Actually no, if someone is arguning against the importance of Super Mario Bros, you have to have arguments to suppprt it being 'quintessential'. 'Of fucking course' is not an argument and you have yet to provide a single point in defence of SOTN's alleged 'quintessential Metroid-like' status.I'd refute but that would be like defending Super Mario Bros or Tetris or Chrono Trigger. They are seminal works that while OF FUCKING COURSE got polished in subsequent iterations, they just created the state of the art.
The term Metroidvania exists because those two games are so good they became the stick to measure the others, and such they are great themselves. They need no argument for their greatness.
Actually no, if someone is arguning against the importance of Super Mario Bros, you have to have arguments to suppprt it being 'quintessential'. 'Of fucking course' is not an argument and you have yet to provide a single point in defence of SOTN's alleged 'quintessential Metroid-like' status.
And no, that is not why the Metroidvania term exists. It exists purely due to the ubiquitousness of the Metroid style Castlevania games on GBA/DS as a way to distingush them from the original action games CV formula
What is your favourite Kingsoulsborne game?King's Field V?
I pray everyday From will release another Souls game without the word Souls (or blood/borne) in it.
Ctrl+F "roguelike"
Ctrl+F "shmup"
...and we have a thread!
These terms are long since established. Trying to fight them now is pointless.
I shouldnt be laughing but I am.Well both franchises are dead.
With the remaster I can see that, but I mean back in 2009? I guess that's a possibilty, but I have a feeling I only saw strong use of it aroung when Guacamelee was being released and more games like that gained traction. But eh, like I said I could be very wrong.
Reasonability has to come into it at some point.
I mean, why do they call it Mario Kart, and not Mario and Friends Kart? Is Nintendo trying to systemically destroy modern notions of companionship, or is this just a subtle commentary about how white males are seen as the leaders of their respective fields.
Yeah good games. Boo bad games.
Well both franchises are dead.
The only people that seem to get confused by these sort of terms tend to be extreme pendants or extreme fanboys that are offended some indie game is being compared to their masterpieces. And even they understand what people mean. It's argumental masturbation.
It's a term of reference most gamers are familiar with. Not everything in the world is cause for insightful, deep academic debate. Fuck.
Great post.Accusations that Digibro is overthinking it or is trying to have an "academic debate" are inaccurate cop-outs. He's providing a minimal amount of thought to the matter vs. refusing to think about it at all, to challenge the term vs. challenging nothing. His argument can be broken down into two or three main points (e.g., metroid vs vania) and he delivers that argument in a fairly straightforward manner. I don't quite agree with his framing, but I don't see anything inherently wrong with it.
The descriptive vs. prescriptive argument in bound to surface in a discussion of genre (and pretty much anything else involving "rules" in thought, criticism, or analysis), however I think people are taking the laziest version of the descriptive argument, which ends up coming across as "stop talking about this!" Yeah, if "if it works, don't break it!" is sound on some level, but if someone points out ways something doesn't fit, then you not engaging them by just reiterating it.
Roguelike (insofar it meant games distinctively like Rogue) and JRPG (insofar it meant the type of "RPGs" (can of worms) Japanese devs were making circa it's adoption of Wizardry and standardization with Dragon Quest) were (and in the original sense, still are) perfectly apt as genres, but that's not to say they haven't been corrupted as they been expanded to mean more and more things (however so that may have came to be). Don't want to spend the time to discussion either of those terms, but it's worth noting in the video (or was it in the follow-up?) he actually does make a comparison between what occurred with JRPGs and "igavanias" (i.e., SotN-style Castlevania games); Metroidvania/Igavania began as a specific distinction between games within the Castlevania franchise/brand and then was extended outwards, like a roving blob of tacky game journo generalization, to absorb every 2D platformer or 2D action game with a hint of open-ended or non-linear level/map design ("Metroid"). So, yeah, kinda like "JRPG" and whatnot, but maybe not in the way you would hope.
SotN is flawed masterpiece, or, rather, it's an aesthetic masterpiece built on some terrible core ideas. And these ideas are easily identified. If you remove or streamlined its leveling system, the game becomes dramatically better without any real loss to what makes its audiovisuals or exploration so intriguing.
Yeah, it was 100% a term for the Castlevania series only, and Guacamelee is when I first heard it being a lazy general term. The Guacamelee developer specifically incorrectly called their game a Metroidvania, so maybe he's to blame.You didn't read the entire conversation, which I guess is understable, but nothing you linked even goes against something I said. I've been saying that the term was used exclusively for post-SOTN Castlevanias and no other game until a few years back and these posts you linked pretty much back me up
Perfect analysis.It's a term of reference most gamers are familiar with. Not everything in the world is cause for insightful, deep academic debate. Fuck.
It's a term of reference most gamers are familiar with. Not everything in the world is cause for insightful, deep academic debate. Fuck.
Every once in a while someone stands on a soapbox saying what needs to be or not be. And usually they are wrong.
Precisely this (bless Neil for that quote).
The clickbait culture is really the lowering level of debates on boards/youtube/Twitter. There's little to no substance to almost all these "pleasenoticeme" articles/opinions.
I Wonder what will be next.. "videogames are better without videogames", maybe?
It's a nice catch-all that covers that type of game that isn't a 2D platformer but not quite an all out adventure game that is a static map with gated progression and backtracking.
I think it's about time it was accepted as the vernacular for that style of game.
What would be wrong with "plaform-adventure" or something?
You didn't read the entire conversation, which I guess is understable, but nothing you linked even goes against something I said. I've been saying that the term was used exclusively for post-SOTN Castlevanias and no other game until a few years back and these posts you linked pretty much back me up
Great post.
Yeah, it was 100% a term for the Castlevania series only, and Guacamelee is when I first heard it being a lazy general term. The Guacamelee developer specifically incorrectly called their game a Metroidvania, so maybe he's to blame.
Guacamelee was announced around the end of 2011
Some GAF links:
Cave Story WiiWare thread lists the game as a metroidvania in 2010
Someone refers to Kirby & the Amazing Mirror as a metroidvania in 2010
A topic in 2009 throws the term around asking specifically for non-Metroid/Castlevania games.
Someone refers to Prince of Persia GBA as a metroidvania in 2006.
You guys are mistaken. People have been using the term for at least 10 years, it's probably here to stay.
When I hear a game described as metroidvania I completely ignore that game.
I agree with the arguments given in the video, for a long time I cringed everytime I heard the term "Metroidvania" and couldn't understand what the -vania part added that wasn't already described by "Metroid-like", specially because all games I've seen described as Metroidvanias were just Metroidlikes without any of the characteristics of SotN that differentiated it from Metroid. However it stuck and everyone understands it now as what it is, so there's no need to change it for purism reasons.
It's the same as what's happenning with "Soulsborne". Wtf does "-borne" add to the term?
damn digibro is maximum weeb
It's the same as what's happenning with "Soulsborne". Wtf does "-borne" add to the term?
Fair enough though more than half of the examples are still relating it specifically to Castlevania or are kinda hesitant to describe it as that. So it was before Guacamelee when it bled over to other games for whatever reason. Nothing is "here to stay" though, people called video game "Nintendos" and FPSes "Doom-clones" for the longest time till they knew better and all I can hope is that history will do the same here
Fair enough though more than half of the examples are still relating it specifically to Castlevania or are kinda hesitant to describe it as that. So it was before Guacamelee when it bled over to other games for whatever reason. Nothing is "here to stay" though, people called video game "Nintendos" and FPSes "Doom-clones" for the longest time till they knew better and all I can hope is that history will do the same here
I've never liked the term, but nothing else would stick.
So's your mom!
It's great for you to have an outlier opinion(I think BOTW is overrated) but to act as if the majority of SOTN players at the time and even in retrospect don't view it as quintessential is completely wrong.
This post is more clickbait-y and low quality than the video you did not bother to watch
Well both franchises are dead.