this thread caused me to play circle of the moon for four hours straight last night, lol. 2D castlevania is just so fucking hard to beat tbh.
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Metroid or 'Vania; which is stronger overall, 2D Metroids or 2D Castlevanias (Igavanias)?
- Thread starter Discontent
- Start date
On one side you have Super Metroid and Zero Mission which are my favorite Metroidvanias ever after Hollow Knight.
On the other side there is a ton of amazing games on the GBA/DS Igavanias. Order of Ecclesis and Aria of Sorrow being my favorites, but Circle, Dawn and portrait slightly less good
On the other side there is a ton of amazing games on the GBA/DS Igavanias. Order of Ecclesis and Aria of Sorrow being my favorites, but Circle, Dawn and portrait slightly less good
There might be more Castlevanias, and they might be more consistent, but the moment to moment gameplay feels much less crafted. Oftentimes, the room layouts and weapons feel largely perfunctory. Puzzles feel like Easter eggs vs actually part of the design. There's rarely a sense of exploration as much as there is progression. CV has amount of content and variety going for it, and they're good games, great even. But Metroid takes the cake here for sure. You can tell why and how one of them copied the other.
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Pretty silly to include Metroid 1 and 2, as they were a decade earlier on much more primitive hardware than any Metroid-like Castlevania. If you look Metroid's Castlevania contemporary on Game Boy - Adventure and Belmont's Revenge, Metroid II is a much much more ambitious game design wise for the platform. SOTN and the GBA/DS games are Super Metroid clones, they all had the benefit of being able to copy the master.
The Metroid-like Castlevanias have some moments like this, but just as often it's just some random enemies strewn throughout a room, at times even resembling something procedurally generated. And their multi-use weapon and environment lock/key integration is vastly weaker, really only double jumps and flying power ups work like Metroid power ups. Otherwise you have stuff that's basically just a key, or even clunkier like the 'Jewel of Open'.
In the late 90s/early 2000s, despite SoTN having been released, it was somewhat of a sales failure (sold less than a million despite a very long development time) and seen as a one off. Konami were still mostly releasing action adventure based Castlevania games (64, Legacy of Darkness, Legends, Chronicles). Finally Circle of the Moon was made, and was the second one based on the Metroid formula. The term 'Metroidvania' was coined to differentiate between the two types of Castlevania games being released - the mostly action games, and the Metroid formula games. The originals even started being called Actionvania, in contrast to Metroidvania.
It being applied as a genre name was mostly done by mistake another decade later, to my knowledge it was first applied to Shadow Complex. Probably happened because of the ubiquity of the six Metroid-clone Castlevania games released near annually on GBA/DS, so the term had been used a lot in reference to those games.
Yep. Super and Zero Mission (and to a lesser extent Fusion and Samus Returns) have almost flawless game design, nothing is wasted and every single screen is important. Enemies, power ups, environments, set pieces, music, all inform each other.
The Metroid-like Castlevanias have some moments like this, but just as often it's just some random enemies strewn throughout a room, at times even resembling something procedurally generated. And their multi-use weapon and environment lock/key integration is vastly weaker, really only double jumps and flying power ups work like Metroid power ups. Otherwise you have stuff that's basically just a key, or even clunkier like the 'Jewel of Open'.
The phrase was factually first used to describe Circle of the Moon.
In the late 90s/early 2000s, despite SoTN having been released, it was somewhat of a sales failure (sold less than a million despite a very long development time) and seen as a one off. Konami were still mostly releasing action adventure based Castlevania games (64, Legacy of Darkness, Legends, Chronicles). Finally Circle of the Moon was made, and was the second one based on the Metroid formula. The term 'Metroidvania' was coined to differentiate between the two types of Castlevania games being released - the mostly action games, and the Metroid formula games. The originals even started being called Actionvania, in contrast to Metroidvania.
It being applied as a genre name was mostly done by mistake another decade later, to my knowledge it was first applied to Shadow Complex. Probably happened because of the ubiquity of the six Metroid-clone Castlevania games released near annually on GBA/DS, so the term had been used a lot in reference to those games.
Enjoyed Castlevania take on the formula far more if only because i don't like how the combat feels in 2d metroids. I really don't have this admiration for super metroid (or even SOTN to be quite honest) that fans of the genre still seems to hold at this point in time.
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Metroid was short on games compared to Castlevania, that's why I included the OGs.
Metroid's had higher highs but Igavanias are more consistent.
Igavanias are usually more fun to play imo, but the atmosphere in Metroid games is astronomically better.
Igavanias are usually more fun to play imo, but the atmosphere in Metroid games is astronomically better.
I thought this would be an easy win for Castlevania but I forgot what happens when a Nintendo game is in consideration over here. Granted Super Metroid might be the best single game out of all of them but the rest feels too similiar to it, even the upgrades that you get and the order you get them are mostly the same while Castlevania has expanded the formula further, I'd consider the top GBA and DS games on the level of SotN (maybe even better tbh) and thats without even adding the power up combination you could do with the different souls you get in Aria of sorrow or OoE
It's the earliest cut and dry example of the genre in Japan since there's little else to the game really (rudimentary RPG stats that don't amount to much), although I doubt anyone would want to play it now. It launched as the technical showpiece for the FM77AV in October 85 but you can't find footage of that version online. I think it had full smooth scrolling unlike the PC88 version you might see, or the bad graphics of the MSX version.
The world is huge and confusing. If you don't stumble onto the map item early on you're in trouble, lol. Even with it it seems like you jump around strangely. You start at the rabbit shaped house in the left hilly area.
You collect keys and upgrades. The 5 keys have a similar function to Ridley and Kraid in Metroid NES, where they unlock different doors at the final castle (on the right side of the map) - you can go there earlier if you have the right upgrades but can't get in.
You'd have to scan the map for where they are, but it's got a bottle to walk on water, candle to light caves, shield auto blocks fireballs from bird enemies, crystal lets you damage the final boss (and it's not right in the area like in Zelda), and the cross let's you walk on holes or lava. And the map of course.
No points for creativity, but it has that Metroid aspect where the lava or water walking upgrade might make general traversal easier with arrangements like this...
or this
while also overcoming hard locks at large bodies of water or whatever.
In the west, Doriath for the Commodore 64 (1985) may fit the bill for this genre too.
There are 8 spells across the map to find, each one will allow you to kill a different enemy type. The enemies are blocking various routes and you find the spells that will let you kill them, basically unlocking that path.
Here are the spells
Doriath Dungeon: Enter!
Detailed site on the c64 game Doriath, with a complete map, walk thru, faq, glossary, soundtrack, movie files, downloads, how to get into room A11, and much morewww.doriathdungeon.com
You start by that red dragon there, you can see how a yellow enemy is stationed at all exits to this little area, and the Roimort spell you can find below that dragon will let you kill them and find more places to go...
...the game quickly opens up into chaos after that.
https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/C64/index.htm by "George_s"
Nice post! I forgot Doriath existed. I should attempt to play through it some time.
nice post!
hollow knight has eclipsed any successor to super metroid, im hoping silksong will surpass even that.
I tend to agree about VK, it's still linear and level based in progression even if those levels focus on exploration (Legends is a little similar too actually). I think SQ is okay to include though, it's a side scrolling exploratory "open world" adventure game which what all these are really. I'd say the comparison should be:
- Metroid (1986)
- Metroid II: Return of Samus (1991)
- Super Metroid (1994)
- Metroid Fusion (2002)
- Metroid: Zero Mission (2004)
- Metroid: Samus Returns (2017)
- Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1987)
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)
- Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (2001)
- Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (2002)
- Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (2003)
- Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (2005)
- Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (2006)
- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (2008)
- Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (2013)
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In retrospect, maybe that would have been better to have given CV more games but at the time i was thinking CV already has a few advantages over Metroid in the poll. But it's still getting handily beaten...
It's easy to assume games like these are just noise that was around the big guns like Castlevania or Metroid. Well, remember Riglas? There was a recent interview with Hideki Kamiya of Platinum - apparently seeing the impressive advertisements for it in magazines was what got him into PC gaming, since he said Famicom didn't have anything like that at the time (pre Zelda after all).
He got most heavily invested in Hydlide III and Falcom's Sorcerian. Well, Romancia (Dragon Slayer Jr), an open world sidescroller from 1986 with some loose metroidesque elements...
...was created as a result of the dev seeing Riglas and trying to mimic the innovative technique for scrolling in it, I feel like there's some gameplay influence too. Then, with that foundation they were able to focus on the gameplay of Sorcerian. Funny enough, Xanadu itself had the same relationship with the Riglas developers previous game Alphos - they were inspired by the scrolling techniques and made Xanadu.
The map designer for Romancia actually went on to work on Ys, and they specifically designed the game to be different than Romancia which was stupid impossible to figure out and beat.
Another tough call. Do you toss and turn at night, trying to come up with these videogame-related "Sophie's Choice" polls? :)
Anyway, I'm going with Metroid; I think it has the higher of the two highs (Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night, of course), but it's very close overall. Metroid 1, other than picking up some kudos for being first, drags down the average for the series. Despite my childhood fondness, it does not age well. The Game Boy one ages better, IMO.
The Castlevania games are really consistent. Maybe even a little too consistent? I mean, they all sort of blend together in my memory. Show me a clip of any of those Metroid games, and I can easily identify it. Show me a clip of those GBA or especially DS Castlevanias, and I'd just have to guess.
You should've thrown Other M in there to make people really sweat.
Anyway, I'm going with Metroid; I think it has the higher of the two highs (Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night, of course), but it's very close overall. Metroid 1, other than picking up some kudos for being first, drags down the average for the series. Despite my childhood fondness, it does not age well. The Game Boy one ages better, IMO.
The Castlevania games are really consistent. Maybe even a little too consistent? I mean, they all sort of blend together in my memory. Show me a clip of any of those Metroid games, and I can easily identify it. Show me a clip of those GBA or especially DS Castlevanias, and I'd just have to guess.
You should've thrown Other M in there to make people really sweat.
tbh the igavanias felt like time wasters - fun ones at that but that "peeling the articoke" gratification had so many diminshed returns i was just bored to tears by Ecclesia
i never felt that with metroid but then again i'm not super big on metroid like i've ever been with castlevania
i never felt that with metroid but then again i'm not super big on metroid like i've ever been with castlevania
Castlevania has a lot of stand out titles, especially on handhelds. Aria and Ecclesia stand tall above other Igavanias. Sotn is fantastic up until it inverts then it becomes a slog because the map wasnt designed to deal with the inversion so you end up having to fly a ton of places and its just not as fun.
Meanwhile 2D metroid from super onwards is near perfect in most entries with Super being straight up perfection.
So yeah, metroid.
Meanwhile 2D metroid from super onwards is near perfect in most entries with Super being straight up perfection.
So yeah, metroid.
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Tee hee hee I always try to make the poll as hard as possible because I don't like it when its one sided but this one in particular was not my idea; Keym (still don't know how to tag users) suggested this idea in a different thread. Other M...lmao that sounds like it really would've levelled the playing field.
Cool stuff. Is there an English translation of that recent Kamiya interview?
And yeah, the impact of Japanese computer games on console developers is pretty huge but remains almost invisible in the West where many assume NES games came out of nowhere. And of course, Western games had impact on Japan, too, but it can be hard to trace outside of stuff like Ultima and Wizardry getting mentioned occasionally. I'm still curious how Impossible Mission (most likely) influenced Zillion. Was someone importing Western games or playing them at trade shows?
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So I just googled Zillion, how can a DS game influence Zillion wtf I'm genuinely curious and also more genuinely trolling
If I recall, Ecclesia tried a few new things and wasn't as close to 'comfort food' as the prior 6 (?) games were. It was sorta level-based and the castle was smaller and later in the game. I remember being disappointed in it at the time, after loving the prior games, due to content instead of diminished returns.
I hate that DS Impossible Mission box art (not to mention it's just a code in a box with the Switch version). They should have kept the Epyx neon style.
www.resetera.com
Do you like Epyx's neon '80s box art?
If you were a computer gamer in the West in the '80s, you're probably familiar with Epyx and their iconic box art. I love a lot of it but I'm also curious what people that didn't grow up with this stuff think of it.
www.resetera.com
i liked what they tried to do in that regard but level-based without more arcadey action/platforming elements it kind of drove home what i don't like about the post-SOTN stuff
i don't want to be too hard on Ecclesia it was quite alright but by then it was like.. aight. i've had about enough
Ecclesia is much more grindy than the other similar Castlevanias. It's a shame because it's nicer looking than most of them.
Kamiya gave a run down of his entire history with games basically
Growing Up with Games: A Talk with the Kamiya Brothers By Keigo Toyoda (Part 2) | PlatinumGames Official Blog
The following is a translation of an interview with our Chief Game Designer Hideki Kamiya and his younger brot […]
www.platinumgames.com
For Zillion, in the Untold History of Japanese Game Developers part 3 book:
Q: Zillion, which you were the planner on, seems somewhat inspired by Impossible Mission.
A: Yes, inspired <laughs>. We were definitely inspired by that game.
Q: In the West, there's a misconception Japan did not like Western games. I've heard the phrase "yoge kusoge", meaning "Western games are crap". But I've discovered Japan, America, and Europe all influenced each other.
A: Oh yes, us Japanese developers were definitely inspired by Western games. .... But when we started out as game developers, we would play games on Apple computers, and often found inspiration for the core concepts of our games in "yoge" - Western games. Taking those concepts, mixing them up, and giving them a Japanese flair is an interesting part of our game development culture. So it was very common for Western games to serve as the jumping-off point for our development efforts. For example, Phantasy Star straight-up stole from both Ultima and Wizardry <laughs>
Yeah the art was incredible. It's a shame they haven't really gone back to that well at all since. I guess they at least got a little reuse with that PS3 online co-op game.
Thanks! I have been falling behind in gaming history books in recent years.Kamiya gave a run down of his entire history with games basically
Growing Up with Games: A Talk with the Kamiya Brothers By Keigo Toyoda (Part 2) | PlatinumGames Official Blog
The following is a translation of an interview with our Chief Game Designer Hideki Kamiya and his younger brot […]
For Zillion, in the Untold History of Japanese Game Developers part 3 book:
Q: Zillion, which you were the planner on, seems somewhat inspired by Impossible Mission.
A: Yes, inspired <laughs>. We were definitely inspired by that game.
Q: In the West, there's a misconception Japan did not like Western games. I've heard the phrase "yoge kusoge", meaning "Western games are crap". But I've discovered Japan, America, and Europe all influenced each other.
A: Oh yes, us Japanese developers were definitely inspired by Western games. .... But when we started out as game developers, we would play games on Apple computers, and often found inspiration for the core concepts of our games in "yoge" - Western games. Taking those concepts, mixing them up, and giving them a Japanese flair is an interesting part of our game development culture. So it was very common for Western games to serve as the jumping-off point for our development efforts. For example, Phantasy Star straight-up stole from both Ultima and Wizardry <laughs>
Metroid and it ain't even close. Castlevania is great though.
Hollow Knight beats them both, though.
It was actually the original Dragon Slayer that was influenced by Alphos, from the same book I mentioned about Zillion:
"Regarding Dragon Slayer, I saw that Morita-san made Alphos and I realized, Oh wow! You could actually make these kinds of action games, although I'd thought it was impossible before. So I decided, if he can do it, then I should be able to do it too. Basically that's exactly how I came to make these games; and later, if full-colour scrolling was possible in Riglas, then I could do it as well by myself!"
Btw, I think this Morita guy may have introduced the "Advance Wars" style of game to Japan in 1983, called "Morita's Battlefield", which was the first game ever published by Enix, well, the same day as several other games. It's such a dead ringer for it, and has AI for the enemy team - he was apparently well known for Shogi and the Shogi games he made so that was his expertise.
Google translated summary:
https://www.gamepres.org/pc88/library/1983/1983_2.htm
I remember reading some interview that the Daisenryaku developer was playing this every day when he made the original game in that series. Panzer General is a western game influenced by Daisenryaku.
Edit: Seems Daisenryaku has been quoted to be an influence on Ogre Battle, so Tactics Ogre/Final Fantasy Tactics as well. Nice example of an old niche PC game having a profound effect on console games.
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the key based mechanics and stages that are more mazelike rather than in the other classic titles. i know it is not in the genre, just it has a more map like stage structure. konami's early obvious foray into the genre is Goonies II.
It's the earliest cut and dry example of the genre in Japan since there's little else to the game really (rudimentary RPG stats that don't amount to much), although I doubt anyone would want to play it now. It launched as the technical showpiece for the FM77AV in October 85 but you can't find footage of that version online. I think it had full smooth scrolling unlike the PC88 version you might see, or the bad graphics of the MSX version.
The world is huge and confusing. If you don't stumble onto the map item early on you're in trouble, lol. Even with it it seems like you jump around strangely. You start at the rabbit shaped house in the left hilly area.
You collect keys and upgrades. The 5 keys have a similar function to Ridley and Kraid in Metroid NES, where they unlock different doors at the final castle (on the right side of the map) - you can go there earlier if you have the right upgrades but can't get in.
You'd have to scan the map for where they are, but it's got a bottle to walk on water, candle to light caves, shield auto blocks fireballs from bird enemies, crystal lets you damage the final boss (and it's not right in the area like in Zelda), and the cross let's you walk on holes or lava. And the map of course.
No points for creativity, but it has that Metroid aspect where the lava or water walking upgrade might make general traversal easier with arrangements like this...
or this
while also overcoming hard locks at large bodies of water or whatever.
In the west, Doriath for the Commodore 64 (1985) may fit the bill for this genre too.
There are 8 spells across the map to find, each one will allow you to kill a different enemy type. The enemies are blocking various routes and you find the spells that will let you kill them, basically unlocking that path.
Here are the spells
Doriath Dungeon: Enter!
Detailed site on the c64 game Doriath, with a complete map, walk thru, faq, glossary, soundtrack, movie files, downloads, how to get into room A11, and much morewww.doriathdungeon.com
You start by that red dragon there, you can see how a yellow enemy is stationed at all exits to this little area, and the Roimort spell you can find below that dragon will let you kill them and find more places to go...
...the game quickly opens up into chaos after that.
https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/C64/index.htm by "George_s"
these are beautiful write ups. thanks for the insight.
I see Metroid's as more specific games with a narrower audience but are overall better designed.
'Vania's have more gameplay elements and more hooks to potentially keep you playing but overall can't match the best of the Metroid series in terms of level design.
'Vania's have more gameplay elements and more hooks to potentially keep you playing but overall can't match the best of the Metroid series in terms of level design.
I need to give Order of Ecclesia another try. I played through Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow after loving SotN, but I think I had burned out on the games before I got to OoE
I would've said Metroid as a kid, but having now played more Castlevania games, I think I'm going to have to give the edge to CV, however it might be biased since they had more games.
Super Metroid is great. Fusion is great. Zero Mission is really good. However, that's really about it for Metroid. All the other titles are solid, but I would argue that Castlevania comes on par with these with SotN, Aria, and Ecclesia, and then there's still like 3 or 4 solid entries left to add weight.
Super Metroid is great. Fusion is great. Zero Mission is really good. However, that's really about it for Metroid. All the other titles are solid, but I would argue that Castlevania comes on par with these with SotN, Aria, and Ecclesia, and then there's still like 3 or 4 solid entries left to add weight.
the bolded is what I've had trouble wording about why Metroid is so much better, great explanation
2d wise it's castlevania. If you added in AM2R it would be harder to choose but overall series it's Metroid