have they given a timeline for the various updates and new modes, characters, etc.? I thought Zangetsu was going to come relatively soon after launch based on promoting it, but nothing has happened unless it came out and I'm unaware.
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KickStarter Bloodstained - Koji Igarashi's new metroidvania game
- Thread starter LivingOne
- Start date
Ivan
Arcane
Impressions after my first session:
It delivers what I expect from an Igavania but it's not doing much more than I would have hoped. What did take me by surprise was the quality VO and script. The introductory sequence is well done and thankfully it doesn't take too long before you get to the meat.
Art style is not to my liking, reminding me of porcelain dolls, but the animation work is well done. My favorite bit from my opening hours was the boss fight against Zangetsu. I struggled with him for a bit and I reminded me of how much I missed hard-hitting bosses (he's noticeably harder than the next two bosses I encountered).
So far so good I guess. I've definitely been spoiled by the art and mechanics of Hollow Knight, that Bloodstained leaves me wishing it game me more movement mechanics to make backtracking more fun. Thankfully you can jump over and skip most weaker goons when you do backtravel, but I'm definitely hoping for something new to be introduced to expedite the backtracking.
It delivers what I expect from an Igavania but it's not doing much more than I would have hoped. What did take me by surprise was the quality VO and script. The introductory sequence is well done and thankfully it doesn't take too long before you get to the meat.
Art style is not to my liking, reminding me of porcelain dolls, but the animation work is well done. My favorite bit from my opening hours was the boss fight against Zangetsu. I struggled with him for a bit and I reminded me of how much I missed hard-hitting bosses (he's noticeably harder than the next two bosses I encountered).
So far so good I guess. I've definitely been spoiled by the art and mechanics of Hollow Knight, that Bloodstained leaves me wishing it game me more movement mechanics to make backtracking more fun. Thankfully you can jump over and skip most weaker goons when you do backtravel, but I'm definitely hoping for something new to be introduced to expedite the backtracking.
Valky
Arcane
After reading the thread and other detective work to analyze the game, this looks like much incline and I will be purchasing it to play once I get some current games off my plate. Fucking hats off to a Japanese developer to immediately put GOG as a launch release, no longer do we have to suffer DRM and steam exclusivity. This guy really REALLY wants my money, and he will be getting it. There is such a discernible amount of passion that I could see in the polish of the game and the developer videos on it.
It was quite amusing to see the roller coaster in this thread where the game was going to be shit at one point.
I will use the NIGHTMARE cheat when I get the game to experience my playthrough in hard mode, because it sounds like a proper hard mode that doesn't just up numbers. Very interested in what all of these free dlc modes are going to be about.
It was quite amusing to see the roller coaster in this thread where the game was going to be shit at one point.
I will use the NIGHTMARE cheat when I get the game to experience my playthrough in hard mode, because it sounds like a proper hard mode that doesn't just up numbers. Very interested in what all of these free dlc modes are going to be about.
If by incline you mean a game that's basically fan-service and doesn't do anything innovative, then yeah. It's solid enough to be worth playing if you're a fan of the genre though.
Valky
Arcane
It's a breath of fresh air to not have "innovation" and change for change sake shoved down my throat, it's often the reason why so many modern games are shit. This is a service to fans by the looks of it, not a service to the journalists that would rate it poorly for "lack of innovation".
Um...yeah. That's what "fan-service" is. That's great if you're satisfied with it.
TheImplodingVoice
Dumbfuck!
I have Bloodstained on PS4. But I still haven't played it. I know it's heresy but I just didn't have the time. But I am on leave the whole December till mid January. So I am going to remedy that. I did finish Ritual of The Moon though (was very short) and played through Symphony of The Night again a while back . So I'm looking forward to playing Bloodstained.
flyingjohn
Arcane
- Joined
- May 14, 2012
- Messages
- 3,300
Name one platformer innovation in the last 20 years (minus technical stuff) that didn't fuck up the formula.
In fact you can do it for any genre.
Grauken
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2013
- Messages
- 13,449
That said, in general I agree with the sentiment that polished gameplay is better than crude, unplayable innovation. But sometimes, innovation is nice too and it brings you back when you're close to burn out on a genre. It's not always black and white
TheImplodingVoice
Dumbfuck!
Fan service is exactly what all the people that made the kickstarter a success wanted. And fan service is what they got.
deuxhero
Arcane
Grauken
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2013
- Messages
- 13,449
Never played any of those. Worth looking up?
deuxhero
Arcane
First I know for sure is pretty good if you are fine with the genre. It's not a particularly long game either. Never played the other two.
RoSoDude
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2016
- Messages
- 756
As an aside, I finally got around to playing Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon last month, and I thought I'd share my experience since it's not been discussed much on here. B:CotM is the first Classicvania style game I've ever completed (I played only a bit of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and regrettably, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest when I was a teen), and I have to say it's a great introduction to the genre. In particular, I found that the different modes of play offered a great difficulty curve for a newcomer like myself. To be clear, I'm not talking about the Casual/Veteran difficulty option -- after my second playthrough I tested the first stage on Casual and discovered that it's actually turbo easy mode. The description for Casual only states that "Lives are unlimited, and taking damage will not knock back the player", but the setting also features halved enemy damage, double benefit from weapon potions, double weapon capacity, and more common health drops. I played entirely on Veteran and so should you -- shockingly little mastery is required from the player on Casual.
What I'm actually referring to is the progression of Normal -> Nightmare -> SPOILER, which pits the player against increasingly difficult challenges with increasingly punishing failure states. As you clear the first three stages on Normal, you will acquire three new playable characters to whom you can swap at any time during gameplay with a press of a button (there's also a brief pause when this happens which can help in critical moments). If you die as one character, you'll start at the beginning of the room you were in as the next character. If you run out of characters, you get sent back to an earlier checkpoint in the stage and lose a life (but retain your old subweapons and ammo). A game over mercifully just sends you to the start at the start of the stage and resets your gear like the old Castlevania games. This 3-tiered checkpoint/fail state system actually leads to some pretty interesting gameplay. Each character has their own attributes, abilities, and health bar, which means that you can strategically tank damage on one character to make it easier for a second character to get through. But there's also risk to this, since each character has unique abilities which allow them to access hidden items and carve shortcuts through the stage, which sometimes may require the skills of multiple characters to access. For example, you might decide to play as Alfred (the wizard character) during a section to save health for Zangetsu or Miriam, but his shorter jump may spell death during more treacherous platforming segments and block you from freezing an enemy to serve as a platform to jump on as another character later. This dynamic can lead to some emergent challenge where a death on one character forces you to play as a suboptimal set of characters for a segment and denies you access to a shortcut, so you press on through a more difficult path in an effort to make it to the next checkpoint before your party gets wiped. I was always thinking strategically about which character to play and frequently found myself having to adapt to my own failures, which was fun and engaging. In the end, I completed Normal mode without a single game over, but got close to running out of lives a few times towards the end and had to improve a lot over the course of its 9 varied stages.
Nightmare mode locks you to 3 characters from the start (everyone but Zangetsu, who you start as on Normal) and spruces up the bosses with some extra attacks and higher health pools. It also swaps out the final stage for 3 difficult single-character gauntlets before you face off against an alternate final boss. I found the reduction to 3 characters plus the changes to the bosses offered a decent enough increase in difficulty to keep up with my improving skill, as the total health pool was cut by more than 25% and I couldn't bash through combat sections as Zangetsu to save everyone else for shortcuts. I very nearly ran out of lives on Stage 7 to a particularly challenging boss, and the final gauntlets gave me several Game Overs. It's not a drastic bump in challenge, but it does offer up some new twists and requires more skill and strategy. I will also say that this mode is worth playing just for the alternate final boss alone. I won't spoil it, but it has much greater emphasis on movement and fast pattern reaction than the main final boss, which makes it quite a bit more entertaining.
There's a hidden path required to unlock the final game mode, which can be thought of as a game mode in itself. Read below if you want my thoughts on my most demanding playthrough, which was a serious challenge for a newb like myself:
In short, the character system and alternate modes add a lot of depth and replay value to the game's content, as well as an approachable entry point for new players along with an engaging ramp in difficulty. I can't assess how well the challenge holds up for veteran Castlevania fans, but I was very impressed by the difficulty design and grateful for the opportunity to finally git gud. I could comment more on the actual level and boss design itself, but I think I'll just say that it's all very well put together, with a good variety of unique challenges matched with each stage's theme. I recognize a great deal that it's borrowed from Castlevania, but there are also some new elements and innovations which may surprise you. There are some subtle quality of life improvements, such as the fact that all lamps holding subweapons are colored differently to prevent accidental swaps. Each character's set of subweapons is nicely balanced and rounds out their abilities (with the possible exception of Gebel). The stage bosses are all "demakes" of bosses from Ritual of the Night, with a great mix of spectacle, gimmicks, and tight attack patterns. The aforementioned shortcuts are heavily telegraphed to the player, which can be nice at times but also takes away some of the sense of discovery. Overall, the game is a very authentic and polished retro 8-bit experience (I admire the visual work, though I must say I find the retro sound palette a tad grating despite the catchy musical composition and competent sound effects), and I definitely recommend it to other series fans looking for a solid introduction to the older style of Castlevania.
What I'm actually referring to is the progression of Normal -> Nightmare -> SPOILER, which pits the player against increasingly difficult challenges with increasingly punishing failure states. As you clear the first three stages on Normal, you will acquire three new playable characters to whom you can swap at any time during gameplay with a press of a button (there's also a brief pause when this happens which can help in critical moments). If you die as one character, you'll start at the beginning of the room you were in as the next character. If you run out of characters, you get sent back to an earlier checkpoint in the stage and lose a life (but retain your old subweapons and ammo). A game over mercifully just sends you to the start at the start of the stage and resets your gear like the old Castlevania games. This 3-tiered checkpoint/fail state system actually leads to some pretty interesting gameplay. Each character has their own attributes, abilities, and health bar, which means that you can strategically tank damage on one character to make it easier for a second character to get through. But there's also risk to this, since each character has unique abilities which allow them to access hidden items and carve shortcuts through the stage, which sometimes may require the skills of multiple characters to access. For example, you might decide to play as Alfred (the wizard character) during a section to save health for Zangetsu or Miriam, but his shorter jump may spell death during more treacherous platforming segments and block you from freezing an enemy to serve as a platform to jump on as another character later. This dynamic can lead to some emergent challenge where a death on one character forces you to play as a suboptimal set of characters for a segment and denies you access to a shortcut, so you press on through a more difficult path in an effort to make it to the next checkpoint before your party gets wiped. I was always thinking strategically about which character to play and frequently found myself having to adapt to my own failures, which was fun and engaging. In the end, I completed Normal mode without a single game over, but got close to running out of lives a few times towards the end and had to improve a lot over the course of its 9 varied stages.
Nightmare mode locks you to 3 characters from the start (everyone but Zangetsu, who you start as on Normal) and spruces up the bosses with some extra attacks and higher health pools. It also swaps out the final stage for 3 difficult single-character gauntlets before you face off against an alternate final boss. I found the reduction to 3 characters plus the changes to the bosses offered a decent enough increase in difficulty to keep up with my improving skill, as the total health pool was cut by more than 25% and I couldn't bash through combat sections as Zangetsu to save everyone else for shortcuts. I very nearly ran out of lives on Stage 7 to a particularly challenging boss, and the final gauntlets gave me several Game Overs. It's not a drastic bump in challenge, but it does offer up some new twists and requires more skill and strategy. I will also say that this mode is worth playing just for the alternate final boss alone. I won't spoil it, but it has much greater emphasis on movement and fast pattern reaction than the main final boss, which makes it quite a bit more entertaining.
There's a hidden path required to unlock the final game mode, which can be thought of as a game mode in itself. Read below if you want my thoughts on my most demanding playthrough, which was a serious challenge for a newb like myself:
The hidden path is to complete the game solo as Zangetsu. When you come upon new characters in the first three stages, you have the option to speak with them but you may also choose to attack and kill them (this is why the game allows you to reset to previous stages at any time to reverse your choices). Doing so absorbs their power and grants Zangetsu a brand new ability -- in order, these are a wider air slash, a double jump, and a dash. These greatly enhance Zangetsu's combat utility, making aerial enemies much more manageable, offering new tools for platforming, and allowing Zangetsu to quickly reach enemies attacking from range. The double jump can change Zangetsu's trajectory mid-jump, can be double canceled with the air slash (slash-jump-slash while in the air), and can be combined with the dash to traverse great chasms. Not only does this offer much more expressive depth in combat, but it also allows Zangetsu to access a few of the otherwise unreachable shortcuts intended for other characters, one of which required me to double jump up to a ledge intended for Miriam's crouchslide from which I could then double jump slash through a breakable wall. While these new tools mitigate some of the game's obstacles and despite the fact that you will be facing unupgraded bosses, the lack of additional characters to rely on makes Zangetsu solo a stiff challenge on Normal difficulty. The biggest component of this is certainly the more stringent punishment for death -- you will always be sent back to the most recent checkpoint (usually spread apart by 3-4 rooms) and lose a life. I must have averaged 4 or 5 game overs on each stage playing this way, but it absolutely felt like a fair challenge given my prior experience with the game's mechanics and content. This is the genuine Classicvania experience, with each room offering up a unique set of obstacles (the most trying of which are always composed by aerial enemies above bottomless pits) which you must overcome with only your sword, a few items, a stiff jump arc, and your own wits. Once you complete the game in this manner, you unlock Ultimate mode, where you start the game with all of Zangetsu's abilities unlocked, no other characters can be recruited, and you must face off against the enhanced bosses from Nightmare mode.
In short, the character system and alternate modes add a lot of depth and replay value to the game's content, as well as an approachable entry point for new players along with an engaging ramp in difficulty. I can't assess how well the challenge holds up for veteran Castlevania fans, but I was very impressed by the difficulty design and grateful for the opportunity to finally git gud. I could comment more on the actual level and boss design itself, but I think I'll just say that it's all very well put together, with a good variety of unique challenges matched with each stage's theme. I recognize a great deal that it's borrowed from Castlevania, but there are also some new elements and innovations which may surprise you. There are some subtle quality of life improvements, such as the fact that all lamps holding subweapons are colored differently to prevent accidental swaps. Each character's set of subweapons is nicely balanced and rounds out their abilities (with the possible exception of Gebel). The stage bosses are all "demakes" of bosses from Ritual of the Night, with a great mix of spectacle, gimmicks, and tight attack patterns. The aforementioned shortcuts are heavily telegraphed to the player, which can be nice at times but also takes away some of the sense of discovery. Overall, the game is a very authentic and polished retro 8-bit experience (I admire the visual work, though I must say I find the retro sound palette a tad grating despite the catchy musical composition and competent sound effects), and I definitely recommend it to other series fans looking for a solid introduction to the older style of Castlevania.
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Valky
Arcane
Are there sexy revealing outfits for the girl you play as? Since this is Japanese I demand it regardless of the teen rating.
Valky
Arcane
Good evening my fellow weebs. Finally got a controller and it plays ten times better. I've played 2D games on PC with good m+kb controls, and this is not one of them. Definitely a ding from me, it's half operable without a controller. Even with a controller, I can't pull off this kick spin move half the time. Just got to the medusa boss with big anime tiddies and beat my skull against a brick wall into a bloody pulp for about two dozen deaths before I finally damage rushed her to death and right before killing her finally figured out that it is actually possible to not get hit by her water spout attack by leaving the little squids alive and having them block it D: D: D:
I'm using claymore because I don't have range for anything right now and the musketoon is garbo. Best shard so far is the shockwave that I got from the bird.
I'm using claymore because I don't have range for anything right now and the musketoon is garbo. Best shard so far is the shockwave that I got from the bird.
Modron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 5, 2012
- Messages
- 11,422
Well technically you can bunny morph into a sexier skin but yeah only 1 outfit in game actually changes appearance, really only positive about equipment display is all the weapons and hats affect appearance and a lot of accessories as well.
If you plan on mastering techniques best to start early or you won't get started at all probably, I didn't and just decided to leave that to new game plus territory.
Theldaran
Liturgist
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2015
- Messages
- 1,772
Did you get it for the Switch? Is the temptation to play while taking a dump so strong??
Tigranes
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2009
- Messages
- 10,372
Yes.
Valky
Arcane
I found an 8-bit coin near the village and it seemed rare so I used it to craft the shield. This is a really nice weapon. I don't quite understand the mechanics behind when the block activates though.
Metroid prime pinball isn't a pinball platformer, it's just a pinball game, and not a very good one. Yoku's Island Express is brilliant.
Valky
Arcane
Oh and I've been playing on Hard difficulty for my playthrough since I unlocked with the nightmare cheat. I am also completely blind for my first time. Hard is challenging and fun, it feels like the proper difficulty the game should be by default.
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