Retronauts listener mail call: Let's talk metroidvania, baby
That's right — we've just wrapped another marathon Retronauts recording weekend, but it's already time for another listener mailbag solicitation. This time, it's for a Retronauts East episode we'll be putting together next week.
The topic this time around will be Metroidvania Origins: A look at the evolution of the exploratory action-RPG concept from the conception of platformers and RPGs to the latter 8-bit days, when the concept really began to mature. Of course, true metroidvania — that is, Castlevania games bearing a Metroid-like structure — wouldn't really come into existence until 1997's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. But we're interested in looking at how games got there in the first place.
This, of course, is basically a podcast companion to my stalled-out Metroidvania Chronicles project, which kind of hit a brick wall when I reached games for vintage PCs (since I can't easily capture video from those those and I hate to build projects around borrowed footage). Maybe this episode will give Metroidvania Chronicles the jump-start it needs! Or maybe it will make that entire thing redundant. I'm OK with it either way. But between the impending 30th anniversary of Metroid for NES, the popularity of Lizard Cube's gorgeous Wonder Boy III remake, and the recent spate of stick-in-the-mud internet pundits acting like crotchety old men about the existence of the word "metroidvania," now seems like a perfect time to jump in and explore these games... which are, you know, about exploration.
Please drop me a line with your thoughts on 8-bit metroidvania-type games and the genre's formative days by the end of the week: jparish [at] retronauts [dot] com. Thanks... and try to keep it concise! Like a good metroidvania, a good letter should keep it concise so the audience craves a little more at the end...
