Spoilers Thread! (During release window)

Full screen nuke with infinite MP

Also taking advantage of the enemy's elemental weakness to bring up the damage.

Like others have said here the Dom reveal feels a bit clumsily done, I saw it coming when you see her in the lab after the train segment it. The whole execution just feels off in a way I can't put my finger on. Although it was really fun listening her monologue at the end so I'd say it was worth it. As for Anne, poor little girl is irrelevant for the entire game. I think if she wasn't mentioned in the initial Kickstarter she wouldn't be in the game at all. Maybe there was something for her early on that got scrapped but right now she's kinda just there.


Gebel being controlled kinda kills his agency as a villain but then again he isn't supposed to be one and his role towards the end kinda reminds me of Albus at the end of OOE's first half. Bael may as well be a giant space flea for all of his story significance so idk what else to say. Just really meh.

I actually like how they handled Alfred aka basically Albus from OOE if he was your granddad instead of your brother. Everything Alfred does makes sense when you learn what he's really trying to do while being threatening if you don't. Not to mention THE BOOK. Not bad at all.

Overall, not bad, not really all that great, two Albus types for one game, but then again that's not why we're here.

 Bloodstained is definitely Sorrow/SOTN mix with the scale of the latter and the combat of the former. In combat I almost exclusively used whips due to their range, damage, and the fact you can cancel all of the lag with a landing made it really rewarding to use them even if all the special moves where given to the other weapons. I never found myself using shards much outside of trying to DPS down bosses. That is until I got Tepis Rozain aka why you don't make lasers do damage in bursts, don't bother keeping it sustained on a target just swing the thing around in a circle like a giant club and barely burn any mp. Also luck is kinda the king stat if you are good enough at the combat to not care about the statistical disadvantage. By investing in luck you get more money and drops which translate into more power via crafting rather than levels which incentivizes skilled play while still leaving the option of just out-grinding bosses on the table. Shame that it doesn't use OOE's glorious glyph system but, Each weapon type suits a particular playstyle and although I settled on whips all weapon types are valid options unless you are too poor to use guns. Difficulty-wise I would say Bloodstained is around Aria levels, you can't turn off your brain half-way through like in SOTN but the game won't leave you bloody on the curb like OOE. I would have liked it harder but then again huge OOE fan here so I'm probably just biased.

 
The game has a linear order that you must go through with the only real divergent point being going for Gebel or 8-bit nightmare at any point after killing Bloodless. The castle is huge but the warp points are in fairly convenient spots and once I learned out to properly chain backlashes (use crouch) exploration became much more manageable. There are only 2 instances where I actually got stuck. The first was I couldn't figure out what to use to initially swim underwater, despite the description of the water jet shard blatantly saying it could be used for swimming. I actually don't have an issue with this, it is kinda my fault for not reading the shard descriptions and it is a clever use of game mechanics ala getting extra height with a divekick or distance with the triple kick.

However the second instance is something that isn't hinted at in the game whatsoever, using invert at the bottom of the Valac tower..... Ok how was I supposed to know a chest was there infact I already found something there, the valkyrie dress, so I assumed that was it. I saw the chest but the bit of jutting out tower doesn't exactly scream "use invert at the bottom." It doesn't help that if you don't notice either chest the only hint you get is empty spots on your map, that can be filled out without invert if you know how (or maybe I'm misrepresenting that last point). They could have made it so that the aegis chest is given a marker when you first enter the Valac fight, telling people to return here at some point, but that may just frustrate players as they return to the tower only to find nothing.

BUT outside of those two issues Bloodstained is a never-ending cycle of combat, platforming, and satisfaction. Finding a new area or exploring a new space with a new ability is always a blast and fighting enemies never really gets boring until you start doing late-game grinding. Also you get to keep the Accelerator Shard in new game+ which makes repeat playthroughs less of a retread and more like a poorly done speedrun. Drop rates, if you build for luck can't speak for other builds, are pretty fair and if you grind for an item you will typically get it sooner rather than later.

Much to my pleasure the medal system from OOE has returned! So being the absolute idiot genius I am, I decided that for my first run I would get all medals. Oh boy was that fun, but I managed to do it.

For the most part the bosses range from meh to holyshitthisisawsome. There's not any particularly bad bosses and at worst they are forgettable but there are a few highs. Zangetsu proves once again that the other playable character will give among the best bossfights in a metroidvania. Alfred and Valac in excellent uses of the 2.5D in a boss fight with their rotating arenas although Alfred's is one that could only work in 2.5D turning a small room into what is effectively an endless corridor. The Doppleganger gives lightning quick bouts of trading blows and avoiding specials. Although it was so fast I had to switch off my tried and true whip for the Doppleganger and just shoot it to death and it was still a hard fight. Unfortunately, I accidentally grinded too much for Gremory, Dominique, and Bael to be any real challenge, even when going for no it, although that's what I get for doing IGA and OD first, speaking of IGA and OD.

However the real star bosses here are the post game ones. IGA is lightning fast, hits like a trick and his attacks all hit a wide area, but all of his attacks clear tells if that helps at all. Even if you know all of his tells and how to dodge his attacks he is still a hard boss to even beat since chances are a slip up will happen and the dodge windows for some of his attacks are really tight but consistent. But once you know his moves this fight is an absolute blast, just on the line of feeling in control and descending into absolute chaos in a lightning fast challenge. OD, who can be fought at any time in the glacial tomb as long as you have the tome of conquest checked out, is much slower but many of his tells overlap and unless you know where to go, his timestop is near-guaranteed to hit you. Thankfully almost all of his attacks don't hit above or behind him so that's how you avoid him, just keep moving when he vanishes and watch his cape. Still you have to be alert because sometimes he'll just teleport right next to you so using the accelerator shard is worthwhile even in the tiny room you fight him in.

Here is my tier list for Bloodstained bosses from top to bottom in my no-hit journey:

Post-game Vamps:
    IGA
    OD

Zangetsu:
    Zangetsu 2
    Zangetsu 1

Hope you have a strong controller:

    Doppleganger

    Dominque

Ring around the Rosie:

    Alfred



"I have one attack that will fuck you up but will be easy to dodge otherwise.":
    Bloodless
    Valac
    Gremory

Easy to no-hit:
    Vepar
    Clockwork
    Gebel
    Valefar



Hope you like redoing entire segments:
    Bael
    8-Bit Overlord
    Glutton Train/10 reasons why Zangetsu is the GOAT


I shouldn't have done the post-game content first:
    Gremory
    Dominque
    Bael

I legit forgot about them until I made this list which means they were pretty easy to no-hit:
    Clockwork
    Abyss Dragon thing, idk what the name is
    Andrealphus
    Bathin
    Orobas

OD

IGA

Totally Not Alucard

Bloodless

Totally Not Alucard returned to the library, because he's a vampire, meaning Miriam didn't or isn't capable of truly killing a vampire, yet. Shouldn't Bloodless fall under this category, as well? The only 2 vamps in the game, afaik and would be interesting to know what Bloodless is doing or where she sojourned to, after Miriam slapped the shit out of her.