Environmental Station Alpha
I don’t generally recommend things in a public place, because it seems a little pointless, but I hope this helps someone make a decision.
I’ve played every 2D Metroid, I’ve dabbled in more recent Castlevanias, I’ve done a lot of platformers. ESA managed to hold my attention for over 75 hours of exploration, trying somewhat challenging things, and more exploration. This is Hempuli’s first commercial release to my knowledge, but he spent about 3 years tinkering with this game and trying to make it better. This is a better-designed metroidvania than Super Metroid was. There’s no arbitrarily huge amount of health that you need to recover by grinding off of little enemies spawning out of pipes. You find a save, you get your health back, you fan out in multiple directions and see if you can find anything. The only real negative I can think of when it comes to ESA’s exploration is that you don’t find some little missile pack buried in each room, stuffed in a wall. You don’t get that momentary gratification and pointless increase to the capacity of a weapon you’ll never use. Instead, when you find some health or a bonus item, you feel massively more rewarded. That’s not for everyone, but it’s certainly for me.
– Real player with 89.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Metroidvania Indie Games.
This is an excellent platformer/metroidvania/puzzle-mystery game.
I’ll start with the cons:
- ESA is difficult. You need to be good at platforming and boss-fighting if you want to beat this game. Fortunately the save-game-format is just a text file, and I was able to modify my MaxHealth in the save file (that is, cheat in more HP) in order to be able to beat a late boss and late platforming challenge that otherwise I would not have been skillful enough to get past to play the rest of the game.
– Real player with 34.3 hrs in game
Duck Boy
True evil never stays dead! Explore a mysterious land cloaked in treasure and blood, as you jump, slash, and dodge your way through Avenis. Inspired by games such as Zelda II, The Battle of Olympus and Simon’s Quest, Duck Boy will have you fighting your way through a modern interpretation of the now dead Platform-adventure genre.
As an ancient evil brings the world to the brink of ruin, a hero will rise from the charnel. Demons, undead, and corrupted beings roam free, feasting on the life of Avenis' once abundant populace. With flute and sword in hand, Duck Boy must find a way to put an end to his ungodly enemies once and for all.
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Lovingly crafted hand drawn and animated pixel art
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Explore a living, breathing world packed with secrets
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Learn and play new songs to aid you on your quest
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Fight vicious enemies that leave no quarter
Read More: Best Metroidvania Souls-like Games.
Muzzleloaded
Ok, I just beat the game and want to share some of my thoughts.
This game is a short platformer with a huge influence from Metroidvanias. I wouldn’t call it a Metroidvania per se because even though we have an interconnected map and abilities that let you visit new areas, most of the new areas you can visit with abilities are optimal, offering stats rather new upgrades or bosses.
This is also the first game created by the dev and feels like one of these browser games that I used to play ten years ago. That’s not bad by any means, but you have to be aware of what you are getting. The three areas are distinct between them, but there is not much variety within themselves. In the same area, most of the scenarios will look the same, which can make it hard for you to recognize places you have been before. You have like like 5 different types of enemies, and in latter areas, they are just variations of previous ones.
– Real player with 2.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Metroidvania Hero Shooter Games.
Temper your expectations - this is a $2 game from a brand new developer and it plays like one. The enemy variety is awful, the majority of the game is spent trudging through too-long corridors, and you’re basically incapable of fighting without the first upgrade (which means the first 20 minutes are going to be miserable). That said, the bosses were enjoyable, the music was acceptable, and the game is not long enough to become agonizingly tedious. As long as you know what you’re getting into, this is a reasonably enjoyable game. You can do a whole lot worse for the price, especially when it’s on sale.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Warp Soldier
In a retro, monochrome fantasy landscape, the white sage Jericho has employed you to stop the local warlock from reviving an ancient evil. Is it up to you, the Warp Soldier, to put an end to his dark ritual. With your vast movepool, unadulterated ferocity, a few movement gimmicks, and tiny peglegs, do you have what it takes to end the warlock’s army before they put an end to you?
EXPLORE A VAST, RETRO, INTERCONNECTED WORLD
While the land lacks in color, the world the Warp Soldier must trek features several ecosystems, all authentically scored with the chippiest of tunes. Backtracking is rewarded but seldom feels like a chore with the powers the player will come across.
A MURDEROUS, ENCAPTIVATING CAST
Not only is the cast of cannon fodder charming and varied, but many of the bigger baddies you come across will have character arcs of their own. Whether the warlock’s headliner henchmen become your bitter rivals or eventual allies will depend on how you express yourself during combat. If tasteful violence versus fierce foes isn’t your forte, there are some NPCs scattered about who may be able to help you with a sidequest or two.
COMBO CANVAS - SHOUNEN STYLE
While your sword and swift kicks are already devastating on their own, your ability to teleport next to foes you’ve tagged with warp-strikes lets you extend your melee combos and air-juggles like only an anime protagonist can!
Aqua Boy
A 2 hour long metroidvania that feels like a cross between metroid, aquaria, and MS Paint. For the given price it is worth it, especially on sale.
The good:
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music
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progression
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metroidvania feel
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controls
The bad:
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No warp (hence lots of unnecessary backtracking)
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Too easy
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Choppy framerate (unity lag)
edit: To the creator of this game: Please try contacting the creator of Aggelos, he will probably be able to help you make the framerate smooth.
– Real player with 2.0 hrs in game
A mastery of game design! Swim deep into the depths of the ocean to learn more about the legendary underwater city of Pathandor, and the curse that made it succumb. Also notice the fantastic 2D animation of the enemies (particularly a terrifying giant octopus). If I had to describe Aquaboy in one word, I’d have to say “Humor, mermaids, banana guns, and monkeys” you can’t just describe a game this good in only one word!
You MUST play this game!
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Axiom Verge
Remember the demonic imagery and disturbing backgrounds of Ninja Gaiden as you got closer and closer to fighting the demon? How about the sci-fi creepiness of Metroid? Or the creepy alien lair of Contra?
Axiom Verge takes these elements and cranks them up. The setting is creepy, the music unsettling, and the story increasingly disturbing. There’s even some impressively melancholy chiptune music at one point.
The game first starts out as an utterly shameless ripoff of Metroid. I’m talking totally shameless - everything from the enemy types to the types of environments encountered early in the game, to the Super Metroid-esque map - it all screams Metroid, and it’s painfully blatant, to the point where I rolled my eyes and thought “Does this game have any originality?”.
– Real player with 44.8 hrs in game
tl;dr This game is an excellent successor to the Metroid style platformers. You should get it if you liked those.
Wow, where do I even begin? I installed this to see how it was. Here I am, 13 hours later and I binged it. Played it in two 6-ish hour sittings because I couldn’t stop for anything but falling asleep. There’s a lot to talk about with this game, both good and bad.
Gameplay
This is the meat and potatoes of the game. This is what’s going to keep you occupied for most of the time, so it’s important that this works well. It does. I’ve found very few situations where I was annoyed or bored with the game. The shooting feels great and suitably difficult and kept fresh by the insane variety of weapons and tools at your disposal. I particularly enjoy that each weapon more or less seem to have a specific playstyle and enemy type in mind, which keeps you varying up as the game goes along. There were a few I simply didn’t find useful at all, being the Nova (which you get very early),
! Firewall and
! Multi Disruptor. The only thing that stood out to me was the grappling hook. Yes, I’m spoiling that because the grappling hook exists in every Metroid game ever, so it’s not a big deal. It doesn’t act like other grappling hooks and that threw me off a lot and it took me about an hour of gameplay to get used to how it works and its quirks.
– Real player with 27.3 hrs in game
Blasphemous
Wandering what would it be if Dante’s Inferno (2010) became a metroidvania game? Now you have the answer, it’s Blasphemous! I’ll try to be as brief and honest as possible telling what I saw and experienced during my playthrough.
Before anything else my entire playthrough was during “V. 1.0.6” so, if there’s something missing the devs might have patched it. At this moment the game is on “V. 1.0.8” and according to the devs:
@Blasphemous:
“You’ll also notice that this is Patch 1, which means more patches and content updates will be on their way - launching Blasphemous doesn’t mean we’re finished! - Wed, 25/09/2019”
Knowing that let’s get to move on to the review…
– Real player with 86.2 hrs in game
If someone reads this - Sorry for my English.
I really wanted to like this game. But it seems to me that the logic of exploring the map is fundamentally broken.
How does metroidvanias work? At the location, you find obstacles that you can not overcome. –- You explore the location, find the ability. — Overcome obstacles and feel progress. The game designer organizes the game levels in such a way that you can collect the necessary abilities for game progression and explore old locations to find secrets. And in portions, you get more and more freedom to move.
– Real player with 39.2 hrs in game
Chasm
Chasm gets a hard “Pass” for me. It feels like there’s absolutely nothing original or close to original about Chasm. It’s a great example of how taking gameplay elements from what you like, smashing them together, and releasing that, isn’t how you get a good game.
I backed this game after playing and enjoying the demo years ago, looking forward to where they took the development. After playing through the whole game to 100% to get the complete experience of what the developers built, every single drop from every monster and all, I’m coming away from the experience feeling like absolutely no one played the full game, start to finish, before release. I know that can’t be true, and there must have been people who did. I want to know what they think, honestly. I don’t get how this game was released like this.
– Real player with 40.1 hrs in game
Chasm: Mind the Gap
TLDR:
It’s a good game that could have been better. The pixel art is beautiful, the soundtrack is good, and the story is enjoyable. Sadly, it has a lot of frustrations that put it in the “Would Not Recommend category. There are a few things that could have been done to make Chasm REALLY good.
Player tips and advice:
[olist]
- You only need two magic items to be effective. The rest are, in my opinion, a waste of gold: the magic dagger and the magic shield. Get the witch to level both to maximum. Ignore the rest. Daggers are by far the most utilitarian and easiest to use. You can use it to defeat everything from a distance with rare exception. The shield is Extremely valuable with certain bosses.
– Real player with 29.8 hrs in game
Haiku, the Robot
Haiku, the Robot is a cute, exploration and adventure game where you play as a small robot tasked with saving the world.
∼ Explore a land of corrupt robots and machinery ∽
Get lost in a machine world fallen to decay, map unexplored areas, and encounter quirky robots, both friend and foe.
∼ Discover different items and abilities to reach new areas ∽
Find items and abilities that help you travel through the world. Become stronger as you master your moveset and the world around you.
∼ Fight deadly foes and unravel the world’s secrets ∽
Battle fierce machines and piece together secrets to save the world from a mysterious, evil corruption.
∼ Features ∽
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Classic side-scrolling action in a modernized retro pixel art style
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Sharp and precise character movement and attack abilities
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Hand-drawn pixel art brought to life with frame-by-frame animation
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Metroidvania at heart, heavily focused on exploring and being rewarded for it
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A large, interconnected world with secrets, enemies, and quirky little robots
∼ Add the game to your Wishlist to be reminded when it releases ∽
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1231880/Haiku_the_Robot/
Lone Fungus
Lone Fungus is a metroidvania set in a world built by mushrooms where you play as the last mushroom alive. Explore an ancient world, acquire new abilities and discover secrets!
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Explore a huge handcrafted world built by ancient mushrooms.
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Fast and responsive combat, play as an acrobatic mushroom!
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A spell-system based on how you strike spells with your sword, giving spells multiple uses and a creative approach to combat.
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60+ relics and 15+ unlockable abilities!
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Unique and challenging platforming gameplay reminiscent of modern platformers such as Celeste but set in a fully open world.
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True Metroidvania progression, this game is all about progressing using new abilities and spells.
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Uncover clues to what happened to the different mushroom cultures and uncover many secrets.
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Play the game how you want! Pick between four difficulty modes or use the accessible Assist Mode!
Explore a truly huge world! Explore 13 unique areas each representing an unique mushroom culture that used to live there, every area will have an unique setting, enemies and platforming challenges! Defeat bosses and learn ancient mushroom magic from each culture which also changes the appearance of your mushroom cap!
This is around 45% of the world!