I've been rotating the concept of a metroidvania-like game without ability upgrades and gating in my mind. If there was just an open world that pulled a BOTW and had 3 locations you had to go to before you can beat the game, would that still be fun and interesting? Would people play it expecting ability upgrades and then be disappointed? I'm trying to find examples of games like this, and Rain World is the closest I can think of, and there's a LOT more going on in that game.
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in reply to @brodnork's post:
The thing about upgrades is that they’re really cool and people (read: me) like them. It’s especially fun when they’re really unique upgrades, that also manage to actually be useful…
But yeah Rain World feels like a good example of what you’re saying. I feel like Adventure, or at least Adventure 2, is also kinda like that? The “upgrades” would be items that you carry, of which you can only carry one at a time.
I'm making one of those (well kind of one of those) right now, and I think they can still be interesting. Personally I took a lot from the "Julius Mode" that you can unlock after finishing Castlevania: Aria of Sorrows in terms getting ideas how to still get some kind of structure into it.
Personally gating, earning new types of movement and the opportunities (apparent or real) of sequence breaking are the biggest appeal of metroidvanias to me
Oh absolutely, that's kind of what makes a metroidvania a metroidvania. This kind of game wouldn't BE a metroidvania though, just an open world action platformer. But it would inevitably draw a lot of comparisons to metroidvanias because of that.
what if you had all your abilities unlocked from the start but you had to explore to learn about how to use them? and then returning players can use that knowledge to sequence break the game in half