Anyone else love Metroidvania style game?

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Honestly I just started playing Un Epic again on PC and it is a really great indie game in the Metroidvania style. I really like a lot of the indie games because Metroidvania seems like a style they continue to revisit on PC and Xbox Live Arcade.

A few months ago I played Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet which is probably the most unique "Metroidvania" indie game out there. It featured music from three songs by the Symphonic Black Metal act Dimmu Borgir. Mostly just the orchestral parts from songs form their album called Death Cult Armageddon.

Also the XBLA game Shadow Complex is another good one.

I mean Super Metroid for Super Nintendo is one of my top five games of all time.

Anyways it seems "Metroidvania" fans have a lot to be happy about and that this niche style is here to stay.

I like them, but I've only played a few that weren't actually Metroid or Castlevania, and they often felt like a more watered-down experience.

I wanted to try Shadow Complex, but I don't (yet?) have a console that will play it.

Cave Story is a must-play. Some argue that it's the best Metroidvania game ever made. I don't know if I'd go quite that far myself, but I do agree that it is absolutely a must-play if you love the genre. You can get the original for free by clicking here, and there's also a great port of it for the Nintendo 3DS.

If you like checking out obscure old games, there's also a great old DOS-based Metroidvania called Zeliard that I'd recommend. It's looking understandably dated these days, but the gameplay still holds up fairly well even today. You can download it by clicking here.

I've got the 3DS verison of Cave Story (the 2D original, not the 3D remake), and it's really cool, but I think it's trying to break my buttons, and I kept dying in the desert a whole lot and haven't played it much since then.

Zeliard looks more like one of those games that were pretty popular on the MSX, like Goonies, Maze of Galious, and Legacy of the Wizard (Dragon Slayer IV). Still cool games, though I often feel a bit overwhelmed with how much there is to explore, and how easy it is to die.

I played the PC version with the translation since the original is Japanese only. Its free and I played for a little while. The thing I did not like about were the linear areas that were completely straight. Seemed less like Metroidvania because of this. It is good but the linear design of the areas besides the main hub was not really my cup of tea. Although I only went through two of the portals and to two of the areas. And then my computer old computer broke so I lost it and have not redownloaded it.

Maybe I should try the 3ds version which looks decent.

That one DOS game does not seem to work on my PC probably because it is not compatible with Windows 7. I think in order to get DOS games to work it has to use the emulator DOSBox which allows you to run old DOS games on windows. Is there a DOSbox version of this?

Or maybe there is a way to get a DOS prompt in windows. I am not that familiar with how DOS games work on newer versions of windows or if it is even possible to get it to work unless it is a redone version in DOSbox. Like I downloaded the original Blood FPS on GOG.com and it was done using the DOS box emulator.

Nevermind I got it to work by downloading DOSBox and running it through there. Figured it out before I realized there were instructions on the zeliard page. Brings memories of when I used to have a MS-DOS machine. I always hated those stupid prompts you had to enter every time you wanted to play something. No easy icon clicking like today. Young kids today have no idea how much of a pain PCs used to be. lol. I mean I had a 486 I believe not sure the manufacturer though. Those were big before the Intel processors. 486 was after 386 and was the last before the Intel Pentium chip.

So far the game reminds me of Faxanadu for NES. Pretty good and I was 7 years old when this came out.

If the DOS prompt really bothers you that much, you can always install a really old version of Windows (like 3.11 and prior) inside of DOSBox @_@ It's about as nutty as it sounds.

Though I can't recall how well running DOS shortcuts inside of Win 3.11 inside of DOSBox works...I know in Virtual Machine, I tried running a 97-98 era DOS game through Win 98, and it ran terribly until I shut down into DOS and tried it again.

My very first computer as a kid was actually a Apple IIe, which predates even the original IBM XT clones (which were followed by the 286, then 386, then 486). I remember it actually taking a while for me to get used to Windows 95 when I first started using it.
BTW, you can bring up the DOS command prompt on absolutely any Windows computer by typing CMD into the Run or Search box on your Windows Start button. Windows will tend to have a fit if you try to run most DOS based software directly through it though, so DOSBox tends to be a better choice anyway.


Yes, I played Faxanadu back then as well, and did find them quite similar. You could almost consider Zeliard a sort of spiritual sequel to Faxanadu, gameplay-wise. Or maybe more of a cross between Faxanadu and Legend of Zelda 2.

I'd recommend giving it more of a chance than that. The game starts to get a lot less linear as it goes on, especially in how you play it, as well as how you travel around in it. With all the different items you can get, choices you can make, and the multiple endings based on those choices, it's actually one of the most replayable Metroidvania games I've played.