Gerald James reviews Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night…
In March of 1997, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was released for the Sony PlayStation and 2D platformers have been trying to recapture it’s magic since. Some came in the form of official Castlevania sequels spear-headed by Koji Igarashi and though good in their own right were never quite able to achieve the magic held by Symphony of the Night. The game has become such a benchmark of 2D exploration in platforming that it’s name has been conjoined in a portmanteau with another pioneer in gaming creating a genre commonly referred to as Metroidvanias. In 2014, Igarashi left Konami and envisioned how he would make a Castlevania if he were left to his own devices. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is his answer.
Four years after being announced as a Kickstarter game, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has been released and I can honestly say that the game is everything I had hoped for. There’s an almost alarming familiarity as soon as the game is started. The gameplay mechanics are ripped straight from the classic playbook that took the spiritual predecessor to the heights it achieved. There are no combos, no roll mechanics and until late game not even as much as a run button to be found here. I found myself wishing that the crew at ArtPlay had learned from the lessons of two decades of game development however that soon faded as I found myself nostalgic for things like omni-directional attacks and that dread of hoping that a save point lurked in each next room I entered only to be greeted by some foe I felt too under-powered to defeat.
Of course you won’t feel too powerless for long. This game is constantly spoon-feeding you some new weapon or power to try out on those who would oppose you. Every enemy you face has something new to add to your arsenal whether it be a weapon, armor piece, ingredient for a stat boosting dish or just the enemy’s attack itself. I found myself often toying around with these new tools allotted to me in an effort to find the most game-breaking combo I could. By the time I was face to face with the final encounter I had tuned my loadout to a point where it was almost trivial. Thankfully there are two more challenging difficulty levels in Hard and Nightmare to humble me after beating a boss rush in under two minutes.
The story, as you can imagine, offers very little that hasn’t been seen before. A castle appears out of nowhere. You enter with the best intentions of defeating the evil within only to discover you may have not known the whole truth when you undertook this operation. Some local folk need your assistance in avenging their sister’s neighbor’s daughter from a third marriage. And you’re too busy trying to make a decent flan to notice.
Looking at the game objectively and not just through rose tinted holy glasses there are a few things I wish would have been different. Having gone with hand-drawn characters and cutscenes instead of the rendered ones we’re given in the final product would have given the animation a little more style instead of looking bland at best and out-right awkward at worst. Some of the grinding in the game despite not being necessary to complete or even break the game could have been more streamlined. As of this review 505 Games has patched out a couple of exploits that helped to lessen the grind despite some of the fun in these games being found in the most efficient ways to farm or glitch your way through. I also was forced to restart my game after roughly seven hours of play because a patch they pushed through made my save file unbeatable. That is not being taken into account in this review however as the issue has been resolved.
That being said this game is absolutely what I wanted and expected. It is equal parts nostalgia and fan service while still giving us enough freshness here to warrant multiple playthroughs. I found myself neglecting my sleep schedule in the pursuit of crafting just one more recipe while Johannes was more than eager to point out how late it was. I look forward to the planned DLC that has been announced as free since it’ll give me a reason to boot the game back up even after I have exploited it’s mechanics to become an unstoppable demon-killing machine. If you love the thrill of exploration and gameplay experimentation then I wholly suggest Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
Pros:
+ Large, detailed map to explore
+ Plenty of weapon and power variety
+ Satisfying progression loop
+ DLC and included modes offer good replay value
Cons:
– Rehashed story
– Jarring 3D models
– Late game enemies become palette swaps
Rating: 8.5/10
Reviewed on PS4 Pro (also available on PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch)
Gerald James
