The original Metroid and Castlevania both turn 40 years old this fall. As the two series most responsible for creating the “metroidvania,” we’re taking this occasion to take a comprehensive view of the popular genre. This is Metroidvania Week.
Since their inception 40 years ago, fate has intertwined the extraterrestrial exploits of Samus Aran and the Belmont family’s fiend-fighting over multiple generations. Both the Metroid and Castlevania series would become synonymous with one of gaming’s defining genres, reducing many complex mechanics to a simple portmanteau: the metroidvania.
However, even before the fateful years of 1994 and 1997–the release years of Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, respectively–several key mechanics integral to metroidvanias would first appear elsewhere, and not always where you’d expect. So in this brief history, we will look at these origins and how it has evolved not just in the late 1980s, but also more recent pivotal innovations that revolutionized the gaming industry.
Let’s begin with what I would call “protovanias:” those that introduced one or two elements the metroidvania genre would later adopt. The earliest exploration platformer was Aztec for the Apple II computer in 1982, which has players exploring a temple with an Indiana Jones-inspired character. It’s a fairly loose inspiration, sure, but Japanese developers would soon combine this exploration gameplay with the popular RPGs such as Wizardry. Three years later, the PC-880 and other Japan-only PCs would get Xanadu: Dragon Slayer 2. It’s the first-to-market game with 2D side-scrolling real-time RPG combat that requires backtracking and promotes non-linear exploration. Of course, history rightfully forgets Xanadu, as playing it today requires a Master’s degree in the arcane arts to understand.
So we do need to credit Metroid as the first game to popularize non-linear exploration on consoles, selling millions of units worldwide and, rather conveniently for Nintendo, many copies of its in-house magazine so gamers didn’t have to draw the map on paper. Strangely, around the same time, Konami would dip its toes into the same genre. Vampire Killer, released in 1986 for the MSX in Japan and 1987 in Europe, has the same setting and bosses as the NES Castlevania, except hearts are now currency (something Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest also does), and players explore maze-like levels to find keys to unlock doors and chests. Its bosses are mostly the same, except it all ends with a newly reworked final boss fight, complete with Dracula’s skeletal flashing and a giant portrait nonchalantly spewing bats.
From 1987-1992, several protovania titles introduced notable ideas later adopted in future Metroids and Castlevanias. Koji Igarashi, director of Symphony of the Night and other games in the series, said in an interview with Bandai Namco that he believed The Legend of Zelda was the “origin of metroidvania in my mind.” Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link is almost certainly one that inspired him, with its hidden areas, maze-like dungeons, and progression hidden behind beating bosses.
However, it’s not just Zelda games from that era that influenced this style of exploration. Sega’s Wonder Boy in Monster Land’s equipment gimmick is relatively similar to how Samus’s different blasters work, transforming its hero from an underpants-wearing dork into a gallant knight by the end of the game. Wonder Boy 3: The Dragon’s Trap (Master System) took this a step further. Its hero has different monster forms locked behind boss fights, which drastically alter how they play, from a mouse that walks up walls to a merman that swims underwater. It also gives us a prologue boss fight against the final boss of the previous game, a narrative device Symphony of the Night would begin with years later.
Another surprising protovania from this time period is also a Sega-developed game: Quackshot: Starring Donald Duck on the Genesis. This has our favorite cartoon duck don his best Indiana Jones costume and set out on an adventure to find treasures. Quackshot consists of linear levels, but they require items from other areas to explore them fully, a feature that Konami would adopt many years later for Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.
All this isn’t to say that the most iconic Metroid and Castlevania games didn’t individually innovate the genre: Super Metroid added a detailed map and a sci-fi horror atmosphere which Fusion and Dread doubled down on. Symphony of the Night perfected the map and made Alucard’s forms integral to how he moves, with some areas requiring them to reach. Konami would build on this foundation with each future game’s gimmick, with great successes with Aria of Sorrow’s soul system and Portrait of Ruin’s tag-team mechanic.
The 2000s would be relatively quiet outside of these two companies, with Konami in particular upping the game with every Game Boy Advance and DS Castlevania. Indie games also adopted the genre, with early hits including Cave Story and Shadow Complex. We’d still get traditional metroidvanias well into the 2010s, with Axiom Verge taking Metroid’s sci-fi spark until Samus Returns in 2017. However, the late 2000s saw the emergence of a new genre, signalling the metroidvania’s future, thanks to Demon’s Souls.
Many Souls games share deep exploration, abilities or items needed to progress, and iconic boss fights–elements metroidvanias had already mastered. What Demon’s Souls did was amp up the difficulty, with precise combat and quick reflexes being key to winning fights. In a way, metroidvanias have since blurred the lines with other genres, such as improved combat with combos and the incorporation of roguelike mechanics, as seen in games like Guacamelee and Dead Cells, and adopt souls-like tropes in Hollow Knight and Blasphemous.
Then there are randomizers, modes added to older metroidvanias by dedicated modding communities. The idea is to mix up where the key relics, weapon drops, and other major upgrades are located, requiring only the bare minimum to finish the game, even if other items might help achieve this goal more easily. Though modding is a little taboo for old games, it’s a popular mode that clearly has its fans, as seen in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Igarashi’s successor to Castlevania, which also included it as a bonus mode.
With Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse around the corner and plenty of developers, big and small, finding success with the genre, it’s clear that metroidvanias are more popular than ever. Who knows what the next 40 years will bring, whether we’ll see another Metroid or Castlevania drought, or unlikely candidates taking up the mantle? However, given that developers are clearly not done tweaking and adapting the genre to modern tastes, we could be on the verge of a new age of classic metroidvanias that will be remembered for generations to come.
