Pronty, A Metroidvania With Echoes Of BioShock, Swims Onto Switch This March

Can we just use the term Search Action please. Metroidvania is an outdated term like Doom-Clone or Smash-Clone.

Love the look of this one.
My Switch is a Metroidvania machine and I couldn't be happier.
I will definitely add this one onto my wishlist.

@Jireland92 Only difference is I know exactly what they mean by Metroidvania and no idea with "Search Action".

One of the main components of metroidvania is platforming, this looks like it doesn't have any because the protagonist swims everywhere. Still looks like a cool game however.

Man, I'm a fan of Metroidvania games, but at the same time I'm KIND of over them. I was playing Ori recently and suddenly got bored with a game I loved just because I think I've played too much of that genre for a while. Letting it rest, and then I'll be back.

@tseliot How? Search Action literally defines what you do in the game. Metroidvania was the term coined because Metroid and Castlevania were the big players in the genre, something you really can’t argue in 2023 given how many other games have come out in the genre thanks to the indie scene. Heck, the last Castlevania game in that style turns 15 years old this year.

@Jireland92 There are many names that don't make sense in the industry. Hack and slash - the fact that you're controlling the character from isometric 3/4 view and clicking on the enemies doesn't really make it hacky or slashy.

Metroid and Castlevania are still major players, since Super Metroid (and now Dread) and Sotn are still the best of the best. There are great metroidvanias out there, like Ender Lilies, but saying that Metroid isn't a major player on the metroidvania stage is like saying that Mario isn't a major player on the platformer stage.

@Jireland92 Why is it a requirement to churn out games to "keep it's title"? Rogue came out in 1980, nobody's demanding roguelike gets a refresh. Not even with roguelite gumming up things. People were confused for maybe the first year (if that), and then it's become so ubiquitous to the lexicon you don't even have to know Rogue existed to know what a roguelike/lite is.

Metroidvania exists as a word in it's own right. Also while Castlevania doesn't have new games (though it's still very relevant), there are legitimate means that make sourcing some of it's biggest titles easy for current gamers.

@ComfyAko I never said Metroid wasn’t a major player, i was saying Castlevania wasn’t because the last time it was relevant to the genre was 15 years ago. And the moniker only applies to some Castlevania games anyway.

But that isn’t even getting into the real reason the name needs to change. What does it say about the genre when we’re still naming it after games in it. The reason Doom Clone fell out of style was because as more games came out in that style it became apparent it had evolved beyond merely copying Doom and had come into its own. You can’t really call Call of Duty a Doom clone can you.

But the reason Doom Clone was used was because it was a new genre that hadn’t been properly defined yet. Nobody knew what to call it because it was such a new concept.
“Metroidvania” as a term started the exact same way. But now that we’ve had many more titles in the genre and properly defined what it is, why do we stick to the old name we used because we didn’t know what else to call it. I’d we want the genre to evolve maybe the name needs to evolve with it.

@Jireland92 Stop trying to make fetch happen, it's not going to happen.

@Rect_Pola I have an issue with rogue like too btw. Especially since the vast majority of rogue likes don’t even play like rogue to begin with.

@Jireland92 Search Action sounds lame, almost as lame as trying to turn RPG into Story Action or platformer into Jump Action.

What about the protagonist? The one from Pronty: Fishy Adventure.

@Serpenterror well it is a better description of the genre. Genre names shouldn’t be cool, they should tell you what the game actually is.

@Jireland92 Doom might not be the best example as it was pretty limited and not that much later many other fps games came out, with noticable improvements. The genre followed its own flow. With Metroidvania, games usually tend to follow tropes set by Metroid and Catlevania. On a sidenote, Castlevania SOTN is still very relevant today.

Also "search action" is very vague. MGS, CoD, Spyro the Dragon, Mario, Syberia, Okami, Half Life, etc. all have these both elements so it's pretty useless. There was once a time when "action/adventure" was used a way to describe games that could not be described in any other way. And it told us nothing.

In conclusion, say that a new Metroidvania (which is a super cool description btw) comes out and everyone will have a good idea what it will be. Call it a search action and people will think it's one of those free "item search" games on android.

@ComfyAko but see that’s part of the problem, a lot of modern Metroidvania games aren’t following the same tropes as Metroid or Castlevania. The level design might be similar but the gameplay can be very different. Guacamelee has a heavy emphasis on hand to hand combat with grappling elements, Indivisible has RPG turn based combat, Hollow Knight has Dark Souls elements.

Even the level design isn’t always consistent. Shantae is considered a Metroidvania but it sometimes uses a level to level approach. As to several other games in the genre.

The more games come out in that style the more they drift away from Metroid and Castlevania. So why do we keep defining the genre by those specific games?

Whe we stopped using Doom Clones and used FPS that genre became much more diverse. Now we have different sub genres for that sub genre like Boomer shooter, Looter Shooter, Military shooter and so on.

I agree that Search Action isn’t a perfect term but we need to find a better name to properly define the genre if we want it to grow. I know people like Metroidvania as a name, but we need a better one that better encompasses the genre.

Visually appealing, but I'm really unsure about the underwater aspect. Seems to be basically the same general mechanic as what is seen in The Knight Witch, and that certainly did very well in reviews, but I still haven't gotten TKW because I'm just not sure I'll enjoy a lack of platforming, so I'm not sure I'll ever get this one either.

@Jireland92 But why do we need it? People know what metroidvania is, and it's a marvellous homage to the games that set up the entire genre.

Maybe not everything needs to have a reason or answer

@ComfyAko because when you define a genre by naming it after games within it you then create the precedent that games in the genre must conform to the games the genre is named after. And early on this is fine because when a genre is starting out you’re obviously going to copy those games the genre is named after.

But at some point the genre moves so beyond those games that it does the genre a disservice to name itself after them. It’s why genres usually have nebulous terms so that they can cover a wider variety of games within it.

@Jireland92 I find 'Metroidvania' a dumb term, but so is Search Action. They're action adventure platformers, let's be absolutely real.

@Jireland92 If people want to call it somthing else in the future, so be it. Right now everyone's comfortable with MV

@kkslider5552000 That was exactly the quote I thought of when reading his comment. I'd like to thank, or curse, the fact that my daughter was a teenager when that movie came out.