Email: Why isn’t ‘Metroidvania’ compared to Zelda 2?

Seriously, I was thinking about this recently.  Aside from the maps from Super Metroid and Symphony of the NIght, what at all does the newer Castlevanias have in common with Metroid?  People say “backtracking” but as you’ve pointed out that was never what the original Metroid revolved around.  In Zelda 2 you had an overworld map, but dungeons and battles took place from a side-scrolling perspective.  You bought items and gear on Zelda 2, but you couldn’t do that in Metroid.  Link could gain exp and had magic.  You didn’t have that in Metroid.  Link had to find keys and powers to let him progress, which you didn’t entirely need in Metroid.

I say that “Metroidvania” is more like Zelda 2 on steroids, and without some of the issues that Zelda 2 may have suffered from back when it came out.  Seriously.  You find better gear, or buy it.  You gain experience points and level up.  You have magic.  In terms of level design and progression it more closely mirrors Zelda 2 than Metroid by a wide margin.  The games even share a similar combat structure, while Metroid does not.  And like Zelda 2, the newer Castlevanias sold surprisingly better than expected, something the game industry, press, and “hardcore” gamers fail to realize, either through ignorance or negligence.  Hell, even thematically in terms content they share more in common with each other.  Metroid is in space, while Castlevania and Zelda are much more closely related in both setting, mythology, and in terms of the enemies they fight.  I think the backtracking and such started with Super Metroid (and especially Fusion) when the game started requring X Power Up to get by Y Obstacle to an offensive degree, whereas in the first game and Metroid 2 this wasn’t the case at all.  Like you said, it was a contextual shift.

And furthermore, like Zelda 2, the “Metroidvania” games feel like an “adventure”.  The castle and/or setting is huge.  There’s a lot to explore and do.  Really I think “Metroidvania” actually shows that what Zelda 2 (and its myriad copycats during the NES era) did in fact work, wasn’t some weird bastard-offspring that no one talks about in the series, and that it can still sell strongly today.  I think this is something that needs to be further explored, though given the nature of “conventional wisdom” at this time, such a discussion would only be met with hostility and ignorance from the game industry and industry gamers at large.
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Metroidvania is a word that needs to die. These Symphony of the Night Castlevania games would have been considered ‘adventure’ games. People only notice them today because they are the ONLY 2d games of that type being made.Both Metroid and Castlevania were out when Zelda 2 came out. Your ‘Metroidvania’ comparison doesn’t work with Zelda 2 because Zelda 2 has an overworld with random battles. Dragon Quest has more in common with Zelda 2 than either Metroid or Castelvania. Zelda 2 is like an arcade swashbuckling version of Dragon Quest. Instead of turn based battles, they are arcade battles. Instead of random encounters you cannot avoid, you have a chance to dodge the random encounters (an innovation no JRPG figured out).

Zelda 2 matches the spirit of Zelda 1. What is this spirit? Nintendo Fun Club expressed it as: “The Best of Both Worlds”. Since the Borg Star Trek episode hadn’t aired yet, we know Nintendo Fun Club was saying the definition of Zelda is the combination of computer RPG gameplay and the fast action arcade gameplay. This has not so much been lost in Modern Zelda as it has been intentionally destroyed because Aonuma cannot even play Super Mario Brothers. And it appears Computer RPGs were over Aonuma’s head since he stuck to the shallow adventure games.