Berdom checked out Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night:

Bloodstained Succeeded Where Other Successors Didn't

A new Kickstarter announcement for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night discusses what to expect from the now released classic mode and kingdom crossover.

Hello, Army of the Night!

Classic Mode and a new area and boss based on the hit game Kingdom: Two Crowns launched on January 14th. (Our apologies for not getting this update to you sooner). The updates are live across all platforms! Play Bloodstained in a whole new (old) way!

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Classic Mode

Miriam must once again enter the castle to confront Gebel and survive five harrowing stages and five sub-bosses that stand in her way. Armed only with a sword and whip, can she survive her journey through the demonic castle?

Classic Mode brings retro action to Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night with levels and gameplay inspired by the classic games of yesteryear.

In addition to your main weapon, you will be able to pick up special, limited-use abilities throughout the mode, but you can only have one at a time. When you pick up a new ability, the previous one will disappear.

As you advance though the castle, you will have to defeat the sub-bosses to advance to the next stage. Defeat them all and you will face off against Gebel himself!

When you finish Classic Mode, you’ll be graded on time, score and number of deaths across three difficulty modes – be sure to efficiently use Miriam’s special moves including slide, backstep and backflip.

To play it, choose “Extra Mode” from the main menu and then select “Classic Mode.” The mode is available to all Ritual of the Night owners—you do not need to have completed the core game to play Classic Mode.

Kingdom Crossover

Last year we partnered with our friends atRaw Fury to transport Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’s beloved characters – Miriam, Zangetsu, Gebel and Alfred – to Kingdom: Two Crowns.

Now it’s time to pay it forward as both publishers team up once again to merge the worlds of Kingdom: Two Crowns and Bloodstained. The Kingdom Crossover includes a new area that captures the beautiful, modern pixel art aesthetic of Kingdom.

Within the Kingdom area, you will encounter a new boss that, once defeated, will grant the new Archer Familiar Shard. This familiar will follow you throughout your adventures and attack enemies from a ranged distance. Level up the shard to get more powerful attacks!

The Kingdom Crossover will become available after you have defeated Bathin on your current save, or load an old save where you have previously defeated him. From there you will need to acquire the Crown of Creation before you will be able to locate the hidden area (it’s not shown on the map).

The Crown of Creation is equipped into the head slot and is your key to the Kingdom Crossover area. It also reduces damage at the cost of gold when worn.

We're excited for you to play the new Classic Mode and to experience the Kingdom Crossover. Thank you for playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night AND for playing Kingdom: Two Crowns!

RPG Site checked out Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night:

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Review

A little over four years ago, Koji Igarashi and the development team at Inti Creates launched a Kickstarter campaign seeking to crowdfund a new, modern take on Igarashi’s style of Castlevania. Although older Castlevania titles existed before Igarashi’s involvement, his claim to fame with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night reinvigorated the series by drastically revamping the formulaic linear level structure in most of the older titles with a huge, explorable, gothic-themed environment to seek out abilities to progress along with various RPG subsystems and stats.

Ending its Kickstarter campaign with nearly 65,000 backers and little over $5.5 million dollars, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’s long development cycle has had its fair share of bumps as the industry marched forward throughout the years. The Wii U and Vita stretch goals were ultimately dropped in favor of bringing it to the Switch. Numerous delays and the visually rough backer-exclusive beta builds continued to fester worries throughout the once enthusiastic community.

Many still consider Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to still be the absolute peak of “Iga-vanias” and it’s inevitable that Bloodstained has big shoes to fill.

I think Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night largely succeeds at what it’s going for; it’s a decent spiritual successor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with some modern bells and whistles. It even has a nice blend of elements from other Iga-vanias like Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. Bloodstained has a few rough edges mainly due to its Kickstarter roots. Nevertheless, it surpassed my expectations.
[...]
Despite its numerous shortcomings, I can’t shake the feeling of how much I loved playing Bloodstained. It scratches an itch I didn’t think I necessarily had. It’s fun leveling up, crafting bizarre weapons, upgrading my spells, getting sidequests done, and filling out more of the map bit by bit.

There’s more to come for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night too. As of the time of this review, it has a New Game Plus, Boss Rush Mode, higher difficulties, and so on. Later on down the line, the developers plan to add local & online multiplayer mode, two other playable characters, a roguelike dungeon mode, and more. I’m excited to see how it all pans out but what I got right now was a pretty cool successor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and that’s alright with me.

Score: 8/10

The Verge has reviewed Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night:

Bloodstained is the Castlevania game you’ve been waiting for

Sometimes it’s comforting to get just what you want

At the risk of being reductive, there’s very little to say about Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night other than this: it is good. From the day this game hit Kickstarter more than four years ago, it’s always been clear what it was intended to achieve. If it managed that, it would be good. If not, it would be a failure.

So yes, Ritual of the Night is good, and that’s because its developers pulled off their one job: revive the “Igavania,” a specific style of Castlevania game that producer Koji Igarashi worked on at Konami for a little over a decade. Beginning with 1997’s Symphony of the Night, Igarashi transformed the action-focused Castlevania series into a mixture of Metroid-style exploration with heavy role-playing elements. Two trilogies on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS followed, generally to much acclaim.

Ritual of the Night is Igarashi’s first game since leaving Konami, and as the name suggests, it’s unashamedly in thrall to Symphony of the Night and its successors. The game is now rendered with polygons, not pixels, but that’s about the only meaningful change. Thematically, stylistically, and mechanically, Ritual of the Night is a Castlevania game in all but name.
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I’d maybe advise waiting to see how those fixes turn out if you’re thinking about playing on the Switch, but otherwise, I’ve been having a blast with Ritual of the Night. It delivers on exactly what it needed to: it feels like a legitimate Igavania that stands right alongside the best of the Castlevania games.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is good. Now that you know that, it will rarely surprise you. But sometimes it’s comforting to get just what you want.

MMORPG reviewed Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night:

The RPG Files: The RPG Files: Bloodstained - Ritual of the Night Review

The RPG Files: Bloodstained - Ritual of the Night Review

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is the long awaited metroidvania title from former Castlevainia developer Koji Igarashi. Taking the helm on production along with the rest of the team from developer ArtPlay, Bloodstained promises a return to form for the vetern producer. Set in a dark gothic, medieval setting, this side scrolling platform offers more than simple jump attack repeat mechanics. However with the hype train being what it is does Bloodstained really offer players something new to one of the oldest genres in gaming? Grab that coffee kick back and enjoy our review of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
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The whole experience of BloodStained: Ritual of the Night feels polished. None of the mechanics or game elements presented are, in and of themselves, revolutionary but when brought together in this metroidvania title, offer up a compelling, engaging experience for fans of the genre. If you are a fan of the genre or wanting to dip your toes in, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is an excellent addition to the genre.

Score: 9.5

Pros

• Beautiful world design
• Smooth, strategic combat
• Excellent storytelling
• Way more RPG depth then expected

Cons

• Can we get a sequel soon?

The first reviews for the Metroidvania Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night are very good:

Destructoid - Score 8/10

GameCrate - Score 9.5/10

Steam

Metacritic

The side-scroller action RPG Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is now available:

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is an exploration-focused, side-scroller action RPG by Koji Igarashi. Play as Miriam, an orphan scarred by an alchemist's curse that slowly crystallizes her body. Battle through a demon-infested castle and defeat its master to save yourself, and all of humanity!

A new update for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night introduces a new playable character.

Hey everyone, Roberto Piraino “Angel-Corlux” from 505 here, and today we have a special announcement to make! Below is the trailer for the 2nd playable character in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night:

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Zangetsu is confirmed playable! <:D 

Wield the Zangetsuto katana and slice through the demons of hell, or torment and obliterate them with primal elemental talisman magics. Playing as Zangetsu opens up a whole host of new ways to enjoy the game, explore the castle with his hook chain and discover what secrets await his blade!

Many of you probably guessed or assumed correctly that this was coming for some time now, but I guarantee not a single one of you will ever guess who our third playable character is going to be… >:] (*angelic muahahahaing*)

We’ll have more to reveal soon!

Moving on to publishing details, we have an important announcement for our fans and backers in Japan. 

Due to some unexpected logistical difficulties, Bloodstained won’t be publicly available in Japan on June 18 & 25, 2019. However, the game will still be coming to Japan on all platforms both digital and physical, we’re still working to confirm exact dates, and we’ll share more as soon as we have confirmed information. 

The current plan is for Japanese backers to receive temporary Steam keys on June 18, 2019 so they can start playing right away while we confirm the public release date on all platforms for Japan.  

In addition to the above regarding Japan, we also want to remind all our international fans that while the global launch for Bloodstained is June 18 and June 25, certain regions of the world use slightly different release dates. You can check if your regional release date differs from the global one by checking with your regional online / physical retailer. 

It was also pointed out to me that in the last update we didn’t mention a few of the stretch goals that are coming; I knew I’d forget something with all that content!

Additional content available day 1:

• Nightmare Mode
• New Game Plus
• 8-bit retro level
• Cheat codes

[...]

A new update for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night announces the release date of June 18th for Steam, GoG, PS4 and XB1. The Switch version will release June 25th.

Development Update: The Release Date Is Here!

Posted by Koji Igarashi (Creator)

Hey there everyone, Roberto from 505 Games here today with something one or two of you have been waiting for, I’ll let the trailer do the talking for me:

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BLOODSTAINED’S RELEASE DATE IS LIVE!!!11!1!

Bloodstained will be launching June 18, 2019 on Steam, GoG, PS4 and XB1, and on June 25, 2019 for Switch. (Gotta get that polish!)

We’re looking forward to announcing more very soon, including details about full game features, stretch goal content, how the game will be offered for sale and where, preorder info etc.

Thank you everyone for your tremendous support and as always, come talk to us on Discord, we actually reply and stuff!

Roberto Piraino (Angel-Corlux)

Global Brand Manager

505 Games

Gematsu reports on some gameplay videos for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which is footage of a PAX East showing.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night will release Summer 2019 for PC.

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Launching Summer 2019!

Igavania is back in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - a 2.5D sidescrolling gothic action RPG from the godfather of the genre, Koji Igarashi.

Fight, Craft and Explore as you battle endless demons and race to save yourself, and the world, from the encroaching darkness.

Discover multiple playable characters, branching ending paths, tons of bosses, the biggest Igavania castle ever, and hundreds of spells, weapons, enemies, loot and cosmetic customizations!

Oh btw: we got celebrity voice actors like David Hayter (Snake – Metal Gear) and a live orchestra soundtrack composed by the legendary Michiru Yamane…just saying…

@IGN Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was shown off at E3.

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Watch the opening 16 minutes from the E3 2018 demo build of Koji Igarashi's spiritual successor to Castlevania, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

A new update for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

Development Update - Building up Crafting

Welcome to 2018! We've timed our January backer update to coincide with the most IGAvanian natural phenomenon we've ever heard of: The super blue blood moon eclipse. If you were in range of the SBBME, and you saw something that appeared to be a Bloodstained viral marketing campaign, do not be alarmed—that was just the moon. 

For today's update IGA and company have put together a video demonstrating the basics of the crafting system! I'll let him introduce it: 

Hello everyone, this is IGA. For this backer update, we would like to share a part of the crafting system we introduced during the initial campaign. I don't know whether we should call it crafting or alchemy, but the mechanics are the same either way—you can combine items to make yourself new items and equipment. In the video, you can watch us concoct a more powerful potion and add some bite to Miriam's basic whip.

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You might ask, "Would you really call gluing spiky things onto a whip alchemy?" Well, maybe, maybe not. But that's a simple introduction to crafting. Players can visit Johannes, an alchemist friendly to Miriam, to craft items. 

Weapons and items aren't the only things that can be created using the crafting system—but we'll introduce that another time!

Right now we're busy with porting. The porting process always creates its own set of development challenges, but it's nothing we weren't expecting. So that's what we're working on right now.

ArtPlay also sent along a look at another enemy you'll encounter in the game. I expect this one to be incredibly frustrating, in the grand tradition of all of IGA's flying enemies.
[...]

A new Kickstarter update for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

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https://www.igavania.com/

The Courtyard & Zangetsu in action!

Courtyards are just as important to an IGAvania as castles, right? Maybe not? Well, this time the courtyard is a very important part of the game, and that's why we're sharing a look at this area.

Zangetsu is a samurai character we've previously announced. He resents anyone and anything tainted by demonic power. As a result, he's hostile toward Miriam, whose existence is directly connected to the demon ritual. This is also a new stage we're introducing for the first time. - IGA

Lastly, we've seen the comments, forum posts, Discord messages, skywriting, and smoke signals: We know how eagerly you've been awaiting another demo. (Not everybody, after all, can make it out to one of IGA's convention appearances, even though the lines can sometimes make it seem that way.)

The team hears you loud and clear. So they asked me to pass along that... they don't have anything to announce.

Yet.

There are lots of big surprises coming soon, and we can't wait to... well, surprise you with them. Stay tuned.
[...]

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has a new Kickstarter update which features an IGA interview with DICO that also shows off some gameplay.

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IGA Interviews DICO’s (mysterious) technical director!

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Still More Development News

IGA's been doing the press rounds. In case you missed them, here are two recent interviews in which he says a little about the game's story, the new development process, and more: 

"Bloodstained is a gothic horror game, but there is a reason to have a samurai in this setting! There are three main characters already, including Miriam and Johannes, but there aren't enough to tell the whole story. The alchemist Alfred is the one who summoned a demon into the world, but we also needed someone who had a grudge against the demon." - USGamer: Bloodstained Goes Medieval on Players... Medieval Japan, That Is. (A few people had questions about the "20-30%" language in this one—Mana did a good job of explaining the process over in the forums.) 

"If you think about working at a larger company, then you kind of have the resources in-house to do what you want to do, but if you’re a smaller company then you have to collaborate – you don’t have all the strengths yourself, so you have to work with other companies that complement your strengths. So that’s probably a difference in feeling to the way work was before – the resources are a collaboration between companies." - IGN: What's the Latest on Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night?

@NicheGamer Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is 20-30% complete according to an interview between Koji Igarashi and Famitsu.

Despite having been funded over two years ago on Kickstarter, we've learned that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night may not be as far in development as we previously thought.

The news comes via an interview between Famitsu and game creator Koji Igarashi at this year's BitSummit, who confirmed development on the game is roughly 20-30% complete. To compare, development on the game was roughly 10% done during last year's BitSummit.
[...]

The latest from Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night tells us about three new characters that will make an appearance during Miriams adventures. Each character has accompanying concept art so check it out if your interested.

Hi everyone, this is IGA.

We will be introducing new characters for this month's update - a woman who supports Miriam, a man related to the incident from 10 years ago, and a young villager. Maybe I can finally write up our story? That's about as much as we've gathered so far.

Rather than talking about it, right now I'm actively building the story. I wonder if I'll make it to the voice recording on time... Stay tuned!

But before that, I need to decide on voice actors!

[...]

Dominique Baldwin (ドミニク・ボールドウィン）
Age: 25
An exorcist dispatched by the church, she supports Miriam as the shopkeeper. She speaks in a posh way, but she treats everyone kindly. While the church believes Miriam and Gebel to be demons, Dominique trusts them as human beings. In order to foil Gebel's ambitions, she asks her old friend Johannes to summon Miriam.

 

Alfred (アルフレッド）
Age: 57
Alfred is one of the alchemists responsible for the demon-summoning uproar ten years ago. He was Johannes's mentor, and a father figure to both Johannes and Miriam, but he's lost his former self as he heads to the castle seeking the Book of Logaeth in Gebel's possession. Quite and intelligent, Alfred's alchemic ability was unmatched even among his fellow alchemists.

 

Anne Knolles (アン・ノールズ）
Age: 12
A village girl whose parents were murdered. Anne was saved by Dominique and Miriam when demons attacked her village. When Dominique is out of town, Anne looks after the shop. She is a bright and cheerful girl.

In addition some questions and answers from Iga

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Following the release of the Nintendo Switch, Bloodstained: Rituals of the Night has announced they will switch platforms from the intended Wii U to the latest Nintendo console. While this might be bad news for some, they do offer everyone who backed the game for the Wii U to change their pledge to whatever platform they like (Switch by default) or have a full refund if they so wish. 

During our Kickstarter campaign, the Wii U was at the height of its popularity, but the situation has drastically changed after the release of Nintendo Switch. 

This change made it difficult to receive the necessary support from the hardware maker, which has led us to drop the Wii U development and shift the development to Nintendo Switch. 

We are very sorry that it has come to this after all your support, but we hope you will understand. We would like to respond by preparing options for our backers, such as moving your pledge to another version or requesting a refund if you don’t want any other version.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has a new development update which explains how they are using procedural development to add details to the levels for things like columns and other background details.

Since we're releasing this game on high-spec machines, I felt it was necessary for the graphics to offer a high level of detail. 

Next month, or I should say, near Christmas, I hope to show you a new environment made using this process...

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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the promising spiritual successor to the classic Castlevania title for the PS1, is to be published by 505 Games.

Koji Igarashi and ArtPlay Inc. have agreed a publishing deal for their successfully crowdfunded Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. 

505 Games, the folks who helped market both Payday 2 and Virginia, will publish the Castlevania spiritual successor—news which follows Igarashi's recent decision to push the game back to 2018. 

When Wes went hands-on with Bloodstained at E3 earlier this year, he noted there wasn't an awful lot to pass comment on—even considering its alpha status. That said, it's worth noting that while Bloodstained asked for $500,000 via last year's Kickstarter campaign, it eventually accumulated over $5.5 million. Naturally, the scope of the project in turn had to change, so perhaps the delay and its pacing is expected. 

Either way, the latest developer update discusses 505's involvement, and also sneaks in a wee bit of test footage. If you're a backer, you'll likely find talk of backer portraits of particular interest.