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Super Metroid

18 (75%)

Metroid: Zero Mission

6 (25%)

Total Members Voted: 24

[Kayin]

Mostly because I guess they have no competition outside the entire indy market.

Yeah, pretty much. My self included. I actually am in the mind to flat ouf compete with Konami. I can't really compete graphically or with an impressive sprite library, but theres some basic stuff al their games lack.

Primarily general stage design. Graphically and as a whole most of the modern sotn style castlevanias are pretty good. What they lack though is any sort of real 'stage design' from a gameplay perspective.

You're basically walking down various hallways, climbign various stairs and opening various doors to fight various enemies. You have games that could easily support serious platforming platforming elements, but don't -- besides for the clock tower stages of course.

Other than that, encouragement for horrible grinding, horrible difficulty curve (anything thats actually hard in these games is generally more obnoxious than fun -- and anything not obnoxious is fucking easy) and, after SOTN, generally lacking loot.

SOTN had some great loot. There was tons of fun weapons witrh secret attacks and strange properties. The only problem was that most of these weapons sucked. So instead of making them better in later games, they just seemed to ignore them. Sure, a few gimmick weapons here and there, but nothing like SOTN. Though Portraits had that bullshit homing holy whip that was WAY too good, but at least it was worth using!

But Patito and I agree. The Sword of Dawn was the best weapon ever.

[Brentai]

The odd thing about Metroid-vanias is that outside of the general "it's just one big map" thing, they don't work a whole lot like Metroid maps.  Metroid's all about gathering tools - not just powerups, but tools - and using them to eke out more and more of a vast and complex underground labyrinth system made up entirely of nooks, crannies, and hidden passages.  Castlevania is more about just taking a very circuitous route through a series of levels.  Most indie games that ape the design seem to do the same; none of them seem too interested in attempting to replicate Metroid's sense of claustrophobic exploration.  Which is probably fine, since even if you do it right, there's a 2 in 3 chance that you'll end up with Metroid or Metroid II and not Super Metroid.

[Zaratustra]

TUNE IN THIS WINTER

FOR

OMNILUDICON: METROIDVANIA EDITION

[Kayin]

Thats another good point. It's hard to do right too. Bunny Must Die did it and ended up feeling more arbitrary. Granted most of hidden items were fairly worthless, but osme very important objects were a real hair puller. It was great overall. I think Metroids benefit is it, for one, does not hide essential items (no duh) -- but also that, with so many hidden items, you get a real feel for the developers patterns.

I was thinking! Cave Story was a pretty a-typical metroidvnaia but one I liked. Almost a combination of a metroidvania and modern Mario level structure. But at that point is it still a metroidvania?

[François]

It's a Metroidvanio.

EDIT: You know, I thought I'd have more to say about this, but I've realized that most metroidvanias irritate the fuck out of me, and those that don't, I tolerate because of the quality of their non-metroidvania elements.

[Norondor]

I was thinking! Cave Story was a pretty a-typical metroidvnaia but one I liked. Almost a combination of a metroidvania and modern Mario level structure. But at that point is it still a metroidvania?

Well, cave story isn't a castletroid. You get one movement upgrading tool in the whole game, and a variety of weapons which are not used to traverse the game's environments in any way (no, shooting through blocks that explode if you shoot them with anything does not count. go fuck yourself). It's an action game with a bunch of environments, is all.

[Bongo Bill]

Knytt Stories is most like Metroid.

[Kayin]

I was thinking! Cave Story was a pretty a-typical metroidvnaia but one I liked. Almost a combination of a metroidvania and modern Mario level structure. But at that point is it still a metroidvania?

Well, cave story isn't a castletroid. You get one movement upgrading tool in the whole game, and a variety of weapons which are not used to traverse the game's environments in any way (no, shooting through blocks that explode if you shoot them with anything does not count. go fuck yourself). It's an action game with a bunch of environments, is all.

Okay, now the followup.

Would you say Cave Story came away with all the benefits of a castletroid without really being one?

And yeah, Knytt stories is pretty much a bear bones version of tghe concept, in a very pure and undiluted form.

[Norondor]

Okay, now the followup.

Would you say Cave Story came away with all the benefits of a castletroid without really being one?

Yes. The world is interesting and colorful, at times claustrophobic or even terrifying, and just traveling through the island is a really immersive experience. It doesn't need power bombs or anything -- people tend to think of that kind of exploration game takes all these abilities, grappling hooks and whatever, but that's all just unneccesary genre trappings.

I've replayed cave story, start to finish, 5 times, and Super Metroid once. I may not be a typical case, but there it is.

[jsnlxndrlv]

Zaratustra made this topic back at Pyoko where he asked everybody what they liked and didn't like about Cave Story, and if it still existed I could point to it and show you where I explained why Cave Story isn't a metroidvania and in fact why the metroidvania formula sucks.  But it's gone so I have to recap here instead.

The basic metroidvania approach is to take the sequential progression of stages and levels of Super Mario Brothers, cut it up into bits of varying lengths, and then hold it all together in hopes that it will coagulate into some sort of tumorous ball of interconnected randomness.  (You may have detected from my word-choice that I don't think very much of this design--and you'd be right!)

The apparent appeal of the metroidvania is twofold (other than the fact that it's really easy to do); first, it makes implementing something I'll call the "first law of Miyamoto" straightforward; second, it gives your game much more "organic" "structure".  Both of these principles are on shining display in the single most prolific metroidvania-style game series to date: The Legend of Zelda.

The "first law of Miyamoto" is something I read about around the time Wind Waker was coming out.  Someone (and I'm only assuming it was Miyamoto, here) said it was always important to show the player something he couldn't do yet as early as possible; it made the player look forward to the acquisition of the lacking ability more.  It's supposed to give you a feeling of satisfaction when you finally find the key to that particular lock.  In practice, you're constantly butting up against the limits of your own abilities; you see treasures and mysteries and you're reminded that you are inferior.  The pleasure of the first law is the same as the pleasure of hitting yourself with a hammer--because it feels so much better when you stop.

The second reason metroidvanias keep popping up is because of the more "organic structure".  The idea goes roughly that, since a videogame is a model of space, the space is more realistic when the areas are contiguous, connected at multiple points.  A real place has width as well as depth as well as breadth, so the player should be forced to travel in as many dimensions as the game will allow: east as well as north, in as well as up.  This is a wonderful realization, and its only flaw is that this interconnected, nonlinear gameworld is married to a sequential, linear game design.  The only locked doors that you will not pass through are optional cul-de-sacs containing unnecessary plunder; the only bosses that you will not fight are end-game bonuses hidden in the outskirts of the world.  The hideous offspring of this mismatched marriage is the devil-demon Back-tracking.

Cave Story is not a metroidvania.  It does not make a habit of showing you treasures you don't yet have the ability to acquire.  It does not make you backtrack every time you want to move forward.  It does contain a hub, but almost every area accessible from the hub is connected to the same spot.  It does force you to revisit an earlier level (twice!), but (in each time!) that level is so transformed between visits that it qualifies as a new location, while still retaining the emotional weight of recognition.  It is all the better for these qualities.

[Misha]

possibly it's a factor of my style of play, but I find non-linearity really over-rated. I tend towards wanting to do every single thing and explore every single cranny of games I play. I'm not knocking the huge amount of content encouraged by designing games like oblivion, just saying that as long as what I'm doing is interesting, I frankly don't care whether or not I have to do it to "win" the game or not. cave story makes little to no pretense to non-linearity, but every step along the line is fun and flavorful.

[Royal☭]

Hey, newbie.  Fuck you!

[Alex]

I probably would've found Cave Story a lot more fun and interesting if I'd play it before HAY ALEX CHECK OUT THIS COOL INDY GAME IT REMINDS YOU OF BLASTER MASTER RIGHT I KNOW YOU LOVED BLASTER MASTER FUCK YEAH DID I MENTION IT WAS INDY AND WAY BETTER THAN ANYTHING MAINSTREAM YEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!!!!

[Royal☭]

Admittedly, the fan hype and adoration seems a bit excessive at first, but to be fair it does cure cancer.

[Brentai]

FUCK YEAH DID I MENTION IT WAS INDY AND WAY BETTER THAN ANYTHING MAINSTREAM YEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!!!!

Must... resist... urge... to....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6aRwky0W5Y

DAMN IT!

[jsnlxndrlv]

Sorry, Constantine, you're just another casualty in my campaign to turn myself into the most hated and vilified member of the community.

[Bongo Bill]

The "first law of Miyamoto" is something I read about around the time Wind Waker was coming out.  Someone (and I'm only assuming it was Miyamoto, here) said it was always important to show the player something he couldn't do yet as early as possible; it made the player look forward to the acquisition of the lacking ability more.

I'm not sure I remember that. I remember something to the extent of immediately showing the player what they were capable of... at least, that's the basic idea of Super Mario Bros. 1. But the guy's said an awful lot, so it could have been anything.

At any rate, the big appeal for me is that it allows for exploration. And I do appreciate the sensation of going to a previously inaccessible place. You can do that without frustrating and arbitrary roadblocks, but if you make it tie in to expanding character abilities (itself a useful technique related to learning curves) then you'll stand a better chance of making them less frustrating and arbitrary. Even the backtracking problem can be mitigated by clever layouts (both on a large and small scale), from ham-fisted techniques like teleportation and shortcuts to subtler refinements that make an area play differently with a different set of abilities.

Castlevania is just a pretty lukewarm example of the technique, because it doesn't much increase player abilities outside of extremely specific circumstances. In Super Metroid, when you got the wave beam, in addition to letting you access more of the map, it made you a much more effective fighter and it was useful immediately. In Symphony of the Night, getting a more powerful sword didn't increase the areas you could access, and getting the mist form didn't make you a better fighter. That's just a strange disconnect between the two basic ideas of exploration and combat.

Cave Story just plain doesn't have exploration; it's straight platforming. And it works very well; every powerup improves your combat ability, aside from the very most simple fetch-quest chain items.

[Detonator]

I think Super Metroid handles it well by putting up most barriers right before you get the tool to overcome them, or putting barriers outside the normal "flow" of the level to keep you from constantly butting your head and getting frustrated.

I do think Super Metroid is the best game ever though, so whatev.

[Kayin]

I agree, Norondor (though I've still played though Super Metroid a great many times more, though I've played through both more than SOTN).
 
As for newbie, I thnk a lot this falls in issues of personal preference. I for one am one of those people who gets tantalized by stuff I can't get now, and giggle like a giddy girl when I realize all the new places a new ability will allow me to explore.

As for backtracking, yeah,t hat can be bad -- or it can be ifne. Super metroid did it hella fine with no teleportation devices or anything. SOTN had it a bit annoying, but depending on the individual (and based on the popularity of the genre, thats a lot of individuals), many will accept that little annoyance for the exploratory experience.

Super Metroid is probably the most fluid metroidvania there is. It suffers less form the feeling of backtracking than any other metroidvania without any real teleportation.

[Catloaf]

A real place has width as well as depth as well as breadth, so the player should be forced to travel in as many dimensions as the game will allow: east as well as north, in as well as up.

While I disagree with Newbie in that I'm a huge fan of metroidvanias, the above quote makes me want to see an isometric one.  Think SuperMarioRPG with an action battle system.  I guess it would require a camera shift button though, to avoid "Oh, there's a building, I bet they hid something behind it! SHIT THEY DIDN'T THIS IS TEDIOUS".  Or perhaps an overhead-view radar screen.  Which would make for a good item to both acquire and upgrade!

Also based on Newbie's post, I think I would like to see a metroidvania game with a lot of completely optional areas /bosses/powerups placed all throughout the game.  You listening, Kayin!?!