KickStarter Bloodstained - Koji Igarashi's new metroidvania game

[Damned Registrations]

I love the jumping controls in some Castlevanias where you have to commit to the jump and own up your mistake.

I would be fine with this except it's often not your mistake, but some cheap enemy spawn trigger you couldn't have seen that is unavoidably going to send you into a bottomless pit. I've got nothing against the jump physics themselves though; they make perfect sense and only feel unintuitive if you've been playing other platformers with their controlled jumps. Mind you, it's not like Castlevania's jumping is realistic either; you get an insane amount of hangtime to make jumping attacks easier to pull off. Just an interesting style variation is all.

But I dunno why you'd want to play any of the early Castlevania games over say, Mario 3 or Ghouls and Ghosts (which has the same sort of jumps but much better weapon variety and tighter difficulty) let alone Metroid or Megaman series, never mind the later offerings like Demon's Crest, EVO, Shinobi series, and a ton of other more obscure ones.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I would be fine with this except it's often not your mistake, but some cheap enemy spawn trigger you couldn't have seen that is unavoidably going to send you into a bottomless pit. I've got nothing against the jump physics themselves though; they make perfect sense and only feel unintuitive if you've been playing other platformers with their controlled jumps. Mind you, it's not like Castlevania's jumping is realistic either; you get an insane amount of hangtime to make jumping attacks easier to pull off. Just an interesting style variation is all.

The only games where the jumping mechanic is kinda punishing are the NES Castlevanias because the enemies spawn on screen and sometimes not even at the very edge of it, but a bit closer to the player. In the other Castlevanias enemies spawn off screen so it feels more natural and is less punishing, unless you are just plain awful, in which case it's a matter of skill, as it should be. You also have items to help you with the limited whip and jump controls, a balance that Castlevania 4 ended up destroying and was a super easy game for it. It is frustrating at first but I learned to enjoy it once I got used to it. Life and death decisions need to be made within seconds or you will get punished. I like it. The later platformer Castlevanias compensated by making the enemies mechanically complexer.

But I dunno why you'd want to play any of the early Castlevania games over say, Mario 3 or Ghouls and Ghosts (which has the same sort of jumps but much better weapon variety and tighter difficulty) let alone Metroid or Megaman series, never mind the later offerings like Demon's Crest, EVO, Shinobi series, and a ton of other more obscure ones.

Why not just play them all? When you have easy access to all of these games why do you need to pick and choose? They're all different enough to not make each other redundant.

Edit: Also if you guys could recommend me some platformers / metroidvanias on Steam that'd be really sweet.

 

[CryptRat]

Well, since nobody starts, I personnally enjoyed (I assume all these games are available on Steam) :
Metroidvanias : Valdis Story, Mystik Belle (basic combat but good plateforming, very cool atmosphere, includes basic but real inventory puzzles), Teslagrad (but I think it's worth it only if you're willing to search for all the cards)
Other 2d plateformers : Shovel Knight (I can't see any reason not to like this one), Giana sisters : Twisted Dreams, Eeryi's Action (very funny traps), Super meat Boy, They bleed pixels (these 2 are hard), Freedom planet (a worse Sonic but with (generally good but sometimes almost too long) boss fights).
But maybe it's just me and they're all shit, I'm not sure.

 

[Ivan]

I love the jumping controls in some Castlevanias where you have to commit to the jump and own up your mistake. Even so it's never really that punishing unless you are hopelessly bad at it.

Volgarr the Viking is one of the best games I've backed on Kickstarter. It has a linear structure like the classic Castlevania games and has a weapon upgrade system like Ghouls and Goblins (all within the level). It is brutally difficult but totally fair. You don't have midair control when you jump, but you do have a double jump, and you can make platforms for yourself using spears you can pull out of your ass. It's totally kickass. It also has an awesome "alternate path" system whereby if you clear a level a certain way it unlocks alternate layouts for each of the game's levels through which you can reach a secret final stage/boss.

Waiting for my goddamn sequel.

steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/247240/
gog: https://af.gog.com/game/volgarr_the_viking?as=1649904300
humble: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/volgarr-the-viking

 

[Doktor Best]

Super Metroid should be the game everyone should lose his metroidvania-virginity to. Its the best of the best.

 

[---]

La-Mulana is pretty good (it's an Indiana Jones-style metroidvania, with an explorer as protagonist, who must discover the secret of the giant - and they are REALLY giant - ruins of La-Mulana)... Combat, platforming, lore and settings are all quite awesome, but the puzzles sometimes are too (tooooooo) obtuse. I've never finished it (it was pretty long, about 25-30 hours) but I enjoyed almost every moment I spent with it.
The team plans to release the sequel during this year (funded via Kickstarter). The demo that they released in 2015 seemed to me more balanced and accessible, without being easier. Plus, they are basing the lore on Norse mitology this time, which I really, really love (the ruins of La-Mulana were full of eastern/egyptian riddles and lore).

 

[Hobo Elf]

Alright, thanks for the recommendations. I'll give them all a look. Probably start with La Mulana since I remember that game having a lot of hype when it was released.

 

[---]

This video shows a lot of Miriam animations (it seems that there are also guns in the game):



Also, nice fan artwork:

 

[Somberlain]

Song in that development update is bit too much of a Dracula's Castle soundalike which is a bit worrying. All of Yamane's Castlevania soundtracks are great so she's definitely capable of creating new music with the same CV atmosphere, so I hope they won't ruin Bloodstained's soundtrack by creating too many copycat songs for nostalgia milking that's completely unnecessary.

 

[Ash]

Pretty much every 2D Castlevania of the last 20 years has had a small handful of remixes of previous tracks. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[LJ40]

I'm not sure just how far down on my list of shit to worry about it would be, but a song sounding too much like Dracula's Castle is WAY the fuck down there somewhere. Sounds like searching desperately for something to bitch about.

 

[Somberlain]

Yeah, because you are not allowed to criticize anything that isn't the most crucial aspect of a game

Besides, these kind of things are fairly important with these Kickstarter games that were funded mainly because of prestige and nostalgia. It may be tempting for developers to clog their games with excessive amount of nostalgic pandering to "play it safe", even though it hurts the game.

 

[LJ40]

As long as I'm still free to criticize retarded criticism, sounds good to me.

 

[Somberlain]

Of course you are. Only one who's been implying that you aren't allowed to criticize something is you.

 

[---]

Important update!

We've got an important development update from IGA this week, and we wanted to make sure the backers were the first to hear it. In short: to ensure the game meets his quality standards, IGA is bringing on additional developers and has moved his estimate for the game's release back to the first half of 2018. Here's more information, directly from IGA:



The last thing I want to do is keep our backers waiting, but after receiving such incredible support, I feel responsible for delivering the best product I possibly can. Again, I offer my sincerest apologies.

All of us on the campaign and development sides of the team are looking forward to playing the finished game as soon as we can, but as IGA says, we also want this game to be "done right the first time."

We'll continue to keep you updated on the development process every step of the way. (In fact, the next regularly scheduled update, featuring some songs and commentary from Michiru Yamane, is just about ready to go. And as IGA mentioned, you can expect more news about the development process as soon as it's available.)

Thanks again for all you've done to make such an exciting project possible.

--- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night/posts/1666487

Aka: we want to port the game on PS4 pro, fuck you backers (?).

 

[Somberlain]

Well, better for it to be delayed than to be rushed. It's been so long since the last Igavania and we certainly don't need more Mighty Number Nines and Nu Male's Skies.

 

[LJ40]

Looks good, as long as nothing sounds slightly reminiscent of something else. That would be a deal breaker of course.

 

[Ivan]

looks like it's trying to be better than nothing

 

[Somberlain]

Pretty sure it will be. Igarashi has actual game design credentials, unlike Inafune.

 

[Delterius]

To be honest, half way through the video I expected this to be a new kickstarter announcement.

 

[Somberlain]

 

[Siveon]

Cool. 505 did pretty well with the Terraria port, I don't see how they'll really worsen this project in any way.

 

[grimace]

Let's add the backer portraits.

 

[Ash]

Optimistically fapping, and that's a rarity when it comes to modern games. So. much. dumbed. down. garbage.

And yeah, stupid Kickstarter crap. I don't want to see some ugly neckbeard mug in my game. This game is one of few kickstarted games with little interference from all that backer reward shit though.



This is how you know it's going to be good. Much respect to IGA, one of few keeping it real.

 

[Somberlain]

While most game series decline over time, Igavanias just got better. Shame that many people don't necessarily know this since they don't want to play handheld games so they only played Symphony. It had plenty of flaws which were gradually fixed as the new games were made, so I have more faith in Bloodstained than any other Kickstarter.

Of course, handheld games are obviously worse in terms of graphics and sound quality which Symphony (and Bloodstained) don't suffer from.


EDIT: But yeah, backer shit sucks and we can only hope that it's as unobtrusive as possible.