Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a 2D Side-Scrolling Metroidvania games for PS4, XBONE, Switch, and PC. It was developed by ArtPlay and published by 505 Games, and it is a spiritual successor to one of the masterpiece classics from mid-90's such as Konami's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night which was also created by Koji Igarashi who had responsible with his Castlevania titles for PS1, GBA and DS.
At the time where Koji Igarashi had left Konami in 2014, he gains many request from his fanbase to make another Metroidvania type of game in which he began to run his crowdfunding through Kickstarter in 2015, so he revealed Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night which is a game that borrows the same elements as his predecessor games from Castlevania series.
It has successfully raised more than $5.5 million from his backers to fund the game's development, while it was been surpassed by YsNet's Shenmue 3 that broke the record with $6.3 million in a similar period as Bloodstained.
The game has finally got released in Summer 2019 where Koji Igarashi had rewarded their fans with additional free 13 DLC's in development for 2020 after he accepted the criticism from fans regarding with his prototype demo from 2016-18 beta release.
As I am looking forward to getting this copy for my PS4, I got this game for £18 during the black friday sales from Amazon which I think it's a great pricing deal to purchase the copy.
I was hoping to see the game succeed because I previously enjoyed Castlevania: SOTN on my PS Vita via Castlevania: Dracula X Chroncles as digital PSP title, so how does the Bloodstained: ROTN turns out on modern day PCs and consoles? the answer is I f***ing loved this game.
I've been spending time playing the game for weeks of play and my whole experience on Bloodstained is rather positively fun overall due to being faithful to classic predecessor with modernised graphics overhaul, well executed gameplay design, bigger level exploration, has many secrets to discover, and worth entertaining boss battles, while the game did hold it back with annoying 20 seconds of load times and some sluggish frame rate in some areas, but this game proves that the creator did a remarkable job on his work of game that didn't let his fans down with many improvements over the previous demo, so I am very glad that he took his crowdfunding game very seriously to show how amazing the Bloodstained is been played on the final release of 2019.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game takes place in 18th century England during the Industrial Revolution. The game's intro explains the history where the whole homeland had been invaded by the hordes of demons due to Alchemist of Alchemy Guild had created the demonic crystal power known as the Shardbinders
allowing them to summon demons that killed the members of Guilds, until the members of Church has successfully vanquished them and saving two remaining survivors such as Gebel and Miriam.
In 10 years later where demons have returned which pledged by a great dark castle, Miriam had learned the Gebel's revenge on the surviving alchemists for what they did to him which was the reason why he summoned the demons to destroy England as Miriam and former alchemist Johannes began their journey to castle as well as stopping Gebel taking his power to harm the homeland of England.
The story is kinda pretty familiar with the Castlevania series, but instead of killing off vampires it had cast of demons to deal with which I think the game's plot that involves history of dark ages in England is pretty interesting for gothic horror aspects.
You have Miriam, a now becoming demon killer to confront Gebel's actions who had been involved on ritual site of Alchemy Guild since 10 years of past.
I say the opening intros and ongoing further dialogue plot is pretty well done for most part especially with the relation between the characters had provided with extra details during the conversation is what made the storyline worth readable on the dialogue sequences.
Miriam is rather a solid main protagonist which I finding her quite appealing for not just by judging her appearance which has stunning outfits, but her strong personality and bravery that adds positively on her character's development.
She also had supportive characters like Johannes and his friend Dominique to help her preparing for the ongoing quest,while it has an another demon hunter named Zangetsu who takes time to get used with his trust on Miriam due to her Shardbinder powers having ties to demons, but still quite a badass looking guy which was voiced by David Hayter, who was well known for his role on Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid series, provided his excellent voice on Zangetsu.
The game also shares with the great villains such as Alfred the crooked old man, Gremory the freaky 6-arms girl, and Gebel the sorcerer which are also just as good as the main villains from Castlevania: SOTN.
The overall presentation is just like from Castlevania series as you expect with gothic themed environments, rich and dark looking levels from in and outside of dark castle, has several of locations such as broken home villages, rich-looking cathedral rooms filled with blood fountains, library areas that books fly everywhere, underground water stages, inferno cave levels, icy cold places and etc.
There are over 100 of demons included in the game such as bats, waterhorse, ghosts, weird looking cats and dogs, poltergeist the flying frame, poison toads, Shovel Knight (AKA Shovel Armor), Lili the bunny-lady, gargoyle, barber with trenched coat, and many more in the game.
I really liked the overall design of the levels that really fits the tone of the dark and demonic themes of gothic horror genres as I find the cathedral rooms with blood everywhere and rich details building is rather looking sinister for most part, while I finding the underwater stages is looking calmer and gloomy for its aquatic tones which I liked the aspects of the stage design that made the game very appealing to look at.
Overall, it has readable storyplot, solid cast of characters, and rich gothic presentation.
Gameplay
The game featured with single-player mode along with extras such as new game plus, nightmare difficulty, boss rush mode and speedrun mode.
You take control of Miriam in 2D side-scrolling play with Metroidvania elements as your main goal is to find and defeat the evil which requires your character to level up their stats to becoming more stronger as possible.
The game has over 20 locations to discover during the exploration where you can run around the areas filled with hidden secrets, enemies to fight with, and collecting stuffs.
The map screen will help you navigate some areas where you wanted to locate at so the map screen are smaller on top-right corner during the gameplay, while you can access to map option by pressing the middle button which expands the whole maps to look at.
You will have a save points area which marked red on map where you can book the progress so you can later able to continue on where you left off in the game, while there are warp room which marked green on map which really helps you warp through to other locations.
You will have a weapon and magics attack which are used for defeating the enemies depending on how strong the weapons and magics worked effectively against them.
You will have an option to choose which weapon that suits your combat playability such as kicks, daggers, swords, and whips are basically much quicker to use for balanced character, the spear or lance are effective for thrust attacks, the clubs, katana and giant sword are slightly slower but has powerful strikes at the enemies, and finally the firearms are worked better for the far range distance in which you can able to get these from shop or crafting places to pick the best weapons as possible.
You can also perform the attack move set similar to fighting games depending on which weapon you are currently using.
For example, I can perform variety of techniques such as parry, rapid fire, flashing air kick, power slash, and force blast in which these techniques can be found on libraries shelves in some areas.
You will retrieve these magic moves known as the shards by defeating several of the enemies in right timing, so you will have 5 unique coloured shards such as red shards for conjure, purple shards for directional, green shards for familiar, yellow shards for passive, and white shards for skills.
These shards will give you ability to use such moves like throwing spears and axe, collecting bloods, summoning helpers like knights and fairies, grabbing on heavy objects, teleporting with rays, floating around undersea with steam, increases your stats such as attack and defense, dash around the hallway using speed, performing double jump, changing room gravity with invert, and many more to collect in which you will need these to get past through to the new areas that requires some skill shards to use and it is also very handy for using shards for secondary attacks that worked effectively against tough enemies with their powerful stats, but it can also drains down the MPs which you will need to keep an eye on player's status bar on top-left corner.
You can also purchase the items from the Dominique's shop which has selectable items to choose such as potion and ether which increases your HPs and MPs, some useful items like mithridate and holy water to improve your player's status from poisoning and curses, and collecting some ingredients for preparing foods, while meeting up with Johannes will able to provide you with crafting weapons, armors, headwear, and accessories which really benefits your overall stats but each of weapons and armors are sometime differs like one of the items that increases your defense but weakens your luck and intelligence while others are effectively with your resisting stats but makes your attack much weaker which gives you idea to choose which are these items works best for your character's stats.
Each of crafting items do requires materials to create one which you will need to pick the right materials depending on what enemies carries with but you can also dismantling the items that you don't need to use converts into a materials which I think it worked in someways.
You can meet up with the Liberian named O.D will allow you to borrow his 3 book which also benefits your player's stats too.
As far I've learned the way of using weapons, magics, and organising the items, the combat systems in the game is working absolutely well for most part. The responsive of weapons is very good for some range attacks and has fair collisions which I did not have any issues while attacking the enemies so it really helped me a lot when giving an options to equip the right items that I can able to defeat them much quicker and making easier to avoid any deaths in some levels.
I was really impressed with the size of the exploration which given me freedom to explore around the levels where I can able to discover secrets, visiting new places that I never been too, collecting valuable items and materials, gaining upgrades for HPs and MPs, helping people in side quests, and encouraging me to keep killing more bad guys to level up your character is the reason why the game had kept me busy to play in good old 25 to 30 hours.
I got to say the boss battle in the game is very well done for its overall challenge, so it features bloodless lady, Vepar the giantic seawoman, Valac the twin dragons, Bathin, Doppelganger the clone, Valefar the tophat casino, and many more to fight against which I had tons of fun to memorising these enemy's patterns and taking time to defeat them had really kept me motivated for my gaming experience.
My favourite part in the game is the secret level based on indie's 8-bit title Bloodstained: Circle of the Moon which plays just like the classic NES title such as the original Castlevania so it is one of the coolest easter eggs that was featured on this game. The others are the some locations in general like Oriental Sorcery Lab is very like Ninja Gaiden where you get to fight with bunch of Ninjas and ape-like demons in stages, while I really liked the puzzles where you warp through the levels.
I do find the underground waterway, inferno cave, and hidden desert are also looking spectacular where I really liked swimming around underwater, avoiding fire hazards, and collecting gold in sandy places.
The part that I don't like about the game was 20 seconds of load times because after you getting killed in the game that leads to loading screen as I had to wait until the game loads up which I finding it quite tedious to stare at the screen and I also did encountered with the sluggish frame rate in some areas which I will explain it more on the graphics side, but so far it played absolutely fine on my PS4 without the issue while playing this game.
Overall, it has great combat system, larger exploration maps, and challenging boss battles.
Graphics
The graphics is looking outstanding in whole game. I am very glad that the creator had finally improved the overall game's design after taking criticism from the fans since the 2018's prototype demo.
I had notice the use of 3D backgrounds and has parallax scrolling in some areas like Tower of Twin Dragons, while some of them such as Hall of Termination has much cleaner textures and rich environments of level designs which is very well done for most of them.
I really liked the lighting animation on flames, waters, icy, and mist is pretty looked stunning for the use of visual effects and the character's design is looking absolutely incredible for their appearances and animation which really fits well for modern day gaming.
While the game does run fairly well on the PS4, XBONE and PC, it also shares some issues with the sluggish frame rate in some areas depending how many the animations and enemies they putted in the game and I also heard the Switch version had suffered badly at the launch release which doesn't look good as the previous 3 platforms so I'm pretty sure the updateable patches will able to resolve the issues on Switch version.
So far the whole graphics for most of the levels, environments, and animation is looking amazing when running with Unreal Engine 4.
Overall, it has outstanding environments, stunning visuals, and incredible animations.
Music and Sounds
The original soundtrack was composed by Michiru Yamane, who previously did her work on Castlevania games, did a fabulous job of making such epic music on most areas.
The music that fits the mood of the game well such as the cathedral has darker classical tone, the underwater is much sounds calmer, and the whole rest brings you into action with kickass progressive sounds which is very like to Castlevania: SOTN.
The sound effects in whole game are pretty acceptable in some areas with decent atmospheric effects and has great use of sound works in most of the time. The voice acting in most of the characters are actually good for its dialogue especially with David Hayter did a marvellous job on his role of Zangetsu.
Overall, it has kickass soundtrack and acceptable sounds in whole game.
Special Features
The game comes with free 13 DLCs which we received 4 of them at the launch release such as new game plus, boss rush mode, speed run mode and nightmare difficulty as the rest of 9 are still in the development for 2020 release which is a fantastic bonus to this game and it also comes with secrets and surprises of easter egg in the game.
You can also customise your character's appearances to suits your outfits and hairstyle, so that's pretty cool.
You can also enter the cheat code on the player's ID name to receive bonus items in the game and the best part in the game was being able to play as Shovel Knight using EX Shovel Armor, HOLY F***ING MACARONI IT'S TRUELY AN AWESOME EDITION.
Overall, it has free 13 DLCs, surprising easter eggs, customising your own character's appearences and bonus unlockables using cheat code.
Advantages
Solid presentation
Great combat system
Larger exploration maps
Challenging boss battles
Outstanding graphics design
Kickass original music
Awesome bonus features
Disadvantages
Tedious load times
Sluggish frame rate in some areas
Switch version runs rougher compared with other platforms (sadly for poor switch owners).
Final Verdict
Presentation 8.5/10 - readable storyplot, solid cast of characters, and rich gothic presentation.
Gameplay 8.5/10 - great combat system, larger exploration maps, and challenging boss battles.
Graphics 9/10 - outstanding environments, stunning visuals, and incredible animations.
Music and Sounds 8.5/10 - kickass soundtrack and acceptable sounds.
Special Features 10/10 - free 13 DLCs, surprising easter eggs, customising your own character's appearances and bonus unlockables using cheat code.
Overall 8.5/10 - This is one of the Igarashi's strongest title that his Kickstarter campaign just got everything right it should.
Bringing out the quality first, making the game twice as big, and offering bonus content at the launch is what made the game turns out to be one of the finest 2D Metroidvania title that gives the fans what they want from the creator.
I had such fun playing over 20 hours of epic single player adventures filled with larger maps to explore, discovering secrets, level up your characters, has great selection of weapons and magics for its combat gameplay, the gorgeous looking environments, and has the non-stop boss fights is the reason why I've enjoyed the game so far.
I hoping the creator will able to make another Metroidvania title similar to Bloodstained in sometime future and any of you are interested in playing these kinds of game then it's definite to buy this awesome indie title for retro gaming fans.
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