Games

while Castlevanias powerups focus almost entirely on combat.

Castlevania has ~~always~~ (edit: I mean since SotN) had a pretty heavy emphasis on movement abilities to access new areas. Looking at SotN, we have double jump, high jump, swimming, mist form, bat form, wolf form, as well as good ol' keys to literally unlock the environment.

This is why I consider Metroid Fusion, Other M, and Dread to be among the weaker Metroid titles. All three have an obvious, forced always on hand-holding mechanic that you don't find in other Metroid games.

I'll give you Fusion and Other M, but I'm going to have to disagree on Dread here. The game does sort of guide you along an intended first playthrough route, but so does Super! It's a delicate balance to give the player room for exploration while still ensuring they don't get stuck not knowing where to go. That balancing act should not be seen as disqualifying, or else we're throwing out the genre's foundational text too. If anything, the biggest difference between Dread and Super here is that Dread actually has more developer-intended sequence breaks. If you play Super as intended without utilizing any speedrunning tech, you almost always follow the same route in the end.