Deconstruction of "Metroidvania", rising of "Igavania"

XombieMike I did notice you were agreeing with me, I'm sorry I didn't acknowledge that, it's been a very long time since I was last active on forums and I get the feeling I've lost touch with accepted etiquette. I've probably come across a good deal more aggressively than I intended to, but I'm sure you'll forgive me ^.^

purifyweirdshard , I think I understand the crux of your point here, that for a game to be a Metroidvania it needs the rpg elements that come from Castlevania games from SotN onwards. If I understand you correctly, a game must have the large interconnected maps, soft and hard locks etc. as well as these rpg elements, and that is what makes it a Metroidvania. I believe that this is too narrow a definition, and you have taken an aspect from a Castlevania game, which is also a Metroidvania game, and applied that to the whole genre. There are lots of games commonly considered to be Metroidvanias that don't have those rpg elements.
I also see your point that games predating Castlevania: SotN cannot be termed Metroidvanias, as the term was coined to describe the fusion of Super Metroid's gameplay and level design with what already existed in Castlevania games, e.g. item inventory and EXP. I disagree, I absolutely believe that Super Metroid meets the criteria to be classed as a Metroidvania, the same way Symphony of the Night does. The fact that you don't think of it as such shows the weight you are placing on the vania aspect, and I don't believe that aspect is something that defines the genre in the same way that you do.

So back to thread topic: I think IGAvania only applies to games IGA makes with this type of large, open world, and if we follow your logic purifyweirdshard , only his games from Bloodstained onwards can be referred to as IGAvanias. After all, the tern was coined by your lovely selves to describe Bloodstained (which I am very much looking forward to beating my husband at! In fact, I may be able to convince him to let me get a Switch for it!)

In the end of the day, a metroidvania is exactly what it sounds like: the action of a platformer applied to the maze like exploration and progressison of metroid.

And an igavania is that plus IGA.

I think we're getting close here, but not necessarily. It doesn't need to have "RPG elements that come from Castlevania games from SotN onwards", to me it merely needs to have something -vania. 99% of the time it doesn't, and it's rather a Metroid-like or just a combination of other things that suit closer to modern action games. What we're essentially doing at large is calling any game that plays kinda-sorta like Super Metroid, instead of an actual mix of something, a Metroidvania.

Regarding item inventory, EXP and so on existing in Castlevania before SotN, it mostly didn't. The 1-2 games before Symphony that had such things had only pieces, and were outliers and oddities, Castlevania 2 was our Zelda 2, and then things went back to how they had been because most people really didn't like it. It wasn't "Castlevania" to most, wasn't really an RPG either, and it was too obtuse and weird to figure out without Nintendo Power lol.

If someone now made a new what they called Zelda-ish game that played like Zelda 2 and a combination of another genre, such as Metroid games, that wouldn't make it a Zeldaroid. You might go into that expecting some Zelda and get...well, a muddy combination of a weird offshoot of Zelda plus an actual similar genre that's established with its mechanics, making it essentially just: said actual genre, Metroid, but deemed a Zeldaroid because...they want to I guess.

What made Castlevania: SotN "Castlevania" were things that weren't its RPG mechanics, because at the time, that was radically different and a big move to make. To this day, a lot of Castlevania fans really don't like it and/or the direction it took things (even a few people here). I commonly see in Facebook groups folks elevate even Castlevania 64 or the OG Gameboy games over SotN for (I'm assuming) their purity and closer adherence to the legacy. SotN was in itself originally an offshoot side game that became a standard thing to their chagrin, and thrived onward in its own larger realm than the classics.

So that leaves the -vania part. SotN had the characters, story, hearts/subweapons, graphical style, atmosphere and so on enough to carry it, and performed so strongly that it made "having a LOT of weapons", somewhat of a collect-a-thon, casual yet energetic romp through a castle etc into a "Castlevania", next to its legacy cousin games of hard stage-based linear platformers. It made those unique aspects of itself into "-vania". It was still different, though, and SotN obviously was using a lot of the same things as Metroid here, so it became called Metroidvania whilst more CV titles of the same kind came rolling out.

Metroidvania has now evolved. It means way more than what it used to/did to me now, and I'm accepting that. Like I said earlier, I'm all for the indie games that carry that flag to be under it because of those innovations and changes, that's totally fine. If "Igavania" itself needs to be a sub-genre of that, that's cool too and I'm fine with that, as it was certainly always known as that before - but I would push firstly that its known by that or some distinction. It doesn't have to be his games either, and it doesn't have to use his name even, I'm just on a level of the "ideal" that all of these Metroid + Vania games have zero Vania.

So, if these games had huge inventories and all that other stuff that was in SotN and on, that would be -vania enough, yes. But that is not the only possible requisite ingredient to me, not by a long shot, and taking all of this together you might see that I weigh as or more heavily the roots of Castlevania as needing to represent itself than the RPG stuff.

So what I'm getting at is I think Castlevania is Castlevania, Metroid is Metroid, Metroidvania means a whooole lot of stuff to my disappointment lol, Igavania means (in its specific subform at least) Iga's -vania games.

You know how you use a word so often it begins to lose all meaning? Say Metroidvania 20 times... It feels weird in my mouth now. Anyways... all thumbs are fingers but not all fingers are thumbs.

A quick one from me. Havent read the whole thread, so sorry if i repeat anything that has been said already.

To me Metroidvania is an umbrella term for large 2d 'open world' games. Like its namesakes Metroid and (non classic) Castlevanias.

If you'd take a 2d Metroidvania and make it 3d it would pretty much be 'open world', even though I realize allot of Metroidvanias use segmented level sections, so technically it isnt exactly open world.

Now with this base 'metroidvania' there could be allot of different elements. Is it strictly a shooter? Does it rely on melee attacks? Are there RPG elements? What is the combat system like? Does it have a combo system?
There are so many elements that could be in a certain Metroidvania, that you can not find in a different Metroidvania game.

As such if you were to categorize an Iga Metroidvania, which has been done, it would be a subgenre of Metroidvania.
If we were to use a more generic term for Metroidvania's, I'd label them as 2d sidescrolling exploration games.

www.reddit.com/r/metroidvania/comments/95yfrf/defining_the_metroidvania_genre/?ref=share&ref_source=link

lmao

thanks, Mr. Welldone. This looks like something I would do.