After a long wait and successful Kickstarter campaign,
“Bloodstained Ritual of the Night” is finally here! Is this game what we hoped
for? Is it going to finally scratch that Castlevania itch that’s been eating me
alive all these years? Well, we are going to talk about that and more. This is
a supplementary review, if you want to see my first impressions of the game
right after I was done playing it, go check the video down below.
Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is a Metroidvania game
developed by ArtPlay for the PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch. The
development was led by the one and only Koji Igarashi, former Castlevania
series producer. Bloodstained is a spiritual successor to the Castlevania
series to a point that a retro 8bit game, “Bloodstained Curse of the Moon”, was
released ahead of this game.
Maybe we’ll talk about
this one some other time.
Fans of Castlevania asked for another Metroidvania game for
years now and Mr. Igarashi decided to listen to all of us and gave us this
game. Bloodstained is a Kickstarter success story giving the fans a throwback
to the games of yesteryears in combination with new mechanics that just feel
right and it is what the fans of a classic franchise could ever ask, unlike
other crowdfunded games that I don’t want to talk about right now
..*~COUGH!~Mighty Number 9~ COUGH~*.
The first few minutes of gameplay, I could tell that fans of Symphony
of the Night would love this game! The exploration, the different types of
weapons and of course the secret rooms, don’t forget to hit every wall.
Everything is there, you can even try to perform some old Castlevania
techniques, some might work and others you might have to tweak them. But the
option to experiment around is great.
Just how I learned the
dash cancel, just click on the link and see.
There are also some new things in the game. Every now and then
you will find a bookshelf in certain rooms and I totally recommend to read them
because they don’t only contain story bits but also hints & weapon
abilities. Just like in Castlevania Symphony of the Night some weapons can
perform certain abilities like the katana weapons can parry attacks or the
Kung Fu shoes can perform triple kicks. If you are a Castlevania veteran you
can try to input some commands and see if you can figure out your weapon’s
ability. Doing so will add the command to your notes even though you didn’t
find the respective bookshelf to that ability.
There are some cool
abilities.
Character design is fantastic! You could definitely confuse
this game with a Castlevania game, well if Konami kept on making them instead
of making pachinko machines. My first introduction with these characters was
on the 8Bit version of the game and seeing the characters fully rendered in 3D
actually made me happy. I was like, “Look at Miriam! Oh goodness is that
Zangetsu!..” and so on and so on. Also, something that’s not present in
Castlevania Games is the ability to customize the looks of your character. Some
items will actually show on your character, and later on, you will find an NPC
that will allow you to change your hairstyle and color, skin tone, and the
color of your cloth.
Now Miriam is a sexy elf
pirate!
Actually, the game had
a graphical update from the first time we saw it. There were some critiques
coming from the fans, and unlike any other company, Mr. Igarashi took the
criticism and addressed the issue. Resulting in a glorious looking Metroidvania
game!
Here’s a link to the
video with the graphical differences.
There was a lot of heart put into this game and it shows. As
a Metroidvania fan, and Castlevania fan, I can’t recommend this game enough!
There are some problems with the Switch version right now though, but Mr.
Igarashi has addressed the issue and they are working on the solutions.
Hopefully, by the time you are reading this, the problems would have been solved,
but as it stands, for now, I would wait on the Switch version for a bit. For the
PC and the other consoles, if you’re a Metroidvania fan, why aren’t you playing
this right now!?
As you can see, I truly enjoyed this game, I’ve been starving
for a new Castlevania game after all. But tell me, have you tried BloodstainedRitual of the Night? What do you think of the game? How much of a Metroidvania
fan are you? Let us know. Now I return to the deepest darkest corners of my
dwelling. Good-bye, for now, my friends.
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