Map Data Downloaded: The Design of the Metroidvania Genre — Part 1
What is a Metroidvania?
In simplest terms, a metroidvania is a sub-genre of the adventure genre that emphasizes exploration, free-roaming worlds and progression through player mobility that gradually opens access to the world. As the name suggests, the most notable games of the genre includes almost all of the Metroid series and a decent portion of the Castlevania series. While each game has its own variation on the formula, the basic elements have been used frequently since the 1980s.
Metroid (1986) on the NES pioneered the metroidvania genre. It featured the player character, Samus, exploring a vast and complex cave system with interconnecting tunnels and shafts filled with various enemies and other obstacles. At the start of the game, Samus is severely limited in where she can explore, but she’ll quickly find the iconic morph ball (a.k.a. morphing ball, or maru mari) powerup. This mysterious technology allows her curl up into a small sphere and roll through the narrow tunnels that were too small for her to traverse normally. She’s next greeted with a long vertical shaft branching off into many different rooms for her to explore. Some of the doors can’t be opened with her current skill set, so she must explore further to find a way to open them and continue to progress.
This small slice from the start of Metroid shows the typical gameplay loop of the genre: explore, discover progression key, overcome new obstacles, gain access to new areas. Many metroidvanias introduce obstacles that the player must return to later, leading to the backtracking the genre is (in)famous for. Players will often need to traverse the same areas multiple times to use their new progression keys to advance. With poor design, this can feel like a chore meant to pad out the playtime, but it can actually be an important tool designers can use to craft a more memorable experience.
I absolutely adore the Metroid series. The games are able to create an atmosphere that I haven’t seen recreated anywhere else. In almost every game in the series, you’re alone and left to explore hostile, bizarre, often haunting locales. The music is primarily ambient in nature and is used to great effect to emphasize the sense of isolation. You’re on your own to forge your own path through these dangerous wilds, looking for any tools you can find to help you survive and locate your target. The Metroid series consistently makes use of the format to amplify the atmosphere and pull the player into the world for a very immersive experience.
The Metroid series continued to refine its formula and for a time sat alone, awkwardly in corner of the generic action adventure genre. Then in 1997, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (a.k.a. SotN) reinvented its series by using Metroid’s basic formula and tweaking some of the details. Notably, SotN added a number of RPG elements such as equippable items, player stats and leveling up. They also took on a more action-oriented approach to gameplay with faster, shorter range combat, more difficult and more frequent bosses and a greater emphasis on enemies as obstacles. This conjugation on what had been Metroid’s unique style was the main catalyst in this style gaining its own moniker.
The metroidvania style Castlevanias didn’t get going until Koji Igarashi (a.k.a. Iga) got his hands on the series and made it into something very different, leading to these games sometimes being referred to as Igavanias. The term wasn’t well known until Iga’s kickstarter for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Presumably, they wanted to avoid official references to Metroid and Castlevania, as the game isn’t officially affiliated with either series. However, the term Igavania is still useful when talking about that specific set of Castlevania games. (shameless self promotion: read my write-up of all the Igavanias after I played them all back-to-back)
While Metroid and Castlevania had mostly cornered the market on the genre, it has exploded in recent years thanks to indie developers. The quantity and variety of metroidvanias today is staggering, and while I would like to talk about all of them eventually, I’ll give special mention to La-Mulana for now. La-Mulana follows an archaeologist named Lemeza as he explores the vast and mysterious ruins known as La-Mulana.
It has all of the basic elements such as exploration, mobility progression, backtracking and an open world, but I’m bringing it up now because it represents the third major category of metroidvania. Metroid focuses on exploratory gameplay, Castlavania focuses on action and combat, and La-Mulana focuses on puzzles. There’s certainly a lot of challenge to be found in La-Mulana’s combat too, but more than anything it emphasizes its complex and obscure puzzles or riddles. It’s the sort of game where you’ll want to keep extensive handwritten notes because as the ruins gradually open up to you, the scope of the puzzles opens up as well. All three categories have their own set of design challenges that mesh with the basic mechanics differently.
The metroidvania genre has some very powerful tools for designers to create atmospheric, immersive, memorable and exciting experiences. However, it’s very easy to create something bland, boring and forgettable with these tools if they’re not used well. I’ve played a mountain of games in this genre and enjoy figuring out how their designs work. In this series I’m going to discuss everything that makes the genre tick and discuss what makes a good metroidvania and why. Along the way I’ll be doing case studies of the metroidvanias I’ve played and pick apart their design, showing what works and what doesn’t.
Next time I’ll be discussing high level metroidvania world design, making it memorable and keeping the player on the right track.
