I am playing immortal difficulty and have gotten up to the second fight with Vahram. The game has been fun and challenging but damn I'm getting frustrated with this boss.. I'm also wanting to move on with the game somewhat lol. But I can't let go of my pride and want to finish it in legendary as I've gotten this far!

What difficulty did you beat Vahram the second time?

Any tips? D:

Thank you

Edit: I meant immortal difficulty heh

Hello everyone! Following my Voidwrought playthrough, I wanted to share my thoughts on it!

As always, a video review has been created, which you can watch by following this link: https://youtu.be/lwc3XcS1Hp0

For those who do not wish to watch the video:

Playtime: 8 hours and 30 minutes with one ending (an additional two to three hours for the second ending)

Completion Rate: 89%

Played on: PC

Pros:

- The setting of Voidwrought is just drenched in Lovecraftian dread, featuring some of the most beautifully hand-drawn biomes I have ever seen in the genre, with each area evoking its own brand of degeneration and existential terror that results from the tainted touch of grand abominations beyond one’s understanding. Special note goes to the various characters that populate this sanity-shattering realm, each one standing out in terms of design and, at times, personality!

- The world of Voidwrought is not only beautiful but also home to an ungodly amount of secrets and collectibles. For starters, you will come across an item called Dormant Salt Receptacle, which can be used to upgrade your healing item slots, thus allowing you more opportunities to heal in and out of combat. Additionally, you will discover Shards of Vitae, which increase your health when gathered in groups of three. Furthermore, you’ll find the aforementioned journal pages scattered about, which are intended as lore snippets that flesh out the setting, as well as a variety of different materials that can be used for a range of actions, such as opening secret vaults that upgrade your damage and purchasing various items from the few merchants that inhabit the realm. You’ll also discover Relics, which are artifacts that you equip in order to gain active abilities at the cost of void charges - your battle currency - such as strengthening your claws for a brief period of time, as well as Souls, which, on the contrary, provide passive benefits like extra health or increased rate of regeneration for void charges. Moreover, you will get to gather lots of Ichor, the game’s main currency, which is dropped by killing enemies, completing side quests as well as breaking destructible items in the environment. Another secret you’ll go on the hunt for are certain creatures called envoys which you’ll have to silence the old-fashioned way, something which is connected to the game’s different endings. Finally, you’ll get to find and acquire followers by lighting certain fires, which is where one of the game’s most interesting systems comes into play; Voidwrought features a sort of base-building cult-themed mechanic with which you expand your home area piece by piece according to the number of followers and amount of Ichor you have at any given moment. By doing that, you open up new paths that may lead to collectibles, hidden areas as well as new NPCs that will offer assistance to you. I have to admit I truly enjoyed that aspect of the game and found myself constantly curious as to what sort of secret I would be discovering with my next expansion.

- The game’s map is very user-friendly and functional, with clear distinctions between biomes, proper marking of special rooms, such as save, fast-travel, ability acquisition and vault points, as well as, thankfully, the option to place your own manual markers of diverse visual styles, which was a life saver since Voidwrought’s exploration can be quite challenging, especially when it comes to finding certain hidden rooms concealed by breakable walls that can be tricky to spot. I didn’t get to find anything that allowed me to see collectibles on the map, so I highly recommend you start using the manual markers from early on.

- The game also features a very handy fast travel system that unlocks within the first couple of hours, which allows you to jump around the biomes via some special rooms. You can also unlock one more form of fast travel via the base-building system, through which you can use the game’s mirror save points to travel between the save point of your base and the last save point you used in the map, which can be helpful at times though I didn’t use it that much.

- Voidwrought is one of the most open-ended metroidvanias I have played recently, featuring an incredible degree of non-linearity, meaning that you can go about the discovery of the world by carving your own path to a large extent. That means you can find creative ways to access areas for which you may not have the proper ability to do so at that moment, for example by pogoing off enemies to reach high places even though you may not have the double jump or climb ability yet, something that offers an immense sense of freedom.

- Combat wise, I’m glad to report that Voidwrought tries to go the extra mile with significant success. On a basic level, you get a lightning-fast melee claw combo with which you can tear your enemies apart in satisfying fashion. On top of that, you also get the aforementioned relics, which bring a variety of different effects in combat, such as producing light beams that set your enemies on fire, augmenting your claw damage and throwing explosives, among others, effectively bringing ranged attacks into the mix. Of note here is the responsiveness and accuracy of the pogo mechanic, which I found incredibly useful against certain enemies. As mentioned previously, your damage can be upgraded by finding ancient vaults and solving a puzzle that unlocks them - of which I was not a fan since I found it unnecessarily complex - and your health expands by locating the aforementioned vitae shards. Healing is carried out by pressing down a specific button which allows you to channel your healing shards and restore your hit-points.

- Boss-wise, I’m beyond elated to say that the bosses I got to fight were not only visually stunning but incredibly fun to duke it out with as well, each one featuring a healthy range of attacks that kept things interesting and required good observation of certain animations that telegraphed each move-set in order to make sure you emerged victorious. Main bosses aside, there are also several optional big bads for you to discover and take down, which is a big plus.

- I do wish to mention one more thing that I truly enjoyed to see in Voidwrought in terms of quality-of-life functions for the players, and that is the region tab located in its menu. The reason I make special mention of this is because this tab actually shows you the completion progress you have in each separate area, which makes it easier for you to track your progress if you intend to go for 100%.

Cons:

- In terms of platforming, I didn’t really experience anything extraordinary here, though, to be honest, part of the reason for that was the aforementioned climb ability which, once acquired, pretty much makes traversal of the environment quite trivial and can be used in place of most other abilities, with very few exceptions. In essence, even though there were some acrobatic segments that would have been a bit challenging otherwise, they were made easy by that particular ability that had me jumping off walls like a madman without a care in the universe. I have mixed feelings in relation to that skill since, on the one hand, it made the whole world my playground but, on the other, it reduced platforming difficulty to nearly non-existent. That aside, I do have one more minor complaint here, and that has to do with an area called The Void. During the preview I made a month ago, I mentioned how platforming in that biome was a bit finicky due to the platforms being lined by eyes that didn’t match the actual circumference of the platform, which led to me constantly being unsure if I was landing on solid ground or not and resulted to a few falls that could have otherwise been avoided. In this final version of Voidwrought, The Void got much darker and visually rough, which made it even harder to know where you’ll be landing, though I will admit that the developers increased the number of platforms across it so, ironically, I didn’t fall to my death as much as I did previously. Still, I would have preferred a more visually clear area.

- I do feel the obligation to mention that Voidwrought features what I like to call cage-fights, which refers to the fact that, from time to time, you’ll get locked inside a room and have to fight a few waves of enemies before you can move forward, which I know is something that some people may not find appealing, though I didn’t mind it.

- Though I did enjoy the bosses, I did feel like their difficulty became progressively easier the more upgrades I acquired to the point where I could face-tank the attacks of most of them while dealing lots of damage with my basic combo as well as relics. I still had to be careful for a few of them, but nothing compared to the earlier boss-fights which could quickly end you if you weren’t careful.

- The overall feeling of gradual reduction of difficulty as I got progressively stronger kind of chipped away at the oppressive atmosphere of the game's world.

That's all!

Have you played Voidwrought yet? If so, what did you think of it? If not, are you planning to?

So i really enjoy most Metroidvania type games, but was curious if anyone has found or thought about the idea of having a MV type game with WoW classes to choose from with WoW based levels. Specifically the OG classes to start. The game would obviously be massive because you'd have, correct me if I'm wrong, 9? Classes to choose from to play the game with. The areas/maps have HUGE potential being the WoW universe has a vast array of different continents,zones, dungeons, raids etc!

IMPORTANT

While I know that WoW is considered an MMO, I would suggest just taking the Lore, Characters, Classes, Spells, etc. And not the actual MMO aspect from it. Possibly include a 1 to 3 player co op (couch co op also being included).

Specific level designs could revolve around which classes were chosen to play through the levels, thus unlocking different areas to traverse, loot, and explore.

Depending on how the levels are designed, be it zone or dungeon taken from the area: example being Deadmines; you'd have 5, possibly 7 ( including the mini bosses at the end of the dungeon) bosses to fight and loot.

As far as the loot goes: Maybe make the drops boss specific. As you progress towards the end of the game it gears you into whatever that Expansions main/Iconic set would be. So for the Base Game it would be Tiers 1 and 2 of the OG classes for final drops. So the total armor sets in base game would be 18 per class to start. As for weapons it would sort of follow the same idea; possibly make it so your base dungeons drop weapons, trinkets, rings, necklaces

Feel free to add to or take away the ideas!

I really feel like it could be a really enjoyable experience with many WoW expansions to choose from, be it slowly released as DLC for the main game, or what have you.

So the big news from Aeternum studios is just an update for Aeterna Noctis? Kinda disappointing.

Hello there, I bought Awaken -Astral Blade today after reading about it on this sub.

I noticed there is a Bundle on steam that is actually cheaper than the game itself.

For about 50 cents cheaper, get the Sword & Hammer bundle which includes Redeemer: Enhanced Edition.

I have no real interest in the redeemer game, but some of you might want to get another extra game when making your purchase of Awaken - Astral Blade for half a buck cheaper.

The link is: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/46607/?curator_clanid=4777282&utm_source=SteamDB

Good until 11/4 when the discount on Redeemer ends.

I enjoyed the Last Faith but it got a bit tedious with the deaths and everything but I love “leveling up” and getting better weapons SotN style vs Metroids progression of getting more abilities. I’m on PS5 and Switch, and physical availability is a major plus but if it’s super cheap digital then non physical availability isn’t deal ender.

I’ve dropped blasphemous, but im thinking of trying again bc of the positive reception i always hear about it. I didn’t really get that far, maybe like 2-3 hours, but i don’t remember feeling super OP in that game like the feeling i get when i replay super metroid and most of the igavanias. Do you eventually feel overpowered in blasphemous like in SM and the igavanias? That’s just a huge plus for me. I really want to feel strong as hell in a game.

Forgive me for the amount of times I say "movement" in this lol

I've had a massive itch to play a game, especially a metroidvania, with some good movement. Like Ori for example. Just some nice, fluid, satisfying movement options. Good combat would also be nice, though it's secondary to movement for me. Some other games I've really enjoyed are Hollow Knight, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, and Metroid Dread (they don't have as much of a focus on movement but I figured I'd put them here anyway), and some that I've tried but didn't hook me are Nine Sols, Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus (I think that's what it's called?), Biomorph, and a very small bit of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Though if any of those get significantly better later on in the game I am totally open to revisiting them. Otherwise I'd love to hear any recommendations you have!

(P.S. if you happen to have any recommendations that aren't metroidvanias, I'd like to hear those as well. I just love me some good fluid movement)

Some MVs are on sale on my PSN wishlist and I need some help deciding what to get:

The Mobius Machine

Touhou Luna Nights

Prince of Persia Lost Crown Mask of Darkness DLC

Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus 

Record of Lodoss War

Frontier Hunter Ezra's Wheel of Fortune

Yars Rising

Bloodstained Dominique's Curse

... or any write-in's. thanks.

i love me a good 'vania, but nothing in my ~20 hours or so has blown my mind the way the hype says it's supposed to. basically it's a decent entry in the genre, undercut by a garbage map (at least give us a zoom function!) and lack of fast travel points.

EDIT: to clarify, i meant there aren’t enough fast travel points; should have been clearer. i have them all unlocked, i’m just annoyed there are so few. for a map this size there should probably be twice as many.

as a veteran of Castlevania, Metroid, and Shadow Complex, i feel like i'm missing something. should i keep plugging away?

man….

i love these games and i think they are awesome. i go into each gaming session super excited and eager to play, but by the end i start seriously considering anger management classes (joking). but in all actuality, i think i just suck at these games.

i love the art style in hollow knight and i think its such a beautiful game, but i get lost so easily. it took me like an hour to defeat hornet in the first battle. my boyfriend got me ori and the blind forest for my birthday, and i get so confused it actually starts making me frustrated.

i don’t understand how these games work. are you just supposed to grind them for abilities until you can move on to the next point? these are the only two metroidvania games i’ve played and i am feeling hopeless for this genre lol. i always click on games in the steam store that look good and then i see the metroidavnia tag and im like i probably shouldn’t.

it really does suck, because i try to keep such a positive mindset going into the game, but after hours of getting nowhere i feel like im wasting my time running around in circles. of course later tonight i will play some more ori regardless, and maybe one day ill find enough courage to play hollow knight again. i guess maybe the key to these games is having a break after so many hours so you can rebuild the courage to open it back up.

So it's pretty fair to say that Metoridvania is my favorite genre. I've always been fascinated with the process of making games. I always get these ideas and concepts of different games.

If I was a dev, here's the metroidvania I would make!

• First of all I'd put a lot of different biomes in the game. Snow, desert, seaside, underwater. Etc. It's always nice when you get variety in the game.

• Expansive level design. I wamt my game to be big. Both in length and level sizes.

• Ost similar to nier. My favorite osts of all time are Nier replicant and nier automata. I would put something similar in my game.

• The setting: definitely a medieval setting. Something set in the past.

• Very varied weapons and magic: swords, spears, katana, daggers, scythes, maces, axes, bows, crossbows wnd whatever else you can imagine. As well as magic that feels different from spell to spell. Quick fire low damage fireballs, a slow charging lightning bolt that deals massive damage. Ice spikes that can go through enemies and so on

• A good Story and lots of characters.

-many, many movement abilities and challenging platforming. Dash, double and triple jump, grappling hook, ground smash, turn ethereal, reverse gravity, and everything else. I'd make it so you unlock these progressively and gain acces to new levels as you go on!

• a lot of side quests and side content.

• rpg lile progression

• good voice actors. A very underrated aspect of Metroidvanias. Good voice acting can really eleveate the experience.

• fast paced and challenging combat.

• cool character designs.

• great art direction

• graphically advanced.

These are the elements I would implement in my mv. I know it sounds pretty ambitions and it would literally take a lot of cash to make, but hey, a man can dream.

So yah, If anyone has any Game director positions free, give me a call 💀

Saw this in a discussion from r/rpg about video games that could do with a TTRPG adaptation. Someone mentioned Metroid and there was this reply:

Almost none of the core gameplay loop of a Metroid game would translate well into a TTRPG.

For the same reason that the Dark Souls TTRPG adaptations keep missing the point: some video game mechanics translate great to tabletop, some do not.

To take an extreme example, Tetris and Guitar Hero are both excellent games. Their mechanics are timeless, and have aged great. Neither could be turned into TTRPGs.

Metroid has a game loop that involves a lot of platforming, shooting, and re-tracing your steps to open new areas. It is a very visual, spatial, repetitive, fast, user-input-skill based game. None of these aspects translates well to tabletop.

You could make a TTRPG in the Metroid universe, but you cannot make a Metroid game. It would be awful.

This got me thinking about that second to last paragraph. I agree with the first bit of platforming, shooting and re-tracing your steps for new areas. All that can be done in an RPG quite easily. The traversal bits being very nice and fitting for an exploration style of gameplay, maybe combat as a secondary feature, at least to me as I played Metroidvanias first for the love of exploration more than the combat bits. That would be into RPGs as well.

I am wondering about the second half of the discussion, that while Metroid itself was surely focused on a lot of the inputting reactions and such, what does the Metroidvania community think about the idea? Are there games in the genre that may be better representation of TTRPG gameplay?

I admit, this is also a 'Hey, can you recommend me some Metroidvanias I may not know?'.

Pretty much as the title suggested. I remember hearing pretty good things about the metroidvania Catmaze from an indie game channel I trusted but when I went to play it.. I won't say it was bad, but it didn't feel.. honestly, it just kind of felt pretty damn cheap in my opinion, & just not the same level of quality as something like.. idk, Blasphemous, Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, Souldiers... just listing random titles to show I'm not necessarily only talking about the "gold-standard" MV's but just.. you know, games that feel like they're well-made. I was disappointed in the same way by the game Micetopia, if anyone else has tried that one. Gave me the same feeling of 'cheapness' (I really don't want to throw dirt on any devs, I know making games is hard) as Catmaze that really made me regret ever buying it or even trying to play it.

As the title said, I'm wondering about Transiruby, Ato, Super Mombo Quest, & the newly released Awaken: Astral Blade, specifically.. anyone who's played these, thoughts? Even if they may not have been your cup of tea, did they at least feel like proper/decent metroidvanias, in terms of overall quality/production value?

Each of these are on my wishlist & thinking about picking up a few of them, but I feel like I don't quite know that I have the same guarantee of quality as if I was buying something like Grime, or Touhou Luna Nights, etc, where they're praised enough you know at the very least the games are.. professional, so-to-speak, in terms of production value

TL;DR- Transiruby, Ato, Super Mombo Quest, Awaken: Astral Blade; to anyone who's tried any of them out, do they feel/play like some random college student's school project, or do they have legitimate production value/overall feel?

You might not feel it's costly but being in India, I feel like it's kinda costly then all other Indie games like 3x hollow knight almost 2x newly released ninesols. It's almost 2k INR translate to roughly 25 dollors. I really wanted to try it but kinda costly for me to afford it.

I'm an older guy new to modern gaming after last playing video games many years ago. Turns out MV's are my thing. I have muscle memory from way back with K&M, so I've played a few MV's quite successfully that way, i.e. Lone Fungus, Mobius Machine, Hollow Knight, etc.

I'm now playing Crypt Custodian, about 50% complete, and it's clear to me that a controller would be better given all the diagonal movement. I got a controller, but the problem is that when I switch to controller my skill regresses so bad that I basically can't progress. I go back to K&M and spend a lot of time trying spider fingers to get through a scene I know a controller would be so much better at.

Does anyone have any tips or maybe PC game recommendations (MV or not) that would be "easy" or help me get used to a controller without being too demanding?

Looking around it seems like the devs have gone completely silent, not delivering on kickstarter promises, and leaving out features like resolution settings. It's on sale, but should I pass?