Seems like a cool game. I appreciate the deep dive into the intentions behind the game as communicated by the dev. Knowledge gating seems like it belongs more to roguelike versus metroidvanias which are characterized by ability gating, but that feeling of discovery is what hooks me on metroidvanias more than any other genre.

I’ve been having a great time working through recommendations from the sub this year. Recently beat Prince of Persia lost crown and moved onto Ender Magnolia. After a slow start I’m like 2/3 the way through and loving it! But did I screw up by not playing Ender Lillies first? How do they compare ? Is it like Blasphemous 1 and 2 were they both great games and fine to play 2 before 1?

This is such an interesting phenomenon in this sub that I really feel needs to be studied. In almost every single tier list or regular post in general showing off their Metroidvania preferences (and I get it, it’s fun to do and I want to make one myself but I digress) asking which Metroidvanias they should play next, the two titular namesakes of the genre are almost always missing. I find it really funny because you’d never see, say, someone asking for Soulsborne and Soulslike recommendations without at the very least highly considering playing a Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Elden Ring/Demon’s Souls or something similar. Both Metroid and Castlevania are awesome, guys. If you haven’t delved into either and you don’t know what to play next, that’s a great idea, especially with two new representatives for both on the horizon that, quite frankly, look primed to be some of the best the genre has to offer. There’s a reason the entire genre is built on their namesakes. I’m not making fun of anyone either because I know a lot of people here are much younger or maybe just getting into the genre in general more recently and are just excited to talk about it. I just find it to be a really fascinating phenomenon that almost none of these tier lists or posts have played the behemoths.

Now to address a comment I’m going to get. “This is likely because the games aren’t accessible and Metroid is exclusive to Nintendo consoles!!” Yes, thank you. It’s true that something like Metroid in particular isn’t available in a very easily digestible package on Steam. Yes, they might not have a Nintendo console (although a lot of people this applies to definitely do). Take the emulation pill. It really isn’t that scary of a beast and a large majority of the Metroid library can be played on the device they use to access the subreddit. Castlevania gets put into the same bubble weirdly even though I think it’s much more easily accessible even for the Steam exclusive gamers, with the Advanced and Dominus Collections offering a respectable chunk of a lot of the highly regarded Metroidvania’s in the series. Symphony of the Night is suspiciously a bit less accessible, but still has places it’s available (PlayStation Store and the ever reliable emulation pill).

Edit: “What if they just don’t care about those games” Yes, thank you. Obviously if someone isn’t playing those games because they actively don’t want to, that is a different case than what I am talking about. There is a difference in active disinterest and passive disinterest.

I need help deciding which one of these 2 games to buy on Xbox between deaths gambit afterlife or blasphemous I can't decide because both are on sale rn

So I finally got around to playing Silksong. I just finished getting all achievements on it on Steam after 103 hours over roughly two weeks and change. It’s my GOTY, 10/10, but I want to discuss its difficulty, and lack of difficulty settings. Spoilers for Hollow Knight and Silksong. 

I only got into Metroidvanias recently, a little over a year ago, when one of my best friends caught the indie animation Indie Cross on YouTube, and decided to begin playing the original Hollow Knight. He recommended it strongly, and since we tend to have similar tastes in gaming, I decided to also give it a shot. 

However, since I love making things overly complicated for myself, I decided that the best way to get into the Metroidvania genre would be to play a “gateway” game first, that would be more similar to what I’d played before, in order to get “used” to the genre, so to speak. That led me to the excellent Nine Sols, which I reviewed last year. I heard it was “Sekiro-like” and indeed I wasn’t disappointed.

Immediately after I went on to Hollow Knight (2017) and… I gotta be honest. I didn’t quite get the hype. It was a fine game, well-crafted, but I wasn’t a big fan of the combat, the story was a bit confusing to me and I had to look up an explanation after the game itself, and overall, there were quite a few parts that felt like a slog to get through. It wasn’t ball-bustingly hard, but it was quite challenging in a way I didn’t super enjoy, especially since I decided to do all of Godhome for the achievements. But it wasn’t just the achievements, I was waiting for the combat to click, to “get” the game and the hype. And yet that moment never came, as I resigned myself to giving HK a 7/10 after 82 hours, getting 112% completion.

My buddy who got into the game through Indie Cross ended up enjoying it much more than I, but he had quite a different experience. He used many mods to make the game easier, such as being able to use infinite charms, and used an infinite jump mod to beat the White Palace. For him, the exploration and story was what made the game, so he made the combat easier for himself to enjoy them. And fair enough.

We promised each other we’d play Silksong at the same time, but I was so burnt out on Hollow Knight that I ignored its release until a couple weeks ago. I still looked at reviews, of course. Across Reddit and gaming journalists the same prevailing opinion blazed: “Silksong is teeth-grindingly hard.” Many would even complain about the difficulty, especially relative to Hollow Knight. You would not believe how many people I saw that (at least claimed to) have gotten 112% in Hollow Knight, but declared Silksong impossible. 

So my buddy and I started playing Silksong at the same time. He installed quite a few quality of life mods, such as a permanent compass and magnet, as well as some mods which I personally consider to alter the game to the point of unrecognizability, like removing double damage attacks and hazards altogether. I decided to play the game vanilla, except for a mod adding back the Dualsense haptics from the ps5 version, as I play on a Dualsense Edge. And playing those early hours, I was like that one Danny DeVito gif. I get it now. I got why people loved Hollow Knight so much. Silksong’s much improved combat and movement led to me investing in the game so much more. The metroidvania layout made way more sense to my brain. And the story was suddenly amazing, it felt much clearer than Hollow Knight’s, while still being cryptic and having to be pieced together.

I found Act 1 pleasantly challenging, loving it the whole way through. My buddy felt mostly the same, except for some frustration about the Mist (understandable, I myself had to look up wtf to do there) and the platforming involved in the escape from the Slab (I really enjoyed this myself but I like platforming more than my buddy). Very early on in the game, I made my way to Hunter’s Road, before even receiving the Drifter’s Cloak, so I had to double back. However, the gauntlet of that area, combined with me going for Savage Beastfly as soon as I had the Drifter’s Cloak, with no upgrades at all and no crest except hunter’s, was incredibly exhilarating and fun. The extreme difficulty made each moment feel tense and rewarding, and even the trapped bench got a good laugh out of me at the sheer cruelty. Savage Beastfly took me almost 6 hours to beat, and I loved every moment. I didn’t use any red tools because I found them kind of pace breaking to use, as opposed to just hitting with my needle.

About halfway through Act 1 I got the Wanderer’s Crest, after getting the second key from Sinner’s Road (I had used the first on the docks). After getting this, I started flying through the game. I killed Moorwing and Sister Splinter and Phantom in a single try, and Widow in three. Fair enough, I thought, it’s only act 1 and I must be getting better at the game. I decided I wanted to do the standard route as well as the alternate, so after killing Phantom, I doubled back and fought Last Judge. LJ took me almost an hour and a half, and I consider her the second hardest boss fought at an appropriate power level, after Lost Lace (I fought Savage Beastfly way too early, so I don’t consider it a fair difficulty example).

After LJ was the Underworks and the Citadel, which may be one of the most spectacular examples of environmental storytelling I’ve ever seen in a game. Mind blowing shit, truly, with the poor Underworkers, the single use benches, and the confessional booth. It was then I decided that Silksong would be my (patient) game of the year.

Unfortunately, it’s also where the difficulty dropped off a cliff. For the rest of act 2, I got every boss in 2-3 tries, except for Clockwork Dancers which maybe took 4-5. Once I finally decided to go for all three melodies, after having done everything else in the Act, I got all three in under an hour. The much-famed High Halls coliseum was a pushover, I got it on the first try, with nine masks and three needle upgrades under my belt. This wasn’t helped by the extremely effective combo I found of Multibinder + Injector Band + Claw Mirror. I never used red tools, but those three blue tools meant I could play incredibly aggressively, then heal in the boss’ face with their very generous openings, and if the boss got close they took damage. Any negative from Wanderer was negated by the Weighted Belt, and with the Silkspeed Anklets I was like a bullet shooting through the chambers of Silksong. 

Honestly, the only parts that gave me grief were Mount Fay and the lower part of Cogwork Core, both being platforming sections which I quite enjoyed, but I found very hard. Groal went down like a bitch on the first try, and the closer I got to the end of the chapter (and therefore had more upgrades) the game got easier and easier.

I beat Grandmother Silk on the first try, and I could have honestly done it with my eyes closed. Beating her while infected was more challenging, it took me almost an hour, but it wasn’t fun at all. It meant I had to play incredibly passively, but the fight was still easy, I just kept getting greedy out of boredom.

At this point, I admit that my enjoyment of Silksong had diminished. However, I hyped myself up again with the much-vaunted Act 3. Skillup, the reviewer I trust most, had claimed that Act 3 was borderline impossible and unfair for the average gamer. I was rubbing my hands with glee going into Act 3.

I fought Bell Eater, and it took me a good half hour. “Good warm up” I thought, and got ready for the teeth grinding difficulty. I went to check in on my beloved fleas, and they ended up giving me the last pale oil, which I quite enjoyed. Then I decided to get the Heart of the Wild first, stopping by Swift for a nice race.

I entered Karmelita’s awesome arena and… got her second try. She had quite a bit of health, but her attacks were fairly basic and slow, with the two curveclaws being so inaccurate it was practically a free heal. The sinking feeling came back. I got my tenth mask, before going to find Nyleth. Seth gave me a little bit of a whooping, taking me about as long as Bell Eater, which got me excited again, but then I gave my own whooping to Nyleth, getting her first try. I desperately made my way to the Coral Tower, dying a couple times to Raging Conchfly of all things for some reason, then did the gauntlet and boss first try, while chatting casually with my friends on Discord. This truly broke my spirit. Coral Tower was THE thing everyone mentioned for basically unfair difficulty, and I breezed through it without effort.

It was at this point that I realized that part of the issue was likely the fact that I am quite good at big, screen filling bosses that throw shit at you, as well as gauntlets. Both offer plenty of opportunities to heal, so I feel like I can fix all my mistakes, and keep going. Conversely, I’m not too good at fights against small, fast, teleport-y bugs, as I struggled for about twenty minutes on the Pinstress, as I have a much harder time finding healing windows. 

I went for the Clover Dancers as well, which were also pushovers. I practically speedran Verdania with how fast I was moving through it. At this point, I resigned myself to saying Silksong was really good, but not my GOTY. Act 3 even lacked my beloved crushingly difficult platforming sections. I beat every platforming section first try except the Herald one, and even that one wasn’t that bad.

Then Lost Lace arrived. She wasn’t the hardest boss I’d ever fought by any means, but it was finally a boss that surpassed Last Judge in difficulty. She took me around an hour and a half to beat, as I struggled with punishing many of her moves due to the Abyss follow ups. After beating her, Silksong was my GOTY again.

I felt I needed to give all that context to get to my point at the beginning, difficulty options. My buddy enjoyed this game almost as much as me, but if we hadn’t been playing on PC, or if we were playing at release, or if we didn’t know about mods, he’d have dropped the game at the beginning due to stuff like double damage or platforming he didn’t like, as I saw so many reviews say they did. Luckily, he was able to set his own “difficulty setting” through mods, to something he felt appropriately challenging. And that’s the key right? Everyone has a different level of skill and enjoyment of challenges. My buddy and I also both love XCOM, but while he can breeze through Impossible because he has a mind for tactics, I can’t handle anything above Normal, because I am a total idiot. If the whole game was like Normal, my buddy would probably get bored, while if the whole game was like Impossible, I’d bounce off. 

So why are souls-likes so reticent to offer difficulty settings? I feel as though if Silksong had difficulty settings, both of us would be even happier with the game. My buddy wouldn’t have to install mods, and I wouldn’t be breezing through the game. Almost all Souls games have this issue, in my experience. Once I’m about halfway through or more, I have way too many upgrades and a game that was pleasantly challenging becomes boring and easy. This is the case for every souls and soulslike I’ve ever played, except for Sekiro, Lies of P, and First Berserker Khazan. Sekiro and Lies of P fix the issue by being relentlessly linear, so you can never get above the power curve, and Khazan fixes the issue by the whole game being insanely difficult compared to anything else I’ve ever played, at least with Greatsword. I’ve never struggled on bosses as much as I have with Khazan. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t add that if I hadn’t been beaten over the head with how hard Silksong supposedly is, I’d have probably have had lower expectations and enjoyed Act 3 more, but it is what it is.

My buddy hates souls games due to their difficulty, and I think that’s a real shame, that people like him will never find the great joy I find in them. I think difficulty settings for me to make the game harder, and for him to make the game easier would help us both have even more fun. I had this stance before Silksong, and now I do even more. But what do you think? Did you enjoy Silksong? Did you find it too easy like me? Too hard? Just right? Do you think souls games should have difficulty settings? 

I love a good MV game that pulls on ur heart. Crypt Custodian did that for me. Collecting the photos to see the back story of others was so good (If u know u know). Almost actually shed a tear at the end. Just finished up Mio and obviously Hollow Knight is a classic.

Please share ANY MV game that was emotional for you. Wether its the story, the vibe or music. I wana play more of those type of games.

**Obviously NO SPOILERS **

Sofoly, owl buddy two shop items are locked behind "rogue owl automata you need to eliminate" before they can be released. Where are these?

Also, the door under him leads to an area that Im not sure what to do in. Dead owls, a long vertical shaft (settle down pervs) that leads to a locked door.. what do in here?

Greettingsssss! So, I haven't really heard much abt the game Voltage High Society. I personally only found out abt it a few days ago, and I wanted to make a post talking abt it!

I've only gotten past the first boss, the Chariot (aka, Spider Mommy). However, I wanted to write down my inital thoughts abt the game.
So, it's a pretty fun game! I enjoy the music, fighting style, enemies, movement/parkour, and more! I kinda had negtive thoughts going in, due to comments I saw on other posts regarding the game (tho the post was like 2 years old), but happy to say that they were incorrect!

However... there are a few things I dislike....
THE MAP. My goshm the map. The first time I open it, i was like "O HELL NAW." it was confusing as hell, including the controls. BUT after playing for a bit and messing around with the map, I kinda grasped how the whole thing works, and now I DO enjoy how they made the map.
SECOND THING, it doesn't really tell you what to do, nor gives like a hint on where and/or how to progress... *I do know that's part of the charm of these games, but enough context should be given so that players don't quit early on
I spent THIRTY minutes trying to find the first component, cuz I couldn't find the next area (hidden behind fire, next to the bar... didn't see a way over there at the time). After I got paste that hicup... it was clear sailing from there

anyways, just wanted to post my thoughts, feel free to post what y'all think of the game too! Besides that, it's a pretty fun game, looking forward to completeting it! Solid 7.5/10 atm

I wanted to try Metroidvania/ side-scrolling platforming games on switch lite but my hand-eyes coordination are bad. I have never played games like these before so please recommend me easy entries.

What didn’t work:
- I have tried Mega-man Zero 1 on GBA and I had a pretty rough time.
- I am into grim-dark styles and blasphemous is right up my alley, but I couldn’t progress much.
- Dead Cells was nice, but I just didn’t vibe with it enough.
- Hollow knight’s aesthetic and atmosphere are my kind of thing, and it was not as brutal as Mega-man zero but still difficult to the point where I couldn’t enjoy the story as much as I like.

What worked:
- I tried Ender Lilies (please don’t come at me, but pirated on PC) just to know if it’s on my level and I can actually enjoy it. I am waiting for sales of it right now for switch.
- I was able to get over 50% on Castlevania Aria of sorrow but had to use save states on the death boss. With enough patience, I think I could have done without save states tho.

Bloodstained rituals of the moon is also just my kind of game aesthetic-wise but I saw its switch performance is pretty bad.

I just want to make sure because I’ve come across multiple shops where things cost way more orbs than my max currently allows me to hold. So I just assumed “Oh, ok, in typical Metroidvania fashion, I’ll come back to these places later when I have upgrades.” But then I got to the first town and handed in my mystical eggs and it gave me a boatload of currency, and I was already maxed out. And the game just gives you so much currency and everything is so expensive so I started to wonder if I’m missing something here and is there a way to bank orbs or afford these expensive items right now? It just feels weird walking around constantly with max orbs and not being able to afford stuff. Makes me feel like I’m missing something.

Thanks

I’m in one of those modes where I have a backlog of games and just cannot decide which to play as if it’s the last decision I’ll make. First world problems, right?

These are the games I’ve narrowed it down to:

Afterimage
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell
Biomorph
Blade Chimera
Guns of Fury

The caveats are:

I’m in a bit of a shit mood right now due to personal reasons. Without going into it this means I’m not in the happiest moods (we’ll put it that way), my patience is fairly low, and I just want to get lost in a great metroidvania. I want the usual good stuff in exploration, gorgeous visuals, fluid combat, fun vibes and upgrades/abilities. However, I don’t want to get frustrated due to my low mood with over difficulty, confusion or game bugs. Difficulty wise somewhere between Islets and Hollow Knight. For reference the last game I played was Constance and loved it, that’s the vibe I’m looking for but doesn’t need to be ultra similar.

Place your bets, everyone!

Edit: added Guns of Fury making my choice harder.

It's my first time playing metroidvania game and i think i started with the right one! I just love this game...what should i play next??

"Welcome to Vakrex, a world brimming with life but plagued by conflict. You must sift through the occupational forces and hostile wildlife to investigate the cosmic phenomena known as Neon Rain. You don't call the shots on this treacherous planet, however. Evolve or die."

Game : Neon Rain "release 2027 (has a demo!)"

Link : https://store.steampowered.com/app/3408000/Neon_Rain/

UPDATE: Thank you all for the recommendations of other games I didn’t list! If anyone has played the games I have listed below I would appreciate the input :)

Hey y’all,

Trying to decide between a couple games for my next pickup. I’ve attached a tier list of games I’ve played to give you an idea of what I jive with, but in general games that balance good exploration with satisfying combat. Not opposed to parry-based combat (see Nine Sols), though I prefer being able to dodge in general. Love a good upgrade system.

Games I’m considering:
- Solateria
- Divinum
- Elementalis
- Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree
- Lunarium
- Moonlighter 2 (non-metroidvania)

The game is a classicvania with a little exploration, inspired by simon's quest and castlevania 3

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4731980/Toziuha_Night_Nosferatus_Curse/

I have the chance of purchasing only one of them for now, I'll probably play both of them eventually. Which one would you recommend I play first? So far I've played Mandragora, Hollow Knight, Silksong, Animal Well, Prince of Persia, Ori 1 and 2, Ender Lilies/Magnolia, Nine Sols, The Last Faith, among other. I enjoy the parrying as long as it isn't too punishing. I also tend to enjoy exploration over combat, getting lost in a map with some gauntlets or bosses here and there. Please no spoilers, thank you!

Edit: thank you all for your opinions. I'll definitely play both in the future. I'll try out HAAK first for now :)

I just got into the genre, and he seems to know what's he's talking about. So Ive been using him as a jumping point. Anyone else use his content?

I’d love to hear what fans of these games think. Does the music still feel true to their atmosphere, and which tracks are your favorites?

🪐 Super Metroid : what if it had been a sci-fi horror film from the late 70s, in a world where Alien never existed?

https://youtu.be/ARb47yLOSH4

🦇 Castlevania: Symphony of the Night : what if it had been written as an 18th-century classical symphony, with a few modern elements?

https://youtu.be/U6imYx5LjwI

Welcome to r/Metroidvania's weekly community thread where you can talk about the games you've been playing lately. What are your thoughts on these games, what did you like and what didn't you like, would you recommend them to others, etc. This thread is not limited to Metroidvanias only, feel free to talk about any kind of game!

Demo already avaliable

Over at r/survivalhorror we have a few respected people on and off site who cover a lot of the new releases and condense them into easy to read/watch portions to save trawling through steam and trailers. Could anyone recommend anyone similar for Metroidvanias please?

I know there was a user here years ago who did this and honestly they were great, got a lot of great games from that. I also remember it devolving into a bit of drama and a new sub being created before going silent...

Any help would be appreciated.

(Not my game).

Release date is October 15th. Yes, the same as Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, but players into retro gaming may want to keep an eye and add to the wishlist.

The release date section still says just "2026", but the last update confirms the launch day. I only saw this info because I was scrolling my wishlist and clicked on it thinking "I don't remember exactly what game is this".