Xeodrifter: an excellent, affordable Metroidvania

This Metroidvania is minimal in every way, but manages to deliver a great gameplay experience by focussing on the essentials.

The ‘overworld’ screen allows travel between the four settings, although the order in which you’ll do everything is relatively fixed.

I have a confession. I’ve never played a Metroid game. I know, I know: hand in my gaming card, how can I even pretend to have any credibility when it comes to reviewing video games, right? And it gets worse: even though I’ve played one or two entries in the Castlevania series, I haven’t even played Symphony of the Night, the one that lent its suffix to the Metroidvania genre that I’ve become so fond of.

It’s a cross I’ll just have to bear for now — at least until I can be bothered to play them on NSO. For now, though, I’m thinking Xeodrifter is a pretty decent substitute, at least for the original Metroid.

This snail is one of a handful of regular, trickier enemies.

Xeodrifter is ultra-minimal yet, if my understanding of Metroid is even slightly accurate (gained as it was from a quick few minutes scanning a gameplay video), still manages to improve on the old 8-bit games it pays homage to in some key respects.