Note: This review may contain spoilers.
If you ever wondered why the genre was called Metroidvania, look no further. Neither of these games are the first in their respective series, but both would become the icons from which all subsequent entries would be compared to, not to speak of the genre at large. Super Metroid in particular casts such a shadow on the entire genre and Nintendo in general that it has entered the upper echelon of the gaming canon. The genre reached most of its defining characteristics with these two games, with Super Metroid setting the standard for "show don't tell" in teaching game mechanics and mechanics as exploration keys, and Symphony of the Night integrating Action-RPG mechanics and tight combat that, if you were me, should give you distinct Dark Souls vibes. It is important to note that these games were released in separate console generations, but most of their comparisons and differences are generational independent. Their attempts toward the genre take different philosophies of fun and challenge, which is interesting to recognize given their relationship to one another. Despite being the cornerstones and the namesake of an entire genre, there is a lot that differentiates these two games.
Both games are incredibly strong in what is often considered one of the primary tenants of the genre: exploration. Metroidvania games can be described as sidescrolling exploration games, where areas are blocked off by requiring powerups in order to reach them. This relationship between exploration and powerup collection is the loop that Metroidvanias are built upon. Tall ledges requiring double jump, or closely paralleled walls for wall jumping usually populate every game in the genre, from these games to the more recent Hollow Knight. However, while Super Metroid is entirely dependent on this relationship, Symphony of the Night uses it sparingly. From the outset, most of the castle in Castlevania is explorable. Powerup based exploration is often relegated to nooks and crannies hiding gear or minor health and heart upgrades (which are, counter intuitively, different things), things which can sincerely help you in your run through the final stretches of the game, but otherwise can feel a bit of a let down. One of the most bizzarre aspects of Castlevania is in how much of the collectibles are either incredibly minor, unnecessary, or strange. Super Metroid felt methodical in its secrets and powerup distribution, having only as much as it needed and paced out in a very consistent way. Finding a secret wall to bomb in Metroid either led to you upgrading your energy or missiles, or otherwise gave you some kind of powerup that would significantly change the game, such as the x-ray power. In Castlevania, you can often find yourself finding powerups (called "relics" here) without having a clue how it could ever come in handy. Several of these relics can have some secret uses later on for the experimental (such as the Soul of a Wolf, that lets you change into a short, low-damage and slow wolf which grants some access to some secret I never managed to find), but for the average player these are going to be unnecessary. Castlevania's philosophy to much of its loot is "here is something strange, play around with it", and it can be incredibly fun. Experimenting with different combinations of stuff could yield interesting and bizarre results (pro tip: towards the end of the game, equip the Alucard shield and the shield rod, attack twice with the shield rod quickly and watch what happens -- but it may make the game far too easy), making exploration rewarding in a somewhat odd way. Likewise, spells can be bought from the store but technically their moveset required to cast them (often some combo-type sequence of D-pad inputs and the attack button, much like a fighting game) can be accessed immediately so long as you know the inputs required to cast them. It's an interesting mechanic to have moves that the game gates information on, but rewards those replaying the game. Super Metroid does something similar with its wall jumps, which are always accessible to the player but somewhat difficult to pull off, and are taught to the player roughly mid-way through the game by watching some docile creatures repeatedly pull them off. Knowing this moveset can allow you to sequence break the game on subsequent playthroughs. Super Metroid's sense of exploration is much more direct, always coding certain locked areas to power ups found later. Backtracking becomes something fun as you slowly find how Super Metroid's surprisingly intricate and large maps interconnect with one another as you gain more and more powerups. Every new area opened up is also another opportunity to find more powerups. Since powerups in Metroid are tied to exploration (and thus platforming), exploration also makes platforming and movement more fun. Double jump, high jump, boost-run, ball form, and ball bomb are all powerups that allow for you to find more secrets, add more options for combat, and generally expand your verbiage and therefore engagement with the game.
Combat feels incredibly different between the two games, and is the notable dimension where Castlevania has the upper hand on Metroid. Metroid has more than serviceable combat, allowing you several missiles or charge shots and shooting to take out enemies as you platform your way around the eerie alien world, but it often feels at odds with the controls. Switching between weapons requires hitting the SELECT button, which is incredibly awkward for split-second decision making during combat. Not only this, but weapons are cycled through, which means if you want the first weapon but you are on the second, you could have to cycle through around five other weapons before selecting the one you want. Castlevania's combat is one of the ways in which it reminds me of Dark Souls. The game feels built around your ability to engage enemies, down to making most exploration rewarding in combat directly through weapons and armor finds rather than with further exploration. You have a dodge back button mapped to triangle that allows you to duck away from enemy swings. There are weapons with different damage outputs but also different attack speeds, requiring experimentation to truly discover the contextual use of everything. All of this feeds back into the combat loop. One of the best feelings throughout Castlevania is when you discover a new boss, of which it has many. There are some 32 bosses in Castlevania (for comparison, Dark Souls has 22), and they only get wonderfully more strange as you go (looking at you, floating ball of corpses). Bosses provide the greatest reward for tightening up your combat skills, and act as locks to different wings of the castle.
As great and fun as Castlevania's combat is, the true masterclass of not only the genre, but of game design, comes from Super Metroid. Super Metroid is incredibly designed to put you in a position to learn its mechanics yourself. This is evident early on in the game, where you are dropped down a pit you cannot get out of. The pit is relatively small, and there is a very shortlist of verbs you can try to get out of it, one of which is wall jumping which you haven't learned how to do yet (but benefits you on a second run -- another great facet of its design). The verb the game wants you to do is drop a bomb on the ground. There is no indication that the ground is breakable, yet it breaks away and opens you up to the new area, teaching you a new exploration technique that you will use for the rest of the game. After every single new power up acquired through the game, Metroid will do this, trapping you in an area that requires a complete understanding of the power up in order to get out of. When receiving the space jump, which allows for higher jumps, you'll immediately think that now you can jump up that long fall you took to get to the power up. What you'll find, however, is that the ledge is just out of reach. In order to reach it, you must double jump, one of the less obvious space jump mechanics. Rarely is anything ever spelled out for you in the game, and when it does so it is by showing docile creatures enacting the mechanics of the power up, and to my memory only happens twice and with particularly obtuse mechanics.
If Super Metroid set the groundwork for tutorializing and power ups as keys to exploration, Castlevania did the same for the genre's combat and opened the door for RPG elements. While different games of the genre take different pieces from these games, the best of them take from both (Hollow Knight being a prime example of exploration, power ups, and tight combat with lots of boss battles). Rare is it that a game creates a genre, and even rarer for two games simultaneously to create and influence one's creation. Both games hold up incredibly well today, with little to no calibration needed for your modern gaming brain to 90s gaming brain in order to play. Not only that, but both games are easily accessible now, with Castlevania Symphony of the Night being on PS4 and Super Metroid available on the Switch's SNES app. So your excuses for not experiencing two classics are next to nil at this point, and I couldn't recommend them more.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
9.5
Super Metroid
10
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