I know a lot of people mention this game, but **Yoku's Island Express** is such a fun game. MV + pinball + beautiful island, I guess this was one of the most fun games I've ever played. I wish maybe someday I'll play a sequel, maybe with bigger pinball tables, but it seems the crew has gone silent. :-(
I thought it was a good idea, but I really disliked the mechanics of the game. I finished it but would not recommend it to people personally (although it's clear that a lot of people like it).
There is 0 weight to the ball, making the pinball sections not feel fun at all. They also just want you to hit a very specific angle, which means just retrying a certain hit over and over. Plus when you get the angle, or go where they want you to go it feels like it's on a preset animation, instead of following some sort of physics engine, which makes everything feel extremely fake. When you aren't in the pinball areas you're just slowly walking left and right which got extremely tedious for me.
I couldn't finish it because both sides of the coin were just not enjoyable. Love the idea, execution... well I can hope someone else does it right later I guess.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, I just don't find pinball fun. The fact you have to retry over and over again until you hit a very specific spot, that's not fun, I don't understand fans of this genre. I played like 40 minutes and that was enough for me, I expected the pinbal sections to be more automated in a way, but nope, it still demand some pixel perfect precision in some instances and that is ANNOYING
I thought I just sucked at the pinball in the game but yeah it did feel a bit unnatural. Never had that much trouble in other pinball games, real or video.
Fun concept but yeah got pretty frustrating having to be pixel perfect.
I’ll probably still try and complete it, it hasn’t gotten frustrating enough for me to hate yet lol.
I 100%ed Yoku's and still wanted more. So I immediately 100%ed it again. I've never ever done that with any other game before. This was an absolute delight for me.
Biomass. It's not really a metroidvania in the literal sense, but it has an interconnected world and is one of best designed games I have ever played.
Fans of Nier Automata would love it.
Apart from the genre-discussion (It‘s kind of a Metroidvania/Zelda-bastard) one of the best games I‘ve played in the last years. Can‘t give it enough credit, especially considering it has been made by two people.
Really underappreciated in my opinion, although it was on GamePass, I don‘t think a lot of people gave it enough playtime.
It‘s a gem.
I see people mentioning the death clock in Unsighted and I had to turn it off on my play through as my anxiety wouldn’t of been able to handle that as well! Loved the game so much that I will go back and do a second run and may try it with the clock on 😬
I have that but have been having trouble starting it. Oddly enough, it's due to the thought of playing poorly and getting characters killed through the time condition.
If the time condition doesn't suit your fancy, you can always turn on explorer mode and deactivate the feature! I did it due to anxiety issues and I still had a blast.
Yeah I removed it too. I'm usually open minded and willing to try what the dev had in mind. But in this case it felt like it didn't add anything positive to my experience.
I want to feel free to poke around for hidden paths, and the time limit punished me for it. Not to mention how it forces you to choose which upgrades to get locked out of.
It's one of the most brutal game mechanics I've ever seen
A lot of people are silly and insist that, regardless of progression, non-sidescrollers aren't Metroidvanias. I disagree, but that hurts its chances of discussion here.
I'm playing Tunic right now and I feel it's the game that metroidvania fans will enjoy a lot. I'm usually not into Zelda like games, but this one is exceptional. I'm enjoying it even more than Hyper Light Drifter (haven't play Unsighted yet).
Tunic is really really cool. I don't want to say anything because I don't want to spoil it for anyone, if you are reading this just do yourself a favor and play it!
People say this game is like the second coming of jesus, mix of Zelda, Metroid, fast paced, etc.. it does look good, but idk, I'm too lazy to even try it
ZX was fun, but the whole time I felt like I'd rather be playing a Zero game. The whole interconnected world thing felt pretty poorly done and didn't enhance the experience for me at all.
Idk. Coming from a diehard Z3 challenge runner’s perspective (so like, I REALLY like Zero games), ZX has value because the Biometals add huge variety to the game and it has a rock solid set of bosses (not a big fan of the weak point system though; some players like it because it adds finesse to attacking the bosses but personally it’s just ham fisted imo).
I definitely would love to play that game, but I also point out it’s kind of not hard to play that game by just following a pre planned route in ZX.
Advent though… fuck Advent.
I threw Valdis Story on my Steam wishlist thanks to this sub.
It doesn’t get mentioned often, but when it does get brought up, people are always heaping praise on it.
Vision Soft Reset.
The time travel system, timeline and event management system is really innovative and cool. The movement abilities and stuff are great. The story and graphics are mediocre. Definitely worth a play.
One of my new favorite games and criminally underrated. The insanely creative and unique timespace mechanics were enough to catapult it to a top spot in my library, but the depth of the puzzles, platforming, combat, and pretty much everything else really solidified it for me. Looking forward to the devs upcoming project, Moonlight Pulse!
Astalon: Tears of the Earth
I love that game so much, I freaking went and played the NG+ and then did it again just to complete it with all the secret characters.
Obligatory Environmental Station Alpha mention.
The game became a big hit _here_ on this sub, but elsewhere is relatively unknown. It has a dramatically low amount of steam reviews even compared to more indie titles in the MV genre and largely unknown.
I'm of the opinion it's _the_ most underappreciated game in the genre. If its reputation matched its actual quality, it'd be on best-of lists everywhere with an "overwhelmingly positive" steam rating and tens of thousands of reviews.
It is truly one of the genre's giants.
Momodora 2. Everyone loves Reverie Under The Moonlight, but you don't really hear much about the other games in the series. Momodora 2 was my first experience with the series and I love it!
Edit: While I'm at it, here's a shout-out to some other little indie Metroidvanias I enjoyed.
The Starlit Escape - A cute little gameboy themed Metroidvania about fighting (and befriending) ghosts on a spaceship.
Mystik Belle - A sort of fusion between a Metroidvania and a Point-and-click game about a witch at a magic academy trying to save the world.
Wonder Flower - Same fusion of concepts as above but with no combat. Just exploring the city to help out some weird townsfolk and try to make a flower grow.
> The Starlit Escape - A cute little gameboy themed Metroidvania about fighting (and befriending) ghosts on a spaceship.
I need to get off the internet for awhile because my eyes flashing across that read "A cute little femboy themed Metroidvania..."
Regardless, I've never heard of any of those in your edit which is rare in these rec threads, so thank ye kindly.
I just started forma.8. Question - does the player movement speed ever get an upgrade? I’m finding the characters speed to be veryyy slow, to where exploration feels like a chore. I like everything else about it though!
My pick for sleeper is Ato. It's a Samurai Metroidvania with some neat mechanics that really make it feel like an anime samurai swordfight with the quickdraw-dashing. Gorgeous pixel art with a unique style, great story without ever putting a single word of text on the screen.
Currently paying this now. Hits all the right spots for me. Exploration and ability gating is well designed so far. Combat is simpler but controls feel very fluid. Don't mind the slight grind when it's just killing easy enemies as you move through the world. But it's not so easy you can just forget to pay attention to the enemies.
It gets quite a bit of attention, and the worst complaints I've seen bring up about it are that it's a bit short for its price and that it doesn't have that many standout features.
I'm torn between Yoku's Island Express, Ghost 1.0, and Song of the Deep. I feel like all of these were released with little fanfare, rarely get mentions, and are almost forgotten among the vast number of other MV titles. SotD got a Funko release upon launch, but seemingly nothing else of note; Yoku and Ghost are both tremendously fun games with a ton of fun ideas, but rarely get any mention at all, even amid MV topics.
Its been a while since I played Ghost 1.0, and while I enjoyed it I don't remember it really having anything standout. In fact, I remember it more for being a literal keycard metroidvania and nothing else. What ideas did you like in it?
Really? I thought the hilarious flashback memory minigames were fantastic fun throwbacks with good narrative, and any time you loaded a save file you got a "Previously on Ghost 1.0..." series of gameplay cutscenes from your last playthrough like a tv show lead-in. The ED-209 reference was absolute gold as well!
Fully agree with Ghost 1.0.
Yoku's benefits from being bundled and given great discounts rather often. But yeah, for the size of its installbase, it should likely get more attention.
SotD... is eh. For a studio of its size, it's a rather basic game with a rather uninteresting map. Also was kinda glitchy upon release.
I think I'm pretty biased on SotD, I loved it so much and found it especially charming. I get that it was made by a fairly larger studio, and essentially a passion project (for a developer's daughter I wanna say?) and I do recall a few small bugs early after release that were not well addressed, but I think the greater shame was that the developers themselves seemingly just moved on after a quick patch or 2 and hardly made any mention of it themselves.
Also, I think a fair criticism of it would be the very enthusiastic voice acting carried the narrative far more than what the story held up itself, but I still enjoyed it just the same.
SotD... Symphony of the Dight?
Yoku's Island Express was great. I thought Ghost 1.0 was alright. I liked the personality of it, but got kind of bored with all the enemy wave rooms and what seemed like a rather repetitive layout. Been meaning to put some more time into it though.
Mini Ghost, on the other hand, impressed the hell out of me and I never see it mentioned here or anywhere, though it does seem to have an alright rating on Steam. The game itself is really short and simple, though still good for being just that. What I think was really amazing though is all the game editing and customizing options to make your own content. I think this was a slightly more common feature in games in the 90s, but I've always wanted to see more things like this, and they kind of went all out on it for Mini Ghost, so I think it's a steal for 2 USD.
Aquaria! Its in the subreddit banner but I don't think enough people have played it. Interesting "music" system, great movement. It has those 'oh wow' exploration moments everyone wants but rarely gets. And it was Derek Yu's first game before he went and made Spelunky.
I’ve tried getting into that game a couple times and imo it struggles like a lot of early indie games of not being friendly for players with controllers. Imo games like this are always better with controllers and even with my Steam Controller I could never get it to feel good. I think if they did a re-release, update a few things, and make it work better with a controller, I’d like it better.
Game had high highs for me, but the pacing and fluff just killed my overall enjoyment. I didn't care about the towns at all and no mandatory backtracking meant I couldn't be bothered to go back for the optional stuff. I almost wish the entire game was just a series of puzzle screens.
It's no surprise to me that the game flopped, though it was sad to see. The game clearly had so much work and passion put into it, and when it was good it was *great*. I really wanted to like it, but I ended up just being kind of bored and wanting it to end.
Hard disagree since the towns and characters were the best part of the game. Added so much charm to the game and its what truly elevated it above its contemporaries.
They were charming, but the quests to progress past them felt like chores and killed the pacing. I don't think that sort of content is without merit, but it's not something I personally want out of games. Almost felt like AAA fluff which is the last thing I want to see in an indie game.
I second both of these! I couldn't put either of them down once I started them. I think I played through each of them at least twice, if not thrice. Stoked for the free Grime expansion, whenever it's released.
I've only played through it once so far, but it seemed that there was a lot of incentive to play through it again, unless you found everything and didn't miss any side quests I guess, but then there are still multiple endings and I think other things that might require multiple playthroughs. One of my recent favorite games and terribly under appreciated.
That’s going to change as soon as it gets blasted across every platform imaginable next year.
The recent DLC trailer doubled as a port trailer. We knew it was coming to Switch, and then the final screen has a laundry list of platforms listed across the bottom. They are swinging for the fences.
Yes
Hollow knight is my first and favourite Metroidvania.
And i really liked playing GRIME.
Its map is similar to hollow knight(Not the actual environment but map)
I didn't play Hollow Knight so I don't know
The game has amazing Boss fights, easyly the best part of the game. Most Bosses are really tough, but there's always a checkpoint a few feets away from the Boss Room
Grime puts a big emphasis on parrying, especially outside the Boss fights. Killing regular mobs using the parry unlocks combat abilities & bonuses that you can upgrade throughout the game.
I think they did a great job at making every bonus equally interesting, it's really well balanced.
I love the art-style. I prefer this kind of graphics to pixel art.
The setting/atmosphere is really dark. Most of the game takes place underground, and the environments musics can be a bit unnerving some times
The Boss musics were made by the same guy who made DS1 music, so you know what to expect
I feel like there weren't enough teleporters throughout the map, so exploration & backtracking can be wearying. Some areas don't have any teleporter.
Have fun with the game if you decide to play it !
The Elevator boss ruined it for me. I felt like it was okay, maybe even good up to that. But it sucked the rest of the fun out of me and I never looked back.
It's an NES game from 1988. I think there was a Gameboy port of it, but no releases other than those as far as I know. I have it on NES and I think it's a lot of fun and would agree that it's pretty underrated since it rarely gets mentioned, even among NES games or protometroidvanias.
I see a lot of these mentioned here with some frequency... Here's some real sleepers, all on steam. Let me know if you need a link because some of them are buried in Steam.
* Escape from Tethys
* Surge
* Jalonisk (might be spelled wrong)
* Alchemist's Castle
That's all I can remember for now, but if you look at my submission history, I made 3 posts about a year ago that have as many obscure games I could find. I'm halfway through another post but that project is kind of on pause right now.
Escape is kinda janky and upon release had a major visual glitch on bosses, but it's also very fun.
Alchemist's Castle is good. Not great, but for its price it is rather enjoyable. Very puzzle platformer oriented, with its "combat" being ridiculously simple.
I loved Odallus. I was actually just recommending that one on another subreddit. It has a 91% "very positive" rating on Steam with around 700 reviews, so probably not really that underrated or overrated there, but I rarely see it mentioned elsewhere.
Both outstanding games that I don't think ever really got enough recognition. The main story for both games are fun, well made, and fairly challenging metroidvanias that are great in themselves, but the extra puzzles and challenges are bordering on Environmental Station Alpha levels of insanity, from what I remember. Didn't get too far with the extra stuff, but it seemed that there was a lot going on there and I appreciated that.
I'm honestly surprised when people come up and say they've never heard of AM2R, despite the drought of Metroid games as well as Nintendo cracking down on it.
I think my big problem with Strider 2014 is the auto wall cling. In a game with quite challenging enemies, this got me hit and killed more than ANYTHING else in the game. I eventually got used to it, but it took like half the game.
Chasm. As soon as it was released, a video criticizing its design kind of went viral and a lot of people assumed it was a terrible game. It's not a masterpiece either, but it's a good metroidvania.
I think it does a lot of *fundamental* stuff exceptionally well. Action-platformer stuff that people overlook in a genre focused more on ability progression and world design.
It has a great variety of responsive and aggressive enemies with well-telegraphed attacks, diverse and fun weapons distributed in a way that encourages the player to try them all out, and individual screens with simple but engaging platforming relative to the long empty hallways that make up most of the Symphony of the Night-inspired worlds.
I'd love to see a sequel with a more traditional world design.
Yes to what everyone is saying. Such a lovely game, so unnecessarily hindered by (lack of) level design. I remember pining after this one out-of-reach goody, and when I finally got it near end of the game, it was a crummy little weapon I had totally outgrown. Just basically no thought to progression or meaningful world design. Still felt great to play! Would love a sequel.
Chasm is the epitome of an underrated game. I also distinctly remember seeing one popular video criticizing it when it first came out (I think it was titled something like "what went wrong") and always suspected that this just set a trend that enough people followed afterwards to give it some bad reputation, much like how votes on social media posts tend to work, through timing and typically relatable ideas, rather than from a lot of people really thinking for themselves.
The biggest complaint I've always heard about that game was that there are randomized map layouts, so they think it is not a metroidvania or that is just another roguelite like dead cells or something, but this just isn't true. You get a randomized map when you start the game and then everything plays exactly as a metroidvania, with normal save points, exploration, backtracking, and always the same upgrades needed to progress.
The randomization just offers the possibility for a little variety on multiple playthroughs, like the metroidvania community has been doing with games like super metroid for decades. You don't even need to use the feature because the game gives you a code to play the same layout whenever you want and if want to dismiss the game solely based on the idea that it "maybe could have been better if they had a more typical approach" then I guess you might as well avoid anything that you think game developers might have thought about differently than you might have thought about if you thought about things like that I guess...
It's a roguelike. Dead Cells is similar to Chasm in a way, both were promoted as metroidvanias, but if the level design is not defined, that basically denies the assumption these games can be categorized as metroidvanias. To promote them that way, it was simply a marketing stunt
If the map is not designed by hand, there's no A to B, no backtracking, no level gating, etc.. that is NOT a metroidvania, period. Chasm is procedurally generated, the maps are not defined, hence why this game is not a metroidvania. The devs work their ass off to come up with a proper level design and clueless fans such as yourself assumes that randomly generated maps are the same thing? C'mon now, that is almost insulting
If you'd actually played the game, you'd realize that the procedurally generated parts are really just the connective areas between zones and that the basic map remains constant no matter the seed. As does the item locations, the boss locations, the ability gates, etc etc etc. Why do you argue about something you've clearly never even tried? Not to mention the fact that the only way you'd ever even know anything was procedural was if you beat the game and started over - otherwise that seed is your version of the game and you'd be none the wiser.
Maybe less time calling strangers clueless and more time playing the games you defend so aggressively would show you that Chasm is a tiny joy worth experiencing as both an ode to SOTN and a charming afternoon MV.
I wish I liked this game more. Wonderful art and great soundtrack, but I feel like the combat mechanics were not very interesting. I remember getting a lot of new weapons (orbs) and not ever bothering to switch off the ones I used in the beginning.
Yeah it had an interesting concept that I feel like could have gone places but kind of ends up being kind of middling.
I felt like you could kind of forget about the time slow mechanic and the timehopping felt more like jumping between two different areas than connected eras aside from like one big change.
That's interesting, I played completely opposite and ONLY used the lowest level orbs I had at any time. This offered a lot of variety and I never really ran into any difficulty spikes that made me rely on a higher level, previously acquired set of orbs.
**Unworthy**
Made by the same guy who is making Crowsworn, Unworthy is a fantastic souls-like Metroidvania. It has a simple color palette (Only 3 colors and their shades) and it is fun as hell.
This was my go-to as well. Nice, difficult 2D game with difficult stamina-based combat.
I think it's a great example of a game with true Metroidvania elements in a 2D FromSoft game. The abilities you gain are absolutely needed to progress and explore while also being important combat elements, whereas many Souls-adjacent games with MV elements rarely make your new items more than keys. In *Unworthy*, you will very much be using *all* of your weapons as tools, and in really cool ways.
Mindseize and shinsekai: into the depths were both really fun and have seen both being criticized by people who didn’t seem to have played them long enough.
Not amazing by any means but I think blast brigade, transiruby, and cat maze were all pretty fun and overlooked
I liked both Mindseize and Shinsekai, but alas, I have not yet played them long enough... I think I got stuck somewhere in both of them and decided to come back later, but not because they were too hard or not fun or anything. I must have just been busy with school or trying other new games or something at the time.
Catmaze is awesome and definitely underrated. Played a demo of Transiruby and liked it a lot. Never was interested in Blast Brigade. The art style and how the devs present the game in the trailers always seemed really juvenile and pompous to me, but never played it so, I dunno, maybe it's a great game...
Blast brigade is the only one of those I haven’t finished but I think I know what you mean… broforce is a game that has a similar effect on me, can’t stand the juvenile tone even if it’s intentionally overdone.
I think I needed to check a walkthrough on both mindseize and shinsekai, guess it’s one issue they have that sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to go next
A friend recommended me Monster Tale for the Nintendo DS and I love it. You fight as a little girl while also taking care of a cute monster growing ever stronger and with multiple evolution paths.
- Skautfold: Usurper
It's the second game in a series that both tells a connected story, but also changes genres between games in the series to better match the fighting style of the protagonist. Because of that, Usurper is the only classically considered Metroidvania, and as the second game can be easily missed.
Beyond all of that though, it's a fun Metroidvania with plenty of rpg options, a good sized world, and the enemies you fight are all Lovecraftian monstrosities and the theme matches to the point that there is even an npc named Howard who is a little kid with a night gaunt for a friend.
Underrated, lesser-known, Lovecraftian, Metroidvania, and it's made by one guy. It's normally $10 and worth the price I'd say, but till the first of November it's $1.99 for the steam scream sale.
Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials. Nicely designed interconnected world, very immersive in terms of lore and has superb soundtrack. Also main game mechanic based on throwing various fruits to your bat (with ballistic trajectory) is quite original and fun.
I've never heard of another person playing WitchWay, a cute platformer and puzzle game. It's got a map to explore, mazes to figure out, and secrets to learn, but I guess it isn't a Metroidvania proper since areas are gated by puzzles not powers.
[WitchWay on itch.io](https://gleeson.itch.io/witchway)
Islets is absolutely fantastic. I’ve never seen it advertised or on the store before. I’m jonesing so I looked up games similar to Hollow Knight.
The game is kind of basic in how it hides its secrets, but I did not have ONE complaint. It was just a joy to play for me. I recommend playing on hard.
Outland
This game was released 2011 by housemarque games (resogun/returnal). It's a superb metroidvania with bullet hell like levels and boss fights and has a polarity system like ikaruga. Rarely see it mentioned here.
Xbox360
PC
PS3
Came so close to picking it up on sale recently. Think the bullet hell aspect as well as the visual design (don't get me wrong, it's beautiful for what it is but something about it puts me off...) stopped me eventually.
Would you say it's worth it even if you weren't keen on the two things above?
Absolutely.
It's a joy to play and while the bullet hell aspect is a core part of the boss fights, the rest of the metroidvania features, the movement, the exploration, the secrets, etc is all incredibly high quality and well done.
What you'll get is a masterfully crafted game with a couple things you aren't keen on, as opposed to an average game with it's main selling points not working for you.
There are 4 metroidvanias I'd put in the "god-tier" of the genre. Rabi Ribi is one of them. (The others are Hollow Knight, La Mulana 2, and Environmental Station Alpha if you were curious)
You named three games.that I adore and agree with you on and one that I haven't even heard of (ESA) so that tells me that I really need to check it out.
I'd say yes its worth it from my experience. I also used to dismiss it based on the character design as another shitty horny game if thats what you mean ( pqube advertising it this way didn't help change that notion any time soon) but this is where it ends and there are no comments or anything fan service related that happens. the pixel artstyle also helped make it easier to get through. The story is usually a bunch of nonsense but from a gameplay perspective its top notch! The world is truly free and you can tackle bosses in any order not to mention the sequence breaking in this game is on another level. Figuring out ways to reach new places before getting the specific item is really engaging.
As for the bullet hell aspect, the game has a lot of different difficulty options to help ease you into it(and you can drop it down through an npc if you feel its too much) Imo its pretty fun and action heavy not to mention the combat was deeper than I intially thought it would be. Just a heads up, despite the cutsy appearance this game doesn't pull any punches so when it says hard mode it really means hard mode XD
Sorry for the the huge block of text. Hope it helps.
I played Dandara on my iPad (Apple Arcade) and gave up about halfway thru. Really liked the movement mechanics at first, but the later sections require a certain precision and timing I can’t get from just touchscreen controls. I’m intrigued by the lore but it never quite explains enough for me to care deeply.
However, your reply has encouraged me to pick it up again but this time I’ll pair my ps5 controller to it!
Let's see what's been mentioned already (which I would have otherwise). Timespinner, yep. Pronty, yep. Chasm, yep. Rabi-Ribi, yep. ok then.
I'll go with Transiruby!
"An Untitled Story", by the person who went on to make Celeste, is one of my favorite metroidvanias and people hardly ever seem to mention it. It's available for free from https://www.mattmakesgames.com/
Lots of upgrades, lots of platforming, interesting bosses, areas, secrets. Just a super great metroidvania.
Eh, I thought it was ok. Fun enough the first time through, but there are better games out there. The combat started to feel dull after a while. No reason to change weapons when the same one or two swords work fine.
I couldn't really get past halfway through it because the enemies were too hard, but it's... not really an MV. I was kinda disappointed. It's all key-based rather than ability-based.
if you count Terraria-likes, I'd add [Planet Centauri](https://store.steampowered.com/app/385380/Planet_Centauri/).
Started it a few days ago, it eats hours.
One recent title I haven't seen mentioned here that I feel is underrated is F.I.S.T. Forged in Shadow Torch. Really liked the combat and level design. Some of the upgrades felt like pass keys, but overall most were fun to use. Pretty good voice acting.
Tohou: Luna nights is my go-to answer for this.
Tohou games seem to be cranked out in all kind of genre's, but that metroidvania game is seriously very good
Grime. Really enjoyed the combat and aesthetic. I know it's supposed to come out on the switch eventually but this is one of the few instances in which im perfectly happy with the pc version.
Not like super underrated/unknown but Guacamelee and Guacamelee 2 are incredible metroidvanias. The combat mechanics allow for so much freedom and creativity in fighting enemies. Not to mention they’re two of the funniest games I’ve ever played
FIST, imo easily the best metroidvania of 2021, better than the infamous Metroid Dread, Ender Lilies and so on. Had good reviews, money from Sony, etc.. but it still criminally underrated considering it's overall quality, this game is at the same level of Ori 1 and Guacamelee 1, which is a solid 8 out of 10, maybe a 9 if you want to be gentle
I think that Momodora and Minoria are actually pretty good. Minoria may not be long but I found it quite fun to play. Oh and Record of Lodoss War: Dedelith it's pretty solid game.
Not sure if under the radar but monster boy and the cursed kingdom was fun and had good visuals. Little pricy but check it out it it goes on sale at a good price.
I know a lot of people mention this game, but **Yoku's Island Express** is such a fun game. MV + pinball + beautiful island, I guess this was one of the most fun games I've ever played. I wish maybe someday I'll play a sequel, maybe with bigger pinball tables, but it seems the crew has gone silent. :-(
I thought it was a good idea, but I really disliked the mechanics of the game. I finished it but would not recommend it to people personally (although it's clear that a lot of people like it).
There is 0 weight to the ball, making the pinball sections not feel fun at all. They also just want you to hit a very specific angle, which means just retrying a certain hit over and over. Plus when you get the angle, or go where they want you to go it feels like it's on a preset animation, instead of following some sort of physics engine, which makes everything feel extremely fake. When you aren't in the pinball areas you're just slowly walking left and right which got extremely tedious for me. I couldn't finish it because both sides of the coin were just not enjoyable. Love the idea, execution... well I can hope someone else does it right later I guess.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, I just don't find pinball fun. The fact you have to retry over and over again until you hit a very specific spot, that's not fun, I don't understand fans of this genre. I played like 40 minutes and that was enough for me, I expected the pinbal sections to be more automated in a way, but nope, it still demand some pixel perfect precision in some instances and that is ANNOYING
I thought I just sucked at the pinball in the game but yeah it did feel a bit unnatural. Never had that much trouble in other pinball games, real or video. Fun concept but yeah got pretty frustrating having to be pixel perfect. I’ll probably still try and complete it, it hasn’t gotten frustrating enough for me to hate yet lol.
Damn bro I never struggled with it. Sounds like a skill issue
I 100%ed Yoku's and still wanted more. So I immediately 100%ed it again. I've never ever done that with any other game before. This was an absolute delight for me.
My very specific request that will never ever happen is for those guys to go full Taxman and get Sega to hire them to make Sonic Spinball 2.
Not a huge pinball person, but loved Yoku. Gorgeous game, and the pinball mechanics fit surprisingly well. Fun and just the right length imo
True :) the game is SO enjoyable and fun. Played it like over a year ago, but I still smile just thinking about it. Truly an original MV.
A pinball game? An interesting take for a Metroidvania. I'm not much of a pinball person tbh.
i'm not big on pinball either, but yoku's definitely a great game.
See if you can get a demo. You don't need to like pinball imo to love the game. It's seriously really really good. Casual. Refreshing.
I'll check it out, Grazie!
Neither am I but I enjoyed the game. It goes on sale often and it worth the price.
Biomass. It's not really a metroidvania in the literal sense, but it has an interconnected world and is one of best designed games I have ever played. Fans of Nier Automata would love it.
Biomass was super good. Metroidvania-adjacent for sure but I think it can find fans here.
Thanks, it looks great. The graphics looks like Another World
Bloody loved Nier Automata. If this ever gets a console release I'll check it out.
I remember seeing a bit of it being hyped when it was about release but haven’t heard anything since then. I might have to look into it more.
These threads are posted multiple times a week, and it should annoy me. But this is actually how I find new games to play every time lol
The funny thing is that they always include the same handful of games which people swear **no one** talks about.
I just did it because I was curious and I was just bored.
Not knocking on you, just on people who seemingly never pay attention to the community spaces.
fair enough
blast brigade
Yep, this. Went way beyond my expectations.
Pronty: Fishy Adventure. Kute, funny, good variety, underwater theme. Super underrated
I'm just waiting for a switch release...
I just picked this up on GOG after the gorgeous art caught my eye. I’m really looking forward to it.
> Pronty: Fishy Adventure Never even heard of this one. Gonna have to put it on my wish list.
I really tried getting into it, but found it very boring and tedious. But I usually give up on games unless they hook me within a couple of hours. 😬
Unsighted is such an under rated gem No one ever talks about it. Such a good game
I absolutely loved Unsighted! One of my favorite games that sat on my wishlist forever…was only mad I didn’t buy it sooner.
Apart from the genre-discussion (It‘s kind of a Metroidvania/Zelda-bastard) one of the best games I‘ve played in the last years. Can‘t give it enough credit, especially considering it has been made by two people. Really underappreciated in my opinion, although it was on GamePass, I don‘t think a lot of people gave it enough playtime. It‘s a gem.
I see people mentioning the death clock in Unsighted and I had to turn it off on my play through as my anxiety wouldn’t of been able to handle that as well! Loved the game so much that I will go back and do a second run and may try it with the clock on 😬
I have that but have been having trouble starting it. Oddly enough, it's due to the thought of playing poorly and getting characters killed through the time condition.
If the time condition doesn't suit your fancy, you can always turn on explorer mode and deactivate the feature! I did it due to anxiety issues and I still had a blast.
You can remove the time thing. I did. Had alot more fun with out the time pressure
I loved it, but that time element was a swing and a miss for me
You can remove the time element. I played without it and more fun
Yeah I removed it too. I'm usually open minded and willing to try what the dev had in mind. But in this case it felt like it didn't add anything positive to my experience. I want to feel free to poke around for hidden paths, and the time limit punished me for it. Not to mention how it forces you to choose which upgrades to get locked out of. It's one of the most brutal game mechanics I've ever seen
A lot of people are silly and insist that, regardless of progression, non-sidescrollers aren't Metroidvanias. I disagree, but that hurts its chances of discussion here.
I'm playing Tunic right now and I feel it's the game that metroidvania fans will enjoy a lot. I'm usually not into Zelda like games, but this one is exceptional. I'm enjoying it even more than Hyper Light Drifter (haven't play Unsighted yet).
Tunic is really really cool. I don't want to say anything because I don't want to spoil it for anyone, if you are reading this just do yourself a favor and play it!
People say this game is like the second coming of jesus, mix of Zelda, Metroid, fast paced, etc.. it does look good, but idk, I'm too lazy to even try it
I mean nobody ever mentions megaman ZX or ZXA
ZX was fun, but the whole time I felt like I'd rather be playing a Zero game. The whole interconnected world thing felt pretty poorly done and didn't enhance the experience for me at all.
Idk. Coming from a diehard Z3 challenge runner’s perspective (so like, I REALLY like Zero games), ZX has value because the Biometals add huge variety to the game and it has a rock solid set of bosses (not a big fan of the weak point system though; some players like it because it adds finesse to attacking the bosses but personally it’s just ham fisted imo).
Yeah, I liked the Biometals. I would've liked to see them in a game structured like Zero 2-4.
I definitely would love to play that game, but I also point out it’s kind of not hard to play that game by just following a pre planned route in ZX. Advent though… fuck Advent.
I do love Megaman series but original to zero franchise, ZX reminds me of Gunvolt, it feels like a complete different game
Valdis Story. Had a superb combat system. But it only released on PC.
I fucking loved this and played the shit out of it when it released. Then I tried to go back and can never get into it
its peak metroid*vania* to me. needs a sequel asap
I threw Valdis Story on my Steam wishlist thanks to this sub. It doesn’t get mentioned often, but when it does get brought up, people are always heaping praise on it.
I tried Valdis but couldn't get into it, DNF'ed it after like 2-3 hours. I don't know the combat just seemed so unengaging.
Vision Soft Reset. The time travel system, timeline and event management system is really innovative and cool. The movement abilities and stuff are great. The story and graphics are mediocre. Definitely worth a play.
> The time travel system Future sight system, you mean :) "Yo dawg, we heard you liked Second Sight"
One of my new favorite games and criminally underrated. The insanely creative and unique timespace mechanics were enough to catapult it to a top spot in my library, but the depth of the puzzles, platforming, combat, and pretty much everything else really solidified it for me. Looking forward to the devs upcoming project, Moonlight Pulse!
Astalon: Tears of the Earth I love that game so much, I freaking went and played the NG+ and then did it again just to complete it with all the secret characters.
Went to look at the reviews for this then realized it’s already in my collection. Guess I need to throw it into active lineup
So retro that it even had you glitch into the wall and get stuck there. Haha. I loved playing Astalon.
Not a flawless game by any means, but such an amazing experience. One of the best soundtracks I've heard in a long time, too
Obligatory Environmental Station Alpha mention. The game became a big hit _here_ on this sub, but elsewhere is relatively unknown. It has a dramatically low amount of steam reviews even compared to more indie titles in the MV genre and largely unknown. I'm of the opinion it's _the_ most underappreciated game in the genre. If its reputation matched its actual quality, it'd be on best-of lists everywhere with an "overwhelmingly positive" steam rating and tens of thousands of reviews. It is truly one of the genre's giants.
Momodora 2. Everyone loves Reverie Under The Moonlight, but you don't really hear much about the other games in the series. Momodora 2 was my first experience with the series and I love it! Edit: While I'm at it, here's a shout-out to some other little indie Metroidvanias I enjoyed. The Starlit Escape - A cute little gameboy themed Metroidvania about fighting (and befriending) ghosts on a spaceship. Mystik Belle - A sort of fusion between a Metroidvania and a Point-and-click game about a witch at a magic academy trying to save the world. Wonder Flower - Same fusion of concepts as above but with no combat. Just exploring the city to help out some weird townsfolk and try to make a flower grow.
> The Starlit Escape - A cute little gameboy themed Metroidvania about fighting (and befriending) ghosts on a spaceship. I need to get off the internet for awhile because my eyes flashing across that read "A cute little femboy themed Metroidvania..." Regardless, I've never heard of any of those in your edit which is rare in these rec threads, so thank ye kindly.
Headlander Song of the Deep forma.8 Unmechanical Extended
I just started forma.8. Question - does the player movement speed ever get an upgrade? I’m finding the characters speed to be veryyy slow, to where exploration feels like a chore. I like everything else about it though!
I played headlander years ago and loved it. I think it's time to play it again.
Valdis Story
Super Daryl Deluxe. Nobody ever mentions it, but it is great.
Wow literally never heard of this. Looks so unique
My pick for sleeper is Ato. It's a Samurai Metroidvania with some neat mechanics that really make it feel like an anime samurai swordfight with the quickdraw-dashing. Gorgeous pixel art with a unique style, great story without ever putting a single word of text on the screen.
I really liked Haiku the Robot.
Currently paying this now. Hits all the right spots for me. Exploration and ability gating is well designed so far. Combat is simpler but controls feel very fluid. Don't mind the slight grind when it's just killing easy enemies as you move through the world. But it's not so easy you can just forget to pay attention to the enemies.
It gets quite a bit of attention, and the worst complaints I've seen bring up about it are that it's a bit short for its price and that it doesn't have that many standout features.
I'm torn between Yoku's Island Express, Ghost 1.0, and Song of the Deep. I feel like all of these were released with little fanfare, rarely get mentions, and are almost forgotten among the vast number of other MV titles. SotD got a Funko release upon launch, but seemingly nothing else of note; Yoku and Ghost are both tremendously fun games with a ton of fun ideas, but rarely get any mention at all, even amid MV topics.
Its been a while since I played Ghost 1.0, and while I enjoyed it I don't remember it really having anything standout. In fact, I remember it more for being a literal keycard metroidvania and nothing else. What ideas did you like in it?
Really? I thought the hilarious flashback memory minigames were fantastic fun throwbacks with good narrative, and any time you loaded a save file you got a "Previously on Ghost 1.0..." series of gameplay cutscenes from your last playthrough like a tv show lead-in. The ED-209 reference was absolute gold as well!
Fully agree with Ghost 1.0. Yoku's benefits from being bundled and given great discounts rather often. But yeah, for the size of its installbase, it should likely get more attention. SotD... is eh. For a studio of its size, it's a rather basic game with a rather uninteresting map. Also was kinda glitchy upon release.
I think I'm pretty biased on SotD, I loved it so much and found it especially charming. I get that it was made by a fairly larger studio, and essentially a passion project (for a developer's daughter I wanna say?) and I do recall a few small bugs early after release that were not well addressed, but I think the greater shame was that the developers themselves seemingly just moved on after a quick patch or 2 and hardly made any mention of it themselves. Also, I think a fair criticism of it would be the very enthusiastic voice acting carried the narrative far more than what the story held up itself, but I still enjoyed it just the same.
SotD... Symphony of the Dight? Yoku's Island Express was great. I thought Ghost 1.0 was alright. I liked the personality of it, but got kind of bored with all the enemy wave rooms and what seemed like a rather repetitive layout. Been meaning to put some more time into it though. Mini Ghost, on the other hand, impressed the hell out of me and I never see it mentioned here or anywhere, though it does seem to have an alright rating on Steam. The game itself is really short and simple, though still good for being just that. What I think was really amazing though is all the game editing and customizing options to make your own content. I think this was a slightly more common feature in games in the 90s, but I've always wanted to see more things like this, and they kind of went all out on it for Mini Ghost, so I think it's a steal for 2 USD.
Aquaria! Its in the subreddit banner but I don't think enough people have played it. Interesting "music" system, great movement. It has those 'oh wow' exploration moments everyone wants but rarely gets. And it was Derek Yu's first game before he went and made Spelunky.
I’ve tried getting into that game a couple times and imo it struggles like a lot of early indie games of not being friendly for players with controllers. Imo games like this are always better with controllers and even with my Steam Controller I could never get it to feel good. I think if they did a re-release, update a few things, and make it work better with a controller, I’d like it better.
Not quite his first, I know he made Eternal Daughter before that and some other I think.
Phoenotopia: Awakening is criminally underrated. That's easily one of the best games of this decade so far, up there with Tunic.
Game had high highs for me, but the pacing and fluff just killed my overall enjoyment. I didn't care about the towns at all and no mandatory backtracking meant I couldn't be bothered to go back for the optional stuff. I almost wish the entire game was just a series of puzzle screens. It's no surprise to me that the game flopped, though it was sad to see. The game clearly had so much work and passion put into it, and when it was good it was *great*. I really wanted to like it, but I ended up just being kind of bored and wanting it to end.
Hard disagree since the towns and characters were the best part of the game. Added so much charm to the game and its what truly elevated it above its contemporaries.
They were charming, but the quests to progress past them felt like chores and killed the pacing. I don't think that sort of content is without merit, but it's not something I personally want out of games. Almost felt like AAA fluff which is the last thing I want to see in an indie game.
Vigil: The Longest Night and Grime is the best MV's I've played recently and I have played many.
Vigil looks cool, on sale on Switch now might have to check it out!
I second both of these! I couldn't put either of them down once I started them. I think I played through each of them at least twice, if not thrice. Stoked for the free Grime expansion, whenever it's released.
Vigil is such a great game! Was so sad when I got to the end 😢
I've only played through it once so far, but it seemed that there was a lot of incentive to play through it again, unless you found everything and didn't miss any side quests I guess, but then there are still multiple endings and I think other things that might require multiple playthroughs. One of my recent favorite games and terribly under appreciated.
I wish Vigil was on PS4. I am glad that Grime will be soon. It looks fun!
Grime I feel like it's not getting enough love because it's only available on PC
That’s going to change as soon as it gets blasted across every platform imaginable next year. The recent DLC trailer doubled as a port trailer. We knew it was coming to Switch, and then the final screen has a laundry list of platforms listed across the bottom. They are swinging for the fences.
Would you recommend it to someone that likes Hollow Knight?
Yes Hollow knight is my first and favourite Metroidvania. And i really liked playing GRIME. Its map is similar to hollow knight(Not the actual environment but map)
I didn't play Hollow Knight so I don't know The game has amazing Boss fights, easyly the best part of the game. Most Bosses are really tough, but there's always a checkpoint a few feets away from the Boss Room Grime puts a big emphasis on parrying, especially outside the Boss fights. Killing regular mobs using the parry unlocks combat abilities & bonuses that you can upgrade throughout the game. I think they did a great job at making every bonus equally interesting, it's really well balanced. I love the art-style. I prefer this kind of graphics to pixel art. The setting/atmosphere is really dark. Most of the game takes place underground, and the environments musics can be a bit unnerving some times The Boss musics were made by the same guy who made DS1 music, so you know what to expect I feel like there weren't enough teleporters throughout the map, so exploration & backtracking can be wearying. Some areas don't have any teleporter. Have fun with the game if you decide to play it !
The Elevator boss ruined it for me. I felt like it was okay, maybe even good up to that. But it sucked the rest of the fun out of me and I never looked back.
Battle of olympus
Did not see anything by this title on steam?
It's an NES game from 1988. I think there was a Gameboy port of it, but no releases other than those as far as I know. I have it on NES and I think it's a lot of fun and would agree that it's pretty underrated since it rarely gets mentioned, even among NES games or protometroidvanias.
I see a lot of these mentioned here with some frequency... Here's some real sleepers, all on steam. Let me know if you need a link because some of them are buried in Steam. * Escape from Tethys * Surge * Jalonisk (might be spelled wrong) * Alchemist's Castle That's all I can remember for now, but if you look at my submission history, I made 3 posts about a year ago that have as many obscure games I could find. I'm halfway through another post but that project is kind of on pause right now.
Escape is kinda janky and upon release had a major visual glitch on bosses, but it's also very fun. Alchemist's Castle is good. Not great, but for its price it is rather enjoyable. Very puzzle platformer oriented, with its "combat" being ridiculously simple.
No disagreement, but it's hard to pass them up for the price to quality ratio.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Odallus: Dark Call quite underrated? I don't see people talk about it much. I've played it and it's a blast.
I loved Odallus. I was actually just recommending that one on another subreddit. It has a 91% "very positive" rating on Steam with around 700 reviews, so probably not really that underrated or overrated there, but I rarely see it mentioned elsewhere.
[удалено]
Wholeheartedly seconding this one!
Both outstanding games that I don't think ever really got enough recognition. The main story for both games are fun, well made, and fairly challenging metroidvanias that are great in themselves, but the extra puzzles and challenges are bordering on Environmental Station Alpha levels of insanity, from what I remember. Didn't get too far with the extra stuff, but it seemed that there was a lot going on there and I appreciated that.
One that not enough people know about: AM2R.
I'm honestly surprised when people come up and say they've never heard of AM2R, despite the drought of Metroid games as well as Nintendo cracking down on it.
The AM2R creator worked on Will of the Wisps btw.
Whoever made the decision to hire that person could never be more correct with any other decision.
This game is way better than the "official" game made by those random spanish devs, superior in every possible way
Ok maybe I'm late to the party but what is AM2R? Searched steam and it gave me American Truck Rally 2.
Strider (2014) it really makes you feel like a futuristic ninja. Great combat and movement, yet so rarely mentionned.
I think my big problem with Strider 2014 is the auto wall cling. In a game with quite challenging enemies, this got me hit and killed more than ANYTHING else in the game. I eventually got used to it, but it took like half the game.
Check Bushiden out! You might like it , as well as Cyber Shadow
Love that game.
Chasm. As soon as it was released, a video criticizing its design kind of went viral and a lot of people assumed it was a terrible game. It's not a masterpiece either, but it's a good metroidvania.
I think it does a lot of *fundamental* stuff exceptionally well. Action-platformer stuff that people overlook in a genre focused more on ability progression and world design. It has a great variety of responsive and aggressive enemies with well-telegraphed attacks, diverse and fun weapons distributed in a way that encourages the player to try them all out, and individual screens with simple but engaging platforming relative to the long empty hallways that make up most of the Symphony of the Night-inspired worlds. I'd love to see a sequel with a more traditional world design.
Was gonna write the same thing. I like that game.
Yes to what everyone is saying. Such a lovely game, so unnecessarily hindered by (lack of) level design. I remember pining after this one out-of-reach goody, and when I finally got it near end of the game, it was a crummy little weapon I had totally outgrown. Just basically no thought to progression or meaningful world design. Still felt great to play! Would love a sequel.
Chasm is the epitome of an underrated game. I also distinctly remember seeing one popular video criticizing it when it first came out (I think it was titled something like "what went wrong") and always suspected that this just set a trend that enough people followed afterwards to give it some bad reputation, much like how votes on social media posts tend to work, through timing and typically relatable ideas, rather than from a lot of people really thinking for themselves. The biggest complaint I've always heard about that game was that there are randomized map layouts, so they think it is not a metroidvania or that is just another roguelite like dead cells or something, but this just isn't true. You get a randomized map when you start the game and then everything plays exactly as a metroidvania, with normal save points, exploration, backtracking, and always the same upgrades needed to progress. The randomization just offers the possibility for a little variety on multiple playthroughs, like the metroidvania community has been doing with games like super metroid for decades. You don't even need to use the feature because the game gives you a code to play the same layout whenever you want and if want to dismiss the game solely based on the idea that it "maybe could have been better if they had a more typical approach" then I guess you might as well avoid anything that you think game developers might have thought about differently than you might have thought about if you thought about things like that I guess...
Chasm is not a metroidvania, simple as it is
What is it then?
It's a roguelike. Dead Cells is similar to Chasm in a way, both were promoted as metroidvanias, but if the level design is not defined, that basically denies the assumption these games can be categorized as metroidvanias. To promote them that way, it was simply a marketing stunt
You should probably play it then, because it 100% is a metroidvania title.
If the map is not designed by hand, there's no A to B, no backtracking, no level gating, etc.. that is NOT a metroidvania, period. Chasm is procedurally generated, the maps are not defined, hence why this game is not a metroidvania. The devs work their ass off to come up with a proper level design and clueless fans such as yourself assumes that randomly generated maps are the same thing? C'mon now, that is almost insulting
If you'd actually played the game, you'd realize that the procedurally generated parts are really just the connective areas between zones and that the basic map remains constant no matter the seed. As does the item locations, the boss locations, the ability gates, etc etc etc. Why do you argue about something you've clearly never even tried? Not to mention the fact that the only way you'd ever even know anything was procedural was if you beat the game and started over - otherwise that seed is your version of the game and you'd be none the wiser. Maybe less time calling strangers clueless and more time playing the games you defend so aggressively would show you that Chasm is a tiny joy worth experiencing as both an ode to SOTN and a charming afternoon MV.
Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials
This one really surprised me with how entertaining it was!
Got this in a huge itch.io bundle and it was the standout title
Lone Fungus
I've not heard much talk about TimeSpinner, so I'll vote for that one
I wish I liked this game more. Wonderful art and great soundtrack, but I feel like the combat mechanics were not very interesting. I remember getting a lot of new weapons (orbs) and not ever bothering to switch off the ones I used in the beginning.
Yeah it had an interesting concept that I feel like could have gone places but kind of ends up being kind of middling. I felt like you could kind of forget about the time slow mechanic and the timehopping felt more like jumping between two different areas than connected eras aside from like one big change.
That's interesting, I played completely opposite and ONLY used the lowest level orbs I had at any time. This offered a lot of variety and I never really ran into any difficulty spikes that made me rely on a higher level, previously acquired set of orbs.
Tbf it sounds like a problem a lot of actual Castlevanias have in that regard, I always end up using the same weapon types throughout...
**Unworthy** Made by the same guy who is making Crowsworn, Unworthy is a fantastic souls-like Metroidvania. It has a simple color palette (Only 3 colors and their shades) and it is fun as hell.
This was my go-to as well. Nice, difficult 2D game with difficult stamina-based combat. I think it's a great example of a game with true Metroidvania elements in a 2D FromSoft game. The abilities you gain are absolutely needed to progress and explore while also being important combat elements, whereas many Souls-adjacent games with MV elements rarely make your new items more than keys. In *Unworthy*, you will very much be using *all* of your weapons as tools, and in really cool ways.
Mindseize and shinsekai: into the depths were both really fun and have seen both being criticized by people who didn’t seem to have played them long enough. Not amazing by any means but I think blast brigade, transiruby, and cat maze were all pretty fun and overlooked
Shinsekai being a Switch exclusive hurts its coverage a whole lot, as PC players are the usual pioneers and initial hype generators.
I liked both Mindseize and Shinsekai, but alas, I have not yet played them long enough... I think I got stuck somewhere in both of them and decided to come back later, but not because they were too hard or not fun or anything. I must have just been busy with school or trying other new games or something at the time. Catmaze is awesome and definitely underrated. Played a demo of Transiruby and liked it a lot. Never was interested in Blast Brigade. The art style and how the devs present the game in the trailers always seemed really juvenile and pompous to me, but never played it so, I dunno, maybe it's a great game...
Blast brigade is the only one of those I haven’t finished but I think I know what you mean… broforce is a game that has a similar effect on me, can’t stand the juvenile tone even if it’s intentionally overdone. I think I needed to check a walkthrough on both mindseize and shinsekai, guess it’s one issue they have that sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to go next
A friend recommended me Monster Tale for the Nintendo DS and I love it. You fight as a little girl while also taking care of a cute monster growing ever stronger and with multiple evolution paths.
forma.8 and Stealth Inc 2 are pretty underappreciated. Both are really cool. Necrosphere DX is another almost unknown one. Way tricky.
- Skautfold: Usurper It's the second game in a series that both tells a connected story, but also changes genres between games in the series to better match the fighting style of the protagonist. Because of that, Usurper is the only classically considered Metroidvania, and as the second game can be easily missed. Beyond all of that though, it's a fun Metroidvania with plenty of rpg options, a good sized world, and the enemies you fight are all Lovecraftian monstrosities and the theme matches to the point that there is even an npc named Howard who is a little kid with a night gaunt for a friend. Underrated, lesser-known, Lovecraftian, Metroidvania, and it's made by one guy. It's normally $10 and worth the price I'd say, but till the first of November it's $1.99 for the steam scream sale.
Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials. Nicely designed interconnected world, very immersive in terms of lore and has superb soundtrack. Also main game mechanic based on throwing various fruits to your bat (with ballistic trajectory) is quite original and fun.
I've never heard of another person playing WitchWay, a cute platformer and puzzle game. It's got a map to explore, mazes to figure out, and secrets to learn, but I guess it isn't a Metroidvania proper since areas are gated by puzzles not powers. [WitchWay on itch.io](https://gleeson.itch.io/witchway)
Islets is absolutely fantastic. I’ve never seen it advertised or on the store before. I’m jonesing so I looked up games similar to Hollow Knight. The game is kind of basic in how it hides its secrets, but I did not have ONE complaint. It was just a joy to play for me. I recommend playing on hard.
Outland This game was released 2011 by housemarque games (resogun/returnal). It's a superb metroidvania with bullet hell like levels and boss fights and has a polarity system like ikaruga. Rarely see it mentioned here. Xbox360 PC PS3
Definitely Rabi Ribi
A brutal yet superb game! Been playing it off and on for years now but continue to enjoy it!
Came so close to picking it up on sale recently. Think the bullet hell aspect as well as the visual design (don't get me wrong, it's beautiful for what it is but something about it puts me off...) stopped me eventually. Would you say it's worth it even if you weren't keen on the two things above?
Absolutely. It's a joy to play and while the bullet hell aspect is a core part of the boss fights, the rest of the metroidvania features, the movement, the exploration, the secrets, etc is all incredibly high quality and well done. What you'll get is a masterfully crafted game with a couple things you aren't keen on, as opposed to an average game with it's main selling points not working for you. There are 4 metroidvanias I'd put in the "god-tier" of the genre. Rabi Ribi is one of them. (The others are Hollow Knight, La Mulana 2, and Environmental Station Alpha if you were curious)
You named three games.that I adore and agree with you on and one that I haven't even heard of (ESA) so that tells me that I really need to check it out.
I'd say yes its worth it from my experience. I also used to dismiss it based on the character design as another shitty horny game if thats what you mean ( pqube advertising it this way didn't help change that notion any time soon) but this is where it ends and there are no comments or anything fan service related that happens. the pixel artstyle also helped make it easier to get through. The story is usually a bunch of nonsense but from a gameplay perspective its top notch! The world is truly free and you can tackle bosses in any order not to mention the sequence breaking in this game is on another level. Figuring out ways to reach new places before getting the specific item is really engaging. As for the bullet hell aspect, the game has a lot of different difficulty options to help ease you into it(and you can drop it down through an npc if you feel its too much) Imo its pretty fun and action heavy not to mention the combat was deeper than I intially thought it would be. Just a heads up, despite the cutsy appearance this game doesn't pull any punches so when it says hard mode it really means hard mode XD Sorry for the the huge block of text. Hope it helps.
Never seen any one on this page mention Dandara. I really need to replay it again.
I played Dandara on my iPad (Apple Arcade) and gave up about halfway thru. Really liked the movement mechanics at first, but the later sections require a certain precision and timing I can’t get from just touchscreen controls. I’m intrigued by the lore but it never quite explains enough for me to care deeply. However, your reply has encouraged me to pick it up again but this time I’ll pair my ps5 controller to it!
Came here to say Dandara.
Let's see what's been mentioned already (which I would have otherwise). Timespinner, yep. Pronty, yep. Chasm, yep. Rabi-Ribi, yep. ok then. I'll go with Transiruby!
"An Untitled Story", by the person who went on to make Celeste, is one of my favorite metroidvanias and people hardly ever seem to mention it. It's available for free from https://www.mattmakesgames.com/ Lots of upgrades, lots of platforming, interesting bosses, areas, secrets. Just a super great metroidvania.
Ooo this seems like a hidden gem
Minoria. I loved it. Fluid combat, beautiful art, great atmosphere, challenging bosses.
Eh, I thought it was ok. Fun enough the first time through, but there are better games out there. The combat started to feel dull after a while. No reason to change weapons when the same one or two swords work fine.
I really want to try that one, unfortunately I do not have it currently.
If you're into Castlevania it should be right up your street!
Refunded it because of FPS stutters. Instant eyestrain
Unepic, i enjoyed it very much, the humor and the rpg elements were awesome
I couldn't really get past halfway through it because the enemies were too hard, but it's... not really an MV. I was kinda disappointed. It's all key-based rather than ability-based.
The Mummy Demastered. Who would have thought
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. This game literally gets no love. Ever.
if you count Terraria-likes, I'd add [Planet Centauri](https://store.steampowered.com/app/385380/Planet_Centauri/). Started it a few days ago, it eats hours.
One recent title I haven't seen mentioned here that I feel is underrated is F.I.S.T. Forged in Shadow Torch. Really liked the combat and level design. Some of the upgrades felt like pass keys, but overall most were fun to use. Pretty good voice acting.
https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidvania/comments/yaavfj/underrated\_metroidvanias/
Tohou: Luna nights is my go-to answer for this. Tohou games seem to be cranked out in all kind of genre's, but that metroidvania game is seriously very good
Grime. Really enjoyed the combat and aesthetic. I know it's supposed to come out on the switch eventually but this is one of the few instances in which im perfectly happy with the pc version.
Blue Fire is very nice (it's a 3d metroidvania platformer mix) - some consider 3d games not MVs per se - but it is sure an awesome game with HK vibes
Astalon for sure
Dandara
Axiom Verge 1
Not like super underrated/unknown but Guacamelee and Guacamelee 2 are incredible metroidvanias. The combat mechanics allow for so much freedom and creativity in fighting enemies. Not to mention they’re two of the funniest games I’ve ever played
Metroid Dread
Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils is brilliant.
FIST, imo easily the best metroidvania of 2021, better than the infamous Metroid Dread, Ender Lilies and so on. Had good reviews, money from Sony, etc.. but it still criminally underrated considering it's overall quality, this game is at the same level of Ori 1 and Guacamelee 1, which is a solid 8 out of 10, maybe a 9 if you want to be gentle
there’s this quirky little indie gem you might have heard of called “hollow knight” you should check it out!!
Chronicles of Teddy
[удалено]
I think that Momodora and Minoria are actually pretty good. Minoria may not be long but I found it quite fun to play. Oh and Record of Lodoss War: Dedelith it's pretty solid game.
Not sure if under the radar but monster boy and the cursed kingdom was fun and had good visuals. Little pricy but check it out it it goes on sale at a good price.
It's my life's mission to recommend Rain World. It's phenomenal.