Thank you very much for the explanation, folks! I've always wondered about that word, I'm glad I got to learn more about it :)

Sure, well platform adventure or sidescrolling action adventure covers them all while metroidvania covers metroid- and sotn-likes.

The distinguishing elements would be loneliness, sci fi horror and having one big location for a metroid style game, and you can use metroid-like to specify.

You can use SotN-like to specify for the other. SotN is more like those other games I mentioned but there's also just the one location and the medieval horror/halloween theme, although the former was changed in some later games to a diablo-like structure.

I haven't seen a game where if I needed to specify I would go to metroidvania but I guess there are a few.

Unless you've played some unreleased N64 Metroid game, that isn't true. But I understand your point, there are some people who have only played the Metroid Prime games, although most enthusiasts of metroidvanias wouldn't count the Prime games as true metroidvanias simply because they're 3D and first person.

I was referring to the Prime games (so yes, same franchise but not series) but I think Other M also had some 3D in it?

Well, if it has to be side view 2D I think that speaks to the strictness of it as a genre term that is useful in some cases but not in most.

Other M was a weird mix of sidescrolling (but not limited to one plane) and occasional first person. It was 3D both in the polygonal-engine sense and the movement sense. Anyway, I broadly agree with Leroux, in that words sometimes have a meaning that evolves away from their components. A metroidvania doesn't have any and all aspects of both of those series, but rather a particular blend. It doesn't matter that both of those series are primarily 3D nowadays, the term metroidvania is a sub-genre now that most new games in the Metroid and Castlevania series don't entirely fit into.
A bit like when you understand a bridge, it doesn't mean you're standing under it. Understand? ;)

Hehe sure. Well I explained my view on it a bit more above but it's already out there, not much I can do about it.

The theme of the games would be irrelevant for the definition. What I mean is the genre name is not descriptive, but historically evolved, it's called that because people chose to use it in order to describe a specific set of gameplay mechanics that played a role in Metroid and SotN. Just like the genre name "adventure game" does not mean a game in which you experience an adventure (to some extent that description would fit most games), but a game in the genre that evolved from titles like ADVENT and Colossal Cave Adventure. Modern day adventure games are quite different from them, but they've evolved from those games and are called "adventure game" because they still share an important characteristic with them, which is a focus on the (more or less linear) story(-telling), as opposed to prominently featuring tactical, strategical or action-oriented, skill-based gameplay.

I tend not to use genre terms this way but others do. If you look at for example the action adventure term's evolution, it came to include new games based on the theme more than the mechanics and game structure, such as Tomb Raider 1. You can also look at "indie", which has a pretty vague definition and can mean a game that is very much like any non-indie game in the same genre in how it plays but still gets a separate category, as it tends to have a less common theme or put a new spin on an old one (and because it's cheaper).

"metroid-like" carries with it the themes I described. Also the "one big location" thing I would call a mechanic or design choice rather than a theme. I guess that's where metroidvania is the most useful.

The way you're talking about Adventure games seems to go against the idea you had earlier that metroidvania was useful because it's mechanically specific. Games in general focus on storytelling now to the point where Adventure is more useful to describe the games that do this but also adhere more to the older mechanics of that genre, since there's also RPGs fo fill this storytelling role with interactivity of varying degrees.

It is like how I am nuts about almonds so if you hear someone say they are almonds about something, that just might be me, or not, you will never know.

Nope. The actual media corpus shows action adventures (games with a plot) and metroidvanias are more opposite than alike. A metroidvania's core gameplay is free roaming (La-Mulana, Hollow Knight), and if you get stuck on a challenge, you can go do something else and come back qualitatively stronger. In an action-adventure, there's only one true path through the game, even if the map is continuous (Ori, Iconoclasts), and major setpieces only have one version.

Why? Those are two very different genre names, "adventure game" is a much broader term, while "Metroidvania" is a rather specific term for a subgenre. I never said all genre names are equally useful or that they all have to be about the mechanics. I just pointed out that these terms are not descriptive but historically evolved, regardless of whether they sound fitting or not, they are in use that way.

Not in the way I described. I was saying that the story is the main focus and other elements are nearly excluded or insignificant, in any case rather secondary. Tactical and/or action oriented elements still play a big part in RPGs, even if they're story-oriented. In adventure games, progressing in the story is the main gameplay element, not an accompanying one. In general, that is, because you are right in that this definition is not 100% fool-proof, since puzzles often play a significant role in adventure games, too (although I wouldn't say it's a defining role, adventure games don't necessarily need puzzles to be considered adventure games in the broadest sense). And then there are various subgenres, Text Adventures, Point-and-Click-Adventures, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, personally I'd also consider Walking Simulators a subgenre of adventure games, and maybe even Visual Novels.

Of course, in the end, the borders between genres are often fluent, and no definition will ever be satisfactory in every regard, there will always be elements that don't really fit the description, which is why I think there's not much point in debating these definitions for long, as if they were set in stone. They're just there to help, not to dictate how you should speak about games. Your opinion on these things is just as valid as mine, I'm just trying to write down my personal thoughts on the matter. :)

Uh no, the early action adventures were games like Zelda 1, Ys or Metal Gear (and even earlier games like D&D: Cloudy Mountain, Adventure and Knight Lore) which were all non-linear to varying degrees.

Games like Metroid, Goonies 2 and Exile (C64/AMI) (and earlier games like Starquake and Impossible Mission) were pretty much sidescroller versions of the above top down view games. But Metroid for example had no NPC interaction and the sci fi setting was unusual, so it is a bit different in that regard.

I think what this thread shows is that genre terms are only helpful as long as the participants in a discussion more or less agree on them. If everyone has their own definition on what a (sub)genre is a about, which games belong to which (sub)genre and what games certainly do not, and there is no common denominator, agreement or understanding between them, discussing it becomes rather pointless. And being "right" or "wrong" as well. Still entertaining, but pointless. ;)

Ok but I do think metroidvania is still descriptive, and fitting in some cases perhaps (I really need to play more new games called metroidvania), but unnecessary when talking about either of the two series' that inspired the term other than to describe the metroid-like/sotn-like castlevania games. Oh well.

Yeah I did enjoy reading them, and it made me reconsider some things as well I think. :)

Genres describe both the mechanics and what the player does in the game world within that genre, and what sort of conventions those worlds follow. In Adventure games, you go on adventures. That's why they are called Adventure games. And in Adventure games where you go on adventures but there is real-time combat too, then they are modified with the prefix Action-, as in Action-Adventure.