Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

A love letter to fans of the old school, true Metroidvania experience. The spiritual successor of SOTN from Konami's golden era.

As a huge fan of the genre, Idk why I took so long to play this game.

Bloodstained is a spiritual successor to Castlevania games, particularly the metroidvania ones, such as Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow. It's clearly a product of passion of the lead developer behind those older Castlevania games but working outside of Konami.

Anyone who's a fan of the Castlevania series would be at home here as a lot of the similar gameplay mechanics and vibes return here. In fact I'd go as far and say that they took the best aspects of all the Castlevania games and mixed them in here. The shard system is very reminiscent of Aria of Sorrow's soul system where we essentially can acquire enemy abilities by farming them. Here this system has been expanded into 5 types of shards, some acting as passive buffs, others as magical attacks of different types, and some being familiars that assist us. Some of the magic attacks are direction-based, allowing us to aim in any direction, which makes them even better and more fun to use and something we didn't have in Castlevanias.

The exploration and level design is just like we remember in those older Castlevania titles. A big castle full of different areas, each with its own theme, some of which can only be accessed after acquiring certain abilities or items. A few of the areas have been designed in very creative ways, such as the towers that are spiralling upwards in a circle and giving a pseudo-3D vibe. Save rooms, portal rooms, and boss rooms all make a return as does the familiar map design.

On top of the main questline, we can also do a few simple sidequests for NPCs, such as killing a certain monster type several times or bringing them a food item. All this helps with acquiring more items that can be used as crafting materials or ingredients for food. Crafting materials are used for making weapons, armour, trinkets and consumables, whereas food acts as a special type of consumable too in that it gives a stat bonus in addition to healing us (although I think the way food items work could've been explained a bit better!).

I really enjoyed the visuals and art style. Very colourful and detailed, and every area looked unique and breathtaking. Many of the areas are thematically similar to areas from Castlevania games - the castle entrance hallway, the garden, the library, the alchemy lab, the mechanical tower, the underwater caves, and so on. In each one we face their own unique challenges, both as enemy types and as traps of various kind. Boss fights were a bit of a mixed bag, some being too straight-forward, while others really fun and memorable. Some of the bosses were really creatively designed and the final fight was one of the best I've experienced in this type of game.

Music is stellar, which is no surprise, because the composer behind Castlevania soundtracks was involved in this game, so the style is very recognizable and you'll find yourself noticing and enjoying a track playing in virtually every area. Sound effects and voice acting are also brilliant.

Don't expect a superb story, but it's not bad either. The story is decent enough to keep you playing and exploring new areas and it doesn't seem to take up too much of your time. You're not forced into drawn out cutscenes and all the dialogues can be skipped with a press of a button, so no headache if you're replaying the game.

The game has a couple of bonus playable characters and some bonus modes to try too (which I'm yet to check out), so even after completing the main campaign, there's stuff to do and challenges to attempt. And the main campaign is longer than I remember it was in Castlevania games. Here it took me nearly 20 hours. Admittedly sometimes you might need to consult a walkthrough if you want to reach the game's true ending as some things will be a bit out there without any hints given. Just remember how obscure Symphony of the Night was in telling us about the inverted castle, and the same level of obscurity you'll have here. In fact almost too much like that if we take into account the boss fight that gives us the first fake ending.

I've greatly enjoyed every moment of playing Bloodstained. Sure, there are a few minor criticisms here and there, particularly relating to too much backtracking in places and a few obscure moments of being stuck, but generally, this was amazing and nostalgic. This game was made for people who loved Castlevania games and, as far as quality and fun, it can safely stand side-by-side with giants such as Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow.

Castlevania the dracula x chronicles and symphony of the night are my favorite games growing up. Bloodstained satisfies the itch and has plenty of references from the previous games to jojo even. Definitely a game to play if your a fan of the castlvania series as a whole.

Metroidvanias are one of my favorite genres and this is my favorite game in that genre. I've played through it over 6 times I believe at this point. One of those few games that I really enjoy going back to.
This is the spiritual successor in multiple ways to Castlevania. It's the ultimate form of the soul collecting style introduced in Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow.
If you enjoy metroidvanias then this game is definitely worth a try. They even added new characters and several modes since launch, including a co-op mode.

I love this game. This straight up feels & plays like a modern day Castlevania game. Even though the game has a brilliant artstyle and music, there are some problems which need to be addressed that doesn't make the game pixel perfect.

- 1. The Bosses: You won't be having a fun & memorable time fighting these bosses as they suck @ss. The only engaging boss in the game is probably Zangetsu as he has some interesting and good movesets that you need to study, in order to defeat him. And for some reason, the big monsters are soo boring to fight as compared to human size bosses which is such a shame. Also, the BloodLess fight was the worst & unfair at times.

-2. The Dlc Costume Integration: I think the developers missed a huge oppurtunity here to make character skins and armour sets different entities as now, after owning the Succubus skin dlc I cannot equip her skin without changing my armour which is quite annoying.

-3. I wished there was a quick access item section in the game just like any Souls game which allowed me to use any item on the go. The repetitive nature of opening the inventory, search for the item, and use it gets quite exhausting when you're half through the game.

Other than that, it's quite a fun & engaging game with a ginormous map with unique locations that will take you hours to complete. Also, if you're not a big story driven game guy, you're in for a treat as the story is linear and doesn't diverge into several plotlines. Would recommend.

There are a ton of great remakes, revamps, remixes, and even redefined games made all the time. Some are based on original work, some are based on other popular titles. In this case, Most tend to be worth while and help improve it's original title. This is one of those titles.
Bloodstained - Ritual Of The Night is a combination of every Castlevania title put out on Gameboy Advance and PSX. It combines all the greatness of the original Castlevania games and puts them into one game.
You play as a female demon hunter that has the ability to collect demon souls. you move around the castle jumping on platforms, attacking monsters, collecting items, and picking up coins to make money. Once in a while, you can head to the shop to purchase weapons, armor, and items, while seeing an alchemist to help make items and update the shop with new items you make. Shards (Collected randomly by attacking monsters) are used to give you additional abilities, such as magic abilities, transformation, increasing stats, and having a companion travel with you. You can also upgrade your shards so the shards have better abilities.
Anyone who was a fan of "Castevania - Symphony Of The Night" or any of the Gameboy Advance versions of Castlevania will absolutely love this game. In my opinion, this is how Castlevania should always be played. I'm not saying what Konami has done with the series is wrong, but the idea of Castlevania has always been as worked because of the whole game itself. So, just a piece of advice to Konami, if something's not broke, don't fix it. Bloodstained is the best example of how the game series should have been done.

alsmost 5 years in, I played this game about 4 times about now ranging from normal, to hard. And to be honest this game takes me back at times that Symfony Of the Night was awesome. The game direction (and its director) has totally taken us back to those days, and moved on beyond a bar.

There is so much I love about this game, let it be the controls, the way you can customize the character, the weapons, the equipment. There is just so much when it comes to have a custom game play.

The map itself is brilliant. Especially the way the layout is made even while progressing through the game while you gain new abbilities to go beyond the map you never saw before (yeah, that's a little spoiler there, but by the time I am writing this, this won't be... probably).

There has must been gone so much time and effort just to get this map down right in the way it is presented. It is a piece of art by its own. To be honest here.

Then there is this 'grind' bit. And to be honest, this is just for nerd. You do not have to grind much if you just want to have fun with this game. But there is this little gimic here inside the game where you are tasked to 'repeat' certain stuff. Just to get a better item, let me put it that way. But heck, if you ever played Dragon Slayer 6 from 1986... you know what that type of grind will be right? Ok... So that part is well taken care of, it exists, and is there for nerds. And I love that part too... since it isn't mandatory, or anything.

So overall, I am enjoying this game. I also love the amount of love that has been put into it over the years. Especially the 2.5D part. It works for me. It doesn't always have to be 3d just to have some awesome gameplay to be honest.

Therefor, thumbs up crew and team, keep up the good work. And looking forward to patch 1.5 ;)