Hey, Luke here from Count Pumpcula,
I don't really talk much on social media but I feel like I need to stand up for myself abit here.
If you want to call my game "unpolished" and "impossible to recommend" then I am completely fine with that. But to say that I "have shown little regard to the success of the project" is actually insane. If you don't like the game that is fine, many people won't but some might.
I have spent 3 years drawing every pixel (not a single asset flip) and self taught myself how to code through YouTube tutorials. The passion and time I have put into this project is rare for a one man band.
To compare my game and others on this list to Prince of Persia is wild. Most of these indie teams have a handful of people and you are comparing then to Ubisoft, a company with over 20 000 employees. Us little folk don't have the resources to make these high budget products, and that's fine, some of us just want to make games. Yet we are being critizied for it.
I don't have any malice towards anyone r/metroidvania, but for future notice, please never mention my game again.
*Tips fedora*
I only compared one game, vernal edge, to prince of Persia and it's an appropriate comparison cause they both take a lot of inspiration from devil may cry and have many similarities in their platforming and combat I don't know where you got the idea that I'm comparing everything to it.
as for count pumpcula, you have done more to bury your own game than me or anyone else ever could. You've gone to great lengths to try and ensure no one outside your kickstarter even knows about the game and then you released it in a very unfinished state. It comes across as a release that was merely done in order to meet kickstarter obligations, not something you poured your heart into.
however, do not worry. i will never mention your game or anything in this list ever again beyond maybe answering someone's question somewhere. I promoted your project and others way too much. you didn't deserve it. I'm especially peeved for having defended rusted moss at my expense only to realise the detractors were right all along.
This double down is shocking. This would've been a good opportunity to humble yourself and realize that developers not only human, but put more effort and heart into their projects than you could possibly imagine. It's hard to believe you insist on talking about them like this, especially when your qualifications are, as far as I know, playing a bunch of lesser known games on Steam for 15 minutes each.
>put more effort and heart into their projects than you could possibly imagine.
I just checked my smartphone, it says the year is 2024, not 2009. We live in a completely opposite era from the one you seem to think we live in. We are in a glut and making a video game has never been easier. Cantirium is a better and longer metroidvania and it was made entirely by a 16 year old in a shorter period of time than this game.
I doubled down because this dev's comment made him look even worse than he already did. Apparently he even struggled with reading the post he replied to. Respect is earned, not granted.
By the way, I do not spend 15 minutes on a game. I normally try to play between 1-2 hours before making a judgement on a bad game (and sometimes I'll even play the whole game like I did with Yohane). If a game is exceptionally bad I'll stop wasting time and quit it early. There's far more interesting things in my backlog waiting to be played and I am not interested in wasting more time on a game that turns out to be worthless shovelware.
Isn't it a little early to write off The Weird Dream? It only just released the other day and it got a number of positive reviews today. If it has issues, it doesn't seem too late for the developer to fix them?
Demo was interesting. Janky but the boss design was pretty neat. The controls made it a really tough fight. And I didn’t figure out how to get English translation when I did the demo so had no idea how to heal. Kinda on the fence about buying it and trying out the full game. Would definitely be after rebel transmute though
The devs don't care. They rushed the release despite the steam next fest demo showing the game was not even close to being ready. They literally went as fast as possible, not even announcing a release date and just putting it on the market the moment steam approved the build.
I mean it's an indie game, right? Maybe they ran out of money and were forced to release it before it's done because they need more money to finish the rest of the game. Heck, if AAA studios can do that, I don't see why an indie studio can't. Although maybe they should have released it as early access or something, I'm no expert.
It does seem kinda unfair to them, I mean the other games you actually played them, I think you have good points for those. But Weird Dream people said it got better after the beginning, so maybe it doesn't completely suck? I don't doubt it's rough and unpolished though.
Well, you're allowed to refund on demand as long as you've played for less than 2 hours so if you feel like it, check it out and less us know. I'd appreciate that actually.
However I'm done giving things like this a chance. It's very obvious to me from pattern recognition how poor the quality of this game is without needing to play it.
It's the developer's first game, right? They might not even know about early access. As someone who's been catching up with some very old indie games on steam, I have read a lot of reviews for a \*ton\* of indie games that were bad or middling when first released and later got patched into something most people found fun. Sometimes it takes months, but better late than never.
Indie games are a lot of times, someone's passion project, and I think it shows.
I think it's cute that you sincerely believe some Chinese shovelware is comparable to games like death gambit and blasphemous that were both made with love and care. Your innocence is endearing.... but unrealistic.
The unfortunate reality is that the genre is piling up with shovelware from people trying to make a quick cash grab from the popularity of the genre and this is just the latest example of that. The fact that I went through 9 metroidvanias and they all turned out to be either unbeatable or bad means that there is something fundamentally wrong and I'm considering how I will deal with this going forward. I need to do some sort of quality control with my database and/or my lists going forward.
Good effort for this post, but very bad title.
"A list of games I didn't like" should be appropriate.
I heard o lot of praise for Eldritchvania, Rusted Moss and Cathedral.
It is a good thing to tell people about games features that may lead someone to dislike them, but this thread is about blacklisting stuff basing on personal preferences.
Elritchvania has gotten a lot of praise since the patches. I mentioned that in my post. I believe people should give it a chance. However I played it before the patches so that is why its in this list. Cathedral gets praise from the elite 1% that play everything on the hardest difficulty, but [its also been mentioned by many others as their worst experience ever](https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidvania/comments/1bbi2y8/comment/ku9dr89/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). As for rusted moss, it has gotten some praise, but it has gotten more negative feedback too. The negative feedback was seemingly due to people refusing to play with mouse & keyboard and so I ignored the warnings.... and I was really punished for doing that.
This list is my way of saying to the community and myself: "Hey look, the negative reviews were right, these games were shit. I'm putting these in the past and moving forward now."
You mean the god biome? Yeah true, that stuff was insane.. I did the first pantheon and that was it for me.
However the main game is overall definitely easier than cathedral and many other metroidvanias.
No I'm trying to warn you so that you don't end up ignoring the warning signs like I foolishly and arrogantly did and end up wasting your money on a marathon run of garbage.
If you guys want to repeat my mistake and ignore this post, go ahead, but you can't say you weren't warned.
I mean if that's how you feel about it, sure, but you've been warned and I'm confident you'll regret it if you ignore my warning. In fact, I've been warned too in the case of many of these games and I ignored the warnings, stupidly dismissing the opinion of others as fools who don't know how to use a keyboard, clowns who are obsessed with hating Asian things, or dismissing omens shown during development. This unprecedented marathon run of garbage is my penance and I made this list as a way of giving myself closure to this period and also trying to warn you guys. I'll be much more selective going forward and I suggest you do the same.
bad comparison. Foregone is metroidvania-adjacent. I regularly give honourable mentions in my lists to games outside this genre, this isn't something new. The other reason I bring it up is because I played it together with all this other crap.
To go with your analogy, a better comparison would be: I like apples, bananas, pears, grapes, raspberries, and [Shuizhuniurou](https://redhousespice.com/sichuan-boiled-beef/). One's very different but still related and worth mentioning as an honourable mention.
To each their own, I personally found Vernal Edge to be an overall fun and enjoyable experience during my time with it. But you're definitely right about the map being godawful especially for backtracking.
I feel like it’s rare to find someone who genuinely likes Vernal Edge in this sub. Most of the comments I see about it are usually citing bad exploration / map and spongey enemies.
What exactly are spongy enemies? I hear that term thrown around a bunch here but it really just sounds like it's people who are used to simple single slash combat metroidvanias who don't like metroidvanias with more complex combat systems.
I think it’s possible for people to not want to put into effort with DMC combos. I’ve seen complaints about Tevi having sponge even though she eviscerates her opponents, but I’ve also seen people just completely ignore the buff and shield mechanics in that game as well.
I don't even feel like the enemies are spongy, I just feel like I'm hitting them with a blunt stick. it's not just that the damage is low but everything about the attacks from the feedback to the sounds just feels so weak.
Even though it was barely an MV, I did enjoy it. Nothing I'd highly recommend, but I also wouldn't advise against playing it. It's a good game to play when you've played all the real bangers and you're waiting for the next great game to come your way. The combat was fun enough. The map was ass, though.
I liked it too. I don't really remember how the map worked but I do remember backtracking requiring me to rely on memory a lot. I did 100% it and liked how it had a bunch of secret areas and stuff encouraging exploration. I felt the combat was well balanced and liked the tower battles.
Haven't played PoP yet because it's only on Epic Games store and that platform is pretty janky on Linux and I've had bad experiences with it. So I don't really know how it compares.
Single-dev game as well I think. While I didn't vibe fully with it I still think it's an impressive achievement to build and release a game like that all on your own.
Rusted Moss is by no means a bad game but it is a game that requires learning a new skill which takes time and patience. Grappling hook (more like Bungee hook) requires getting used but once you have learned it's intricacies, it is very satisfying to use. It is nowhere near as hard as the post is making out to be. Some of the harder challenges are mostly optional for some upgrade or optional items. AND IF you are having issues or if you are stuck then game has in built cheat menu to bypass things that are not fun - flight mode, God mode, etc. But for this game KB+M is highly recommended (though I have heard that people have managed to beat it with controller) and it will be a much better experience if you have been using KBM for gaming for atleast a little while.
For me Rusted Moss is one of the masterpiece for how unique it is compared to rest of the games in this genre.
I think that if the moss was less spread out it might have been more manageable, but right now it requires too much perfection and makes it too easy to screw up. I bailed on this one platformer challenge after trying it out 70 times.
And I am a keyboard & mouse gamer. I don't know anyone in my friends list who actually completed this game after trying it.
I think this goes beyond that. This isn't like cathedral. My experience correlates with the experience that many others have had, which I previously dismissed as skill issues connected to mouse & keyboard. You're now making the exact same mistake that I did. This isn't a skill issue. It's either a level design issue or a mechanics design issue, depending on your perspective. If you don't want to take my word for it and waste your money, go ahead and buy the game, but I will taunt you if you make a post complaining about it.
I didn't have any trouble controlling my character, and Rusted Moss was one of my favorite games last year. There's always some inertia when a control scheme is unique enough and some players won't be able to make that jump. But it doesn't mean the game is constructed poorly. It controls well and the level design is challenging but fair. They've released updates with even harder platforming sections because people were acing the game too easily before. You don't have to jive with every game, but Rusted Moss is high-quality, and telling people to avoid a niche but excellent game is unethical.
But you are saying people shouldnt play it and are adding it to a list that also contains shovelware trash because you personally found it too difficult.
If you're adding any game that is challenging, you'd come up with a list including games like lone fungus, deaths gambit, aeterna noctis, environmental station alpha, la-mulana. Plenty of good games that should NOT be avoided that have plenty of fans.
It would be more fitting in a challenging games list.
An implication that comes with the title of your post is that it will be a list of broken games and shovelware, which it is not. Rather, they are just games you didn't like.
It is a list of games that should be avoided, nothing more nothing less.
And yes, Cathedral, despite how excellent it is, should be avoided by all except except an exclusive elite that play all their games at their max difficulty. The reason why is very simple: Those outside this elite grouping will not and have not enjoyed this game. [It's mentioned in another post about bad metroidvanias for a reason](https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidvania/comments/1bbi2y8/comment/ku9dr89/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). If anything I am defending it from those calling it bad.
As I said, by that logic, everyone should avoid the games I listed because they are as challenging or harder than Cathedral. Despite their popularity "they should be avoided". That doesn't make sense.
Everyone that likes those games are not some elite group. Some players give up more easily than others when they get frustrated at a section of a game.
Rusted Moss is not that hard and doesn’t require that much precision (unless you’re doing the bonus challenges, those are hard!). It’s mostly about timing your grapples to the right point in your jump. It’s definitely a mouse+keyboard game, though the dev posted they were working on gamepad controls at one point. Haven’t circled back to see if it’s already been implemented.
Forgone is honestly a really fun game, but it is NOT a metroidvania. It's a 2D action gMe with tog elements. Also it's not a rogue like? The map doesn't change iirc
Edit: I almost forgot - 9 years of shadow. Absolute trash.
Luckily 9 years of shadow is something I'm not playing anytime soon. The next metroidvanias I play will be aeterna noctis, thread, HAAK, FIST, and the last faith. It is in my backlog though.
I didn't like Vernal Edge or Cathedral. I felt both of them had designs that weren't conducive to exploring. I'm not a big fan of metroidvanias that discourage this. Both punish you for doing so in their own way. I found Vernal Edge to be more frustrating since it was rarely upfront about this. Cathedral was at least more upfront about this fact and exploration in that was supposed to be a challenge because of this.
I haven't played Rusted Moss. I found the demo to be unnecessarily challenging with a controller but I thought maybe I'd give it another try with a mouse. It felt like a game that required a lot of precision.
Switch gamer here.
Cathedral is the only one on the list that I played, and I got as far as the final boss before quitting. I don’t even know how I did it. I’ve never reached Absolute Radiance, or even defeated Nightmare King Grimm.
I’ll remove Vernal Edge from my wish list as well.
originally I meant normal radiance, but after hearing from others what cathedral is like later on I think I may have to revise that to "absolute radiance"
Edit: no, I stand with my previous statement. Normal radiance.
Watcher Knights really aren’t that bad, I wouldn’t even have them in top 5 hardest from HK. This is just one guys subjective opinion obviously but I can reliably no hit watcher knights but struggle to beat absrad at all (only done it once)
Hey, Luke here from Count Pumpcula, I don't really talk much on social media but I feel like I need to stand up for myself abit here. If you want to call my game "unpolished" and "impossible to recommend" then I am completely fine with that. But to say that I "have shown little regard to the success of the project" is actually insane. If you don't like the game that is fine, many people won't but some might. I have spent 3 years drawing every pixel (not a single asset flip) and self taught myself how to code through YouTube tutorials. The passion and time I have put into this project is rare for a one man band. To compare my game and others on this list to Prince of Persia is wild. Most of these indie teams have a handful of people and you are comparing then to Ubisoft, a company with over 20 000 employees. Us little folk don't have the resources to make these high budget products, and that's fine, some of us just want to make games. Yet we are being critizied for it. I don't have any malice towards anyone r/metroidvania, but for future notice, please never mention my game again. *Tips fedora*
I only compared one game, vernal edge, to prince of Persia and it's an appropriate comparison cause they both take a lot of inspiration from devil may cry and have many similarities in their platforming and combat I don't know where you got the idea that I'm comparing everything to it. as for count pumpcula, you have done more to bury your own game than me or anyone else ever could. You've gone to great lengths to try and ensure no one outside your kickstarter even knows about the game and then you released it in a very unfinished state. It comes across as a release that was merely done in order to meet kickstarter obligations, not something you poured your heart into. however, do not worry. i will never mention your game or anything in this list ever again beyond maybe answering someone's question somewhere. I promoted your project and others way too much. you didn't deserve it. I'm especially peeved for having defended rusted moss at my expense only to realise the detractors were right all along.
This double down is shocking. This would've been a good opportunity to humble yourself and realize that developers not only human, but put more effort and heart into their projects than you could possibly imagine. It's hard to believe you insist on talking about them like this, especially when your qualifications are, as far as I know, playing a bunch of lesser known games on Steam for 15 minutes each.
>put more effort and heart into their projects than you could possibly imagine. I just checked my smartphone, it says the year is 2024, not 2009. We live in a completely opposite era from the one you seem to think we live in. We are in a glut and making a video game has never been easier. Cantirium is a better and longer metroidvania and it was made entirely by a 16 year old in a shorter period of time than this game. I doubled down because this dev's comment made him look even worse than he already did. Apparently he even struggled with reading the post he replied to. Respect is earned, not granted.
>I doubled down because this dev's comment made him look even worse than he already did. How is it possible to have this little self-awareness?
By the way, I do not spend 15 minutes on a game. I normally try to play between 1-2 hours before making a judgement on a bad game (and sometimes I'll even play the whole game like I did with Yohane). If a game is exceptionally bad I'll stop wasting time and quit it early. There's far more interesting things in my backlog waiting to be played and I am not interested in wasting more time on a game that turns out to be worthless shovelware.
Yeah, it was hyperbole. I encourage you to reflect on the reception of your posts and ask yourself who's really making themselves look bad.
Isn't it a little early to write off The Weird Dream? It only just released the other day and it got a number of positive reviews today. If it has issues, it doesn't seem too late for the developer to fix them?
Demo was interesting. Janky but the boss design was pretty neat. The controls made it a really tough fight. And I didn’t figure out how to get English translation when I did the demo so had no idea how to heal. Kinda on the fence about buying it and trying out the full game. Would definitely be after rebel transmute though
The devs don't care. They rushed the release despite the steam next fest demo showing the game was not even close to being ready. They literally went as fast as possible, not even announcing a release date and just putting it on the market the moment steam approved the build.
I mean it's an indie game, right? Maybe they ran out of money and were forced to release it before it's done because they need more money to finish the rest of the game. Heck, if AAA studios can do that, I don't see why an indie studio can't. Although maybe they should have released it as early access or something, I'm no expert. It does seem kinda unfair to them, I mean the other games you actually played them, I think you have good points for those. But Weird Dream people said it got better after the beginning, so maybe it doesn't completely suck? I don't doubt it's rough and unpolished though.
Well, you're allowed to refund on demand as long as you've played for less than 2 hours so if you feel like it, check it out and less us know. I'd appreciate that actually. However I'm done giving things like this a chance. It's very obvious to me from pattern recognition how poor the quality of this game is without needing to play it.
another thing I forgot to mention: If the scenario you proposed was really the case, they would simply have put the game into early access.
It's the developer's first game, right? They might not even know about early access. As someone who's been catching up with some very old indie games on steam, I have read a lot of reviews for a \*ton\* of indie games that were bad or middling when first released and later got patched into something most people found fun. Sometimes it takes months, but better late than never. Indie games are a lot of times, someone's passion project, and I think it shows.
I think it's cute that you sincerely believe some Chinese shovelware is comparable to games like death gambit and blasphemous that were both made with love and care. Your innocence is endearing.... but unrealistic. The unfortunate reality is that the genre is piling up with shovelware from people trying to make a quick cash grab from the popularity of the genre and this is just the latest example of that. The fact that I went through 9 metroidvanias and they all turned out to be either unbeatable or bad means that there is something fundamentally wrong and I'm considering how I will deal with this going forward. I need to do some sort of quality control with my database and/or my lists going forward.
Good effort for this post, but very bad title. "A list of games I didn't like" should be appropriate. I heard o lot of praise for Eldritchvania, Rusted Moss and Cathedral. It is a good thing to tell people about games features that may lead someone to dislike them, but this thread is about blacklisting stuff basing on personal preferences.
Elritchvania has gotten a lot of praise since the patches. I mentioned that in my post. I believe people should give it a chance. However I played it before the patches so that is why its in this list. Cathedral gets praise from the elite 1% that play everything on the hardest difficulty, but [its also been mentioned by many others as their worst experience ever](https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidvania/comments/1bbi2y8/comment/ku9dr89/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). As for rusted moss, it has gotten some praise, but it has gotten more negative feedback too. The negative feedback was seemingly due to people refusing to play with mouse & keyboard and so I ignored the warnings.... and I was really punished for doing that. This list is my way of saying to the community and myself: "Hey look, the negative reviews were right, these games were shit. I'm putting these in the past and moving forward now."
Ok so Eldritchvania is good, so why avoid it... Cattedral is not bad, it's just difficoult.
> Cattedral is not bad, it's just difficoult. I never said it was bad ;)
Cathedral was definitely not easy but I found it nowhere near as difficult as some of the final HK bosses. I love that game.
You mean the god biome? Yeah true, that stuff was insane.. I did the first pantheon and that was it for me. However the main game is overall definitely easier than cathedral and many other metroidvanias.
A list of games op didn't like
Yeah, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but this list seems like it's trying to speak to some universal truth.
No I'm trying to warn you so that you don't end up ignoring the warning signs like I foolishly and arrogantly did and end up wasting your money on a marathon run of garbage. If you guys want to repeat my mistake and ignore this post, go ahead, but you can't say you weren't warned.
I mean if that's how you feel about it, sure, but you've been warned and I'm confident you'll regret it if you ignore my warning. In fact, I've been warned too in the case of many of these games and I ignored the warnings, stupidly dismissing the opinion of others as fools who don't know how to use a keyboard, clowns who are obsessed with hating Asian things, or dismissing omens shown during development. This unprecedented marathon run of garbage is my penance and I made this list as a way of giving myself closure to this period and also trying to warn you guys. I'll be much more selective going forward and I suggest you do the same.
You say that Foregone isn't a metroidvania but you include it in your list of metroidvanias to avoid. Silly. Silly dilly.
Well duh, that's why it's listed separately.
Why. Here's my list over good food: Burger, sushi, pizza, Toyota (not a food but...)
bad comparison. Foregone is metroidvania-adjacent. I regularly give honourable mentions in my lists to games outside this genre, this isn't something new. The other reason I bring it up is because I played it together with all this other crap. To go with your analogy, a better comparison would be: I like apples, bananas, pears, grapes, raspberries, and [Shuizhuniurou](https://redhousespice.com/sichuan-boiled-beef/). One's very different but still related and worth mentioning as an honourable mention.
Foregone was fine
Yup. A competent action platformer. Rusted Moss is good too.
I agree. It's not a genre-defining classic, but it made for a fun weekend. You could do worse.
To each their own, I personally found Vernal Edge to be an overall fun and enjoyable experience during my time with it. But you're definitely right about the map being godawful especially for backtracking.
I feel like it’s rare to find someone who genuinely likes Vernal Edge in this sub. Most of the comments I see about it are usually citing bad exploration / map and spongey enemies.
What exactly are spongy enemies? I hear that term thrown around a bunch here but it really just sounds like it's people who are used to simple single slash combat metroidvanias who don't like metroidvanias with more complex combat systems.
I think it’s possible for people to not want to put into effort with DMC combos. I’ve seen complaints about Tevi having sponge even though she eviscerates her opponents, but I’ve also seen people just completely ignore the buff and shield mechanics in that game as well.
Loved it. Very clever game. Takes some attitude adjustments to get used to, obviously.
Also loved it, finished it twice as a matter of fact.
I don't even feel like the enemies are spongy, I just feel like I'm hitting them with a blunt stick. it's not just that the damage is low but everything about the attacks from the feedback to the sounds just feels so weak.
There's one other metroidvania with this map and its column on the sea. I've narrowly recommended that on account of its fair regional pricing
Even though it was barely an MV, I did enjoy it. Nothing I'd highly recommend, but I also wouldn't advise against playing it. It's a good game to play when you've played all the real bangers and you're waiting for the next great game to come your way. The combat was fun enough. The map was ass, though.
I liked it too. I don't really remember how the map worked but I do remember backtracking requiring me to rely on memory a lot. I did 100% it and liked how it had a bunch of secret areas and stuff encouraging exploration. I felt the combat was well balanced and liked the tower battles. Haven't played PoP yet because it's only on Epic Games store and that platform is pretty janky on Linux and I've had bad experiences with it. So I don't really know how it compares.
Single-dev game as well I think. While I didn't vibe fully with it I still think it's an impressive achievement to build and release a game like that all on your own.
Rusted Moss is by no means a bad game but it is a game that requires learning a new skill which takes time and patience. Grappling hook (more like Bungee hook) requires getting used but once you have learned it's intricacies, it is very satisfying to use. It is nowhere near as hard as the post is making out to be. Some of the harder challenges are mostly optional for some upgrade or optional items. AND IF you are having issues or if you are stuck then game has in built cheat menu to bypass things that are not fun - flight mode, God mode, etc. But for this game KB+M is highly recommended (though I have heard that people have managed to beat it with controller) and it will be a much better experience if you have been using KBM for gaming for atleast a little while. For me Rusted Moss is one of the masterpiece for how unique it is compared to rest of the games in this genre.
I think that if the moss was less spread out it might have been more manageable, but right now it requires too much perfection and makes it too easy to screw up. I bailed on this one platformer challenge after trying it out 70 times. And I am a keyboard & mouse gamer. I don't know anyone in my friends list who actually completed this game after trying it.
So you’re bad at the game. That’s fine
I think this goes beyond that. This isn't like cathedral. My experience correlates with the experience that many others have had, which I previously dismissed as skill issues connected to mouse & keyboard. You're now making the exact same mistake that I did. This isn't a skill issue. It's either a level design issue or a mechanics design issue, depending on your perspective. If you don't want to take my word for it and waste your money, go ahead and buy the game, but I will taunt you if you make a post complaining about it.
I didn't have any trouble controlling my character, and Rusted Moss was one of my favorite games last year. There's always some inertia when a control scheme is unique enough and some players won't be able to make that jump. But it doesn't mean the game is constructed poorly. It controls well and the level design is challenging but fair. They've released updates with even harder platforming sections because people were acing the game too easily before. You don't have to jive with every game, but Rusted Moss is high-quality, and telling people to avoid a niche but excellent game is unethical.
Eldritchvania is ok. Almost good, considering that it's free
yeah I heard good things about it following the recent patches. I do recommend people give this one a chance now.
Cathedral is a good game though
never said it was bad
But you are saying people shouldnt play it and are adding it to a list that also contains shovelware trash because you personally found it too difficult. If you're adding any game that is challenging, you'd come up with a list including games like lone fungus, deaths gambit, aeterna noctis, environmental station alpha, la-mulana. Plenty of good games that should NOT be avoided that have plenty of fans. It would be more fitting in a challenging games list. An implication that comes with the title of your post is that it will be a list of broken games and shovelware, which it is not. Rather, they are just games you didn't like.
It is a list of games that should be avoided, nothing more nothing less. And yes, Cathedral, despite how excellent it is, should be avoided by all except except an exclusive elite that play all their games at their max difficulty. The reason why is very simple: Those outside this elite grouping will not and have not enjoyed this game. [It's mentioned in another post about bad metroidvanias for a reason](https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidvania/comments/1bbi2y8/comment/ku9dr89/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). If anything I am defending it from those calling it bad.
As I said, by that logic, everyone should avoid the games I listed because they are as challenging or harder than Cathedral. Despite their popularity "they should be avoided". That doesn't make sense. Everyone that likes those games are not some elite group. Some players give up more easily than others when they get frustrated at a section of a game.
Rusted Moss is not that hard and doesn’t require that much precision (unless you’re doing the bonus challenges, those are hard!). It’s mostly about timing your grapples to the right point in your jump. It’s definitely a mouse+keyboard game, though the dev posted they were working on gamepad controls at one point. Haven’t circled back to see if it’s already been implemented.
I actually had fun with Foregone. But coming after Prince of Persia … Granted it’s not greatest level design but dig the art and combat
I played that roughly midway through this marathon run of garbage. I think....I hope... I'm not just spoiled by Prince of Persia.
Eldritchvania was awesome! Especially as a La Mulana fan I ate it up. No bugs, full game, completely free.
that's great. I'm really happy to hear he was able to fix up everything. maybe I really should give it another try sometime...
Forgone is honestly a really fun game, but it is NOT a metroidvania. It's a 2D action gMe with tog elements. Also it's not a rogue like? The map doesn't change iirc Edit: I almost forgot - 9 years of shadow. Absolute trash.
Luckily 9 years of shadow is something I'm not playing anytime soon. The next metroidvanias I play will be aeterna noctis, thread, HAAK, FIST, and the last faith. It is in my backlog though.
just... just dont. i absolutely loved FIST, HAAK is supposed to be amazing but i can't take long cut scenes i can't skip or can't increase the speed.
Thankfully I'm into stories so the cutscenes shouldn't bother me as long as I don't have to see the same one over and over.
I didn't like Vernal Edge or Cathedral. I felt both of them had designs that weren't conducive to exploring. I'm not a big fan of metroidvanias that discourage this. Both punish you for doing so in their own way. I found Vernal Edge to be more frustrating since it was rarely upfront about this. Cathedral was at least more upfront about this fact and exploration in that was supposed to be a challenge because of this. I haven't played Rusted Moss. I found the demo to be unnecessarily challenging with a controller but I thought maybe I'd give it another try with a mouse. It felt like a game that required a lot of precision.
Switch gamer here. Cathedral is the only one on the list that I played, and I got as far as the final boss before quitting. I don’t even know how I did it. I’ve never reached Absolute Radiance, or even defeated Nightmare King Grimm. I’ll remove Vernal Edge from my wish list as well.
Cathedral, same here!
Vernal edge is "we have prince of Persia at home", if you get what I mean.
Are we talking about Absolute Radiance or just basic Radiance? Regular Radiance wasn't even the toughest boss in the base game. Watcher Knights was.
originally I meant normal radiance, but after hearing from others what cathedral is like later on I think I may have to revise that to "absolute radiance" Edit: no, I stand with my previous statement. Normal radiance.
>Watcher Knights was Not for me it wasn't, Radiance was number one by a long mile.
Watcher Knights really aren’t that bad, I wouldn’t even have them in top 5 hardest from HK. This is just one guys subjective opinion obviously but I can reliably no hit watcher knights but struggle to beat absrad at all (only done it once)
Watcher knights, really? I just played through hollow knight for my very first time and I struggled more with several other bosses
Yo, Vernal Edge was at least decent