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KickStarter Bloodstained - Koji Igarashi's new metroidvania game

flyingjohn

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May 14, 2012
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One million sales.

Edit:They released this year road map:

-June 23
Boss Revenge as Bloodless, Andrealphus, Bathin and Gremory.
Chroma Wheel, which will allow for full control over your character's colour palette.

-Q3 2020
Three new gamemodes:
VS Mode,chaos mode(solo and coop) and classic mode.

-Q4 2020
Third playable character.Not Dominique.
 
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Perkel

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Mar 28, 2014
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Bloodstained 2 ain't coming for along time.

Sorry but you are naive if you think any of those extras need full development team.
They just announced 1mln sales which means they are stocked on money and probably expanded already. Especially since kickstarter covered most if not all their dev cost.

100% they work on something.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
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Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
I hope they do. But everything from Switch fixes to how long they took on a bare-bones Zangetsu shows that for whatever reason, so far, they can't seem to get their shit together.
 

flyingjohn

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Bloodstained 2 ain't coming for along time.

Sorry but you are naive if you think any of those extras need full development team.
They just announced 1mln sales which means they are stocked on money and probably expanded already. Especially since kickstarter covered most if not all their dev cost.

100% they work on something.

If they self published then yes,but they didn't.
They have to share money with the publisher and other studios they collaborated with(there was like 6 of them).Not to mention they have to pay expensive freelancer's like the woman behind the ost. She didn't quit her job at Konami years ago to be underpaid.
 

flyingjohn

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I hope they do. But everything from Switch fixes to how long they took on a bare-bones Zangetsu shows that for whatever reason, so far, they can't seem to get their shit together.
Igarashi studio was responsible for barely 10% of the game.The game way made with 5/6 different studios lending their people.It is a clusterfuck.
 

Perkel

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Even if it was done by 6 different studios no one was working on it expecting 10mln sales.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
This game is amazing so far. Just did twin dragon boss.

Itemization is fucking rad. Really is from the makers of sotn and order of ecclessia. I just found a steampunk esque greatsword that you can charge and have steam rockets on its back. There is also flying sword, a shovel, etc.

My only gripe is the drop rate (i guess i am installing drop rate mod) and normal mode is too easy and hard mode is locked.

Like WHYYY!? The only boss i don't win the first time is zangetsu so far. Everything else is piss easy.
 

RoSoDude

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HoboForEternity You can unlock all difficulty modes from the getgo by naming your save file "NIGHTMARE".

I played Zangetsu mode yesterday. His core mechanics are awesome, but the balance is even worse than the base game and removes rather than enhancing most of the challenge. I had an extremely lopsided experience where I breezed through the castle and all of the main bosses on Hard difficulty in just over 3 hours, but spent another 3 hours on the final boss -- I originally had trouble with it on my minimal shard run focusing on weapon arts as well, and a mode without OP gear and shards just exacerbated how tedious that fight can be.

The best thing about the mode is that it incorporates all of Zangetsu's (Normal difficulty) boss moves as mechanics that the player can use. Zangetsu has a normal quick slash on X and a heavy arcing slash on RT which can be used freely. For moves that drain mana, he has a knife throw on Y, his chain hookshot (which can be used as an attack or a movement tool) on the right analog stick, a super jump slash on ↑ + LB, a special slam attack on ↓ ↘ → + X, a jumping variant of the special slam attack on ↓ ↓ + X, a parry stance on → → + X, and a super dash with invincibility frames that leaves behind columns of flame on ← → + X. Each of these save for the parry and super dash can be modified by his elemental buff on RB; of these, the ice buff makes special attacks create an ice sheet that slides across the ground, the fire buff adds the most damage to special attacks with a moderate explosion zone while splitting basic attack damage into two ticks, and the lightning buff creates blasts of electricity with wide arc while splitting basic attack damage into three ticks. Each of these moves can be easily canceled into one another or with his basic dash (which has invincibility frames as well), and his basic attacks admit landing cancels. There are also some hidden combos, like the ability to cancel his super jump slash into a downward special slam attack by pressing RT during any point of the upward motion. All of this makes it extremely fluid and fun to control Zangetsu and blast through enemies with attack combos, especially once you get some of the cancels down.

However, the numbers are tuned all wrong. Most enemies went down in 2 hits or 1 special attack even on Hard difficulty, and the special attacks barely drain any mana. I fought three bosses and then beelined for Gebel, who I spammed to death with quarter circle forward slam attacks that I could freely cancel into one another. This is when I discovered the worst part of all, which is that Zangetsu not only has hyperarmor during these moves, he also is completely invulnerable. If you can find a spot where a boss will stand in place, you can wail on them with no penalty until they die, which will only take about 15 seconds as long as you are capable of rolling your thumb back and forth on a quarter of your D-pad. I have no idea why they did it this way -- Miriam wasn't invulnerable during most of her weapon arts, especially the comparably high damaging ones, and this made them an interesting tool to use in combat that required some degree of skill and timing beyond the basic input mechanics (which are fairly forgiving). Plus, Zangetsu already has a ton of invulnerability in his kit -- his dash and super dash have very forgiving invincibility frames and can be easily spammed, while his parry stance offers no riposte but instead freezes the enemy in place and allows Zangetsu to walk through them or counter attack normally. Why even bother with that when you can just spam to victory? There was an opportunity here to make a skill-based character focused on weapon arts who can tackle the game content in a totally nonlinear fashion, but he's just a cheesefest instead. Bael is still hard as fuck because it has a gazillion health and you have to dump half your MP on the first phase, but everything else is just a joke. The removal of level-ups on Nightmare difficulty would make it a bit more testing, but I'd wager you'd still have enough MP to spam through everything if you play your cards right. Severely disappointed.

Oh, and one of the dumber things about it is that Zangetsu can still pick up gold, which I found initially curious as there is no shop to spend them in. Then I realized the horrible truth, which is that every coin you pick up will still be used to heal Valefar later. If you don't realize this and pointlessly pick up gold anyway, you're in for a longer, if still largely pretty easy, bossfight. Some may see this as a clever twist as you're likely to have mindlessly picked up some gold if you explored more of the castle before rushing to the end, but I think it's a dumb gotcha that didn't add any substantial challenge even though I went out of my way to pick up gold for the hell of it.
 
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flyingjohn

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HoboForEternity You can unlock all difficulty modes from the getgo by naming your save file "NIGHTMARE".

Oh, and one of the dumber things about it is that Zangetsu can still pick up gold, which I found initially curious as there is no shop to spend them in. Then I realized the horrible truth, which is that every coin you pick up will still be used to heal Valefar later. If you don't realize this and pointlessly pick up gold anyway, you're in for a longer, if still largely pretty easy, bossfight. Some may see this as a clever twist as you're likely to have mindlessly picked up some gold if you explored more of the castle before rushing to the end, but I think it's a dumb gotcha that didn't add any substantial challenge even though I went out of my way to pick up gold for the hell of it.

This and randomizer having unbeatable seeds fairly frequently tells me this wasn't really tested much.
If you are interested in playing the randomizer mode there is a mod called randoenhancer on the nexus that mostly fixes unbeatable seeds ,just be careful of books and movements speeds.You can stack so much speed the game will soft lock.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Finished it.

Mainly the worst thing about it is the drop rate (which i just modded)

Overall great game. Imo sotn and ecclesia was better and overall metroidvania hollow knight is my favorite altho customization in hollow knight isnt as deep as bloodstained, hollow knight is snappier, more challenging, more intense (maybe thanks to hard being locked in 1st playtru unless you start with the code).

Level is mostly good, but i hated the colossus whatever level. It is probably when iga ran out of money and just copy paste the previous stuff and upscale the size. That level was a slog. It's all size with no complexity and a pain to get trough before you get the dash skill (with one annoying sidequest too).

The sidequest should've been better than rng item farming, but i did it because eh 50% drop rate bitch.

Since this is a big success, Bloodstained 2 is probably a go and iga's general revival as a whole is something to be excited of.
 

Tigranes

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Jan 8, 2009
Messages
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Ugh. Apparently Zangetsu mode doesn't unlock properly for everybody, so you have to reload your save to beat the final boss again if it's not working. But I'm so bad at these games that after leaving it for a year, it's going to take me several tries to get used to it again to actually beat the boss.

Not sure it's worth it, with how shallow Zangetsu mode apparently is.
 

RoSoDude

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Oct 1, 2016
Messages
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Yeah, I had to fight the final boss again to unlock Zangetsu mode as well. Was a pain.
 

RuySan

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I'm thinking about another playthrough. I'm undecided between Zangetsu or randomiser on hard. Is Zangestu that shallow?
 

RoSoDude

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Oct 1, 2016
Messages
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I'm thinking about another playthrough. I'm undecided between Zangetsu or randomiser on hard. Is Zangestu that shallow?

Scroll up for my detailed impressions on Zangetsu mode. You'll be over with it in one sitting even if you go and fight every boss, and while his moveset is very fluid and fun to use it's also completely broken.
 

RoSoDude

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Hopefully it's not a boring power trip like Zangetsu mode. What a disappointing waste of time that was.

The news announcement: https://playbloodstained.com/bloodless-rises/

Bloodless Rises!

Greetings, Army of the Night!

Bloodless rises to become the newest playable character in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night!

The Bloodstained community has shown us incredibly support, patience, and understanding as we’ve worked to complete each new stage of development and complete content. To thank the community, we are releasing Bloodless today as our latest playable character! Bloodless is an additional playable character that wasn’t included in the previous Development Roadmap. We still have the unnamed playable character that you see on the Roadmap in development.

Bloodless is available to all players, even if you haven’t previously completed the game. Just start a new game and name the save file BLOODLESS (make sure to use ALLCAPS). You will hear Bloodless’ voice and see her as a character option. Choose her, select your difficulty and start the game!

As you explore the castle, you will discover crystal globes that will grant Bloodless new skills and improve her attributes. Each addition making her more deadly to her enemies. Increase your power and defeat your enemies!

Bloodless is launching for free across all platforms along with updates for Randomizer Mode and bug fixes.

This update starts today on most platforms and will continue across other regions in coming days. Nintendo Switch is expected in December.


What Else Is Happening?

In addition to Bloodless, we are rolling out significant improvements for Randomizer! The Current Status page has the latest details for each update and patch notes.


Roadmap

If you haven’t seen our updated Development Roadmap, you can check it out here.

Thank you for playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night! We hope you enjoy playing as Bloodless!
 

Ash

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Oct 16, 2015
Messages
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Bloodstained is mediocre. Not terrible, but a sad pile of disappointment. Pick an existing Metroidvania title's name out of a hat at random, it's probably going to be better.
 
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Playing Castlevania 3 on NES right now, holy shit this game is awesome ! there's so much variety and new stuff they added in this sequel, plus 4 characters and alternative paths, if the game continue to be this good it will definitely be the best NES game i have played so far.

I'm not really interested in the modern anime graphics Bloodstained, but i will definitely check Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 1 and 2 since they are inspired by Castlevania 3, and they look dope.

 
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Machocruz

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They did a smart thing by having the two flavors of Castlevania going at the same time. If Konami were still in the business of making side-scrolling castlevanias, they would have just kept pumping out Metroid-likes, which I've had my fill of personally.

Their one mistake is that the Curse of the Moon games aren't as difficult as they should be.

If they keep making them, Id like to see a graduation from quasi 8bit games to quasi 16bit. The best features from Rondo, 4, and Bloodlines with "enhanced" 16bit graphics, like how the first two are NES on steroids. Big sprites, branching paths out the ass, multiple characters, Mode 7 effects but better, etc
 
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Yeah i'm not a huge fan of Metroidvania Castlevanias, i enjoyed Symphony of the Night and Circle of the Moon for the first 5 hours, then they became repetitive, i did beat both though. They just don't have the same tight gameplay from normal Castlevania games.

Lots of backtracking, trash mobs, not knowing where to go and bosses/enemies that are either too easy or takes forever to kill because of bad implemented RPG mechanics. I'm just not a fan of this gameplay loop.
 

Machocruz

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I started playing Aria for Halloween, and the backtracking/criss crossing was finally getting to me. I'll be in the mood for it eventually, but shelved it for now

EDIT:

Btw, I recently watched some of a playthrough of Dissonance, which I never played. I know it is criticized for music and easiness, but it looks pretty sick, honestly. If SotN still has the best aesthetics of Metroid'vanias, I'd say HoD is next in line as far as the handheld games go. Other games are either too colorful/bright and/or lack as strong gothic horror architectural trappings. There's some Gigeresque shit in there.

Being that none of the games are really hard, I'd think the gameplay would have to be pretty dismal for HoD to be as disregarded as it is, but I don't know.
 
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RoSoDude

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I started playing Aria for Halloween, and the backtracking/criss crossing was finally getting to me. I'll be in the mood for it eventually, but shelved it for now

Btw, can anyone remind me why Harmony of Dissonance gets disregarded? It's the only Metroid'vania I didn't play, because reviews. But I watched some playthrough of it and it looks pretty sick. I remember music was criticized, and there are some trash tracks, but also some great ones, better than some of the music in later games. A lot of bitchin' looking castle areas. Whip, which will always be the preferred CV weapon to me. I noticed a lot of callbacks to SotN (main weapon+classic subs+magic, very similar looking save and portal rooms, shadow trail on character).

It's mostly the awful sound, but the castle design is a bit weird and the Metroid ability upgrades are rather dull. Great magic system, though.

Pulling up the rear, we have Igarashi's return to directing Castlevania after the GBA launch title, Circle of the Moon. It's perhaps due to its rushed development and awkward transition to the new platform that the game takes as many steps back as it does forward. It's not a bad game by any means -- Iga's hand can be felt from the start with more flexible and responsive movement (I hope you liked backdash spamming in SOTN!), wonderful enemy sprites, and expressive mechanics that afford the player a lot of ways to tackle combat. The magic system is easily the best part of the game, and finally makes the Classicvania subweapon system feel like a natural rather than vestigial inclusion into the Igavania gameplay formula. By combining subweapons with one of five elemental spellbooks, you can perform highly varied magical attacks, from whirlwinds of flame to homing shards of ice and more. It's a joy to find new spellbooks (though they're stretched a bit thin near the end) and experiment with different subweapon combinations (there are 35 in total!), and for the first time ever I was always happy to pick up a new subweapon for the opportunity to do so, unlike in SotN where I always lament having my holy water drop off the stage in return for a ricochet rock. This amount of freedom comes at the cost of difficulty, however; particularly the bosses which are at the level of the worst SotN had to offer where you can just spam spells until "Giant [Generic Enemy]" dies without any need to learn their moveset. There are at least three decent ones, but it's nothing too memorable. Speaking of bosses, progression through the castle often felt a bit weird, as half the time I would get to a new area, kill a boss and find myself at a pointless dead end and have to double back -- the boring set of abilities that gate progression don't help matters either. There's almost nothing beyond your standard double jump, crouch slide, and high jump, other than some extremely specific key items that you have to equip for a new "ability" which amounts to little more than a key for a particular type of lock. This doesn't mean exploration itself is unsatisfying -- especially in the early areas, there's a good deal of nonlinearity and optional content. I was particularly impressed with some of tougher one-off enemies you can choose to fight and a few that actually doubled as puzzle solutions, which I've never seen in any of Igarashi's games before. The game's A/B castle gimmick also tests the player's navigational skills to a greater extent than most other games in the genre. Gear is rewarding, but not always interesting -- all of the whip upgrades are boring, and most equipment just modulates stats, but at least it's fairly balanced. The shop is a totally pointless inclusion, as there's nothing exciting to buy and you get far too much money for potions, which are basically unlimited in your inventory, to be of any concern (I just restricted my own use here to maintain an acceptable level of challenge). Finally, I have to talk about the music. It's some of the worst in the series. From what I've heard, this was a technical limitation imposed by the short development time, as the team was focused on providing a more vibrant visual experience after Circle of the Moon was so difficult to make out on the unlit original GBA screen. They generally succeeded in this task, and the game's backgrounds, sprites, and animations are quite splendid, but the tunes sound worse than anything on the NES. I haven't tried the Hard mode, but I'm fairly confident that it effectively alleviates my balance and difficulty concerns, and the alternate Maxim mode adds some replayability as well. I'd certainly recommend this game to any fans, as it has some noteworthy ideas and decent execution, but not without some caveats.
 

Machocruz

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RoSoDude edited my post as I remembered what reviews said about it.

Yeah I read your write ups on the games, but missed the one on Harmony somehow. Well it sounds like something I'd still have enjoyed when I was all about these games. Maybe down the road I'll pick it up.
 

Luka-boy

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Classic Mode and some additional content are in!

Classic Mode and Kingdom Crossover Launch Today
Bloodstained's newest free mode is old-school fun.
Hello, Army of the Night!

Today we launch Classic Mode and a new area and boss based on the hit game Kingdom: Two Crowns. The updates (ver 1.20) is free! Play Bloodstained in a whole new (old) way!

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Miriam must once again enter the castle to confront Gebel and survive five harrowing stages and five sub-bosses that stand in her way. Armed only with a sword and whip, can she survive her journey through the demonic castle?

Classic Mode brings retro action to Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night with levels and gameplay inspired by the classic games of yesteryear.

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In addition to your main weapon, you will be able to pick up special, limited-use abilities throughout the mode, but you can only have one at a time. When you pick up a new ability, the previous one will disappear.

As you advance though the castle, you will have to defeat the sub-bosses to advance to the next stage. Defeat them all and you will face off against Gebel himself!

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When you finish Classic Mode, you’ll be graded on time, score and number of deaths across three difficulty modes – be sure to efficiently use Miriam’s special moves including slide, backstep and backflip.

To play Classic Mode, choose “Extra Mode” from the main menu and then select “Classic Mode”. The mode is available to all Ritual of the Night owners, you do not need to have completed the core game to play Classic Mode.


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Last year we partnered with our friends at Raw Fury to transport Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’s beloved characters – Miriam, Zangetsu, Gebel and Alfred – to Kingdom: Two Crowns.

Now it’s time to pay it forward as both publishers team up once again to merge the worlds of Kingdom: Two Crowns and Bloodstained. The Kingdom Crossover includes a new area that captures the beautiful, modern pixel art aesthetic of Kingdom.

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Within the Kingdom area, you will encounter a new boss that, once defeated, will grant the new Archer Familiar Shard. This familiar will follow you throughout your adventures and attack enemies from a ranged distance. Level up the shard to get more powerful attacks!

The Kingdom Crossover will become available <b>after you have defeated Bathin</b> on your current save, or load an old save where you have previously defeated him. From there you will need to acquire the Crown of Creation before you will be able to locate the hidden area (it’s not shown on the map).

The Crown of Creation is equipped into the head slot and is your key to the Kingdom Crossover area. It also reduces damage at the cost of gold when worn.

We are excited for you to play the new Classic Mode and to experience the Kingdom Crossover.




Thank you for playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night AND for playing Kingdom: Two Crowns!
 

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