My biggest problem with Axium Verge is that it's a linear game, but in a spaghetti way: "Congratulation on obtaining a new power-up! Now, good luck finding the only one place it's useful in order to progress, hope you won't waste too much time on that!"
I really didn't find it to be like that. Sure there are a few upgrades you can't get unless you have a certain upgrade... but that's par for the course, isn't it? I just find with Axiom Verge everyone gets stuck on one section (when you're stuck in absu/zi/kur), myself _definitely_ included, but after that it's smooth sailing.
Every time I play Metroid Dread I completely destroy the “linearity” with sequence breaking. I’ve replayed the game several times and I’m still not really sure what the main path through the game is supposed to be! Give me rewarding sequence breaking over some boringly wide open “non-linear” Metroidvania any day.
Will of the wisps is of course better, but Blind forest is one the the best games anyway. I don't think it belongs to the list. Moon studios managed what many other devs don't. They learned and made a better game after already making a masterpiece.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Maybe "middle of the road", "Just OK" are a bit critical for a game you played through 4 times lol. Either that or you will give an average game MUCH more time then me. (I actually agree it was pretty mid tho)
@@xSayPleasex I replayed it so much basically to see how each patched helped it out or to see the new content that was dropped. This game is still getting updates with new content, so I can see myself playing through it again as soon as the content drops LOL
Actually had the opposite experience with the messenger on my second play through. Felt they could have cut out the first bit, and left the second bit.
Ori 2 is just too much of a rehash and a too much of we can be more like HK, that it loses some of the charm and story impact of Ori 1. If someone could only play Ori 1 or 2, I am not sure which one I would recommend, Ori 1 is more unique, more charming, and more memorable. Ori 2 is more trend chasing and rehashing, it probably would have worked better as a huge overhaul to Ori 1 than its own game, bc the premise, the story beats, everything just feels like a rehash and a bit more synthetic, like copying HK, rather than unique and genuine. Ori 1 is definitely more unique, has more charm, and it wins out in the all important je ne sais quoi factor for me.
Shantae Risky's Revenge and Pirate's Curse are excellent. But they offer a different kind of Metroidvania style, one that you can find in the Wonder Boy franchise. They have abilities and a world to explore, but they also have mostly linear areas. The other Shantae games I do think are kinda mid or meh though. I'm happy that the Wonder Boy franchise got an amazing new entry with Monster Boy that offered me everything I wanted out of a Shantae Pirate's Curse sequel and then some (but without the sexy I guess), since I don't think Shantae will ever really deliver proper anymore on the Metroidvania front.
What you call nonlinear, I just call "you can choose where to go and which boss you want to kill first" But I don't think it's good experience, especialy if it's not RPG. Nonlinear games are boring. Same with open world. Super Metroid was linear experience, but you can get some items early and that's makes it nonlinear, while it's not.
I love FIST. Honestly, it's the combat. The levels are fine, the world is fine, but the combat is so fun. But I'm a souls guy so combat is really all I care about in most games
its become popular for edgy people to say Symphony of the Night is overrated. Yeah, Aria of Sorrow does things better here and there, but SotN is still a complete package.
Finding Aria superior is fine imo because it's truly perfect in terms of exploration, map design, progression and pacing. I'm more of a SotN guy though. The amount of fun OP stuff you can get, the visuals, the characters, the music, the style - that to me is unbeatable.
Are you drunk high? Ori 1 is much better. Platforming is the strength of ori, and they knew it. The escape sequences were awesome. Ori 2 added a lot to the game, and some is good, but if we are being honest the combat is still mediocre, and the platforming way better. Ori 1 is superior.
First off, I wish I were drunk high LOL Second, both Ori games are fantastic. We can at least agree on that. I didn't much care for the escape sequences in Ori 1. They were a spectacule, but some were trial-and-error affairs. I've never been a fan of that kind of game design. Something that makes Ori 2 much better is that it knows platforming is its strength and plays off it pretty early. I believe you get the bulk of platforming moves in Ori 2 within the first hour or 2 of the game. Ori 1's platforming takes much longer to get good or reach Ori 2's level.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru no offense at the drunk high thing. That’s a reference to something from streamer / UA-camr Northernlion. Just a joke for anyone who might be familiar with it. I agree they’re both great. I felt the more traditional style boss fights of 2 didn’t live up to my expectations, and the escape sequences of 2 were shorter and simpler for the most part. The combat lacks the crisp precision of a game like hollow knight. The smooth flow feels amazing for platforming but makes it hard to design a really precisely tuned boss battles, so the combat still feels a little sloppy to me. Ori 2 is a much more complete, well rounded game, but I still prefer to replay 1 if I have the chance. Cheers!
@@baseballgenius3 I took no offense at all. I thought it was funny LOL I only recently replayed Ori 1. It seems I need to replay Ori 2 to better grasp your points. Sounds like the best kind of homework :)
Let me say something too. First of all, I think both Ori games are fantastic. In my case if someone asked me which one is better or which one I enjoyed more, I'd find it hard to choose because I liked both for a little bit different reasons. The escape sequences were one of the main highlights in the Blind Forest, and one of my favorites is the one from the Ginso Tree where you first go up the tree with intense music playing and after a cutscene there is this calm, peaceful and relaxing area to explore. I liked the improvements Ori got in the DE when compared to vanilla version (fast travel, better backtracking instead of being locked out of some areas, new areas weren't forced to progress but were quite nice anyway). Another thing I enjoyed about BF was the pacing of new abilities. I like getting new abilities, skills or other things in games but I also think if you get too many too early or too quickly then there's less excitement for later ("I already can do so much this early and have no idea what else the game could even offer" kind of thing). Bash was one of the best things about BF, and the way it could be used not just in platforming (obviously) but also defensively (deflect incoming enemies or projectiles) and offensively (throw back the projectiles or throw the enemy into dangerous hazards). I have nothing against Wisps being more combat oriented but I wouldn't have minded if it had followed the same direction as Blind Forest and had just escape sequences. However, I think the boss fights (for example, frog and spider) were fun in my opinion. I found the races a little bit weird even though one of the NPCs explained the lore behind it. To me it felt more like "here's more gameplay features and some random explanation to justify it". Well, they were fun so it's not really a complaint. Blind Forest was more linear ("go here, then here and then here" kind of thing); Wisps gave more freedom to explore multiple areas in the order you wanted after a certain point. Blind Forest is definitely shorter one, and can easily be cleared under 3 hours even without skipping content and following the intended path. However, I think it is still long enough for a first blind playthrough. Wisps is longer, and although I enjoyed seeing the hub area being improved, some of them felt a little bit unnecessary because you could find most or all of the things before finding all the seeds. Something I liked was how easy it was to return there (although, being able to warp to any of the fast travel points from anywhere was a little bit too good in my opinion; I would have been fine if it had been the same as in Blind Forest and only possible between two fast travel points). I think both of them did some things really well, and some other things well. I think Blind Forest had a better flow in progression but I also think Wisps had a lot of really neat ideas and content that improved the game and made it feel more alive. Anyway, my point is that I'd find it hard to choose but I think it's a little bit unfair to Ori 1 being overrated just because its amazing sequel released some years later. I'm actually curious if @MetroidvaniaGuru thinks Ori 1 would still be overrated if they had never released Ori 2 (or at least not yet).
So Blind Forest is overrated because of a sequel that came out later and was able to capitalize on the feedback and lessons learned from the first? Sorry bro. You must be a mushroom, because this is a shiiiiiiiiitake.
Is this the right video to ask questions about Rabi-Ribi and random metroidvania questions? Do you think its a good idea to start with Rabi Ribi as getting into metroidvania? I did play metroidvanias before like Blaster Master Zero 2(not sure if it counts but I enjoyed it), Minoria(didnt like it much but finished) and Knight Witch(ugh). I dont know where to start since some games like Hollow Knight sounds way too long for me.
I will ALWAYS talk about Rabi-Ribi ANYWHERE! I would NOT recommend Rabi-Ribi as a starter Metroidvania. It’s very difficult and plays unlike most MVs. Where to start? That’s really tough to answer. Maybe an Igavania if you can. SoTN and Aria are solid. The Shantae series is a good way to ease in, Pirate’s Curse or Seven Sirens. And Super Metroid or Metroid Fusion are great to dip your toes in.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru It's good to remember that Rabi-Ribi comes with various difficulty settings (casual, novice, normal, hard that are unlocked from the beginning in addition to hell and bunny execution that can be unlocked by playing the game) so someone less skillful could start on a lower difficulty if they aren't confident enough. Would it be a good starting point, that I cannot say, but it's a game that I would absolutely recommend checking out to anyone who is even a little bit interested in it. I didn't expect I'd be so much into bullet hell style of boss battles before I played Rabi-Ribi. The scaling of the difficulty (I started on normal, went through hard, hell and BEX) in addition to things like 0% items playthrough (on casual difficulty), searching for secrets, feeling the adrenaline in the body during the boss battles, finding new abilities and items, and much more while enjoying an amazing OST. Just thinking about Rabi-Ribi makes me want to go back to it if I didn't already have a bunch of other games I also want to play.
My hot take on Metroid Dread: It's really no worse than any other Metroid game. ALL of them are surprisingly linear when you really break things down, it's just become more & more obvious that is what's going on as time goes by, & the insert more traditional narrative elements in. But the linearity was always there, even in Super Metroid... they just hid it better. I think a lot of folks want to look at that franchise, or at least the classic entries, thru rose colored glasses... after all it helped name the genre. But really the new games apple didn't fall that far from the franchise formula tree. And... the same arguably applies to Castlevania/Bloodstained too. Every problem in ROTN is just an extension of what was in SOTN
@@MetroidvaniaGuru I thought about Metroid needing to change it's formula too. Even if Dread let us explore more it would probably just lead to more missiles. Even an energy tank wouldn't feel very satisfying. I hope the next Metroid borrows heavily from HK, Ori 2 or Ender Lilies. Not likely considering it's Nintendo..
@@gustaveriksson113 Agreed. I really liked Dread, but wish it weren't so linear. Also agreed that Nintendo won't deviate from the formula they have with Metroid. Dread was very successful in the most important category of all: Sales. If Nintendo were to compare what happened with Dread and what happened with Other M in terms of sales and game mechanics it's obvious which formula to follow. Oftentimes branching out, experimenting and trying new things with a game franchise can lead to disastrous results like Other M, while following the established formula and sticking closer to what fans liked about the franchise to begin with will lead to success like Dread. Nintendo has no reason to change the Metroid formula when the most recent game did so well. I'm not sure how much say Nintendo has compared to Mercury Steam with regards to aspects like exploration and open gameplay within Dread and whatever Metroid game comes next either.
I've been playing Metroid games since I was a kid. It's one of my favorite franchises, but I thought Dread kinda sucked. It can't hold a candle to the best entries in that series for a number of reasons.
For me the two most overrated are steamworld dig 2 and Guacamele. Every time I start them, I last about a half hour and decide I’d rather do just about anything else.
Not rough, just an opinion. We’re allowed to like different things :D For what it’s worth I agree with your analysis of games like Carrion and Mummy Demastered.
Metroid Dread is easily a better game then Hollow Knight. The play mechanics and level design are much better. I never have completed Hollow Knight because I have no way of knowing where to go due to the crappy map and the fact that I still have no idea what my characters goal is.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru I'm simply saying that Super Metroid, for example, introduces you to the statue that has all of the bosses on it fairly early so you at least have a general idea of what your ultimate goal will be. I'm not suggesting they do a bunch of hand-holding or anything but even something as cryptic at times as Elden Ring at least establishes that you are trying to become Elden Lord and you can see the Erd Tree looming in the distance. What am I even doing in Hollow Knight? I've been playing games since before the NES so its' not like I'm expecting a game to always tell me where to go. I've played through the original Zelda, Metroid, and many others that certainly aren't holding your hand. Hollow Knight makes things worse by filling the world with characters that don't seem to ever serve any purpose whatsoever.
@@davidaitken8503 I hear ya. I don’t know how far you got in HK, but it has a similar moment to SM’s boss statue. HK even marks the objectives on your map. It just takes a little while to get there.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Those heads? Yeah they are on there. I think the last power up I got was the one that let me get past those black barriers. I think the problem is the game is so long that I've probably forgotten where some important points of interest that aren't marked on the map are. I tend to jump around on lots of games at a time so there is sometimes a large time gap between plays. This is why I didn't buy Carrian despite liking the idea behind it. It is also why I don't mind Metroid Dread occasionally blocking your path until you get an item. I think many newer Metroidvania's make the mistake of being too long. I think they work best when they can be beaten in just one or two sittings like Super Metroid.
HK marks objectives? I've played it for over 700 hours along with my daughter, and the only way you have objective marked, is by you, and only if you had buy some pins. Apparently we played different games :D
Some pretty bad takes in this video. All you did was compile every popular Metroidvania from the last 5-6 years with the exception of Hollow Knight and say they are overrated because of some made up or superficial flaw based on your personal preference.
My list videos are meant to be quick and easy to digest, so I can see why you’d say my takes are superficial. But I can assure you, none of my takes are superficial or made up. Most of the games on this list I’ve either created full-length videos on, to which you are more than welcome to view to get my deeper thoughts, or I’ve spoken about them in length in my tier list videos.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Ok. I just subscribed to your channel so I'll check it out. Just as one example of what I thought was a bad take among many though is that Ori 1 is over-rated because Ori 2 is better. So what? Is Final Fantasy 6 over-rated because FF9 is better? Or the Mummy game you mention at the end is overrated because ehhh it's a licensed movie tie in game. Also so what? I haven't played that one, but if people think it's ok why does it matter if it's part of a movie franchise? I appreciate you taking time to respond and clarify.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Thanks man. So far I have been enjoying. Metroidvania is one of my favorite videogame genres. I haven't seen a lot of channels dedicated to them. I appreciate your coverage and have already learned of some new games I wouldn't have heard about otherwise. Keep doing what you're doing.
Nice video. You should do one on Ori and the Will of the Wisps! I'd also love to hear if you have any suggestions for games similar to it. I guess what I'm always looking for is something with a pleasing aesthetic, good music, and great platforming with a unique feel to it. Basically, I'm getting tired of every metroidvania game feeling like Hollow Knight, with the exact same moves and annoying mechanics like stingy saves, limited fast travel, and death penalties/corpse running. I tried Aeterna Noctis tonight because I heard great things and the game even looks and sounds a lot like Hollow Knight! Can I get some variety here!?
I think you’re the only person I’ve heard say axiom verge 2 was better than 1 From watching quite a few of your videos, I think you tend to emphasize combat and narrative and undervalue platforming and exploration in your reviews. That’s fine, we all have our own preferences among those attributes. Just pointing that out.
LOL yeah. I figured I was in the minority saying AV2 is better than AV1. That's interesting how you perceive my MV preferences. I definitely agree that Narrative is high on my list, but I'm curious why you'd think Exploration would be lower on my list. I thought I always articulated Exploration to be very important. You're correct on platforming. I'll deal with mediocre or subpar platforming as long as the MV does everything else exceptionally. I personally find MVs with a focus on platforming to have awful and time-consuming backtracking. As long as they nail speed, I'm okay. I think the Ori games do this very well.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru you’ve mentioned a distaste for the way Hollow Knight handles maps, having to explore blindly until you find Cornifer, then buy the map, then sort of manually fill out that map using the quill, and even then only when you sit at a bench. That was crazy to me as I felt that was the most exceptional method of mapping I’d ever encountered. It forces you to feel out an area off intuition and get kind of a mental map of the area until you found cornifer. Then it still doesn’t hand you the keys to the kingdom, you have to use pretty raw exploration to fill in all the pieces on your own. However, the finished map is really detailed when done. It even forces you to wear the compass at the cost of a charm notch. First time through I wore it nonstop except for hard boss grinds, but then as you get a feel for it you can keep track of your location thanks to the detail of the map, and ultimately when speed running you never get the maps because you know it all by heart. Several other games have taken similar approaches. Ori 2, for example, used a similar thing. As did a newer game I liked, Lone Fungus (though you may hate it as it is very platforming heavy). So your perspective on that is what gave me the impression you didn’t value exploration as much. But you may also just have a different idea of what optimal exploration looks like in a game. Also, I’ll admit, narrative is something I definitely don’t give enough respect. I am all about the gameplay, and if they have that I can do without any real narrative. Your videos have made for some fun and interesting content. I also love MVs so it’s cool to hear a new perspective.
@@baseballgenius3 Yup, I can see it now. I'm just a sucker for a good map as a tool. The map doesn't have to be super detailed for me. I just want it to be streamlined and helpful. One of my favorite MV maps is Ender Lilies, and that game's map is objectively the ugliest map ever conceived LOL. But as a tool, it works surprisingly well. I know where I'm at at all times, I know where paths I haven't discovered are, and it keeps track of whether I've found everything or not in a room. I understand how people might not like that as it takes away some of the game's mystique, and that's a fair point. I think I'm just at that point in life where I appreciate anything that saves me time.
A big part of it is due to when it released. In 2015, before the indie Metroidvania boom, we hadn't played many other games like Metroid. For that, Axiom Verge was very exciting to me in 2015. Had it released today (or had I played it in 2024), after playing dozens of incredible indie MV's, it would be a mediocre experience.
@@CompleteProducer84 Not at all. I've played quite a few games that were like Metroid. I just randomly bought the game because I heard it was pretty good and it cost me next to nothing and it blew me away. I've also played plenty of Metroid-likes since and none of them come close other than real Metroid games (not counting the awful Dread).
Which half? I'm always willing to discuss things. I've played so many Metroidvanias, it's not hard for me to believe I forgot to consider something about certain titles.
The main playthrough of Bloodstained is quite good. There are a couple oddities, but nothing truly terrible, and the progression was fun throughout the game. I enjoy the combination of RPG elements with Metroidvania exploration and gameplay to really double down on the sense of progression.
My choices for this list would be Salt and Sanctuary and Axiom Verge 1. The latter is just okay, and I couldn't even finish S&S; it just felt so clunky
I bought Salt and Sanctuary for $0.89 and played it for about 5 mins and saw an upgrade map with 10000 nodes and turned off the game. Too much info too quickly.
the developers for Salt and Sanctuary had previously developed a small 2D hack-and-slash series by name of The Dishwasher: Blood Samurai and Vampire Smile, and a kind of Beat-em-up RPG called Charlie Murder, before working on Salt and Sanctuary. Though they're not metroidvanias, they might be worth checking out anyway.
"Way better combat" - While playing through Ori and the Blind Forest, never once did I have a thought "Wow, I wish this had combat". I understand that addiing combat in the sequel makes the sequel stand out, but I don't think it was necessary.
Fair enough. Blind Forest has combat (homing lightning shots and deflecting things with bash), but it’s not the game’s focus. Obviously, I’m not a fan of its more passive combat, so that’s why I feel the way I feel.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Yes, I understand. Redirecting off bullets doubles as a platforming tool, and I loved how the game started out with double jump, and went to triple jump wall run glide flight projectile bounce - so I guess I immediately thought that this game is a platformer, first of all. And shooting the enemies is there just to make platforming a bit more colorful. Empty levels would be boring. It's called blind forest, not empty forest~~
Funny you think that way because even the developers thought combat was lacking as it was the only criticism they got. That's the only reason why will of the wisps exists, they wanted to perfect it and they did.
1:28 That does make them interconnected. What does it having no bosses and no alternate endings have to do with it being good or bad as a MV? No mention of movement abilities, loopback structure, sequence breaking or problem solving either. You're no guru! 2:25 Literally standard MV progression is bad now? I furt in your general direction Then you skip the actually relevant stuff again for Timespinner! I'm not watching any more of this.
Hollow Knight should have been number one. And I love AV1 way better than AV2. I like your channel for your unique opinions and also the fact that you don't have a hollow knight review yet
You migh actually be right just based on sheer numbers, but it's hard to agree. Hollow Knight isn't just one of the best MV's, it's one of my favorite video games of all time.
Blind Forest's story affected me more though and I liked it's world better and the set-piece battles (well, chase scenes) were more memorable. And I played it first of course. In Will o' the Wisps: The side quests for the meerkats are rather humdrum, the boss fights aren't as well done as you'd hope, the upgrade/combat system borrows rather blatantly from HK and the ending is rather divisive shall we say? Plus I played the first game when it was updated to perfection but maybe the second game now works as it should in all respects too. Both are must plays of course if you like MVs. PS: losing all your stuff in the Mummy was pretty annoying at times, having to beat your "ghost" (or multiple!) to get it back and first get there as well.
I didn't like the story in Blind Forest, especially the ending. "The spirit tree killed my kids for no reason, but other people have families too so I'll sacrifice myself".
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Yeah... apparently Gumo restores Naru back to life with his clan's magic containing the Spirit Tree's essence or something like that. I had to look that back up on wiki TBH... Let's perhaps agree that both games' endings leave a little to desire. :) The thing is that there are moments from the first game that are embedded in my mind like "all time classic gaming moments", like the escape from the Ginso Tree, the final chase sequence with Kuro and the amazing hellish atmosphere in the final Mount Huro level and your journey to get there... nothing in the second game quite affected me on THAT level. STILL a great game. Just wish they hired the guy who made Environmental Station Alpha to design the boss-fights for them... (I jest, sort of) Glad I found your channel as MVs are the best and Metroidvania Review channel seems defunct now. Looking forward to going through some more videos of yours! Cheers.
7:28 Bold statements, not gonna lie. I had no problem with the coat upgrade on Axion Verge, I actually liked it a lot, but I'll agree that there was a tiresome amount of unlockable weapons adding nothing to the game.
You lost your mind....metroid dread, bloodstained, axiom verge....all better than hollow knights bloated gameplay. Talk about a game i couldnt wait to be over.
Tbh Hollow Knight is the most overrated Metroivania game ever, it looked dull, samey & had weightless combat that I hated, but it's loved by many ig. Axiom Verge was cool but I agree it's kinda overrated.
Hollow Knight took me FOUR TIMES to finally get into. I hated the game so much pretty much for the reasons you stated. I genuinely didn't like its art style (and I'm still not a fan of it today). But after giving it a fair shake, I ended up enjoying it.
I would strongly argue that HK is not overrated... simply because it's just the best overall package of the genre formula - in particular re the core aspect of exploration. Most genre titles are have a strict linear progression carefully hidden by an illusion of choice, HK is one of the few that actually allows for non-linear, choice driven exploration, & does so early & often. And while you didn't enjoy the combat style, it is decently challenging & the charm/spell mechanics make it varied. Combine that with decent platforming, distinct areas (you can tell what biomes rooms in HK belong to at a glance)... it simply is the best 'archetypal' Metroidvania out there. Almost everything else tends to fall short in 1 area or another, or the devs try to mix things up by splashing in another genre's mechanics.
I think one thing some people have problem distinguishing between are "is it a good game" and "is it a good metroidvania" - The Messenger is a great example. Fantastic game, not a good MV (barely one at all actually). I think of it more as a time travel game (one of the best in my opinion, it doesn't do large-scale but uses it for level design purposes) than an MV to be honest. I'm one of those few people who actually didn't like Blind Forrest AT ALL (except for the gliding section, that was FIRE), but yeah Will of the Wisps was everything a sequel should be. I do NOT get the hype for Axiom Verge. I played it, didn't get it and honestly found it dull, completely linear (it just fools you with paths you can't go down) and predicatable with a combat system where you really didn't a choice about taking hits every now and then. I loved Bloodstrained when I first played it, it was early in my MV journey (I had played maybe at most 5 MVs), but in retrospect (and even returning to it once) it really wasn't that good. And it has a problem many Igavanias have - the difficulty can be completely broken with healing items. I disagree on the bottleneck though, the worst one is having to grind in ONE SPECIFIC WATER SCREEN to have a low percentage of a spirit (whatever they are called) and then knowing you had to use it in a really odd way to get underwater travel.
Yeah, I try to distinguish "Good Game vs Good Metroidvania" when I can. Like Metroid Dread. I love that game and think it's fantastic, but it's not a very good Metroidvania, especially when compared to its contemporaries. And you're right on with Messenger. I love that game, too, but it's not an amazing MV. The hype for Axiom Verge mainly comes from the time in which it was released. Not many MVs were being released at the time, and AV was an excellent callback to the original Metroid. For people who have nostalgia for Metroid on the NES, AV is a Godsend to them. And, yes, getting that spirit to allow you to propel yourself underwater is such a BS bottleneck.
What about Steamworld Dig 2? IGN was obsessed with it when it came out, I played it and towards the end you get a jet pack that lets you fly around the whole world, breaking whatever platforming challenge there might have been, totally ruined it for me. A 7/10 at best.
Ori and the Blind Forest is overrated and praising Will of the Wisps? Did you even play the latter? Blind Forest has its issues no doubt, many that the 2nd one improves on. But the 2nd game still suffers from many major design flaws and the story is just meh with a complete trash ending. First half of the game started out pretty fun, but halfway through it just got really boring. It's a 5/10 Metroidvania that happens to have 10/10 aesthetics. Axiom Verge 1 also doesn't belong in this list at all. It's easily one of the best games of its kind ever created. The one that needs to be put on this list is Axiom Verge 2, a game that's just complete garbage compared to the 1st game. I can only conclude you don't actually like Metroidvanias.
nothing is more overrated then hollow knight.. a lot of the time it dosn't even function like a proper Metroidvania, the last 3rd of the game dosn't even feel like a metroidvania. and just turns into like a quest game.. and it's way too long and slow for it's own good..
I think Mummy Demasterd is a "must-buy when it goes on sale" because it rarely goes on sale, and the game is good but not so great that it's worth the full price.
Timespinner's biggest feature is the RPG mechanics implementation. Once you understand the elemental atributes of the enemies the game becomes one of the most enjoyable MV. It's similar to Castlevania Portrait of Ruin in that regard. The fact you don't understand those mechanics doesn't mean the game is bad.
Who said I didn’t understand those mechanics? I have an entire analysis on this game, so I’m very familiar with it. I can confidently say the elemental attributes you’ve brought up add ZERO to the game. Know how I know? Because I tank and spanked every single boss and enemy in this game. Why add such a mechanic when you’re not incentivized to use it? That, quite literally, is the definition of a bad mechanic. Let’s hope the sequel does better.
Good list based on the ones from it I’ve played (which is half; everything but Carrion, Fist, Time Spinners, Aeterna Nocts and Ori). For sure agree on the last one. I picked up Mummy Demastered because of those top ten lists (and because it was on sale at the time) and I would definitely agree. There’s nothing major wrong with it, but at the same time it’s kinda just mid. Still definitely worth what I paid for it though. For me the most I felt disappointed in a metroidvania that was recommended high was probably Guacamelee. Lack of atmosphere, poor integration of the puzzles into level design and combat that while fun in isolation got repetitive in succession. I played it all the way through but left with no real desire to continue to the sequel.
I agree about Axiom Verge. It works great mechanically and I had great time exploring but something is wrong with the rewards in the sense that you don't feel the (more) immediate gratification as a player. Sometimes you'd spend hours trying to solve a puzzle and finally succeed, only to hit another dead end that requires another obscure solution that you might never figure out... A step forward really felt like a a step backwards and not to mention the last boss is just... so bad. Disagree about Ori though, the first one was better in terms of story cohesion even with less mechanics. The second feels so recycled and disjointed that after 4 years, I still haven't gotten over it and still feel bad when I remember what a train wreck the story was... 😥😥 I do prefer the combat of the second one though, there's no denying it's objectively a very good game.
Honestly I thought I was gonna disagree a lot with this video, but I actually agree with most of it. I like it that you are very fair on your criticism, and don't just deminish games you dislike. Loved the video
I absolutely adore Bloodstained but can acknowledge it has a ton of shortcomings. Hopefully the sequel fixes all that and is the big budget SotN we've been clamoring for since '97. I'm also in the camp Dread's a bit overrated. Got a whole video about it, in fact!
I’m glad I’m not the only one who liked Axiom Verge 2 more. I loved how exploration was at the forefront-combat is such a small part of the game. Plus, the world is very open if you’re clever with your upgrades, but it doesn’t require the hyper precise platforming that seems popular these days.
Finally a sane take on Metroid Dread. Its such a mid game, and even poorly designed if you compare it to other, much better Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight.
As much as I love Dread, I agree with everything until "When exploration is this unexciting, it doesn't matter how good your combat is"... Man, I understand the context and agree bad exploration rewards makes the game lose MV points, but not mattering how good the combat is... :)
How come Ori & The Blind Forest and Aeterna Noctis Overrated? Aeterna is more on the Underrated Side and Ori games are rightly rated and many consider it below Hollow Knight which in which I do not agree! Axiom Verge is rightly rated and is not overrated. Time Spinners is not overrated it is more of a hidden gem. Not a lot of players talks about it. I like your list but YOU HAVE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT OPINION THAN MOST PLAYERS THAT MANY PLAYERS WILL DISAGREE WITH YOU!
Too safe. I could have made the entire list with Metroid and Castlevania games because both franchises are way better regarded than any of the indies here and still have their fair share of flops. And then I'd cap it off with Hollow Knoght and Dead Cells because both are action platformers, and only tangentually metroidvanias.
Ori and the will of the wisps had performance issues and crashed for me. I only played through once and don’t remember much of anything about it except the characters. I think that is why it may be inferior to some. Perhaps I could try it again on the series s
Blasphemous could and very well should be on this list. Primarily because the exploration sucks. The vast majority of the exploration leads to lacklustre rewards or unremarkable lore trinkets. The combat and platforming are solid but have been executed better in other games. This is straight up a bad video. The Bloodstained ROTN section is very shallow. All Igavanias "suffer" from arbitrary or obscure bottle necks. While Bloodstained suffers from bloat, the gameplay is still basically the best hits from past Igavanias. SOTN required some jewel of open, echo of bat and spike breaker armour. Like none of these are abjectly terrible things if you pay attention to what the game is telling you. The genre is known for gated progression.
Most overrated, IMO 1. Symphony of the Night 2. Shadow Complex 3. Guacamelee 4. Steamworld Dig 2 Hollow Knight is the best. Astalon is the most overlooked.
I know I'm late, but man, Aeterna Noctis is amazing. I would call it a masterpiece, and I dont throw that term around lightly. I had several gaming highs beating those bosses and even getting through some of the platforming. I agree on the rest, though. Except Axiom Verge, that game was pretty dope, too.
it feels like u didnt want to commit to half the opinions here. Youd be like "its a good game but also its aggressively mid" like what does that mean what am i supposed to think when i hear that
@MetroidvaniaGuru I guess that makes more sense, if you're judging it purely from your personal definition of what makes a metroidvania. But then everyone has their own definition bc metroid and sotn are both super different games in their own ways and each MV game is going to take more from one than the other typically. for example, Afterimage is more SotN while Hollow Knight is more Metroid. If that makes sense
@@vivilover9409 Makes perfect sense. I’m actually working on something to help with the huge differences between the types of MVs that’ll help people better understand these differences so they can pick the games they wanna play in the genre a little easier.
The Messenger, despite how it was marketed, plays nothing like Ninja Gaiden. The pacing is much too slow and it focuses more on obstacle course like level design over a constant barrage of well placed enemies.
The Messenger is how I feel about a bit of the newer games, they are fine at being action platformers, but ehh at the MV part. Timespinners is just safe.
I also think Hollow Knight is way overrated. I put around 20 hours into it and never touched it again. The floaty combat and movement was off-putting to me. I also found the art style and world design to be very bland and boring. I'm glad that people like the game, but it just didn't click with me. I will still give Silksong a try when it comes out.
I don’t know about this. Loved the content, but really, you could argue that anything is overrated. Also, some of these games flew well under the radar, so I’m not sure how overrated games like FIST, Mummy, and Timespinners were. I enjoyed Timespinners for what it was, a throwback adventure that didn’t overstay its welcome. The Messenger was simply an astonishing bit of programming: 8 bit and 16 bit in one game? Sorcery! And Axiom Verge? The atmosphere, music and gameplay were unforgettable. What a game! Axiom Verge 2? Noe that was disappointing. Perhaps that would’ve been a better title for this excellent video! 😅
Blasphemous is an unorthodox MV in how it approaches deviation from the Critical Path. You can complete the entire game without getting a single traversal ability. It hides everything. I can see why people would either love it or hate it.
The ones I disagree with are F.I.S.T. , Metroid Dread and Bloodstained. I didn’t know what’s his name from Castlevania was behind it until not that long ago. Played through it back when it first came out…2019?
It's hard for me to see SOTN as overrated. I get that it's popular and EVERYONE has it as their number 1 MV of all time, and maybe it should be considered overrated, but the quality for SOTN is top notch and its presentation and fundamentals still hold up to this day. Bloodstained, on the other hand, doesn't look nearly as good as SOTN and will age poorly. That's the advantage of 2D sprites over polygons. And the 3 amateurish bottlenecks in Bloodstained are just that: amateurish. For having a legend like Iga on the team, that's incredibly disappointing.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Sotn has very medíocre level design, and outright bad design in the entirety of the inverted castle, the classicvania subweapon system is bad to manage and limiting, magic spells are too busted, lacks a lot of QoL like inventory management, and Alucard's weapons mostly hit only a small área in front of him, ost is mostly just okay with a full third of the inverted castle having one of the worst songs in the ost It is pretty to look at but imo that is always by very very far the least important aspect of any vídeo game unless it is glaringly bad such as, say, modern Pokémon. Bloodstained was pretty okay in the visual departament imo, nothing worth praise but nothing worth fussing about. The bottlenecks arent that bad either and frankly Sotn has Its own with the clock room Stuff. Both could have been handle better but I wouldnt dock even half a point on either game's score for it. Bloodstained is a worthy follow up to The DS era castlevanias, on par with them and, like them, easily superior to Sotn.
@@elizabetheguedez2475 There's not much I can disagree with here. Most the things you said about SOTN pretty much apply to Bloodstained as well, except the subweapons, but thoses were optional and/or not a big deal. I honestly never used subweapons except the clock in the clock tower. And I agree that's a BS bottleneck, but that's 1 to Bloodstained's 3 (2 if you're only counting the Critical Path). As for level design, SOTN isn't designed the greatest (jump up platforms in a vertical room much?), but biomes are largely more creative and interesting. Bloodstained took the "Super Mario Bros" approach to biome design (water level, fire level, desert level, ice level, a giant enemy level just like in Super Mario Bros 3). Then it has 3 secret labs. It's not the most inspiring of level diversity. The Mario Bros biomes are "diverse," but there's little cohesion to create an impactful or interesting atmospere. I don't understand the complaint about weapons only hitting just a small area in front of Alucard. Did Miraim have great range? She had a gun that sucked, and axes that came down in an arc, but nothing too outrageous. Unless you're taking into account her Shard Powers. Then I understand. SOTN isn't my favorite Igavania, but it's still pretty great. And I think Bloodstained's pretty good, too. I just feel SOTN lives up to its hype more so than Bloodstained lives up to its. Of course, it's fine if you disagree.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru The thing with Metroid & Castlevania both is that the newer games in the series garner criticism for problems that were in the classic games as well... and I think people shy away from actually recognizing that because they are the genre namesakes. Objectively speaking, the best-of-the-best MVs are not in either series.
I love both those games, but I wouldn’t say they’re original. Squint, and you could think you’re playing Ninja Gaiden or Metroid. You want original? Play Yoku’s Island Express or Axiom Verge 2.
Wow. Love Axiom Verge FAR better than the second one, and Bloodstained, though not as much as Order of Ecclesia. However I actually have enjoyed AfterImage maybe the most since Order was released in 2008. Just started Ender Lilies and the controls feel a little sluggish. I'm sure that will change..
The only opinion I disagree with in this video is Axiom Verge 2 being better than 1. I have played it, I have proof I did, yet I don't remember a thing about it. At least I remember the first one xP
I stopped aeterna noctis about 25 hrs in. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, I just… moved onto something else. I like a huge mv map, but it’s a delicate balancing act to lose your interest
Same exact. The first few areas are incredible (the Forge area, the Tower, and the underground area.) The later areas (Planets, that weird place with invisible platforms, the prehistoric area etc) ruined the game for me.
do ppl hate messenger that much i love messenger as a platformer well u can say the mv part is boring but except from that everything about that game is fantastic
I played both Blind Forest and Will of the Wisps back to back, BF is not perfect but it's better than WotW. More content doesn't make for a better game, the sequel completely ruins the tone, atmosphere and even Ori herself as a character, the world/level design is also ass more often than it's not. The badges are such a chore to swap all the time compared to the first game where you have all your abilities at once by the end of the game, the bosses aren't even fun. BF was made buy a small handful of people who knew what they were a doing and they did more with less whereas WotW is a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, they shouldn't have outsourced so much of the game to crappy freelance designers and writers from third world countries. WotW is prettier but that's all it has going for it, even the music is more memorable in the original.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Okay. To me at least the superiority of the second game is mostly surface level, the first game may feel somewhat lower budget but its flow and structure just feel right. And personally I liked the feeling of loneliness of it more, all those friendly NPCs in the sequel spoil the tone.
Alien: Infestation for NDS is praised by many, but I never understood what it has going for it. Combat and exploration are mediocre at best. As an MV it’s even worse as backtracking is punished by extra lives at best.
I'm a sh*tty person, i'll admit, and I'll say that I'm sorry. I disliked the video in the first 20 seconds or so just cuz of the chapter names, but i actually made it to the end and I actually agree with quite a lot of what you said. Overrated is not equal to bad, and not being a metroidvania is not equal to bad either. And you actually bring pretty valid points about every entry in the list. I loved Dread, the same way i love fusion, but they`re just linear experiences in a different way. Unlike Super Metroid, where people can say it's "Linear" because sometimes it locks you to areas forcing you to find a solution, but there's so much freedom in movement/movement techs that you can most of the time force your own way through the game. Anyways, I went back there, left a like and subscribed due to the quality of the video editing and keeping the reviews short and straight to the point.
Agree with bloodstained I don't like it at all, I guess I'm more of a metroid fan than the vania, just not good. Wrong about axiom verge though I love that game. And also don't think mummy is overrated, most people have barely heard of it, although I also didn't like it.
Don't entirely agree with this list but I can tell it was made in good faith and there definitely is a lot I DO agree with. Pretty stellar vid dude, look forward to seeing more content like this.
Symphony of the Night belongs on here. I have no idea why people love it so much, and I probably never will. The enemies are the most annoying I have ever fought. It's one of those games where getting hit makes you fly backwards and locks your controls until you hit the ground, which is bad enough by itself, and then all the enemies either spam you with projectiles or never let you get close enough to attack. The entire second half of the game feels like it was rushed out in a few hours. Literally the same world again but upside down, and with worse stat bloat.
Spaghetti is a better Metroidvania than The Messenger
Best comment! Pinned 😆
@@MetroidvaniaGuru lmao ty
It's also a better Ninja Gaiden clone as nothing about that game feels like Ninja Gaiden.
I agree, the exploration phase in spaghetti is awesome.
My biggest problem with Axium Verge is that it's a linear game, but in a spaghetti way: "Congratulation on obtaining a new power-up! Now, good luck finding the only one place it's useful in order to progress, hope you won't waste too much time on that!"
Really? It's actually pretty open if you know how to use the upgrades. The grappling hook is completely optional.
Axiom Verge needed fast travel or quicker movement, that was only thing stopping me from putting it up to very good.
the only time it feels linaer is up until you get the grappleing hook. as it closes you off in that section untul you find it.
I really didn't find it to be like that. Sure there are a few upgrades you can't get unless you have a certain upgrade... but that's par for the course, isn't it? I just find with Axiom Verge everyone gets stuck on one section (when you're stuck in absu/zi/kur), myself _definitely_ included, but after that it's smooth sailing.
Half of this comment section is just people complaining that HK isn't on the list lol.
That’s literally half my comment sections 😆
Every time I play Metroid Dread I completely destroy the “linearity” with sequence breaking. I’ve replayed the game several times and I’m still not really sure what the main path through the game is supposed to be! Give me rewarding sequence breaking over some boringly wide open “non-linear” Metroidvania any day.
Will of the wisps is of course better, but Blind forest is one the the best games anyway. I don't think it belongs to the list. Moon studios managed what many other devs don't. They learned and made a better game after already making a masterpiece.
I love it when someone understands that overrated doesn't mean mediocre. I may not agree 100% with the list but I like what you did here.
I like every single game on this list. I’ve beaten Bloodstained 4 times.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Maybe "middle of the road", "Just OK" are a bit critical for a game you played through 4 times lol. Either that or you will give an average game MUCH more time then me. (I actually agree it was pretty mid tho)
@@xSayPleasex I replayed it so much basically to see how each patched helped it out or to see the new content that was dropped. This game is still getting updates with new content, so I can see myself playing through it again as soon as the content drops LOL
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Fair enough, would you recommend another playthrough based on the updates to someone like me who only did 1 playthrough at launch?
@@xSayPleasex Maybe, but definitely not on the Switch 😆
Actually had the opposite experience with the messenger on my second play through. Felt they could have cut out the first bit, and left the second bit.
This video is high quality trollage.
Ori 2 is just too much of a rehash and a too much of we can be more like HK, that it loses some of the charm and story impact of Ori 1. If someone could only play Ori 1 or 2, I am not sure which one I would recommend, Ori 1 is more unique, more charming, and more memorable. Ori 2 is more trend chasing and rehashing, it probably would have worked better as a huge overhaul to Ori 1 than its own game, bc the premise, the story beats, everything just feels like a rehash and a bit more synthetic, like copying HK, rather than unique and genuine.
Ori 1 is definitely more unique, has more charm, and it wins out in the all important je ne sais quoi factor for me.
Your opinion of the Mummy is the same as my opinion of Shantae. Shantae is way more overrated than the Mummy. Wayforward games in general are "mid."
Shantae Risky's Revenge and Pirate's Curse are excellent. But they offer a different kind of Metroidvania style, one that you can find in the Wonder Boy franchise. They have abilities and a world to explore, but they also have mostly linear areas. The other Shantae games I do think are kinda mid or meh though. I'm happy that the Wonder Boy franchise got an amazing new entry with Monster Boy that offered me everything I wanted out of a Shantae Pirate's Curse sequel and then some (but without the sexy I guess), since I don't think Shantae will ever really deliver proper anymore on the Metroidvania front.
@TheSamuraiGoomba bro doesnt like river city girls????
What you call nonlinear, I just call "you can choose where to go and which boss you want to kill first" But I don't think it's good experience, especialy if it's not RPG. Nonlinear games are boring. Same with open world. Super Metroid was linear experience, but you can get some items early and that's makes it nonlinear, while it's not.
Dread has some good sequence breaks to break up the linearity with a little skill
Child of light is an underrated gem
I liked Child of Light. I just thought its inclusion years after relevance was odd.
I love FIST. Honestly, it's the combat. The levels are fine, the world is fine, but the combat is so fun. But I'm a souls guy so combat is really all I care about in most games
Souls games are carried by their level design. You can have the best combat system ever but a bad level design will muddy it up
its become popular for edgy people to say Symphony of the Night is overrated. Yeah, Aria of Sorrow does things better here and there, but SotN is still a complete package.
I go back and forth between the two on which is better. You can’t go wrong with either.
Finding Aria superior is fine imo because it's truly perfect in terms of exploration, map design, progression and pacing. I'm more of a SotN guy though. The amount of fun OP stuff you can get, the visuals, the characters, the music, the style - that to me is unbeatable.
Are you drunk high?
Ori 1 is much better. Platforming is the strength of ori, and they knew it. The escape sequences were awesome. Ori 2 added a lot to the game, and some is good, but if we are being honest the combat is still mediocre, and the platforming way better. Ori 1 is superior.
First off, I wish I were drunk high LOL
Second, both Ori games are fantastic. We can at least agree on that. I didn't much care for the escape sequences in Ori 1. They were a spectacule, but some were trial-and-error affairs. I've never been a fan of that kind of game design.
Something that makes Ori 2 much better is that it knows platforming is its strength and plays off it pretty early. I believe you get the bulk of platforming moves in Ori 2 within the first hour or 2 of the game. Ori 1's platforming takes much longer to get good or reach Ori 2's level.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru no offense at the drunk high thing. That’s a reference to something from streamer / UA-camr Northernlion. Just a joke for anyone who might be familiar with it.
I agree they’re both great. I felt the more traditional style boss fights of 2 didn’t live up to my expectations, and the escape sequences of 2 were shorter and simpler for the most part. The combat lacks the crisp precision of a game like hollow knight. The smooth flow feels amazing for platforming but makes it hard to design a really precisely tuned boss battles, so the combat still feels a little sloppy to me.
Ori 2 is a much more complete, well rounded game, but I still prefer to replay 1 if I have the chance.
Cheers!
@@baseballgenius3 I took no offense at all. I thought it was funny LOL
I only recently replayed Ori 1. It seems I need to replay Ori 2 to better grasp your points. Sounds like the best kind of homework :)
Let me say something too.
First of all, I think both Ori games are fantastic. In my case if someone asked me which one is better or which one I enjoyed more, I'd find it hard to choose because I liked both for a little bit different reasons. The escape sequences were one of the main highlights in the Blind Forest, and one of my favorites is the one from the Ginso Tree where you first go up the tree with intense music playing and after a cutscene there is this calm, peaceful and relaxing area to explore.
I liked the improvements Ori got in the DE when compared to vanilla version (fast travel, better backtracking instead of being locked out of some areas, new areas weren't forced to progress but were quite nice anyway). Another thing I enjoyed about BF was the pacing of new abilities. I like getting new abilities, skills or other things in games but I also think if you get too many too early or too quickly then there's less excitement for later ("I already can do so much this early and have no idea what else the game could even offer" kind of thing). Bash was one of the best things about BF, and the way it could be used not just in platforming (obviously) but also defensively (deflect incoming enemies or projectiles) and offensively (throw back the projectiles or throw the enemy into dangerous hazards).
I have nothing against Wisps being more combat oriented but I wouldn't have minded if it had followed the same direction as Blind Forest and had just escape sequences. However, I think the boss fights (for example, frog and spider) were fun in my opinion. I found the races a little bit weird even though one of the NPCs explained the lore behind it. To me it felt more like "here's more gameplay features and some random explanation to justify it". Well, they were fun so it's not really a complaint.
Blind Forest was more linear ("go here, then here and then here" kind of thing); Wisps gave more freedom to explore multiple areas in the order you wanted after a certain point. Blind Forest is definitely shorter one, and can easily be cleared under 3 hours even without skipping content and following the intended path. However, I think it is still long enough for a first blind playthrough. Wisps is longer, and although I enjoyed seeing the hub area being improved, some of them felt a little bit unnecessary because you could find most or all of the things before finding all the seeds. Something I liked was how easy it was to return there (although, being able to warp to any of the fast travel points from anywhere was a little bit too good in my opinion; I would have been fine if it had been the same as in Blind Forest and only possible between two fast travel points).
I think both of them did some things really well, and some other things well. I think Blind Forest had a better flow in progression but I also think Wisps had a lot of really neat ideas and content that improved the game and made it feel more alive. Anyway, my point is that I'd find it hard to choose but I think it's a little bit unfair to Ori 1 being overrated just because its amazing sequel released some years later. I'm actually curious if @MetroidvaniaGuru thinks Ori 1 would still be overrated if they had never released Ori 2 (or at least not yet).
So Blind Forest is overrated because of a sequel that came out later and was able to capitalize on the feedback and lessons learned from the first?
Sorry bro. You must be a mushroom, because this is a shiiiiiiiiitake.
You’re a Fungi. Thanks for the Morel support. I guess I have Shroom for improvement.
Is this the right video to ask questions about Rabi-Ribi and random metroidvania questions? Do you think its a good idea to start with Rabi Ribi as getting into metroidvania? I did play metroidvanias before like Blaster Master Zero 2(not sure if it counts but I enjoyed it), Minoria(didnt like it much but finished) and Knight Witch(ugh). I dont know where to start since some games like Hollow Knight sounds way too long for me.
I will ALWAYS talk about Rabi-Ribi ANYWHERE!
I would NOT recommend Rabi-Ribi as a starter Metroidvania. It’s very difficult and plays unlike most MVs.
Where to start? That’s really tough to answer. Maybe an Igavania if you can. SoTN and Aria are solid. The Shantae series is a good way to ease in, Pirate’s Curse or Seven Sirens. And Super Metroid or Metroid Fusion are great to dip your toes in.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru It's good to remember that Rabi-Ribi comes with various difficulty settings (casual, novice, normal, hard that are unlocked from the beginning in addition to hell and bunny execution that can be unlocked by playing the game) so someone less skillful could start on a lower difficulty if they aren't confident enough. Would it be a good starting point, that I cannot say, but it's a game that I would absolutely recommend checking out to anyone who is even a little bit interested in it. I didn't expect I'd be so much into bullet hell style of boss battles before I played Rabi-Ribi. The scaling of the difficulty (I started on normal, went through hard, hell and BEX) in addition to things like 0% items playthrough (on casual difficulty), searching for secrets, feeling the adrenaline in the body during the boss battles, finding new abilities and items, and much more while enjoying an amazing OST. Just thinking about Rabi-Ribi makes me want to go back to it if I didn't already have a bunch of other games I also want to play.
My hot take on Metroid Dread: It's really no worse than any other Metroid game. ALL of them are surprisingly linear when you really break things down, it's just become more & more obvious that is what's going on as time goes by, & the insert more traditional narrative elements in. But the linearity was always there, even in Super Metroid... they just hid it better.
I think a lot of folks want to look at that franchise, or at least the classic entries, thru rose colored glasses... after all it helped name the genre. But really the new games apple didn't fall that far from the franchise formula tree.
And... the same arguably applies to Castlevania/Bloodstained too. Every problem in ROTN is just an extension of what was in SOTN
Very insightful, and I totally agree. Metroid needs to do something with its formula if it’s gonna hang with its contemporaries.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru I thought about Metroid needing to change it's formula too. Even if Dread let us explore more it would probably just lead to more missiles. Even an energy tank wouldn't feel very satisfying. I hope the next Metroid borrows heavily from HK, Ori 2 or Ender Lilies. Not likely considering it's Nintendo..
@@gustaveriksson113 Agreed. I really liked Dread, but wish it weren't so linear. Also agreed that Nintendo won't deviate from the formula they have with Metroid. Dread was very successful in the most important category of all: Sales. If Nintendo were to compare what happened with Dread and what happened with Other M in terms of sales and game mechanics it's obvious which formula to follow. Oftentimes branching out, experimenting and trying new things with a game franchise can lead to disastrous results like Other M, while following the established formula and sticking closer to what fans liked about the franchise to begin with will lead to success like Dread. Nintendo has no reason to change the Metroid formula when the most recent game did so well. I'm not sure how much say Nintendo has compared to Mercury Steam with regards to aspects like exploration and open gameplay within Dread and whatever Metroid game comes next either.
I've been playing Metroid games since I was a kid. It's one of my favorite franchises, but I thought Dread kinda sucked. It can't hold a candle to the best entries in that series for a number of reasons.
@@AttnDefDis_ What are the best entries in your opinion. Are 3D Metroid games being counted?
Dunno man I like Dread significantly more than Hollow Knight
same but the criticisms are fair
For me the two most overrated are steamworld dig 2 and Guacamele. Every time I start them, I last about a half hour and decide I’d rather do just about anything else.
That's rough. I love both those games.
Not rough, just an opinion. We’re allowed to like different things :D For what it’s worth I agree with your analysis of games like Carrion and Mummy Demastered.
dig 2 takes a minute but it is pretty good. i could see why u wouldn’t like it though.
Metroid Dread is easily a better game then Hollow Knight. The play mechanics and level design are much better. I never have completed Hollow Knight because I have no way of knowing where to go due to the crappy map and the fact that I still have no idea what my characters goal is.
That’s a feature of Hollow Knight, not a bug (pun intended).
HK might be the most inaccessible MV ever, so I get what you’re saying.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru I'm simply saying that Super Metroid, for example, introduces you to the statue that has all of the bosses on it fairly early so you at least have a general idea of what your ultimate goal will be. I'm not suggesting they do a bunch of hand-holding or anything but even something as cryptic at times as Elden Ring at least establishes that you are trying to become Elden Lord and you can see the Erd Tree looming in the distance. What am I even doing in Hollow Knight? I've been playing games since before the NES so its' not like I'm expecting a game to always tell me where to go. I've played through the original Zelda, Metroid, and many others that certainly aren't holding your hand. Hollow Knight makes things worse by filling the world with characters that don't seem to ever serve any purpose whatsoever.
@@davidaitken8503 I hear ya. I don’t know how far you got in HK, but it has a similar moment to SM’s boss statue. HK even marks the objectives on your map. It just takes a little while to get there.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Those heads? Yeah they are on there. I think the last power up I got was the one that let me get past those black barriers. I think the problem is the game is so long that I've probably forgotten where some important points of interest that aren't marked on the map are. I tend to jump around on lots of games at a time so there is sometimes a large time gap between plays. This is why I didn't buy Carrian despite liking the idea behind it. It is also why I don't mind Metroid Dread occasionally blocking your path until you get an item. I think many newer Metroidvania's make the mistake of being too long. I think they work best when they can be beaten in just one or two sittings like Super Metroid.
HK marks objectives? I've played it for over 700 hours along with my daughter, and the only way you have objective marked, is by you, and only if you had buy some pins.
Apparently we played different games :D
Some pretty bad takes in this video. All you did was compile every popular Metroidvania from the last 5-6 years with the exception of Hollow Knight and say they are overrated because of some made up or superficial flaw based on your personal preference.
My list videos are meant to be quick and easy to digest, so I can see why you’d say my takes are superficial. But I can assure you, none of my takes are superficial or made up. Most of the games on this list I’ve either created full-length videos on, to which you are more than welcome to view to get my deeper thoughts, or I’ve spoken about them in length in my tier list videos.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Ok. I just subscribed to your channel so I'll check it out. Just as one example of what I thought was a bad take among many though is that Ori 1 is over-rated because Ori 2 is better. So what? Is Final Fantasy 6 over-rated because FF9 is better? Or the Mummy game you mention at the end is overrated because ehhh it's a licensed movie tie in game. Also so what? I haven't played that one, but if people think it's ok why does it matter if it's part of a movie franchise? I appreciate you taking time to respond and clarify.
@@acidwizard6528 Thanks for the sub! And no pressure. I hope you enjoy the content :)
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Thanks man. So far I have been enjoying. Metroidvania is one of my favorite videogame genres. I haven't seen a lot of channels dedicated to them. I appreciate your coverage and have already learned of some new games I wouldn't have heard about otherwise. Keep doing what you're doing.
Ori 1 and Axiom Verge are older than six years.
Mate, you have the production values of a 100k sub channel, not a 1k sub channel. Good luck growing your channel, the content is excellent quality
We all gotta start somewhere. Thanks for the compliment!
Nice video. You should do one on Ori and the Will of the Wisps! I'd also love to hear if you have any suggestions for games similar to it. I guess what I'm always looking for is something with a pleasing aesthetic, good music, and great platforming with a unique feel to it. Basically, I'm getting tired of every metroidvania game feeling like Hollow Knight, with the exact same moves and annoying mechanics like stingy saves, limited fast travel, and death penalties/corpse running. I tried Aeterna Noctis tonight because I heard great things and the game even looks and sounds a lot like Hollow Knight! Can I get some variety here!?
I think you’re the only person I’ve heard say axiom verge 2 was better than 1
From watching quite a few of your videos, I think you tend to emphasize combat and narrative and undervalue platforming and exploration in your reviews. That’s fine, we all have our own preferences among those attributes. Just pointing that out.
LOL yeah. I figured I was in the minority saying AV2 is better than AV1.
That's interesting how you perceive my MV preferences. I definitely agree that Narrative is high on my list, but I'm curious why you'd think Exploration would be lower on my list. I thought I always articulated Exploration to be very important.
You're correct on platforming. I'll deal with mediocre or subpar platforming as long as the MV does everything else exceptionally. I personally find MVs with a focus on platforming to have awful and time-consuming backtracking. As long as they nail speed, I'm okay. I think the Ori games do this very well.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru you’ve mentioned a distaste for the way Hollow Knight handles maps, having to explore blindly until you find Cornifer, then buy the map, then sort of manually fill out that map using the quill, and even then only when you sit at a bench.
That was crazy to me as I felt that was the most exceptional method of mapping I’d ever encountered. It forces you to feel out an area off intuition and get kind of a mental map of the area until you found cornifer. Then it still doesn’t hand you the keys to the kingdom, you have to use pretty raw exploration to fill in all the pieces on your own. However, the finished map is really detailed when done. It even forces you to wear the compass at the cost of a charm notch. First time through I wore it nonstop except for hard boss grinds, but then as you get a feel for it you can keep track of your location thanks to the detail of the map, and ultimately when speed running you never get the maps because you know it all by heart.
Several other games have taken similar approaches. Ori 2, for example, used a similar thing. As did a newer game I liked, Lone Fungus (though you may hate it as it is very platforming heavy).
So your perspective on that is what gave me the impression you didn’t value exploration as much. But you may also just have a different idea of what optimal exploration looks like in a game.
Also, I’ll admit, narrative is something I definitely don’t give enough respect. I am all about the gameplay, and if they have that I can do without any real narrative.
Your videos have made for some fun and interesting content. I also love MVs so it’s cool to hear a new perspective.
@@baseballgenius3 Yup, I can see it now. I'm just a sucker for a good map as a tool. The map doesn't have to be super detailed for me. I just want it to be streamlined and helpful. One of my favorite MV maps is Ender Lilies, and that game's map is objectively the ugliest map ever conceived LOL. But as a tool, it works surprisingly well. I know where I'm at at all times, I know where paths I haven't discovered are, and it keeps track of whether I've found everything or not in a room. I understand how people might not like that as it takes away some of the game's mystique, and that's a fair point.
I think I'm just at that point in life where I appreciate anything that saves me time.
Thank you! I never understood the fawning over Axiom Verge, it was very forgettable.
A big part of it is due to when it released. In 2015, before the indie Metroidvania boom, we hadn't played many other games like Metroid. For that, Axiom Verge was very exciting to me in 2015. Had it released today (or had I played it in 2024), after playing dozens of incredible indie MV's, it would be a mediocre experience.
@@CompleteProducer84 Not at all. I've played quite a few games that were like Metroid. I just randomly bought the game because I heard it was pretty good and it cost me next to nothing and it blew me away. I've also played plenty of Metroid-likes since and none of them come close other than real Metroid games (not counting the awful Dread).
Half of that list ruined your credibility.
Which half? I'm always willing to discuss things. I've played so many Metroidvanias, it's not hard for me to believe I forgot to consider something about certain titles.
The main playthrough of Bloodstained is quite good. There are a couple oddities, but nothing truly terrible, and the progression was fun throughout the game. I enjoy the combination of RPG elements with Metroidvania exploration and gameplay to really double down on the sense of progression.
Are you kidding? Game is awesome.
My choices for this list would be Salt and Sanctuary and Axiom Verge 1. The latter is just okay, and I couldn't even finish S&S; it just felt so clunky
I love S&S. But I totally understand The clunkiness.
I bought Salt and Sanctuary for $0.89 and played it for about 5 mins and saw an upgrade map with 10000 nodes and turned off the game. Too much info too quickly.
the developers for Salt and Sanctuary had previously developed a small 2D hack-and-slash series by name of The Dishwasher: Blood Samurai and Vampire Smile, and a kind of Beat-em-up RPG called Charlie Murder, before working on Salt and Sanctuary. Though they're not metroidvanias, they might be worth checking out anyway.
"Way better combat" - While playing through Ori and the Blind Forest, never once did I have a thought "Wow, I wish this had combat". I understand that addiing combat in the sequel makes the sequel stand out, but I don't think it was necessary.
Fair enough. Blind Forest has combat (homing lightning shots and deflecting things with bash), but it’s not the game’s focus. Obviously, I’m not a fan of its more passive combat, so that’s why I feel the way I feel.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Yes, I understand. Redirecting off bullets doubles as a platforming tool, and I loved how the game started out with double jump, and went to triple jump wall run glide flight projectile bounce - so I guess I immediately thought that this game is a platformer, first of all. And shooting the enemies is there just to make platforming a bit more colorful. Empty levels would be boring. It's called blind forest, not empty forest~~
@@ingvarsuigin609 😂
We can both agree the platforming in Ori is top notch. Bash is such a fun move.
Funny you think that way because even the developers thought combat was lacking as it was the only criticism they got. That's the only reason why will of the wisps exists, they wanted to perfect it and they did.
How did you forget about Hollow Knight?
1:28 That does make them interconnected.
What does it having no bosses and no alternate endings have to do with it being good or bad as a MV? No mention of movement abilities, loopback structure, sequence breaking or problem solving either. You're no guru!
2:25 Literally standard MV progression is bad now? I furt in your general direction
Then you skip the actually relevant stuff again for Timespinner! I'm not watching any more of this.
Hollow Knight should have been number one. And I love AV1 way better than AV2. I like your channel for your unique opinions and also the fact that you don't have a hollow knight review yet
Haters gonna hate :P
You migh actually be right just based on sheer numbers, but it's hard to agree. Hollow Knight isn't just one of the best MV's, it's one of my favorite video games of all time.
F.I.S.T is an ugly game???!!!!That was a truly unexpected opinion!I found this game to have incredible art design.
In the game’s defense, I played it on Switch. Everything is uglier on Switch 😆
Hollow Knight is the number 1 most comically over rated Metroidvania and its not even close
you forgot to put hollow knight at the #1 slot
hollow knight is peak
Beautifully designed, kinda deep combat, so much content for the price
@@mcbill7352 sorry i don't think a series of grey caves minus the memorable metroid music is peak beauty....
@@iamLI3Midtroid
@@panthekirb7561 lolololol
@@mcbill7352 hollow Knight is the worst I've ever played
Blind Forest's story affected me more though and I liked it's world better and the set-piece battles (well, chase scenes) were more memorable. And I played it first of course.
In Will o' the Wisps: The side quests for the meerkats are rather humdrum, the boss fights aren't as well done as you'd hope, the upgrade/combat system borrows rather blatantly from HK and the ending is rather divisive shall we say? Plus I played the first game when it was updated to perfection but maybe the second game now works as it should in all respects too.
Both are must plays of course if you like MVs.
PS: losing all your stuff in the Mummy was pretty annoying at times, having to beat your "ghost" (or multiple!) to get it back and first get there as well.
I didn't like the story in Blind Forest, especially the ending. "The spirit tree killed my kids for no reason, but other people have families too so I'll sacrifice myself".
Blind Forest's story affected me more, too. My only issue with it is Naru coming back to life. Or did she not die in the first place? It's weird.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Yeah... apparently Gumo restores Naru back to life with his clan's magic containing the Spirit Tree's essence or something like that. I had to look that back up on wiki TBH...
Let's perhaps agree that both games' endings leave a little to desire. :)
The thing is that there are moments from the first game that are embedded in my mind like "all time classic gaming moments", like the escape from the Ginso Tree, the final chase sequence with Kuro and the amazing hellish atmosphere in the final Mount Huro level and your journey to get there... nothing in the second game quite affected me on THAT level.
STILL a great game. Just wish they hired the guy who made Environmental Station Alpha to design the boss-fights for them... (I jest, sort of)
Glad I found your channel as MVs are the best and Metroidvania Review channel seems defunct now. Looking forward to going through some more videos of yours! Cheers.
hurdur charms are exclusive to HK and anyone with a similar system is a RIPOFF AND THRASH hurdur
Ori Will of the Wisps is my favorite Metroidvania. Hope they make another one!!!!
7:28
Bold statements, not gonna lie. I had no problem with the coat upgrade on Axion Verge, I actually liked it a lot, but I'll agree that there was a tiresome amount of unlockable weapons adding nothing to the game.
I think I was a little rough on AV. It's a good game.
when number 1 is a game i never heard of
messenger is heartbreaking with the 100% constant reddit meta humor writing and the metroidvania shift. I loved the 1st half of the game
I do not like how Carrion forces you to play parts as a human. The absolute slog kills my want to ever play it again.
Bloodstained is not overrated. Blasphemous is.
Well this is…..a take.
Number 1 overrated is Hollow Knight.
You lost your mind....metroid dread, bloodstained, axiom verge....all better than hollow knights bloated gameplay. Talk about a game i couldnt wait to be over.
Tbh Hollow Knight is the most overrated Metroivania game ever, it looked dull, samey & had weightless combat that I hated, but it's loved by many ig.
Axiom Verge was cool but I agree it's kinda overrated.
Hollow Knight took me FOUR TIMES to finally get into. I hated the game so much pretty much for the reasons you stated. I genuinely didn't like its art style (and I'm still not a fan of it today). But after giving it a fair shake, I ended up enjoying it.
I would strongly argue that HK is not overrated... simply because it's just the best overall package of the genre formula - in particular re the core aspect of exploration. Most genre titles are have a strict linear progression carefully hidden by an illusion of choice, HK is one of the few that actually allows for non-linear, choice driven exploration, & does so early & often. And while you didn't enjoy the combat style, it is decently challenging & the charm/spell mechanics make it varied. Combine that with decent platforming, distinct areas (you can tell what biomes rooms in HK belong to at a glance)... it simply is the best 'archetypal' Metroidvania out there. Almost everything else tends to fall short in 1 area or another, or the devs try to mix things up by splashing in another genre's mechanics.
I think one thing some people have problem distinguishing between are "is it a good game" and "is it a good metroidvania" - The Messenger is a great example. Fantastic game, not a good MV (barely one at all actually). I think of it more as a time travel game (one of the best in my opinion, it doesn't do large-scale but uses it for level design purposes) than an MV to be honest.
I'm one of those few people who actually didn't like Blind Forrest AT ALL (except for the gliding section, that was FIRE), but yeah Will of the Wisps was everything a sequel should be.
I do NOT get the hype for Axiom Verge. I played it, didn't get it and honestly found it dull, completely linear (it just fools you with paths you can't go down) and predicatable with a combat system where you really didn't a choice about taking hits every now and then.
I loved Bloodstrained when I first played it, it was early in my MV journey (I had played maybe at most 5 MVs), but in retrospect (and even returning to it once) it really wasn't that good. And it has a problem many Igavanias have - the difficulty can be completely broken with healing items. I disagree on the bottleneck though, the worst one is having to grind in ONE SPECIFIC WATER SCREEN to have a low percentage of a spirit (whatever they are called) and then knowing you had to use it in a really odd way to get underwater travel.
Yeah, I try to distinguish "Good Game vs Good Metroidvania" when I can. Like Metroid Dread. I love that game and think it's fantastic, but it's not a very good Metroidvania, especially when compared to its contemporaries. And you're right on with Messenger. I love that game, too, but it's not an amazing MV.
The hype for Axiom Verge mainly comes from the time in which it was released. Not many MVs were being released at the time, and AV was an excellent callback to the original Metroid. For people who have nostalgia for Metroid on the NES, AV is a Godsend to them.
And, yes, getting that spirit to allow you to propel yourself underwater is such a BS bottleneck.
Why god, why can't we have just fun with all of these games. Why criticize everything - will never understand.
If you are that afraid of someone disliking your favorite games, you shouldn't come here to begin with and stay in your bubble.
Re: #9, if everyone you know disliked it, how is it overrated?
What about Steamworld Dig 2? IGN was obsessed with it when it came out, I played it and towards the end you get a jet pack that lets you fly around the whole world, breaking whatever platforming challenge there might have been, totally ruined it for me. A 7/10 at best.
where's Lone Fungus ?
For me the most overrated is Hollow Knight, by far. Game is B+ Tier at max.
Ori and the Blind Forest is overrated and praising Will of the Wisps? Did you even play the latter? Blind Forest has its issues no doubt, many that the 2nd one improves on. But the 2nd game still suffers from many major design flaws and the story is just meh with a complete trash ending. First half of the game started out pretty fun, but halfway through it just got really boring. It's a 5/10 Metroidvania that happens to have 10/10 aesthetics.
Axiom Verge 1 also doesn't belong in this list at all. It's easily one of the best games of its kind ever created. The one that needs to be put on this list is Axiom Verge 2, a game that's just complete garbage compared to the 1st game.
I can only conclude you don't actually like Metroidvanias.
nothing is more overrated then hollow knight.. a lot of the time it dosn't even function like a proper Metroidvania, the last 3rd of the game dosn't even feel like a metroidvania. and just turns into like a quest game.. and it's way too long and slow for it's own good..
Right? It's such an eyesore too, the characters aren't expressive and everything looks the same.
The game isn't for everyone. And it is really hard to start.
Now don't be polite, tell us how you really feel..
I think Mummy Demasterd is a "must-buy when it goes on sale" because it rarely goes on sale, and the game is good but not so great that it's worth the full price.
Couldn’t have said it better myself
Timespinner's biggest feature is the RPG mechanics implementation. Once you understand the elemental atributes of the enemies the game becomes one of the most enjoyable MV. It's similar to Castlevania Portrait of Ruin in that regard. The fact you don't understand those mechanics doesn't mean the game is bad.
Who said I didn’t understand those mechanics? I have an entire analysis on this game, so I’m very familiar with it. I can confidently say the elemental attributes you’ve brought up add ZERO to the game. Know how I know? Because I tank and spanked every single boss and enemy in this game. Why add such a mechanic when you’re not incentivized to use it?
That, quite literally, is the definition of a bad mechanic.
Let’s hope the sequel does better.
Game is insanely easy on normal. On Hard its an entirely different beast all together. Extremely difficult.
Good list based on the ones from it I’ve played (which is half; everything but Carrion, Fist, Time Spinners, Aeterna Nocts and Ori). For sure agree on the last one. I picked up Mummy Demastered because of those top ten lists (and because it was on sale at the time) and I would definitely agree. There’s nothing major wrong with it, but at the same time it’s kinda just mid. Still definitely worth what I paid for it though.
For me the most I felt disappointed in a metroidvania that was recommended high was probably Guacamelee. Lack of atmosphere, poor integration of the puzzles into level design and combat that while fun in isolation got repetitive in succession. I played it all the way through but left with no real desire to continue to the sequel.
I liked guacamelee for being short, but they could not find a balance between fucking hard platforming sections and an enjoyable combat system.
I agree about Axiom Verge. It works great mechanically and I had great time exploring but something is wrong with the rewards in the sense that you don't feel the (more) immediate gratification as a player. Sometimes you'd spend hours trying to solve a puzzle and finally succeed, only to hit another dead end that requires another obscure solution that you might never figure out... A step forward really felt like a a step backwards and not to mention the last boss is just... so bad.
Disagree about Ori though, the first one was better in terms of story cohesion even with less mechanics. The second feels so recycled and disjointed that after 4 years, I still haven't gotten over it and still feel bad when I remember what a train wreck the story was... 😥😥 I do prefer the combat of the second one though, there's no denying it's objectively a very good game.
hollow knight is a soulslike not metroidvania, all soulslikes are garbage
You don't like the term Soulsvania? That's how I describe HK.
Honestly I thought I was gonna disagree a lot with this video, but I actually agree with most of it. I like it that you are very fair on your criticism, and don't just deminish games you dislike. Loved the video
I absolutely adore Bloodstained but can acknowledge it has a ton of shortcomings. Hopefully the sequel fixes all that and is the big budget SotN we've been clamoring for since '97.
I'm also in the camp Dread's a bit overrated. Got a whole video about it, in fact!
I know what I’m watching this weekend 😆
I’m glad I’m not the only one who liked Axiom Verge 2 more. I loved how exploration was at the forefront-combat is such a small part of the game. Plus, the world is very open if you’re clever with your upgrades, but it doesn’t require the hyper precise platforming that seems popular these days.
Finally a sane take on Metroid Dread. Its such a mid game, and even poorly designed if you compare it to other, much better Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight.
As much as I love Dread, I agree with everything until "When exploration is this unexciting, it doesn't matter how good your combat is"... Man, I understand the context and agree bad exploration rewards makes the game lose MV points, but not mattering how good the combat is... :)
You're take on Axiom Verge is trash.
Bloodstained and The Messenger should be at the top of this list
How come Ori & The Blind Forest and Aeterna Noctis Overrated? Aeterna is more on the Underrated Side and Ori games are rightly rated and many consider it below Hollow Knight which in which I do not agree! Axiom Verge is rightly rated and is not overrated. Time Spinners is not overrated it is more of a hidden gem. Not a lot of players talks about it. I like your list but YOU HAVE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT OPINION THAN MOST PLAYERS THAT MANY PLAYERS WILL DISAGREE WITH YOU!
Too safe. I could have made the entire list with Metroid and Castlevania games because both franchises are way better regarded than any of the indies here and still have their fair share of flops. And then I'd cap it off with Hollow Knoght and Dead Cells because both are action platformers, and only tangentually metroidvanias.
Ori and the will of the wisps had performance issues and crashed for me. I only played through once and don’t remember much of anything about it except the characters. I think that is why it may be inferior to some. Perhaps I could try it again on the series s
Blasphemous could and very well should be on this list. Primarily because the exploration sucks. The vast majority of the exploration leads to lacklustre rewards or unremarkable lore trinkets. The combat and platforming are solid but have been executed better in other games.
This is straight up a bad video. The Bloodstained ROTN section is very shallow. All Igavanias "suffer" from arbitrary or obscure bottle necks. While Bloodstained suffers from bloat, the gameplay is still basically the best hits from past Igavanias. SOTN required some jewel of open, echo of bat and spike breaker armour. Like none of these are abjectly terrible things if you pay attention to what the game is telling you. The genre is known for gated progression.
Most overrated, IMO
1. Symphony of the Night
2. Shadow Complex
3. Guacamelee
4. Steamworld Dig 2
Hollow Knight is the best. Astalon is the most overlooked.
I know I'm late, but man, Aeterna Noctis is amazing. I would call it a masterpiece, and I dont throw that term around lightly. I had several gaming highs beating those bosses and even getting through some of the platforming. I agree on the rest, though. Except Axiom Verge, that game was pretty dope, too.
it feels like u didnt want to commit to half the opinions here. Youd be like "its a good game but also its aggressively mid"
like what does that mean what am i supposed to think when i hear that
Essentially, I was trying to say something can be a good game but a mid MV experience. I think I explicitly express this in the Dread entry.
@MetroidvaniaGuru I guess that makes more sense, if you're judging it purely from your personal definition of what makes a metroidvania. But then everyone has their own definition bc metroid and sotn are both super different games in their own ways and each MV game is going to take more from one than the other typically. for example, Afterimage is more SotN while Hollow Knight is more Metroid. If that makes sense
@@vivilover9409 Makes perfect sense. I’m actually working on something to help with the huge differences between the types of MVs that’ll help people better understand these differences so they can pick the games they wanna play in the genre a little easier.
The Messenger, despite how it was marketed, plays nothing like Ninja Gaiden. The pacing is much too slow and it focuses more on obstacle course like level design over a constant barrage of well placed enemies.
Hollow Knight is super overrated
The Messenger is how I feel about a bit of the newer games, they are fine at being action platformers, but ehh at the MV part. Timespinners is just safe.
Why is hollow knight not here? That game is trash.
I DISAGREE WITH THIS OVERRATED LIST! Hollow Knight is the one that is SUPER OVERRATED!
I do not agree with your Hollow Knight opinion. 😊
I also think Hollow Knight is way overrated. I put around 20 hours into it and never touched it again. The floaty combat and movement was off-putting to me. I also found the art style and world design to be very bland and boring. I'm glad that people like the game, but it just didn't click with me. I will still give Silksong a try when it comes out.
@@ikmor
It is the truth not an opinion.
Well, I hope you still enjoyed watching it.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru
Yeah right I did enjoy watching it. Sounds sarcastic but it is enjoyable! Can I make a request?
I don’t know about this. Loved the content, but really, you could argue that anything is overrated. Also, some of these games flew well under the radar, so I’m not sure how overrated games like FIST, Mummy, and Timespinners were. I enjoyed Timespinners for what it was, a throwback adventure that didn’t overstay its welcome. The Messenger was simply an astonishing bit of programming: 8 bit and 16 bit in one game? Sorcery! And Axiom Verge? The atmosphere, music and gameplay were unforgettable. What a game! Axiom Verge 2? Noe that was disappointing. Perhaps that would’ve been a better title for this excellent video! 😅
How is blasphemous not here? it's the most overrated boring MV ever, it's terrible and everyone says it's incredible.
Blasphemous is an unorthodox MV in how it approaches deviation from the Critical Path. You can complete the entire game without getting a single traversal ability. It hides everything. I can see why people would either love it or hate it.
The ones I disagree with are F.I.S.T. , Metroid Dread and Bloodstained. I didn’t know what’s his name from Castlevania was behind it until not that long ago. Played through it back when it first came out…2019?
Bloodstained at second is bad enough but no Midphony of the Night on first? Tragic
It's hard for me to see SOTN as overrated. I get that it's popular and EVERYONE has it as their number 1 MV of all time, and maybe it should be considered overrated, but the quality for SOTN is top notch and its presentation and fundamentals still hold up to this day.
Bloodstained, on the other hand, doesn't look nearly as good as SOTN and will age poorly. That's the advantage of 2D sprites over polygons. And the 3 amateurish bottlenecks in Bloodstained are just that: amateurish. For having a legend like Iga on the team, that's incredibly disappointing.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Sotn has very medíocre level design, and outright bad design in the entirety of the inverted castle, the classicvania subweapon system is bad to manage and limiting, magic spells are too busted, lacks a lot of QoL like inventory management, and Alucard's weapons mostly hit only a small área in front of him, ost is mostly just okay with a full third of the inverted castle having one of the worst songs in the ost
It is pretty to look at but imo that is always by very very far the least important aspect of any vídeo game unless it is glaringly bad such as, say, modern Pokémon. Bloodstained was pretty okay in the visual departament imo, nothing worth praise but nothing worth fussing about.
The bottlenecks arent that bad either and frankly Sotn has Its own with the clock room Stuff. Both could have been handle better but I wouldnt dock even half a point on either game's score for it.
Bloodstained is a worthy follow up to The DS era castlevanias, on par with them and, like them, easily superior to Sotn.
@@elizabetheguedez2475 There's not much I can disagree with here. Most the things you said about SOTN pretty much apply to Bloodstained as well, except the subweapons, but thoses were optional and/or not a big deal. I honestly never used subweapons except the clock in the clock tower. And I agree that's a BS bottleneck, but that's 1 to Bloodstained's 3 (2 if you're only counting the Critical Path).
As for level design, SOTN isn't designed the greatest (jump up platforms in a vertical room much?), but biomes are largely more creative and interesting. Bloodstained took the "Super Mario Bros" approach to biome design (water level, fire level, desert level, ice level, a giant enemy level just like in Super Mario Bros 3). Then it has 3 secret labs. It's not the most inspiring of level diversity. The Mario Bros biomes are "diverse," but there's little cohesion to create an impactful or interesting atmospere.
I don't understand the complaint about weapons only hitting just a small area in front of Alucard. Did Miraim have great range? She had a gun that sucked, and axes that came down in an arc, but nothing too outrageous. Unless you're taking into account her Shard Powers. Then I understand.
SOTN isn't my favorite Igavania, but it's still pretty great. And I think Bloodstained's pretty good, too. I just feel SOTN lives up to its hype more so than Bloodstained lives up to its. Of course, it's fine if you disagree.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru The thing with Metroid & Castlevania both is that the newer games in the series garner criticism for problems that were in the classic games as well... and I think people shy away from actually recognizing that because they are the genre namesakes. Objectively speaking, the best-of-the-best MVs are not in either series.
Hating on The Messenger and Axiom Verge just tells me you dislike balls to the wall originality
I love both those games, but I wouldn’t say they’re original. Squint, and you could think you’re playing Ninja Gaiden or Metroid.
You want original? Play Yoku’s Island Express or Axiom Verge 2.
Underrated Metroidvania: Wario Land 3
Wow. Love Axiom Verge FAR better than the second one, and Bloodstained, though not as much as Order of Ecclesia. However I actually have enjoyed AfterImage maybe the most since Order was released in 2008. Just started Ender Lilies and the controls feel a little sluggish. I'm sure that will change..
The only opinion I disagree with in this video is Axiom Verge 2 being better than 1.
I have played it, I have proof I did, yet I don't remember a thing about it. At least I remember the first one xP
I stopped aeterna noctis about 25 hrs in. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, I just… moved onto something else. I like a huge mv map, but it’s a delicate balancing act to lose your interest
Same exact. The first few areas are incredible (the Forge area, the Tower, and the underground area.) The later areas (Planets, that weird place with invisible platforms, the prehistoric area etc) ruined the game for me.
do ppl hate messenger that much i love messenger as a platformer well u can say the mv part is boring but except from that everything about that game is fantastic
I played both Blind Forest and Will of the Wisps back to back, BF is not perfect but it's better than WotW. More content doesn't make for a better game, the sequel completely ruins the tone, atmosphere and even Ori herself as a character, the world/level design is also ass more often than it's not. The badges are such a chore to swap all the time compared to the first game where you have all your abilities at once by the end of the game, the bosses aren't even fun. BF was made buy a small handful of people who knew what they were a doing and they did more with less whereas WotW is a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, they shouldn't have outsourced so much of the game to crappy freelance designers and writers from third world countries. WotW is prettier but that's all it has going for it, even the music is more memorable in the original.
I plan on replaying Wisps soon. I'm gonna take your criticisms and use it as a guide to see where I stand on it afterwards.
@@MetroidvaniaGuru Okay. To me at least the superiority of the second game is mostly surface level, the first game may feel somewhat lower budget but its flow and structure just feel right. And personally I liked the feeling of loneliness of it more, all those friendly NPCs in the sequel spoil the tone.
Ori and Metroid dread are overrated?! What a violation. And u were doing so well with the list up until that point
Alien: Infestation for NDS is praised by many, but I never understood what it has going for
it. Combat and exploration are mediocre at best. As an MV it’s even worse as backtracking is punished by extra lives at best.
Yup. I thought it was fine back on launch, but nothing super special. Still kinda fun.
Thank God for hollow knight not being on this list i love hollow knight please team cherry give me some news on silksong
Bloodstained is kinda underrated for me, it was great.
I'm a sh*tty person, i'll admit, and I'll say that I'm sorry.
I disliked the video in the first 20 seconds or so just cuz of the chapter names, but i actually made it to the end and I actually agree with quite a lot of what you said.
Overrated is not equal to bad, and not being a metroidvania is not equal to bad either. And you actually bring pretty valid points about every entry in the list.
I loved Dread, the same way i love fusion, but they`re just linear experiences in a different way. Unlike Super Metroid, where people can say it's "Linear" because sometimes it locks you to areas forcing you to find a solution, but there's so much freedom in movement/movement techs that you can most of the time force your own way through the game.
Anyways, I went back there, left a like and subscribed due to the quality of the video editing and keeping the reviews short and straight to the point.
Agree with bloodstained I don't like it at all, I guess I'm more of a metroid fan than the vania, just not good. Wrong about axiom verge though I love that game. And also don't think mummy is overrated, most people have barely heard of it, although I also didn't like it.
I mean I’m more of a vania fan than a Metroid, but that game still looks like total ass.
Agreed with Dread it was hugely linear which sucked
Before I heard your explanation about why I was like: "Metroid Dread? WTF? This guy is crazy!" 😂
Don't entirely agree with this list but I can tell it was made in good faith and there definitely is a lot I DO agree with. Pretty stellar vid dude, look forward to seeing more content like this.
Symphony of the Night belongs on here. I have no idea why people love it so much, and I probably never will. The enemies are the most annoying I have ever fought. It's one of those games where getting hit makes you fly backwards and locks your controls until you hit the ground, which is bad enough by itself, and then all the enemies either spam you with projectiles or never let you get close enough to attack. The entire second half of the game feels like it was rushed out in a few hours. Literally the same world again but upside down, and with worse stat bloat.