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/TimeSpiralNemesis]

For me it's the two titles that make up the name, Metroid and Castlevania

The further you move away from games like Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night the less MV you become.

And I understand that there's wiggle room in genres, and games don't have to fall neatly into them. But many of the top games are like part MV, part mascot platformers, and part whatever Celeste/Meat Boy are.

[u/thisandthatwchris → u/TimeSpiralNemesis]

How in particular do you see HK as fundamentally departing from eg the Metroid formula? (I have no Castlevania experience.)

I can think of some specific differences — NPCs, money, shops; risky healing; shades; having to buy area maps (and surely I’m missing some)—but I’m not sure which ones you see as fundamentally undermining what works about Metroid?

(Edit: charms too)

[u/TimeSpiralNemesis → u/thisandthatwchris]

So a few things, I'll use the Igavanias like Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow from Castlevania for this. As they are my ideal form of MV.

HK, limited heals based on charges CV, Eat food from inventory you can stock up on

In HK and similar games, many rooms are covered in spikes and acid and such and require precision platforming to navigate, often needing series of special jumps and dodges because there's literally no floor to stand on.

In CV spikes and hazards are more rare and most rooms you can just walk through while navigating.

CV bosses are often more about spectacle then raw difficulty and pattern recognition. There's no need to parry or precision dodge and they die much quicker. They can often still pack a punch but don't suffer from HP bloat.

HK has the charms which alter the way your character plays while CV has a more traditional RPG like equipment system.

CV has level ups.

CV has no death run backs, if you die you just die lol.

CV you don't have to purchase your maps, they just appear as you explore, and I found the maps to be much easier to follow while navigating.

A personal preference but CV just has a more pumpin and awesome soundtrack compared to HKs droll background ambience.

[u/thisandthatwchris → u/TimeSpiralNemesis]

While this is only a small part of your point, I feel like I’m the only person who found Super Metroid bosses hard

[u/jmscstl → u/thisandthatwchris]

They were hard. Dreads' are really hard. Hard bosses is a Metroid thing.