Metroid wasn’t first. Games like Pitfall II and Montezuma’s Revenge predate it.
As for the “Metroidvania” name, originally it just applied to Castlevania games in the Metroid mould (particularly in the GBA/DS days when there were a tonne of them) but people just started applying it to the entire genre. It was always a terrible name.
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 3 weeks ago
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on PS1 revitalized the genre so much, I think it’s fair that it took on half the genre name. Modern metroidvanias are as much SOTN as Metroid.
kruhmaster@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
It’s supposed to be Super Metroid and SOTN, as a genre.