Not sure if this is a hot take or not but Guacamelee is one of my favorite Metroidvanias. Something I think a lot of MVs struggle with is how to make the backtracking feel good and not be tedious or confusing. Most games rely on your memory for where you need to backtrack to once you've gotten a new ability or item, Guacamelee fixes that by color-coding every ability and having clearly colored barriers on the map. So when you get your new "blue" ability, you can easily look at the map to double-check where you can access now. It's a supremely accessible Metroidvania in that regard. While the backtracking was mostly easy, the world was still large enough and collectibles were spread out enough that I didn't quite have the motivation to go back and 100% the game. I loved it, but I guess not quite enough to 100% it like I do with many other games.

As just a video game, it hits on every other level as well - it's hilarious, the art is fantastic, and the combat feels excellent.
Everything from the written jokes to the billboards and posters around the town had me laughing. The pop culture references were fun without being too much. The combat and platforming challenges were excellent and never too hard. And the co-op in the game is fantastic!

Man I wish more Metroidvanias had co-op because I had a blast playing through this game with my wife. We played through the whole game together and had so much fun. It also has the New Super Mario Bros "bubble" feature, so whenever we got to a platforming challenge that was too difficult for my wife, she'd bubble up and I'd do it solo. But overall, most of the game was never really that hard. It was just fun.



+ Solid Metroidvania progress going from nothing to feeling powerful
+ Great visual guides that make backtracking easy
+ Great co-op experience
+ Fun wrestling-inspired melee combat
+ Funny humor throughout
+ Fantastic visuals

- Didn't quite love it enough to go through the tedium of 100%ing it