There are certain games that, no matter how much time passes or how impressive the latest technological marvels become, I find myself returning to again and again. Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night sit at the very top of that list. In my opinion, they’re not just two of the greatest games ever made—they represent a fundamental shift in how we think about video game design itself. These aren’t games you simply play through; they’re worlds you inhabit, mysteries you unravel, and experiences that reveal new secrets with each return visit.

But here’s the fascinating thing: these masterpieces didn’t emerge from nowhere. They were the culmination of years of experimentation, false starts, and bold risks taken by developers who dared to ask a simple question: what if video games didn’t have to be linear?

The Tyranny of Left-to-Right

To understand the revolution, we first need to understand what came before. Early video games, constrained by technical limitations and influenced by the arcade model, followed a pretty straightforward formula: you start on the left side of the screen, you move to the right, you reach the end of the level, you do it again. Super Mario Bros., Contra, Mega Man—these were phenomenal games, but they operated under a very specific design philosophy. You moved forward, you conquered challenges in a predetermined sequence, and when you finished, you were done.

This wasn’t a flaw—it was simply how games worked. The hardware of the NES and other early consoles made complex, interconnected worlds technically challenging. More importantly, the arcade DNA of early console gaming demanded discrete, repeatable challenges. Games needed clear beginnings, middles, and ends. The very concept of “replaying” a game often meant starting from scratch and trying to do it better or faster.

But even in those early days, a few games were quietly experimenting with something different.

The Early Experimenters

Adventure for the Atari 2600, released way back in 1980, was one of the first games to present a connected world rather than isolated screens. It was primitive—laughably so by today’s standards—but philosophically, it planted a seed. You could move between rooms freely, backtrack to previous areas, and use items to unlock new paths. The world existed as a cohesive whole, not a series of discrete challenges.

Pitfall II: Lost Caverns in 1984 took this concept further, creating a vertically layered world that encouraged exploration and route planning. Instead of simply running left to right, players had to think spatially about the entire game world. These weren’t just levels—they were places.

Then came 1986, and everything changed.

The Original Metroid: Breaking Convention

When Nintendo’s R&D1 division released Metroid for the NES, they were deliberately trying to create something that blended the platform jumping of Super Mario Bros. with the non-linear exploration of The Legend of Zelda. But they did something even more radical: they made going left as important as going right.

This might not sound revolutionary, but it was. Metroid didn’t just allow backtracking—it required it. The entire design philosophy centered on giving players upgrades that would recontextualize areas they’d already explored. Found the Morph Ball? Suddenly those tiny tunnels you passed earlier become accessible pathways. Got the Ice Beam? Those enemies you’ve been avoiding can now serve as platforms.

The game rarely told you where to go. There were no quest markers, no helpful NPCs pointing the way. Progress was knowledge-based as much as item-based. You had to pay attention, remember layouts, and experiment. The planet Zebes was a mystery to be solved, not a theme park ride to be experienced.

And then there was the ending—the reveal that the armored space warrior you’d been controlling was a woman. Samus Aran became one of gaming’s first prominent female protagonists, and the surprise worked precisely because the game had spent hours establishing her as a capable, powerful explorer without ever making gender an issue.

Simon’s Quest and the RPG Influence

That same year, Konami was conducting its own experiment. Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, released in 1987, took the linear, stage-by-stage progression of the original Castlevania and threw it out entirely. Instead, designer Hitoshi Akamatsu created an open world with towns, NPCs, purchasable items, and an experience system. You could tackle objectives in various orders, explore freely, and gradually power up your character.

It was ambitious—perhaps too ambitious for its time. The game’s cryptic clues (made even more confusing by a rough English localization) and day-night cycle frustrated many players. The Japanese version featured NPCs who would deliberately lie to you, a detail that was somewhat lost in translation, leading to the infamous “hit Deborah Cliff with your head to make a hole” hint that helped exactly no one.

Despite its flaws, Simon’s Quest was enormously influential. It introduced adventure and RPG elements to an action series, proving that you could blend genres successfully. Koji Igarashi, who would later helm Symphony of the Night, specifically cited the critical reaction to Simon’s Quest as ammunition he used to pitch his revolutionary Castlevania game to Konami. The experiment had failed, but it had failed interestingly—and that’s sometimes more valuable than safe success.

The Game Boy Experiments

Metroid II: Return of Samus, released for the Game Boy in 1991, continued refining the formula. While it’s often overlooked in the series’ legacy (perhaps unfairly), it introduced several elements that would become franchise staples: the Space Jump, the Spazer Beam, the Spider Ball, and Samus’s iconic round-shouldered Varia Suit.

More importantly, it introduced a sense of narrative purpose to the exploration. You weren’t just wandering—you were hunting. The game gave you a Metroid counter showing how many remained in each area, and when you eliminated them all, the planet’s lava would recede, opening new areas. It was a brilliant way to gate progress while maintaining a sense of organic world design.

The game’s ending, where Samus spares a Metroid hatchling that imprints on her as its mother, was surprisingly emotional for a Game Boy title. Director Yoshio Sakamoto later said he was “very moved” by this moment—moved enough that it directly inspired his next project.

Super Metroid: The Perfected Formula

Released in 1994 for the Super Nintendo, Super Metroid took everything the series had been building toward and executed it flawlessly. This is the game that, for my money, stands as one of the greatest achievements in video game design, period.

The world of Zebes is a masterclass in environmental storytelling. You’re never explicitly told where to go, but the design guides you through subtle visual cues, enemy placement, and the brilliant automap system that gradually fills in as you explore. Each area has its own distinct atmosphere—the oppressive heat of Norfair, the aquatic eeriness of Maridia, the alien vegetation of Brinstar.

What makes Super Metroid special isn’t just its world design, though. It’s how the game respects your intelligence. Sequence breaking—finding ways to access areas or items earlier than intended—isn’t just possible, it’s quietly encouraged. Speed runners have found ways to complete the game in under an hour by exploiting the game’s physics and clever routing, but even casual players stumble into alternate paths and creative solutions.

The addition of RPG elements—health increases, weapon variety, optional upgrades—made the game more accessible without dumbing it down. You could make the experience easier or harder based on which items you found and which you skipped. The Morph Ball bombs, the Grappling Beam, the various suits and beams—each one wasn’t just a power-up but a key that unlocked new dimensions of exploration.

The Market Context: Why 2D Became “Obsolete”

Here’s where the story takes an ironic turn. Super Metroid, despite its brilliance, sold modestly. By 1994, the gaming industry was in the midst of a seismic shift. The Sony PlayStation launched in Japan that December, and the writing was on the wall: 3D polygonal graphics were the future.

The numbers tell the story. By 1997-98, the global game industry was generating roughly $30 billion in revenue annually. The PlayStation was demolishing the competition, eventually capturing about 69% of the fifth-generation console market compared to the Nintendo 64’s 22%. More importantly, 3D wasn’t just a technological advancement—it was a marketing phenomenon. Games like Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Final Fantasy VII were selling systems and defining what “next-gen” meant to consumers.

This created a paradox: 2D games were increasingly seen as “old technology,” even when they were artistically and mechanically superior to many early 3D titles. Publishers chased the new frontier, investors wanted to fund cinematic 3D experiences, and 2D exploration design largely disappeared from the AAA space. The PlayStation’s CD format meant cheaper production costs and massive libraries, but most of that experimentation went toward 3D genres. First-person shooters on consoles, 3D platformers, cinematic RPGs—these were the new frontiers.

For a while, it seemed like games like Super Metroid represented an evolutionary dead end. Beautiful, yes. Sophisticated, absolutely. But obsolete.

Symphony of the Night: The Unexpected Masterpiece

And then, in 1997, Konami released Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the PlayStation—and everything old became new again.

The game was originally conceived as “something of a side story for the series,” which gave the team freedom to break conventions. Koji Igarashi, serving as assistant director (he took over when director Toru Hagihara was promoted mid-development), had been instrumental in the game’s design, influenced heavily by the critical response to Simon’s Quest. He wanted to create an action game that people could enjoy for a long time, moving away from the brief, linear Castlevania titles that quickly ended up in bargain bins.

The result was stunning. Symphony of the Night took Super Metroid‘s blueprint and layered on deep RPG mechanics, gorgeous 2D artwork by Ayami Kojima (her debut in the game industry), and an absolutely massive castle to explore. You played as Dracula’s son Alucard, collecting weapons, armor, spells, and familiars as you explored Dracula’s castle—and then, halfway through, the castle inverted, doubling the game’s size and revealing entirely new challenges.

The game was a love letter to 2D design in an era that had supposedly moved beyond it. Reviewers praised its atmosphere, its gameplay innovations, and its sheer scale. Computer and Video Games wrote, “This may be old-school style, but it feels like the freshest thing of the year.” GameSpot called it “easily one of the best games ever released and a true testament to the fact that 2D gaming is not dead by any stretch of the imagination.”

But here’s the kicker: Symphony of the Night was initially a commercial disappointment, particularly in the United States where it received minimal marketing. Konami had essentially given up on it as a prospect. Thanks to critical acclaim and word-of-mouth, it gradually became a sleeper hit, eventually selling over 700,000 copies in the U.S. and Japan combined—but that success came slowly, over years.

Both Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night had proven that 2D exploration design wasn’t obsolete—it was just waiting for the right moment to be rediscovered.

The Birth of “Metroidvania”

Somewhere in the late 1990s and early 2000s, gaming journalists and fans started using a new term to describe this specific type of game: Metroidvania. It was a portmanteau of the two series that had defined the genre, and it stuck because it perfectly captured what made these games special.

But what exactly makes a Metroidvania? Tom Happ, developer of Axiom Verge, offered a clean definition: side-scrolling adventures with continuous maps (rather than discrete levels) that require players to collect items and backtrack. But there’s more to it than that. Metroidvanias are about spatial reasoning, about building a mental map of an interconnected world. They’re about the joy of discovery—finding a path you missed before, recognizing that a new ability opens up an old area, feeling the satisfaction of gradually unlocking a mysterious space.

They’re also about atmosphere and solitude. Unlike many modern games that fill every moment with dialogue and objectives, Metroidvanias often leave you alone with your thoughts, exploring strange worlds with minimal guidance. The loneliness is intentional—it makes discovery feel more personal and meaningful.

The Indie Renaissance

For years after Symphony of the Night, the Metroidvania design philosophy went largely dormant in the AAA space. Nintendo didn’t release another Metroid game for eight years after Super Metroid. The Castlevania series moved in different directions, with 3D experiments that met with mixed results. The formula seemed to have been perfected and then abandoned.

But then something unexpected happened: indie developers rediscovered it.

Cave Story in 2004, Shadow Complex in 2009, Axiom Verge in 2015, Ori and the Blind Forest in 2015, Hollow Knight in 2017—suddenly, the Metroidvania wasn’t just back, it was everywhere. Indie developers, freed from the pressure to chase AAA trends and equipped with accessible game engines, realized that the formula still worked brilliantly. In many ways, it worked better than ever, because modern tools allowed for even more intricate world design and mechanics.

These games weren’t just copying Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night—they were building on them, adding their own innovations and artistic visions. Hollow Knight introduced challenging combat and a dark fairy tale aesthetic. Ori emphasized fluid movement and emotional storytelling. Axiom Verge leaned into glitchy, reality-bending mechanics. Each found new ways to explore what exploration itself could mean.

The genre had become prestigious again. When Metroid Dread finally arrived in 2021—19 years after Metroid Fusion—it became the best-selling Metroid game ever, moving over 2.9 million copies. Players hadn’t forgotten what made these games special. They’d been waiting.

Why It Matters

So what is it about the Metroidvania formula that’s proven so enduring? I think it comes down to something fundamental about how we experience digital spaces.

Most games are about mastering a set of mechanics and applying them to increasingly difficult challenges. Metroidvanias are about something different: they’re about understanding. As you play, you’re not just getting better at executing moves—you’re building a comprehensive mental model of an entire world. You’re learning its rules, its shortcuts, its secrets. The world isn’t a series of obstacle courses; it’s a place with internal logic and hidden depths.

There’s also something deeply satisfying about the loop of exploration, discovery, and return. Finding a mysterious locked door early in the game plants a question in your mind. Hours later, when you finally get the key and make the journey back, the payoff isn’t just a new area—it’s the satisfaction of completing a narrative arc you’d been carrying with you. The game rewards your memory and your spatial reasoning in ways that linear games simply can’t.

And perhaps most importantly, Metroidvanias respect player agency. They give you a world and trust you to figure it out. They don’t hold your hand or fill your screen with waypoints. Getting lost isn’t a bug—it’s a feature, because finding your way is part of the experience.

The Legacy Continues

Metroid has become more than just a series—it’s given its name to a genre that’s become one of gaming’s most enduring design philosophies. Along with Dark Souls (which spawned “Soulslike”) and Rogue (which gave us “Roguelike”), Metroid is one of the rare game series that became a blueprint others would follow for decades.

The shift from linear levels to Metroidvania wasn’t just a change in game design—it was a maturation of the medium itself. It represented games growing confident enough to let players set their own pace, trust their own instincts, and find their own path. In an industry that often seems obsessed with directing every moment of the player experience, the Metroidvania stands as a reminder that sometimes the best thing a game can do is step back and let you explore.

I keep returning to Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night not out of nostalgia (though that’s certainly part of it), but because they represent something timeless. They’re games that understood that exploration itself—the act of discovering and understanding a mysterious world—could be the entire point. They proved that you didn’t need cutting-edge graphics or cinematic cutscenes to create unforgettable experiences. You just needed a well-designed world and the courage to trust your players to find their way through it.

And decades later, that formula still works. It still surprises us. It still rewards us for paying attention, for remembering, for exploring every corner of the map.

That’s not just good game design. That’s magic.