Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Reviews

I didn’t expect it to be this good. When I first saw the gameplay and trailer, I wasn’t too impressed. I even tried playing the ship area on my mobile phone, felt kinda lost, and dropped the game. But when I picked it up again and played it on PC, it turned out to be excellent. The graphics? Somehow, they just work really well. The gameplay? Feels exactly like classic Castlevania games. A huge map to explore, not always knowing where to go next, stacking up potions and food before a boss fight… It brings back so many Castlevania memories. Damn, I’ve still got a long way to go, but I just had to share my thoughts. Great game. Definitely aiming for 100%!

A call back to symphony of the night that is very much a sequel/remake of it. Pros: This game is incredibly fun with both it's exploration and game play loop rewarding the player for looking and trying new things with power ups and buffs in a lot of hidden places. It is very much a castlevania game in the fullest which means that all the new powers you unlock are really cool. A lot of the shards you unlock are cool visually, even the most basic ones being up-gradable to to ones that fill the screen with projectiles. I love the art style and designs of a lot of the characters and bosses, even when they get cluttered like on Zangestu. Bosses are really fun and most of the time don't feel like you got scammed when you lose All the extra game-modes add a lot of repeatability to the game with new move sets Cons: A lot of the added modes are really basic and don't add much outside of "Wow I play as character from game!" Voice acting is terrible, but it is funny bad Story is a retold version of COTM 1 and 2 Game can become very much a grind when trying to get a lot of the little buffs, like from meals Overall, this game is a blast to play through even though it has some flaws and would recommend it to any person who has played a metroidvania or castlevania game

I enjoyed playing this game overall, the only parts I found frustrating were waiting for RNG drops for items I wanted - e.g to do crafting, getting certain shards to drop etc (though this may not be a problem with the game itself, I might just be using the systems in place inefficiently). I think the level up system was really helpful for me as I'm not all that skilled at side-stroller action games and it made boss fights manageable. For players looking for a challenge I understand there are modes made just for you/you can just tackle the bosses at a lower level than I did.

[h1][b]Review[/b][/h1] [b]Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night[/b] has an enticing gameplay, lots of content, and just a few significant blunders. [hr][/hr] [h3][b]The Highlights[/b][/h3] [list] [*]The graphics are pretty good. I am a pixel art enthusiast, but I do enjoy 3D visuals when they are well done, and I found that in [b]Bloodstained[/b]. [*]The game has a really nice voice-over for the characters. All of them have pretty good voice acting, and the voice actor for one character in specific called Zangetsu is none other than [spoiler]David Hayter[/spoiler]. I find that very amusing and very cool. [*]The leading design aspect of [b]Bloodstained[/b] is the shards. There're 6 types of them: [list][*][b]Red shards[/b] are offensive, they act as a foward attack (these attacks widely vary). [*][b]Purple shar[/b]ds are also offensive, but they act differently as the attacks can be directed in a 360° angle using the right analog-stick. [*][b]Yellow shards[/b] act as passive status boosters. [*][b]Green shards[/b] are familiars, their help differ depending on each—I quite liked them. [*][b]Blue shards[/b] are weird, their effect can really very—they are used by holding RB, and the effects can be passive, offensive, downright change Miriam, or even enhance your movement. [*]And finally, [b]White shards[/b] are just abilities that you get in order to progress.[/list] Shards are a direct feature that came from the [b]Castlevania[/b] series that was solidified in [b]Aria of Sorrow[/b] and arguably perfected in [b]Dawn of Sorrow[/b]. It was fun back then, and it is definitely fun now in [b]Bloodstained[/b]. [*]Not only there're shards you can collect, but the game offers you lots of things to collect, and I mean LOTS of them. You can collect supplies, craft materials, equipment, and weapons, but wait, there's more! You can also complete NPC quests, fill the bestiary, and become a master in the weapons techniques. Each of these has a percentage that you can go after to 100%. If you are the type who likes to complete everything, you will spend quite some time playing. But it goes without saying that, in order to complete it, you will have to grind a lot. [*]You can highly customize Miriam's appearance. With different hairstyles, pretty much all colors are customizable. It's just an aesthetic thing, but it's a nice feature for those who like to customize. [/list] [h3][b]The Drawbacks[/b][/h3] [list] [*]The game crashed several times at a specific part of the map. It didn't matter as much when I first discovered it, but at some point when I had more progress, I was exploring a lot (hours,) and I hadn't saved yet, then I went to the area, but I forgot about the crash... I lost all my progress. That really sucked. And it also crashed out of nowhere at one point, and I lost all my progress as well. [*]I took quite some time to figure out what I had to do after I got the double jump. There's a passage where you need a key, but the game doesn't tell you in a helpful manner what you need to do. That isn't very good game design. [*]The bosses are underwhelming. I faced all of them, and except for Zangetsu, one optional boss, and the blood lady (but I beat her out of order,) I managed to beat them on the first or second try. The battles aren't bad, but they are just disappointing as there isn't much challenge. [/list] [h3][b]The Neutral Ground[/b][/h3] [list] [*]The game has lots of extra modes. Boss Rush, Speed Run, Classic Mode, Boss Revenge; there is a lot of options if you like diferent stuff. Granted, I mostly just tested these modes, since I dind't find any of them appealing to play. [list][*][b]WARNING[/b]: The DLC [b]Classic II: Dominique's Curse[/b] is not worth it, unless you like the old Castlevanias where the movement is super clunky and difficult, you probably won't like this DLC.[/list] [/list] [hr][/hr] [h3][b]Conclusion:[/b][/h3] [b]Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night[/b] is great; I liked it a lot, but I can't ignore that I had some issues with it; the crashes left a real bitter impression on me, and the lack of challenge + some minor stuff and design choices didn't work so well for me. But I had lots of fun playing; the gameplay is really solid, as it is supported by a collection of shards. There is really a lot of content in this game, you can definitely play for [b]50 hours[/b] and still not experience everything. [b]Bloodstained[/b] is not perfect but is definitely great in my book; that being said, the score is: [h2][b]8/10[/b][/h2]

If you enjoyed Castlevania: Symphony of the night or any of Director Koji Igarashi's other Castlevanias you know exactly what to expect. It has a fun Castle + environs area to explore and while the launch was a little rough with random crashes and bugs is generally much more playable now. It's got excellent controls and pacing for it's exploration as well as fun enemies.

A good game unlike some other producer of a certain mecha boy IP Iga at the very least respected his fans and receive all the criticism and made the game better and it did become better cant wait for more games from him

It was fun for a while but eventually I got stuck and didn't know how to proceed and had to wander around the huge map trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do next and I got bored and stopped playing.

I had heard of MetroidVania, Castlevania and Metroid games but had never played one. This one is pretty good! The story is not very ambitions, but nothing wrong with a straight forward fight the evil story. The graphics are nice, character models are okay, voice acting is great. Gameplay is fun and addicting and on normal you dont really have to grind much for anything, buy a few potions and food items for a tough boss fight and area and you're golden. My favorite weapons were Rhava bural and Rhava valer. I hate how almost all weapons in this game except these two stops you from moving and wont let you cancel their animations. You make every enemy encounter and boss fight much more difficult by not using Rhava bural or Rhava valer. Overall satisfied, 8/10, worth it.

This may not be a Castlevania game in name, but it is a Castlevania game in spirit. This game has Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow written all over it. It is loaded with features and content. Between the main game, classic mode, boss rush mode, and the randomizer, there is plenty to keep you busy well after you've earned all the achievements. Definitely worth your time and money.

I tried to love this game and get past all of the hindrances, but simply it's plagued with myriad nuances that simply made me lose all the interest at one point. It stats very promising but sadly the game doesn't do any justice to the genre and it does every possible aspect of it with persistent mediocrity. Exploration and visual presentation is extremely unmemorable, graphically just ok and not rewarding at all. Every room is filled with 1hp monsters that have a sole purpose of stopping you in your track as they move in irregular patterns and knock you around with every hit, artificially lengthening the game and making going around a very tedious process. Platforming is almost non existent, and where it is introduced, is very badly executed. There's a lot of treasure chest that respawn and additionally wastes your time by thinking you missed something by tracking back to some rooms, especially after acquiring a new ability that expands on areas you can reach Combat is there just for the sake of it being there, there's literally no reason to kill anything after going through new zone and killing new enemies a few times or eventually clearing the ever repetitive hub quest of killing x monsters of y type. Shop, crafting system, items and weapons are all very boring, have a VS fighter style input to execute specific actions that are just outperformed by specific shards / skills or basic attack spamming. Moreover, some locations are locked away behind basic enemy spells that you can acquire through shards they drop and some rooms require multiple different skills to traverse which you have to have equipped. This wouldn't be an issue if they didn't share a single same shard slot. There is a set / shortcut menu to save different sets, but it's still objectively a terrible mechanic and a huge drag to constantly think about and save presets especially if you're acquiring a new items now and then and have to keep making new sets. This could've been solved by simply making required spells be in the non equipable skill shard set. There's a ton of other smaller hindrances, but ultimately every single design choice tries to do something new and reinvent the wheel and does it terribly by making every single aspect of the game a drag to do rather than a fun experience