Still my favorite Metroidvania by a long shot.

The map has a really fun layout with tons of secrets, the powerups while simplistic for today's standards still give a good sense of progression, and the atmosphere + music are unmatched.

Only thing that stops it from being a perfect 10 is the blemish that is the upside down castle. The textbook definition of lazy padding.

Still, this game has held up extremely well and its still something I go back to frequently.