Platform, fight, and search through these great Metroidvanias!
Platform, fight, and search through these great Metroidvanias!
The age of the explorer has come to an end. With the existence of satellite technology, and the lack of known, intelligent species out in the cosmos—plus the fact that the world was already mapped out by boats long before our time—we really lost out on the ability to live out our fantasies as swashbucklers and cartographers. We long to return to the time where we can go out armed with nothing but a quill, and some parchment and see what’s out there, piecing together an unknown land for ourselves.
Luckily, there is a way to live out these inventive fantasies of discovery, both history and geography, in a Metroidvania game. Metroidvanias are any game with a similar game play style to the classic Metroid and Castlevania franchises. You start the game with nothing but the most basic weapon and armor, and, as you progress, you earn rewards and upgrades that allow you to fight on par with your enemies. The defining feature that sets Metroidvania games apart from any other RPG or platformer is the emphasis on exploration. Metroidvanias tend to take place in unexplored or dying lands. Kingdoms in decline, uninhabited jungles, and crypts of the undead make perfect locales for Metroidvanias. You are the person deciding the map of the known world as you explore.
So, if that prospect interests you, here are a few great Metroidvanias you can play right now.
It would be impossible to talk about Metroidvanias, without covering the quickest instant classic of the entire genre. Though Hollow Knight released in 2017, it still has a massive following, desperately waiting for the many-times-delayed sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong.
In Hollow Knight, you take control of a cute bug-creature simply called the Knight in a massive, sprawling world of other insects. Well, that may sound a little creepy, the game's art style does wonders to make sure nothing is scary when it isn’t supposed to be. You get free reign to explore a kingdom in ruin as you slowly uncover what brought it to this point.
Metroidvanias are famous for being fun, but challenging. You see a lot of this in the classic examples of Metroid and Castlevania. Few games have been able to capture this balance of fun and difficulty as well as Hollow Knight. This game is infamous for its extreme difficulty, but makes up for it with its fine – tuned movements, and combat system. Hollow Knight has a lot of fighting in it, but, it’s hard, as this is a platformer game. That, combined with its incredible story and inventive boss fights, have made Hollow Knight one of the best games ever released, on top of being one of the best Metroidvania games on Steam right now.
Pick up Hollow Knight here
Since the release of the second game of the series, it’s difficult to talk about one Ori game without talking about the other. The Ori franchise, Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, has been making waves in the Metroidvania community over the last few years ever since they stopped being Xbox exclusives.
The first Ori game had you playing as the titular spirit of light, in the dying forests of Nibel; a land being consumed by darkness. Throughout this game, you explore the world and gain unique abilities as you go, engaging in helpful actions for the scarce community remaining in the forest, such as repairing archaic water treatment tools to make the many lakes of the forest habitable and swimmable.
The second game takes you to an entirely new forest nearby, giving you a journey to go save the other hurt lands of Niwen. Here, you’ll meet plenty of new characters, enemies, and bosses. The main difference is that the second game has a lot more characters to interact with, as well as a more involved quest system. While it would probably be best to play Blind Forest first, as Will of the Wisps Picks up after the first game ends, you don’t necessarily have to have played the first to understand the general story of the second.
The best way these differences can be summed up is by looking at the two most recent legend of Zelda games. Breath of the Wild is a kingdom in complete ruin, sparsely populated by hopeless people afraid of their past, and it has a plot that happens more passively. Tears of the Kingdom focuses much more on having an active plot. The kingdom is in disrepair, but the people are hopeful for the future. I personally recommend playing both games in both instances, but each game has enough story on its own to warrant skipping to the second if you don’t like the vibe first.
The thing that really makes these games stand out from the rest, though, is the emphasis on platforming. Of course, every Metroidvania game is going to involve some aspect of platforming, but Ori treated it differently. Not only does this franchise feature regular boss fights, but it also features one-off platforming challenges that take the place of combat. For example: in the first game, when repairing the water wheel, you don’t actually have a boss to fight at the end of the area. Instead, Ori has to contend with a challenging moment of platforming to escape, a huge rush of water flushing, the dark presence out of its system. These games are incredibly creative with their challenges, and both deserve play from anyone looking for the best Metroidvania games.
Get Ori and the Blind Forest here
Get Ori and the Will of the Wisps here
To tell you the truth, Carrion is certainly the strangest game on this list–It’s a reverse horror game in which you play as a violent creature. In this absolute bloodbath of a game, you take control of an alien, parasitic organism ravaging its way through a human research lab, trying to annihilate the humans that captured and imprisoned you.
You get to tear through the human facility, and exact revenge on your captors. While there is a high presence of blood and gore in this game, it has a beautiful 16-bit art style that tones it down quite a bit and makes it easier to stomach
Get Carrion here
Whether you’re a big fan of platformer‘s, combat, exploration, or just general difficulty, Metroidvania games are perfect for you.
