Bloodstained: Mediocrity of the Night - A Bloodstained Critique

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has been out a while, and I figured that it's about time to finally get my critique on this highly anticipated game out there.
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ABOUT THIS GAME
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is the FULL game experience, an exploration-focused, side-scroller action RPG packing all of the best features you've come to know and love from the Metroidvania genre into a single, content-packed game.
Play as Miriam, an orphan scarred by an alchemist’s curse which slowly crystallizes her body. In order to save herself, and indeed, all of humanity, she must battle her way through a demon-infested castle summoned by Gebel, her old friend whose body and mind has become more crystal than flesh.
WHAT'S IN THE GAME?
13 FREE DLCs via future content updates. “Speed Demon” Update containing Speed Run Mode, Boss Rush Mode and the Pure Miriam outfit available at launch!
Addictingly tight and satisfying gameplay alongside a rich new story in the gothic dark fantasy style of Koji Igarashi, the celebrated godfather of "Igavania" games.
Story cut scenes and NPC interactions fully voice acted by a star-studded cast, including actors like David Hayter, Ray Chase and Erica Lindbeck to name just a few. (Seriously, we have a lot of voice acting star power in this game, it's kinda nuts...)
Three playable characters, two of which have yet to be revealed...
Literally a metric ton of weapons and spells, which you can upgrade, level up and visually customize.
Beautiful 2.5D graphics: 3D models crafted with a lot of love and care on a 2D game environment. That means lots of cool tricks that "regular" 2D can't do...
THE FUTURE
Expect a worryingly large amount of announcements and updates, everything from updating the look of this Steam page to the game in general. It's going to be one wild ride.
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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/69...
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#bloodstained #metroidvania #critique

[@Tigerbro6]

EEE OOOO IS THE BEST THING OF BLOODSTAINED I WONT LET YOU SLANDER THE POOR SKULL KNIGHT MAN

[@Duelism]

WHAT You didn't like the EEEEEEEEE, OOOOOOOOH? Come on, man, that was one of the BEST parts of the game! (no, I'm not being sarcastic, I actually loved that)

[@OmniscientWarrior]

It is funny, but it is unfitting.

[@SphereKuribon]

@@OmniscientWarrior So natural for a castlevania game then. SOTN has many silly enemies. It's just what Castlevania does.

[@wizzenberry]

I loved it also

I think it became a thing... It's something that if they would remove from the game, I would miss it. I just love it.

[@Gnidel]

I love it too.

[@projectinlinesix]

It's so rare that I find games I can REALLY get into these days, and I was instantly able to get eyeballs-deep into Bloodstained. For me, this game is right up there with Hallow Knight, and that's saying something. Easily my favorite game of 2019.

[@badfoody]

Bloodstained easily outshines Hollow Knight cause it has better level design

[@s.k.1082]

@@badfoody Hard disagree on the level design. But to each their own

[@locdogg86]

Maybe he likes that u don’t get lost as much as hollow knight.

[@gamechannel1271]

Maybe that's why I got extremely bored in Hollow Knight. I mainly enjoy interesting environments in games above all else.

[@urameshitrev1851]

I really enjoyed Bloodstained, even went on to Platinum the game to discover all its secrets, and I cant wait for it to get more DLC, or a potential sequel in the future.

[@Notsram77]

How about that DLC, huh?

[@masterbrad89]

I just bought it as a gift for making it to my junior year of college and I personally love it and think that it pays good homage to SOTN. Plus I love the RPG aspect like SOTN and instead of vampiric powers, you gain powers through shards due to being different than a normal human like Alucard.

[@paxhumana2015]

@@Notsram77 , we have quite a bit of it and your comment has aged like sour milk.

[@Gnidel]

It's an unpopular opinion, but I'm glad this game uses 3D graphics. 2D ages better, but at least this game looks distinctive from dozens of other indie metroidvanias. I also like how bright it looks - it looks cheesy and I love when games use dark themes in cheesy way. It's a matter of taste.

[@teneesh3376]

It's too bad the animation and some models are rough

[@Simonthecat88]

There are many ways to do good 2D. Just look at Dragon's Crown and tell me it wouldn't have been a good art style for the game.

[@zgmf-x19ainfinitejustice28]

Bloodstained has pretty good 3d graphics (not the best, but still very decent), and with great art direction. 3d graphics have become relatively much more advanced than they were just 5 or 10 years ago. ROTN''s visuals won't age anywhere near as badly like the Rondo of Blood PSP remake.

[@mic01851165]

This game looks ugly as hell. The 3D model is just not good. It's ok to use 3D engine but this one looks very generic/ bland as far as art direction go. That's why games that use 2D art / bits stands out much more. (Hollow Knight/ Blasphemous and many more) It seems to me using the 3D over 2D is a decision to save budget considering how cheap it looks in this game.

[@imustconsultwiththeeldergo5906]

@@mic01851165 3D art stile is very good looking when u do it right, ori and trine are perfect examples for that but this game looks ugly as hell

[@divikplays1544]

Cool fact, when your about to get a demon shard if you jump into the air when receiving it, you get a cool animation of Miriam stabbing the shard into her chest/stomach region and a voice line of her crying out in pain absorbing the shard aswell as the outer corners of the screen change to a crystalline web which will have a colour co responding to the shard you pick up

[@marksantory4405]

People need to chill out. This dude doesn't hate this game. Hell he even has another metroidvania video where he lists a bunch of games he loves and he mentions that he loves bloodstained rotn twice in it lol. Calm down fanboys.

[@marksantory4405]

Hell even even has gameplay footage of it on that video for a part that he wasn't even talking about rotn, but he picked that game to show at that part which probably means he likes and respects the game. I agree with some of his points and I love the hell out of rotn. How I see it is he is a huge fan of these kinds of games and just likes to voice his opinions on things that he enjoys because that is a thing that humans do. Cheers buddy I'm rooting for ya! You picked up a new subscriber mang.

[@Mikey-gs1dx]

@@marksantory4405 speaking of fanboys, do you really need to white knight the guy?

[@marksantory4405]

@@Mikey-gs1dx well dude was getting dumbass comments from legit fanboys who were pissy bc someone said something about their best favorite ever game so yes I did drop a comment letting him know people out there appreciate it when someone is honest and doesn't try to please fanboys. Lol how that makes me a fanboy of some sort according to you definitely just proved you sir are indeed a fanboy.

[@mic01851165]

The amount of dislike on this video shows that current gen players have no sense of appreciation to art direction, map design , and overall balancing of the game. I'm so glad someone actually make valid critiques of this game instead of joining the hype train just because it's backed by big ip. I played lots of lots of Metroidvania games that are much more creative, much better to look at, much better map design, much better artstyle, much better balancing than this one.

[@aktchungrabanio6467]

@@mic01851165 Exactly. It only shows people's standards have dropped to the lowest of lows.

[@TheLonelyGoomba]

I agree with a lot of the points here. For instance, theres TOO many doodads in the game. I guess it gives you a choice if you ever replay the game a ton. But really you just end up ingoring 90% of items and sticking with what works. Because there just isn't much incentive to do otherwise. I did over half the game with a wolf hat because it was just better than everything else, even crafted items or chests after that point. The problem with all this is...the game is relatively simple in its gameplay and gameplay loop. There's loads of techniques and hidden moves, but eh.. Just slashing and using the core powers does the trick and is often more reliable. The game just isn't big enough in scale to warrant the excessive amount of items/crafting/cooking/collecting. The cooking is so elaborate and relies so much on random drops that I would bet most players don't even come close to cooking even half of the recipes. So it becomes more of an obsessive checklist to 100%ing the game rather than being needed to actually finish the game. But yeah I feel like this video nailed my issues with the game. Still a great game but I feel like stream-lining some aspects would have made it a better game. As it is, it feels a little bloated.

[@cohentadeo3033]

i know Im kind of randomly asking but does anybody know a good place to watch newly released series online ?

[@chriskellen6499]

@Cohen Tadeo I would suggest FlixZone. You can find it on google :)

[@eliajshdjddj]

This is horrible critique lmao a lot of people actually like experimenting with games

[@TheLonelyGoomba]

@@eliajshdjddj I feel like better games give an incentive to do so.

[@ciclotorneos2544]

Hardcore Bloodstained Completionist here. I agree with some of the points and i think some of them are just design choices; let me elaborate: The game is visually unappealing at a certain level, its a throw off of the really well done Gothic aesthetic everyone knows and loves, and thats mainly because of the 3D transition of environments. Even though it gets to catch the player in the atmosphere. So is a 50/50, for one side it fails to develop smooth animations and beautiful models but in the other it captures the Halloween esc essence. The menus problems mentioned are in my opinion, results of experienced balance process of the successors, for example in SOTN the duplicator item was for sale directly and made the game trivial in a 2 hour grind experience if done without the shop glitch, and in Potrait of Ruin, many good endgame weapons could be just simply bought. So the alchemist crafting seems as a progress based method for obtaining those overlord weapons or items and makes up to high reward for heart and effort. And for the silver bromide part, that one thing you needed to get into the train, its seems as an homage or rather an staple in the series. Where you need to pay attention at the world and dialogue to make progress. In Dawn of Sorrow, one part where a lot of people may got stuck was in the first bad ending, when Soma need to enter a room with the Minas talisman equipped to make the history go further and in that case the game give as much clues as Bloodstained does in terms of telling the player the specific mechanic. One lightly bad point i found, is that, The Boss Rush routes are no worth doing as there is no real reward for doing it or for beating it in less time, every time. And the end of the day it seems those are simply power testers. But if there is a strong point against the design choices, is to the lack of diversity and creativity put into the shards and magical powers of Miriam. The bullet and directional shard have half of them as a "Summon whatever creature" mechanic where the player just spawns a certain amount of a certain size enemies. The passive shards are awful in many cases and power creeped by certain unique ones such as Optimizer. And in the ability department, it gets even worse, because being the ones that introduce us to new movement and exploration mechanics, its nothing new to the series. Only if the developers had the baldness to take on new unexplored "Igavania´s" gimmicks like hollows knight movement or basic forward rolling. Finally, in my opinion, the worst part of the game in my opinion is the den of Behemonts, because it feats all the bad points of the game. The background just looks bad and its worse than the blue one that had before release. The enemies are the same ones at the beginning but up scaled, and the level design got cut off as it only needed to recreate the first rooms but 4 times bigger and doing 4x times less work. And to top it all of, the Stage Boss is a mess, with boring attack patterns and being easy to exploit in addition that its principal second phase attack lags the hell out and makes up to unfair damage... oh and i forgot to mention that this boss hp drains your gold, so if you are in NG+ and you have 17 million coins *you literally have to hit for 17 million hit points to kill it!!!!* At the end of the day, its pretty much we all asked for. So yeah 10/10 in my Castlevania loving skeleton. Season 3 coming soon.

[@CGoody564]

It being visually unappealing is one of the reasons my 6 year old potato laptop can run it.

[@Faygris]

@@CGoody564 So it's even sadder the Switch can't run it properly

[@Megalopros]

to be fair...in version 1.04 they capped the coin boss' hp to 9999

[@soulreaper1461]

"And for the silver bromide part, that one thing you needed to get into the train, its seems as an homage or rather an staple in the series. Where you need to pay attention at the world and dialogue to make progress." That's still terrible design. We might as well recycle the crypt wtf moments from the past like "kneeling with the red crystal selected in a random vine area for 5 seconds" just like Castlevania 2 on NES or "bomb a random pile of rock" like in the original Zelda

[@jamescaulfield6632]

You do know that you can put the spike breaker armor on and then flip the castle upside down and you can take that boss out like really super fast and never get hit

[@TeeJayMate]

Dominique tells you to not rely too much on the shards and to sell them to her because story wise she uses the shards you collect and sell to her to strengthen herself when you do her boss battle at the end of the game. She quite literally tells you this, too lol

[@soulreaper1461]

That sexy demonic nun bastard!

[@benvictim]

The game had essentially half the development time that it had. Instead of a 4 year development, it had basically a two year development with one team (Wayforward) , a few months of shakey non-development, and then started with a new team (505 games). When transferring titles, you would need to give developers time as well to get use to the code. Overall it's a decent game. Could it use more time? Yes, but the question is... did it have more time? It was already taking longer than Might No 9 did. It didn't want to get all that anti-hype, and was already delayed once for the team switching.

[@dominiquecomedian6897]

i never found the items or weapons to be too much, you have options for the weapons menu, and the amount weapons is to accommodate a large audience of players with different styles, they are also places in way you get stronger weapons as areas get harder, its the only linear part of the game

[@simpletonapollo9723]

As for some of your commenters saying "Bloodstained was more of what came before". What were you idiots expecting? That's what Koji said it was going to be. He couldn't just take Castlevania with him so he had to recreate a franchise so he can build off that idea that he worked on for damn near 20 years now. Fans: It's gonna be just like Symphony of the Night! Yay! Also Fans when the game comes out: It's just like Symphony of the Night! How dare he!? Are we gonna bitch about how Curse of the Moon is just an updated Castlevania 3 or is that one okay? Sometimes there is no pleasing people. Why don't you tell this shit to the Star Wars fans that have to deal with MaRey Sue and all that other bullshit. Castlevania fans have it lucky, start counting your blessings.

[@Lazypackmule]

This game is absolutely not SotN It's one of the DS games with none of the standout parts of those games and a bafflingly lower production quality Curse of the Moon on the other hand is an incredibly competently made and tightly designed game with several really smart innovations on top of a formula that didn't even need it as much as this one did

[@adamiadamiadami]

most of the critique is about the visual and sound design. SotN was a masterpiece in that aspect. Bloodstained looks and sounds like an amateur high school castlevania fan game project made by some high school students. offensive really. so.. your comment misunderstood the critique (probably intentionally).

[@chucheeness7817]

"I like it, it has a lot of flaws, but I want it continued and improved in the future" Mediocrity isn't always failure, sometimes it's 'hope' and that's what I felt in this game. That's why even if I had so many gripes I still 100% it and want a sequel.

[@ingeniousclown]

Hell yeah, you get it!

[@ArchaicStigma]

@@ingeniousclown People are annoyed because your nitpicking is basically "I subjectively didn't enjoy this so it's bad, but just because it's bad doesn't mean there shouldn't be another one"

[@bemersonbakebarmen]

Mediocrity can be seen as not exceding in any way OR It has no exceding faults. I think Bloodstained is batter than Hollow Knight or Ori in some ways, bur because It doesnt exceed in some particular way is seen as less than Hollow Knight. I will say I enjoyed Bloodstained A LOT MORE than Hollow Knight. Bloodstained has a more fun world to explore. I just cant enjoy Hollow Knight exploration. The combat is 10/10 but that isnt the point of the game.

[@alexscriabin]

@@ArchaicStigma all art is subjective lol, there's no objective way to say "this art is good/bad".

[@kingrobotnik6950]

@@alexscriabin I guess, if that’s the case, this critique shouldn’t exist…

[@demonangel00]

despite the initial knee jerk thought that you were just trying to be an edgy hipster reviewer, i gotta say you're pretty damn accurate. i LOVE this game, absolutely enjoy everything about it (i'm on PC btw). but your points are spot on, and i've had the same complaints as well. it feels like the game could use just a bit more polish and it would be perfect.

[@TheMgween92]

The biggest issue I had with the game was just how useless so many of the shards and equipment were. I found very strong gear very early in the game and nothing I found after was a significant upgrade. It gave me no incentive to interact with the massive amount of items and just got boring.

[@vaevictis_]

Matt my exact experience. Haven’t had anything to bring me back and play after defeating zengetsu. I was confused on where to go next and didn’t really feel like slowly walking around defeating the giant enemies with one hit over and over

[@SphereKuribon]

You can really say the same with previous vanias like aria and dawn. There will of course be souls that are better than others, and imo, bloodstained did this system correctly. Because each shard can be ranked up and grades, it honestly makes every shard versatile in some way. Each weapon type is also fun to use. I've done multiple runs where I just stick with one weapon type, and honestly, each weapon will fit someone's play style. I didn't like great swords and their slow speed, so I went with whips and it was enjoyable to use them. You just have to experiment honestly, and I think it's good design to give the player many options

Balancing a game like this is near impossible. It needs so much testing. It's always expected to make broken, overpowered build, and make some shards extremely useless. Yes, it's really annoying when you get some good shard and then... others are not necessary. Some early shards were way too good. Testing, testing, testing... The game needed more of it to balance it. But judging the final areas, I think they were in rush.

[@Rihcterwilker]

Having options are a way to permit every player to adapt to his own style of gameplay, even being able to challenge himself in future playthroughs, for example, by using a bad weapon and no magic. If you don't use it, doesn't mean that it will not be useful to someone else.

[@kyotheman69]

@@SphereKuribon yah i wasn't fan of great swords either, i stuck to swords just prefer animation and play style kind of went with SoTN road because Alucard got mostly swords

[@Late0NightPC]

Its a prime example of a time it is okay to absolutely love something, despite knowing it is flawed. I really enjoyed my time with it(outside of the final 100% grind, which was just tedious), even despite its many misteps. However I still recognizes those misteps, and you covered a ton of the ones I noticed, as well as some I never payed attention to.

[@kaidos123]

i loved Bloodstained RotN. i can't call a game bad if it keeps me playing for 50 hours. but i got a lot of the same impressions. I thought that all it needs is another sequel. there are so many small problems that can be fixed so easily.

[@Ellie-bs5zq]

I can get behind well-thought critique, I do it all the time with my friends but that... is a highly clickbaity title, I'll just say that.

[@Rihcterwilker]

Just what i thought. Most of what he says is kind of "i do not like the way that it looks, or how it works" which basically is an opinion, not a fact.

[@effive7817]

Do you know what mediocre means?

[@Rihcterwilker]

@@effive7817 the game is far from being mediocre. Everywhere you look it will have an 8 or 9 out of 10. And i'm talking about user score.

[@effive7817]

@@Rihcterwilker Numbers are very arbitrary, they can mean anything. Though you're right that the wide public reception is generally very positive. Just because something may be critically mediocre does not mean its terrible. You see it clear as day, all the time with many popular movies. Regarding this though, in a comparative context to SotN, title is a fair enough. I love the game but its got issues.

[@Rihcterwilker]

@@effive7817 still, most of criticism in the video ends falling into personal taste, which is subjective. The fact that he claims that it is a bad thing having a large selection of weapons (which gives the player the choice to challenge himself using weaker weapons), or that a sword that causes poison being weaker makes her useless (which is obviously a way to balance the game and not make an overpowered weapon) makes me think that it is more of a rant of someone nitpicking everything that he can, even going against common sense.

[@Dipwad_Omega]

33:03 I lost track of what he was saying here because I was lost in watching him repeatedly try to jump kick through this tiny opening before giving up on it altogether

[@telekinesticman]

I really liked this game and I think I agree with about everything you said. The presentation and progression roadblocks were definitely things I had issues with during my time playing, and I think part of the reason I skew far more to the Metroid half of "Metroidvania" is because I do not enjoy grinding and other luck-based systems affecting my core abilities in a game like this. In fact, it really made me realise that a more fitting genre term would be "Metroid-like" since most other titles with this progression system borrow mostly from Metroid and very little unique elements from Castlevania. Anyway - so I just replayed SotN and really enjoyed it, especially since I didn't need to rely on items and grinding to succeed (save for a few annoying optional bosses in the Inverted Castle). But now I'm playing the rest of the Metroidvanias, starting with Circle of the Moon, and I'm getting pretty annoyed with how the cards you unlock are totally random, yet are a core part of the game's combat and skill ceiling. I'm five hours in and still only have the same 3 cards since I started the game. I should never ever have to grind enemies in a skill-based action platformer in order to get some cool and very useful abilities, that's just lame. New abilities should come from exploration and bosses, not from killing the same enemy over and over.

[@dsx4AI]

umm... thats mainly because castlevania evolved much more than metroid ever did (even the latest title still remain the same). If you played sotn and aria duology, you could see how much change they added to the series. It's very apparent that bloodstained copied many elements from aria duology

[@haydenbright111]

try aria of sorrow

[@bakubread9308]

Most of the complaints in this video feel very... surface level? You can say that "oh there are so many of them that it adds up" but I never really minded or noticed any of the things this video calls out until watching this video. ie; I love how the game looks, never found the menus tedious, never even USED the shortcut system, (i did actually get lost on that moon room and spike armor), and never had issues with the "secondary systems" as a whole. This whole review feels very nitpicky and specific to his own preferences (especially with the whole being afraid to sell items thing, that's just a mindset thing), which evidently I do not share at all. This game is a fucking love letter to Aria of Sorrow, my favorite Igavania, and as such I adore it.

[@emperortgp2424]

Just because you were okay with the missteps doesn't make the "The tiny problems are numerous and so it adds up" complaint any less valid. Though I think the criticism about grinding is quite major.

[@bakubread9308]

@@emperortgp2424 I'm not saying it's invalid as a complaint, I'm saying he's totally overblowing how it affects the game

[@Ock_mantis]

Agreed. Game is shy of being a masterpiece. This kinda sounds like darksouls 3 tbh. Godlike game held down by headstuck up ass syndrome lol.

[@silkworm2595]

@@bakubread9308 I find the visuals too over the top all the time. A metroidavania should have a fascinating world, not something this ugly and overly lit

[@Michael-590]

It doesn’t help that many of the flaws that he’s talking about can be found in older Modern Castlevania games. Of course there’s going to be some problems with voice actors using fake accents. Also, collecting and upgrading useless special abilities was found a lot in Dawn of Sorrow. The only valid criticism he seems to have is that maybe the environments look a bit too bright and shiny at times.

[@RussPet84]

So, if you wrestled with the script and the title, think you should have spent a bit more time wrestling on it. The title is pretty clickbaity and even acknowledging it doesn't absolve you of it. You could've simply made the title Bloodstained A Critique and not had half the negative feedback from all the kneejerk reactions. I'd expect more from your channel cuz you're usually pretty balanced and don't resort to such cheap tactics. However, I also get the feeling that you came into this game and review with negative expectations because it feels colored all over this review. There's nothing wrong with critique and a number of your points are spot on. But you also keep pointing out your admitted nitpickiness on a lot of these elements and it really undercuts your general conclusions about the game's quality. Particularly your projections on the skill of the development team based on things you subjectively didn't like. 'It didn't work for me' translates to 'I would expect better from an experienced dev team'? That's some pretty faulty logic there, particularly on your assumptions on who is on the dev team when you seem to only have working knowledge of Iga as involved in leading the development. If you really wanted to talk about the developers and their skill, I would have suggested looking up who Iga was working with, 'I assume as a veteran in the industry he would have attracted veteran talent' is a very faulty assumption and it's clear a lot of these critiques were colored by that thought. Artplay was previously a mobile developer before bringing Iga on and he ended up bringing in a couple more developers when it was clear that he wasn't going to make the original deadline he had set due to the inclusion of the stretch goals, which exploded the amount of work needed that he didn't anticipate (which is a pratfall of a lot of kickstarter campaigns) Neither of these were for the core development but localization and technical support for the Unreal Engine. This was essentially an indie company creating a game from scratch, not a AAA development studio. To also mention the limited budget, 5.5 million is a lot to the average person but it's on the smaller end of studio game budgets. Really I get the feeling your assumption here is this was something like Obsidian Entertainment, a veteran development team that splintered off and formed their own company to make the spiritual successors to the series they had made at their parent companies (In this case, Pillars of Eternity and Outer Worlds, for example, as successors to Baldur's Gate and Fallout). And from my understanding of Iga and Artplay, that's not the case at all so I would really reconsider some of these comments with that information in mind. Now, does that excuse a lot of the issues you point out, like the legitimate critiques with the crafting system, quest system, menus etc? No. Certainly not. Those are all big issues and I absolutely agree a little more balancing or thought was needed to smooth them out. In fact I really hated the quest system, too repetitive, too simple and it felt like I hit a point where I was being asked for either matierals I wouldn't see for hours or hunting down an enemy that only spawned in one very specific room that I could miss. Plus repeating those exact same lines every quest ad nauseum. Even a little variety would've gone a long way to making it a little less irritating. Really the biggest issue for me was definitely the incredibly obtuse progression points. They really needed some more hints or I agree, hiding the equipment/abilities needed in better spots or making them more obvious. I was also slightly stumped by how to progress once you defeated the blood boss as I didn't think her ability would actually affect the pool of blood as the descriptor is kind of vague and makes it seem like more of a combat ability (I mean, it is really, since that is the only location in the whole game it has a non combat use). Or the photo ID, a simple "maybe O.D. would know where to find one" or something, just any kind of hint because it's waaaay too easy to miss O.D. mentioning he does ID cards or remembering what item you needed for dominique to take your picture. For the shards and every enemy dropping one, I'm mixed honestly. If they did fewer shards and fewer abilities, because let's face there's a lot of redundancy or just plain useless powers and equipment no one will ever use, they'd have to change the system up because if you had enemies that didn't drop shards, you'd need some way to tell which enemies you need to farm vs which ones you can ignore (and I really wouldn't want to make it 'just look it up in the bestiary' cuz that's just tedious) Likewise, the variety of weapons is kind of nice but there's not really any good way to stick to a weapon type through most of the game, there's large portions where you just don't have the materials to craft upgrades or finding new versions in chests so if you don't swap types to what you do find and can craft, you can lag behind pretty severely in the damage department. The same goes for magic, there's a lot of useless stuff. I'd peg it all for too much ambition. It's admirable but yeah, I think things could have been tightened up and balanced better with fewer options in uh, all these categories. I guess really I just disagree with your conclusion that this is a mediocre product that failed to live up to what it could be and is just loved for being basically a castlevania game. It's not a perfect game and it has some big flaws in its execution, but it's also the first entry built from the ground up by an smaller studio with an okay budget and one veteran lead, that's still putting out content the game (some fluff modes like boss rush/revenge, but 2 new playable characters in the works) and given how successful and well received this was, I wouldn't be surprised by a sequel. Really for me, I'd argue that the game *shows* potential and as a springboard for a new franchise it's definitely okay and now that they've got the frame work, design, and a lot of the groundwork laid, I would expect a sequel to build on all these systems and, more importantly, refine them. Maybe that is too optimistic, but I just don't feel these issues are as much of a millstone around the game's neck as you and as I said, some of your assumptions on developer skill and experience seem misplaced and have colored some of your critiques. Again it doesn't excuse the very real issues, but I do think it changes how we should view them because this isn't a product put out by a big studio with a big budget and a veteran development team. Very much the opposite

[@soulreaper1461]

I disagree

[@FuriousHaunter]

@@soulreaper1461 elaborate

[@soulreaper1461]

@@FuriousHaunter game is alright-ish

[@arjanzweers6542]

Even with all the critiques Bloodstained does do it's job though. Fans of Castlevania wanted more Castlevania and Igarashi gave those fans more Castlevania with Bloodstained. The gameplay is dead-on Castlevania, controls, enemies, items, secrets, sitting in chairs, all of it and it's exactly what people wanted and I would say that's the primary reason why it's being rated so high by those who played it. Fans got the Castlevania experience they wanted with this game, even with the flaws it has which they are more forgiving towards because every single Castlevania game had a lot of those flaws you mentioned as well. The biggest 3 criticisms they gave are first and foremost the visuals of the game which are heavily underwhelming when you compare it the gorgeous sprite artwork Castlevania is known for, second are the (game breaking) bugs and glitches in all versions of the game, especially the Switch port and as last to a minor extent the convoluted progression roadblocks like the train pass. Everything else you would only hear a few people complain about because they barely or don't hinder the Castlevania gameplay experience fans wanted. So in the end because it delivered what it promised, a Castlevania experience it still got rated highly even with all it's flaws, as well as that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is simply a fun game to play.

[@SphereKuribon]

Could not have said it better myself. This game was for Castlevania fans, so it's natural that outsiders may not enjoy it. I personally loved every second of the game. I found the grinding so relaxing, whereas others probably find it annoying. The enemies being out of place is just a natural addition to CV, but it may seem odd to others. It's just not for everyone, and that's fine. I'm just glad we got something that can be called a worthy successor to a franchise that's been pretty much dead for over 10 years now.

[@dmas7749]

i still think the game could have boss retries, it's a minor complaint but it grows into a big one if you either suck, or go for those damn boss medals god help you if it's both

[@arjanzweers6542]

@@dmas7749 So what you are asking for is to let the Boss Rush mode reward you with medals if you perfect each boss

[@dmas7749]

@@arjanzweers6542: not in boss rush, d'uh, that would ruin half the point

[@arjanzweers6542]

@@dmas7749 Ok, how about the yet to be added stretch goal Boss Revenge Mode then?

[@gumbarius]

Well the positive aspect of gigantic item/equipment/ability rosters in games like this is, that everyone has a different first time experience of what they get dropped, thus are able to use, the first time they travel through an area

[@ShinoSarna]

"The game is pretty solid and kept me playing until 100% map completion" so the title is basically clickbait, then?

[@mggthebest]

I mean, would you rather have someone who played like 5 minutes and tried to critique it or someone who has completed it and critiques it? He's a guy who loves metroidvanias in general and likes to complete them, so it's not surprising that he'd do the map completion at least.

[@ShinoSarna]

@@mggthebest My point is that he spends like half of the video praising the core gameplay and admits he enjoyed it, and yet the title calls the game 'mediocre'. It's clearly fishing for outrage clicks.

[@mggthebest]

@@ShinoSarna Usually he gets fanboys who get angry over the little things so he tries to balance it out. Plus the core gameplay can be good but a game can still be mediocre due to other reasons. For example: My friend loves Fire Emblem Three Houses, but hates the core gameplay of it, they just like the characters and the downtime between the battles and such. By the way, thanks for being civil about it and not just going to insults.

[@mggthebest]

@@misamiko0503 Which person?

[@giacomomallia953]

If you want to understand the difference between mediocrity and excellence, look at is hollow knight video.

[@soulreaper1461]

The quality over quantity section is spot on and often overlooked in games; variety is key but enough is enough. Mid-game or so I said "fuck it" and stopped caring about even trying new shards, when you have 500 weapons/shards nothing is special anymore it completely destroy the feeling of being rewarded. That's why I prefer when they crank the games more towards the metroid than the vania. The Aegis Plate at 38:58 was a major fuck up. One of the most stupid game design decisions I've seen: "let's put the vital item to continue the game in a random chest in a tower players visited 10 hours ago". I explored every possible room of the map because I was determined to find the secret until I eventually gave up and searched for a walkthrough Thr cutscenes and dialogues were terrible, the story is serviceable. I might be blind but I liked the graphics, the dog's head as an enemy was goofy but didnt think it was a problem. Overall, despite the above, I liked the game but not enough to platinum or give another playthrough

[@Majin72]

The location of Acceleration was also a poor choice. It should have been in the Oriental area, not the Den of Behemoths. It's too thematically similar to warrant being anywhere else. Also, the game needed more shard acquisitions that required non-combat events. I really enjoyed the race to get it.

[@armyofninjas9055]

Go play metroid then. Personally, I loathe that the metroid or even souls elements make it into so many of these games. True Igavanias are rare.

[@lizardemperorkorbac4281]

I think Mediocre is too harsh for this game. Even though I somewhat agree with whats stated in the video, the game is still very good. The core gameplay is very good, that alone elevates it over mediocre already. Also the music is excelent.

[@BlackTenchu0]

Funny to see so many people divorced from the very meaning of what a critique should be, me, coming from a long love relationship with videos from people like Joseph Anderson, Whitelight, and such, I really understand the reason behind this type of video and what you should be expecting by watching it, This is a great video that the only real flaw I see in it is the fact that you say "in my opinion" a handful of times when you're not required to do so because subjectivity is implied in this type of videos and people need to understand that before bitching in the comments saying that you have to only say that the game is gamie and that you can play it for them to not consider your thoughts to be shit, keep it going, my dude!

[@lullylew9083]

In complete agreement on visuals and it goes even deeper I think. The smallest things seem to be overlooked these days. Look at the font for the game, specifically for the damage numbers. Now it's a small thing but that font is simply too reminiscient of word applications and such. I don't want to be reminded that I'm playing a program/application. If I'm not mistaken the chosen font for those cut scenes around 12:30 is just Verdana. This is why I loved the limitations of CRT displays back then. They really had to think about how to make an obvious collection of pixels be interpreted as a texture or face for example. The same games on new displays you simply see that collection of pixels as is. Fonts were unlike what you'd see on the web or in a word document with some being made from scratch. I think this ties into your idea of allowing the imagination to do some of the work so to speak in regards to devs having such hardware limits. Remember arguing with people about which part of a pixel art is a character's mouth for example? Thing is it worked. One of the most impressive and wonderous features of SOTN was the art style and direction. 2D simply lends itself better to this type of game both visually and from a gameplay perspective. I do not enjoy Bloodstained's visuals at all. I am certainly not a fan of the crafting. Nor do I like the whole stealing souls for weapons either. I want to find weapons, some with interesting effects and abilities like in SOTN not rely on hunting down particular monsters in a grind to level up certain stuff. SOTN had no grinding... unless you chose to try for a certain item drop which honestly is for replay value since many of these drops are godlike. But again Knowledge about the game made you stronger, not grinding.

[@sinryurei9998]

I Love this game bro. But some of your thoughts really do make a point there. Especially for the loading time when we switch rooms... and also the crash when we play... Great review bro

[@epicgaming528]

You're right about the lighting, I really wish the lighting was better in this game. I'd say Bloodstained is the best "castlevania" game in terms of customization and crafting, it was so much fun trying to craft the best weapon, leveling up your skills to become passive skills, and cooking food to get permanent status bonuses. While I got insanely powerful in my playthrough where it made most boss fights a joke, it was still a fun game, not the best "castlevania" game, but not the worst either.

[@OmniscientWarrior]

I actually am intentionally trying to not buff myself on my first playthrough because I saw that issue coming. But on normal mode only. Once I go to nightmare, everything to get more powerful is fair game.

[@fynnmollenhauer1460]

13:40 to me it sounds like he is just trying to add emphasis on the ‚alive‘ part tbh

[@aersla1731]

Everyone is so butt hurt... Since when are critiques and reviews factual? The man is just sharing his opinion as all reviewers do. Liking something, is completely subjective. I know a lot of people watch reviews and critique videos to validate their own opinion but that's not what they are meant for..

[@LowClassWarrior92]

Thank you for this. I watched a bunch of videos before buying it on the switch that we're singing praises, so I gave it a go. Although for the most part I had fun playing, there was something off I couldn't quite place my finger on. You touched on everything perfectly. Well said sir

[@spacepope8495]

Some great vids here on this channel, thanks

[@adiveler]

>Game says that drop rate is %5 >It's actually 0.00001% Pretty much 70% of my time in the game!

[@timothymclean]

The problems in aggregate sound like high-level director/producer issues. Creative leads not providing a clear picture of what they want their subordinates' work to mesh together into, impractical goals, a focus on the core gameplay loop to the extent that everything that keeps you in the loop suffered...

[@fredericfaddoul]

I really had fun playing Bloodstained and spent a lot of time grinding and all, but I totally agree with your critique.

[@isaac3000]

Completely agree about the underwater part and the armor used against spikes. I used a guide for both.

[@AlbedoAtoned]

This has kind of bugging me for quite a while. It's that people keep idolizing certain people that work on the things they like while more or less ignoring everybody else that does so. Then when they leave or work on something else, people automatically assume that it will be great only to be disappointed down the line when they fail to live up to these lavish expectations. This isn't just a one off thing either. It seems like it's been happening more and more. I get the complaints you made about the game. It does indeed come across as low budget, but imo that was what I expected because it IS low budget. Even though I am not much of a fan of the igavania style metroidvania, it does seem to be better than a lot of similar efforts. For one, it delivered what fans had been asking for and they seem to be more or less satisfied with the experience.

[@felipetartas5434]

Hollow Knight was low budget. Actually, made by only 3 people. And it is better than this one. The low budget is not the point. The point is: none Castlevania, Megaman or Metal Gear was a product of only one people. And more important, we dont know if the directors of these games were the key developers, maybe one guy we dont know made the level design of the Castlevanias, and that guy was not Iga, some one else and the Iga, Inafune, Kojima etc take all the credits for others work.

[@AlbedoAtoned]

That was kind of my point. That people attribute all of the praise (or blame) to just one person. That person may have been very important in the development of the games that their names were attached to, but they weren't the only person working on them. I'm going to have to correct you on Hollow Knight. It's not low budget as you suggest, but abysmally low budget. But it having a miniscule budget to work with doesn't make Bloodstained not low budget. People tend to forget when they see just how successful these kickstarter projects are, but AAA games tend to have massive budgets. But the budget is just one aspect of it all. Hollow Knight showed that you don't necessarily need much money at all to make a good game. Or rather it is one of many examples of such. There are plenty of doujin games that are good games. But developing on a low or miniscule budget does take it's toll somewhere along the way. If a game is being made by a very small team, they may be able to afford taking longer, especially if this is being made in their free time. On the other hand, if you have a larger team of developers you really can't afford to just take longer even if it could potentially make the game look better. So Hollow Knight may have had the smaller budget (by a long shot to be sure), but certain things worked in it's favor. For one, the map may be large and the game is quite long. However, from beginning to end, the game doesn't really change much, it goes from blue to purple. The game also features very few powerups that are used for utilty. The art style also goes a long way in making the game look great without breaking the bank. In comparison, Bloodstained may have had a much larger budget, but it likely had a much larger team, and they would not have been able to just keep extending the deadline so that the game looks a bit better. The environments are varied. There are also many power ups, with some being entirely optional. There are also many weapon and armor pieces, as well as a crafting system. All in all, Hollow knight being a simpler game means that the visuals, audio and mechanics that it has can be polished up to an insane degree. Whereas Bloodstained is supposed to be a spiritual successor to Castlevania (particularly Symphony of the Night), a AAA game. Visually I don't really care how it looks as long as it plays good. I've played games that look far worse, still do, and many of my favorite games are designed for older platforms like snes. My point wasn't even really about the game itselt or how good it was. Rather it was about how the developers more or less delivered what they promised. Which is a far cry from how these things normally go. If a kickstarter doesn't get canceled, or have the funds used on entirely unreleated games. Other times they end up paling in comparison to what was promised, or just not very good at all. And lastly, you could end up having your copy of the game locked to storefront nobody wants to use simply because the publisher took a bribe from a company. I'm not saying the devs did everything perfect, far from it. From what I've heard, the switch port still runs abysmally to this day, and during development they canceled the Wii U, Vita, Mac and Linux ports. However all of the versions that did come out (other than switch version) seem to run just fine.

[@felipetartas5434]

@@AlbedoAtoned Yeah, I can agree with that. You talk more about the structural prodution issues.

[@Simonthecat88]

@@AlbedoAtoned I enjoyed Sotn and the DS games as a kid but didn't idolize Igarashi at all. But i think it's okay to have expectations too. I agree with you. I like Bloodstained but it looks somehow amateurish, especially if you compare it to Hollow knight or Blasphemous (let's not forget Blasphemous), both extremely low budgets kickstarters metroidvania projects. So yes, it's more a matter of vision and creation rather than budget, and a dedicated smaller team can go a long way. I followed the kickstarter campaign from the beginning and I was really enthousiast about Bloodstained. I think that most people were happy of how the game looked in the early stages, looking at the concept art and all that. First real critics went when Igarashi showed the "engine" in 2.5D. Igarashi said he used 2.5D instead of 2D because 2D was too expensive to do nowadays. It was a letdown for me and I think I was not the only one. Looking at this project in retrospective I can't help but think "damn it could have been so much better". So I think that, as the budget went up, Igarashi wanted to add more content, leveIs, weapons, enemies, following the kickstarter logic of milestones BUT neglecting the art direction and tone of the actual game. I think he got distracted by all the content he wanted to add up. Srs who cares about a "boss revenge" mode ??

[@m.x.1800]

The real question is: when can we expect to play all of the promised additional content that has already been paid in full by backers and sales in general?

[@2yoyoyo1Unplugged]

Random Person Oh sure, blame the Switch for a botched port job.

[@2yoyoyo1Unplugged]

@Random Person Yeah, and all the other systems were ported in-house, while they outsourced the switch port and didn't give it the same amount of time to be optimized. You ever actually spend time with a Switch? There are games that run on it that are much more graphically demanding and frenetic than Bloodstained. It's the fault of the rushed port job compared to the other two, and IGA and team admitted as much.

[@cmsps4274]

Just for comparisons Shovel Knight took 5-6 years to fulfill all of their promises with the two last dlc finally getting release a day or two ago, Bloodstained its probably going to take the same route and do yearly releases, even thought Shovel Knight released 2 new campaings and 2 more games which is considerably more and most of the Bloodstained content at least the one most people care are the 2 and 3 coop mode i assume it would take them 1-2 two years to finish, they are preparing themselves though with the last multiplayer patch or at least thats the theory behind the changes that everybody hated that made the game more grindi and the weapons and shard less overpowered something i didn't see mention in this review since the whole point of that is so that you find more uses for all the weapons and don't play with just one set 50% of the game in true Castlevania fashion so i wonder if it worked of if it just fuck it up more

[@2yoyoyo1Unplugged]

Random Person Well disliking a system is a personal thing I guess, can’t fault you for your opinions on something that subjective. Still, I don’t get why the more hardcore playstation and xbox players hate the switch so much. Competition is healthy.

[@2yoyoyo1Unplugged]

@Random Person That sounds like a strange, arbitrary excuse, considering they always release a regular controller as an option, and the Joycons are actually really cool.

[@mrvoorhees96]

The problem with "...this game was made by Igarashi himself..." is that it assumes that games that Iga is credited with like Symphony of the Night and handheld games were done basically by himself. They were not, they were a team effort of fairly experienced individuals that were on hand, the right amount of secured funding available for the game, the reuse of assets from previous games. These things all just fell into place almost perfectly for Iga when working on Castlevania at Konami. Bloodstained doesn't have really any of those luxuries. It's a completely new game series with a new team of individuals who DO have relatively little actual work experience because other veteran developers are simply taken already. As a new series it doesn't have secured funding nor does it have previous assets to use due to Ritual being the first brand-new game of it's series.

[@darkwarrior6102]

With regards to the voice acting, I thought Bloodless' voice was meant to be a bored, aristocratic kind of tone -- like a high class noble (Seductive) queen considering "commoner" Miriam to be an easily disposable target. From that perspective, it kinda made sense. The "Eeee Oooo" was a blast, I think it was deliberate for humor and probably voiced by Iga himself. Regarding Iga's decision to make his staff play the bosses with just a dagger, I think that has a flaw -- it accidentally makes the bosses sometimes way too easy to beat with a regular weapon. Maybe it's me, but after playing the likes of Hollow Knight and Nioh, I am afraid the game was way too easy for me.

[@wallacesousuke1433]

Love Nioh but dunno how playing it is gonna make RoTN easier, totally different games/genres :) Also I found it decently challenging since I didn't use the most broken shards and stuff

[@Simonthecat88]

Bosses (and the game) were sometimes really too easy. I didn't understand why the harder difficulties were locked at start, it makes no sense. I purposely didn't use some of the chards to make the games not so easy but felt like the player shouldn't have to do this. Battle with OD was okay on that point.

[@nickelakon5369]

I thought I was the only one who thought the redesign looked worse

[@Optimus6128]

I basically ended up building a Rhava Velar and hitting that fire button like a maniac. I did recipes and build weapons one by one just for completion but never used most of them.

[@DollMaster09]

I’m with you. It had the potential for a fun flow, but when I saw the sheer amount of inventory, crafting, shards and drop rates, I’m like… I felt too bogged down by all that and it really interrupts the flow of the game, and I never finished it.

[@BK201DarkerThanBlack]

*sees the name of the video" REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

[@lostkeys1318]

OOOooOOooOO

[@OmniscientWarrior]

@@lostkeys1318 If you didn't, I would have.

[@imustconsultwiththeeldergo5906]

what is reeeee?

[@-d-939]

Minor nitpick: Dominique isnt a demon. She basically absorbed shards.

[@psycholuigiman]

With the amount of nitpicks in this critique, you're forgiven for nitpicking the video.

[@lostsanityreturned]

My biggest issues with bloodstained were - Game is way too easy past the early sections, traversal being easy is one thing, but when the whole last half of the game didn't have me worrying in boss fights and the last boss just melted. That is another issue altogether. - The gimmick 8bit+ weapons feel like they overshadowed most other weapons that I found pretty substantially. Which then reduced my interest in other weapons I would find in general. Even when it came to other equipment I found that it was a bit iffy. - The story was even less coherent than a castlevania game. Just because it is usually barely there doesn't mean that it can't be done better. Hollowknight proves how well a story and world building can be handled without forcing it. Heck curse of the moon had better story content than bloodstained imo. As you said, it wasn't an awful game. But it didn't stand out for me either.

[@mobious01]

So like every other castlevania then? In soth you can literally beat the entire game with jewel knuckle which is an early game weapon or the alucart set

[@lostsanityreturned]

@@mobious01 well no, it isn't about beating the game, it is about how easily you can beat it without any challenge or thought and for how long. Without actually even planning to do so. It is so basic you have to kinda avoid it "oh no this is too powerful now, better stop using this" and so on. All of the igavanias have this as an issue to some extent, I have played none that have it as bad as bloodstained.

[@luminosity01]

@@lostsanityreturned hard and nightmare is very challenging though

[@user-eg7il4pi3y]

great review!

[@andrewscarpati9665]

I agree with you on a number of points, mainly the ones related to the items and the switch port (as I own that version). I honestly didn't know that you needed multiples of shards, plus the upgrades, to get the best shards. On top of all that however, I'd go one step further and also shit on the boss fights. I am on the Dominique fight now, and while I haven't done any of the side bosses, I can't think of a single fight that I actually liked. They are all just kind of there.

[@mayonnaiz-7990]

This is my favorite game of 2019!

[@DragonKingX78]

Best game I have played in a while.

[@Bmetalful]

I'm playing it now, just got double jump. Really enjoy this game, I dunno what this guy is talking about.

[@DhinCardoso]

But for a 5 millions dollars game... shame on Iga

[@ToveriJuri]

@@DhinCardoso 5 Million Dollars is nothing.

[@joaomarcoscosta4647]

@@ToveriJuri Well, it's 15x the budget that the Shovel Knight devs had after the Kickstarter campaign - and 125x the amount of money Hollow Knight made on Kickstarter. Which is to say: 5 million is nothing by AAA standards, but it's a lot of money by indie standards.

[@aeopu]

Really good video dude! An excellent summary of why the game was amazing but still felt off in a lot of ways. I hope you and your roomies are doing well, you guys are in my thoughts!

[@timmorris6456]

Bro I bought this when it came out and I totally agree with just about everything you’re saying. Everything felt so cheap to me. But people love it… so good for them :)

[@MidnightRaziel]

This was very well made, and was just what i was looking for prior to getting this game. i've been thinking about getting this for my android phone, but two problems give me pause, the annoying shouting during attacks, and unfriendly crafting system, does anyone know if these have been fixed in the android version?

[@karolytakacs214]

This is a good example for a game what isn't looking good and technically messy, but still enjoyable and likeable.

True. Thankfully, I got addicted to it. Even if it was messy in term of art style. The criticism here is right. Music, gameplay, exploration was all fun!

[@wallacesousuke1433]

Yes, just like Dragon's Dogma, a beuatiful, flawed masterpiece

[@elliotj.alvarez6399]

I think the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to Bloodstained's game mechanics ultimately clutters the game and muddies the waters in terms of difficulty, but I think I understand why they did it. I think IGA was more concerned with player expression and choice when it came to customization, weapons, item, etc, while difficulty and cohesiveness was less of a consideration. I would have vastly preferred a more focused experience, but I think the game's direction and IGA's intentions are valid and deserve a chance to be refined in the future.

[@dropthedice]

I get the feeling that IGA gave people exactly what they wanted in this regard… which is basically a sequel to Symphony of the Night. SotN was A MESS, but a beloved mess and they cranked the dial up in this installment.

[@Tanoro]

Corrections! 1. Dominique was not a demon. She was a human imbued with alchemy-based demon powers, same as Mariam. 2. There ARE consequences to collecting too many shards. It doesn't affect the gameplay, but does determine the ending you get. Counter-criticisms! You can't make a fair comparison of lighting between a 2D platformer and a 3D FPS. There is an overt difference in immersion qualities and what the developer can expect from the player. Players don't want to play 2D games where objects are hard to see. When you get hit by a projectile that was hidden in a physically reasonable shadow, the player feels cheated. We already have to contend with objects that are off-screen, so a developer may sacrifice realistic lighting for better gameplay by brightening the foreground to decrease sensory deficits that don't exist in 3D perspectives.

[@javiervargas6366]

i am playing right now almost at the end of the game , Level 91 i can understand what you are saying, it took a while to play the game i found it boring the very first time i try to play it, i did not knew how to heal on this game i just did not understand it, but i gave it a chance i few months later and i was to my surprise impress and i love it.

[@miciso666]

konami : castlevania is dead. igurashi : i raised 5.000.000 out of 500.000 dollars. konami: w-w-well mgs is dead as well and hideo is fired now. hideo: just got a game award. where is yours? *sips konami's tears*

[@lbp_chessguy5640]

I felt l like the Hall of Termination should have been the final area of the game. I just didn't feel excited to fight the final boss in an... ice cave? I was so excited to see the invert ability, they could have done the reverse castle like in SOTN but no. But other than the last two areas being thrown to the far right side of the map and the things you mentioned, I still really enjoyed this game. :) Plus the soundtrack is amazing! I still come back to listen to Bloodstained's OST quite often.

[@Sin606]

I didn't think I'd make it but your voice is nice and while I don't agree with all of your points it was interesting to hear a different opinion. My major issues were with some of the enemies. The giant cats and dogs were really jarring to the environment. They felt hugely out of place both in art style and choice. I'm slightly more ok with the cat because it's summoned there but it just looks a little too cute to be demonic. There's also the rock and roller who should not exist in that time. I don't hate her she just kinda there clashing with the period. I had a massively fun time with the game and dug up most of it's secrets but because I played early there were some stability issues that lead to requiring a 2nd run to 100% it. I love how unique some of the weapons are and feel that there's some weapons that got shafted on skills and should have more. Thanks for the Vid

[@Megaman-2407]

the cat and dog is a kickstarter thing you can pay for your pet can be a enemy or you can be a picture in this game

[@roahnosh]

I find it ironic how Iga revolutionized Castlevania by introducing top notch control mechanics in Rondo of Blood and SOTN and decades later he developed Bloodstained and adapted the classic clunky NES control scheme that everyone hated.

[@frizzman1991]

Honestly, it was my favorite (new) game this year.

[@teneesh3376]

So what was your favourite game you played last year?

[@frizzman1991]

@@teneesh3376 If I had to choose... Dark Souls

[@MrSerpico145]

Thank you for being honest.

[@Kinglink]

Great video. Actually a ton of this makes good point. I remembered the second moon. What I didn't remember is the blood fountain, and had to look it up. But yeah Bloodstained is no masterpiece, still a solid Igavania, but it has a LOT of flaws, and dear god some of the character animations you didn't mention (in the town which you barely touch upon) are awful I ended up giving the game a 4/5 because I think the game outweighs the flaws, but these flaws are still definitely hanging around in the game.

[@ingeniousclown]

I almost wrote something about Ann's GIGANTIC FREAKING HANDS but people already think I nitpick enough in this video lol

[@Ninjaananas]

Isn't it nice to have such little riddles in the exploration?

[@TheAgentAPM]

5:10 every time I hear this whistling in the BGM, it reminds me of Night at the Museum motif.

[@morebird4318]

Thanks for making this.

[@siaowun9418]

The only thing that really annoyed me was that you couldn't open the friccing map. And even if you did look at the map. Its literally just a bunch of boxes in an RGB color palette. I couldn't even tell where the fucc I was going half the time. So I'd end up getting lost and running in circles wondering about how I should progress the game.

[@ingeniousclown]

The map is actually pretty fine imo. It's a very standard Metroidvania map. It could use a couple more features but it is simple and informative.

[@Guts_Brando]

@@ingeniousclown the map was pure lazy useless garbage dude, look at metroids maps for example, am2r, fusion or zero mission.

[@BawesomeBurf]

How could you not tell where you are going, the map literally shows your position on it, in addition to showing you the location of save and warp rooms. It also lets you add markers, and if you pay attention to the outlines, you can see areas that haven't been explored yet. You can also zoom in and adjust the size of your minimap. It is just like the previous Castlevania games with added functionality. Not hard to use, and I'm not sure what the heck you were expecting.

[@toprem4037]

29:45 - All that stuff applies to SotN just as much (aside from crafting) 36:08 - I 100%ed everything, including level/rank 9 Resist Curse.

[@mariowario5945]

Exactly. The decisions in games like that make them fun. It feels like coding, how weird that may sound, it's actually fun to think out of the box like that. Try it out if your not sure. Learn from your mistakes.

[@donmcron3334]

Dude I totally thought that too about getting too many shards.

[@exeacua]

I dont remember how I did it exactly but I didnt used the spike inmunity armor to pass that spike section. I think that is great that you can go through it in different ways. I liked Ritual of the Night and its crafting system a lot on the Switch (and I completed it in normal before the update), but I still like Curse of the Moon better.

[@kylehart8829]

My issue with bloodstained is that it makes literally zero advances to the genre. It just feels like another Castlevania game, and not an exceptional one at that. It carries over the characteristic clunkiness and awkward controls for no reason other than feeling like a Castlevania game. Change the art and characters a little and the game is barely more than a shuffled-map version of SOTN.

[@ingeniousclown]

To be fair, a game doesn't have to advance or innovate to be great.

[@simpletonapollo9723]

Please tell me where Alucard absorbed the power from monsters to use them as attacks. Oh wait, that never happened. That was Soma and Shanoa. They do not appear anywhere in SOTN. I am wondering if people who keep using the SOTN criticism ever actually played any of the other Castlevania games done in the Metroidvania style.

[@kylehart8829]

@@simpletonapollo9723 That difference might as well be semantics. Killing enemies vs finding items to get upgrades is not a significant difference at all. This exemplifies the attitude of people who are so attached to the exact (and deeply flawed) design of traditional Castlevania where the differences between titles is hardly even noticeable. Clunky combat in this modern Metroidvania exists despite objectively making the games less fun, specifically to appeal to peoples' nostalgia for SOTN. A system of experience and leveling doesn't belong in games focused on exploration and finding new upgrades to become stronger; it's entirely unnecessary and makes the games worse, but it stays in because every mistake that game made gets praised as the game is put on a pedestal. It's not a flawless game, in the same way that Super Metroid has a lot of issues. But the larger Metroidvania community understands that it should learn from the mistakes of the genre's pioneers, whilst Bloodstained is an intentional step back and it's a worse game for it. It refuses to address the issues of that formula and instead attempts to emulate them as closely as possible, so it's soulless as well as mediocre.

[@kylehart8829]

@@ingeniousclown No, but to be great without fixing glaring issues with a 20yo formula requires extreme polish, tight controls, performance that doesn't miss a beat, great animation and music, and excellent bug-testing. But the fact is Bloodstained hits the middle of the road on every one of those points; the music and animations being completely uninspired, lack of polish in almost every area, clunky controls that are more concerned about emulating Castlevania than actually being fun and responsive, enemy/boss attack telegraphs that are sometimes indistinguishable from one another, fairly poor performance despite not looking particularly impressive, rooms that look and feel copy-pasted, and world design that could've easily come out of a randomizer. To be great, you've got to either move the genre forward, be highly polished, or at least provide a distinct experience separate from the genre's pioneers, which is where Bloodstained falls flat on every attempt. Hollow Knight is an example of a game that doesn't really do anything new, but it is genuinely brilliant because its scale dwarfs literally every previous game in the entire genre, its controls are excellent, it combines great combat into the Metroidvania mix, it has real fair difficulty that isn't created by cranking damage and health numbers of the same basic enemies (a lack of legitimate difficulty is one of Bloodstained's most blatant flaws in my opinion), it goes hard on the environmental storytelling from SM and the results are fantastic, the visual design is gorgeous AND serves gameplay extremely well, and every aspect of the game is highly polished. It's the perfect way to combine existing things in a way that they all work perfectly together; instead of following the formula of a single game or series it takes the successes of all kinds of games and rolls them up into one, replacing almost every major issue found in SOTN or SM while keeping the parts of the design philosophy that made those games great.

[@ingeniousclown]

@@kylehart8829 I think you hit the nail right on the head there. I just took issue with the opening statement of your post, implying that to be any good, a game must innovate. It seems like you don't really believe that, given your Hollow Knight example, but I just wanted to chime in since I know MANY people truly do believe that things are trash if they've already seen the ideas before elsewhere. Granted, I still don't think things have to be quite as polished or brilliant as Hollow Knight to be old-hat and still good, but I think you're right in that it has to at least improve on those past ideas in some way.

[@Rhetorical346]

I love that he spends multiple minutes complaining about the shortcut feature when he clearly doesn't understand it. You can set just a weapon to a shortcut, and it won't change all your gear. You can select as many or few items to switch as you want. While playing through the game your first few hours, it makes the most sense to just bind different weapons to the shortcuts so your constantly changing gear doesn't need to be updated.

[@sirgreedy88]

doesnt really work for swapping utility shards because not all utility shards are of the same type, so you end up still needing to go into menu or you need to add all your gear to the shortcut.

[@sirgreedy88]

doesnt really work for swapping utility shards because not all utility shards are of the same type, so you end up still needing to go into menu or you need to add all your gear to the shortcut.

[@dandyND]

Yes this is the most annoying thing about this video, tbh the only traversal shard that you need to change often is the directional shard so each shortcut for a weapon and a directional shard isn't that much troublesome as he made it to be

[@TheT3rr0rMask]

Bloodstained did it for me more because the mechanics are so Iga. Almost every metroidvania now has a Souls inspired combat system that just makes them all slow, clunky and samey. Bloodstained has the straightforward attack animations and you can cancel them with a jump or backdash. I enjoy the ost a lot but yeah Yamane has better work out there (LOI and COD she went all out). The character designs are all great and they're memorabley charming. The story obviously isnt Last of Us quality but Iga's writing always hooks me in for pure entertainment along with some small metaphorical takes. Graphically I dont care if a game is 2D or 2.5D I just care if it looks pleasing and Bloodstained has a really nice color palette. It also does 2.5D better than most other games since it doesn't get in the way of gameplay like so many others (Megaman 11's explosions were a little overly flashy). Gotta say I look forward to Iga going further and making a franchise. The three games we have so far are great (COTM2 has some awful difficulty balance but at least it's still fun) and while the COTM games are alternate timelines I'm waiting for a huge expansive lore like Vania had

[@Maukkaaaa]

can confirm that spike armor was when i had to cave in and google what to do.

[@OmniscientWarrior]

I didn't. But I was stuck for a while and grew up on these types of games, so I just went exploring to complete as much of the map as I possibly can and see if there are hidden areas (and I mean hidden as in, it is marked on the map as explored but you really haven't been there, like where the Aegis is or the thing on the other side from it).

[@vaevictis_]

After seeing all the reviews praising this game and being a huge symphony of the night and Metroidvania games in general, I was really looking forward to this game. 40 fucking dollars down the drain. I became ridiculously overpowered very easily and the game became a slosh with and it wasn’t pretty to look at either. I might pick it up again and give it another chance at some point and maybe it will click. THE most overhyped game this year easily. Play hollow night or blasphemous instead. Much better games

[@vaevictis_]

how can I forget the music! Wait, yeah because it was very forgettable. No where even CLOSE to symphony of the nights soundtrack. That violin in the opening stages is actually annoying

[@Simonthecat88]

Oh yeah play Blasphemous and Hollow knight instead. Weird how 3 kickstarters with immense difference in budget could deliver so much different games in quality. So it's more about vision and inspiration. I waited about a year to buy Bloodstained because I didn't like the graphics (I still don't) and the somehow goofy tone. I really enjoyed playing the game and the exploration but it was too easy and unbalanced. A good game for me but I still didn't grasp were the 5 and a half millions dollars went honestly.

[@jaretco6423]

Am I the only person that thinks Hollow Knight is overrated? Not saying the game is bad. But I don't see it as an masterpiece.

[@ArrowValley]

I was really enjoying at the time it came out but never finished it (got to the part where everything was giant). For some reason once I stopped playing I never wanted to start again.

[@Ljogando]

My dude, that's the exactly point I stopped playing! I don't know how much more there is, but the coin boss is still broken in the Switch version so I really have no reason to come back..

[@AkaiAzul]

Ljogando Believe it or not, not much more. There’s 1 more level and about 2 or 3 more bosses.

It's the second to last area. That part felt lazy... like they were in rush with the development. Still good on its own and thankfully, you can get a shard that speeds up going through that area. I played it through, loved the game, but the final areas were underwhelming.

[@AkaiAzul]

@ I agree, it was a fun concept that got old really fast and became cheap. The last area also felt tacked on, kind of lifeless.

[@haemolacria8873]

love this game hope they make more

[@zebedie2]

I think the game does have a sense of humour about certain things, the EEE OOOO thing for one. Since it wasn't uncommon for games of the 80's to have similar odd sound effects. I also love the shovel knight references bravo for that one. The artwork overall is beautiful though and the 3D is used in a very good way.

[@stanfreed6450]

Wait there was armor that protected you from spikes!? i always just heal tanked through that part dammit!

[@Notsram77]

Same here! When I finally found the spike breaker armor, and that area of my map had already been filled somehow. Timestained: Pointless Wandering All Night

[@mind-of-neo]

For me, the fun in this game literally completely disappeared after getting the reflector ray and going back to the "Livre ex machina" area. This is because this is where you start to see a lot of enemies that are just recolors of other enemies, there are rooms where the stupid heads wont stop spawning no matter what (which is NEVER fun), and many of the moving platform setups are just frustrating as hell and no fun whatsoever.

[@mobious01]

Soo like any castlevania then

[@dariusgiurar5435]

so your beef is that you suck? lol

[@sebay4654]

Unfortunately the shard usage only really hints at the second bad ending

[@GrayFoxHound9]

Agree with most things there, especially about game being overwhelming, graphics fine and story okay-ish, but still consider the game a very good game, and felt like a proper castlevania (thanks to music mostly) for the first time since 2008. Especially after MN9 burn. And CoM duology is really good as well.

[@Thinh-Nguyen.]

I really enjoyed this game it was perfect to me

[@zatusng]

finally someone point out what issues bloodstained facing, I know everyone wait so long to have a new castlevania game, but we can't just ignore or accept the problems they made. as a castlevania fans, I feel disappointed on this game, it just not the quality I expect, especially made by "castlevania father", I wish they hear the opinions and improve in the next game

[@vvolfflovv]

came here expecting I was right that this game was over hyped but having watched most of your vid, it actually looks really interesting with way more depth than I expected. I'm not tempted to buy it.

[@russellweefs]

"3D models are just easier to make and animate" hmm are you sure?

[@WolfHreda]

So, I played a good amount of Bloodstained when it came out. It's currently sitting at 46.2 hours on my first playthrough. But I just can't care enough to finish it. It's fun, but Jesus is it bloated in some ways.

[@TROBassGuitar]

After the water area I got annoyed and quit

[@ShinoSarna]

35:40 "Things like this feel required" they're not. Everything you describe is 100% optional. You can beat every Igavania without any item or soul grinding at all, every game is perfectly beatable without worrying too much about the RPG layer, that's part of the point. If you want, you can play it as a pure platformer. If you're being anal about optimizing crafting, that is issue with you and not the game.

[@giacomomallia953]

So, having hours and hours of useless grinding is not an issue? It's bad side content, bad game design and bad level design. It is an issue.

[@ShinoSarna]

​@@giacomomallia953 What do you mean "having" grinding? Every system that includes numerical increments or random drops can be grinded. *Players* choose to grind, all the designers did was *not prevent* players from doing that.

[@emperortgp2424]

@@ShinoSarna So your options are either to grind or ignore significant parts of the game? Saying it's "optional" doesn't excuse the fact that all these crafting, upgrades and fetchquests are poorly implemented. If you want to get a cool endgame weapon you'll have to grind for the crafting items. But since technically you can complete the game with the starting dagger, according to your logic it's the player's fault for wanting a good weapon. Isn't one of the main strengths of "Igavania" games supposed to be being able to play around with a wide variety of options? Same with weapon techniques, the mastery mechanic is completely unnecessary and incentivizes you to commit to a single technique even though there are many options. You say all the designers did was to not prevent players from grinding, but the fact that passive shards become skill shards at rank 9 shows that the designers actually actively encourage players to grind because the alternative is tedious menuing to equip the correct shard everytime. And with how terribly the shortcut system works (you can't even unlock all the shortcuts in one playthrough for some reason), it's easy to see what's actually intended. And of course if you do decide to grind for whatever reason you'd want to equip shards like Augment Gold, Augment Luck, Alchemic Bounty etc. But their effects at grade 1 is minimal, so you're gonna have to grind these to grade 9 as well. Not to mention shards only have a 2-5% drop rate. This game literally makes you grind for items that help you to grind for items.

[@ShinoSarna]

@@emperortgp2424 You do realize that you get items outside of grinding, right? You can still craft with things you find naturally throughout the game.

[@giacomomallia953]

@@ShinoSarna the game is not flawless, and the fact is that there are excellent games far beyond this one. Compared to these games, it's not wrong to call blood someway mediocre. You could argue that, for exemple, ff15 looks great, but if you compare to persona 5 or dq11 it's less than mediocre. Blood per se is not so bad, but compared to others is mediocre. This is why i asked you to watch his video about Hollow Knight

[@CogDisso]

Old video, but can confirm getting the medals for beating bosses without getting hit isn't required for the "collect all items" trophy or the platinum. They're just in-game trophies to prove you've done it.

[@mrwizard5012]

I think what's particularly disappointing about Bloodstained is that the boss battles in the NES-like spinoffs are better than their HD counterparts in almost every way. Like compare the train boss in Curse of the Moon 1 vs Ritual of the Night, holy shit.

[@chainmasters2178]

I did really enjoy this critique! I am however one of those Koji fanboys that wanted to scream STFU but I do respect and understand your criticism of a game I enjoyed. You set up a few things that I subconsciously thought about it on my initial playthrough

[@AnaatthiGozo]

As a metroidvania fan but a newbie to the igavania, I have to agree to everything in this video. The amount of clunkiness in crafting and usability, mismatch of art styles and the ridiculous grind for passive boosts and materials bring the game down a lot.

[@XristoferLee]

Have you played it since the graphics update?

[@Roan7995]

This just makes me want to play it more. lol

[@aaronconecept6448]

I agree with some of the points and some feel like grasping at straws to just bring it down abit but overlall gotta say I loved this game only major complaint I have is the hair scarf and some of the overall character customization but over all I’d recommend this game to anyone

[@kyotheman69]

agreed, this video should be taken like pinch of salt, or even a grain its pretty bias, some decent points but truly grasping straws. i kind of wish art style stayed 2D instead of going 2.5D, but oh well

[@jrvbamafan1]

Fact is they will forever be chasing the lightning in a bottle they caught with Symphony of the night. Game was ridiculously atmospheric and much better than it really had any right to be. The bosses, music and areas are perfect imo. They've been trying ever since to duplicate it but just can't, and in all honesty they probably never will. We've gotten some great games with Order of Ecclesia and Aria of Sorrow being standouts to me but Sotn is just that good, and a game that I play through every year around Halloween for its atmosphere.

[@stolensentience]

I loved sotn but was SHOCKED how easy and short it was

[@Notsram77]

@@stolensentience Sounds like you should be playing on Luck Mode. For me, that's the true difficulty level for someone already familiar with the mechanics.

[@tiguilherman_plays]

I see no problems with the game design at all. I think I played almost every metroidvania known to man so far and in terms of design it ranks among the best of them (being surpassed in my opinion only by actual Castlevanias). To me the only problem is the lack of polish and proper support for the game. I can't fathom, for example, how they still havent fixed the bug-plagued Valefar boss battle (gambler), which is for me by far one of the artistically better boss concept in any 2D game ever. 9 out of 10 times I had to restart the game because the boss suddenly teleported out of the screen and I couldnt hit him anymore or he, me. Talk about breaking the immersion and flow of the game. These and some other minor stuff should already have been patched. We waited so long for the game already, I wouldnt mind waiting a couple of months to play a seamless experience but here I am beta testing the game for them and paying them - instead of being payed - to do so.

[@Spyduck]

Now that I'm also done with this game, I can see why the game's systems come to fruition. The new Randomizer mode makes it so that not only do you have near limitless replay value, and that you are now forced to be accustomed to every resource you can get - even the less favourable weapons/shards that you once ditched. Granted, randomizing means you can either get a bad seed and get screwed over or that you'll be stupidly lucky and cruise it on easy. But what it does is making sure every seeded world is a new challenge in itself, and that's where the appreciation starts to fall into place. Also, regarding the Aegis armour I would mention one thing. It was surely out of the way, but looking at the map also nags at the player - why are there two still unreachable map blocks just outside of the left clock tower? As exploration would have it, getting the Invert shard is a realisation that you could fall down to that section, and voila. You found a crucial item to that spiked passageway.