In Need of Games - Preferably Metroidvania

[Kim]

So, a game I was gonna play turned out to be real gross so now I'm looking for something else.

I've been in a desperate mood for a sidescrolling action/exploration game, and La Mulana scratches that itch pretty damn well except I've pretty much beaten it three times now and I need something new.

I will accept other game recommendations. I like most genres except sports games.

Try and keep this cheep. I don't have a ton of money to throw around.

[Ryong]

I'm going to be an ass by suggesting you a game that is in development, but with a demo you can play.

Iconoclasts. It's a metroidvania, mostly. It's looking pretty solid, I'd say.

ZfISI9biqvw

If you want a game that tries to emulate the metroidvania feeling but actually isn't a metroidvania, you could try Guacamelee.

Oh wait, what's that, TWO metroidvania suggestions in development? Don't mind if I do (http://www.chasmgame.com)!

[McTahr]

I found myself with a similar desire post Rogue Legacy binge, and went exploring.

I was partial to:
Rogue Legacy (of course) $15 - Though the leveling aspect will discourage some, I enjoyed this one the most. I played it to like New Game +5 because I'm an idiot and pined for more content.
Valdis Story: Abyssal City $15 - Same deal. It does sport a ranking system for bosses, to add a nice level of perfectionism to it. Had I the time, I'd have thrashed it several times.
Cargo Commander $10 - Neat little spacey exploration, but not really as "exploration" as others unless you count lots of random boxes / rooms as explorable things. (Which is to say, there's not a consistency to it that you might want from a metroidvania.)
SteamWorld Dig $10 - A fun (for what it's worth) combination of typical metroidvania aspects (power up, scripted bosses, hidden rooms, etc.) and block-mining. You know, if you happened to enjoy any of the other million games involving mining. Got a tiny bit stale near the end.

I did the Guacamelee co-op with a friend, and it was pretty fantastic. We were, however, very drunk. The control system is somewhat confusing to the drunk. FAIR WARNING.

Also, seconding Ryong: I've had my eye on Chasm (http://www.chasmgame.com/) for pretty much the entirety of their development cycle.

E- Just now looked at Ryong's second in-dev suggestion. Editing my last one to appropriately respond.

[greed]

Yeah Witch and Hundred Knights took a steep plunge didn't it? Fuck last month's garbage. At least DS2 was amazing.

Anyway I've been playing the Strider reboot and that's a Metroidvania, though more on the Metroid style than the Castlevania style, no RPG elements that is to say. Valdis Story is also good from what little I've played.

Edit: Rogue Legacy and Steamworld Dig that McTahr mentioned are also really good though Steamworld is very short for the genre.

Also for first person examples of the genre I've heard really good things about Betrayer.

Edit2: I've never had a game suck my enthusiasm for it out as fast as Witch did, god damn.

[rpgdemon]

Have you played the Megaman Zero games, for the GBA? I think there was a compilation for the DS awhile ago. They're fun sidescrolling action games (I mean, they're Megaman games), and they have some amount of exporation to get powerups and such. Unlike most megaman games, you open up the world to explore as you beat through levels. They're fun, if you've never played them, and should be cheap, given their age.

[Kim]

I played through most of the Megaman Zero games. I don't think I finished the last one.

I'll look over the other recommendations. I have Guacamelee but have been putting it off. Partially cuz it expects me to use a controller and I don't think I have a controller that'll work for Steam games.

[Loyal]

I've heard plenty of nice things about Teslagrad. (http://store.steampowered.com/app/249590/) Haven't tried it myself since I'm not in the market for new games right now, but there is a demo available.

[greed]

I played through most of the Megaman Zero games. I don't think I finished the last one.

I'll look over the other recommendations. I have Guacamelee but have been putting it off. Partially cuz it expects me to use a controller and I don't think I have a controller that'll work for Steam games.

If you look around 2nd hand places you can get wired 360 controllers dirt cheap. And they work with everything. I got mine from a pawn shop for like $8.

[Ryong]

I remember looking forward to Valdis Story so much until there was a massive change in art style and then I stopped caring about it.

I am going to recommend not getting Rogue Legacy. It directly punishes you for upgrading your character, too.

Oh, I'm going to add to my suggestions Risk of Rain because it's darn fun, specially in multiplayer - though local co-op is dumb because it has no idea what splitscreen could mean.

Partially cuz it expects me to use a controller and I don't think I have a controller that'll work for Steam games.

X360ce works wonderfully.

Most of the time.

[Kim]

Well I mean Mick has a controller I just don't wanna harass him so I can use it.

How does Rogue Legacy punish you for upgrading?

[Ryong]

Runes which give you powers - like double-triple-quadruple-and-so-on jump or flight or lifesteal - are divided by where they go in your equipment and they go up in price ridiculously the more you have, so if have a double-jump rune on your boots and can buy another one for your gauntlets and then you find one for flight on your boots, you'd need to buy the gauntlets one for double-jump and then the boots one for the flight so you've actually upgraded anything.

Equipment power and ability is tied directly to its weight and carry weight is one of the many attributes you can upgrade... Any upgrades you buy increase the price of every upgrade by a certain amount AND levels up the enemies. So if you branch out too much the game can get extremely hard.

Oh and, I can't remember if normal enemies rank up, but bosses get stronger in more ways than just higher numbers - one fight has several floating spike balls that cannot be destroyed and then higher your level the more there are.

[McTahr]

Honestly the leveling up of the "game" and monsters was nice. You didn't just wind up ridiculously overpowered, it enforced a strict learning curve where you had to either play well or die a lot until you learned. Typical roguelike, despite going against the genre by letting you "keep" a portion of progress.

[greed]

Yeah I thought it worked out nicely myself.

also it's old but Tombi(Tomba?) for the PSX is available as a classic and it's a pretty fun example of the genre for it's time.

[Ryong]

But everything scales with you. You're not actually making progress by buying upgrades unless you dump all your gold in one thing.

Or maybe I'm just terrible because I couldn't get past one of the bosses having a fifth of the screen consist of deadly spikeballs.

[Loyal]

Also, barring mostly-ineffective upgrades and rare one-shot trinkets, you can't save your gold in between lives - use it or lose it.

Also, there's no way whatsoever to reset or "sell" upgrades. It's really, really easy to spend yourself into a corner in this game.

Mind you, I still think it's pretty damn fun in spite of that. Although it's pretty punishing if you don't know ahead of time what you're going for, it's got a high skill ceiling, tight controls (except flight which is pretty skippable), and it's great for speedruns if you can get that far.

But everything scales with you. You're not actually making progress by buying upgrades unless you dump all your gold in one thing.Considering how wildly diverse your upgrades are, and how mutually-exclusive your class abilities are, I get the feeling this may have been the intent on the developers' part. Also, some classes do benefit significantly more from specific upgrades even if you are spreading your coin around evenly. Thieves/Assassins become quite terrifying when you start stacking crit, for instance.

[McTahr]

You are making a bit of progress. The class upgrades can drastically change the way you play, and what stats you build towards change the effectiveness of any of the classes. (Namely, if you get a lot of crit, hokage becomes worse than the rogue-y thing. Etc.) It's a bit of bullet hell too. The difficulty predominantly revolves around your ability to skillfully dodge projectiles. It sounds like you've hit that happy point where the game has ceased fucking around.

Like, if the game didn't level, after a couple upgrades there would really be almost no difficulty. Also there are ways to lower monster level with runes if you put yourself too far into a corner, and with any amount of skill it's not terribly difficult to do farming runs of the castle zone, since most of the monsters in there are relatively benign compared to the later mobs.

[rpgdemon]

I played through most of the Megaman Zero games. I don't think I finished the last one.

I'll look over the other recommendations. I have Guacamelee but have been putting it off. Partially cuz it expects me to use a controller and I don't think I have a controller that'll work for Steam games.

If you have a non-360 controller, you can use 360ce to get those working with games designed for 360 controllers. Link here: http://code.google.com/p/x360ce/downloads/list

[Doc ock rokc]

I heard Strider (2014) is a pretty good Metroidvania game.

[MuMu]

I'm gonna go against Rogue Legacy here, not because it isn't great game but it isn't a metroidvania at all. It's more of a Roguelike(or -lite as the developers put it) where you don't lose all your upgrades when you die. But the random factor is still there(Random classses, random map, random chests, etc.) and there is exploring as much as you want to explore the same maps organized in a different way. The difficulty is also somewhat aggravating even if it's easier than your usual rogue. If you do want a Roguelike but find them too hardcore, then go for it.

I do reccomend, and strongly, Valdis Story. It has a great combat system, nice exploration and some of those boss battles can get hella frantic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGiBmcWFWI4).

Guacamelee also has great combat, but be ready to do some painful things to get the TRUE ending.

[BB]

If you want free, AnUntitledStory (http://www.mattmakesgames.com/) is a very cute open-ended metroidvania about an egg. It does get frustratingly difficult at points but there's loads to it.

[Kim]

I've been playing Rogue Legacy on the recommendation of folks here and I like it pretty good. Definitely some stuff I love to change about it but it's a solid game and it lets me explore a castle and hit enemies with a sword which is a lot of what I needed right now.

[synkr0nized]

I've been playing Rogue Legacy on the recommendation of folks here and I like it pretty good. Definitely some stuff I love to change about it but it's a solid game and it lets me explore a castle and hit enemies with a sword which is a lot of what I needed right now.

Considering the bolded made me curious: Is video game critique/reviewing something you still have an interest in these days, or is it no longer a relevant element of where you like to focus your energies anymore?

e: I mean, sure, any of us likely has all kinds of ideas about what could be improved in games we play, but you had actually put effort into it beyond forum posts and friendly chats before.

[Kim]

Sometimes I write at length posts about games but I kinda gave up on pursuing it professionally. Too many times I got screwed over by sites that either didn't pay like they promised (with me too young and naive to get any sort of contract) or being paid months after they promised.

I had a few posts I could point to as examples of what I've been doing lately, but when I had to delete my Tumblrs over internet abuse they were lost to the winds. That said, if you did actually like my writing about games I'll be sure to share whatever I end up doing in the future.

[synkr0nized]

That said, if you did actually like my writing about games I'll be sure to share whatever I end up doing in the future.

I'm not the type to read reviews or to go looking for them. I tend to prefer to chat with friends, watch trailers, and when possible toss up a demo or whatnot. In addition, there are a lot less games I am willing to give a shot than before; I kind of don't have as much time anymore to just try all of the new things that come out all the time.

One thing that was great about your site, though, was that it required little to no effort on my part above what I was already doing within this community to see and peruse reviews. It was similar to just chatting with friends about games, as, at least on some level, we had all been interacting regularly for a while already. In addition, I felt like I could rely on you being straight with your opinions and not to pull punches when something failed to meet expectations, for example.

So I guess the take-away here is that if you end up writing reviews, even just for fun, and are willing to share them I'd probably enjoy reading them, but I'm not, like, a good "target audience" for them.

As to what your other comments, I've heard similar from friends that were hired to write reviews or blogs for sites. I suspect, outside of whatever counts for a big-budget gaming community or site, the folks in charge kind of think they're doing writers a favour by giving them a chance and then can do whatever they want with payment.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Surprised nobody brought up Risk of Rain. Brutally unforgiving but extremely satisfying when 'mastered'. Using that word lightly since that involves both skill and dumb luck with item drops and how well they synergize with both the class and other items.

[Kim]

Someone mentioned Risk of Rain. Also I have Risk of Rain.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

hrm. must've overlooked it while I was on my phone during lunch break. Oh well.

There's always Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup for the good ol' roguelike fun times. Tiles version, of course. Ascii roguelikes are silly.

Edit: Diggin' through my libarary and forgot to mention Delver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6tccUrPHrI) and Eldritch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfWz4MDkiiE). Both are fairly straight forward FPS rogue-lites. Delver focuses more on the usual dungeon spelunky. Is in early alpha but still fun for what it is. Eldtritch is a rogue-lite that is based on Lovecraftian lore. Can be quite creepy in its ambience. Neither fitting the metroidvania category, but still interesting nonetheless.

Super House of Dead Ninjas is a pretty fun challenge as well.

OH OH! Almost forgot, Chasm (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/discordgames/chasm) might be right up your interest alley. Is funded already and has a demo available for download. Fun as hell, can't wait for it to be released. A cryin' shame the roguelike mode stretch goal wasn't reached.

[Kim]

So I guess the take-away here is that if you end up writing reviews, even just for fun, and are willing to share them I'd probably enjoy reading them, but I'm not, like, a good "target audience" for them.

As to what your other comments, I've heard similar from friends that were hired to write reviews or blogs for sites. I suspect, outside of whatever counts for a big-budget gaming community or site, the folks in charge kind of think they're doing writers a favour by giving them a chance and then can do whatever they want with payment.

Yeah, I wouldn't be writing except to vocalize my thoughts and share them with folks I know.

The for exposure thing is pretty common with game news sites, even major ones. Sometimes Kotaku reposts articles folks have written for exposure and no other reward to the person who wrote it, for example. Even sites that pay often underpay. Sometimes sites "pay" you by saying "You get to keep the games you review", which is fine until you get Ar Tonelico Qoga in the mail and want to cut your eyes out.

The thing is that it's not entirely the fault of the sites. Making any sort of revenue as a place for people to write about games is very hard. Patreon is making it a little easier for /some/ of the folks who don't write at major publications, but it's still broken as hell. So, if you aren't able to pull in any money, you can't pay your employees.

The main issue with that is that places are sometimes shady assholes who justify paying late with "that's just the way things are" or who don't pay you at all, constantly promising to pay you soon after a few more things are taken care of. Or sometimes places just aren't upfront as they ought to be that they aren't making any money and that while you are welcome to contribute they're not hiring you so much as accepting content that you've submitted. Also that "exposure" ain't worth much.

Tho to be honest the worst part about writing online are the assholes who harass en masse anyone who dares to criticize a game for its sexism or homophobia or transphobia or racism. Every day I see my friends catching flak for saying, "I liked this game but I would have preferred it not be gross and sexist in this way," I'm a little happier I never got anywhere with my writing.

Been making good progress on Rogue Legacy. Just beat the third boss. Been focusing mostly on defense, criticals, and better equipment, with some points into health and attack. only a couple points very early on were put into the magic stuff.

Also also I'm playing FFXIV again. Kimmy Dee on Excalibur. I'm a level 50 bard and I have a Marauder at almost level 30 iirc so I can help with some stuff if you need it.

EDIT: If you spam the word "whore" during a dungeon I'll abandon it and you can find a new party member.

EDIT2: I beat Rogue Legacy.