I'm the exact opposite. I love metroidvainas, and will usually tear through them in a few sittings.
A well designed metroidvaina world acts like a single interconnected puzzle box, and unrevealing them is majorly addicting. I go out of my way to backtrack through previous areas whenever I can in order to get every item and find every secret. I very rarely get lost in these games and when I do, figuring out where to go next is usually a simple process of elimination. The real challenge / frustration tends to be figuring out where the last few secrets are hidden after already exploring the whole map map multiple times over.
I absolutely hated Metriod Dread for how linear and hand-holdy is was, and was shocked to find that people actually enjoyed it. Outside of the combat, I had a terrible time with that game. I felt like I was fighting against the level design up until the last 15% or so when it finally opens up and becomes an actual Metroidvaina, albeit not a very good one due to the aggressively linear map structure. Personally, I want to see more games like Dark Souls and Hollow Knight, who's worlds are so massive and convoluted that I can't easily intuit exactly where to go and have huge areas that I managed to completely miss on my first play-through.
i think my problem is beating them. i got to a point in hollow knight where i wanted to get into the white palace but didn't have enough orbs, or whatever they're called. got really tedious when it came time to backtrack and find more so i put it down. i found that it's a bit harder trying to find where to go in that one too. but i enjoyed the atmosphere and art direction the most with hollow knight.
i do find that im enjoying dead cells way more though. just haven't completed a single run yet, but working on that. i have gotten pretty close.
I don’t have the patience for some of them. There are others that I really like, though, especially when they have a beautiful atmosphere. I don’t mind running around when there is art to appreciate.
This is a genre I’ve always wanted to like, but have such a hard time enjoying. I mean there are so many beautiful games out there under this umbrella, Hollow Knight, Ender Lillies, Moon Scars, Lost Song.
All of these games have such an amazing atmosphere and I just can’t beat them because I always end up getting lost and never really knowing what the intended path is. That feeling of being lost is so frustrating that I just drop it and move on. Such a shame too, I really liked Ender Lilies.
I wholly agree with you on the patience thing too.
I hate the feeling of being lost and not knowing where to go next. I typically don't finish Metroid-alikes for that reason... I inevitably get stuck and don't know how to proceed, or which magic bauble I need to unlock a door or reach a platform that's just outside my jumping range.
Except for that one spot where you have to shoot at an unmarked wall to blow up some bricks to continue on the main game path. I understand having secrets behind unmarked walls but that bit really bothered me. It was the only time during my playthrough that I had to look up where to go next. The rest of Dread is really, really good at leading you in the right direction without feeling like it's holding your hand and is honestly a marvel of game design.
Maybe it’s just not your style, some play for the environment and the exploration and not necessarily the action. What do you think about the Soul-like games?
@such_lettuce7970 You sure are not the only one, because not everyone have the same taste. The biggest problem with those games in the modern age is, that they get very repetitive and backtrack without interesting things to happen. But that's more of a game design problem, not genre problem. Isn't every action adventure styled game tense and irritable?
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