Metroid / Vampire Killer / Milon's Secret Castle retrospective: Namesake | Metroidvania Works #009

Finally! The Metroidvania Works series arrives at the games that lent the genre its name... or at least early entries in those games' franchises. Metroid brings us the first real taste of the exploratory action platformer, with a complex world that players unlock and explore by upgrading their hero(ine). Meanwhile, Vampire Killer on MSX adapts the NES classic Castlevania to a PC-style framework with (temporary) item collection and intra-stage exploration. And finally, Milon's Secret Castle applies the "search everywhere for invisible items" philosophy of mid ’80s action games to a contiguous, freely traveled world containing multiple self-contained stages. None of these are quite metroidvania games yet... but we're getting there. Video Works is funded through Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! And be sure to check out the Retronauts podcast (http://www.retronauts.com), where I (and many others!) tackle a much wider array of classic gaming topics each week.