KickStarter Bloodstained - Koji Igarashi's new metroidvania game

[Ulrox]

Wow, the psp version's voice acting is horrible.

For the record, I think Robert Belgrade did an exellent job, but I suppose Scott McCulloch wasn't bad either.

 

[Luka-boy]

Some concept art of a few special attacks:

Spoiler

Gluttony Summon: Attacks enemy by summoning an angry spirit that devours anything and everything in its path.

Magical Throne: Materializes a chair that speeds up MP replenishment. Looks very relaxing.

Voltic Chain: Summons electrified chains to attack all enemies with electric volts. This is a special “seventh" ability—not a demonic one.

Winestained: Throws a wineglass in anger, increasing the effectiveness of certain abilities.

And a few Familiar concepts, though apparently only one of them will make it into the game after people vote on which two Igarashi will have to choose from:

Spoiler

 

[Somberlain]

Some concept art of a few special attacks:

Magical Throne: Materializes a chair that speeds up MP replenishment. Looks very relaxing.

Winestained: Throws a wineglass in anger, increasing the effectiveness of certain abilities.

 

[Delterius]

I couldn't really understand English when I played Symphony of the Night so I didn't care that the copy I acquired was in Japanese.

Man, going by those VOs I didn't really lose anything.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You only lost out on some of the greatest unintentional comedy in gaming history. Due to how hilariously botched the dub is, Alucard's "........" basically turned into "go away dad, you're drunk again".

 

[Luka-boy]

According to Igarashi the Japanese dev team, who was proud of the Japanese dub and wanted an equally good English one too, didn't even learn how bad it actually was until after the game was launched in the West and they received with shock the news about how the dub was widely panned. Apparently back in the day during development, when they asked about the English dub to the company localizing the English version, they were assured it was great and they naively believed it. I think it was also mentioned that they simply couldn't tell if it was good or bad because nobody in the team present in the reunions could speak or read English.

Igarashi and Hagihara's punishment for that mistake is, still to this day, having interviews with foreigners sometimes open with the question "What is a man?".

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Awwww that's such a cute story of naive Japanese developers.

 

[Gozma]

If you played Japanese->English games in the '90s, translations ended up blending together in this odd blur of incompetence and Jap surrealism where you'd assume all Japanese games were batshit and all dialog or text meaningless. Games that I now recognize were not all that incomprehensible (like Silent Hill 1) were like playing a weird ass fever dream at the time (although SH isn't quite a localization issue). Even very competent English translations got changed by that mental filter (I remember playing Vagrant Story like it was typical Japanese nonsense then playing it years later again and realizing it's highly competent and straightforward faux-Shakespeare with a clear story). Being a product of '90s English translation hell is why the SotN localization is so memetic.

 

[SCO]

I hope Engrish never dies. The recent persona songs are masterpieces of Engrish. TFW you realize it was engrish all along.

 

[Luka-boy]

Did you say Engrish?

At least Igarashi looked stylish there

 

[nomask7]

I used to dislike a lot of the SotN voice acting in my teens. But try to say those lines better than they do. I think the voice actors are not only well chosen in terms of the character of their voices, but they also do a splendid job in general. Reviewers just never like theatricality because they're closed-minded literal-minded pedestrian morons. The localisation in that game was fantastic but like pearls to swine, a lot of people didn't appreciate it.

 

[dunno lah]

Must learn how to say "vampire" like Iga.

 

[Siveon]

Some concept art of a few special attacks:

Spoiler

Magical Throne: Materializes a chair that speeds up MP replenishment. Looks very relaxing.

Winestained: Throws a wineglass in anger, increasing the effectiveness of certain abilities.

This better be kept in. It's firmly in the grounds of stupid = awesome.

And a few Familiar concepts, though apparently only one of them will make it into the game after people vote on which two Igarashi will have to choose from:

Spoiler

How much you want to bet that B gets the most votes?

 

[grimace]

DRM-free versions to all Kickstarter backers of the game pledging $28 or more redeemable on GOG.

Seems some folks are upset about GOG offering a beta game.

http://af.gog.com/forum/general/bloodstained_ritual_of_the_night_c6818/page1?as=1649904300

 

[Tehdagah]

Gameplay:

 

[CyberP]

I hate that HUD.

"I hate platforming consisting of precise jumps"
-IGA



Well it certainly shows in SOTN I guess. Unfortunate really, as the game is meant to be in-part a platformer so you need to have some testing bits. Then again we had the clocktower with the medusa heads in SOTN which required some precise platforming combat, so maybe there's some hope.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think you have a very loose definition of 'precise jumps'. He's pretty obviously talking about pixel perfect jump horseshit, which I don't think anyone likes. Especially when you have a character moving at a decent clip instead of a snail's pace.

Platforming involving timing with enemies/obstacles and taking the correct action is far more interesting than some stupid pit that is exactly the length of your jump.

 

[CyberP]

I assumed not because I don't think I've ever seen pixel perfect platforming in professionally developed platformers. Maybe I've not played enough.
Well, unless you count the old Tomb Raiders, but I certainly don't as the way the movement worked lent you a hand in precision (can only do a running jump after first running the length/width of a 64 by 64 block and a back hop sets you up exactly 64 pixels or whatever).

 

[Machocruz]

Even with the clock tower in SotN, only the enemies could kill you, or if you fell into a spike at low health. But you could never die from missing a platform in any Igavania. Maybe he thinks it's fun to jump around in games in general, without any particular risk or difficulty attached, which is something I agree with. Agility is always a good thing in any action game, imo.

I assumed not because I don't think I've ever seen pixel perfect platforming in professionally developed platformers.

From my 8-bit/16-bit days, I remember it was usually action games that had a considerable amount of platforming (Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man), not pure platformers themselves.

 

[CyberP]

"But you could never die from missing a platform in any Igavania"

You could if you have low HP

I don't expect insta-death pitfalls, but there is very little risky platforming in SOTN at all, despite the combat often making great use of jumping (to avoid and land attacks). Why have intense jumping involved with combat but not so much exploration? Missed opportunity I say. We still have the odd lava pit, spikes and such...personally I would have feature more environmental hazards primarily of the platforming kind in my hypothetical Metroidvania. Not TOO many, variety is key and it is good to have occassional space for great combat arenas focused on intense combat alone.

Also had 8/16-bit days myself. Platforming was high-risk and required precision, but never pixel-perfect precision in my experience.

 

[Luka-boy]

He won't look like that—not even a little like that—but we had Kari Fry create this remarkable artist's depiction for a reason. That backer-exclusive boss? It will be IGA.

He was reluctant to include himself in the game like this—even as an eldritch easter egg—but he relented when he saw fans talking about the possibility. Look, take my word for it: You've never been beaten into the ground and eviscerated by a nicer guy.

No wonder the campaign earned like thirty thousand bucks in just a couple of hours. I bet a bunch of people suddenly upgraded their pledge to the 60$ tier just to get to experience that. What the fuck

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...he-most-funded-video-game-ever-on-kickstarter

Bloodstained is the most funded video game ever on Kickstarter
Bests Torment: Tides of Numenera with over 30 hours left.

Koji Igarashi's Castlevania spiritual successor, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, has become the most funded video game ever on Kickstarter.

Currently set at $4,285,745 with still 34 hours to go, it's eclipsed Torment: Tides of Numenera's former record of $4,188,927.

With no sign of slowing down, Igarashi has added further stretch goals to the project, such as a prequel/mini-game for PC and consoles at $4.5m. At $4.75m that will come to handheld platforms as well, and at $5m a procedurally-generated roguelike mode will be added.

You have until tomorrow at 8pm PST (so 4am Sat for UK folk) to back Bloodstained, and pledges of $28 will secure you a copy of the game upon its release.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has been confirmed for PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, Xbox One, Wii U and Vita. It's aiming for a March 2017 launch.

Here's some early prototype footage to whet your appetite:

Kz3r0

 

[Ulrox]

Yep, planetscape numanuma has nothing on this game!

 

[CyberP]

Great. I didn't think many cared for the brilliance of SOTN and it's gameboy/DS followups. Back when console gaming actually had some worth.

 

[Kz3r0]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...he-most-funded-video-game-ever-on-kickstarter

Bloodstained is the most funded video game ever on Kickstarter
Bests Torment: Tides of Numenera with over 30 hours left.

Kz3r0

Fucking Kickstarter fatigue.