .
But thats the issue. Not every game is made for everyone.
People like different things and thats fine.
You sound like someone who would like puzzle games or open world survival games .

GeorgeTsagkarakis
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You are not the template for humanity. Enjoy the games that appeal to you and allow others to do the same.

Grobisnten
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You nailed exactly what I feel about these games. It's why I can really dig old Castlevania games but not much of the stuff designed after Symphony of the Night.

Edit: Wtf is with all the comments like "That's just YOUR opinion! >:(" on your video about your opinion about this style of game design? You'd think you were Dunkey

kolardgreene
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wow, you managed to put my frustrations with metroidvanias into much, much less angry words, haha. And the empty criticisms here simply reinforce the idea that critical thinking with regards to video games is frowned upon, as if it's actually a threat to how much fans love the games they love. If anything, I'd say the more you love something, games included, the more accepting you are of flaws.

I'd say Metroidvanias are paradoxical in nature: A linear item progression tethered to a non-linear world. And you're absolutely right; all this means is that the design asks more time of the player, and blind praise grants permissibility to developers to take as much of the player's time as they want. If some players get value out of backtracking and blind exploration, that's great; that is not the issue. The issue is that this is a particular type of player, and games should strive to accommodate different types of players with different thinking processes.

Imagine if the character in hollow knight kept a journal with their own personal thoughts on where to go, as a subtle way to nudge the player towards what is accessible to them next: Far less frustrating to me exploring the same areas up and down, over and over. Imagine if the map actually acknowledged temporary dead-ends and kept of that information for you? Great! And once again, if the player had the option to turn this navigation off, if they preferred to explore without any assistance, then that simply means more playstyles are accommodated; more people are happy.

The only truly open world game I've played that accomplished the goal of not needing any such design, of being truly non-linear, and giving absolute freedom, was breath of the wild. If you see it, you can go there. You are told the four corners of the map hold important destinations, and that's it, and that's all you need. Other than that, I've played a lot of secretly-linear games that have only given me the "freedom" of feeling lost and frustrated, sadly.

SAClassHunterZero
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I didn’t understand any of this. I like the games that let you express your playstyle freely, but surely that shouldn’t be the only type of game out there.

wilpuriarts
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This is why I drop metroidvanias.... Which games do you recommend that don't recur to backtracking and keeping progression behind keys?

AlbertoMonroy-lqvw
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Then maybe don't play metroidmainas?

benbrowne