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Supposedly Hollow Knight is best metroidvania game. BUT give me some runner ups, before I play the best of the best.

Ladioss

Member
Hollow Knight is tricky : it's a good, competent metroidvania (with a slow start and a fantastic atmosphere), but everything it does has already be done elsewhere, often ten or twenty years ago.
 
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Sometimes, gaf is not the best place for advice. This is one of those times. Hollow Knight, while yes it can be debated forever, it is one of the best Metroidvania, probably the best. Anyone who says otherwise has most likely not finished it or needs to git gud. Be warned it's a very VERY hard game, the hardest I played especially if you go for the full completion as well as the dlc. The slightly inferior versions that I'd go for are: Salt & Sanctuary(ugly art style), Blasphemous (too short and annoying at times), Ori and the Will of the Wisps(highly recommended), Monster Boy(very easy tho), Bloodstained(a bit boring and generic), The Messenger(not that much of a metroidvania but close enough), both Guacamelee(more platformers than anything else but still fantastic and underrated), etc. You might get bored of the genre if you play so many so since you played the first Ori go with Will of the Whisps and then jump to Hollow Knight. play the others after, it's fine.
 
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Ladioss

Member
Just get Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. It's filled to the brim with creative puzzles, secrets and clever use of abilities. I didn't think they made games like this anymore.

This.

The game is fantastic, it completely took me by surprise as I expected a much lazier effort, relying on the retro crowd to sell (something the Shantae games tend to do too often, I think). I would rate it slightly higher than Hollow Knight, in any case.
 

93xfan

Banned
Don’t wait, just play Hollow Knight.

Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night are up there with it.

You can also try The Messenger, And Guacamelee 1 or 2 and Ori as well.
 

showernota

Member
Of the many metroidvanias I’ve played, including Hollow Knight, the only ones I’ve finished are:
Metroid Zero Mission
Metroid Fusion
The Messenger
 

kungfuian

Member
If you aren't strictly tied to the 2d aspect then all 3 Dark Souls and Bloodborne are amazing 'metroidvania' games.

Also a game that I never see getting any love is good ol Blaster Master. Sunsoft was amazing back in the day and the game stands the test of time next to the original Metroid. Wish more people experienced it as it holds a special place in the 'metroidvania' pathfinder gaming history and is still a pretty fun little game. Always seems to be left off the list for some reason.
 

Yerd

Member
If you aren't strictly tied to the 2d aspect then all 3 Dark Souls and Bloodborne are amazing 'metroidvania' games.

Also a game that I never see getting any love is good ol Blaster Master. Sunsoft was amazing back in the day and the game stands the test of time next to the original Metroid. Wish more people experienced it as it holds a special place in the 'metroidvania' pathfinder gaming history and is still a pretty fun little game. Always seems to be left off the list for some reason.
I love Blaster Master, but I would never have lumped it in with metroidvanias. It is half that sort of, but the other half is whatever genre that shooty crap is, bullet hell I guess.
 

Sejan

Member
Hollow Knight is good, but it’s a stretch to call it the best. It’s too punishing on new players and the map mechanic is dumb in the best case.

I’ll give another vote to axiom verge and I f you like Pokemon, I’d highly recommend Monster Sanctuary. Of course the big daddies like Super Metroid are required playing for the genre.
 

kungfuian

Member
I love Blaster Master, but I would never have lumped it in with metroidvanias. It is half that sort of, but the other half is whatever genre that shooty crap is, bullet hell I guess.
Not sure I agree here. It might not feature all the modern trappings of the 'genre' but Blaster Master is as much a 'metroidvania' as the original Metroid. It features a similar adventure/exploration design with a single interconnected world requiring backtracking, areas gated off by new abilities. Etc. I wouldn't consider it bullet hell at all.
 

Yerd

Member
Not sure I agree here. It might not feature all the modern trappings of the 'genre' but Blaster Master is as much a 'metroidvania' as the original Metroid. It features a similar adventure/exploration design with a single interconnected world requiring backtracking, areas gated off by new abilities. Etc. I wouldn't consider it bullet hell at all.
I'm not saying it isn't, my brain just relegates the game to a different genre. I don't know what genre it's called, the parts where you fight the bosses. Those are the most memorable parts to me. I played Blaster Master back in the day as a kid, so it's a staple for my nostalgia. Similar to Guardian Legend, it's half one thing and half another, and I mainly think of it as a shooter.
 

kungfuian

Member
I'm not saying it isn't, my brain just relegates the game to a different genre. I don't know what genre it's called, the parts where you fight the bosses. Those are the most memorable parts to me. I played Blaster Master back in the day as a kid, so it's a staple for my nostalgia. Similar to Guardian Legend, it's half one thing and half another, and I mainly think of it as a shooter.
Well let's agree on the fact that it's awesome and that the OP should play it (for it's metroidvania parts more or less)
 
Hollow Knight is up there with Super Metroid as the best in the genre. It will not ruin other Metroidvanias for you, but it's a goddamn masterpiece and quite possibly the best game you could play right now.
 

boutrosinit

Street Fighter IV World Champion
It has been said Hollow Knight is the best metroidvania game, hands down.

Instead of playing it first though, give me some other top-tier metrodivania games. I've only played Ori and the Blind Forest, so it's pretty much all new to me.

I would just play Hollow Knight, but I don't want to play the best metroidvania game out there and then go backwards in quality from there. That's no fun.

Would argue it's the largest, but not necessarily best, which with all the choice is definitely a lot more subjective nowadays.

Ones I found to be exceptional:
Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
Super Metroid.
Ori and the Blind Forest.

If you like beat em ups:
Guacamelee.
Guacamelee 2 (playing in co-op is a ton of fun).

If you like Rogue Likes:
Rogue Legacy.
A Robot Named Fight.

If you like grind:
Steamworld.

If you like epically huge:
Hollow Knight.

There's way more, but these are solid.
 
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boutrosinit

Street Fighter IV World Champion
I played Hollow Knight. In the beginning it was fun and i liked it but then i stopped playing. Didn't know where to go next or constantly not knowing what to do now. The platforming get worse the more you advance. Hated some of the enemies design.

Honestly, I hated it for a good few hours and dumped it. A friend urged I give it another chance and it started to open up. I now very much enjoy it, but only since more powers gave me more enjoyable motion and fluidity in boss battles, which started off utterly chore-some and tedious.

It took time for the game to click for me (need more powers), and the quality of life stuff is HORRENDOUS. You need to waste a slot to have yourself APPEAR ON A GAME MAP, FOR A GAME THAT IS LARGELY NAVIGATING USING A MAP, AND IS ALSO HUGE.

The map stuff is utterly fucking idiotic. The boss fights that come one after the other. The poor checkpointing. The half-baked rotten egg to get your dead guy money back... Some really weak, verging on awful decisions in that game.

But, the combat feels really good and there's some enjoyable twitchy play in general.

Definitely not the best, but really well made in most of its parts.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
Sometimes, gaf is not the best place for advice. This is one of those times.
I, for one, appreciate that GAF is so far from a hivemind these days. Many people who didn't like HK still provided plenty of good suggestions.

BTW, HK isn't terribly hard, but it does require that you be fully aware at all times, and boss battles can be ridiculously twitchy with very, very little time to react. It's s still easier than Super Meat Boy and other very intense 2D games.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
Try Symphony of the Night... Castlevania.


3D wise
Souls games

Resident Evil 8 is a great metroidvania. As are the classic 1, 2, Zero, Code Veronica etc
 

Bankai

Member
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Blasphemous is the best, IMO. Gorgeous pixel art, great challenge, satisfying combat, beautiful soundtrack, insanely interesting and in-depth lore. I think it's on sale right now on Steam, too.

Never heard of it, thanks added it to my list.
 

Animagic

Banned
La Mulana 1 & 2 are better than Hollow Knight will ever be.

Hollow Knight is a zoomer redditor game.
 
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Lanrutcon

Member
Hollow Knight is pretty incredible. You get two kinds of people: people who acknowledge how amazing it is and people who never played it much. Never met anyone who finished it that didn't praise it to the high heavens. Most people bounce off the difficulty and gravitate towards easier games.

And good God at whoever recommended La Mulana. Good fucking luck getting through that game without a fucking wiki. It's the pinnacle of "how the fuck was I supposed to know that?". Whenever you watch a streamer play that "blind" you soon realise they're looking shit up between episodes or watching chat like a hawk.

Props to granddaddy Symphony for still being mentioned in 2021.
 

Null Persp

Member
SOTN it's still the best for me.

Other games that I have played and enjoyed are :
Super Metroid
Aria of Sorrow
Dawn of Sorrow
Order of Ecclesia
Steamworld Dig 1 and 2
Ori series
Shadow Complex
Iconoclasts
Guacamelee
Bloodstained
Blasphemous
Salt and Sanctuary
 
I, for one, appreciate that GAF is so far from a hivemind these days. Many people who didn't like HK still provided plenty of good suggestions.

BTW, HK isn't terribly hard, but it does require that you be fully aware at all times, and boss battles can be ridiculously twitchy with very, very little time to react. It's s still easier than Super Meat Boy and other very intense 2D games.

The White Palace is harder than SMB, although it's optional unless you go for the true ending/boss fight.
 
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Soodanim

Member
My vote for best goes to SoTN for best. Super Metroid has never grabbed me like Symphony did, but I respect it.
It's bizarre. The game has nothing over the classics and isn't even all that good to look at. It's not a terrible game, but it's nowhere near the best anything.

You need to play the GBA greats. The Metroids and the Castlevanias. Obviously Super Metroid and SoTN before them.

I need to play Bloodstained. I backed it on Kickstarter and seem to never play games I back.
I backed it too, and didn't get round to it for a long time. But that's fine, because they're still adding content to it. You can either play what's there now (which is a lot, there's additional modes and characters although some aren't all that special) then return when extras are added, or wait until it's all finished.
 
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TonyK

Member
I'm in the opposite. For me, Hollow Knight is the worse metroidvania I played. In fact, is the only Metroidvania I played that I haven't finished. It doesn't worth my time.
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
My vote for best goes to SoTN for best. Super Metroid has never grabbed me like Symphony did, but I respect it.

I backed it too, and didn't get round to it for a long time. But that's fine, because they're still adding content to it. You can either play what's there now (which is a lot, there's additional modes and characters although some aren't all that special) then return when extras are added, or wait until it's all finished.

I loved Bloodstained and I got all the achievements. The extra modes and characters are nice but not enough for me to come back to the game. Cant wait for a true sequel though.
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
The White Palace is harder than SMB, although it's optional unless you go for the true ending/boss fight.


Besides the janky ass map (and not just the actual map, but the way the world is connected together), that end was strange for me. Turning the game into a balls ass hard platformer was a strange choice. I did beat it and ya it felt good but it was odd for sure.
 

Raphael

Member
Try Symphony of the Night... Castlevania.


3D wise
Souls games

Resident Evil 8 is a great metroidvania. As are the classic 1, 2, Zero, Code Veronica etc
Havent played the new ones yet apart from re2make. Your comment on 8 being metroidvania made it more tempting for me. Is 7 that different from 8 that you left it out? Thought they were similar.
 

Belmonte

Member
What are the various opinion on Axiom Verge?

I played it, liked it a lot. Liked the atmosphere. It felt a lot like OG Metroid in some respects. Story was a bit wacky but fun.

But I recommended to to a friend who likes Metroidvania games and he didnt like it. I was surprised.


I see some people here also didnt like it. Can you explain why?

My opinion about Axiom Verge is everything NeolkaruGAF said, but the inverse of it!

Intriguing atmosphere, great exploration, interesting upgrades and what makes me like it even more than Metroid: variety of weapons and enemy patterns. Even if some of them could be more powerful than others, it was fun to find another one and mess with them.

Axiom Verge is perhaps my favorite indie game ever.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
Havent played the new ones yet apart from re2make. Your comment on 8 being metroidvania made it more tempting for me. Is 7 that different from 8 that you left it out? Thought they were similar.

I Enjoyed 7 but 8 is the most metroidvania level design in the entire series including RE1, 2 and Code Veronica.

You have smaller areas that are medtroidvania like the Castle. And then you have the entire village you come back to, so that you can open up secrets and extras etc. Im the type who liked to open up everything and get all the items, money etc, health upgrades etc.

In terms of RE7 and RE8, 8 has way better enemy variety, slightly more puzzles, better level design, less stalking characters And much more metroidvania.
It does action better and it does the slow paced tense enemy parts better too.

7 is in some ways is just as creepy but more of a this is a creepy twisted American family.
Whereas RE8 is more classic, Mansion/Police station creepy. A more, I dont know whats around this corner tense atmosphere. And RE8 has a fucked up baby not called Rose, that made me scream and run at one point lol.

Remake 2 was good but I had a few issues with it. MR X shouldnt have been stalking you in Scenario A and they didnt put the same effort as they did with the police station with the rest of the game. RE2 original and REmake 1 are my favourites in the series but RE 8 is now 3rd I think.

I liked 7 but 8 I really enjoyed. Fingers crossed they keep the same formula, atmosphere and feels for RE9. And Id like another old Mansion/ Castle etc.
 
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Ceadeus

Member
And it's the only good answer!

A good metroidvania, in my book, requires varied level design , color palette and art. An intensive, varied bestiary mostly unic from one to the other that all have interesting animation and death animation. Each with their own loot and combat strength and weaknesses.

Intensive list of items and equipment with hidden abilities. Each group item have their specification that has direct effect on character animation. Multiple playable characters. Astonishing OST.

IGA is the only one who can do it. At this point, he mastered his own genre.
 
I really enjoyed Hollow Knight when I played it recently.

It's an excellent Metroidvania game to be sure, but I didn't regard it quite as highly as its reputation calls for.

It's very good, with an emphasis on creating a beautifully sad, tragically dark world for its story, and on incorporating Soulsy elements like a single currency that you drop at the place where you die and highly challenging boss fights. But despite Dark Souls basically being my favourite series these things didn't make Hollow Knight my favourite Metroidvania. If you want high challenge and a deep, sorrowful tale it might become your favourite though. It certainly was hard, at least for me - it took me more tries to beat the final secret boss of Hollow Knight than the final boss of Sekiro, for example. But I just didn't dig it that much.

For one thing, I would often beat a boss or uncover a hidden path and get excited about what new power-up I was about to be rewarded with, and then instead I would get like... lore. Or money. But in this game there aren't enough things to spend money on so you're stuck carting it around paranoid about losing it by dying even though it's useless. At least that's how it is for the 2nd half of the game. And I know wandering around lost is part of the Metroidvania experience, and then you get a thrill when you figure out some new way to open up exploration paths... but I think there was just a bit too much time spent being lost in this game, which made uncovering those secrets that were just lore or worthless money instead of new powers extra frustrating.

As for recommends, my all time favourite is Wonderboy 3, which was recently remade with gorgeous graphics by the same people behind Streets of Rage 4. Monsterboy and the Cursed Kingdom is a title mimicking it that is also very good. I also personally love Aria of Sorrow and Order of Ecclesia. And if we're allowed to count 3D Metroidvanias, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Metroid Prime 1 and 2 are awesome.

And of course you can't go wrong with the famous classics like Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night from whence the genre takes its name, although I'd like to point out that Wonderboy 3 is both better than and predates these 2 titles.
Are you talking about the Sega Master system game? Thought that was just a standard platformer, it's a metroidvania?
What platform is that on now? Switch?

Also I would like to say Demon Souls, Dark Souls, bloodborne games should count as metroidvania. They are really 3d versions of SOTN structurally.

I wish Konami got their shit together. Can you imagine a real 3d castlevania game in the same style of dark souls.
Have From develop it and it would make bank.
 

Shakka43

Member
Hollow knight is far from the best imo.

Ori And The Will of the Wisps is the current king for me. Steamworld Dig 1&2, Strider, Axiom Verge, Iconoclast, Guacamelee 1&2, Dust and Elysian Tail, Shadow Complex Remastered, Teslagrad and Chasm are some of my favorites.
 

93xfan

Banned
Hollow Knight is good, but it’s a stretch to call it the best. It’s too punishing on new players and the map mechanic is dumb in the best case.

I’ll give another vote to axiom verge and I f you like Pokemon, I’d highly recommend Monster Sanctuary. Of course the big daddies like Super Metroid are required playing for the genre.

The map mechanic was very inventive and awesome imo.
 

Soodanim

Member
I loved Bloodstained and I got all the achievements. The extra modes and characters are nice but not enough for me to come back to the game. Cant wait for a true sequel though.
I opened up the game to try them, butoutside of playing as Zangetsu and that blood boss there isn't much there I am interested in. Boss rush as other bosses is a nice novelty, but it gets old quick. The randomiser might be nice if I feel like returning at some point, but I'm in no rush. Bring on the sequel! They must have more in store for the IP with Curse of the Moon having a second game.
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
I opened up the game to try them, butoutside of playing as Zangetsu and that blood boss there isn't much there I am interested in. Boss rush as other bosses is a nice novelty, but it gets old quick. The randomiser might be nice if I feel like returning at some point, but I'm in no rush. Bring on the sequel! They must have more in store for the IP with Curse of the Moon having a second game.

Sequel is definately coming but with the slow drip of DLC I have a bad feeling it will be a while.
 

Soodanim

Member
Sequel is definately coming but with the slow drip of DLC I have a bad feeling it will be a while.
I just logged into Kickstarter to check the updates, and I think you're right. Comments on posts say people haven't received their physical copies, and they won't receive them until all content updates are finished. That's probably the only clue as to the development pace of a sequel picking up, even if we assume only some of the team is working on content updates for 1. There's a roadmap of updates that shows Chaos mode, VS mode, and a playable character to come under Q1 and "More to come" under Q2. I don't think my "No new games in 2021" commitment is in any danger.
 
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