Metroidvania Megathread: I Hope You Like Grid Maps

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Metroidvania Megathread: I Hope You Like Grid Maps

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

sorry you can't post in this thread until you find the ice beam

# ¿ Sep 30, 2022 01:58

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 21:51

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

Edilaic posted:

Speaking of really early examples of the genre, and looking at Astalon, I'm reminded of The Maze of Galious (Knightmare II). I played a ton of it on emulator when I was a kid and had just learned about the existence of the MSX. It does look like it still loses out to Zelda in age though, it's from 1987.

Very cool game. Some fans recently upgraded it to take advantage of what the MSX2 could do, because MSX fans are nuts, and it's a great way to revisit the game. https://github.com/bladeba/MSX/tree/master/Enhanced%20Games/Galious%20-%20enhanced The largest benefit is that it makes bats visible against the background.

Also check out this sweet 1996 map of the castle, wow!

# ¿ Oct 2, 2022 18:00

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

ultrafilter posted:

Any attempt to define the genre would probably include it but I don't think most people would consider it one.

who are you asking? the game is about getting upgrades to reach new areas. that's like, the thing!

# ¿ Oct 2, 2022 19:36

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

Astlibra Revision came out a month ago. It's not really a metroidvania, each chapter basically locks you into a location for its duration, but it has a lot of later Castlevania in its design and some "find item to open path" happens here and there. It's a blast to play, feels kind of like a side-scrolling Ys: Oath in Felghana, with constant satisfying progression and your character quickly evolving into a blender on legs. Crazy passion project made by one guy in his spare time over a decade plus, way bigger and better than it should be. It's got like a thousand positive reviews, and a demo!

lets hang out fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Nov 10, 2022

# ¿ Nov 10, 2022 23:57

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

Nostalgamus posted:

Various thoughts on Rain World:

The movement is kind of awkward at first, but I got used to it after a little while. Your main "weapons" throughout the game are pieces of rubble and pointy sticks, and while they are technically capable of killing other creatures, the fact that even the weakest lizards take 2-3 spears to kill (and you can only carry one at a time) makes combat more of a backup plan than a general strategy. And if you're playing as the Monk - which I did on my first playthrough - spears deal even less damage, making offense basically not an option.

It nails the atmosphere of being all alone in a hostile, uncaring world. Most large creatures try to kill you, but nothing is specifically targeting you (unless you really piss of the scavengers). On the other hand this also gives you little reason to care about the world, or the few actual characters in it. Even the ending just feels like a thing you can do rather than something to work towards, even "in character".

As a whole, it mostly feels like a sandbox. There's a lot you can do, but very little of it has any gameplay benefit, leaving the only reason to do most of it as "because it's there". The main noticable gameplay upgrade is the player glowing permanently after eating a Neuron fly, but this only means you no longer need to carry a lantern - no new areas open up from this.

The extents of the story consists of small pieces of backstory contained in the colored pearls scattered around the world, which can only be read by one specific NPC at a remote edge of the game world. By the way - fast travel has limited uses, which each use being unlocked by a different achievement.

The in-game map is hard to read, due to the decision to use different layers instead of having a single scrollable area. I quickly ended up using the maps from the wiki instead, since those are actually readable.

After going all the way through the game as the Monk, I decided to try out the Hunter - which only unlocks after finishing the game with one of the "normal" characters. The actual unlocking criteria is a bit finicky - it seems like you need to start a new game as Hunter without quitting the game after reaching the ending, as I exited the game after reaching the ending the first time, and the the Hunter was still locked the next time I botted up the game.

Gameplay-wise, the Hunter is kind of ridiculously difficult, with a whole bunch of upgraded enemies (leaping lizards, vultures with harpoons) and generally a lot more of them (the normal starting region suddenly has a lot of Dropwigs). Also you get basically no food pips from bats/fruits, which is somewhat compensated for by being able to eat from dead lizards and other predators. Your spears to a bit more damage to compensate for this, but the food restrictions overall felt like a bigger issue than more/stronger monsters.
Still, I actually found the difficulty level more entertaining that frustrating - and the fact that the Hunter has an actual objective made that campaign a lot more interesting than the regular game.

Since I kinda liked playing as the Hunter, I ended up bying the DLC. So far I have only played the Gourmand campaign, where you play a really fat slugcat with an objective of eating a lot of different food. His main drawback is running out of breath after running/jumping too much or throwing spears, after which you need to stand still for a few seconds to regain normal movement. However, to compensate for this your spears deal TRIPLE damage, which is enough to oneshot a lot of monsters. Also, you can injure/kill monsters by jumping on them from a higher platform. Overall this makes the Gourmand feel way more effective at killing things than the Hunter, and since he can also eat just about everything he feels overall stronger even with the "out of breath" mechanic.

It should be noted that the DLC also makes a few changes to the base game, including an additional region in the middle of the world - mainly useful as a potential shortcut. It also makes the colored pearls appear in the Monk campaign, where they were previously absent.

Oh, and one last thing: Do NOT play this game if you're scared of spiders.

The DLC is definitely good if you're looking for more directed gameplay. The Gourmand's campaign is actually the most similar to the base Monk or Survivor playthrough, though you do have the optional Food Quest and some cool new locations later on. All of the other campaigns have clear goals to work toward, once you figure out what they are, and some very rad new locations and/or changes to the original map. I really had a blast with each of them, particularly Rivulet and Saint.

And yeah, Rain World must have the worst spiders ever. They move in an uncomfortably realistic way and the relative lack of detail lets your brain fill in the blanks to make them seem even worse. Spearmaster's campaign is Spider Hell, it was pretty rough for me and I'm merely "super creeped out" by spiders instead of "actually terrified".

# ¿ Jul 20, 2023 16:26

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

Loved the Artificer's endgame area, felt like a big action movie gunfight, just wild to experience in Rain World of all games.

saw this dumb mod the other day, really made me want to play through Artificer again

# ¿ Aug 4, 2023 02:35

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

Schwarzwald posted:

Finally completed the last Rain World Downpour campaign, the Saint. Playing through it, my opinion has bounced between the upper half of mid to being genuinely fantastic, with it finally settling at "quite good." New and tougher enemies but now you can't jump or fight? Kind of mid. Spiderman swinging at 100 mph across stages or up walls? Fantastic. Many of the same regions as before But Now With Snow? Kind of mid. Drastically altered regions with decayed hulks of previous landmarks or overgrown with new foliage? Fantastic. 11th hour superpowers? Kind of mid in practice, surprisingly. 11th hour superpower but you're in hell? Fantastic.

Not as good as Gourmand or Rivulet, but better than Spear Master.

On the whole, Downpour is excellent. On top of the new content, the (optional and customizable!) changes to the original mechanics are quite welcome. The new ending to two of the original campaigns does a lot to improve those experiences as well.

The big failing is that Downpour ultimately carries the original game's flaws. Most notably Karma gates, which suck and only spuriously make sense, but also things like the static camera that ensure nothing can ever be as dangerous as an enemy just slightly off screen. It does a lot to improve things, but Rain World remains a game I personally love but have some reservation recommending to others.

sounds like you're already finished (unless you want to suffer through the arena challenges) so I guess this doesn't help you, but there's a mod that adds camera scrolling. it dynamically stitches all the rooms together the first time you enter a region. it works really well aside from some disjointed background art in a handful of places. mostly just on the wall, where things in the background don't always neatly line up between screens.

and karma gate behavior can be changed in the remix menus to stay open after the first time you pass through or just be open all the time

# ¿ Aug 13, 2023 23:22

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

everyone making these things grew up playing Castlevania games on handhelds, not Metroid

# ¿ Sep 17, 2023 19:57

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

Nostalgamus posted:

I decided to try out Expedition mode in Rain World.

HO HO HO

It's actually way worse at killing things than spears

There are some very funny challenges involving the rifle in challenge mode

# ¿ Sep 26, 2023 00:05

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

claw game handjob posted:

This basically sounds like exactly what I wanted after RR, which is just "fixing up the poo poo that was busted and leaning in harder on the game's strengths". After having to restart because I broke the game, I finally wrapped Rabi-Ribi the other night and while I loved the gameplay and freedom of the main campaign, it became incredibly repetitive in the post-game since I had all of the cool toys and there were about three new bosses who weren't just a remix of the prior ones in a rush.

Are the perks or whatever just freely on-off toggles, or will I be hunting down max point-up items to mess with them again in TEVI, I know RR let you get up there with them after a certain point but it took some digging.

badge point up items are back, you just wind up with like 400 of them by the end. there are 249 badges in the game and I currently (at 100%) have 122 of them equipped at once.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2023 21:59

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

the zelda 2 fan remake (page intentionally sparse to avoid attention from lawyers) has been around for a while but I finally got around to playing it and it's really good. the dev claims it's a port of the original code to game maker so everything is supposed to behave just like it did on the nes, but with a lot of QOL improvements and fun new additions.

* it's widescreen + has controller support
* you can save at NPCs in towns instead of having to die
* NPC dialog is a little more helpful
* you can look at the overworld or dungeon map in the pause menu
* dolls permanently increase your max lives
* continuing in a dungeon just kicks you back to the entrance
* small additions to a lot of locations, and fun new areas strewn all over the place
* the new areas often contain heart or magic pieces (instead of full containers), or new items
* you can buy a map that adds icons to the overworld where collectables are
* graphical improvements that aren't exactly subtle but mostly fit in. you might not even notice them if you aren't familiar with the original

like the first palace looks more like it's in a desert now. that's neat!

I already liked zelda 2, but not enough that I ever really felt like replaying it. having a blast with this though.

if you do play it, i recommend you open the in-game options with the O key and change the audio set to "ISABELLECHIMING", which is a really nice Konami VRC6 arrangement of the original soundtrack with some extra tracks thrown in, including unique variations on the dungeon theme for each palace. they're so good!

# ¿ Dec 29, 2023 06:39

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

the last dungeon in the remake is still too big but at least the auto map helps narrow down where you haven't been.

you can start a second quest after you finish, which carries your levels over and from what i've heard has a cool new final area. kind of wish it was just in the first quest though.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2023 07:08

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

been having a great time with PoP aside from occasional hair pulling frustration at difficult platforming bits. equipping the charms that make sounds when you're near secrets seems to break the hell out of the audio, I had a boss fight with almost no sounds at all aside from the beeping of the charm at one point. didn't stop when i unequipped it, had to close the game entirely to fix it.

Sakurazuka posted:

Just did a ridiculous spinning blade trap room that took me like an hour to get right and the chest had a costume in. And by costume I mean pallet swap.

it's like the best palette swap though

lets hang out fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Jan 22, 2024

# ¿ Jan 22, 2024 05:44

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

PoP: Feels like they cut a boss fight with Radjen, the ninja lady. totally forgot her until her name came up in the ending :shrug:

guess she died!

# ¿ Jan 24, 2024 04:47

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

I haven't gotten to the frustrating parts of Ultros yet, just started playing around with the network. It plays a little rough and I barely ever have any idea what I'm doing, but I really like just how different it feels from the sort of template a lot of metroidvanias slot into these days. Very weird, very refreshing.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2024 02:29

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

Another Rain World expansion coming https://store.steampowered.com/app/2857120/Rain_World_The_Watcher

Maybe more community-made stuff? I don't mind paying for mods when they're as good as Downpour though. :toot:

# ¿ Mar 28, 2024 22:54

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 21:51

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

I'd still put the Prince of Persia game that came out this year above it but I had a good time with Animal Well for the 5 hours it took to see credits. Not really interested in tracking down every little secret. Glad to see another puzzle-oriented metroidvania if nothing else.

Anyone played You are Peter Shorts? Unfortunately came out the day after Animal Well.

# ¿ May 12, 2024 23:00

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Metroidvania Megathread: I Hope You Like Grid Maps