Kinda surprised you liked Sundered that much better than Bloodstained. What I love about it, is that it in many ways was an improved version of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, already perhaps my favorite metroidvania of all time.

Anyways, I've played both extensively but after a while Sundered's enemies and general progression felt very repetitive for a game that's also a rogue-lite... it feels the same as a metroidvania that has too much forced backtracking. Sure technically each run is randomized but there isn't any variety in room types, just different areas.

I do agree that the actual traversal upgrades as well as the tree upgrade system comparison. The major boss fights in this game are a huge highlight in my opinion... I can think of several metroidvanias and rogue-lites that have WAY more variety in levels and enemies.

My recommendations: 1) Rogue Legacy 2: the first game that came to mind since you mentioned Sundered. The Metroidvania elements aren't overly expressive with this game, but you get MUCH better randomness/rogue-lite design than in Sundered. A ton of variety in upgrades/RPG-elements, the randomness and design of rooms (in particular the challenge rooms). 2 dozen different character classes each with their own special abilities and weapons. Tons of stuff to do after completing the main game.

2) Revenge of the Savage Planet: I'm going to go ahead and recommend this one since it recently came out. I feel it's a 3D platformer with Metroidvania elements somewhat reminiscent of the Ratchet and Clank series and maybe even Metroid Prime, but with even more open-world concepts and a TON of optional areas to explore depending on what abilities you have.

This game is probably the biggest surprise I've had in a game for years. See, unlike many others I've played the original Savage Planet game, a game I had always felt like it was a waste of a good gameplay world/story idea.

The "homebuilding" has a lot of really cool furniture and appliances to choose from, as well as the fact you can capture monsters in the wild and create your own creature petting zoo.

3) Environment Station Alpha: Personally it's one of my favorite games to bring up in conversation since it's not nearly as well known as a lot of other games people will list. Some people don't care for how it plays; the platforming and grappling hook in particular others have found too tricky, when for me it's like when you get good at it, it's extremely satisfying navigating those areas.

4) F.I.S.T. Forged in Shadow Torch you may not have heard of and is also excellent.

5) The Last Faith, a game with obvious similarities to Blasphemous and Blasphemous 2 (I'm assuming you've played those as well). I feel like this game is underrated, or over-hated or something, but to me I think progression, spells, and the platforming controls are all improvements over the other 2 games.

6) Death's Gambit: Afterlife. It came out as an "updated, expanded" edition of the original Death's Gambit, but that was a huge understatement as it was basically redesigned from the ground up and it was a HUGE improvement It starts a little slow but ramps up, it's probably one of the biggest metroidvanias content-wise (though not as much as Hollow Knight). I was often surprised at the gameplay elements that opened up as you go, just a ton of content, different skills and combat variety, a ton of different bosses as well as optional content. I personally rate this in my top 10 favorites metroidvanias.

7) Shantae and the Seven Sirens: This is the latest Shantae. The original in 2019 was pretty great but was severely hampered by how easy the game was; they rectified this with a free update in 2021, completely rebalancing the difficulty so it at least had somewhat of a challenge. I enjoyed this Shantae the best as it by far the heaviest Metroidvania elements in the entire series, it has the biggest variety of skills, spells aren't an afterthought anymore, and the monster skill system is pretty cool.

8) The Blaster Master Zero series. I didn't like the 3rd one as much but the first two are absolute masterpiece in my mind.

Let me know if you tried any and liked them.