Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

The game is deeper than it first lets on. The crafting is one thing, the cooking another. It give you incentives to seek out all the recipes by giving you a permanent stat increase the first time you consume a food. This makes you really want to track down all the recipes and create them at least once. Some of them are some of the best healing items in the game as well. When everything was said and done, it gave massive bonuses. I think when I completed the game I had 10% increased XP as well 8 MP regenerated per second. It was nuts. There is also the fact that there are hidden abilities with a lot of the items. For example there is a grinder blade that has spinning spikes on it. You think it's just a cool looking weapon but it actually hits multiple times with every swing. There is an armor you can collect from a certain enemy which actually turns you into that enemy while you wear it, and it's based off another games character as well as an homage to that game. The shards are crazy. There are so many, almost one per enemy in the game and many are quite different form each other. You can increase the grade of these by collecting duplicates of them. The you can use ingredients found around the world (found in chests and reaped from dead enemies) that update the rank. Having a full stock of 9 increases the effect (damage, for example) while leveling the grade will do things like make more of the summons appear or increase the radius of an effect. It's quite awesome because it's levels of stuff you can do that are optionally there to experiment and play with. I have seen some coverage of people complaining about the games price, but at $40 it's an incredibly good deal in my opinion. I beat the game, with all the optional bosses and side quests with a 100% map in about 31 hours. They have committed to releasing further content for free and I can't wait to see it. And if they released a paid expansion I wouldn't hesitate to purchase it.

Before getting into my experience, this is the computer I play on: Intel Core i3 8130U 2.21GHz 12GB DDR4 RAM (8+4) 1TB HDD Nvidia Geforce MX 110 Windows 10 64bits - Latest updates and drivers. I wouldn't be honest if I didn't come into Bloodstained without a sense of how it played and how it felt. Aside from the trailers and the involvement of legends like Igarashi and Yamane, a quick look at this game tells you that you're getting into a Metroidvania instantly. The game doesn't waste time and puts you right in the shoes of Miriam, as a protagonist, Miriam stays in the line between having her own personality and being a silent protagonist that serves as a way for the players to project themselves into the game, she has just enough personality and charisma to offer an interesting protagonist. The gameplay is, however, the strongest part of the game, at first, you might get a bit thrown off since it's a 3D game that you play in 2D unlike previous games like Symphony of the Night and Aria/Dawn of Sorrow that only used 3D on backgrounds, the gameplay itself is not compromised though, providing a responsive and properly paced action and platforming. The level design is also great, it doesn't stray from the metroidvania formula too much, but there are some segments that are not common in these kinds of game, the game is challenging with the enemy placement and their abilities, but not unreasonable or unfair. Music, sound design and voiceovers are great all around, specially the music, seriously, look up Voyage of Despair, enough said. I hope this is enough to get you started, this is a proper metroidvania, very fun and full of content, the following are a list of other aspects: -Minor hicups happened on my system, but the overall experience was locked 60fps at 720p max settings. -The game includes other modes, such as more playable characters, boss rush, randomizer, etc -Mod support -Works great with a dualshock 4 with DS4Windows

Spiritual-linked to Symphony of the Night, this is one of the best "new" metroidvania games (you know, after the end of the Castlevania franchise). Very nice gameplay, music and graphics, thanks to the talent of the makers (noticing the most Igarashi and Yamane)

It's very clear the Castlevania roots, specially Symphony of the Night. The gameplay is fluid, but the controls could be a lil bit better. A very nice game, worth the purchase and the wait.

SotN vibes, but it's no clone! I takes several concepts and mechanics inspired by other castlevania games, but they aren't direct copies. I waited for a long time for a sale to occur when I had some money to spare, but if I knew it was this good I wouldn't have waited. One of the best things I bought in a long time!