r/metroidvania

I still remember posting the first snippets of Constance here years ago. Quite a lot has changed since then and I have to say I’m feeling pretty proud. thank you guys on this subreddit also for always being a motivation I always appreciated the feedback on here whenever I posted something. hope you will enjoy Constance!

on to the DLC development it is! :)

Hi all,

As the title says, should I get it for Switch at 14.99 Eur or the Steam version is better, and I should wait for a sale on Steam?

So I've been loving the game so far but I'm trying to do the bell puzzle and even looking at guides and videos I'm finding it pretty hard. One thing I don't get is what the logic behind the arrows is. I feel like sometimes I teleport to the last one I fired. Sometimes it's to the first one I fired. There's gotta be something I'm missing. Is there a way to control or at least predict which arrow you jump to if you've fired multiple?

For context, I consider myself a casual gamer. Love MV’s. I took a long break from gaming and I’m just getting back at it again.

I’ve noticed on some posts divided opinions about some games, specially related to their levels of difficulty. For example, most people love Hollow Knight and Silksong and give positive feedback regarding their mechanics and challenging platforming. In the opposite side, I’ve seen bad feedback given to Mio due to its hard platforming. Some have even written that they read about the hard platforming and it’s a hard pass for them.

I know, to each their own. But feedback looks very divided on this aspect in general for MV’s. I finished Mio and I’m currently playing Silksong (no spoilers please!). I enjoyed Mio a lot, even though I got my butt kicked by the secret boss and the later platforms. I’m also having a lot of fun with Silksong, even though I got deeply frustrated after 1-3 hours and had to put it down for a day or two lol. But once I understood the challenges, nothing good old git gud couldn’t solve.

I’m curious about your take on this. Does difficulty make you hate/love MV’s?

Topic. Currently playing silksong. The choral Tower theme is soo calming. It immediately reminded me of luma pools from Ori and the will of wisps. Damn these tracks are just so melancholic . What are some of your favourite tracks from metroidvinia games ?

I’m about 25% into the game. Love the graphics and the music but exploration through the Cathedral and Shade Forest is kind of boring. Does it get any better?

Saw a post about the switch version so figured I’d post a comment about the PS5 version that came out today.

I saw some of the developers or director in the comments earlier today. I just want to say this is an awesome game. I’m only about 1.5 hours in and I am really enjoying the ability mechanics and how your player interacts with them. Specifically the paint and corruption mechanic. How when your paint runs from doing an ability it affects your health. This is awesome and I can see where it will make platforming more challenging (perhaps) in later parts of the game. And it also will keep players from spamming dash- which is another cool idea, instead of the traditional stamina.

Snapshots are also cool. I saw it done in Prince of Persia and thought that all games should include it. Great to see it here.

Overall really enjoying it, from the art style to how the movement feels. Again, still early in the game but controls feel tight. Initially I was worried it was too easy in terms of enemies but having just fought one of the bosses I see the potential for ramp up in the combat.

Great game!

> Nothing Mid Beyond this Point

Why

• Genuinely unique approach to a metroidvania
• Basic but very evocative art style
• Combat system is a cool concept well executed
• Story is suprisingly interesting
• It just has the juice, couldn't put it down despite a frustrating start

Why Not

• Exploration can be painful until you get certain abilities
• Giving the second boss anti heal was certainly a choice

Impressions

This is not what I expected at all from a 580yen Metroidvania which looks like they didn't bother hiring a background artist. Nothing Beyond this Point is a great Metroidvania and perhaps more importantly; a genuinely different one.

Rather the the typical side-scrolling action of a Hollow Knight or Nine Sols, NBTP adopts the room by room layout and bullet hell/twin stick shooter design of Enter the Gungeon. Another similarity to Gungeon can be found in the myriad obscure secrets you can unlock if you pay close enough attention to your surroundings and try different things. I'd recommend paying especially close attention to anything map shaped on the ground, as you'll be spending the vast majority of the early game hopelessly lost.

That's because the game really leads into its 'eldritch void' setting. Most exits from a given room will typically just loop you back to the opposite side when accessed, which opens up some fun combat possibilities but also makes for a sometimes tedious process of trial and error exploration. To the dev's credit they have addressed this; real exits are often marked by some decoration on the border of the room. But I still couldn't stop myself compulsively trying every angle, looking for frequent-enough-you-can't-ignore-them secret rooms. There's a ping ability you can pick up which significantly accelerates this process while your obscured map keeps the feeling of exploration alive, but it's pretty easy to miss until well into the game. If I was going to make one suggestion it'd be to gently guide players toward that ability much earlier.

No notes on the combat though; it's creative and well executed. Your health is represented by rods orbiting you, which also power your ranged and special attacks. So attacking (other than in melee) consumes health, which would be a big problem if not for your ability to heal endlessly. It requires standing still to channel thought (at least without upgrades), so combat has a great rhythm of firing off attacks then finding a window to heal up between enemy aggression. Giving the the second boss (for me at least) anti-heal was certainly a choice though; that coupled with his endless littering of the arena with spikes lead me to take a break from the game and play Dark Souls 3 for a more relaxing experience. Eventually I figured out you can dash through the anti-heal projectile to avoid it, but the dialogue telegraphing that is not exceptionally easy to see with everything going on. Most bosses have a gimmick like this, though the rest are considerably less annoying and better telegraphed IMO. Overall combat was great once I stopped trying to melee literally everything to death because I was terrified of burning my health to attack, and stayed that way right up to the final boss.

Surprisingly for a solo-dev project, the miscellaneous stuff is pretty great as well. The art-style and soundtrack are certainly minimalist but very effective at evoking the reactions they're clearly aiming for, and I don't think I encountered a single bug in my playthrough. The Metroidvania aspects mostly come from ability progression, but if you pay close attention to hints and think creatively (or you're just on a second playthrough) there are plenty of skips available. The overall story also surprised me with its quality; the protagonist actually has an interesting character arc and the vague hints of lore are interesting enough to provide some motivation. Every character (including deities) mostly talking like a normal person despite their circumstances is a bit weird at first but circles back around to charming after a while.

Definitely give this one a try if you're at all curious; I did it on a whim and got a fantastic ~16 hours out of it. There's a lot more depth and quality here than you might expect for a game this cheap.

Beautiful level design filled with intense platforming challenges that feel incredible. Another single dev game that truly shines!

If you’re looking for tough boss battles you will be disappointed. The true challenge lies in the platforming and exploration.

So this is basically my first real metroidvania and i picked ori and the blind forest and yeah it looks amazing but i didn’t expect to feel this lost this fast. the intro was pretty straightforward but once it opened up i kinda just started wandering with no clue what’s the right direction. i keep finding spots that clearly need abilities i don’t have yet and then i forget where they were later. movement feels great tho so exploring isn’t boring, just confusing sometimes. i also hit that first big escape sequence and got destroyed more times than i wanna admit. i like how abilities actually change how you move and open paths, that part finally clicked for me. but remembering all those blocked paths is where my brain just gives up. i tried not using guides at all since i wanna experience it blind but i’m starting to see why people get stuck. i don’t wanna ruin the experience but i also don’t wanna burn out early. do you guys just accept being lost for a while or is there some way to keep track better without notes. like is this confusion just part of the genre or does it get clearer later