Slight Metroidvania? Guacamelee was about as Metroidvania as Metroid or Castlevania. If it had come out before Castlevania, the genre would be known as Guacoid.

AJ wrote:

I thought it was pretty good, particularly as it has co-op.

I didn't think much of the original, not when compared to the likes of Ori, but co-op is the reason I've still got an eye on the sequel.  A working co-op Metroidvania could be a very good thing (I didn't even realise the first game had it).  Depends how they handle a catch up feature, that could make or break it for tough sections.

Co-op is new to Guac 2, I think.

With some of the puzzley-platformy bits I think you'd have to let one player do it, as it would be very difficult to co-ordinate otherwise. I think it has a feature where once one player has done a section, the others can go into a bubble and catch up.

OK. Maybe it's 4-player that's new for the sequel then.

Yoku's Island Express. Not universally loved by badgers but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Finished mopping up for the 100% and actually would have been happy to keep playing if there was more to do.

The pinball sections could certainly have had more variety and occasionally it was a pain to try and exit a table when just trying to collect items or move across the map. The map in general could have been clearer and easier to use actually. That's pretty much the only faults I could find though.

The rest of it was just an incredibly fun and comforting experience, with charm to spare. Loved the style, the characters and the controls worked perfectly. The music was also great, that beeline tune has been stuck in my head since I started. It did a particularly good job of guiding you through the various areas, making steady progress and opening new abilities whilst not forcing tutorials to explain everything. It took me a little while to figure out a couple of additional moves after the main story to access the few remaining areas but all very clever.

Arguably some parts could also have presented more of a challenge but I was happy to accept the level of difficulty. Sometimes increasing difficulty for the sake of it just isn't worth it and the whole vibe of the game would have seemed off if it had ramped up too much.

Anyway, top stuff and I hope they're working on dlc of some sort or a sequel. Either way I'm in for more. [8]

We really are being slack with the metroidvania comparisons.

Surely map can't be a. Linear or b. Randomly generated, for the tag to have meaning.

Hollow knight is pure metroidvania.

Dead cells only counts in the loosest sense, given new powers block areas, but it's rudimentary, and the random map makes Rogue the better comparison.

Anyhoo.

Spelunketroid?

I played Guacamelee, there was backtracking once new powers opened up new routes and I don’t recall the map being linear, but even if you never had to backtrack to access an area that would allow progress and could have completed the game without backtracking once, that still feels like a Metroidvania to me.

No u.

My take on the Metroidvania thing: Yoss is correct enough not to be corrected.  There aren't any concrete genre genre definitions laid out anywhere (afaik), so we're all just working from what feels right from playing/talking about videogames for years.  So (to loosely quote Kris Kristofferson) if it feels Metroidvania man that's what it is, it's a Metroidvania game.  Otherwise it all gets a bit shoegaze post rock/shoegaze math rock, and we'd groan at that Shirley (groan)?  Imho, obviously.  It wasn't long ago that people seemed to be getting irritated by the use of 'Metroidvania' as a genre term anyway, as if the portmanteau had been played out.  Slapping MV on something can be seen as lazy, but in the case of Guacamelee it's more accurate than simply calling it an action platforming game.  The Metroidvania label is handy because it points everyone in the right direction.

JonB wrote:

Moot_Geeza wrote:

The Metroidvania label is handy because it points everyone in the right direction.

To a degree it does, but then it's also a bit misleading. It's MV stripped right down, effectively. It has that basic structure but isn't really comparable to some of the more classic MVs, which was the original point.

Its handy because there's a loose definition though. Once that gets too loose, we just have 2d platformer.

Metroid games have been Metroidvania for far longer than Castlevania games have been Metroidvania. And they continue to be so, unlike the Castlevania games.

oh! oh! I know this one! Is it shoes?

It's just a jumbled pairing of sub-genres I used in an attempt to make a point about nitpicking.

Bob is right about the shoes but also guitars, drums, a bass, a singer, some pedals, 90's haircuts.