Metroidvania

I became Dracula: How Metroidvanias helped me self-isolate

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Metroidvanias are some of the most notoriously difficult, directionless games in existence, but for Jesse Dekel, they were a rock during a rough time at sea. The very first Game Boy Advance I destroyed was one of those clear-blue ones. I smacked my 8-year-old head into the thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display screen with the force of … Read more

How video game Dandara uses capoeira to tell the story of Brazil’s beginnings

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Tof Eklund goes deep on the historical context and significance of Dandara, a newly released Metroidvania-style game about the famous-in-Brazil folk hero. I was certain, from the first screenshot I saw of Dandara, that there were layers to the world and narrative of Brazilian studio Long Hat House’s jump-warping Metroidvania. Reviewers seemed not to care, noting that … Read more