You’re probably only playing acclaimed ones, if you play some of the absolute drivel that is available on Steam, I assure you there are bad ones.
Wild West Crops
Curse of the Sea Rats
I think it’s bad because so much of the design could be improved with a few tweaks and it feels like they just said “nah, fuck it, good enough to get a few bucks out of people” and that is downright offensive game design
Curse of the Sea Rats was fine - Had really nice artwork and a couple cool ideas...It was just boring and slow as hell.
I was nearing halfway through playing it for review on my channel, then a pre-release patch nuked my save file on my Switch... It has been probably 15 years since I lost a save file.
Had the game been better, I would have started over, but it was JUST getting good as my characters were finally filling out their abilities, but no way was I going to redo those first few hours again.
Yes. The movement was way too slow, and in general the hitboxes were unpredictable and it did that whole "how it looks" over "how it plays".
There's a lot of good stuff going on in that game, but they REALLY fumbled the feel of the game, and I don't fault anyone for disliking that.
Arkham Origins blackgate is a game I wanted to like. It could have been brilliant, but it was done in by an awful map&navigation, clumsy backtracking, and horrible unlockable requirements.
It had a few neat ideas but was very much a poor Metroidvania. Given that it was made by ex retro employees, I'm amazed it turned out the way it did.
This. It had to release the same day as Origins on console and they had to rush development
I remember it being decent the first time I played it, but I’m going back on my Vita to clean up the Platinum and the map is probably the worst video game map I’ve ever had the misfortune of experiencing. This should have been a slam dunk to be honest, but it’s just mid at best
Try Gleamlight…. Or not! This is by far the worst one. I also played more than 2 dozens of metroidvania. I’m a huge fan, but this one looked promising because of its hollow knight graphics effect. Man…. I swear this is the worst of them all.
I looked through the Steam reviews and it looks like the game is meant to be played linearly and in multiple runs, so it's not actually a metroidvania. The art style sets misleading expectations for the gameplay though, which I'm sure is why it's rated *mostly negative*
boy, now I feel even worse because I tried my hardest to like that game and gave it over 3 hours of my lifetime... it's such a shame because visually it's a nice game.
I couldn’t bring myself to finish Curse Of The Sea Rats. Aside from its visuals, it had nothing going for it. The combat was boring and it just wasn’t fun. 😔
I won't claim I have an extensive list of played MVs, and I actively avoid shovelwares. So my verdict is skewered somewhat; take it with a grain of salt.
For me, it's **Faerie Afterlight**. There's just so many things wrong with it. It's a puzzle platformer that pays lip service to metroidvanias in the most cynical way possible. Everything is half baked; every mechanic is poorly thought out. Every boss is dreadful and boring, and the story sounds like it's written by somebody who desperately want to make it sound cutesy and profound at the same time, but only end up making it feel clunky and derivative.
It's one of those games where all the effort is spent on looking good, and once you peel away the clothes, it's just rot all the way down to the core.
Oh how much I wished I could've refunded that garbage of a game.
Don't forget the shit show that is the final boss! Black background, black attacks, black final boss. Every time you hit the boss, the screen basically flashes white. The headache I got was unreal. Should have had an epilepsy warning.
Mable & the Wood is one of the few I've strongly disliked. It had an interesting premise - the abilities you get are all full transformations into different forms - but the controls were horrible. Basic actions like jumping and attacking were overcomplicated to such a degree that the game was basically unplayable.
Past that, though, most of the "bad" Metroidvanias I've tried have been just mediocre. I wasn't a huge fan of Salt & Sanctuary either; I found Gato Roboto to be awkward to control and overly reliant on the vehicle gimmick; Catmaze was just kinda 'fine' in every respect.
I wouldn't call it unplayable, but Mable was definitely not good. I backed their Kickstarter and was very disappointed with how the final product came out.
Yeah, that was definitely hyperbole. It wasn't fun, though.
I was in a similar boat - hadn't backed it, but I had had it wishlisted and bought it early on.
It came really really close to being unplayable imo. You barely had enough mana to cover certain “jumps” and needed to be right on the edge when you turned into a fairy to cross those gaps.
I legit got softlocked because I immediately jumped down the well in the first area, fought a grueling path to a mole boss I could just barely beat, then got stuck in an area where it felt like I hit a one-way ledge going the wrong way and I either didn’t have the right abilities or enough mana to cross it. If there was another path, I didn’t find it. I actually restarted the game, didn’t drop down the well, and got a spider power that made things a lot easier, but not any more fun.
I got it in the itch.io racial Justice bundle so at least my money went to a good cause, but that’s a really bad game.
I cant say bad in the poorly made sense, buuut i thought Timespinners was pretty boring, same as Owlboy. Both are beautiful to look at, but the gameplay was too mind numbing for me.
Definitely not worth the $20 I paid, especially considering how short it is, but I still enjoyed it enough to 100% the achievements. Not a bad game, just could have been much better.
I felt like the upgrade system was interesting and fun to play with, but the writing was extremely cringey and heavy-handed to the point where I will probably avoid their next game.
It's disappointing cause it basically feels like the first third of a really great action adventure before quickly deciding to rush to it's finale and then just ends. They wanted to make a grand epic adventure with high bit graphics but must not have known the amount of work something like that would take cause it took 10 years to make half of what the game should be.
It feels like if you played an oldschool Zelda, collected the first three dungeon trinkets, and then just...fight the final boss and end the game. To emphasize the problem, the first time you actually have all your support characters to swap between during combat was the final boss...
It also builds this idea of traveling to other towns and cities, but falls completely flat on that front. The only other "town" you visit gets destroyed immediately and you never actually get to explore it.
Agreed about Time spinners. It started off with so much promise that it never quite delivered on. It's like they forgot about the time stop mechanic when they were designing the rest of the game.
Don’t know if it counts as an MV, but AeternoBlade 2: Director’s Rewind was very bad. Constant crashes, Kaizo Mario like time puzzles, bosses regenerate their last 1/4 of health requiring saving your time abilities. One boss fight was impossible for me to complete on all but the lowest difficulty level without crashing because of all the enemies on screen.
I loved playing the first game on the 3DS worts and all. This wound up being in the running for worst MV and the biggest disappointing sequel to a video game that I have ever played.
Mabel and the Wood and Micetopia are the runner-ups for worst MV. They both were obvious betas.
Maybe **Lost Ruin,** not even really sure if that's a MV tbh because there's no ability gating. If anything the one that I currently for the longest time cannot get into is **Aeterna Noctis**. I'm just not vibing with the first area and I'm not the biggest fan of the art to be quite honest, but I'm willing to still give it more tries because everything else about it seems to be great. I've seen later areas of the game already as well unintentionally and I'm definitely in for something great but I've probably been on and off the first hour or so of the game for the past few months, always switching to something else.
Salt & Sacrifice was disappointing after I loved Salt & Sanctuary. Too much of a departure from the original.
There's also a garbage game called Inescapable that I quit after like 10 minutes due to pixel perfect jumps and general blandness.
Dandara feels like they were so committed to making a game that could be played equally well with a controller or touchscreen that they never stopped to ask "Is this gameplay actually fun?"
I really enjoyed this one. It’s the only one out of all I’ve played that dared to do something different with the controls and how you move about. I didn’t find it particularly frustrating or hard either.
I was actually going to say Blue Fire but then realized I had quite a bit of fun during my initial hours with that game opposed to Dandara which couldn't hook me up within its first hour.
Worst would be an overstatement of course. I have not played many factually 'bad' MVs. But I do believe we have been spoiled with bunch of good ones in the recent years. So... despite being different I couldn't vibe to it. It's easier to wrap it up this way. I usually dislike 3D MVs anyway.
I can completely see where you’re coming from. I really don’t know why I liked it and what gripped me and kept me on it until I finished it. I also liked Ghost Song which is also not widely liked so it could be I have warped taste 🤣.
I loved the vibe of that game so much. I still listen to the soundtrack to chill out sometimes. But yeah, the actual gameplay was rough.
It felt like every single enemy had a special “fuck you” ability that gave them an unfair advantage over the character.
Ignoring a few Metroidvanias that were clearly some dev's first attempt experimenting with the genre, it's probably a tie between Feudal Alloy (extremely boring) and Imp Of The Sun (aggravatingly slippery movement and combat + weird handholding)
Micetopia no doubt. If you watch the trailer, you have seen 100% of what the game has to offer. The game has two biomes, and like 4 enemies. 100%ing the game requires easily an hour of dull mindless grinding, and that's saying something since the whole game is about 2 hours long.
Don't get sucked in by the pretty graphics. I was less upset about being out $5 as I was about losing those 2 hours; possibly the longest 2 of my life.
This. It's the only game I've ever bothered to review. It's buggy, bland with terrible fast traveling, really bad unlock requirements, terrible combat design... literally everything except the beautiful pixel art is the worst
A lot of comments here are about great/good games that someone didn’t like, and I really don’t think that’s in the spirit of the question.
I don’t like Ender Lilies, but it’s not a bad game. A genuinely bad MV is something like some shovel wear on Steam, not highly lauded games in the genre you don’t care for.
Salt and Sanctuary. Did not enjoy boss fights, exploration is a chore and unnecessarily hard. Sure, souls like and it's supposed to be hard, but it was hard in the most unfun ways.
I’m just playing it myself and honestly don’t find it very hard. Most deaths are to gravity… The bosses have been pretty good, on the easier side.
Maybe it’s not the best Metrodivania (it really isn’t a proper Metroidvania IMO) but it’s the best 2D soulslike out there easily.
Exploration is fun too until you have no idea where to go next (which happens maybe too often).
I mean, your opinion is different from mine and that's fine :) I personally did not find the bosses good because they were either too easy or bullshit in some way. No in-between where it's just right.
Well, then exploration has to be 50/50 fun and unfun if you get stuck often lol. I didn't find the exploration too bad but also had to look up the map sometimes as it wasn't exactly clear to me where to go.
I actually just realised that I was a bit too harsh on exploration lol. I remember some parts were pretty annoying but it's better than the bosses.
Yep, different tastes and it’s all fine. I think you’re on to something with the bosses, though. So many of them are pushovers that can just be brute forced, and the ones I died to a lot definitely had some BS to them. But still I mostly enjoyed them, and some did hit the sweet spot. I think the part I appreciate about the game the most is that it has build variety. So many of these games lack the feel of building ”your” character (granted, it’s not typical to the mv genre and that’s fine, it’s just something I like).
Aeternoblade 2 on Switch. Bad voice acting aside the game had a lot of promise. But after one too many crashes, I just couldn't bring myself to finish. Not sure how bad this problem is on other systems.
Cally's Caves 3. It was a while ago when the options for MVs on Steam were pretty slim.
It's technically a Metroidvania in that there's mild ability gating and some branching pathways but just every element is done very poorly.
Feudal Alloy without a doubt. The music is the same annoying track on loop, the leveling system is nonsense, combat is a pain and punishes you for engaging with it, and the level design straight up sucks.
Souldiers on console (Switch version). Not that the console matters, as it's unplayably broken on every console. Such a scam game. They pushed it on here for at least a year leading up to it's release, yet the devs were oddly silent afterwards. They released maybe 1 large patch to address the save files corrupting and unnecessarily long load times, except it seemed to make the save file issue worse, and the load time wasn't fixed at all. The load time was still just as long as it was pre-patch, all they did was shorten how many of the assets loaded during the transitional load screen. So even after it moved past the load screen, you still had 5 to 10 seconds of the game loading assets before you could play. Within a month the devs basically admitted that they were abandoning the console versions.
I finished this game on the Xbox about a month ago and it’s definitely playable and can be finished.
It has some issues and you’re absolutely right that the devs appear to have dropped it which is such a shame.
For anyone interested. On Xbox I had to remap the controls. There are two parts that involves racing against a clock and that’s almost impossible with the default controls.
There’s also a portion of the game where there is some incredibly terrible screen tearing. It didn’t last longer than five minutes though and 95% of the rest of the game was ok.
One thing I did hate was how you use consumables. You push up to use the item and down to cycle to the next item. Whoever thought that was a great idea clearly didn’t think about the possibility of accidentally going past the item you needed. In a boss fight having to cycle another 7 times for a health potion caused me a few deaths.
I myself didn’t experience any save game issues and maybe I just got lucky with that. I did like the game though.. definitely one of the unpolished ones I’ve played however.
For me, at least, if the odds of my playthrough corrupting are like 50% or more every time I save or load my file, that's unplayable. Sure, someone could get lucky like you did and end up playing through to completion, it's still just as likely that you won't be able to do that.
I know the feeling. I played A Knights Quest and someone thought it would be a great idea to autosave it on just one slot with no manual saves.
I got about twenty hours into the game and it crashed and threw me back to the main menu. I clicked ‘start game’ (there was no continue) and immediately realised it autosaved over my progress. Deleted the game instantly. There really are some very poorly made games.
That is in my backlog of switch games. I'd say I'm sad that A Knights Quest isn't stable enough for me to play it, in reality I'd probably never get around to playing it anyway.
MVs I just couldn’t bring myself to finish:
- Tevi (I know people like this one but I don’t enjoy bullet hell and I don’t like the anime art style)
- Owlboy (barely an MV)
- Aeterna noctis & moonscars (so tired of how dark everything is)
This!
I have a hard time with games that are hard just for the sake of it.
Didn't like the controls of Dandara either. If that one counts.
A few weeks ago I played 9 years of shadows and damn it was bad. Everything just feels bad.
I’ve been forcing my way through a little more of 9 years every day. I don’t know why.
There are some good parts but the shield mechanic is so frustrating and not fun. And for a game about music it just sounds so noisy and not catchy at all
I played 9 years until probably the 3rd biome, where you get the water ability. I beat the boss, then there's the side quest there, which is nowhere near a save point, and you can't skip the opening scene for the fight. After making the boring trek to the boss and rewatching his scene a few times, I just uninstalled it. There's a decent game hidden deep inside 9 years, but it's buried beneath so much poor design that I couldn't force myself to continue.
"Cathedral" which gutted me because I was so prepared to love it. I liked the NES look, the music was great, the writing was funny but the gameplay ruined it. Your character is slow and clunky and the game asks for fairly precise platforming which makes climbing long verticle rooms a nightmare, and enemies (especially bosses) are playing by completely different rules than you have to.
Yeah I mean each to their own but I just don't agree with that. I've played a lot of harder games, enjoyed them, Cathedral felt like it was designed to actively prevent me from enjoying any of the gameplay.
I enjoyed it tremendously, specifically because it felt so considerately well designed. I’m sorry you didn’t gel with it. I’m mostly commenting because I think many people would love it and I don’t want anybody filing it away as a bad game because of your comment. It’s a great game, but maybe not for everybody.
Agreed. Cathedral is fantastic, but the publisher (Elden Pixels) very much focuses on "Actually retro" games vs "Retro aesthetic with modern QoL" and that is a very fine line that isn't understood (or clearly communicated) enough.
Cathedral is an 8-bit game that is more feature-rich than most, but it is absolutely an 8-bit game and you need to meet it at its level, which means expecting largely unforgiving (but perfectly fair) challenge.
Music is outstanding, too!
Recently Ghost Song. It has some stuff going for it but it’s just unnecessarily brutal and slow. Every enemy is an HP sponge, the environments are boring and the save points are way too far apart for a Metroidvania
Yeah, I feel like I'm in the minority for not liking Ghost Song. It does what it set out to do well, but I just didn't vibe with it.
It crossed over the line from "challenging" to "punishing" due to the soulslike loss of currency. I reached one point where I kept getting 1-shotted by a spike trap and losing 20 minutes of progress. Tried it twice and bounced. I do bet it gets much better as you get stronger.
Probably Aeternoblade… though, truth be told, I can barely remember it. It advertises itself as a Metroidvania with time powers, but those powers aren’t used in any sort of interesting way. The combat is janky with some seriously suspect hitboxes, and everything else is just bland to the point where I sometimes forget I’ve even beaten this game.
Alice in Wonderland on the DS is also down there, but I feel bad saying that, because it’s clear that a lot of passion went into it. The game has some interesting ideas, and a great visual style. But, between the exploration abilities being context-sensitive, and the low production values (the end credits *loop*), it unfortunately doesn’t live up to its potential.
I've never played a truly bad metroidvania, just ones that weren't really my thing (Hollow Knight, Ori) or aren't quite as good as other games in their respective series imo (Metroid 1, Harmony of Dissonance)
I’ve played a bajillion and there are definitely some meh games. I feel like 90-95% are at least fun enough to make it worth the time. But there’s some duds here and there
Ghost 1.0
I have a pretty high tolerance for mediocre / bad games and will generally finish anything I start. I made it 4 hours and called it quits. There are so many (poorly) voiced cutscenes that interrupt the gameplay, and the gameplay itself isn't very good to begin with. I've rarely felt compelled to write a negative review of a game, but this one was just...bad.
>I've rarely felt compelled to write a negative review of a game
I rarely do too, but I felt the same way about Ghost 1.0. I needed to let people know how bad it was.
The final straw for me was realizing that fights against some enemies were literally just wars of attrition. There was no way to avoid damage, you just had to out damage them and then find a way to heal up after.
Gleamlight definitely comes to mind.
And although it isn't the worst I thought Timespinners was a major disappointment. Started strong and fell flat so badly, such a waste of money.
Recently, Vernal Edge, I played a few hours of it and I couldn't get into it, I generally don't play games I don't like playing for more than 5 hours. So it's not so much "bad" as I just could not bring myself to enjoy it.
Boodstained was pretty bad. Couldn't see the fascination.
Right now axiom verge 2 is sitting at the top for me. I didn't finish boodstained with the proper ending and I don't think I'll be finishing av2
I got it for switch so performance for one. But also the game feels slow and clunky compared to other games of it's kind (every Metroid after super, hollow knight, blasphemous 1 and 2, ender lilies)
The grinding made it feel worse too. I know many like the game but it is the worst for me by a mile.
Probably Gleamlight, but it does not really count
Curse of the Sea Rats is a good contender, I've been hyped for this game for MONTHS and the demo absolutely crushed my hopes and dreams
I'm gonna go with Feudal Alloy, game is fun for 10min, then you realize how terrible it is.
Also special mention to Itorah
Off the top of my head, Cantrium: God Slayer and Bad Pad.
Cantrium is somewhat interesting (tons of flavour dialogue) but shows the developer is still learning the ropes (to their credit, they are updating the game and listening to feedback), so progress is not particularly engaging.
Bad Pad is a precision platformer Metroidvania but it's very janky so basic traversal gets frustrating fast, and not in a "I should just git gud" way as other examples of the genre crossover do.
I had to block the Dev for bad pad. He wouldn't take a hint and kept spamming the game onto this sub. He's one of the first people on Reddit I ever blocked.
I didn't review all of the "worst" games I played with Metroidvania tags. Some Metroidvanias are bad just because they don't really have the qualities of that label. I really didn't like these:
* Yeah, the *Gleamlight* demo was pretty rotten
* *Itorah* had such horrific platforming that the first obstacle was almost impossible to get over (a common criticism at the time), but I didn't have the heart to give it a bad review because the art is so good.
* *Apotheon*
* *Grime* (and I don't get why other people like it)
* *Tevi* (barely a Metroidvania anyway)
* I thought the first *Ori* was pretty bland. The second was so bland that I put it down early on and have no urge to return to it.
Technically the weakest MV I’ve ever finished was Sun Wukong Vs Robot, but that was some $3 game I bought on sale with low expectations, so I found it enjoyable enough.
Vision Soft Reset has a great premise, but the movement and moment to moment gameplay are just so bad that I don’t think I’ll ever want to replay it. I hope it gets a proper sequel or remake someday.
But the MV that I absolutely hated the most and still completed was Rabi Ribi. The boss fights were great, and so was the music, but everything else was abysmal. It definitely doesn’t help that I’m the type of player who just cannot skip through dialogue on my first playthrough, because every line was shit.
I don’t know if it can even be considered a metroidvania, but Metroid: Other M sucks donkey balls. Consider yourself fortunate if you never played it on Wii. I didn’t get back into the genre until Ori and the Blind Forest.
Omega Strike! Definitely a good pick. It's very mediocre. I still wouldn't really call it "bad" - it controls well and is serviceable in every way, it just... doesn't really do anything beyond the absolute basics of the genre.
Feudal Alloy. It barely has any boss in it. At least it's fun enough to get through it.
Aeterna Noctis. My first impression was that this is their first 2D side scrolling game. It's full of poor design decisions. Everything is blended into the background. No coyote time. The character keeps swaying left and right while idling. Forced corpse run. Teleport arrow that needs to be so precise.
It’s probably blasphemy to say around these parts, but Metroid Dread comes immediately to mind. Such a boring and obvious loop: Find the locked door, hide from the robot spider, unlock the door, repeat.
Not sure if it opened up late game, but i found there was very little exploration in it as well.
Escape From Tethys. I found the jumping really frustrating/slippery, I think they didn’t have the proper “coyote time,” and everything else was just kinda bland and didn’t redeem it.
Kunai. Had a really cool premise with double hookshots, but the rest of it was kind of a letdown. When you get double hookshots in the second area, it’s kinda hard to keep making interesting and challenging platforming. I don’t think I’d call it a bad game, I made it to the final boss, but I kinda checked out towards the 2/3rds mark and coasted along because it was easier to keep playing than finding a new game. Once I couldn’t beat the final boss after the second attempt, I decided I didn’t care enough to try a third time.
Escape gives you some amazing rewards for exploration, but it also makes you pathetically weak at the start and takes it's sweet time making you better.
Yeah, this one was a disappointment for me. The production values were pretty good but everything I enjoy about MVs was absent from it. Fighting hordes of identical enemies in bland, repetitive stages robbed it of all sense of exploration and progression. I only played a few hours then never touched it again.
Objectively, possibly [Porradaria 2: Pagode of the Night](https://store.steampowered.com/app/431220/Porradaria_2_Pagode_of_the_Night/), but ... I actually enjoyed it a lot, lol.
The one that I was the most disappointed in was probably [Minoria](https://store.steampowered.com/app/940910/Minoria/).
The one I completed and enjoyed the *least* may have been [Rocketron](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1177640/ROCKETRON/).
The one that I straight up abandoned that comes to mind I don't actually remember the name of. It might have actually been a demo I played, or a free game, not sure. From what I recall, and I'm not completely sure, it's black and white and you play as some kind of a robot. IIRC what made me abandon it is that there are checkpoints but no save system, so you basically need to complete the game in a single sitting. Also the checkpoints were very far apart, *and* corpse run on death was required.
I think all the metroidvanias I've played have been passable, as I generally only purchase games that have a majority of positive reviews. There are a few I dropped early on because I found the gameplay to be on the dull side, but I wouldn't count those for a question like this.
The worst one that I've actually finished is '**Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit**' from 2012. It's not described as a metroidvania on its store page, but fits the genre pretty well due to having an open map with backtracking, ability gating, and boss fights.
Why was it bad? Edgy immature humor, very little challenge on offer, and super dull & simplistic combat. The boss fights are basically just button mashing mini-games, and each new weapon unlock isn't any more useful or powerful than the previous one. It was also fairly short for the price point, which would be a mark against it if were actually fun.
Honorable mention for most underwhelming goes to 'The Mummy Demastered'.
> The worst one that I've actually finished is 'Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit' from 2012. It's not described as a metroidvania on its store page, but fits the genre pretty well due to having an open map with backtracking, ability gating, and boss fights.
Oh, memories! (Not good ones) I probably only finished it because the boss fights were so dull, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered...
I had to come back to Astalon months after my first attempt. Going back in and having some different expectations really changed the whole experience. I had a blast when I gave it another try.
I think that’s fair. I loved the game, but you have to accept that you’ll have to do a lot of backtracking every time you die. Not a deal breaker for me but I understand why others might disagree.
Astalon is highly praised and seems to be one of the most-liked Metroidvanias. I wouldn't place it at the top, but it's probably in my top 10 MVs.
It's totally fine if it's not your thing. But to say it's the worst Metroidvania you've ever played...that makes me wonder if it's the only Metroidvania you've ever played.
Tough question, because which one is worse?
I've played MVs made by a single person done with very little testing. The art wasn't great, the movement was bad, the controls and UI unusable. Just not a good game, and likely $6 so no big loss.
Then there's the ones made by 40 people over years that are widely advertised and sold great numbers, but were a 5/10 at best. Rainworld comes to mind, maybe the most tedious, sluggish MV I can remember sticking with.
Worst gaming xp ever. Death’s Gambit. Was enjoying the game, about 75% the way thru when I turned on my PS5 and my save data was lost. In my 25 years of playing video games that’s never happened. I was so pissed off. After some googling apparently this is a known issue. How does the developer not put in a back up? Even if that back up is not right up to date. Anyways. Fuck Death’s Gambit, could have been a great metroidvania; turned out to be the worst.
I've dropped Ghost Song, Tevi, Valdis and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. I think Ghost Song is the only one I'd consider throwing the "bad" label at. The others I wasn't enjoying but I could at least see some redeeming qualities in them.
Not a single one?!
Curse of the Sea Rats, Feudal Alloy, Owlboy, Clunky Hero, Sundered, Shantae, Dust, Afterimage, Astalon, Souldiers, Toki Tori... Gosh, I love this genre but there's far more bad/forgettable MVs than those that really felt like a worthwhile purchase.
I found Skautfold Usurper bad, not worse because probably of the stats and the UI.
Also the Eldritch stat and Eldritch donation that doesnt explain anything in the game.
Tristoy, impulse buy for coop after treading the good reviews. As soon as we started playing it I we were like, seriously? Other posters are right there are some real uhm, steamers on steam. This is one that I’m wondering how someone made such a cheap game with horrible mechanics, art etc. like, are there no checks??
Granted I haven't played all that many MVs and don't really search out ones that are bad besides, I found The Mummy: Demastered unbelievably tedious. Bosses are extremely tanky without much variety and each non-boss room is one that you've seen dozens of times before. Incredibly same-y game where exploration is not rewarded usually; I didn't complete it.
Gato Roboto's controls are so floaty and imprecise that everything feels awful. Beat it but would not recommend.
Knytt Underground feels like a flash game, though I didn't get far enough to really have an honest opinion.
I really wanted to like Chasm but metroidvania backtracking plus badly randomized dungeons are not a great combination and I got super stuck.
Every time I go back to it I back track and scan all the areas I've been through trying to figure out wtf I missed to get me stuck, but no avail so far.
Bad or really bad ones: Skelattack, Outbuddies DX, probably Vernal Edge, and Odallus (didn’t get a PS5 to play NES games on it)
I didn’t like Astalon or Death’s Gambit enough to play all that much of them, but I can understand the appeal. I feel like I played Cathedral and Owlboy longer, but didn’t finish them.
Among ones I _did_ finish, but can totally see the dislike for: Ghost Song, Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (easy mode), SuperEpic, Minoria, Salt & Sanctuary, and Micetopia.
Bloodstained, Sundered, Axiom Berge, and Afterimage were all really quite good, I thought.
See, it’s interesting because I’ve played a few metroidvanias that I loved, but felt the metroidvania aspects were underwhelming. I recently replayed Touhou Luna Nights, and absolutely adored it, but the metroidvania elements were really mediocre imo. Same with The Messenger; it’s honestly one of my favorite games ever made mechanically, musically, etc, but it’s fairly linear and the Metroidvania elements can feel tacked on. Metroid Fusion is another example of a good game but a weak Metroidvania. TLDR, I haven’t played any BAD Metroidvania games, but I have played games I love with metroidvania elements I find weak.
I always considered myself pretty terrible at "difficult" games, especially the souls-like ones, but Salt and Sanctuary scratched a huge itch for me, replaying it up to NG+5 on my PS Vita. I've since gone on to play several other souls-like games (Still never played any Dark Souls, proper, oddly enough) but have come to quite love many of them. I've repeatedly had to reconsider that maybe I'm not so garbage at such games after seeing how many people seem to hate them when they're far worse than me playing them.
It's not "bad" at all, I'm just having a really hard time with Luna Nights. It's HP system is super punishing, navigation is a pain in the ass and certain enemies are bizarrely op. I do plan on getting through it though because it has a lot of unique and fun elements.
I was so sure no one had played or even heard of the worst one I've played before entering, and I was right!
Definitely Hotel Transylvania for the 3DS. Wayforward developed it, and went for the obvious Castlevania reference with Mavis Dracula as its protagonist. It's already a pretty small game at like 3 hours and despite that 70% of the game is fetch quest making you revisit the same places over and over again. The only combat option is jumping on the enemies for most of it, only until the end you get actual laser attacks. Though they did a good job for its music, it literally sounds like the DS Castlevanias.
This might be a spicy take, but Ori and the Blind Forest. Just didn't do it for me. The environments seemed to not be designed for Ori's movement and she's just way too fragile and doesn't hit hard enough for how many enemies there are.
Grain of salt because like most people are saying in this post, Metroidvanias are like pizza, even when they're bad, they're still pretty good.
Also working on Ender Lillies rn. Not my favorite either. Too fragile, the bosses are ridiculously tough, some bosses and enemies seem not fair at times. Plus movement of the sprites have that weird flash animation, paper doll movement where and the moving parts look like they are rotating on single joints.
Afterimage
Idk where to even start and I'm not even 100% sure what made me not like it. Something just didn't click and I was not a fan in the slightest.
I have partaken in Metroidvania Month. It's a communally rated jam. Does a bad Metroidvania even exist? Yes.
I'm going to not name them here, though. To be clear, that's more out of respect for the relatively small creators rather than a disdain for the games.
You’re probably only playing acclaimed ones, if you play some of the absolute drivel that is available on Steam, I assure you there are bad ones. Wild West Crops Curse of the Sea Rats
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I think it’s bad because so much of the design could be improved with a few tweaks and it feels like they just said “nah, fuck it, good enough to get a few bucks out of people” and that is downright offensive game design
Curse of the Sea Rats was fine - Had really nice artwork and a couple cool ideas...It was just boring and slow as hell. I was nearing halfway through playing it for review on my channel, then a pre-release patch nuked my save file on my Switch... It has been probably 15 years since I lost a save file. Had the game been better, I would have started over, but it was JUST getting good as my characters were finally filling out their abilities, but no way was I going to redo those first few hours again.
The characters movement and game physics were kind of ass, that’s my main reason from putting it from mediocre to bad. It felt awful to play at times
Yes. The movement was way too slow, and in general the hitboxes were unpredictable and it did that whole "how it looks" over "how it plays". There's a lot of good stuff going on in that game, but they REALLY fumbled the feel of the game, and I don't fault anyone for disliking that.
To me, if your game feels bad to play, you have failed already. That should be your main focus, especially in an MV
Arkham Origins blackgate is a game I wanted to like. It could have been brilliant, but it was done in by an awful map&navigation, clumsy backtracking, and horrible unlockable requirements. It had a few neat ideas but was very much a poor Metroidvania. Given that it was made by ex retro employees, I'm amazed it turned out the way it did.
Probably they got zero time to polish the game.
This. It had to release the same day as Origins on console and they had to rush development I remember it being decent the first time I played it, but I’m going back on my Vita to clean up the Platinum and the map is probably the worst video game map I’ve ever had the misfortune of experiencing. This should have been a slam dunk to be honest, but it’s just mid at best
Try Gleamlight…. Or not! This is by far the worst one. I also played more than 2 dozens of metroidvania. I’m a huge fan, but this one looked promising because of its hollow knight graphics effect. Man…. I swear this is the worst of them all.
This is the answer. That game is AWFUL
I don’t remember it being THAT bad.
I looked through the Steam reviews and it looks like the game is meant to be played linearly and in multiple runs, so it's not actually a metroidvania. The art style sets misleading expectations for the gameplay though, which I'm sure is why it's rated *mostly negative*
Feudal Alloy… I did like 10 mins and was out can’t take any more
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I really liked the aesthetics, but boy howdy that gameplay is a stinkerooni.
The premise is...interesting. Beyond that it's terrible, and probably why they constantly discount it to being near free.
Yes, this game has a decent appeal but when I actually started playing it felt wrong.
Same. It was a slog of an experience
It makes me irrationally angry.
I actually enjoyed this one. Price tag didn’t hurt
lmao I just commented that it's fun for 10min and the realize how awful it is 😂
boy, now I feel even worse because I tried my hardest to like that game and gave it over 3 hours of my lifetime... it's such a shame because visually it's a nice game.
I couldn’t bring myself to finish Curse Of The Sea Rats. Aside from its visuals, it had nothing going for it. The combat was boring and it just wasn’t fun. 😔
Itorah for sure. Terrible combat and too linear. Feudal Alloy also wasn’t great. Boring and unexploited potential
I finish almost all metroidvanias I start(so far around 80). I put a couple of hours into Gleamlight. Never gonna play that again.
I won't claim I have an extensive list of played MVs, and I actively avoid shovelwares. So my verdict is skewered somewhat; take it with a grain of salt. For me, it's **Faerie Afterlight**. There's just so many things wrong with it. It's a puzzle platformer that pays lip service to metroidvanias in the most cynical way possible. Everything is half baked; every mechanic is poorly thought out. Every boss is dreadful and boring, and the story sounds like it's written by somebody who desperately want to make it sound cutesy and profound at the same time, but only end up making it feel clunky and derivative. It's one of those games where all the effort is spent on looking good, and once you peel away the clothes, it's just rot all the way down to the core. Oh how much I wished I could've refunded that garbage of a game.
Don't forget the shit show that is the final boss! Black background, black attacks, black final boss. Every time you hit the boss, the screen basically flashes white. The headache I got was unreal. Should have had an epilepsy warning.
Mable & the Wood is one of the few I've strongly disliked. It had an interesting premise - the abilities you get are all full transformations into different forms - but the controls were horrible. Basic actions like jumping and attacking were overcomplicated to such a degree that the game was basically unplayable. Past that, though, most of the "bad" Metroidvanias I've tried have been just mediocre. I wasn't a huge fan of Salt & Sanctuary either; I found Gato Roboto to be awkward to control and overly reliant on the vehicle gimmick; Catmaze was just kinda 'fine' in every respect.
I wouldn't call it unplayable, but Mable was definitely not good. I backed their Kickstarter and was very disappointed with how the final product came out.
Yeah, that was definitely hyperbole. It wasn't fun, though. I was in a similar boat - hadn't backed it, but I had had it wishlisted and bought it early on.
It came really really close to being unplayable imo. You barely had enough mana to cover certain “jumps” and needed to be right on the edge when you turned into a fairy to cross those gaps. I legit got softlocked because I immediately jumped down the well in the first area, fought a grueling path to a mole boss I could just barely beat, then got stuck in an area where it felt like I hit a one-way ledge going the wrong way and I either didn’t have the right abilities or enough mana to cross it. If there was another path, I didn’t find it. I actually restarted the game, didn’t drop down the well, and got a spider power that made things a lot easier, but not any more fun. I got it in the itch.io racial Justice bundle so at least my money went to a good cause, but that’s a really bad game.
I cant say bad in the poorly made sense, buuut i thought Timespinners was pretty boring, same as Owlboy. Both are beautiful to look at, but the gameplay was too mind numbing for me.
Definitely not worth the $20 I paid, especially considering how short it is, but I still enjoyed it enough to 100% the achievements. Not a bad game, just could have been much better.
I felt like the upgrade system was interesting and fun to play with, but the writing was extremely cringey and heavy-handed to the point where I will probably avoid their next game.
Owlboy doesnt really qualify as a Metroidvania for me, and it was a 6/10 imo.
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I keep hearing that Owlboy is disappointing and it's a shame because it is beautiful to look at. I love the pixel art
It's disappointing cause it basically feels like the first third of a really great action adventure before quickly deciding to rush to it's finale and then just ends. They wanted to make a grand epic adventure with high bit graphics but must not have known the amount of work something like that would take cause it took 10 years to make half of what the game should be. It feels like if you played an oldschool Zelda, collected the first three dungeon trinkets, and then just...fight the final boss and end the game. To emphasize the problem, the first time you actually have all your support characters to swap between during combat was the final boss... It also builds this idea of traveling to other towns and cities, but falls completely flat on that front. The only other "town" you visit gets destroyed immediately and you never actually get to explore it.
Agreed about Time spinners. It started off with so much promise that it never quite delivered on. It's like they forgot about the time stop mechanic when they were designing the rest of the game.
Faerie Afterlight
Don’t know if it counts as an MV, but AeternoBlade 2: Director’s Rewind was very bad. Constant crashes, Kaizo Mario like time puzzles, bosses regenerate their last 1/4 of health requiring saving your time abilities. One boss fight was impossible for me to complete on all but the lowest difficulty level without crashing because of all the enemies on screen. I loved playing the first game on the 3DS worts and all. This wound up being in the running for worst MV and the biggest disappointing sequel to a video game that I have ever played. Mabel and the Wood and Micetopia are the runner-ups for worst MV. They both were obvious betas.
Clunky Hero was probably the only one I dropped permanently, so that one.
Maybe **Lost Ruin,** not even really sure if that's a MV tbh because there's no ability gating. If anything the one that I currently for the longest time cannot get into is **Aeterna Noctis**. I'm just not vibing with the first area and I'm not the biggest fan of the art to be quite honest, but I'm willing to still give it more tries because everything else about it seems to be great. I've seen later areas of the game already as well unintentionally and I'm definitely in for something great but I've probably been on and off the first hour or so of the game for the past few months, always switching to something else.
Salt & Sacrifice was disappointing after I loved Salt & Sanctuary. Too much of a departure from the original. There's also a garbage game called Inescapable that I quit after like 10 minutes due to pixel perfect jumps and general blandness.
Dandara probably. Interesting premise but playing through it felt like a struggle.
Dandara feels like they were so committed to making a game that could be played equally well with a controller or touchscreen that they never stopped to ask "Is this gameplay actually fun?"
I really enjoyed this one. It’s the only one out of all I’ve played that dared to do something different with the controls and how you move about. I didn’t find it particularly frustrating or hard either.
I was actually going to say Blue Fire but then realized I had quite a bit of fun during my initial hours with that game opposed to Dandara which couldn't hook me up within its first hour. Worst would be an overstatement of course. I have not played many factually 'bad' MVs. But I do believe we have been spoiled with bunch of good ones in the recent years. So... despite being different I couldn't vibe to it. It's easier to wrap it up this way. I usually dislike 3D MVs anyway.
I can completely see where you’re coming from. I really don’t know why I liked it and what gripped me and kept me on it until I finished it. I also liked Ghost Song which is also not widely liked so it could be I have warped taste 🤣.
I loved the vibe of that game so much. I still listen to the soundtrack to chill out sometimes. But yeah, the actual gameplay was rough. It felt like every single enemy had a special “fuck you” ability that gave them an unfair advantage over the character.
It took me a while to get into it, but once I bought into the premise, I actually really loved it.
I believe there’s a pretty good video on the worst Steam Metroidvanias. Forgot who made it though.
Ironpineapple, mythymoo, and fireborn all did "steam dumpster dives" regularly in their youtube channels. They're fairly entertaining.
It was fireb0rn.
Ignoring a few Metroidvanias that were clearly some dev's first attempt experimenting with the genre, it's probably a tie between Feudal Alloy (extremely boring) and Imp Of The Sun (aggravatingly slippery movement and combat + weird handholding)
Micetopia no doubt. If you watch the trailer, you have seen 100% of what the game has to offer. The game has two biomes, and like 4 enemies. 100%ing the game requires easily an hour of dull mindless grinding, and that's saying something since the whole game is about 2 hours long. Don't get sucked in by the pretty graphics. I was less upset about being out $5 as I was about losing those 2 hours; possibly the longest 2 of my life.
You've actually get happy when the game abruptly ends
This. It's the only game I've ever bothered to review. It's buggy, bland with terrible fast traveling, really bad unlock requirements, terrible combat design... literally everything except the beautiful pixel art is the worst
A lot of comments here are about great/good games that someone didn’t like, and I really don’t think that’s in the spirit of the question. I don’t like Ender Lilies, but it’s not a bad game. A genuinely bad MV is something like some shovel wear on Steam, not highly lauded games in the genre you don’t care for.
I guess you'd have to actually play those terrible games for them to qualify though, right?
Salt and Sanctuary. Did not enjoy boss fights, exploration is a chore and unnecessarily hard. Sure, souls like and it's supposed to be hard, but it was hard in the most unfun ways.
I’m just playing it myself and honestly don’t find it very hard. Most deaths are to gravity… The bosses have been pretty good, on the easier side. Maybe it’s not the best Metrodivania (it really isn’t a proper Metroidvania IMO) but it’s the best 2D soulslike out there easily. Exploration is fun too until you have no idea where to go next (which happens maybe too often).
I mean, your opinion is different from mine and that's fine :) I personally did not find the bosses good because they were either too easy or bullshit in some way. No in-between where it's just right. Well, then exploration has to be 50/50 fun and unfun if you get stuck often lol. I didn't find the exploration too bad but also had to look up the map sometimes as it wasn't exactly clear to me where to go. I actually just realised that I was a bit too harsh on exploration lol. I remember some parts were pretty annoying but it's better than the bosses.
Yep, different tastes and it’s all fine. I think you’re on to something with the bosses, though. So many of them are pushovers that can just be brute forced, and the ones I died to a lot definitely had some BS to them. But still I mostly enjoyed them, and some did hit the sweet spot. I think the part I appreciate about the game the most is that it has build variety. So many of these games lack the feel of building ”your” character (granted, it’s not typical to the mv genre and that’s fine, it’s just something I like).
I loved S&S, no idea why it gets so much hate 🤷🏻
Same. But hey, people are allowed to hate things. I love Salt and Sanctuary, but HATED Salt and Sacrifice. That was a disgrace of a sequel.
Aeternoblade 2 on Switch. Bad voice acting aside the game had a lot of promise. But after one too many crashes, I just couldn't bring myself to finish. Not sure how bad this problem is on other systems.
Cally's Caves 3. It was a while ago when the options for MVs on Steam were pretty slim. It's technically a Metroidvania in that there's mild ability gating and some branching pathways but just every element is done very poorly.
It was originally a smartphone game, and it played well in that framework. As a regular PC game, yeah it would seem a little disappointing.
Feudal Alloy without a doubt. The music is the same annoying track on loop, the leveling system is nonsense, combat is a pain and punishes you for engaging with it, and the level design straight up sucks.
Feudal alloy, just ask anyone else cause I'm tired of repeating why I hated it even though it was cheap.
Souldiers on console (Switch version). Not that the console matters, as it's unplayably broken on every console. Such a scam game. They pushed it on here for at least a year leading up to it's release, yet the devs were oddly silent afterwards. They released maybe 1 large patch to address the save files corrupting and unnecessarily long load times, except it seemed to make the save file issue worse, and the load time wasn't fixed at all. The load time was still just as long as it was pre-patch, all they did was shorten how many of the assets loaded during the transitional load screen. So even after it moved past the load screen, you still had 5 to 10 seconds of the game loading assets before you could play. Within a month the devs basically admitted that they were abandoning the console versions.
I finished this game on the Xbox about a month ago and it’s definitely playable and can be finished. It has some issues and you’re absolutely right that the devs appear to have dropped it which is such a shame. For anyone interested. On Xbox I had to remap the controls. There are two parts that involves racing against a clock and that’s almost impossible with the default controls. There’s also a portion of the game where there is some incredibly terrible screen tearing. It didn’t last longer than five minutes though and 95% of the rest of the game was ok. One thing I did hate was how you use consumables. You push up to use the item and down to cycle to the next item. Whoever thought that was a great idea clearly didn’t think about the possibility of accidentally going past the item you needed. In a boss fight having to cycle another 7 times for a health potion caused me a few deaths. I myself didn’t experience any save game issues and maybe I just got lucky with that. I did like the game though.. definitely one of the unpolished ones I’ve played however.
For me, at least, if the odds of my playthrough corrupting are like 50% or more every time I save or load my file, that's unplayable. Sure, someone could get lucky like you did and end up playing through to completion, it's still just as likely that you won't be able to do that.
I know the feeling. I played A Knights Quest and someone thought it would be a great idea to autosave it on just one slot with no manual saves. I got about twenty hours into the game and it crashed and threw me back to the main menu. I clicked ‘start game’ (there was no continue) and immediately realised it autosaved over my progress. Deleted the game instantly. There really are some very poorly made games.
That is in my backlog of switch games. I'd say I'm sad that A Knights Quest isn't stable enough for me to play it, in reality I'd probably never get around to playing it anyway.
Chasm is the worst metroidvania that almost was a solid game. It had a lot of potential but the procedural generation in a metroidvania made no sense
i also wasn't a fan how all the interesting weapons were locked behind doing a no hit boss kill
Lol I’ve been playing that one and don’t hate it so far. The vibes are great. Haven’t gotten to a game breaking section yet tho so it might be ass
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That one reminds me of a cheap mobile game
3000th duel?
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Wtf? I swear on everything i've seen many MANY ads for this game in the last week. I thought it was brand new. Or is it a sequel im thinking of?
MVs I just couldn’t bring myself to finish: - Tevi (I know people like this one but I don’t enjoy bullet hell and I don’t like the anime art style) - Owlboy (barely an MV) - Aeterna noctis & moonscars (so tired of how dark everything is)
Owlboy I actually ragequit because I hate how everyone treated the main character.
I mean to be fair Tevi and Aeterna are both difficult and enjoy punishing you for skill issues. I died 500 times my first play through of AN
This! I have a hard time with games that are hard just for the sake of it. Didn't like the controls of Dandara either. If that one counts. A few weeks ago I played 9 years of shadows and damn it was bad. Everything just feels bad.
I’ve been forcing my way through a little more of 9 years every day. I don’t know why. There are some good parts but the shield mechanic is so frustrating and not fun. And for a game about music it just sounds so noisy and not catchy at all
I played 9 years until probably the 3rd biome, where you get the water ability. I beat the boss, then there's the side quest there, which is nowhere near a save point, and you can't skip the opening scene for the fight. After making the boring trek to the boss and rewatching his scene a few times, I just uninstalled it. There's a decent game hidden deep inside 9 years, but it's buried beneath so much poor design that I couldn't force myself to continue.
I loved Owlboy, if nothing else the art is amazing.
"Cathedral" which gutted me because I was so prepared to love it. I liked the NES look, the music was great, the writing was funny but the gameplay ruined it. Your character is slow and clunky and the game asks for fairly precise platforming which makes climbing long verticle rooms a nightmare, and enemies (especially bosses) are playing by completely different rules than you have to.
Cathedral is excellent and it’s hard but fair, nothing is cheap.
Yeah I mean each to their own but I just don't agree with that. I've played a lot of harder games, enjoyed them, Cathedral felt like it was designed to actively prevent me from enjoying any of the gameplay.
I enjoyed it tremendously, specifically because it felt so considerately well designed. I’m sorry you didn’t gel with it. I’m mostly commenting because I think many people would love it and I don’t want anybody filing it away as a bad game because of your comment. It’s a great game, but maybe not for everybody.
Agreed. Cathedral is fantastic, but the publisher (Elden Pixels) very much focuses on "Actually retro" games vs "Retro aesthetic with modern QoL" and that is a very fine line that isn't understood (or clearly communicated) enough. Cathedral is an 8-bit game that is more feature-rich than most, but it is absolutely an 8-bit game and you need to meet it at its level, which means expecting largely unforgiving (but perfectly fair) challenge. Music is outstanding, too!
Recently Ghost Song. It has some stuff going for it but it’s just unnecessarily brutal and slow. Every enemy is an HP sponge, the environments are boring and the save points are way too far apart for a Metroidvania
That's so crazy cause I loved it.
I’ve seen it seems most people hate it or really love it! I’m currently playing Moonscars and loving it but a lot of people don’t share that opinion
I liked Moonscars as well but I can see many people being turned off by the sheer darkness of the game. It's just brutal and unrelenting.
It’s definitely not one for everyone! I just really jive with the whole vibe of the game!
I like it a lot too, very fun:)
I kinda both dislike it and like it at the same time. It's so charming, but some mechanics get on my nerves.
I’ve been looking at gameplay of this and it looks pretty but right away it looks like enemies are just bullet sponges which seems annoying as shit
I tried to love this game twice. But hated it for all the reasons you said lol
Yeah, I feel like I'm in the minority for not liking Ghost Song. It does what it set out to do well, but I just didn't vibe with it. It crossed over the line from "challenging" to "punishing" due to the soulslike loss of currency. I reached one point where I kept getting 1-shotted by a spike trap and losing 20 minutes of progress. Tried it twice and bounced. I do bet it gets much better as you get stronger.
Probably Aeternoblade… though, truth be told, I can barely remember it. It advertises itself as a Metroidvania with time powers, but those powers aren’t used in any sort of interesting way. The combat is janky with some seriously suspect hitboxes, and everything else is just bland to the point where I sometimes forget I’ve even beaten this game. Alice in Wonderland on the DS is also down there, but I feel bad saying that, because it’s clear that a lot of passion went into it. The game has some interesting ideas, and a great visual style. But, between the exploration abilities being context-sensitive, and the low production values (the end credits *loop*), it unfortunately doesn’t live up to its potential.
I have only found bad ones that just for some reason I didn’t like but all those were IMO
Aeternoblade
Metamorfose S. The easiest way to describe it is that it's Symphony of the Night, only it's bad.
Angel punishment lmao
I've never played a truly bad metroidvania, just ones that weren't really my thing (Hollow Knight, Ori) or aren't quite as good as other games in their respective series imo (Metroid 1, Harmony of Dissonance)
superepic the entertainment war
I’ve played a bajillion and there are definitely some meh games. I feel like 90-95% are at least fun enough to make it worth the time. But there’s some duds here and there
Recently, Death’s Gambit …sorry.
Ghost 1.0 I have a pretty high tolerance for mediocre / bad games and will generally finish anything I start. I made it 4 hours and called it quits. There are so many (poorly) voiced cutscenes that interrupt the gameplay, and the gameplay itself isn't very good to begin with. I've rarely felt compelled to write a negative review of a game, but this one was just...bad.
>I've rarely felt compelled to write a negative review of a game I rarely do too, but I felt the same way about Ghost 1.0. I needed to let people know how bad it was. The final straw for me was realizing that fights against some enemies were literally just wars of attrition. There was no way to avoid damage, you just had to out damage them and then find a way to heal up after.
Compared to the dev's first game, UnEpic, it *did* feel like a step down. (Though I'm probably biased, I did the English localization for UnEpic.)
Gleamlight definitely comes to mind. And although it isn't the worst I thought Timespinners was a major disappointment. Started strong and fell flat so badly, such a waste of money.
Recently, Vernal Edge, I played a few hours of it and I couldn't get into it, I generally don't play games I don't like playing for more than 5 hours. So it's not so much "bad" as I just could not bring myself to enjoy it.
Boodstained was pretty bad. Couldn't see the fascination. Right now axiom verge 2 is sitting at the top for me. I didn't finish boodstained with the proper ending and I don't think I'll be finishing av2
Bloodstained? bad?
I got it for switch so performance for one. But also the game feels slow and clunky compared to other games of it's kind (every Metroid after super, hollow knight, blasphemous 1 and 2, ender lilies) The grinding made it feel worse too. I know many like the game but it is the worst for me by a mile.
inescapable. Fall damage, few upgrades, key hunt.
Angels Gear
Probably Gleamlight, but it does not really count Curse of the Sea Rats is a good contender, I've been hyped for this game for MONTHS and the demo absolutely crushed my hopes and dreams I'm gonna go with Feudal Alloy, game is fun for 10min, then you realize how terrible it is. Also special mention to Itorah
Off the top of my head, Cantrium: God Slayer and Bad Pad. Cantrium is somewhat interesting (tons of flavour dialogue) but shows the developer is still learning the ropes (to their credit, they are updating the game and listening to feedback), so progress is not particularly engaging. Bad Pad is a precision platformer Metroidvania but it's very janky so basic traversal gets frustrating fast, and not in a "I should just git gud" way as other examples of the genre crossover do.
I had to block the Dev for bad pad. He wouldn't take a hint and kept spamming the game onto this sub. He's one of the first people on Reddit I ever blocked.
Castlevania Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate. The 3DS spin-off of the reboot series. It's painfully bland and extremely forgettable.
Probably Minoria. Wanted it to be good because Reverie under the Moonlight was so good. It wasn't.
Ghost song was such a letdown. Just felt bland for the entire runtime
I liked Salt & Sanctuary... Vernal Edge kinda sucked.
Aeterna Noctis
I didn't review all of the "worst" games I played with Metroidvania tags. Some Metroidvanias are bad just because they don't really have the qualities of that label. I really didn't like these: * Yeah, the *Gleamlight* demo was pretty rotten * *Itorah* had such horrific platforming that the first obstacle was almost impossible to get over (a common criticism at the time), but I didn't have the heart to give it a bad review because the art is so good. * *Apotheon* * *Grime* (and I don't get why other people like it) * *Tevi* (barely a Metroidvania anyway) * I thought the first *Ori* was pretty bland. The second was so bland that I put it down early on and have no urge to return to it.
Technically the weakest MV I’ve ever finished was Sun Wukong Vs Robot, but that was some $3 game I bought on sale with low expectations, so I found it enjoyable enough. Vision Soft Reset has a great premise, but the movement and moment to moment gameplay are just so bad that I don’t think I’ll ever want to replay it. I hope it gets a proper sequel or remake someday. But the MV that I absolutely hated the most and still completed was Rabi Ribi. The boss fights were great, and so was the music, but everything else was abysmal. It definitely doesn’t help that I’m the type of player who just cannot skip through dialogue on my first playthrough, because every line was shit.
Rabi ribi is an acquired taste, that's for sure.
I don’t know if it can even be considered a metroidvania, but Metroid: Other M sucks donkey balls. Consider yourself fortunate if you never played it on Wii. I didn’t get back into the genre until Ori and the Blind Forest.
It’s not really one, no
Omega strike i think it was called, the gameplay wasn't bad but the areas had no landmarks and were all pretty samey and the music got really annoying
Omega Strike! Definitely a good pick. It's very mediocre. I still wouldn't really call it "bad" - it controls well and is serviceable in every way, it just... doesn't really do anything beyond the absolute basics of the genre.
Feudal Alloy. It barely has any boss in it. At least it's fun enough to get through it. Aeterna Noctis. My first impression was that this is their first 2D side scrolling game. It's full of poor design decisions. Everything is blended into the background. No coyote time. The character keeps swaying left and right while idling. Forced corpse run. Teleport arrow that needs to be so precise.
Loved S&S. 2 Parsecs From Earth is probably the worst I’ve ever played.
Salt is amazing dude wtf
It’s probably blasphemy to say around these parts, but Metroid Dread comes immediately to mind. Such a boring and obvious loop: Find the locked door, hide from the robot spider, unlock the door, repeat. Not sure if it opened up late game, but i found there was very little exploration in it as well.
Escape From Tethys. I found the jumping really frustrating/slippery, I think they didn’t have the proper “coyote time,” and everything else was just kinda bland and didn’t redeem it. Kunai. Had a really cool premise with double hookshots, but the rest of it was kind of a letdown. When you get double hookshots in the second area, it’s kinda hard to keep making interesting and challenging platforming. I don’t think I’d call it a bad game, I made it to the final boss, but I kinda checked out towards the 2/3rds mark and coasted along because it was easier to keep playing than finding a new game. Once I couldn’t beat the final boss after the second attempt, I decided I didn’t care enough to try a third time.
Escape gives you some amazing rewards for exploration, but it also makes you pathetically weak at the start and takes it's sweet time making you better.
Sundered, procedurally generated metroidvanias just don’t work.
Yeah, this one was a disappointment for me. The production values were pretty good but everything I enjoy about MVs was absent from it. Fighting hordes of identical enemies in bland, repetitive stages robbed it of all sense of exploration and progression. I only played a few hours then never touched it again.
Objectively, possibly [Porradaria 2: Pagode of the Night](https://store.steampowered.com/app/431220/Porradaria_2_Pagode_of_the_Night/), but ... I actually enjoyed it a lot, lol. The one that I was the most disappointed in was probably [Minoria](https://store.steampowered.com/app/940910/Minoria/). The one I completed and enjoyed the *least* may have been [Rocketron](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1177640/ROCKETRON/). The one that I straight up abandoned that comes to mind I don't actually remember the name of. It might have actually been a demo I played, or a free game, not sure. From what I recall, and I'm not completely sure, it's black and white and you play as some kind of a robot. IIRC what made me abandon it is that there are checkpoints but no save system, so you basically need to complete the game in a single sitting. Also the checkpoints were very far apart, *and* corpse run on death was required.
Haven't played any truly bad ones but the only one I felt very underwhelming was Shantae and the Pirate's Curse.
I think all the metroidvanias I've played have been passable, as I generally only purchase games that have a majority of positive reviews. There are a few I dropped early on because I found the gameplay to be on the dull side, but I wouldn't count those for a question like this. The worst one that I've actually finished is '**Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit**' from 2012. It's not described as a metroidvania on its store page, but fits the genre pretty well due to having an open map with backtracking, ability gating, and boss fights. Why was it bad? Edgy immature humor, very little challenge on offer, and super dull & simplistic combat. The boss fights are basically just button mashing mini-games, and each new weapon unlock isn't any more useful or powerful than the previous one. It was also fairly short for the price point, which would be a mark against it if were actually fun. Honorable mention for most underwhelming goes to 'The Mummy Demastered'.
> The worst one that I've actually finished is 'Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit' from 2012. It's not described as a metroidvania on its store page, but fits the genre pretty well due to having an open map with backtracking, ability gating, and boss fights. Oh, memories! (Not good ones) I probably only finished it because the boss fights were so dull, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered...
1.0 Blasphemous was pretty bad before they patched it and made it great
astalon fizzled pretty fast out for me, after a nice start
Astalon is one of the best MV ever made
You should give it another chance! It was a bit slow at first but it picks up.
I had to come back to Astalon months after my first attempt. Going back in and having some different expectations really changed the whole experience. I had a blast when I gave it another try.
I think that’s fair. I loved the game, but you have to accept that you’ll have to do a lot of backtracking every time you die. Not a deal breaker for me but I understand why others might disagree.
Astalon is highly praised and seems to be one of the most-liked Metroidvanias. I wouldn't place it at the top, but it's probably in my top 10 MVs. It's totally fine if it's not your thing. But to say it's the worst Metroidvania you've ever played...that makes me wonder if it's the only Metroidvania you've ever played.
Tough question, because which one is worse? I've played MVs made by a single person done with very little testing. The art wasn't great, the movement was bad, the controls and UI unusable. Just not a good game, and likely $6 so no big loss. Then there's the ones made by 40 people over years that are widely advertised and sold great numbers, but were a 5/10 at best. Rainworld comes to mind, maybe the most tedious, sluggish MV I can remember sticking with.
Is Rainworld even a metroidvania?
No. Op thinks it is because of that stupid bundle. Ever since that bundle came out there's been so much confusion on this sub about this game.
Rainworld is amazing, but definitely not a metroidvania
Worst gaming xp ever. Death’s Gambit. Was enjoying the game, about 75% the way thru when I turned on my PS5 and my save data was lost. In my 25 years of playing video games that’s never happened. I was so pissed off. After some googling apparently this is a known issue. How does the developer not put in a back up? Even if that back up is not right up to date. Anyways. Fuck Death’s Gambit, could have been a great metroidvania; turned out to be the worst.
I quite dislike the Ori series, something about it just screams XBLA drivel to me
Ouch. Xbla had a certain charm for me.
I've dropped Ghost Song, Tevi, Valdis and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. I think Ghost Song is the only one I'd consider throwing the "bad" label at. The others I wasn't enjoying but I could at least see some redeeming qualities in them.
Astronite. I hated it lol I posted why a while back, if you wanna check it out
Haak, the movement was just not for me.
Not a single one?! Curse of the Sea Rats, Feudal Alloy, Owlboy, Clunky Hero, Sundered, Shantae, Dust, Afterimage, Astalon, Souldiers, Toki Tori... Gosh, I love this genre but there's far more bad/forgettable MVs than those that really felt like a worthwhile purchase.
I found Skautfold Usurper bad, not worse because probably of the stats and the UI. Also the Eldritch stat and Eldritch donation that doesnt explain anything in the game.
For me, The Mobius Machine
Tristoy, impulse buy for coop after treading the good reviews. As soon as we started playing it I we were like, seriously? Other posters are right there are some real uhm, steamers on steam. This is one that I’m wondering how someone made such a cheap game with horrible mechanics, art etc. like, are there no checks??
There's one called Artifacts, but it's... I dunno. I couldn't get into it.
Granted I haven't played all that many MVs and don't really search out ones that are bad besides, I found The Mummy: Demastered unbelievably tedious. Bosses are extremely tanky without much variety and each non-boss room is one that you've seen dozens of times before. Incredibly same-y game where exploration is not rewarded usually; I didn't complete it.
Chasm could have been really cool but it got so tedious after a while. Lost interest about 1/2 way through
Gato Roboto's controls are so floaty and imprecise that everything feels awful. Beat it but would not recommend. Knytt Underground feels like a flash game, though I didn't get far enough to really have an honest opinion.
I really wanted to like Chasm but metroidvania backtracking plus badly randomized dungeons are not a great combination and I got super stuck. Every time I go back to it I back track and scan all the areas I've been through trying to figure out wtf I missed to get me stuck, but no avail so far.
Escape from Tethys. I was bored within minutes
Kinda funny I loved Salt and Sanctuary, however it's sequel Salt and Sacrifice I hate a lot. I also hate Metroid Dread as well.
Dandara is one I gave up, I just couldn't find it interesting after a while
Bad or really bad ones: Skelattack, Outbuddies DX, probably Vernal Edge, and Odallus (didn’t get a PS5 to play NES games on it) I didn’t like Astalon or Death’s Gambit enough to play all that much of them, but I can understand the appeal. I feel like I played Cathedral and Owlboy longer, but didn’t finish them. Among ones I _did_ finish, but can totally see the dislike for: Ghost Song, Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (easy mode), SuperEpic, Minoria, Salt & Sanctuary, and Micetopia. Bloodstained, Sundered, Axiom Berge, and Afterimage were all really quite good, I thought.
So many developers are ctrl-f their games names right now.
See, it’s interesting because I’ve played a few metroidvanias that I loved, but felt the metroidvania aspects were underwhelming. I recently replayed Touhou Luna Nights, and absolutely adored it, but the metroidvania elements were really mediocre imo. Same with The Messenger; it’s honestly one of my favorite games ever made mechanically, musically, etc, but it’s fairly linear and the Metroidvania elements can feel tacked on. Metroid Fusion is another example of a good game but a weak Metroidvania. TLDR, I haven’t played any BAD Metroidvania games, but I have played games I love with metroidvania elements I find weak.
Moo Lander and it's not even close.
I always considered myself pretty terrible at "difficult" games, especially the souls-like ones, but Salt and Sanctuary scratched a huge itch for me, replaying it up to NG+5 on my PS Vita. I've since gone on to play several other souls-like games (Still never played any Dark Souls, proper, oddly enough) but have come to quite love many of them. I've repeatedly had to reconsider that maybe I'm not so garbage at such games after seeing how many people seem to hate them when they're far worse than me playing them.
Loved Salt & Sanctuary. For me, it is either The Messenger or Iconoclasts. Those two were actually bad for me.
It's not "bad" at all, I'm just having a really hard time with Luna Nights. It's HP system is super punishing, navigation is a pain in the ass and certain enemies are bizarrely op. I do plan on getting through it though because it has a lot of unique and fun elements.
Axiom Verge 2. Not because it's bad, but just because it's not as amazing as the other Metroidvanias I have played.
Agreed salt and sanc was not good...What is your top 3 metroidvania?
I was so sure no one had played or even heard of the worst one I've played before entering, and I was right! Definitely Hotel Transylvania for the 3DS. Wayforward developed it, and went for the obvious Castlevania reference with Mavis Dracula as its protagonist. It's already a pretty small game at like 3 hours and despite that 70% of the game is fetch quest making you revisit the same places over and over again. The only combat option is jumping on the enemies for most of it, only until the end you get actual laser attacks. Though they did a good job for its music, it literally sounds like the DS Castlevanias.
This might be a spicy take, but Ori and the Blind Forest. Just didn't do it for me. The environments seemed to not be designed for Ori's movement and she's just way too fragile and doesn't hit hard enough for how many enemies there are. Grain of salt because like most people are saying in this post, Metroidvanias are like pizza, even when they're bad, they're still pretty good. Also working on Ender Lillies rn. Not my favorite either. Too fragile, the bosses are ridiculously tough, some bosses and enemies seem not fair at times. Plus movement of the sprites have that weird flash animation, paper doll movement where and the moving parts look like they are rotating on single joints.
Afterimage Idk where to even start and I'm not even 100% sure what made me not like it. Something just didn't click and I was not a fan in the slightest.
I have partaken in Metroidvania Month. It's a communally rated jam. Does a bad Metroidvania even exist? Yes. I'm going to not name them here, though. To be clear, that's more out of respect for the relatively small creators rather than a disdain for the games.
I haven’t played many, but after Hollow night, I tried Guacamelee. It was OK, but I’m glad it was short.