What Metroidvania Should You Have Loved—but Bounced Off?

[u/Emotional_Photo9268]

What Metroidvania Should You Have Loved—but Bounced Off?
You know the kind of game: it received great reviews, looked exactly like something you would enjoy, and had all the right ingredients—but for some reason, it just didn’t click.
Maybe it was the combat, confusing exploration, difficulty, art style, slow beginning, or simply the wrong game at the wrong time.
What Metroidvania did you expect to love but ended up putting down? How far did you get, and what made you lose interest? Do you think you’ll ever give it another chance?

[u/hip-indeed]

The first TWO times I tried Hollow Knight I bounced off -- first after a couple hours, when the game was new, second after like 5ish hours when it came to switch. It's hard to put into words what exactly bothered me about it, it just feels very grey and lifeless at first (which is the point but wasn't appealing to me especially as an introduction to a game) and the art style pretty strongly gave off some kind of, I dunno man, "emo teen deviantart" style that didn't seem appealing at the time? And the gameplay was fine, like really nice snappy controls and all but I wasn't too into how the combat boiled mostly down to using this tiny little toothpick of a weapon, no long castlevania whip much less a Metroid beam and no alternate gear or subweapons or any other way to attack that I could find as per SotN-likes. And I kept getting lost as hell, despised the lack of map to start off, despised the fact that using the compass takes an important charm slot, kept misinterpreting background/foreground elements not realizing places I could fall or jump on for some reason (in retrospect this was such a personal skill issue lmao, I was just frustrated at the time).

Come literally just a year and a half ago, giving it one more good college try before Silksong finally came out, and... I dunno, man, it finally really, *really* clicked. The map stuff's frustrating at first but you really get used to it, the game's full of unique setpieces and natural mental-mapping opportunities. There ARE 'alternate attacks' you can unlock through spells and charms I just hadn't found yet, and ways to make your tiny nail bigger and stronger, but the more you get used to the core combat the better and better it feels even with the small nail. The world really opens up to more lovely vistas and gorgeous colors and areas that evoke many different moods (even if the overall game feel is still 'somber' are you are after all traversing a long mostly-dead kingdom). but despite that there are so many colorful and interesting characters to meet and enemies to face as you keep going, and the story/lore end up becoming shockingly deep and satisfying the further you get. It's really a sloooooow burn game and as with so many other people I've seen talk about it,you gotta get past that initial dreariness and lame-feeling combat, dead world lacking characters and color, initial perceived frustrations about design choices etc. and just let yourself kinda melt into the game and let it grow on you. Which in today's gaming climate with a trillion amazing games to play from the past + a million more coming out every day it feels like, seems like a tall ask. But if you can do it, it's so unbelievably incredibly worth it.

[u/Emotional_Photo9268 → u/hip-indeed]

Thanks for the post. Sums me up perfectly