The original Metroid and Castlevania both turn 40 years old this fall. As the two series most responsible for creating the “metroidvania,” we’re taking this occasion to take a comprehensive view of the popular genre. This is Metroidvania Week.
Since their inception 40 years ago, fate has intertwined the extraterrestrial exploits of Samus Aran and the Belmont family’s fiend-fighting over multiple generations. Both the Metroid and Castlevania series would become synonymous with one of gaming’s defining genres, reducing many complex mechanics to a simple portmanteau: the metroidvania.
However, even before the fateful years of 1994 and 1997–the release years of Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, respectively–several key mechanics integral to metroidvanias would first appear elsewhere, and not always where you’d expect. So in this brief history, we will look at these origins and how it has evolved not just in the late 1980s, but also more recent pivotal innovations that revolutionized the gaming industry.
Let’s begin with what I would call “protovanias:” those that introduced one or two elements the metroidvania genre would later adopt. The earliest exploration platformer was Aztec for the Apple II computer in 1982, which has players exploring a temple with an Indiana Jones-inspired character. It’s a fairly loose inspiration, sure, but Japanese developers would soon combine this exploration gameplay with the popular RPGs such as Wizardry. Three years later, the PC-880 and other Japan-only PCs would get Xanadu: Dragon Slayer 2. It’s the first-to-market game with 2D side-scrolling real-time RPG combat that requires backtracking and promotes non-linear exploration. Of course, history rightfully forgets Xanadu, as playing it today requires a Master’s degree in the arcane arts to understand.
So we do need to credit Metroid as the first game to popularize non-linear exploration on consoles, selling millions of units worldwide and, rather conveniently for Nintendo, many copies of its in-house magazine so gamers didn’t have to draw the map on paper. Strangely, around the same time, Konami would dip its toes into the same genre. Vampire Killer, released in 1986 for the MSX in Japan and 1987 in Europe, has the same setting and bosses as the NES Castlevania, except hearts are now currency (something Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest also does), and players explore maze-like levels to find keys to unlock doors and chests. Its bosses are mostly the same, except it all ends with a newly reworked final boss fight, complete with Dracula’s skeletal flashing and a giant portrait nonchalantly spewing bats.
