Spoilers Thread! (During release window)

I believe it's just bragging rights. I'm not sure if they are needed for 100% item collection though. Also you can only have 1 of each medal, doing the fights no hit again in new game+ won't earn you more medals.

Ah ok, I had a feeling but I just wanted to make sure since they are showing up under the "Key Item" list in the inventory.

And this... is to go even further beyond!

Very odd that the boss rush doesn't include all of the bosses. I was wondering how they'd do IGA, but it seems they skip most of the latter chunk of bosses entirely anyway.

Seems to be a bug with the forum. Let me post it again.

I maxed out Bloodbringer's level. Here are the results.

Also, since I have been playing the game almost 50 hours already I will do some gushing as well.

GAMEPLAY:
Top notch quality stuff here. Easily on par with SotN in my opinion. On PS4 though I have noticed some performance issues. Firstly, frame rate slow down when I use certain directional shards (most noticeably with the shard that sends that spinning circular blade on a chain). Secondly, several times I have noticed where I enter a room and hit an enemy, the game just freezes. It's never for very long and the game picks right back up in less than a minute but it has happened often enough to be VERY noticeable. Another, albeit small and nitpicky, issue that I have is that the various techniques you can find and use feel very difficult to execute with my controller. Maybe my time away from fighting games has affected my ability to pull these off, but, I do not remember them EVER being this hard to do. Maybe it's something about the whole technique system I do not understand since I have not messed with it much at all but I figured I should mention it.

STORY:
I thought it was ok. Very fitting directions taken considering it's a spiritual successor to Castlevania. 
I do agree while certain characters were DEFINITELY handed the idiot ball, what was there is done competently enough to where I can forgive/overlook it.

WEAPONS AND COLLECTIBLES:
I was hoping these would be good and holy crap they did not disappoint. While I am not at 100% just yet in every category (The previously mentioned Techniques I am not even close to doing all of them though I think I read all the books that can be found.) what I HAVE found has been amazing. I ended up discovering some of the abilities they had out of pure fluke.

Overall it is a damn fine game and easily one of the best games I have played so far this year. While it is not perfect and definitely has a few rough spots here and there, I see myself playing this on my PS4 and multiple other systems for a long time.

Currently on the final boss, who is currently repeatedly smearing the walls with my blood.

With over 30 hours under my belt Im at 95.40% map completion But only 34% weapon completion and 66% shard completion with less than half the quests done and not even 10% of the techniques used.

I will say I want to get more shards because my strategy the whole game on every late game boss was mostly "Spam Inferno breath to rack up hundreds of DPS until I win" and my best weapon for now is by FAR the Durandal.

As far as other aspects of the game:

This is a top notch IGA game, and while I want more time with it, I can safely put it above many of his previous games too. Weapon and power variety is astounding with my only niggle being the lack of a weapon upgrade system because I REALLY like the Flying Edge but the damage is so poor at this point...alas. Im really happy with the Familiar system too.

I also adore the fact there are "Builds" in this game, I REALLY want to get a better gun than the Culverin and a better whip than the Beast Tamer. Guns in particular have become a favorite of mine with the amazing variety in ammunition, so different from any other Iga-Castlvania.

Boss fights are great all around, with the "human" fights like Zangetsu and other spoiler-ey ones being the highlights. The fact one of the bosses is a dead ringer for, of all things, Shin Godzilla really made me smile, if also wonder why its here. The Jojo memes make more sense since IGA loves Jojo and has been referencing it for decades at this point. As much as I cant say the final boss has a viable reason for being who it is, I CAN say the fight is a friggin blast.

The story....well the story was never a big highlight in these games but I do feel I agree it feels a bit nonsensical the direction certain characters take. But with one character I really like is Miriam herself. She looks and evokes Shanoa s much, and early descriptions of her describe her as aloof which TERRIFIED me we'd get another stoic, cardboard character with a great design but Miriam has a lot of charm and playfullness to her that eliminated those fears. Zangetsu is also great and I cant wait to unlock him.

Im also extremely pleased with the wide array of locales in the game now that ive seen it all, from the ship to the castle to the oriental research lap and beyond, Im thrilled to say my fear of a big stale castle with no other environmental variation was tossed aside brilliantly.

For now, Im giving up on the final boss, Im only level 41 and phase 2 is just eating me alive, I want to collect more shards and weapons. And I need money, christ Ive never had more than like 20K on me at a time. I cant buy all the fun ammo for the guns I want to use :3

I'm at the final boss and while I've had a good time with the game I think that for the first time in an IGAvania I'll just complete the map, maybe the shards, but not all the items.

Fun game, phenomenal OST, great boss fights (on Normal they're kinda easy except for the end, but I wanted to get the Medal on any boss before proceeding with the story so doing them no-hit really made me appreciate the patterns) and nice level design overall, but on the whole the game struck me as unpolished. The aesthetics, I couldn't get used to. I just don't like how the game looks. Animations ranged from adequate to terrible. I had a constant feeling over "quantity over quality", bad pacing for getting weapons because the crafting system is so busy and full of tons of materials to get with a pace-breaking grind if you want to get a particular weapon at the time when it's useful. Even the Shard upgrade system is nice but so grindy if you want to max everything out or even just a specific shard really if you aren't in the endgame already. Sub quests were absolutely terrible IMO. So few in types, copypasted, terribly lazy. Easily one of the worst parts of the game for me. The final major thing I didn't like is how closely Bloodstained sticks to SotN (even in the terrible balancing). I know it's what everyone wanted but not me. IGA's career is not only SotN and constantly referencing it and notting at certain aspect of SotN makes me feel like the man himself forgot that.

I guess I just have to accept that my vision no longer coincides with IGA or the community's. The game turned out fine, but it's easily my least favorite IGAvania (and I also liked the PS2 'vanias better, but they're too different to compare). I'll probably buy and play eventual sequels even if they're not probably going to push forward the formula bur rather tread the familiar ground. I'm happy for all the folks that are enjoying the game in every aspect and calling it a masterpiece. Wish I were able to as well, especially considering how much I spent on the whole thing.


EBBenjy  and/or lai:

Awesome. I don't even know if it'll be necessary because overall the second fight is pretty easy, but thanks nonetheless!