That's why I'm going with 25x25 rather than something like 20x20. I don't like how in a 1 screen level the frame kind of "jumps" depending on what quadrant of the screen you are on. 25 tiles on the other hand isn't too jarring, I find. But besides that, I'm not sure how many levels will actually be that small - probably only a couple will, meant to serve a special purpose and kept like that for emphasis.

Here's a quick (and very simplified) illustration of how the rooms and levels might be structured:



Here you see one level, 200x125 tiles. That's 8x5 "units". Small enough to save the game in. However, it contains 6 rooms, and each of those rooms would be designed as if it were its own level (also remember that I'm having player health stay the same between levels). Of course, very few of them would actually be perfect rectangles like that, and they don't have to stay perfectly within those borders either... but the overall grid would be preserved. You get the idea.


This one level would be represented on the map, something like in the above image. This would only be one small part of the map, and on the "full" map, there would be no distinction that this section is its own level: the map would only show rooms, like this. The map is an abstract representation, so it would keep to a grid. The final thing would look something like this. There will be a room in the "home base" level where you can view it, hopefully with chunks of it being revealed as you progress.


So, the end result is preserving the aesthetic of the metroid/castlevania games, while adapting it to a format which works well with JJ2.