Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

You will feel right at home in this ultimate Metroidvania, conceived of and designed by one of the originators of the genre. Specifically, this game calls back to Symphony of the Night. The map, the simplified but responsive and elegant controls (I do advise a game pad, but it's also very manageable with a mouse and keyboard), the monster bestiary, the candle smashing, and of course, the level design and the music (which also shares the same composer as the aforementioned title.) As expected, portions of the map can only be accessed once you have obtained specific powers or abilities, making for satisfying a non-linear exploration experience. If you weren't old enough to have played SOTN or haven't played a "Metroidvania" game before, then you could compare this to Ori and Blind Forest, Hollow Knight, etc. However, the focus here, although not a Castlevania game, is most assuredly on the occult -- and it takes place in and around a giant castle, for the most part. Give it a try. It's worth it.

Seriously, what kind of an absolute cretin tagged this game? Did they even play it AT ALL beforehand?! "Multiplayer"?! I'm sorry, WHAT? This game is SINGLEPLAYER ONLY. There's not even so much as a token "girlfriend co-op" mode in it. And for that matter, nudity?! SEXUAL FREAKIN' CONTENT?! WHO THE HELL TAGGED THIS SHIT?! The closest thing you get to either of that in this game would be that some female characters wear skimpy clothes, but if that counts as "nudity" or "sexual", then you're either a virgin Amish person or just plain ol' brainless! Putting the sheer unabashed idiocy of the tags aside, this game's good. The monster design is pretty bland and uninspired at times (seriously, a giant dog's head that literally just looks like a regular dog's head? Not even any horns or fiery breath?! YAWN!!) and the music's kinda dull, but it's nonetheless a thoroughly solid MetroidVania. Way more Vania than Metroid though.

Bloodstained it's a beautiful ride of the castle of no Dracula, no Belmonts and no Konami. The game comes with all the bests mechanics of all preview work of Iga. The 3D enviroment looks beautiful. I cant tell you to much, If you like any single Metroidvania buy this,

Fair and balanced metroidvania with a RPG spin. Harder difficulties are locked until completion. You can find weapons around or buy them from merchants, but currency is very scarse so there's decision factor, which I like. You'll have barely enough money to buy potions. and that's awesome IMO. it pushes your limits. This game isn't about the LOOT, ok? You can also make food with the ingridients enemies drop, and each kind of food gives you healing effects and temporary stat modifiers. Food also serve as objectives for some sidequests in town. Enemies also drop special abilities, and you can sell them to mechants for money. The game encourages you to do that, in fact, for story related reasons. Everything else requires exploration and discovery. You need to explore to find powerups (more health, more energy, more ammo capacity for guns), unlock weaponwheel slots (!) , discover the hidden techiques for your weapons (most of these techniques involve inputs typical of old school fighting games, so there's skill involved and yes, some weapons have a PARRY!), find the guy that allows you to change Miriam's appearance... and then of course, progress with the story. Graphics are... ok, but kinda bland. I recommend using ReShade to revamp the visuals. There are a couple of technical issues (some animation don't cancel correctly, resulting in annoying delays) but ehi, it's a good game. Buy it asap.

If you enjoyed the 2D Castlevania games since SotN, including the DS titles, you'll probably like this one. Big complaint: there are occasional difficulty spikes, and when you die, you're sent back to your last save point. Losing half an hour or so of progress in such a cheap way is frustrating enough that I take breaks lasting several, several months when it occurs. Huge nuisance. Not enough to ruin the game, but man, such a huge flaw. They should let you restart the boss fight instead of losing loads of progress, especially when you've gotten lucky item drops from enemies on the way to that boss. Yes, I'm salty.