Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Catch-All

I got to play this at E3 and it is exactly what I hoped it would be. The full demo can be seen here:

It was a very controlled demo, but shows that this really is Castlevania. You get 2 weapons, a longsword and you can find the kung fu shoes, and a few of the spells. The game has environmental interactions, some spells are used to open up new areas or hidden areas.

From what I saw, the game seems to take a lot after Dawn of Sorrow. You can get Shards from enemies, which are basically souls from the Sorrow games, and those are abilities that represent the enemy. I only got 3 in the demo, and they all automatically mapped to a face button on the gamepad, so it's hard to tell if these are pre-determined abilities or not, but I suspect it's going to be an ability system.

All in all a lot of fun, and I'm really excited. Also I got my photo with Igarashi who was there on day 2:

IMAGE(http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj575/michael_stone9/IMG_20160615_122234_zpsqrwny8az.jpg)

The more I see this game the more I am reminded of the polygonal version of Dracula X that was on the PSP Dracula X Chronicles disk. Especially that pirate ship level section they showed, there is an identical level in Rondo of Blood. Not that that's a bad thing. I loved Rondo of Blood, so I could always go for more.

Bloodstained is looking really good. Looks like a love letter to Symphony of the Night. Even has that little bit of the animation where you slide backwards a little before turning around.

Rykin wrote:

Bloodstained is looking really good. Looks like a love letter to Symphony of the Night. Even has that little bit of the animation where you slide backwards a little before turning around.

It's more than a love letter. Iga has stated that his goal is to perfect the SotN formula with Bloodstained. A lot of news articles I'm seeing are down on this, but I think it's perfectly fine. I desperately wanted to play more after the demo ended, I really can't wait for this to land.

If it's more from SOTN than from the more linear Rondo then I'm even happier.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Symphony of the Night, but I think this looks great.

I loved Symphony of the Night back when I first played it on the PSX, but it has not aged well. I'm looking forward to a modern take on the formula.

Similarly to the Zelda games, I feel like people give too much credit to the old Castlevanias (typically whichever they knew first) and not enough to the new ones. I loved SOTN, but... here's hoping this picks up where Order of Ecclesia left off

(maybe make the world open again, though Iga?)

I'm lovin' the soundtrack. That's probably got me most jazzed.

We'll see if it's as easy to get lost and confused as it is in Symphony of the Night. I went back to that a few years ago having never played it before and just felt no sense of direction.

Really looking forward to this. I just played through SoTN again last year on PSP and 360 both. Probably fourth or fifth time I've finished it, game just never stops being fun.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Similarly to the Zelda games, I feel like people give too much credit to the old Castlevanias (typically whichever they knew first) and not enough to the new ones. I loved SOTN, but... here's hoping this picks up where Order of Ecclesia left off

(maybe make the world open again, though Iga?)

My first brush with Castlevania was the first game and while it was fun for a while it didn't hook me. The second did a much better job at hooking me and the only other one beside that that I really liked was SotN. Never played any of the handheld ones which I heard were pretty good. The 3D ones on consoles were pretty bad IMHO. Not sure about the newest ones as I never bothered.

I backed this game on Kickstarter, and am really glad to see it looking so good already. It definitely feels like a Castlevania game, and that's a good thing. I love SOTN, and the portable 2D Castlevania's, so I'm glad to get a modern version of this, not on a handheld platform. I'm digging the music too.

Welp, that looks fantastic.

This is the demo they'll be releasing via Steam to folks in the $60+ tiers?

Downloaded the demo via Steam last weekend and put ~30 min into playing around with it. Love it. It feels like a homage to SoTN, though I do think it needs a fair amount of polish.

I am glad to have backed it, and probably won't be able to keep myself out of the beta once it launches for real.

Tyrian wrote:

Downloaded the demo via Steam last weekend

What? How?

Backers of $60 or more are able to get access to the E3 demo.

Tyrian wrote:

Downloaded the demo via Steam last weekend and put ~30 min into playing around with it. Love it. It feels like a homage to SoTN, though I do think it needs a fair amount of polish.

I agree with Ahrez's assessment that this is closer in gameplay to the Souls duology on GBA/DS. Also, game ran surprisingly well on my 6 year old PC considering they're using UE4 and the system requirements suggested I needed at least a card 2 years newer than what I'm currently using. Definitely needs some more polish but they're operating from a really impressive base a little over a year after initial funding campaign ended.

Delayed to 2018 per the backer update that went out around 2 hours ago.

And this is why you should rarely pay attention to the "estimated delivery date" on a KS project.

That is one hell of a delay.

Chaz wrote:

That is one hell of a delay.

More like a realistic development schedule. I think they were originally expecting 18 months, so it's now closer to about 3 years which seems closer to the average dev cycle for a project like that.

I can't help but also wonder if the reception Mighty No. 9 received has scared some people into wanting to get the project right, and thus having one big delay now rather than having several small ones that crush excitement.

That's certainly possible. Also, with a 2018 release window I won't be surprised if Vita and Wii U ports are unceremoniously axed next year.

shoptroll wrote:

That's certainly possible. Also, with a 2018 release window I won't be surprised if Vita and Wii U ports are unceremoniously axed next year.

That's my assumption. Maybe replaced by an NX announcement.

E3 2017 trailer:

The run animation speed still doesn't seem to quite match the movement speed but other than that looking good

Symphony of the Night has the same thing with its running animation. It's always bugged me in that game but seems to be a stylistic choice.

Speaking of, did level design improve in the GBA Castlevania games? Because level design is the biggest reason I can't get into Symphony of the Night and seeing as I kickstarted this against all logic and reason I'm worried that the level design is going to repel me.

Did they make the game look more 3D or has that always been the visual style?

ccesarano wrote:

Speaking of, did level design improve in the GBA Castlevania games? Because level design is the biggest reason I can't get into Symphony of the Night and seeing as I kickstarted this against all logic and reason I'm worried that the level design is going to repel me.

I've only played the GBA games but I didn't have any problems with the level designs in those.

Chimalli wrote:

Did they make the game look more 3D or has that always been the visual style?

It's been that way since the backer preview they released last year. The images that were on the Kickstarter page are clearly labelled as "concept art" which looks a lot more 2D.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyBW...
Watch that and try figure out what's missing....

At any rate, this looks like a Castlevania with snazzy graphics...which is exactly what I paid for so I maintain a low-key excitement

I cannot get confirmation but I'm pretty certain that's Laura Bailey doing the voice for the protagonist.

I can tell because when she gets stabbed with the shard she has that very distinct Laura Bailey grunt.

Spoiler:

I'm not certain at all and that probably sounds creepy but I'm happy when Laura Bailey is doing any voicework so.