Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

TL:DR - definitely recommended game with little nitpicks here and there. Far above average! This game picked up best of previous Castlevania games and used it in this game. Art style, music and mechanics (shard system) are fenomenal. Story and combat are ok. There's some balancing to be done (imho) with difficulty as sometimes I feel overpowered, and sometimes I don't have enough health potions and food to restore my health, but that might just be me. I had to compare this game to my favorite metroidvania game - Hollow Knight. Is Bloodstained as good as Hollow Knight? No! Don't take this as something negative as each game is unique, and Bloodstained being different from Hollow Knight (HK) is a good thing. For comparison, I would put Bloodstained as second best game only to Hollow Knight. The environments, art style, music and mechanics differ from HK which makes this game stand on it's own as a good example of how games should be done: unique direction without trying to copy/paste someone else. This game does originate from Castlevania but it has improved on it. What I would like to see is a better looking representation of the map: instead of just making them squares, I would realy like to see something like a Hollow knight map which is poster worthy. The map representation, final boss and melee combat are things I didn't like in this game. Melee combat is a bit laggy and slow but this is contrasted with very good choice of spells. Final boss is just a big endurance test, especially the second phase. Definitely buy it on sale and if there's no sale, buy it as you can't go wrong.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is a historical game, and one that I have a great deal of personal affection for. So a game that claims to be its spiritual successor has some gargantuan shoes to fill, here - and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night does its damndest to fill those shoes. In fairness, it knows exactly what it is. It knows it was made for fans of the game that coined the term "Metroidvania," for people who grew up playing the DS-era Castlevania games. The menus look like the menus from Symphony of the Night and sound like the menus from Lament of Innocence. The basic gameplay and shard system feel like Aria of Sorrow. The character design of the protagonist and her character arc are clearly inspired by Order of Ecclesia. Playing Ritual of the Night feels like **coming home**, in a way I can't explain to people who don't already know how much of a disappointment Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: the Mirror of Fate: the Quest for More Subtittles was, and why. Except... it's not so much a love letter to Castlevania as it is the old pro returning to form. This game was directed by Koji Igarashi, the assistant director of Symphony of the Night, and primary producer of the Castlevania series during the DS era I just referred to. As a gamer, as an enthusiast of this genre, I can't put into words how much I love this game. It plays like it was made for me, by people who know exactly what my preferences are and know exactly how the video game market has failed me for the past 20 years. As a critic, I find myself conflicted, because this game has some rough edges in places that it wouldn't have if Konami would have just bankrolled this and it was a proper Castlevania title. It's a beautiful game, but I've run into some visual and audio glitches. It's a fun game, but it doesn't really innovate on what basically this same team did 15 years ago. So I don't know. I love this game. I also know that Igarashi can do better. I hope that one day, he does.

The game had so much potential, yet instead the devs decided to make another Symphony of the Night, with all of its awkwardness and jank. The thing is, what was an incredibly fresh and moderately well designed back when SotN was released, now feels very dated. Combat is boring and repetitive. The pacing is generally bad and there are huge difficulty spikes on an occasional boss. The map is too large for its own good. Means to navigate it require one to change the loadout constantly. It may have been cool back in the day, but right now it feels dated and tedious. There are some clever things here and there, with some really well designed "a-ha!" moments. But those are very rare. Backtracking is made annoying, as teleports are few and far between. And fighting game like special weapon moves are just not worth the effort. Controls in general are pretty inconvenient. And don't get me started on visuals and sound. The backgrounds look like they were made for one game and characers for another. The variety of enemies is kinda okay, but there are some completely random things in there, like large cats or bunny girls. I mean... really? And the sound... The sound design in general is very amateur. I'd be okay with sound like that in a student's project, not in a game that asks for $40 five years after its release. The first music theme you hear is catchy and sets the mood great, but sounds very thin. Aside from that, the tunes have never clicked for me. And yeah, the price is the final nail in the coffin. At this price point you can buy Hollow Knight twice and get a coffee or two. And Hollow Knight is a far, far superior game. And don't get me started on the dlc. $15 for the cosmetics in a single player game? Disgusting. An extra star for the great promo materials and a really impressive Kickstarter campaign.

Play Mechanics No problems here. Controls and everything else in the game worked as they should. Good. Graphics and Sound 2.5-D (not quite 2-D, not quite 3-D) graphics looked good. 2.5-D graphics are taking this old genre in a new direction. and that's always a positive thing. I don't remember anything good or bad about the music, it was OK. Character Design I liked some of the characters and did not like some of them. The Main character and her Main enemies were very good and looked professionally designed. Most of the Bosses were also very good. The smaller enemies which populate the majority of the game were bad. Most of the smaller enemies have no style and look like they were designed by an amateur who does not know what you can and cannot put in a game. If they are reading this, please take note: you cannot put cute cats, dogs or knights with shovels into a game about vampires because it does not work, destroys the atmosphere and looks silly! Level Design I liked a lot of the Boss battles which were big enough to be considered levels on their own, and thought they were very good. When they worked, they were complex, intense and fun. I did not mind some of the Standard levels and did not like others. They were all very straightforward and all were designed either OK or good, but the poor enemy design sucked the fun out of a lot of the levels. Game Design The poor enemy design really hurt this game. Itlowered the fun in a lot of the levels. At some points you need to look for things in levels you have already been in, and I almost straightaway went to an online guide whenever this happened because I really didn't want to go all the way through some of those levels a second or third time! Summary Did I enjoy parts of it? Yes Did I enjoy all of it? No Did I finish it? Yes Would I play it again? No Would I recommend buying it? Yes Right now this is the only Castlevania game we have. Enjoy what you can in it and hope for better next time.

Imagine taking all those old anime-styled Castlevanias we all saw and played on Gameboy and putting them all in 3D graphics whilst still making it the same platformer you always knew. Sold.