I haven’t played a Metroidvania in a while and I’m looking for suggestions of some good ones to try. Some I would recommend:
Ender’s: Lilies (Magnolias is good too, but play Lilies first. The setting and theme hits better.)
Ori and the Blind Forest / Will of the Wisps (Will of the Wisps did bring a tear to my eye)
Monster Sanctuary (a creature capture metroidvania)
Any system is good, interested to hear of other good ones that are out there.
Metroid Prime. It’s the only series I know of that is fully in the genre and is also not a 2D platformer.
It’s insane to me how many Souls Likes could be 3D Metroidvanias if they used special powers to clear obstacles instead of just keys or random triggers to unlock new areas. That’s really the only thing I see that separates the genres.
Sekiro is closer than any other, but it’s mainly just 1 thing you don’t have in the prologue (the grappling hook). I would love a game that is 3D over a 2D platformer, but also has the unlockable traversal tools the way Metroid or Syphony of the Night had.
Batman: Arkham Asylum should count. Maybe not the later games as much, but definitely Asylum. It’s all about backtracking with new gear to unlock new areas and paths.
The Tomb Raider survivor trilogy scratches the itch a bit as well.
3D games are still pretty difficult for a small team to pull off with a small budget.
I’ve heard High on Life is a metroidvania, but I haven’t played it myself. You’re right that 3D metroidvanias are exceptionally rare.
I suppose it is. 🤔
You have traversal tools, but also the different guns are used to solve puzzles and progression may be locked behind having the right guns. I only have 2 of the guns so far where I am in the game but I know there’s several more.
have you tried Supraland? it’s weirdly the closest thing to metroid prime i’ve played in a long time, and it’s got completely the opposite tone. it’s hilarious.
as noted in one of the steam reviews, don’t let the looks fool you. on first glance it seems to be a cheap asset flip, but it’s an extremely tightly designed game with something like 20 hours of content and almost everything is original assets. it has a mishmash of styles because it takes place in a kid’s sandbox, so the different kinds of toys don’t match eachother.
A fantastic game, and has one of the best remasters I’ve ever seen.
The option to use bothe joystick was great.
I recently played the original via Primehack, a fork of Dolphin Emulator which (among other things) modernises the controls