Metroidvania or Not: Introduction

Metroidvania is a genre in video games that generally refers to side-scrolling action games with exploration and combat. The term was originally coined to describe games within the Castlevania series that incorporates free-roaming / exploration elements a la Metroid games. However, since then, it has become a very broad term - some say too broad to even be meaningful or useful. In this series, I'll try to look into games that have at least some claims to be a Metroidvania game, and explore the different elements that they share (or not share) with the original.

 
 

List of elements

Castlevania SOTN.jpg
  • Basic information

    • Name of game

    • Designer / Publisher

    • System

    • Year of publication

  • Mechanics

    • Style of combat

    • Use of magic

    • Combat-focus versus Platform-focus

    • Death mechanics

    • (Fall damage)

  • Progression

    • Levelling / Farming for XP

    • Farming for Gold / Item

    • Skill pick-up

    • (Skill-tree)

    • (Stats allocation)

    • (Crafting)

  • Exploration

    • Free-roaming

      • Gated by movement abilities

      • Gated by bosses

    • Type of world map

    • World generation

    • Auto-map

  • Additional game modes

  • Other elements

    • Playability with just keyboard