Wherefore the Love for MetroidVanias?

…I’ve had to contend with an inescapable irony: that, while the handheld format for these games worsened their aesthetic possibilities (whether visual or audio), it also facilitated a sort of experience that’s lost when emulating these games on a computer, or playing them on a TV screen — an experience best represented by a prior expression: “a final bite-sized bit of entertainment under the covers of one’s bed.”