Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

So much of the golden era of Castlevania games are in here. The music, the settings, it's all here and more. Other than the series that put the vania in MetroidVania, I've run into some surprise nods to other games like Metal Gear, Bayonetta, and even Shovel Knight. I really hope for the huge success of this game to turn this into it's own franchise.

Koji Igarashi (IGA) writing & producing, Curry the Kid directing, Micharu Yamane doing music, Robie Belgrade doing voice acting, and Ayami Kojima doing an art piece. All these people helped make Castlevania games together and have left a special mark in gaming history. The Sorrow CV games were excellent, but not everyone had access to the handheld systems. Now we can enjoy the evolution of IGA's Vania style on many more platforms. Even without the legacy the game stands on it's own as a great replayable metroidvania game. The different modes and quests keep me coming back to the game. The soundtrack is awesome. I can't say enough good things about it. I may have taken some different directions with the story and characters, but overall they are very memorable and I can't wait to see what is next.

Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is a beautiful and well designed Metroidvania title. The movement, combat, and music are all extremely polished, and the game feels fresh with each new area. The developers for this title have got it done just right on the length of the game, and it really shows. The pacing with this title is fantastic, and I never felt like I was repeating the same stuff over and over. Plus, the customization for Miriam is great and definitely shows an improvement over previous Castlevania games like Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow. I would say that the gameplay is on par with Symphony of the Night, however the updated graphics and wide selection of varied music bring this to just a step above. Out of 10, i would give this a title a 9.5. Incredible work!

I can only play a little bit at a time as the controller keeps disconnecting, and refusing to reconnect. I see a lot of support requests here, and on Steam for the same issue, but no fixes in sight

This game is very good and reminiscent of Symphony of The Night. I was born on the same year as SoTN, but i've played that game along with almost all the Castlevanias before that from the first game, and i've played the ones aferwarwards up until OoE, including AoS, and CoTM. i'm an original backer of this game, and i'm glad I did, this will be my only backing, and that's because I trust the people working on it, including composers etc. First off, the level design and music is fantastic, the music was already expected to be good since Michiru Yamane was involved. This game seems to capture all the good parts of the castlevania games and merged them in to one. The animations (All objects and characters/enemies) are very similar in style of SoTN, there are lots of subtle actions and parts in the animation that show attention to detail, from slight movement in fingers, or weapons not following a simple repetitive animation path or loop. The voices of the enemies when you hit them or kill them remind me of SoTN too, they fade away and a death sound along with them, and the deaths also have an small animation and don't just fade away statically, another sign of quality. The backgrounds of the levels look stunning and incredibly detailed too. Theres a good variety of enemies with different attacks, so it's not boring and repetitative throughout the game. You have a multidirectional attack system, along with a shard system, which I guess is similar to OoE, you can summon creatures, have a companion, and have ranged magic. There's also a wide range of weapons, from swords, maces, spears to guns, and these have different types of damage associated with them, such as piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing, which tells you the type of damage and hwo the weapon moves, also can do different damage to certain enemies. All weapons and shard magic can be upgraded in the game, which requiered items you find, and you can also cook food that can ebeused for increasing health.