FAMILIARS: What do you expect from them? QUESTIONS

I will answer using that color whose name sounds like some cloud computing service provided by that company notMacro-notHard

1) Considering Shards can be upgraded on their rank (picking up more of the same type) and grade (alchemy), what do you expect from leveling up Familiar Shards? Changing their looks? What they do?

For sure I'd expect attribute stat increases like from SotN but more spread out. A fairy familiar may get a boost in speed in addition to both healing frequency and increasing proc rate for preventing Miriam from dying at 0 HP and resurrecting her back like Zelda LttP's fairy in the bottle. I'll be more than satisfied if I see equipment on familiars start looking more sturdy or their "skin" begins looking much thicker, etc., to also visually confirm that over time they are indeed getting more powerful.

2) Do you expect Familiars to have some sort of personality (like Symphony of the Night ones had) or do you think the game will take the simpler route (like some of Aria/Dawn had).

I expect every familiar to have a personality. Depending on each individual familiar, personality may show only during cutscenes, only through control during main gameplay, or from both.

3) How many familiars do you expect Bloodstained to have?

I'm not convinced it'll be anywhere near the range of Innocent Devil bestiary amounts as from Curse of Darkness. My hunch is that the number will be 4 or greater, but not more than 16. If you absolutely need an exact number, then that number is 12.

4) Considering the familiars we know so far, what other kinds / types of familiars do you expect the game to have?

It wouldn't be surprising to me to find some oddball ones, like one that would be relatively weak in stats at first, but will explode in stat increases in literally every attribute near the level cap. Something like the Onion Knight class in Final Fantasy 3.

Goofball would be ideal for this role just sayin'

5) Any comment on the familiars revealed so far? How do you expect them to be or work?

I'd expect them all to have a richer move-set compared how familiars were in previous Iga games. I'd expect familiars to do what I'd expect and then some sort of surprises too.

Here are my thoughts on familiars:



Still debating full-size vs. Chibi. Decisions, decisions...

1) Gosh.  It'd be cool if, after leveling up Buer enough, you could ride him, sort of like those wheelie skeletons from Dark Souls.

2) I would certainly prefer it if they all had a little bit of personality; I find it easier to get attached to them that way.  But, like Galamoth said, it really seems these familiars are just supposed to be imitations of the demons, and not the actual demons themselves.

As far as familiars in past CV games, I only really used them in SotN (and CoD of course) but not in the DS games where you had to give up a slot for another ability to use them. So I'd prefer future Igavanias would emulate SotN in that respect.

My favorite familiars in SotN were the fairy (healing and pointing out hidden locations) and the bat since it interacted nicely with the bat transformation.

Agree with thrashinuva that they shouldn't be OP and also prefer familiars interact with the player's actions during gameplay as opposed to doing their own thing.

Oh gosh, I forgot how annoying that was in Order of Ecclesia, always having to switch out whenever I needed the Magnes Glyph for something.  The quick-switching that came with Glyph Sleeves alleviated that a bit, but it was still a hassle.

hyugakojiro I love that picture. All of them looks so damn cute.

Scars Unseen well, i think it may be asking a bit too much 

Galamoth I think bloodstained will have it. I always show the same picture, but in 2016 DEMO we had a indication of that. You can see at the picture below, the "Equipment Set 1" at that green circle i did with my awesome paint skills, showing up that we will have other equipment sets.



At 2017 Demo, the menu was changed, and such indication showed again, here, also with a hint on how many equipment sets we would have (eight).


2018 DEMO doesn't have that, most probably because the menu was changed again and they decided to hide that, since that probably requires some kind of "thing" to be found. IGA said that he would try to use Shards for most of Miriam's abilities, so i can guess that Equipment Sets may be a Skill Shard that you obtain in the game (like Doppleganger Soul on Dawn of Sorrow, locked at a "soul holder" and adds two equipment sets).

So, i'm positive something like that will exist in Bloodstained, and i have a guess it will be some kind of Skill Shard. They could EVEN make it so that you need to level up (increasing it's grade with alchemy, since it wouldn't be able to take the same Skill Shard repeatedly to level up it's rank, i'm sure) to add more sets.
So, each "Equipment Set" shard Grade could add an equipment set slot. That would be cool.

hyugakojiro The Beam is a Directional Shard, so, it does take one Shard slot (Directional Shard Slot) Invert was confirmed to be a Skill Shard. From the sixty types (Conjur (known before as Trigger), Effective, Directional, Enchant, Familiar and Skill) Skill is the only one that does not take Shard slots, because it works like relics (or Ability Souls from Aria/Dawn).

When you take a Skill Shard, there is a separate menu exclusive for them, with a ON/OFF Switch. you can turn them ON or OFF (like SOTN relics) and that's it. Each Skill Shard has it's own method of usage. We know two: Double Jump (press Jump two times) and Invert (move imput unknown). For Skill Shards, you just get it, let it ON and you can use it as you please.

hyugakojiro I'm still of the mind that Effective Shards will function near-identically to the Blue "Guardian Souls" from the Sorrow duology of Castlevania games.

Which is to say; when you press the button dedicated to them, they will either remain "in effect" (activated) until you press it again OR they're active as long as you hold the button down. In both cases, they will also stop working when/if you run out of MP.

If how I'm convinced it's going to work turns out to be exactly how they will work... the question of what button activates them still remains (most likely one of the "shoulder" buttons).

hyugakojiro No worries. Not just Bloodstained, i really love Igavania games, i'm a dedicated fan of the Castlevania franchise, and Bloodstained works really close to some of them. I'm a PC gamer here, so, i played both 2016 and 2018 Demo (i have both, and replayed them several times).

You got it right and not-so-right, so, let me just recap what we know so far:

Conjur Shards (known before as Trigger Shards): Instant effect magic. Fireballs, Iceballs, Summmoning of demons for quick actions, manifestation of magically created weapons (such as throwing lances and axes). Some of them emulate sub-weapons of past CV games, others are more magic-oriented. Use it by pressing Y (Triangle on PS4).
Effective Shards: Unknown. We know they exist because they are on the game's menu, and they are blue in color. Not a single Effective Shard was shown to date. 2018 DEMO revealed that they are used by pressing RB (R1 on PS4).
Directional Shards: "gimmick" type magic and powers. You can aim them with the right analog stick (that's why the name is "directional") and use them by pressing RT (R2 on PS4 controller). Some of them are quick instant magic attack, like Fire Cannon (throw a short-range fire attack). IGA said some of them will be "gimmick".
Enchant Shards: passive powers that are always active if equipped. Only three examples we had so far: CON Boost (increases CON), Holy Resist (increase defense against Holy) and Sword Mastery (increase damage with short and long swords). No imput needed. They work as long as they are equipped.
Familiar Shards: summon familiars. As soon as you equip them, the familiar shows up and will be active the whole time, doing whatever it does, as long as you don't unequip it. Doesn't consume MP. 
Skill Shards: shards that give special abilities to Miriam, like Double Jump. They aren't equipped. They have a special menu to turn them ON and OFF and they will probably require specific imputs to be used.

Alongside that, Miriam also have weapons to use, some weapons have moves (down, down-foward, foward + attack for most of them, some of them have specific imputs) and combos (Mana revealed a combo called "Thousand Blossons" that is done by pressing attack button repeatedly using rapiers). These combos will have a mastery bar (unknown how it will be filled up) and they have a list dedicated to them.

In my opinion, considering what we played on the demos and watched so far, the key to the game will be what Igavanias became famous for: using the right abilities at the right time and pacing. When you reach a certain area, selecting the best combinations of Shards and weapons to use on that particular area, considering the enemies there, will be the key to play the game sucessfully. Most Igavanias are like that, specially post-SOTN, when powers became more diverse.

Bloodstained 2018 Demo is like that and it is a demo. Just as a small example, Gieremund Shard (Conjur Shard: Summon Gieremund) is a great shard. Miriam summons a demon dog that rushes at enemies. But that Shard is useless against flying enemies (if you use it on the air, the dog falls down and runs on the ground). The second area of the demo has a lot of flying enemies, requiring you to combine that with something else or just ditch it to use something you can use in the air.

The Demo boss is capable of blocking physical projectiles. Guns and a Shard that you shot arrows are useless against him. 

So, that's how i think the game will flow: using the best gear and shards depending on the situation you are in.
Don't know if that is what you wanted to know, but here it is.

#Small Trivia: Not all enemies will have Shards (as of now, two enemies doesn't drop shards, Morte and Giant Rat). Shards supposely can also be obtained from "Shard Candlesticks", pillars containing a Shard that you just break to get it (status of this is unknown at the moment, some hints that the Shard Candlestick mechanic was dropped) and they can be crafted using other Shard as catalyst (but you don't lose the Shard you used as catalyst to craft, just other materials).