Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

I tried. I don't think this game is for me or that 2d metroidvania games are things I enjoy. I have tried over and over and I never get into games like this.
I understand why other people praise it. I consider it technically excellent so I recommend it.

This is a fantastic metroidvania, even if you don’t really like them. The difficulty level is perfect, it’s challenging but not frustrating. You will get stuck, but some careful exploration of the map will save the day, although there are two or three spots where it’s not all obvious where to go or what to do next. The abilities are fun and the plethora of weapons with unique abilities keeps things interesting.
The cast of characters is fun too, even if Miriam isn’t the most charismatic protagonist. There’s lots of little secrets and Easter eggs to discover. Almost finished, I’m liking this way more than I thought I would!

It's honestly great that we got another Metroidvania/Action-adventure Platformer from the creator of Castlevania SotN...
But...
See this is one of the few times I wish there was a "Meh..." rating on Steam. At its core, it is a great game that is packed with loads of content. Not only in the base game, but also in bonus modes such as playing as other characters, boss rush, and even a built-in randomizer. There's a huge variety of weapons, abilities, enemies, bosses, and even food! And artistically the majority of the game looks incredible.
The "Meh" portion of this game though is its lack of polish in most aspects of the game. None of the bonus modes have descriptions so if you don't follow the game's news articles (from years ago at this point), you'll have no idea what most of them are until you jump in, and even then you may still not be sure what's going on. Some are sorta self-evident, like Boss Rush, or Randomizer (if you've ever seen a randomizer mod in another game at least), but most are not. What is Chaos mode? Classic? Boss Revenge?
The lack of descriptions isn't just in the game modes though. The in-game item descriptions can be lacking or even outright not tell you about an item's ability. Did you know the Apron gives you a chance to double your cooking output? Neither did I until I happened to read it in the wiki. Others are vague in their ability descriptions leaving you to search the wiki to find out what exactly it does so you know whether you want to use it or not. I just use an "Improved Descriptions" mod to get most of that info now, but it doesn't cover everything unfortunately. Did you know that INT is your magic damage and MND is your magic resistance? I didn't know the difference until, again, a trip to the wiki.
Then there's the grind. Now to be clear, you don't have to grind, but it vastly improves your abilities and is almost required in the harder difficulties. Every enemy drops a Power Shard, which gives you one of 5 types of abilities. The drop rate varies from enemy to enemy but generally they are between 3-6%. Since these stack to 9 to reach full power (listed as the Grade of the shard, again not explained anywhere what increasing the grade does beyond "makes shards stronger"), that means an enemy with 4% drop rate has to be killed hundreds of times to max your stacks. Arguably the most important shards are the Yellow Shards that give Passive abilities. When these are upgraded to Rank 9 at the alchemist, they become Skill shards and are always active regardless of whether or not you have them equipped. As you can imagine, that makes these pretty strong. Getting a permanent STR up, Attack Speed up, or HP Regen is a massive boon. So combine the couple dozen passive shards with the low drop rates of both the shards themselves and the ingredients to upgrade them, and you're looking at a massive multi-thousand enemy grind. Again, not really necessary for Normal difficulty, but almost required to have a chance at Hard or Nightmare.
This review is getting a little long so I'll speedrun the other issues I had:
After the many patches that this game has received, there are still many bugs I encountered throughout my playthroughs; accessories not working, some passive shards behaving as if I have them equipped like Pickpocket, Familiars not unsummoning when I unequip them or summon themselves twice, etc.
While most of the backgrounds look gorgeous, there are some that seem like rush jobs, like the path between the village and the castle or the fact that riding the train backwards doesn't reverse the distant background scroll.
Guns, while a cool weapon idea, feel way too clunky to use as a primary weapon (why can't I aim anywhere except straight ahead? Could have been easily fixed with a directional shard that lets you aim it like other D-shards).
The characters (especially Miriam) during dialogue show almost no emotion. They could have invested into more than 2 or 3 preset poses. As it is they all feel too stiff, despite the voice actors killing it most of the time.
Despite all of my complaining, I'm still giving this a recommend for the sheer size and variety that Bloodstained offers. I only sound critical in hopes that the devs are still looking at reviews and may address some of my issues, if not in this game, then in its upcoming sequel. If you like Metroidvania games, I'd definitely recommend getting this one (probably on sale however). It's got too many flaws to make it a fun, replayable classic that other games are, like Hollow Knight, but I'd still consider it worth a couple playthroughs.

I don't know what to say about this one. Is it the best Metroidvania ever made? Is it worth whatever price you find it at? Am I eagerly awaiting The Scarlet Engagement?
The answer to all these questions is "Yes."
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night carries on the legacy of the Castlevania games, and is clearly the culmination of many years of experience and expertise. The mastermind behind it knows what makes the genre work, and blends it all together in a package here that has more content than anyone knows what to do with. While my hours played is well over 200 (and those are real hours played, not a result of simply leaving the game open by mistake), it's because I speedrun the game, not because I've seen everything it has to offer. I've still barely touched Classic Mode or Classic Mode 2 (admittedly, the latter of which is DLC).
There are four characters with whom you can go through the normal game, each with their own unique abilities, similar to how previous Castlevania games would have an Albus Mode or Julius Mode. While these are a bit bare compared to Miriam Mode (the default/main character), each still provides the amount of content you'd get from any Metroidvania you'd pick up here on Steam.
It certainly isn't a coincidence that the subtitle for this game is only one word off from "Symphony of the Night." This game takes everything SOTN did, does it better, and then multiplies it by ten. There's a huge variety of weapons to choose from, though you'll probably make the mistake of sticking with the basic swords for your first run, as I did, neglecting some of the more amazing weapons, like the Scythe, or the simple Kung Fu Shoes, whose technique Flashing Air Kick allows some truly glorious sequence breaking. If Melee isn't your thing, that isn't a problem either, as every enemy in the game (except one, the basic Morté, what would be called a Zombie in Castlevania) has a Shard to drop, and every Shard allows Miriam to access a new ability, be it a fire spell, a summoned chainsaw, a familiar, or the ability to turn the entire world upside down--like the upside-down castle of Symphony of the Night, except you control it and can switch it on and off any time you want.
Truly a masterpiece.
Ritual of the Night nails the experience of starting the player weak and without much to do ability-wise, and then slowly progressing and powering up the player until you are a goddess rampaging through the castle and destroying everything in sight. Unusually, though, Miriam is not truly weak and powerless from the start, if you know how to use the abilities she begins the game with. While you may frown upon seeing the basic and seemingly-weak Kung Fu Shoes as the starting weapon, you should be aware that the Kung Fu Shoes are a primary staple of speedruns, and are far from useless, even if you aren't trying to reach places you shouldn't be able to reach yet.
You might think, with so many shards to be collected, that it's a grindfest, but this problem is expertly dodged by two facts. First is that every shard has a 4% base droprate, minus one or two outliers. This means that, at worst, an enemy may need to be killed 25 times before you get their shard, which is a huge improvement over some of the 0.5% droprates that some Metroidvanias have. However, the second stroke of genius is that Luck is your most useful stat, and there are ways to begin boosting it very early on. Luck has a direct and noticeable effect on drop rates for items and shards, and is the single most important stat to stack through the game. If you're anything like me, you'll reach an area full of new enemies and immediately feel the need to grind it out until you have the shard from every enemy. Unlike many games, though, it doesn't feel like a drag here, as you'll spend a few minutes doing that, and then you'll be ready to move on. You'll never spend 20 minutes grinding against a single enemy to get their shard, something I've done far too many times in Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow.
It simply feels good to do this. While there are many shards of questionable utility (like Summon Toad), just as many are surprisingly useful, and the desire to know whether an enemy gives something good or something useless is easily enough to compel players to grind them all out. And, importantly, it never really feels like grinding, except on those rare movements that you find the Augment Luck shard and realize that it's in your best long-term interests to stop everything and grind out 9 of them to max out its potential. That can actually take a while, but usually it's Rank you'll want to increase, which is done somewhere else, and not Grade, which is increased by collecting duplicates of the shard.
That "other place," where you increase Rank, is with Johannes, who provides access to the crafting system, the cooking system, and the shard upgrade system. This is the only area where I've found any flaws in the game, as it's all a bit obtuse and unclear. It's mostly a UI problem, because some weapons require other weapons in order to be crafted, making some armor and weapon crafting like a tree, while everything is presented as a list. It isn't too much of an issue, but it is an issue, made worse by the fact that you'll also need to find recipes in the castle to make certain things.
Good luck trying to figure out why you can't craft a Tea Dress because it doesn't even show up on your list, making you think you need a recipe, when really it's just that you don't have any Durable Rags and you used the last Cotton you had making Bat Wings... Since you don't have any of the materials required, it simply won't show up on your list of craftable items. Like I said, it can be obtuse.
Graphically, the game is beautiful, and musically it has all the awesomeness you'd expect of a Castlevania game--because this is, in everything but name, the ultimate Castlevania.
I've played a lot of Metroidvanias. Gal Guardians, Ender Lilies, AfterImage, Blasphemous, Hollow Knight, Castlevania: Dominus Collection, I could go on. But there's no need. We can add a hundred more to that list, and the result would be the same--Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is the best of them. It's no contest. If you like Metroidvanias, then you need to play this. It's the best.

AMAZING spiritual successor to Symphony of the Night! Great graphics, sound, gameplay, voice acting (especially from Solid Snake himself!), and INSANE customization. Only complaints are that it might be a little overwhelming with how much there is to do and craft, and it can be a little too grind-heavy sometimes. Other than that, it's incredible! You can really tell that the people making this game actually cared about making a good game, which is sadly rare nowadays. Kudos to everyone that made this!

It's like what everyone else says about this game, it's a spiritual successor of Castlevania: SotN.
If Iga can continue making games like these I'll be set! The only gripe I do have about this game, which is a minor one, is that I wish was based on Sprite animation and not 3D rendors. Other than that this game is a 10/10 for me and for many others as well!!!

Great game, very fun metroidvania :) if you wanna farm, you can farm very easily. You just back out of a room and go back in. You can even run back into a room during the exit loading screen, quite nice. Lots of variety in weapons and shards (basically spells). Lots of customization options for Miriam. Wish you could change the dress/chest/legs.
The only bad thing are the cutscenes, the hub and the price. The cutscenes are a bit janky, The hub feels pretty lifeless. And the price is quite high. I feel like it should be about $29.99. At 50% off, it's a must play if you enjoy the genre.