2d Action games with indirect leveling but no experience points. Killing individual enemies doesn’t make you stronger, you have to kill boss monsters or buy new armor / collect certain power ups to get stronger (which is different from power ups for abilities). If you don’t need to collect special power ups to acquire new abilities to explore more of the gaming world, you’ll probably have a 2d Action Adventure and not a metrovania at your hand.
2010
Hero Core
System: Freeware
Status: Beaten (thought only the normal mode)
Hero Core is one of the few examples that isn’t a platformer yet still feels right at home in the metrovania genre. Since you don’t actually need to destroy the other bosses aside from the final and you don’t need to collect all the power ups to beat the game, it’s an edge case. Plays and feels like a metrovania, but lacks some elements to make it a pure example.
2008
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
System: Nintendo DS
Status: Beaten with health cheats
OoE is a castlevania game in the metrovania-mold that I don’t consider a pure metrovania. It lacks a big, continuous world and sports instead an overworld map that chops the game into smaller sized levels. Thus it also lacks the backtracking of previous metrovania castlevanias, but the rest of the gameplay is similar to the GBA/NDS games. I really liked the game due to breaking the mold of previous games and telling an original story that still fit into the Castlevania canon.
2000
Ikachan
System: Freeware
Status: Beaten
While Ikachan has level-up mechanic typical found in 2d Action RPGs, you really only get more HP with each new levels, otherwise you have to collect items to get further (which is why I put it in this category). Whether it’s a metrovania is arguable, but IMHO it’s too short and doesn’t involve backtracking, so I consider it more an action adventure than a pure metrovania. Still a great game.
1990
Zeliard
System: PC (MS-Dos)
Status: Beaten
Zeliard has elements of metrovanias, but not all of them. Instead of one interconnected world, it has big stages that have an unusual internal topology and exploring those areas feels like playing a metrovania. These levels are linked with other levels via doors and through linear stages representing towns. One common aspect of free roaming platformers is that you can always go back to earlier parts of the world, which Zeliard has, but apart from that its very linear. There’s no backtracking involved to revisit earlier levels and open new gateways.
1988
The Battle of Olympus
System: NES
Status: Beaten / with save stats & FAQs
Looked good at first, but turned out to be completely frustrating. I fought more with the controls than enemies and the game often left me stumped what to do next. Also I really disliked how the levels were connected, kind of like with overlapping maps instead of maps with clear borders. Hated it in the end. Due to the lack of one big word (smaller levels interconnected with each other) and the lack of backtracking, this is more a standard 2d action adventure than a typical metrovania.
