Alternatives to the Glut of Metroidvania-Style Platformers

[thanatos388]

Props to Escapist for actually coming up with a click-baity but still better title than the original. I mean, thats something right?

I think Yahtzees game idea would work well but the only problem is that it would have to only be half of what a Metroidvania game is. There could not be a level up system really the mechanics would have to work similar to the original castlevania where enemies are killed in a specific amount of hits no matter what, you don't get stronger enemies just get more health and proportionally do more damage to you as time goes on. Maybe if you just play as an unlikely hero/victim in a strange area under attack like in a Silent Hill. You can start off with weapons like sticks and guns and maybe a car that hits enemies (if its a 3D Metroidvania like Souls). Over time you fail to save the town or city because you are more just trying to survive and escape as the world crumbles around you getting stuck in smaller and smaller areas until you somehow use your wit to defeat the big bad, maybe with a crafting system similar to what's in Dead Rising 2.

 

[Lazule]

Very, very useful article. Even to me and I'm not an actual game developer... I just like to make games in Flash from time to time and this article is kickass.

 

[Fsyco]

I'm sure it's been done elsewhere but Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery did the "Slowly Depowered Hero" idea. The battles(what few there are) don't really get any harder. Instead, you start with a large health bar and each time you pick up one of the power object needed to advance the plot, your health bar is decreased, so the margin of error for the battles gets smaller and smaller. By the endgame, the main character is so low on health that she occasionally stops and vomits/coughs up blood....while the big bad is chasing her. Luckily, this part of the game is fairly short so it doesn't last long enough to get annoying. Also, you can stun the big bad during the chase to allow you stay just ahead of it.

That sounds like a pretty good idea. I've never played that game, so I don't know if this is how it works, but what if instead of just advancing the plot, each new thing you pick up grants you more power at the cost of health or something? Like, you get some kind of extra weapon/spell but lose some max health. That way you can have the game evolving as it progresses, while maintaining a difficulty curve and narrative stakes.

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[JCAll]

That would Dororo, if i'm not mistaken.

And it actually has a game, unsurprisingly. Look up "Blood Will Tell" on the PS2.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

or you can just go with Exploration-based platformers. You can even abbreviate that to EBP. That works, right?

 

[K12]

How about "2D Sprawler" as a genre name.

Thoughts?

 

[Thanatos2k]

If you feel like you're missing fast travel, it's really a failing of level design and power up design. You should probably be getting things later in the game that make moving around faster, and the world should be designed as to have shortcuts unlock later on that let you get to the areas you want to go faster.

Super Metroid is a great example as usual. You wouldn't believe how many seemingly random rooms were designed such that once you got the speed going you could just blaze through them. Innocuous rock formations were actually destroyable by the speed letting you zip down corridors that looked like you'd need to jump through.

THAT is great level design.

 

[ExileNZ]

I can think of two games that felt a bit like this.

The Warcraft III expansion gave you a fully powered-up Arthus, whose powers were slowly sucked away as you got closer to the tomb of the Lich King. Arthus was pretty piss-weak by the end of that one.

The other game it reminds me of is The Void. After you've gotten the introductions out of the way and taken a nice look at the world map, you realise that you're not-so-slowly dying and that the world is getting more and more hostile by the minute. Worse, the things you do to progress (gaining power, using that power and freeing or killing NPCs) all push you that much closer to death. Taking power means permanently draining it from the world. Using it literally accelerates your death, as well as making enemies more frequent and a host of other nasty effects. Worse, there's a whole lot of footwork to do, which takes time since you can't run, but repetitively casting Haste on yourself means expending more energy...
At any rate, your world map kinda shrinks as you get a feel for just how far you can travel in how much time - you start to feel that sure, maybe you *could* visit all the areas, but that would take a concerted effort and would probably prevent you from winning (whatever that may be).

 

[KilloZapit]

A reverse metroidvania probably wouldn't be that farfetched really. It could start with the player having all sorts of powerups and lots of health as well as a very detailed in-game map that showed the whole world. The challenge would be more about planning routes and doing tasks in the order that lets you use the items you like the most the longest. As the player played they would have to give up health containers to unlock things maybe, giving up powerups when beating bosses. There could be a few hard to use abilities like super metroid's wall jump and infinite bomb jump that you had to rely on more and more. The map would become more vague as the game went on and the player would need to rely more and more on their memory until in the end, you couldn't use the in-game map at all. Might even work better if the world was randomly generated perhaps but eh.

 

[Feculator]

If you're looking for alternatives to this type of platformer, try Bleed. It's awesome.

 

[runic knight]

I like the idea and I think I have a solution to the main problem that requires people know the game before they start. You make it like the Symphony of the Night and have a second quest. You can also work the story itself into reason why it works. Off the top of my head, here's a messy plot for one such game.

During a dark time in the world you play in, invading forces threaten to destroy the towns and villages way of life. A hero arose to fight off an oncoming force by breaking the seals upon various shrines across the land and aquiring their power. It was a forbidden magic for reasons unknown, but respected by tradition and the power they contained. United with the abilities, the hero vanquished the threat and helps peace reestablish, ending the first quest.

Only, he seals broken started to release what was contained behind it. An ancient evil that took over the shrines and threatened to spill out across the land. Thus the hero must go venture forth and reseal the shrines once more, only at each shrine he must sacrifice one of the abilities he earned from before, growing weaker in return for weakening the true evil. Only once all shrines are resealed, and the hero is as weak as he ever was, can he make the ancient evil mortal and killable once and for all.

The first quest plays like a traditional metroidvania, allowing exploration and discovery and gives the player all the knowledge and time they need to discover the items and secrets. Then they beat the main game and have full abilities to go back and explore, but in doing so they know they have to start giving up abilities, weakening them. While healthy items and the like may persist to help soften the blow, the decreasing mobility, offense and options will still make it an uphill, taxing fight, and when placed within the story, a thematic price being paid. You broke the rules to save the village the first time, yes, but that still comes with consequences you have to address and in the end, after you gained then lost all your ill-gotten powers, you still have to rely on yourself to fix the problem.