dtgreene: Metroidvanias I think may have reached a peak in the GBA/DS era, with all the Castlevania games coming out then. With that said, there were a few interesting ones back in the NES era, like Zelda 2, Castlevania 2 (but not the other NES Castlevanias), and Battle of Olympus. There's also a modern resurgence of this genre, with games like Guacamelee and Hollow Knight appearing.
ResidentLeever: Cool, so what do you prefer about those compared to SotN? The soul system?
The fact that there's more than one of them in that era.
Can you name any metroidvanias released around the time of Castlevania: SotN that aren't Castlevania: SotN?
(SotN has other issues, like random stat gains at level ups, poor game balance, and an inverted difficulty curve.)
Speaking of another genre I've talked about, WRPGs also had an interesting era when the games started getting less linear, but before real-time became the standard. Examples of games like this include Wasteland, Dragon Wars, early Might and Magic, and Ultima 4-6. I could even consider putting the original Dragon Quest into this group, albeit somewhat tentatively.
