Metroidvanias are the one genre of games that I never really understood. Having tried many in the past, I have steered clear of them for the past several years. But all changed with the launch of Silksong, whose addictive gameplay and level design I can’t get enough of.

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I’ve already clocked in several hours in the game and now plan to jump on just about every similar title out there, including Blasphemous, the original Hollow Knight, and many more.

Interconnected worlds just feel right

Silksong‘s snappy, flashy, and visceral gameplay made me rethink metroidvanias as a whole. Screenshot by Destructoid

I have always been a strong proponent of “open zones.” When you segment your game’s world into zones, whether they be connected directly or via loading screens, you have a lot more leverage as a designer to keep everything fresh, and, most importantly, balanced.

If a world is too open and reaching any part of it is as easy as walking there from the onset, you fall into the trap of players reaching “tough” spots before they were meant to.

This last often happened in titles like Elden Ring, where many ended up facing Radahn before reaching Morgott, which quickly showed them the faults of big open worlds. Where this often does not happen are metroidvanias, where each “zone,” which is hand-crafted to appeal to a particular strength level, is separate from the other, though they remain connected.

Playing through Silksong, I finally understood the brilliance of this approach. You never feel like the zone you’re currently in is relatively much harder than the one before. Each part of this massive, interconnected world has a particular mandatory item you need to unlock or find to progress further, with the following zone centered around those mechanics afforded to you by it.

Additionally, I finally felt, for the first time in a long while, that same feeling of descending down the elevator in Dark Souls 1 and arriving back at Firelink Shrine, having thought thus far that I’m on the other side of the map. Silksong is full of amazing shortcut unlocks, which inspire that same feeling of awe as I’d had in FromSoftware’s 3D metroidvania.

Snappy combat, flashy visuals

Silksong now inspires me to look at other metroidvanias, like Blasphemous, and uncover what made them great. Image via The Game Kitchen

What side-scroller metroidvanias often possess are fast-paced, high-octane combat sequences, but being someone who loves “feedback” in games, I never really saw the appeal. Hitting an enemy and only seeing it flash, with no health bar or other such visual information or even weight to the hits and attacks, simply did not scratch any itch for me.

But with Silksong, I feel that’s changed. Killing an enemy shakes the entire screen, adding a lot of kick and effect to your sword. The sound cues are visceral, sharp, and produce a very satisfying feeling. Add to that the very flashy and stylish animations, which, when executed in succession, produce a ton of cinematic vibes, and you’ve got yourself more feedback than you’d ever need.

This got me thinking: what other metroidvanias give out the same vibes? The first that came to mind was Blasphemous, a game very similar to Silksong and Hollow Knight in general, but with a lot more focus on story, dark commentary, and borderline horror vibes. When I played it for the first time, it reminded me more of Castlevania titles, the side-scroller ones, which I was never really fond of either.

Now, with Silksong under my belt, I’m beginning to believe. Perhaps side-scroller metroidvanias hide something much better and much more fun than I first understood, and I’m now going to go on the path to uncover what exactly I have been sleeping on for all these years.

That is, once I’m done with Silksong, because looking away from it is proving to be a lot more difficult than I’d ever imagined.

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