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Metroidvania is possible without jumps and like as Zelda?

A topic by alexsilent created May 18, 2022 Views: 324 Replies: 5
Viewing posts 1 to 2
(1 edit)

Metroidvania is possible without jumps like as Zelda games?

Submitted

Technically, that would not be a Metroidvania game.  it would be an action-adventure / dungeon crawler game.  But I don't think people will mind if the core game loop is close enough.  A Metroidvania is USALLY seems as a platformer with an map that opens up as you gain new abilities, which encourages backtracking and side paths.  

(2 edits)

Thanks!
So, not a platformer = not a metroidvania?!
Platformer mechanics is not so easy because platformer needs the good feeling of control like Mario or Meat Boy games.
Many platformers have bad feels because not right jumps and laggy collisions.

(+2)

I disagree with this (not platformer = not metroidvania) point of view.

The main core of Metroidvanias are the focus on progression through power-ups, exploration (both of these are the factors responsible on the backtracking in the genre) and atmosphere. That doesn’t mean there is a need for jumping (most metroidvanias do as a platformer mainly because the genre was popularized with that kind of view). There is no better example to this point of view than Metroid Prime (mainly the first one). Even tough it’s not a platfomer (but rather an FPS), it still is a Metroidvania because it has those points as their focus.

So if your game has those points as the pillars for the gameplay, you can do whatever style of controls as you want and it will be a metroidvania.

Thanks!
>>That doesn’t mean there is a need for jumping
Sounds good for me!

(+1)

If you want a more deep view on what I said, I recommend you to watch Nerrel’s video on the Metroid series (and why before Dread’s release the series was going downhill and then back up). In the first part of the video he goes on more detail on the points I talked