metroidvania

Ever since Gravity Rush 2 came out eight years ago (let’s not focus too hard on how much time that actually is for my mental health), I have, unfortunately, not been able to stop thinking about it. It is a game with a world full of whimsy, video game ass mechanics, and, most interestingly of all, a plot that quite directly deals with topics like class. What more can you want! And yet a sequel has never materialised. Lucky for me, just yesterday a new gravity shifting game entered the scene: Metro Gravity.

Now, Metro Gravity isn’t just a clone of Gravity Rush. Where the PlayStation game lets you control gravity at will, Metro Gravity lets you walk on almost any surface, with the option to lock in the gravity of wherever you’re standing. There are abilities that let you shift gravity in particular directions, but what is essentially the power of flight isn’t available to you in Metro Gravity (at least, in as much of the game as I have played).

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There are more twists beyond that too. Its action combat is rhythm-game adjacent in that enemies will attack you to the beat of whatever track is playing at any given moment (these vary from place to place, more on that in a second). A short while into the game you’ll pick up the ability to parry a la Sekiro, and with that in hand the combat becomes an artful balance of dodging, blocking, and attacking at just the right moments. It’s oh so delicious, if it’s your kind of thing anyway.

The final spin, and perhaps the biggest, is that it’s a metroidvania. Most metroidvanias typically take the route of the second dimension rather than the third, and with the fact that Metro Gravity lets you walk on any wall, you might rightly have a fear that it becomes confusing to navigate. I haven’t found that yet myself, as while it took me a moment to adjust in terms of my spatial reasoning, when you find a map of a particular area – these range in aesthetics and vibes, and consequently music, and thusly an array of music to time your attacks to – it becomes fairly simple to figure out where to go.

I quite like what I’ve played of Metro Gravity, I often think about how there aren’t enough 3D metroidvanias in the world, and I feel quite excited to jump back into this one! The game just launched on Steam yesterday, and you can check it out here.

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