LogFAQs > #979521210

foolm0r0n posted...

____like are actually good terms though because it IS referring to a specific game. If a game is like Dark Souls then yes it's a Soulslike. Roguelikes often aren't actually like Rogue, but that's another issue (and the clarity of the term does mean that Roguelite became more common). You can have Simslikes, Mariolikes, WoWlikes, whatever. It's all pretty clear.

Metroidvania is the worst term because it obscures the meaning of SOTNlike. If a game is even tangentially related to Metroid or Castlevania, they call it Metroidvania. They treat it like a union of the two genres instead of an intersection.

Nah nobody calls Castlevania 1 or Metroid Prime Pinball a Metroidvania, so it's not anything related to those two series. It is becoming buzzword-y and misused but the same is true of e.g. Souls-like (it's like Souls? In which ways??)

I would also seriously struggle to define a Mario-like without narrowing it down (e.g. Mario 2-like is pretty obvious in meaning).

I think there is room for SotN-like and Super Metroid-like as terms. Chasm, Deedlit, and Timespinner are the former, while A Robot Named Fight, Axiom Verge, and Shadow Complex are the latter. But Aquaria and Hollow Knight don't fit either so there's clearly something else there.