metaprogression was probably the wrong word in this case, but there was always a constant progression curve in these games. As far as rogue-likes go, there is simply the run and only that.
In Metroidvanias you can go forth and back as you like, rogue-likes lack this, especially the new ones.
You're missing some of what I meant with the genre combination though. Don't forget, this game is NOT just a Metroidvania. It is that AND A ROGUELIKE. This creates entirely new effects that normal Metroidvanias don't have.
Let's look at grinding for instance.
A "pure" metroidvania is ONE run. Always. Just.... one. And the game is complete. As in, ENTIRELY complete.
But a Metroidvania AND A ROGUELIKE doesn't work that way. It's MANY runs. Over and over and over. After a huge number of runs, you can say you've "completed" the game for the first time. Rogue Legacy, for instance, the current reigning champion of this genre combination, does EXACTLY that.... and that's what allows grinding to not only be possible, but a nasty NECESSITY.
When that all is combined with Meta-progression:
It's not that you do grinding in an individual run, killing infinite enemies. That's the normal form of grinding, which actually doesn't exist here. It's that you do what I guess could be called "meta-grinding", a term I invented just now. You are actually grinding ENTIRE RUNS, instead of individual foes, in order to be even capable of progressing further in each individual run. So instead of defeating a string of enemies in order to gain the stats necessary to access Area X, you grind a string of entire runs (ending before Area X, because you're not ready yet) until you ARE ready to enter Area X. Once you have entered that, you again grind ENTIRE RUNS until you can enter Area Y in those runs. Rogue Legacy freaking MASTERED this formula (which is exactly why I hate it so much) and is literally built entirely around it. All roguelikes with permanent progression do this, which is the entire problem with them. I've never, ever seen one that doesn't have this issue. Never.
Now, as for Gentrieve? Oh, I know that to some, you're not going to see the reason to play more than once....
....But that can be said of any "traditional" roguelike. Those never change. Ever. The same enemies, the same items, the same THINGS appear each time. As there is no progression, those things do not change. But.... that's always been the nature of the genre. They're not SUPPOSED to change. Look at Crypt of the Necrodancer, for instance. There are no item unlocks. There are no enemy unlocks. And no stat changes. However, like most roguelikes people will get addicted to it and play entire runs over and over and over and over and over and over, even when they are winning each time and with all items unlocked (if the game in question even has locked items). 20XX does this. Isaac does this. Nuclear Throne does this. Starward as well, and countless others. The point of playing more runs.... is to play more runs. Anyone into the genre enough (as in, the half of it that has no meta stuffs, or ultra-traditional turn-based ASCII sorts also) will know *exactly* what I'm talking about. A run being "different every time" never was intended to mean that individual elements of the game were different each time. It meant that they were organized and combined differently each time due to the base structure of the game being built anew in each run.
I mean, look at something like Spelunky for instance. That's another game that is played absolutely to death.... but it's actually very low on content. There's only a few areas, each area has only a few possible enemies, and there is a very small number of items compared to... damn near everything else. Also, NONE of these things are locked. So, like Gentrieve, Spelunky simply never changes. It simply reorganizes each time. Just like all of those other games I mentioned.
When you say this bit: "When i won, I won, no reason to play the game any further just because the items are now at different regions." this is really missing the point of this type of game (and is one of those things that makes me wonder why in the world you play Starward, which *never* locks anything at all or has progression beyond the "beat the warden 3 times"). Well, missing the point of the non-meta side of the genre. Again, the point of doing more runs is simply to do more runs.
Even non-roguelikes do this. Think back to older games.... much older. Something like Megaman 2, right? Most fans of that game haven't just played through it... they've played through it ALOT, particularly back in the day. It was a game they frequently went back to, just like so many others, like the original Metroid, Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, you name it. With literally zero meta stuffs or unlocks, what was the point when you'd already beaten it? The point was.... to play them again. Simply because they were good. The basic concept of a roguelike is to do exactly that, but restructure everything so that each run is unique in that specific way.
On another note...
4. Isaac has the most boring items ever seen in gaming history, even so, that it copies said items, applies a new icon and name to it and says, it's anew item. 2000 literally say nithing if half of them are duplicates.
As an Isaac fan, I cant ignore this one. But not just because it's Isaac: Also because the concepts I'm going to go into here have to do with basic design for most of the genre.
Isaac's items are, to put it mildly, legendary in the genre. They are perhaps THE reason why there are so many clones; simply being a "roguelike shooter Zelda game" wouldn't be enough. They are a huge part of the reason Starward exists. If you honestly think that Isaac's items are "all the same" (which would then apply to most of the genre, because most of them use a very similar design style).... then it sounds like you've literally never even seen the game being played. Starward? Not even CLOSE to the sheer variety and creativity of the items in Isaac. And note, this is ME saying this, someone who was part of the dev team on that game, so this isn't something I'd ever say lightly. And I don't exactly consider Starward to be uncreative (quite the opposite). In Isaac (and in most of these), the only duplicates in the game are "pure stat" items, as I call them; their entire function is to raise stats for that run (and almost all of these are boss items, which is actually something that Starward also does a lot). There aren't actually that many different "pure stat" items when compared to the "do funky things" items. "Pure stat" items exist in most games of this type. They have to. Without them, many balance aspects would be shattered. There are some games that don't do this, but they often have problems as a result. In those, character power levels are even more bonkers than in Isaac. I don't mean in terms of being overpowered. I mean the opposite: Being underpowered. Your power-level is extremely heavily dependant on currently "special" items, which may or may not actually be any good. But your BASE stats, which most things depend on, wont rise. Without those "boring" stat items, problems like that exist within the game.
Now, this does bring up the question: WHY are there direct duplicates of a given item? Not just in Isaac, but in ANY of these (again, Starward too). For example, a game might have an item that gives you, say, a heart container. And that's all that item does. It might then have another item, with a different sprite and a different name, but it does THE EXACT SAME THING. Or maybe it does the same thing but with a slight variance (for instance, one item in something like Starward gives you +10% attack power but does nothing else, and another item is exactly the same but it's +15% instead of 10.... still a duplicate). People look at items like that and say "that's boring, it's bad design" but they never stop to consider what the actual reason for duplicates is. And it is this: Since stat-raising items are necessary to progress into more difficult sections in a run, this means that the player MUST HAVE A RELIABLE CHANCE OF GETTING THEM. And this all boils down to item pools. The more items are in a given pool, the more diluted it becomes. So, if there's only one "gives you a heart container" item in there, every single other item decreases the chance of you getting that one. If there are 25 items in the item pool, you have a 1 in 25 chance of getting that heart container. If that item pool inflates to 70, now you have a 1-in-70 chance.... muuuuuuch lower, yet the importance of that heart container item has not decreased. So, duplicates are created to keep the balance proper. Even Enter the Gungeon does this.... think about that for a second. This is not a design aspect that can be avoided in games that revolve around items of this type/style.
And anyway, I've found that most players don't seem to actually think pure stat items are boring. I don't just mean in Isaac, I mean in general. It can be very satisfying to gain that +2 attack stat increase in a game like this. Sure, it's not a "craaaazy" effect, it's not some hyper-creative item... but that doesn't make it not fun to get. Simply being wacky all the time isn't what item design in a game like this is about, as I'm sure the Dead Cells devs also realized.
As for "overpowered" single items... Isaac doesn't have as many as people tend to assume when they haven't played it. There are some crazy strong items like Brimstone, but these are pretty rare. Becoming overpowered isn't about single items: It's about knowing what you're doing. Knowing what choices to make when decisions are presented to you. Isaac isn't a game about pure RNG: It's about turning "random chaos" into "ordered power" by making the right choices, and it will present you with ALOT of them. This is why players can get huge win-streaks. We did the very same thing with Starward. In fact, the genre as a whole USUALLY does this. I know some people tend to get this idea that RNG is *everything* in roguelikes, and I can understand how new players might feel that way. But roguelikes seriously aren't like that. They're about strategy, tactics, and decision making. In a roguelike that isn't bloody terrible, the RNG *alone* can never defeat you. You are always given the tools to survive, but it's up to you to A: spot them for what they are, and B: figure out how to use them in the context of that specific run.
Note also that, again, most games in this genre also have singularly overpowered items in it. The sorts that win you runs. It's NOT exclusive to Isaac, and yes, we did it in Starward too.
Also, this:
Oh good lord, I miss the time when rogue-like where not skill based but tactically based, lol. Nowadays its all about reflexes, reflexes, reflexes.
This sounds like you'd be more content with turn-based roguelikes (I could suggest some, if you'd like). In a real-time game, this aspect is inevitable.
However.... that doesn't mean they're not tactical! It doesn't mean they're fully skill-based!
And yes, this one, too, applies to Isaac. Best example: Northernlion. One of the most famous of Isaac players. If you actually watch him play it? He gets hit a lot. He crashes into enemies and bullets all the freaking time, fumbling around the level like a drunken hippo. However.... he gets win-streaks of 100+. WITHOUT relying on singularly overpowered items. How does he do this? By tactics and strategy. Again, Isaac... and other games like Starward and whatever, or even turn-based roguelikes.... are not about RNG. They're about you making decisions to max out the potential of the hand you are dealt. Northernlion knows that game inside and out. It doesn't matter what the game hands him: He will find a way to use the different tools the game provides to create a winning run through sheer knowledge. CobaltStreak is an even better example of this: His entire gimmick is "breaking roguelikes". He's the grandmaster of the art of min-maxing. By that alone... he is able to win even more than NorthenLion.
Honestly, this is where you've misjudged not just Isaac, but this type of game ENTIRELY. Not everyone uses masterful skill to beat these. Because most players don't HAVE masterful skill. A good developer knows this, when it comes to roguelikes.
Hell, if you were to watch me play Isaac, I crash into stuff all the time. Not as much as NL, but I still do it. Which may sound very strange for me, but that's how it goes in that very specific game. I'm extremely aggressive, extremely impatient when it comes to combat. And it's harder to dodge in that game than compared to a bullet-hell game as Isaac (and most of these) lacks the shrunken hitboxes that I'm used to. However.... I'll win anyway. Because my actual playstyle in Isaac is NOT about pure skill. I'm a total min-maxer. Always have been. I'll do damn near anything to get even the tiniest advantage whenever the opportunity presents itself. Hell, you should see just how much backtracking I do, in order to complete whatever my current mad-scientist scheme is. I come up with seriously quirky, complicated-as-hell strategies to gain power boosts in each level, to combine items to create powerful effects. The game will sometimes hand me all sorts of seemingly "weak" items. But I'll look at them, look at things around the level, and go "Aha! If I do THIS and THIS, and then use THIS, I can use these weak items in a way that will make them strong!". Again, my entire playstyle is based around doing this. Not just dodging everything always.
If these games were as you say they are.... about JUST skill and NOT tactics and strategy.... or all about stat-increasing items and nothing else (as you say Isaac is) my playstyle, and NL's, would be utterly impossible. They would be unviable. Neither he nor I would be capable of winning reliably. It just wouldn't work. Yet he does it, and he does it reliably, as do I. My strength (and his) comes from the fact that I know that the RNG doesn't control the run. *I* control the run... but only if I figure out how to use what the game offers me in that specific run.
Now, there are games that are exceptions to this of course. 20XX for instance, isn't whatsoever about min-maxing. You don't get to make all that many decisions in that one; decisions are mostly about "what's in the shop this time" and that's it, in that game. As opposed to the way Isaac/Starward/Gungeon/whatever does it, which is to give you potential decisions and opportunities every 2 seconds or so. Of course, 20XX is basically "Megaman: The roguelike". It's expected that it's about skill, so it is. But yeah, MOST of this genre is NOT purely skill based. Were I in a position to do so, I could sit you down and simply SHOW you what I mean (which is often what I do when describing things like this to friends in my area). I'm not too good at explaining stuff like this so I often wonder if I'm either getting the point across, or just confusing things more.
Again, I push forward the idea that you've *completely* misjudged what Isaac... and most of these... are actually about. And again question why in the bloody hell you play Starward ever. By everything you've said here, logically, you should hate that game.
And remember: I'm not just saying this stuff by pulling it out of my nose. I'm saying all of this from not just gameplay experience (as in, hundreds of hours in many of these, and 400+ in Isaac alone), I'm also saying this after having had real design experience where I'm expected to handle the balance of difficulty in multiple modes. Not exactly speaking from a position of ignorance here.
Aaaaaaaaaaaanyway. If you're wondering why I'm still rambling about all this: I just find discussion about this genre to be bloody fascinating, seriously. It's rare that I get to discuss it with anyone at all, actually. Most of my friends couldn't give less of a crap. They're all too busy playing the latest AAA shooter. So this has been a good discussion so far.
Now, as for Dead Cells.... you know, the whole debate I had with Wingflier about Enter the Gungeon has suddenly occurred to me. I ended up giving that game a second and longer chance after his repeated suggestions that I do so, aaaaand.... it clicked with me.
I've decided to give Dead Cells a go for a similar reason. It occurs to me that some of the things I've heard about the game... even if I've heard of them from more than one source.... may not be correct. Don't get me wrong: All of my current points on the topic of meta-progression overall still stand. But.... it may be that they don't even APPLY to this game. Based on what you are saying, I should simply experiment for myself and find out. I'd hate to miss out on something good because I got backwards info about the game. Which is pretty much what almost happened with Gungeon. And also happened with Baroque, which I consider to be the single greatest of all of these that I've ever played (even more than Isaac). I almost didn't even touch that game, because I thought it was going to be horrid. Someone I knew just kept repeating to me (for like a month) "NO DAMMIT, I'M TELLING YOU, GO TRY IT, YOU'LL LOVE IT". So I did, and boy was I glad for it. I almost missed out on that game (which I have probably 800+ hours in).
So..... yeah. Why the hell not? It's not like the blasted money or time is an issue, and I have the curiosity of a cat anyway, so now I freaking MUST do it or it'll just bug me. I'll go buy it now and we'll see what happens.
Again though, all the discussion of.... all that stuff still is there, even if it ends up not applying to this very specific game. Provided that's actually the case, it may be that I play it and find out that the info wasn't backwards and the issues are indeed there as they are in Rogue Legacy. Dunno yet.
Also, yes, Metroid Prime is a "Metroidvania" game, since you mentioned that at the very start. It's just in first person instead of being a sidescroller.... ALL of the other aspects of a Metroidvania game are there though. I personally didn't actually like it much myself, but that.... well, that's a topic for another day.
