Such a great game!

Hello, I just finished MIO: Memories in Orbit, and even though I'm not a huge fan of exploring large areas with uneven terrain that make the paths hard to track, I really liked it. The art style is a work of art, the soundtrack is a 10/10, and while the combat isn't the highlight of the game, the boss fights were really good and challenging, and the ending was awesome too.

I also recently finished Nine Sols, which I consider on par with, if not better than, Silksong, a masterpiece and the best combat on my entire list.

Well Dweller is a great game, full of charm and good humor, but I didn't enjoy it as much because, bosses aside (they are amazing), the exploration and regular enemies felt a bit too simple to me.

I tried the demo for Aeterna Lucis and loved it; I'm planning to play it on release. And for now, I'll leave Noctis for another time because of how long it is and how close the sequel is.

I really enjoy challenging Metroidvanias with good parkour and combat, but I hate overly large maps. I’d also prefer it not to be too long, somewhere between 20 and 30 hours would be ideal.

TL;DR: I have my eyes on Grime 2, Mandragora, Castlevania: Belmonts Curse, Fatal Claws, Last Faith Which one would you recommend? (It can be any game, even outside my list)

Hello everyone!

My third metroidvania (after Super Roboy and Grumpy Jack), set in Japanese folklore, is coming along alright, and I figured I’d post a little update.

You can wishlist the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4534260/Kodama_Slumber_of_the_Gods/

The game focuses on fluid platforming, melee combat, and has a (very skippable) mythological story.

Thanks, and have a lovely day!

I generally seem to have a hard time finding great Metroidvanias by myself. The last one I played was Silksong back when it released and I am currently mustering the courage to play La Mulana 2. Until that happens, what are some great (preferably challenging) games that I have missed? (Please, no Metroid and Castlevania, I am too lazy to emulate Metroid and not patient enough for janky, early castlevania controls and lack of QoL).

Also, before someone tries to kill me for putting Ori and The Messenger on C, I believe they are great platforming and sidescrolling games respectively and I enjoyed them a lot. I just think they are lacking in the metroidvania aspect.

It's not perfect, but I enjoyed it a lot and have no regrets paying full price. For context, I 100% the game at ~25 hrs.

Negatives

My first gripe is that some progression is a little challenging to figure out in a couple spots - I wandered around quite a bit before figuring out how to get into Notre Dame and the Hall of Mirrors. Thankfully, the Works of Mercy challenges kept me busy. I probably fought Mammon for 40 minutes before giving up and deciding to come back at higher levels.

My second small gripe is I wish Rose had more dash abilities, but I have that complaint with most of the genre, SOTN included (I would die and go to heaven for a Mega Man metroidvania, and no, ZX doesn't count). Metroid gets the movement speed right.

Positives

Probably the biggest praise of this game that I've read is how different people like different weapons. For example, I didn't use the great swords for more than 1 minute, but there are a handful of reviewers who said that was their main weapon! To me that indicates the game has something for everyone insofar as combat is concerned. As an aside, I loved the twin blades and the whip. I used the lance quite a bit too. Breath of the Wild, arguably one of the greatest games ever made, forces the user to try new weapons by having them break, whereas the Belmont's Curse devs actually made all the weapon types fun to try and use - a real accomplishment IMO.

I also liked swapping out the relics for different situations. The spells were super useful too - I found in Hollow Knight I never used spells because I used my MP/mana exclusively to heal.

I enjoyed the platforming a lot too, it reminded me of Memories In Orbit and Ori. The whip swing felt like it slowed down time while Rose was about to unleash it, making it even easier to target.

I also enjoyed the story (despite some corniness) - Leon, Joan, and Medusa were all great sidekicks who didn't interrupt too much. The story at least made sense - I felt like MIO got real philosophical with its story telling to the point where I just skipped most dialog.

Music is great with the small exception of the Hall of Mirrors.

Visuals are stunning - the fight with Joan of Arc is just gorgeous. Seeing Paris in smokey flames all throughout the beginning of the game is awesome.

Sum Up

Probably recency bias, but I'd put Belmont's Curse in my top 5 Metroidvanias of all time.

I am just getting to what I presume to be the first boss. What upgrades should/could I have at this point to make this fight actually doable? I cannot beat this guy no matter what I do. I believe his name is Alvus or something for context

I really liked salt and sanctuary, love cuphead and dark souls/elden ring. I liked hk, tho i find it pretty overrated. Currently playing guacamelee with a friend, but need something to play solo.

So like memorizing bosses and a focus on combat.

I enjoyed crypt custodian but it didn't blow me away or anything. It was a nice 7/10 game. It had good combat, bosses and story but nothing was exceptional. I don't know if im in the mood for another crypt custodian like decent 7/10 experience. I want something a little stronger... For those who played both games how would you compare the two?

I don't see this getting mentioned as much anymore, but this should be a must play for anyone's spooky season list. The pixel art, music, gameplay are all top-tier. A solid 4-5 hour 100% playthrough for like $5.00 right now.

What a great Metroidvania—lovely story, solid mechanics, and easy—extremely easy. I think that whenever I need to introduce someone to the genre, I’ll recommend this game because it’s very accessible, the story is cool, and the gameplay loop is really good.

In metroidvanias do you usually prefer maps with smaller room stiched together? Or do you prefer larger more seamless maps? I think i prefer larger maps since it feels more natural to explore and is easier to map out the world in your head.

Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue in End of Abyss near the end of the abyss/vent area. I found a spot where a Husk is supposed to burst out of a vent, but nothing happens and the vent won't open.

I looked up a guide for this section, but it still won't trigger. Am I missing a prerequisite interaction, a specific terminal, or a hidden trigger flag nearby? Any help would be appreciated!

Just gonna keep it short. The Divine Challenges from Prince of Persia are harder than Path of Pain.

How do you get the remnant of a weaver piece in the Assembly near the top of the prototype node? Couldn’t find any guide or useful walkthrough for this game, but it’s super fun.

I get this forum gets inundated with love for 9Sols, HK, and HKSS among others, but I’m curious to know why Somber Echoes doesn’t get anymore shine here. I played it a few months back and thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, but my opinion holds as much water as a basketball hoop in the ocean.

Was the game overshadowed? Largely unknown? Overlooked? Forgotten? Or does it mostly hold a bad taste in people’s minds.

I’m genuinely curious.

Absolutely top tier Metroidvania. Everyone should play it.

I'm not a big Castlevania guy so I was kinda caught off guard by all the puzzles and secrets in the game. Way beyond the scale of most MVs. I really liked it though and the puzzles combined with the twisty, sometimes confusing map really felt like a real, creepy castle.

The fast travel is a little clunky but it fits the world so well it's worth it.

The platforming and combat is fun. I honestly don't understand the point of the leveling system. I'd struggle with a boss, leave and get a level or two and then comeback and just roll over them. I was so bad at the puzzles that I wandered around a lot. By the time I figured out the later stuff I was way over leveled and rolled over everything. Including the final boss.

Still. Lots of fun. Great game.

My Personal Ranking: Better than Ori and the Blind Forest but not as good as Animal Well.

‎So I've completed Moadra in 12 hours and here's my review.

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First of all, Moadra's world has a surprisingly big amount of lore (even if it's based off the good old "Civilization existed. Until, THE INFECTION") which is obtained through the scanner.

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‎In general, Moadra off slow and with a ton of cutscenes. However, once the actual gameplay begun I found out that the exploration is nothing short of amazing, the last time I've seen world design this cool was in MIO. Crawling into a random vent, discovering a twisting and branching rabbit hole and then stumbling around until I found a shortcut back to a familiar place is very fun and separates Moadra from your average "complete section-unlock shortcut-repeat" Metroidvania. The world also feels coherent and not like a random collection of rooms, for example there's a little subregion in the desert region that's a collapsed spaceship, you can enter a lab complex and visit it's roof and communication tower ‎

‎Thorough exploring will get you a lot of upgrades such as enemy piercing, armor piercing, simple HP-mana upgrades and etc. By the end you'll become overpowered and be blazing through the hallways like it's nothing. Exploring can also get you 6 blasters, but out of them only the gatling blaster is viable to use (because other blasters make you spam the shoot button a lot which is painful and inconvenient, meanwhile with gatling blaster you can just hold the shoot button).

‎Speaking of combat, the bosses are pretty simple and I never found any of them hard aside from the first one. The enemy variety is surprisingly big, at the beginning you may have problems with a lot of them having armor that needs to be pierced with energy rockets but there's a midgame upgrade that makes your normal attacks pierce the armor as well. The very detailed graphics sometimes resulted in me becoming lost in the clutter and going "wtf just hit me" but I was usually able to tank through the issue.

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‎You'll also have to backtrack A LOT, even when you unlock the fast travel (which is quite late) cause the fast travel points are very pretty far apart. Though this is softened by the interconnection of the world, by the main character moving really fast and by a very detailed map (that could've used some location color coding because as of writing this the entire world is grey).

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‎Overall an amazing metroidvania with some flaws that bring it down to A+. Could've been an S tier if it had better visual clarity, earlier and more convenient fast travel and didn't lock you out of the rest of the map for no reason after entering the final location.

I loved the game. It was a breath of fresh air and I feel that Konami and Evil Empire did a great work. The map felt pretty solid, there are a lot of shortcuts that help you navigate better previous areas. Although, I didnt even know you can teleport from saves until the last boss haha that would have made everything a little smother; despite that walking was a big part of my journey and it felt pretty good.

However, my biggest problem was the music, it was ok in the vast majority of zones. It didn't have bangers apart from Bloddy tears and the music feel very "normal" for a Castlevania game. I remember that the last game of the series was Ecclesia, I believe, and it had so many great themes. Even Lords of Shadows that came after had 3 or four great music themes (Mechanical Mounstrosity, the ice titan, etc), but the music for this one is pretty forgettable. Anyone has the same feeling? I don't know but for me Castlevania and great bangers are synonyms, and not having them on here lowered my enjoyment of the game. Thanks a lot!

Survival horror games like original Resident evil and Silent have a pretty similar structure to metroidvanias, there is a map, tight level design, shortcuts, backtracking, puzzles and lots of blocked doors. The only difference is they use tool gating instead of ability gating. Please, dont start a holy war, i know that these games aren't metroidvanias.

If that's not a problem for you and you want more of Silver Pines, these games are a must.

The games from top left are: Silver Pines, Signalis, Crow country, Resident evil 1 remake, Tormented souls 1 and 2, Enigma of fear, Alisa: Director's cut, Tenebris somnia, Phase zero, Holstin, False oath, End of abyss, Becrowned.

Keep in mind: Phase Zero, Holstin, False oath and Becrowned all release in 2027 but all of them have a playable demos (that i completed multiple times), i highly recommend to wishlist these games.

Ivory Forest is a fantasy puzzle-action platformer set in a mythical wilderness that’s been invaded by interdimensional Lizard Beasts. Players control the ‘Ivory Husk,’ an undead foxlike creature possessed by the Spirit of the Forest. They wield a celestial Horn that can control time and space, conjure energy blasts, and manipulate the environment. RECLAIM THE FOREST.

The game is in preproduction, and we are searching for playtesters who enjoy action platformers to help us make the game all it can be!

🚀 Join our new Discord to inquire about playtesting and learn more: https://discord.gg/BkB39kugRm

The game doesn’t technically crash. The map just hangs. It happens when I zoom out of an area, when I go to zoom back in (on any area) the map will start to zoom in, go blank and hang. Any thoughts or anyone else experience this?

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Hi! I'm Leonardo from Italy.

This is the Sibyl, one of the characters you meet in Elmer, a hand-drawn 2D adventure with metroidvania elements. You explore AltroQuando, a strange city where everyone speaks "grammelot", an invented language, and you fight with an umbrella: a perfect parry slows time and sends attacks back.

We just updated the free demo (~40 min) for Halloween, with smoother ledge climbing, a quick umbrella strike and menu fixes.

I'd love feedback from metroidvania players: what feels good, what feels off?

Demo on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3926650/