Metroidvania. A particularly beloved sub-genre of game. This portmanteau between Metroid and Castlevania is utilised to define a sub genre that marries the common elements between both games. Which elements are: A huge open gameworld, commonly with interconnected spaces, wherein the player must collect new items and abilities in order to travel to areas in spaces that they have visited before. The effect, when executed correctly, is that players feel like their character is evolving as their world expands in a fun symbiotic way. What I want to talk about, however, is a sub-genre within that sub-genre, the 3D Metroidvania.
Not everything is benefited with the addition of an extra dimension. Platforming, for example. Although I'm sure it exists in some incarnation, I've never seen a thirdperson platformer that shakes the reputation of being clunky and ill-suited. Even third person games that wear the genre well, like Dying Light or Far Cry, fail to make their climbing mechanics feel significantly enjoyable and/or definitive. So what makes Metroidvania a good fit? Well, a couple of things actually. It's actually easier to create an interconnected world when you have a 3D space to contend with, Developers can shape their land in such a way that you could be adjacent to a path you've visited before and you'd never know it. And backtracking gameplay is always a lot more fun when your perspective is not fixed into the exact same angle it was when you first hopped down that hallway. It's a small touch but it is transformative to the experience.
So why, then, are there so few 3D Metroidvania's? When coming up with this blog I had to really wrack my brain to think of examples, and even then I have examples which practically skirt the definition as much a possible. I think the reason might come back to game design, whilst I said it is 'easier' to interconnect a 3D game world I feel it's important to add that I do not mean that the act itself is 'easy'. The level of clarity-of-vision required to execute the creation of such a laser-focused product is rarely seen in any creative fields. Let alone in game development. It requires the developers to decide on a direction and stick with it through thick and thin as they make the entire game, which can feel quite limiting to some. AAA games are the worst for it, who remembers the 10 year development cycle for 'Duke Nuke: Forever' and 'Final Fantasy XV', both were extensively delayed, in some part, because of the quickly evolving world of gaming. Despite that we do have some big-name studios who manage to string their ideas together in a competent, or usually exceptional, manner.
In order to sanitize this blog and make it manageable, I've decided to define Metroidvania by the dual specifications of an interconnected game space and cleverly built-in backtracking. I avoided the open world moniker for a specific reason. Additionally, I've tried to pick games from the AAA space mostly, again, to keep a sensible list. The result should be fairly comprehensive but I guess we'll see about that, won't we.
First let me start my telling you about my history with Metroidvania. First, inconceivably, I've never played Metroid or Castlevania. Unless you count the demo for Lords of Shadow, which you shouldn't. In my defence, both games predate my existence by a decade. I never even heard of any of these games until I hit secondary school. As I've stated before, my introduction into the world of gaming was Metal Gear Solid, and that series really shaped a lot of my early interest in games. Off the top of my head I remember becoming attached to a whole slew of classics but just never Metroid or Castlevania. There's only so much love in my heart, okay? Gears of War, of course I played that to death. Devil May Cry 2, I'm that game's biggest apologist. Metal Gear Solid, do I even need to mention how much I love that franchise? But maybe I missed a few 'unmissables' along the way.
Whilst I may never have played the games themselves, I have partaken in their legacy; as is the point of this blog. I have mentioned it before but it bears repeating, before the rise of the Internet things were pretty dire for video games news providers. Yes, there magazines for the purists but what about kids like me? We couldn't afford a subscription to a decently expensive gaming magazine. So we would turn to TV, and that was a mistake. I don't just mean turning to the TV, gaming being represented on TV is and will always be, a mistake. (Don't even get me started on that scene in Breaking Bad where Jesse plays RAGE with a light gun. Good lord.) Traditional media have never really got video games. At this point, with gaming recently becoming the most profitable form of entertainment in the world, we can blame this on gross incompetence on their part; but back then, it was just because no one knew what to make of this relatively new medium. So we got gaming shows. Glad they're not around anymore. However, disregarding how grim that time in gaming entrainment was, those of us who put up with it were introduced to a whole bunch of games we would never have heard about before. I found Fallout 3 on a TV show. And I also found a game relevant to this article.
One day, whilst enduring some god-awful gaming show, I happened across a title that I instantly recognised. A game built around a pop-culture icon whom I cherished, and still do. I saw the first gameplay I had ever seen for 'Batman: Arkham Asylum'. I cannot understate how exciting it was for a Batman fan to learn about a high-quality game based around the caped crusader headed our way. 2008-me was over the moon. Few heroes ever resonated with me the same way that Batman did back in the day. The chance to step into his shoes and, whats more, fight some of the most iconic Batman villains of all time, was too tempting to say no to. However, when I picked the game up (After playing the demo approximately one million times) something unexpected appealed to me.
For whatever reason, Batman embarked on his Arkham adventure with only his bare minimum tools. As such, when he gets locked in the Asylum, Batman has to make do with what he has on him and what he can scrounge up from about the island. This gameplay system meant that the player would often hit a brick wall in their investigations, sometimes literally, and have to continue on somewhere else and come back later. This was the first time I experienced Metroidvania-style mechanics, and in a 3D game no less. Arkham was delightfully interconnected and cleverly designed so that halls you would have to backtrack through would be strategically repopulated to let you know that you're going the right way. Additionally, Batman made sure that every helpful tool you picked up doubled as a useful weapon in battle, empowering the player both in exploration and combat as they proceeded. Batman's one night adventure still remains one of my favourite of all time and serves as a brilliant how-to for anyone who wants to see how to do everything right in a Metroidvania game.
How about a game that doesn't fit between the Metroidvania lines quite so cleanly. I've always been a fan of horror. A respectful fan, that is. Respectful in that I enjoy the genre but cannot properly disclose to myself or to you what it is about that type of game that appeals to me so. I have no idea what it is that makes a good horror experience and what makes a gimmicky, lazy one. I seem to operate on a 'I'll know it when I see it' sort of mentality when it comes to horror. With that in mind, the second I saw Dead Space I knew it would be good horror. Perhaps my opinion was elevated by the fact that I saw the game first on the horror-show that was another darn gaming TV channel, but I fell for Visceral's space-zombie thriller all the same.
This next one is textbook in it's execution. Designed from the ground up to appeal to fans of odd school Metroidvania gameplay. Vigil Games' Darksiders knew from the word 'go' what it wanted to be and who they wanted to appeal to. Personally, I never played the original but Darksiders 2 instead. And you can just feel the Symphony of the Night inspiration in the way the game is designed from the ground up. With the hack and slash gameplay, the backtracking, the 'world-travelling' system and all. Likely why it achieved such a cult status amongst it's fans.
However, when it comes to Boss fights no one comes close to this game. From Software's Dark Souls is well loved and well remembered for it's uncompromising difficulty, it's impeccable world design and practically impenetrable lore. That design is my focus today. The original Dark Souls' world is on hallowed ground in the halls of gameworld fame; And, incidentally, one of my favourite game spaces of all time, allowing the player to travel such great distances and still end up right next to where they started. From Software plays with their audience, taking them high and low and still bringing them back to the same place in the end; I would even go so far as to call it intentionally thematic knowing Miyazaki. I can't even call exploring Dark Souls' world 'back tracking' as there is so much to witness and discover in places you've been to a thousand times before.
There are also a couple of key locations are limited from to start with in order to maintain something resembling a coherent narrative. You cannot face some of the endgame bosses until you retrieve the Lordvessel, as you technically need it in order to collect their souls; and you cannot traverse the abyss without the Covenant of Artorias. Apart from this, the only thing limiting the enterprising player is enemy difficulty which is curved to point you right instead of left. (That being said the game's reputation might have some players thinking 'maybe things are supposed to be this hard' and persist down the skeleton route right away until they hit a literal stop wall. Like me.) Although some wouldn't consider Dark Souls the most traditional Metroidvania, I don't see Dark Souls as a traditional example of any genre. If anything it is the prototypical Souls-game. Something unique all onto itself.
When correctly executed, Metroidvania games can be some of the best games about. Bringing together intelligent world design and narrative in a manner that feels natural and inspires exploration. Some games have bought their own spin on certain aspects and revolutionised in others, but at the end of the day they all share the same root DNA. They all have the same lineage somewhere down the bloodline. And to think, all of this was born from two classic games that came out in the same year! Just goes to show you, the greatest ideas are those that last. And Metroidvania will likely last for a long time to come.
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