The other thing that amuses me is that 99% of the other metroidvania style games don't have a noticeable art style / lots of interesting details on the architecture. Super Metroid, itself, had a recognizable art style in the pixel art, and detail work in enemy animations, the backgrounds, and so on.
Symphony of the Night, Dracula X, and the Gameboy Advance games all had little details tucked in the background. Heck, Harmony of Dissonance was trying as hard as possible to be Symphony of the Night. (And, in my opinion, suffered for the comparison since it wasn't and couldn't be a copy of that game.) Your character would often have a lot of animations, which kind of adds to the ability to have more fluid cut scenes and allows the player to either be ridiculous or pose dramatically. (Ignoring, oh, Juste's fervent fist shaking.)
A lot of indie metroidvania games don't do complex backgrounds. That leads to tedium, forgetting where something is / where you are, and it can make the exploration feel less rewarding. If the reward in the game is being able to get to a new area, the new area should, hopefully, feel new. A lot of indie metroidvania games have a generic pixel art character with minimal animations. At a certain point, someone will notice you can't sit pointlessly in a chair, pose on the edge of ledges, or crouch dramatically. Does it end the world? No, but the little animations do add flavor to a character, and cuts down on windows of text while your character does his idle animation bob.
A lot of indie metroidvania games don't have a strong artistic style to the art / characters. Which means, for example, that other than oh Cave Story, I couldn't instantly tell character art from oh - Rogue Legacy or Unepic as a metroidvania style game, or tell you who made the games. You have an instant brand recognition when you see Castlevania's art.
(And in my opinion, the sheer expensive time that went into the art is half the appeal. Even if I titter at Isaac's pants and find the symbolism to be heavy handed, there's something about just being willing to make art that doesn't look like a cheap cartoon?)
no subject
Symphony of the Night, Dracula X, and the Gameboy Advance games all had little details tucked in the background. Heck, Harmony of Dissonance was trying as hard as possible to be Symphony of the Night. (And, in my opinion, suffered for the comparison since it wasn't and couldn't be a copy of that game.) Your character would often have a lot of animations, which kind of adds to the ability to have more fluid cut scenes and allows the player to either be ridiculous or pose dramatically. (Ignoring, oh, Juste's fervent fist shaking.)
A lot of indie metroidvania games don't do complex backgrounds. That leads to tedium, forgetting where something is / where you are, and it can make the exploration feel less rewarding. If the reward in the game is being able to get to a new area, the new area should, hopefully, feel new. A lot of indie metroidvania games have a generic pixel art character with minimal animations. At a certain point, someone will notice you can't sit pointlessly in a chair, pose on the edge of ledges, or crouch dramatically. Does it end the world? No, but the little animations do add flavor to a character, and cuts down on windows of text while your character does his idle animation bob.
A lot of indie metroidvania games don't have a strong artistic style to the art / characters. Which means, for example, that other than oh Cave Story, I couldn't instantly tell character art from oh - Rogue Legacy or Unepic as a metroidvania style game, or tell you who made the games. You have an instant brand recognition when you see Castlevania's art.
(And in my opinion, the sheer expensive time that went into the art is half the appeal. Even if I titter at Isaac's pants and find the symbolism to be heavy handed, there's something about just being willing to make art that doesn't look like a cheap cartoon?)