Key facts
- Cheapest right now
- € Standard · Global · Difmark
- Live offers
- 10 offers · 8 stores
- Our pick
- Standard · eShop Code · US · Gameseal — €
Want to see more from Gocdkeys on Google?
You need to be signed in to your Google account.
Nintendo Switch has quietly turned into the best cabinet for this genre. Pixel art looks right on a small screen, the console goes to sleep in the middle of a corridor without asking, and by now almost everything that matters in the metroidvania has been ported to it. The awkward part is the volume: eighty-two of our Switch pages carry the metroidvania tag and have a live offer today.
Twenty of them are below, in five families. Each entry says the same handful of things: what kind of metroidvania it is, the Steam verdict of the PC version with the raw review count instead of a rounded percentage, and the lowest price its Switch page shows right now. Steam does not collect reviews for Switch releases, so that verdict always belongs to the PC version of the same game.
One warning before the list. Seven of these twenty have a single shop with stock at the moment. That is not a scandal, it is how niche Switch stock behaves, but it does mean nobody is pushing that price down. I flag it every time it happens.
The five that set the standard for everyone else
Hollow Knight is the game the rest of this list gets measured against. A dead insect kingdom, no quest markers, and a map you have to buy from a cartographer who is somewhere inside the area you are already lost in. No other game here has been reviewed on anything like this scale: Overwhelmingly Positive on the PC version, 480,435 positive out of 500,453. On Switch we compare 8 offers across 6 shops and the lowest is €9.99.
Hollow Knight Silksong is the sequel, and it is not a gentler one. Hornet moves faster, she parries instead of tanking, and the early bosses assume you finished the first game. The PC version sits at Very Positive, 342,262 positive out of 384,564, which is an enormous sample for something this fresh. On Switch it starts at €12.49 across 8 offers in 7 shops, while the dearest of those eight asks €30.12 for the same thing.
Dead Cells is the odd one in this family, because it hands you the map and takes it away every time you die. The permanent unlocks are textbook metroidvania though: a rune opens a biome you could previously only look at. Overwhelmingly Positive on PC, 151,128 out of 155,802. On Switch it starts at €11.89, out of 7 offers in 7 shops.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps is the athletic one. Moon Studios built everything around momentum, and the combat the first game lacked is properly here. Overwhelmingly Positive on PC, 130,350 out of 135,781. It starts at €12.89 with 6 offers in 6 shops, although the last offer on that page wants €59.85, so read the price before clicking.
Prince of Persia The Lost Crown is the big-budget entry and the kindest to people who get lost: you can pin a screenshot of any locked door straight onto the map. Very Positive on PC, 5,595 out of 6,661, a much smaller sample than the four above it. It is also the best stocked title on the whole list, 18 offers across 12 shops, and it runs from €10.99 to €57.55.
For players who want to be punished
Blasphemous is slow, heavy and soaked in Andalusian religious imagery, with pixel art detailed enough to stop and stare at. An execution takes a full second and you feel every one of them. The PC version is Very Positive, 48,908 out of 54,342. On Switch exactly one shop has stock today, at €14.99, so there is nothing to compare here.
Blasphemous 2 moves far better. Three weapons, each with its own skill tree and its own traversal move, and much less punishment for walking back on yourself. Very Positive on PC, 14,942 out of 16,420. On Switch it starts at €11.99 from 4 offers in 4 shops, which makes the sequel cheaper than the original right now. The dearest of those four wants €43.01.
Nine Sols is a parry game and nothing else. Counter timing is the entire system, the taopunk art is hand drawn, and the bosses ask you to learn a rhythm rather than hit harder. Very Positive on PC, 37,276 out of 39,655. One shop stocks it on Switch, at €24.99, which makes it comfortably the most expensive game in this section.
The Last Faith goes for gothic horror with firearms, and it is the closest thing to a side-on Bloodborne the Switch has, ammunition management included. Very Positive on PC, 3,848 out of 4,636, on a far smaller sample than the other three. Two shops carry it, from €19.99, with the second one at €58.00.
Maps that hide things, and expect you to notice
ANIMAL WELL is tiny and has kept people arguing about its secrets since it came out. There is no combat worth the name; the items are toys, and what actually progresses is your understanding. Overwhelmingly Positive on PC, 21,627 out of 22,765. Four shops carry the Switch version, from €14.99 to €17.74, so the gap is small enough for convenience to decide.
TUNIC looks like a cute isometric adventure about a fox and is really a game about a manual written in a language you cannot read. You collect pages, you start recognising shapes, and one day you work out that the wall you walked past in the first hour was a door. Very Positive on PC, 15,105 out of 16,599. Only two shops have it on Switch: €24.99 at one, €40.25 at the other.
Ultros is the strangest thing here. You are stuck in a loop inside a biological ship, and progress means planting things and coming back later to see what grew. Very Positive on PC, 622 out of 777, the smallest sample of the twenty. One shop, €12.89.
Konami, Sega and the ones that started it
Castlevania Dominus Collection gathers the three DS games: Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia, plus an arcade curiosity. Order of Ecclesia alone carries the purchase. Very Positive on PC, 2,205 out of 2,346. Three shops on Switch, €15.70 to €21.20.
Castlevania Advance Collection covers the Game Boy Advance side, with Aria of Sorrow as the headliner and Circle of the Moon as the one that will make you sigh. Very Positive on PC, 1,946 out of 2,138. Two shops carry it, €9.89 and €11.49, and at either price it is the cheapest way into the list.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is the official continuation of the Wonder Boy line. You turn into a snake, a frog and a lion, and each animal opens a different part of the map. Very Positive on PC, 2,145 out of 2,438. Three shops, €14.59 to €17.74.
Wonder Boy The Dragons Trap is the hand-painted remake of the Master System game, with a button that flips the graphics and sound back to the original mid-run. Very Positive on PC, 1,694 out of 1,970. Two shops on Switch: €14.99, or €79.80 if you do not check.
The cheap end, where nothing is filler
Little Noah Scion of Paradise costs €9.99 from the only shop that has it, ten cents above the Castlevania Advance Collection that sets the floor for this whole list. Cygames made a short, generous, very pretty run-based platformer that nobody bought, and its Very Positive record on PC, 1,982 out of 2,154, is the sort of number a game gets when only the people who wanted it turned up.
Worldless swaps the usual combat for something closer to a timing duel: you hold, you release, you break their guard. It is abstract to the point of feeling cold and it will not suit everyone, but the PC verdict is Very Positive, 1,452 out of 1,545. One shop, €11.99.
Momodora Moonlit Farewell is short, a long evening, and there is not one filler screen in it. If you want a metroidvania you will actually finish, this is the one. Very Positive on PC, 2,759 out of 3,032. One shop again, €12.99.
BLADE CHIMERA is Team Ladybug doing what they do: sprite work far above the budget, a sword that is also a girl, and a rewind you use to get around the map. Very Positive on PC, 1,178 out of 1,339. One shop, €12.99.
Picking one, depending on who is asking
If you have never touched the genre, Hollow Knight at €9.99. It has more positive reviews than anything else here, it is the longest of the cheap ones, and 8 offers across 6 shops keep each other honest. You can buy Hollow Knight key and stop reading without missing much.
If you have finished it twice already: Silksong at €12.49, or Nine Sols at €24.99 if you would rather have a game built entirely on parrying. And if the budget is a coffee and a half, Little Noah at €9.99.
That leaves the part that actually costs people money. Seven of these twenty are sold by a single shop today: Blasphemous, Nine Sols, Ultros, Momodora Moonlit Farewell, BLADE CHIMERA, Little Noah and Worldless. On those pages there is no competition to move the price, so if the figure looks fair, take it. On the other thirteen it is worth looking again next week.
I have been a gamer for as long as I can remember, and for the last 14 years I have been making life easier for other gamers. CEO and co-founder of Gocdkeys.
LinkedIn profile More about Luis Abrines
+ 120 Tickets by link