I define "Zelda-like" in an entirely different way; I use it to refer to games with overhead view gameplay, separated into rooms, and with action combat that takes place on the main screen. Typically, each area would be split into one-screen rooms. Examples of this would include The Guardian Legend (excluding the shmup sequences), The Magic of Scheherezade (excluding the random RPG-style battles), Final Fantasy Adventure, and The Binding of Issac.

Also, note that Zelda 1 is not linear, yet it's clearly a Zelda-like under my definition.

Worth noting that the 3D Zeldas do not fit this Zelda-like definition; all the 2D ones except Zelda 2 do, however. (Zelda 2 is a sidescroller, albeit with an overhead-view overworld that isn't partitioned into rooms.)

By the way, and going back to the main topicI would consider Rogue Legacy to be a metroidvania.

Until you get into randomizers, where you may need an item in dungeon A to reach dungeon B, and dungeon B contains an item needed to complete dungeon A.

To me, the main thing that distinguishes a game like Zelda from one like Metroid is the perspective; overhead for Zelda and side-acrolling for Metroid.

Edit: Or speedruns, particularly glitch categories. Sometimes the route involves getting the item from a dungeon, then leaving to do other things, then coming back later. (For example, in Link's Awakening, there is a ghost that starts following you after you clear a certain dungeon, and while it's following you you can't enter any other dungeons. If you delay clearing that dungeon until the end, you can avoid the ghost and the corresponding quest entirely.

Done! Starmaker recommended it too, but for some reason I forgot to add it before.

Done. We're just adding all 2D-Sidescrolling games to the recommendations list at this point. lol

...and Batman. xD

Sombody already said Gato Roboto?

Seconded, very fun although super short.

Imma save this thread for others later.

Really nice artstyle!!! Added. :)

yep good games :P
not for me , for me it is ugly and lame

I don't think rogue-lites should be in the same list as the others, since the world keeps changing unless you're very lucky/super skilled and can do them in one go. This removes getting to know a persistent world, a major part of MVs.

Randomizers are unofficial and it's not the same when it's not part of the design and leads to backtracking in an artificial way like that. In a MV you tend to have a repeated loopback structure where you backtrack with a new movement ability or a newfound shortcut as part of the progression, changing the gameplay and/or layout during the backtracking.

Again the MV reddit community as a whole considers the structural differences more important, but not everyone agrees of course.

Perspective can make a big difference but it doesn't necessarily change the main genre like structural differences I think. Link's Awakening and some others also have platforming so they get even closer to mv/platform adventure games, however there's just a few cases of even optional backtracking into dungeons for chests in the series. In that latter sense, I guess Monster Boy is closer to a MV in having some of that as well as backtracking through one or two dungeon areas to get to other ones.

I'm interested in playing some more recent top down AA games to see if there are proper MVs in that perspective.

Bloodstained's randomizer *is* official, however. In the vanilla game, no mods applied, you can go into the menu that's called something like "extra modes", and one of the options, along with the Speedrun and Classic modes, is the Randomizer.

Also, I've seen the shortcut mechanic in games of other genres. Etrian Odyssey and Stranger of Sword City do this, for example.
I'd argue that, for action games, overhead and side scrolling are different genres, and the platforming sections of Link's Awakening represent a genre change. In a way, it's not that different from the genre changes in The Guardian Legend and The Magic of Scheherezade (though the importance of the other genre varies, and tMoS's genre change is perhaps more drastic, particularly since your moveset changes drastically between the genres in that game).

(Note that I would argue that Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time are not in the same genre as their predecessors; with that said, I note that the change was more drastic for Mario than it was for Zelda.)

On the other hand, for turn-based menu-based RPGs, perspective doesn't really matter, because you're not concerned with movement during battle. (If you are concerned with movement, it's an SRPG, which is its own thing, but even then Fire Emblem (overhead) and Final Fantasy Tactics (isometric with rotatable camera) are in the same genre.)

I agree. Maybe I may edit the list to separate it in sub categories, so people can opine which game fit which category listed in the first line. (ClassicVania, MetroidVania, 2D Action Plataformer, etc)

Defining a genre so wide can be difficult and generate good discussions, still there are technical/structural similarities as you pointed out.

For example, a Rogue-Like may have Metroidvania mechanics, but this doesn't make it a Metroidvania and vice-versa.

Does Unworthy fit in this list?

I guess yes.
But I gotta admit I'm curious to understand how a Metroidvania exploration would work without jumping. :o

"A Hardcore Metroidvania...
UNWORTHY is a hardcore combat-focused metroidvania without jumping. You play a warrior... (...)"

Genre defining is *hard*. If it were easy, there wouldn't be hard to classify things, and there wouldn't be any debate about the genre of certain games.

(Biologists have run into similar difficulties with the classification of organisms; originally, every organism was a plant or animal, but that categorization doesn't work when considering bacteria and organisms like the euglena.)

Yeah agreed. Some just abandoned the search for defining genres and just treat each game as it's own world.
But since it's a "genre titled" thread we may define some common structural rules based on the game that started it all. Metroid. (Free form exploration, side scrolling 2D plataformer, item-based progression, etc.)

But² then I understand your discussion about Zelda-like 2D games, as they too have one major caracteristic of Metroidvanias: Item-Based Progression and exploration, even if limited. It's hard indeed. :)