alt title(s): Castleroid
A subtype of the
Action Adventure genre, usually with
Platform Game elements.
Your typical Metroidvania game is typically portrayed as a single large area or a set of large areas, broken up into many different rooms, corridors, and more open spaces, with
Respawning Enemies in most areas. As the player progresses through these areas and finds
Video Game Tools (actions, abilities, inventory items), the ability of the player to navigate more obstacles in the play environment increases, allowing the player to explore a greater amount of the game, and in doing so progress the game. This makes
Backtracking occasionally necessary, often made easier by opening
Doors To Before. There are usually many secrets hidden around the game, some far more difficult to obtain than any item required to proceed.
It often contains mild
RPG Elements as well, like stat-boosting equipment or a
level system. But if not, expect to find hidden
Heart Containers in every cranny and nook.
Despite the openness of the game, progression is usually linear, with the more difficult areas separated by natural barriers such as high shelves, sealed or locked doors, or other obstacles that can only be bypassed by finding specific items or weapons. Among gamers,
Sequence Breaking is a common stunt used to access these areas before the player is "supposed" to. (Some games deliberately design sequence-breaking paths as well.)
The definition of this subgenre varies somewhat depending on who you ask. People seem to variably demand some or all of the following traits:
- some people say it has to be a 2-D environment; some even go as far as saying it has to be platforming
- non-linearity of (official) game sequence
- sequence-breaking capabilities (even if not official)
- for some players, especially if it's not official
- highly interconnected areas
- powerups used to get around obstacles
- a focus on exploring one's environment
This sub-genre gets its name from the
Metroid and
Castlevania series.
Metroid, published in 1986, was one of, if not
the, first game of this type, and subsequent
Metroid games have consistently used it in all of its installments (except Prime Pinball and possibly Prime Hunters), while
Castlevania largely switched to it after the success of
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The term itself was coined by Jeremy Parish of
Gamespite
. More information can be found
here.
Competing terms include "Castletroid", "Castleroid", "Metrovania" and "non-linear action adventure platformer", with or without capitalization.
Unfortunately, this is not a crossover between
Castlevania and
Metroid... but it
so should be.
Examples:
- All of the Metroid games and most of the recent (post-2001) Castlevania games, of course. Some people don't consider the 3-D Metroid titles to count, but even those games play out as if they were Metroidvania games with a first-person perspective. The main difference here is the environments are arranged in 3 dimensions rather than 2.
- Symphony of the Night isn't the first time that the Castlevania series experimented with the genre; Vampire Killer and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest shared many of the same gameplay elements, though the latter didn't have the closed complex setting typical of the genre.
- Pitfall II: Lost Caverns was perhaps the earliest example.
- The first Mega Man Zero game.
- Also Mega Man ZX and its sequel Mega Man ZX Advent.
- Which are, arguably, more connected through The Hub rather than interconnected.
- The first Mega Man ZX game features waypoints that allow you to teleport to any waypoint already visited, but all waypoints must be found by exploration first (except for the isolated area that becomes The Hub, which gets added to the teleport list once you complete a certain early mission), and very few areas have their enterance right next to a waypoint. The first Mega Man Zero game features the same, but has a habit of automatically placing you at the beginning of the relevent area at the start of each mission you accept; which, combined with the fact that many areas host two missions, means that if you never wandered outside The Hub inbetween missions, you would never notice that most of the areas are physically connected to eachother (specifically, you would only notice that one pair of areas, plus the linearly-connected areas of the final three missions, are connected). Mega Man ZX Advent, on the other hand, is definitely a downgraded version of this genre, with at least as many missions taking place in self-contained areas as otherwise.
- Within A Deep Forest and Knytt Stories, both by Nicklas Nygren aka Nifflas
- "The Great Cave Offensive" sub-game of Kirby Super Star is unique somewhat as it is much more linear than other games of this genre. (The other games in the compilation are straight platformers, minigames, and a Boss Rush mode.) Kirby and the Amazing Mirror is a full Metroidvania.
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is a borderline case. It was widely panned in the eighties because gamers were simply not expecting this genre in The Legend Of Zelda.
- Ironically, some people regarded the first Metroid game as a combination of Zelda's explorative elements and Mario's platforming elements.
- If you don't insist on the "platform" aspect, the original Zelda arguably fits, since it sometimes works out that it's possible to enter Lair N+1 before you find Lair N, but you'll usually need the Gadget you got in Lair N to get past a certain point.
- Cave Story borders on this. It hits most of the requirements of the game type except for two: it's fairly linear barring sidequests, and areas aren't as interconnected as they could be due to just using The Hub.
- The Goonies II.
- Eternal Daughter
- Shantae
- Tomba
- Kid Icarus is another borderline case, at least in the castle levels.
- The final stage of Super Smash Bros Brawl's Adventure mode, The Great Maze. The rest of the mode is straight platforming.
- The indie game Aquaria embraces this trope fully.
- La Mulana
- Blaster Master
- An Untitled Story
- Albero and the Great Blue Emblem
- The ROM hack Extra Mario Bros. is a Metroidvania game built on Super Mario Bros
- Maple Story and LaTale are massively multiplayer Metroidvanias.
- The DS version of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
- Indie freeware game Iji borders on this - once you clear a level, you can't backtrack, but each level is huge and there are several secret areas that require Metroidvania logic to reach - to get one Supercharge requires getting a jump upgrade, using an enemy's rocket attack to reach an elevator back to a now accessible ledge that leads to a weapon necessary to destroy a wall blocking off the powerup.
- Samurai Jack: The Amulet of Time for Game Boy Advance was a transparent wholesale ripoff of both the GBA Castlevania and GBA Metroid games. Not that it was bad...
- The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King for Game Boy Advance was a transparent wholesale ripoff of the GBA Castlevania games. It was considerably better than Samurai Jack.
- Hebereke for the Famicon (and the Euro Release Ufouria). Something about a drunk duck (hebereke translates into stumbling drunk) falling into an alternate dimension with his animal-ish friends who have to find a way back home (or so it appears). Plays like Metroid meets Mario. Unfortunately, all the sequels (on the SNES) completely abandoned this genre and are party games.
- Bunny Must Die which even includes shout outs to both Metroid and Castlevania.
- There's even a Sonic game with a Metroidvania theme - the Game Gear spin-off Tails' Adventure. By all accounts a pretty good game.
- Faxanadu - the other Dragon Slayer games also have elements of this.
- In 60 Seconds is a freeware mini-Metroidvania. As the title suggests, you get just one minute to gather all the abilities required to reach the boss and defeat it.
- I Wanna Be The Guy is sometimes described as one of these, despite the fact that it doesn't have any powerups or heart containers.
- Lyle In Cube Sector
- Hasslevania: The Quest For Shuteye, a parody of the Castlevania series.
- Shaman King: Master of Spirits 1 and 2 on the Gameboy Advance
- Ainevoltas 1 and 2, freeware games. Ainevoltas 2 is the remake of the first one.
- Zeliard, published in 1987.
- The obscure The Battle Of Olympus for the NES.
- Wonderboy III: The Dragon's Trap, Wonderboy in Monster World, and Monster World 4(No Export For You).
- Knightmare II: The Maze of Gallious, the game that inspired La-Mulana.
- Shadow Complex on Xbox Live Arcade has been described by pretty much every single reviewer as an (awesome) callback to Metroid and Castlevania. This was intentional: the developers have openly admitted to basing it on said games, and spent the entire first month of development playing them. Even the minimap in the top right corner looks eerily familiar.
- Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver, although its sequels were much more linear in nature.
- Mega Man Legends is a partial case, in that it's a third-personal shooter but has a very similar nonlinear explorative feel to it. With the proper special items, nearly all the underground areas can be made to interconnect too.
- Muramasa: The Demon Blade
- Batman Arkham Asylum is not a pure example, sort of fitting somewhere between Metroid and Zelda.
- Captain Comic
- Exhumed, also known as Power Slave, is possibly one of the earliest examples of a Metroidvania FPS, predating Metroid Prime by almost a decade.
- Banjo-Tooie is an arguable example, and perhaps can be used to illustrate the genre differences between this and a straight Platform Game. The levels, as in the previous game, are non-linear, large and focused on exploration and item collection, have a lot of puzzles and pathways between each other, and there are a lot of unlockable moves and attacks required to complete everything. On the other hand, it has a lot of reliance on Mini Games, sequence breaking is limited, and it's generally presented as a typical platformer of the era. It's up to you I suppose.
- Rygar, the NES version, which has a whole series of items to collect in order to improve your climbing skills more and more, and then makes you try to remember which previous stage had that unreachable ledge.
- The PS 2/Wii game also had elements of this.
- Freeware title Return of Egypt. In which you play as Moses.
