Sniffle...I wuv metwoid.

I'm unable to watch the video. Will watch and disagree later.

Don't hate the hater. Hate the hate.

I love SotN, but I hate Metroid games. As for backtracking, SotN isn't a big offender. The teleporters really streamline travel. Now, if you wanna gripe about backtracking in Metroidvanias, then try HoD (Harmony of Dissonance), instead.

Backtracking ruins games for me. Especially in games where it is there for no real purpose but to lengthen the game.

That's the biggest turn off in the metroid series, no matter much fun a boss is to hunt down and fight most of the game play consists of going back and forth between identical rooms, not that this changed in modern games, in Far Cry identical rooms become identical jungle parts, and so on.

Backtracking sucks.

Super Metroid is my all time favorite game ever all time ever favorite game time all ever!

I think it's something to do with the cohesiveness that such backtracking can add to a world - like you mentioned it makes it feel like a much more organic place. If done right.

Personally, I always prefer games that have me getting to know one location really well over its course than a game with a bunch of interconnected levels. Examples of this include MGS1 (4 was all over the place and so I never felt connected with the world), Devil May Cry and Bioshock. But they pulled it off because when you found that door you couldn't get through before it was because the game had painted a giant red arrow over its location and basically held your hand until you got back there.

Metroidvanias don't do that. In expecting you to find the goal yourself they expect you to think a certain way and this inevitably breeds frustration when you get stumped or forget (I remember coming back to Prime after a 3 week hiatus due to a holiday, was 3/4 completed and yet couldn't get any further 'coes I'd completely forgotten where to go and gave up).

I think this is simply solved by asking:

Are you OCD/Attentive? You'll like Metroidvanias
Are you simple? You'll hate them

They're a different genre (2D-3D action exploration) and aren't for everyone.

Backtracking sucks, but Metroid/Castlevania barely had them. When you went back to previous areas, you blew up a wall you couldn't previously enter, and opened up a whole new area. Saying those games were backtracking when the overlap was like 30 seconds is a bit odd. Now, DMC4......

I don't have any sort of logical rebuttal to this. I derive some sort of intense satisfaction exploring and finally earning an ability that will allow me to collect a treasure I've known about for awhile. I've also never been one to complain about backtracking in any game...

Why do people think M:OM is a 2D Metroid. The trailer was mostly cutscenes with splashes of gameplay which is hard to identify.

Anyway, I don't think there is much to say. Everything you hate, I love. You don't have to enjoy every game type, Anthony. Sometimes, you just don't like something. To this day the only FPS's that I've actually liked since Doom-ish games have been the Metroid Prime games (and a little the N64 shooters).

Backtracking that reviewers complain about in MOST games is forcing the player to return to a place they've JUST pretty much finished to find a key or something so it makes you feel like if you had KNOWN that you had to pick up that THING 10 rooms back then you would already be done with this crap.

In a Metroidvania game, you basically just return to an area when you have new powers and are more powerful, essentially making the level a demonstration of how much more awesome you are because it USED to be kind of difficult.

Also, as someone else said, I don't really think there's that much backtracking in SotN since most of the time you just teleport back to another area and go through a now accessible door which opens an entirely new area to you.

I'm guessing you're not the "completionist" type of game player either? Because all of the additional backtracking in SotN is to obtain secret stuff that either gives you new abilities or new endings or new weapons. Only the new areas are necessary, and the rest of the stuff is just a bonus.

Don't you like secrets?

I can see where you are coming from on some of these issues. But I feel the opposite of how you feel about how it takes away your feeling of progression. I hate when action/adventure games give you new items or powers only when those items and powers are needed to overcome an obstacle directly after you obtain them. One such example of these is in Zelda games when you obtain the bow, you know that the boss of that dungeon is going to be the boss that you kill with the bow. Those are the kinds of situations that, if they weren't rectified by the ability to backtrack to a previous location and solve a puzzle using the new item, would make me feel like I'm not really getting anywhere. All i would be doing is completing a series of scripted events where each powerup only exists as a means to overcome a single obstacle of gameplay. That, in my mind, is lazy level design. But instead, the makers choose to sprinkle the game world with secrets and hidden goodies. Completing these goodies and secrets makes me feel like i am actually getting somewhere in the game, rather than just following the bread crumb trail that the developer has left for me. Although i can understand frustration when the developer requires backtracking as an essential part of gameplay. Like your example of metroid prime, i enjoy going back and collecting extra missles and health upgrades, but i don't like it when i have to go back to advance the story. So....this comment was alot longer than i had originally planned it to be.

I absolutely adore metroidvania's, and games like Dead Space, or DMC, with a little bit of backtracking I don't really mind. In those games the backtracking is not very tedious, not annoying, and I like to return to old levels, it makes me think that the developers didn't just throw away those areas once you go through them, and when done right, backtracking makes the world more immersive.

As for CV and Metroid games, you're right, you are a cartographer. But I for one love that and keeping track of all the doors, secret passages, what abilities let me go where, and stuff, that is awesome to me. When you revisit an area you're almost always much stronger, thereby making you feel super cool as you just plow through al the old enemies who gave you such a hard time before. Admit it, the clock tower in SOTN is actually FUN once you get the crissaegrim.

As for the rewards, yes sometimes all you get is a stupid potion, but most of the time, you'll get something neat. Also, usually you don't even have to go through all the secret passages, most metroidvania's are designed in such a way that the pathway's to continue the story are clear and you'll always know that it's the way you must go. Plus once you get 100% completion and fill out your map, it is very satisfying.

I never really thought that people would dislike metroidvania's well at least the 2d ones. I do know people who got turned off from Metroid Prime for the same reasons as you Anthony. I guess they were just expecting something different. I knew the Prime games would have a focus on exploration and isolation, and I enjoyed them for that. Maybe if there was a co-op metroidvania you'd like it Anthony... isn't Shadow Complex going to have co-op?

This is more dribble than I care to read. Point being... Metroidvanias ROCK! If you dont like em just dont play them and STFU.

I guess this is the way I think about it: there are two types of progression in games, the progression of your character getting stronger/better or changing in any way and the progression of moving towards your final goal. Maybe there are different terms for these, I don't know. Anyway, Metroidvanias focus on the first type of progression I mentioned, the progression of your character. I hate to bring up MGS again, but I just played through all of the games recently so it's on my mind. In Metal Gear Solid 3 you almost always feel like you're progressing the mission forward, but Snake doesn't change from a gameplay standpoint. You use the same CQC techniques the whole game, and the attacks have the same effects, and yet at the end of the game *SPOILERS* you can use CQC to best The Boss. That doesn't really make sense from a gameplay perspective. Well, I'm not even talking about Metroidvanias anymore so I guess I'll just leave you guys with this unless someone responds. Thanks for actually reading this.

Yay, someone who thinks like me! Wait, no... I love Metroids and Castlevanias, to bad I can't express exactly why, except that backtracking is not much different to what's done in adventure games and RPGs, generally it leads to more powerups who open up different gameplay opportunities in different and cool environments. Its quite enjoyable.

I feel it's more like watching the world (pardon the poetic imagery) unfold like a flower (radially) rather than like a tapestry (linearly). It also makes sense from a believability standpoint that "Why would they put the doors that could only be opened with ITEMX after the point when you get ITEMX?" That would defeat the purpose of locking them.

In another sense it gives you something visual to work for. For example a green door in super metroid eggs you on to find whatever weapon will open it. Instead of getting a weapon and then finding the door it would open after the fact.

I can see how this can be frustrating in the same way people think LOST is frustrating. You're given a mystery that you have to keep in mind as you progress to make sense of the overall narrative.

I feel like Metroid (never played Castlevania) is very much an action puzzle game. In the same way that Monkey Island would pose some form of elaborate puzzle that I had to figure out, Metroid does the same thing, except that instead of clicking on random items and trying to find where they needed to go, I have an elaborate world that gives me the same thing.

The back tracking in Metroid Prime pissed me the fuck off, but that's why I stopped playing them. I found that in the GBA Metroids, if there was back tracking, I could do it quickly and fairly easily, because I knew how to get past things.

If you play Metroid feeling that you have to go everywhere and do everything, you will want to kill yourself out of repetition. If an area is blocked off, leave it be for now, because eventually you'll stumble back across it with the weapons to move past it.

Also, usually if there's only a couple health things in a room, there's a secret block that gives a better upgrade in the same room.

Why do all your rants come off as condescending?

Its hard to watch them because you come off as such a know-it all regardless of your like or dislike for what you are discussing.

Ah well, at its core its just more of your "everything popular sucks BUT CHECK OUT THIS INDIE GAME" drivel you spew constantly.

Honestly, by harping on backtracking, you're harping on practically the entire RPG, Adventure, and Action Adventure genres, not to mention major games in other genres (Devil May Cry, Super Mario 64, Many games in the Mega Man series, etc.). I don't think you've thought this through, really. I think you're trying to assign rational reasons for irrational tastes.

Keep in mind that, when I call your taste irrational, it's because it's a taste. My tastes are irrational too. I don't give a crap about Halo or Grand Theft Auto. It's just not my taste. Metroidvanias just don't match your taste. That doesn't mean the game developers are lazy or that fans of the games are heroically patient.

Super Metroid, one of the best video games ever. That is all

Funnily enough, I do love the Metroid series, but my favorite game happens to be Metroid Fusion. I remember loving the game for giving Metroid a little more of a fleshed-out story, rather than just saying "Hey, evil stuff is happening, go down to planet whatever and hunt for artifacts for two hours!" Granted, everyone else at that time were bashing the game, saying "Waaah! Metroid shouldn't be mission/story based! We want our mindless exploration back!"

Personally, I love Metroid. I will never stop loving Metroid. Same goes for Castlevania, though I still prefer the old level-based Castlevanias rather than the Metroidvania route they went later. Seriously, the only two good "Metroidvania" games are Symphony and Aria of Sorrow, though Portrait of Ruin does get an honorable mention for trying to change things up a just a little. Still, gimme Castlevania III any day of the week.

Now, as for the appeal of backtracking, I think it's less opening up new areas, for me, it's really more coming back to a place that gave me trouble with a bunch of sweet new powerups, tearing ass through formerly tough monsters who now have strength equivalent to a cardboard cutout and shouting "YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT! FUCK WITH ME NOW!"

...or is that just me?

I dislike Metroid and like Castlevania.... go figure.