Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Really captures the spirit of Metroidvania, but how could we have expected anything less with its creator?

This game was kickstarted under the promise of delivering to Windows/Mac/Linux. Four years later, and at the last minute, the studio mysteriously dropped Mac/Linux support with almost no explanation other than some hand-waving "middleware" excuse. Worse yet, they did not offer refunds to those that backed with the following explanation: "[...] refunds for Kickstarter projects come out of the pool of funds initially raised by backers. As per the KS terms of use, if an element of a project cannot be completed and there are funds remaining, a refund should be offered. In this instance, the initial funding for the project has been expended on development. Our current progress towards launch is due to additional funding from the publisher, 505 Games." Instead of mustering some courage to offer refunds to those that explicitly backed the game only for the Mac or Linux ports they brought a technicality that they 'spent all the backer money already'. This behavior of promising platform support only to remove this promise a few months before release is nothing short of shameful. Read the announcement in which the platform support drop is mentioned as an afterthought here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night/posts/2368304

Seriously, I am not seeing what all the hype is about. I am begining to wonder if people are so eager for this to be a success that they will themselves to believe a mediocre game is something more than it actually is. Bloodstained: Circle of the Moon was a more faithful game than this. I feel like I am playing through molasses the entire game. The environments are nice and the look of the game does bode well for the game. But there are just too many flaws and bugs in the game. The weapons all feel like cheap knock offs. SOTN had much more crisp weapon animations and movement speed. Game is highly focused on timing your hits, far beyond what SOTN required you miss and you get hit. No matter how you slice the pie this game is a "meh" quality Metroidvania. Game is at risk of becoming a cliche of itself. It's like they took everything SOTN had and then phoned it in. Exploration feels, rigged or on the rails too much to be a "metroidvania" either. Bag drop bugs, OMG they are horrible to the point where I am losing around 25% of my drops to bugs. I have had floating bags in the middle of the air, stuck in the wall, stuck in ledges, stuck in the ground and I cannot pick them up. How is this getting past Q&A? How about the terrible Controller Support, you must have an Xinput game pad or your controller is not supported. You have to get an Xinput wrapper or a controller to keyboard emulation tool. Console gamers are obviously being catered to here while PC gamers are just being disregarded. Wait for this game to be 50% off... after all the devs seem to have only given 50% themselves. They had a winning hand here and they squandered it!

I bought this gem shortly after release and was hooked in an instant. It immediately took me back to playing my favorite Castlevania games from the GBA and PS1. Every step evokes joy and the soundtrack just screams Castlevania to me. I loved every minute of gameplay I racked up and highly recommend this game to both Castlevania fans and those not familiar with IGA's work. I am still yet to discover the true ending, and it may take years for me to do so, the multiple endings add to the replay value, and the choice of melee, firearm and magic weapons, adds to the strategy of gameplay. This game is a breath of fresh air and welcome change to the same, almost identical, generic FPS games that flood the market. 10/10. But why listen to me drone on? Get the game now and see for yourself how epic it is!

I generally like true metroidvanias, and this one does NOT disappoint! This is not simply a spiritual-successor; it's not "almost as good;" it's BETTER. More items, more souls, more secrets, more more more! It has taken all the best parts of all the previous "inspirational" games, and condensed them into a savory gamespice that's guaranteed to please even the most jaded 'vania lover. There's always room for improvement, but it's just us fans being picky. I personally found Miriam's character animations to be stiff and unnatural; I'm suprised the Way Forward guys didn't put some much-needed *bounce* (or jiggle?) in her steps! The worst offender of "bad" animation is Dominique; just awkward! Most of the enemy animations are great, however, and the anime-art style works well. The "castle" is fun to traverse, the music is top-notch, the voice acting is excellent, and the overall execution is top-notch. Even the moment where you need something OBSCURE to progress is well executed! The 2.5d graphics are a mixed bag for me. Some areas look INCREDIBLE, while others just look cartoonish and under-developed. In the future, I'd like to see a mix of hand-drawn artwork and save the 2.5d for SPECIAL sections. Again, just personal preference here, definitely NOT a dealbreaker! I hope to see more games in this franchise exectued at least as well!