From Luna, With Love

I'm tired, boss. I'm tired of this particular piece of discourse. Every goddamn low rent thinkpiece writer who types out the word "Metroidvania" eventually has the same thought, and you just need to get it out of your system. Yes, the name of this subgenre of videogame combining Metroid and Castlevania is not very descriptive, like the name of other videogame subgenres. Should we name it something different? No. I reject every alternative to the term Metroidvania, at least, all the ones I've heard, because they either exclude core games from what I guess we can call Metroidvania canon, or they're so broad they include games that aren't pertinent to the discussion. And I reject this notion that a name is invalid because it might take some homework to understand. Do you immediately understand what I mean by Romantic music without a whole bunch of context? I dunno, I think sometimes it comes from this embarrassment of gaming history. Musicians don't get e...