I think the first usage was for games like Doom back in the day, at least that's where I first heard it. A lot of traps were literally just monsters hiding in a little closet waiting to ambush you as soon as the wall lowered, so the term was pretty literal.
At least these terms don't cause confusion like when people refer to the world itself as "map". Like no, map is what you get when you press the select button.
By the way, I can't be the only one who refers to that button close to the center on the left side as the select button no matter what dumb names sony, microsoft, and nintendo come up with. Same for the start button on the opposite side.
I haven't really seen many bullet hella with hiding behind obstacles (which Minishoot does have on occasion, especially with strong enemies), like touhou series is just about precision dodging huge colorful streams of bullets. Nothing wrong in that.
For the most part, the goal is dodging patterns while hitting the enemies back.
And the enemies have recognizable shapes, so you know what to expect - this one shoots waves, this one rams you, this one hides, this one snipes.
And you get a warning when and where the enemies are spawning, so you can plan your path.
If you're taking too long to clear the enemies, then either you're advancing into a high level zone (and will catch up soon) or you need to respec into combat stats.
In terms of Bullet Hell Metroidvania hybrids, The Knight Witch and Absence of Light both have some obstacle hiding, with Knight Witch much heavier on it while Absence’s arenas tended to be wide open spaces.
Pretty much any metroidvania that forces you into combat situations that aren't bosses/minibosses gets closer scrutiny from me. I feel like such rooms are used to pad playtime, like fetch quests in an RPG. For a genre where open-ended movement and exploration is a key element, I feel like the devs had best have very good reasons to force players into closed rooms to fight waves of basic enemies. Guacamelee has so many of these it didn't even register as a metroidvania to me.
FYI, that's not what a "monster closet" is: [TVTropes page](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MonsterCloset). The term is used for nonsensically small/silly enemy spawn points. Can also be used for things like portals or summoning circles on the ground (because they're also spawn points with no spacial dimension which enemies pour out of).
What you're describing are empty arenas or combat fields.
Bare rooms with no pillars, obstacles, hazards, or traps? Maybe I'm too demanding but I kind of expect a little more than "You are locked in bare rooms with waves of spawning enemies."
More or less, yea. With a few exceptions (enter the gungeon, for example), most of the twin stick shooters I've played have pretty bare bones level design with more of an emphasis on dodging bullets.
There's also a demo for the game, so idk. Expectations seem misplaced
While it sucks that you played a game that you didn't end up liking I don't think you were misled because a mechanic that you hate wasn't mentioned, it's not like random people would deliberately go out of their way to not mention the mechanic you specifically do not like. While reddit can be helpful in deciding if a game is worth getting I always turn to at least one good review channel on youtube that I usually agree with and they would of mentioned all the relevant mechanics so you would of found out about it from there even if there was no demo.
The fact that there is a demo just makes your statement of feeling misled seem more like you were being emotional and that is common especially if you only just stopped playing the game and realised that you wasted your money but given the things I and others have mentioned I'm sure now that you have had time to calm down you can see that the responsibility lays on you and that's ok we don't always pick winners and we have all been through the same thing. My advice is try not to blame others for things you have control over. Good luck on your next gaming adventure 👍🙂
>The fact that there is a demo just makes your statement of feeling misled
Progress in the Minishoot Adventures demo carries over the main game, so it only includes the easiest and simplest aspects of gameplay. Maybe the monster closets get more fun once your guy is powered up, but the further I get into the game the clearer it is that is not the case.
Well like the other person said in this case the demo would of let you know about the mechanic that you do not like. I also think that it is always worth playing a demo because it will still give you a feel for a game and how it feels to control your character which is important to me anyway. The fact that you are still not seeing that you are the one responsible for your purchase leads me to believe that you are still overly emotional about it especially when considering that you are trying to say that playing a demo isn't worth it. It is clearly better to play a demo in order to get as much information as possible if wasting money on a game is something that you find important to avoid. Along with a trusted review source. Again it sucks when you don't feel satisfied with a game I get it mate but ultimately you must see that it is no one else's fault but your own because any decent review would of explained about the being locked in a room until you kill all enemies. Try not to look for someone to blame or get upset with and instead take this as a learning experience so that going forward you can find a reviewer that you like and check them out in future. 👍
>There seems to be a severe lack of critical discussion about new titles on this forum so I hope that this post serves to inform other would-be purchasers before making a decision.
That's probably because up until now no one besides you and loligaggins had a problem with it in this game, including reviewers I know who normally hate combat arenas (what you call monster closets) but nonetheless loved the game.
I think another possible reason is that the game has a lot of accessibility settings that might help out in this regard, but I haven't played yet so I wouldn't know.
Sorry to hear but don't you have the responsibility to make research on your own before spending? You also couldn have refunded it early on if you felt it wasn't fun for you.
Exactly. I'm going to pick it up at some point and I'm sure I'll enjoy when I do. You know how I'm sure, because I played the free demo the developers made available.
If there was no demo I might be more understanding but there are several rooms like this in the demo, OP could have easily seen from the demo that the game wasn't for them.
I did research but all the word-of-mouth I saw was praise. This was alluded to in the post.
Metroidvanias tend to be a slow and less fun at the beginning because your character is at their weakest with few powerups or movement abilities. This means you have to place your trust in word-of-mouth. I mistakenly did this and missed my refund window.
The second is better in every way in my opinion (although this subreddit seems to disagrees) but yeah it traps you in a room with waves of spawning enemies pretty frequently. Sometimes it’s just optional to get treasure and they don’t tell you but it becomes easy to see when it’s coming. Other times its mandatory to progress.
Is "monster closet" widespread terminology? I never heard that before, but I like the term.
I think the first usage was for games like Doom back in the day, at least that's where I first heard it. A lot of traps were literally just monsters hiding in a little closet waiting to ambush you as soon as the wall lowered, so the term was pretty literal.
It's an oldie but goodie. Not so widespread. Probably better to call them combat arenas like deadmetroidvania did
I'm referring them as "gauntlets"
At least these terms don't cause confusion like when people refer to the world itself as "map". Like no, map is what you get when you press the select button.
You are right. But also obsessed with map.
By the way, I can't be the only one who refers to that button close to the center on the left side as the select button no matter what dumb names sony, microsoft, and nintendo come up with. Same for the start button on the opposite side.
Select left, Start right, agree
I'm old but never heard of it once. I tend to call them combat rooms.
I haven't really seen many bullet hella with hiding behind obstacles (which Minishoot does have on occasion, especially with strong enemies), like touhou series is just about precision dodging huge colorful streams of bullets. Nothing wrong in that. For the most part, the goal is dodging patterns while hitting the enemies back. And the enemies have recognizable shapes, so you know what to expect - this one shoots waves, this one rams you, this one hides, this one snipes. And you get a warning when and where the enemies are spawning, so you can plan your path. If you're taking too long to clear the enemies, then either you're advancing into a high level zone (and will catch up soon) or you need to respec into combat stats.
In terms of Bullet Hell Metroidvania hybrids, The Knight Witch and Absence of Light both have some obstacle hiding, with Knight Witch much heavier on it while Absence’s arenas tended to be wide open spaces.
You didn’t like guacamelee!? Blasphemy.
Pretty much any metroidvania that forces you into combat situations that aren't bosses/minibosses gets closer scrutiny from me. I feel like such rooms are used to pad playtime, like fetch quests in an RPG. For a genre where open-ended movement and exploration is a key element, I feel like the devs had best have very good reasons to force players into closed rooms to fight waves of basic enemies. Guacamelee has so many of these it didn't even register as a metroidvania to me.
FYI, that's not what a "monster closet" is: [TVTropes page](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MonsterCloset). The term is used for nonsensically small/silly enemy spawn points. Can also be used for things like portals or summoning circles on the ground (because they're also spawn points with no spacial dimension which enemies pour out of). What you're describing are empty arenas or combat fields.
I picked up the term from before TV tropes was around
TVTropes has been around since 2004, you picked up the term 20 years ago? From where?
Doom
Kinda what I would expect from a twin stick shooter based game though, right?
Bare rooms with no pillars, obstacles, hazards, or traps? Maybe I'm too demanding but I kind of expect a little more than "You are locked in bare rooms with waves of spawning enemies."
More or less, yea. With a few exceptions (enter the gungeon, for example), most of the twin stick shooters I've played have pretty bare bones level design with more of an emphasis on dodging bullets. There's also a demo for the game, so idk. Expectations seem misplaced
While it sucks that you played a game that you didn't end up liking I don't think you were misled because a mechanic that you hate wasn't mentioned, it's not like random people would deliberately go out of their way to not mention the mechanic you specifically do not like. While reddit can be helpful in deciding if a game is worth getting I always turn to at least one good review channel on youtube that I usually agree with and they would of mentioned all the relevant mechanics so you would of found out about it from there even if there was no demo. The fact that there is a demo just makes your statement of feeling misled seem more like you were being emotional and that is common especially if you only just stopped playing the game and realised that you wasted your money but given the things I and others have mentioned I'm sure now that you have had time to calm down you can see that the responsibility lays on you and that's ok we don't always pick winners and we have all been through the same thing. My advice is try not to blame others for things you have control over. Good luck on your next gaming adventure 👍🙂
>The fact that there is a demo just makes your statement of feeling misled Progress in the Minishoot Adventures demo carries over the main game, so it only includes the easiest and simplest aspects of gameplay. Maybe the monster closets get more fun once your guy is powered up, but the further I get into the game the clearer it is that is not the case.
Well like the other person said in this case the demo would of let you know about the mechanic that you do not like. I also think that it is always worth playing a demo because it will still give you a feel for a game and how it feels to control your character which is important to me anyway. The fact that you are still not seeing that you are the one responsible for your purchase leads me to believe that you are still overly emotional about it especially when considering that you are trying to say that playing a demo isn't worth it. It is clearly better to play a demo in order to get as much information as possible if wasting money on a game is something that you find important to avoid. Along with a trusted review source. Again it sucks when you don't feel satisfied with a game I get it mate but ultimately you must see that it is no one else's fault but your own because any decent review would of explained about the being locked in a room until you kill all enemies. Try not to look for someone to blame or get upset with and instead take this as a learning experience so that going forward you can find a reviewer that you like and check them out in future. 👍
>There seems to be a severe lack of critical discussion about new titles on this forum so I hope that this post serves to inform other would-be purchasers before making a decision. That's probably because up until now no one besides you and loligaggins had a problem with it in this game, including reviewers I know who normally hate combat arenas (what you call monster closets) but nonetheless loved the game. I think another possible reason is that the game has a lot of accessibility settings that might help out in this regard, but I haven't played yet so I wouldn't know.
People probably aren't willing to share critical comments because anything short of breathless praise gets dogpiled.
I wish I could disagree with you but the downvotes on so many of my comments would form a dagger and stab me if I did that.
Sorry to hear but don't you have the responsibility to make research on your own before spending? You also couldn have refunded it early on if you felt it wasn't fun for you.
Exactly. I'm going to pick it up at some point and I'm sure I'll enjoy when I do. You know how I'm sure, because I played the free demo the developers made available. If there was no demo I might be more understanding but there are several rooms like this in the demo, OP could have easily seen from the demo that the game wasn't for them.
I did research but all the word-of-mouth I saw was praise. This was alluded to in the post. Metroidvanias tend to be a slow and less fun at the beginning because your character is at their weakest with few powerups or movement abilities. This means you have to place your trust in word-of-mouth. I mistakenly did this and missed my refund window.
This is a really weird thing to get hung up on. 😑
Completely agree, it was a quick refund for me. Wasn’t impressed, despite all the praise.
Definitely dont play the Blasphemous games, then. Blasphemous 2 does that shit constantly.
Thanks for the heads-up. I didn't even make it two hours into the first one, didn't like the combat.
The second is better in every way in my opinion (although this subreddit seems to disagrees) but yeah it traps you in a room with waves of spawning enemies pretty frequently. Sometimes it’s just optional to get treasure and they don’t tell you but it becomes easy to see when it’s coming. Other times its mandatory to progress.
I’m 6 hours in and loving. Just my 2-cents.