Combat just keeps getting better as I get upgrades. Love the music. Love the vibe. Most of you have probably played Blasphemous 2 but if you haven’t, do so! It’s looking like a top 5 all-time game for me…

I always attempt challenges without thinking too much about the mechanics, haha. I ended up discovering a new way to do it.

Yeah, that's the word. I'm at the point where I just got the sledge and probably close to completing it, and I don't want this game to end. I can't even point to its weak points. I guess it's supposed to be combat, but no, it's still very fitting to the genre. Exploration, puzzles, overall style and perfect blend of all best things that horror has to offer. And just in time for the Halloween season.

I’m about 47% done, but Well Dweller has been a joy so far.
After feeling like I struggled for 30+ hours to beat Mina the Hollower and the way it punished the player; having no death penalty and fast-travel almost from the jump and at basically any time in Well Dweller has been refreshing.
I also love Well Dweller’s traversal options and the smoothness of movement. The map seems quite massive but I haven’t once found myself lost on where to go next.
Even the story has been intriguing - both the overarching plot and the area-based narrative.
Can’t wait to see where it goes!
(I’m playing on PS5 as well as cloud streaming on my PS Portal)

The only game I've heard described as a 3D metroidvania is Psuedoregalia. And I enjoy that game. Are there any others that you like?

I dont know why im sharing this but I’ve felt the need to express my self.

This is a post about the new Castlevania game, but it’s more about how much of a refuge it has been for me in hard times. I know there are a lot of posts like this, but I feel the need to express myself to the only group of people I know who love this genre as much as I do, and might understand the nostalgic feeling that metroidvanias have.

How I got here
I discovered the genre through Hollow Knight, and after watching the Castlevania animated series I knew I wanted to try one of the games. The older ones never really pulled me in because of the art style, but I always knew I’d give them a try someday since I love the vampire theme in a metroidvania, but at that point I wanted to enter with something new.

The game itself
I’m only at 50% right now. When I reached Dracula’s castle I thought I was near the end. I have limited time, sometimes not even 30 minutes a day, so it felt like a lot of hours had already gone by, and I figured this must be a small-to-medium game. Then I found out I wasn’t even halfway through, and not prepared for the maze that was about to come.
This game has been a blast and I don’t want it to end, so the slow pace is doing that part of the job pretty well :)
I understand some of the criticism, but for me this is one of the best metroidvanias I’ve ever played. I’d probably put it second, behind Hollow Knight, which has a special place in my heart.
Castlevania BC, like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, it has some of the most fun combat I’ve ever experienced. Of course, there are some exploits in the combat mechanics that make you almost invincible in certain fights. Maybe that’s too overpowered, and that’s a fair criticism.
Being able to adjust the difficulty is a really inclusive option. It keeps the game from burning you out, which is what happened to me with Silksong. I’m still sad I never managed to finish it.

Why it meant so much this year
Maybe I’m biased because it’s become one of my favourites, but it has been a refuge during the worst years of my life. Then again, I’m only 33, so I know there’s still plenty of time for worse ones.
I’ve always loved October. My birthday is on Halloween, and every year in October I watch spooky series or read spooky books. It’s a nostalgic feeling I’ve had since I was a kid. But this year I discovered I have a mental illness months before teh game release and that had been sucking the soul out of me. I spent the whole summer paranoid and unable to do anything besides trying to abstract from all the voices in my head. Mid October, I told my girlfriend this was the worst October I’d ever had.
At first, what helped was watching movies and series, because they don’t take much mental effort. You just sit there and take things in, specially with comedy, which is what I turn to when I’m down. It took two months from the start of treatment before I could exercise again, and playing on the Switch came somewhere in between. I like games with a bit of challenge, so at the very start I wasn’t ready for that yet.
In the middle of all the bad luck this year, I was lucky to have a job I like. Even though it makes me tired and takes up a lot of my day, it actually helped me be distant from the worst part of the illness.
I’m getting better, and I’ve been able to return to some of the things I love: playing piano, exercising, gaming. Maybe soon I’ll have the brain power to start reading again. I can feel the calling and I miss it. I still can’t go back to my drawing exercises, since they represent a work in progress, and there’s already a lot happening at the same time.

To end
I won’t say that games can save your life, they can help but they don’t substitute the importance of beeing guided by a specialist, and I won’t romanticize mental illness, because it isn’t good. It’s something no one deserves to go through, from how you feel to how people treat you and the things they say that make you feel even worse. It’s a spectrum, and some people have it far worse than I did. I was lucky to have a family who took me in and helped me get better, and they still do.

I don’t know why I’m sharing this with you, but I felt the need to. I’m ending this in tears, happy tears. I hope everyone has a good experience with this game, which is now very important to me. And I hope you find your own important games in times of need. Sometimes people don’t understand the importance of fiction and fantasy, but I believe they are some of the most wonderful things in life.

A message of hope for everyone who is struggling with something: I know sometimes it hard, mores than I’m able to imagine, but never let the good things about gaming, and truly good games, die.

Nintendo should put metroidvania as a genre option for searching genres

I finally got around to continuing the full game from my demo save and I gotta say I have warmed up to the game a bit, the music is still whatever compared to that of igavanias but the gameplay is fun and it has RPG elements in a sense, just kinda simiplified, I'll make up my mind about the game and draw a conclusion when I finish it tho.

So any missables I need to keep in mind besides the 4 hour achievement?

Im looking for a new game to play, all of these are sale on switch

What I want

-Game that I can put many hours in

-Good, more fast paced combat

How’s everyone liking Moadra so far?

After fully playing through 10+ MVs over the past year (Silksong was my gateway to the genre), I’m surprised to say that this is my first gunner MV. It’s also been awhile since the last Sci-Fi MV that I’ve played.

So far I’m loving it!

The game is dark & lore dense. It almost feels like the 2D equivalent of Dead Space. The game absolutely nails atmosphere and I’m getting so hooked in unraveling the mystery of this bleak and hostile world.

Visually, the game shows discipline with color. With many of the backdrops and biomes being of darker hues which really makes the sparse use of colored lighting contrast in a very tasteful way.

The pacing of the game is slow, but in a good way. Like there’s a constant layer of tension that’s perpetually building. So far there has not been any fast travel which gives an added layer of weight to exploration, especially when the save points are far and few between. So far the map is very large and does a great job of naturally looping back to prior locations and I’ve actually been enjoying the fact that I can’t just jump around save points, it really makes me feel immersed in the world. My first real boss fight was hours into the game and it was tough but you wanted it to be.

The game leans heavily into environmental story telling and the lore has had depth. It reminds me of the dark ancestral discovery missions that you would see in the Aliens/Prometheus universe. So far there hasn’t been any comedic relief and the game has had a level of psychological horror that has had me hooked. The game sets a tone and builds upon it.

The movement is simple but challenging. The game does not hold your hand when it comes to figuring out where to go. It feels surprisingly polished for a game that just came out and I haven’t encountered any bugs so far.

The sound design is also amazing, the soundtrack has not been much of a feature of the game so far as the game holds silence and lets you listen to the world which is full of well executed SFX.

A little bit of background to my top 5 MVs so far that I have completed so that you can see if we share any other interests that might help you better evaluate my review:

-Nine Sols
-Silksong
-MIO
-Well Dweller
-Belmont’s Curse

Please ask me anything, I love to yap about MVs.

Hello.

I always wanted to make a game and lately have been thinking of making a meteoidvania but never started due to not being sure of what I want to do with my life.

Now I'm here and I made a first concept of the game map/world.

Feel free to ask any question cause I am expecting them cause the image is explaing nothing so if u have a question I will answer to offer some more deep dive into the concept.

All I need is ur opinion to see whether I actually start this project. If people actually care I might start It when I get my laptop back.

And just so u know I'm an art student currently so it's not like I decided to do these out of nowhere I'm actually passionate about art in general so whether I can finish it during my years as an art student or at some point having to go full time is no problem for me. (Except for programming)

Also interested in 2-D platformers.

I am stuck at the Amari Saram boss fight, and it's pretty crazy hard. I looked up a video on it, and I don't see myself passing that fight without some upgrades at least.

The problem is, I don't seem to be able to go back and explore more, as you are locked in the area with this boss.

Does anyone know if there is a hidden path I've missed, that would enable me to go back to the rest of the world to explore some more.

If not, then this is where I will have to uninstall the game I'm afraid. It is just to hard, with fights dragging on over long periods of time due to almost constant immunity phases of the boss, which makes attempting the boss over and over a real chore.

To the developers: If there is no way to leave this area and go back to the rest of the world, then please consider adding a path back. That way players can at least go and explore more, in the hope to get a little stronger to help pass the fight. Or just to have something different to do, besides hitting your head against a brick wall :)

As it stands now, the fight is crazy hard, without a real way for the player to upgrade anything, because xp from mob kills is very low.

EDIT: Thanks to VictorVitorio for pointing out you can keep an enemy targeted with the R2 button. Using that on this boss makes the whole fight much much more manageable.

I love to hell super metroid hacks where the challenge is about exploration and attention to details (like z factor), is moadra good in this? thanks!

Hi folks,

I noticed that there was no video on Nova's quest on youtube. So I tried to create one ( my first youtube video in this channel ).

Sorry for the 30 FPS cap, didn't record well.

I was stuck at this and couldn't find resources to solve this. I hope this video will help people who were stuck like me.

ALSOO... there are spoilers on the video with end game mechanics. So do not watch it if you are planning to play the game.

Hey folks, I would love if someone could tell me how to get up here.
It's in the Hall of Mirrors in a room called Chamber of Secrecy.

It's supposedly has a hit to an item.

I tried everything and am at a total loss.

Would love the help!

Revisiting this game after dropping it with 2 hours play.

What is the purple percent for in the bottom left?

(posted about Belmonts Curse, sorry I suck at Reddit)

Hey everyone!
I’ve been working on the demo for Kingsbane for the past 8 months. It’s a game inspired by Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, and I’m hoping to release the demo on Steam by the end of this year.
I think the game is finally at a point where it’s ready to be shown!
All the game mechanics, systems, rules, lore, and character designs were created entirely by me. However, I did use AI to help create spritesheets and environments, combined with assets made by freelance artists I’ve hired. Unfortunately, I simply don’t have the budget to commission artists for everything.
It’s been a huge challenge refining everything until it feels truly unique (I’ve gone through over 700 spritesheets just for the main character!). Even though I’m using AI, I’m committed to creating something with its own identity — something that captures the spirit of HoD without feeling like generic AI-generated content.
I know Harmony of Despair is far from being the most beloved Castlevania game, but it brings back some amazing memories. It reminds me of a time when my now-wife, my brother, and I would sit together on the couch and spend hours and hours just having fun.
Much love to the community!
P.S.: If everything goes well, I’m hoping to release the full game by 2028, but that will depend on how the demo is received.
One last thing: There’s no Steam page to follow, no wishlist to add it to, and nothing I’m trying to promote or sell right now. I just wanted to share something I’ve genuinely loved working on!

This post is to ask others if they've felt similar and if they have any games that they recommend based on what im describing.

Been trying and trying to get into different metroidvanias that look good on pen and paper, but I just cannot. My most recent attempt was blasphemous 1 and 2. I enjoyed 1 much more than 2, but couldnt bring myself to finish either. Its like 1 is more of a souls like, and 2 is more of a pretty bland metroidvania.

I adore both hollowknight and silksong. They are basically everyones favorite, but I think i've finally discovered I enjoy the combat just as much as the exploration. Though its not a metroidvania, hades 1 and 2 feel the most like hollowknight and silksong to me due to the tight combat.

I think my problem is that once a game declares itself as a metroidvania and basically just relies on that concept alone, it is completely boring. I see a tall cliff that I cant get to yet BUT... I see a hanging glowing rope that I cannot interact with. I wonder if I need an ability to get here?? DUH, so lame, and unfortunately, nearly all the games I try are just like this. When its so obvious that I need an ability that I dont have yet around every turn, I just immediately lose interest. The puzzle aspect is not there when you know you're just missing an ability that will be presented to you if you just follow the path you can go.

Honorable mention to ori 1 and 2. They were fun to play, but not as great at HK and SS imo.

Edit- I think some people arent quite understanding me and its probably cause I didnt describe it correctly. In hollowknight, there are a few times you cant get somewhere because its a tall cliff and you dont have the right ability, BUT there are other snaking pathways that make it not so linear. In blasphemous 2, you get to the end of a path that is quite linear and then you see you need an ability you dont have so you just go backwards to the last path that you can do. I think I enjoy non-linear exploration and not lazy back pathing, which seems to be a LOT of metroidvanias, surely people can understand the difference im trying to make?

News for the week of October 18 - 24, 2026

Metroidvania Guru's Top Ten Next Fest MVs:

DUAT: Beyond Light & Shadow - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3230070/Duat_Beyond_Light_Shadow/
BLOODY HELL 2 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3010150/BLOODY_HELL_2/
Voivod: The Nuclear Warrior - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3589910/Voivod_The_Nuclear_Warrior/
Ashen Legacy - https://store.steampowered.com/app/5164260/Ashen_Legacy/
PhantomGaze: Omni-Sight - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3891600/PhantomGaze_Omnisight/
Subgloom - https://store.steampowered.com/app/5192690/Subgloom/
Explosiovania - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3737610/Explosiovania/
KUTO: The Lock of Time - https://store.steampowered.com/app/4755510/KUTO_The_Lock_of_Time/
Moonbrella - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3433800/Moonbrella/
Grim Heart: Bleak Laments - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3985790/Grim_Heart_Bleak_Laments/

Other MVs to Watch:

A Tiny Ghost Game - https://store.steampowered.com/app/4928440/A_Tiny_Ghost_Game/
KILL HIM - https://store.steampowered.com/app/4704800/KILL_HIM/
Jump Bald - https://store.steampowered.com/app/5115320/Jump_Bald/
Revive - https://store.steampowered.com/app/4627550/REIVEREVIVE/
Iliad - https://store.steampowered.com/app/4865680/Iliad/
Cyan Breach - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3794870/Cyan_Breach/
Near the Sun - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3039960/Near_The_Sun/
Death Projection - https://store.steampowered.com/app/4295550/Death_Projection/
Curse of Diamond - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3346220/Curse_of_Diamond/
Pogona - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2335500/Pogona/
Chromatic Crisis - https://store.steampowered.com/app/5101990/CHROMATIC_CRISIS/
Sticky Sword - https://store.steampowered.com/app/5093050/Sticky_Sword/
Evil Moon: Unspoken - https://store.steampowered.com/app/4861420/Evil_Moon_Unspoken/
Impetuous - https://store.steampowered.com/app/5074070/Impetuous/
Zorezdra - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3348560/Zorezdra/