Metroidvania: Difference between revisions

Metroidvania is an umbrella term used by the media and fans to describe 2D video games with an emphasis on a side-scrolling, exploratory action-adventure structure. This manner of play was first introduced in it's current form with Nintendo's Super Metroid, and has subsequently been adopted by the Castlevania series as well as other games.

In print media, the only discovered usage has been in an Australian PAL Gaming Network review, which uses the term to refer to the Metroid-style gameplay elements that are present in the Game Boy Advance Castlevania games, but are absent in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness.

On gaming websites, the term has been used to refer to numerous games, including games in the Metroid series, Cave Story, and Eternal Daughter.

Some fans feel that "Metroid-style Castlevania games" deserve their own sub-genre, and refer to those games as Castleroids. It is important to note that Castleroid is a colloquialism used exclusively by fans, whereas the term "Metroidvania" has appeared in reputable media.

Nature of a Metroidvania

Distinct features associated with the Metroidvania formula are side-scrolling, exploratory, action-adventure gameplay, power-ups, and a map that is filled in automatically as the player progresses through the game.

Typical gameplay involves exploring the game-world and often discovering paths that can not be accessed with the players' current abilities. Finding an item (either a key or a power-up) later on grants the player the ability to go back and access that path. Some power-ups are needed to obtain others, lending a sense of structure, sequence, and linearity to the game. This structure is often vital in creating a coherent plot by ensuring that events that progress the storyline are triggered in the proper order. An integral part of the experience is in the exploration of the game world: It is rare for the player to be told exactly where they have to go, and instead must rely on their own sense of exploration to discover new areas and goals within the game.

Invariably, the same sort of barriers will make themselves apparant to the player: Ledges or platforms the player cannot yet reach due to the length or height of the jump, environments the player cannot yet traverse without taking some ill effect (or possibly not at all), destructable barriers the player cannot destroy with their current abilities, or indestructable barriers the player must acquire a key to unlock or perform a task elsewhere to remove. Though the method by which these four barriers will be removed inevitably changes from game to game, these four core concepts remain at the heart of any Metroidvania.

One key part of the various abilities the player gains is that they afford the player more options in the way their avatar may be controlled. These upgrades invariably allow the player to directly circumvent an iteration of the barriers mentioned above. Often, the same sort of abilities make an appearance across the genre with different names and appearances: The Cleansing item in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon has the same effect as the Varia Suit in Super Metroid: Both negate damage from an otherwise hostile environment, allowing the player to traverse the area at will.

Despite this implicit structure, industrious players often pride themselves on sequence breaking these games, exploiting bugs or or using more resources than designers accounted for in order to traverse lethal or supposedly impassible areas: One example is traversing the Underground Waterway in Castlevania Circle of the Moon before receiving the Cleansing item, which purifies the poisoned water that fills the level. Sans purification, the water damages hero Nathan Graves. This obstacle was intended to prevent players from prematurely progressing to an event in which Camilla (the level's boss) reveals storyline information and subsequently obtaining the Roc Wing (an item that allows access to several other castle areas) with her defeat.

In many cases, Metroidvanias are only distinguished from top-down, 2D, non-linear exploratory games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past by the fact that the view is from the side as opposed to top-down. This simple change drastically alters the manner in which the game is played: The simple fact that side-scrollers possess gravity adds an additional barrier to exploration which must be overcome.

List of Metroidvania Games

Although most Metroidvanias are part of the Metroid and Castlevania families, not all Metroid or Castlevania games are considered "Metroidvanias"; although the Metroid Prime games retain the non-linear exploration, mapping, and special-ability-collection, their 3D nature excludes them from the category. Likewise with the 3D Castlevania games developed for the Nintendo 64 and the Playstation 2.

Precursors

The original Metroid and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest blazed the trail for the Metroidvanias, testing the idea of a non-linear game. These games were based heavily on side-scrolling exploration, with areas that could only be reached after attaining items in other areas. However, neither had the automatic mapping feature or any real semblance of plot that can be found in the Metroidvanias that followed. Metroid 2 actually had less in common structurally with Super Metroid than the original Metroid did, and the subsequent Castlevania games after Simon's Quest returned to a strictly linear -- or branching-path linear -- structure until Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Subsequent 2D Castlevania games have since followed the template laid down by Symphony of the Night.

Mainstays

• Super Metroid (1994)
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)
• Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (2001)
• Metroid Fusion (2002)
• Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (2002)
• Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (2003)
• Metroid: Zero Mission (2004)
• Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (2005)
• Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (2006)

Other Metroidvanias

• Demon's Crest (1994)
• Eternal Daughter (2002)
• Cave Story (2004)
• Within a deep forest (2006)

See Also

• Metroid series
• Castlevania

References

• Gamespot's review of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, which calls the gameplay of it and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night "reminiscent of that of the classic NES game Metroid"
• List of "Metroidvania" games
• An Australian PAL Gaming Network review that uses the term "Metroidvania"
• Online gaming magazine 1up.com calls Eternal Daughter "pure Metroidvania, with a dash of Popful Mail for flavor"