Post

a while back someone posted a video of awards for Metroidvania games and I was like hey, I should watch this and get ideas for my next search-action games to play for my list (list here: medium.com/@RowanKaiser...)

but they opened it up by saying that their all-time favorite was Hollow Knight and that's just so far from the way I think about what I like in this these that I just stopped watching. like almost every much-loved search-action game I bounce off of is a Soulsyvania. Just doesn't seem to work for me

which makes me think that there's really three different interacting subcategories, the Soulsyvania, the METROIDvania, and the MetroidVANIA and I'm very much a partisan of the latter

but that's also got me trying to figure out what the difference between the Metroid-centered search-action game and the Castlevania-centered one is. Is it just melee versus missile combat? Platforming intricacy? Narrative focus?

Might be time for me to play Super Metroid again (for the sixth attempt? seventh?) to see if I can figure out how to put this into words. Or if there even is a "this" to put into words at all

there is, perhaps, an element of awkwardness that exists that you as the player are consistently fighting against. Learning how to turn that big sword swing arc from a liability into a benefit, for example, is a big part of the Castlevania experience

I think I get what you're saying. Metroid's attacks are all linear and have 0 warm up. Theres no gameplay difference in attacks and combat challenge comes from platforming and positioning exclusively

In contrast, SOTN has difference reaches / swings / warmups per weapon type. Secondaries aren't powerful because they hit hard but because they have novel attack modes. Dagger is a gun, axe is good vs flying, holy water good vs slow, etc

yeah it's about, like, successful movement, but Castlevania is more about successful timing? which are the same things in different forms but also, they're not. it's messy!