Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night: Pure Miriam Review
Jun 26, 2019 2:49:33 GMT -6
Arcueid Brunestud, JeffCross, and 5 more like this
Post by Pure Miriam on Jun 26, 2019 2:49:33 GMT -6
This article was written by myself and posted only here. I finished the game, with mostly just completionist stuff lacking to do and decided to come back to the forums to share my view and opinion about it, to anyone who wants to read. Here goes:
This review has no spoilers.
This review has no spoilers.
BLOODSTAINED: RITUAL OF THE NIGHT:
SPOILER-FREE PURE MIRIAM REVIEW
SPOILER-FREE PURE MIRIAM REVIEW
The Metroidvania genre, so to speak, isn't something really new. It has existed for decades and has been reinventing itself since it's creation. The Castlevania series is no new to this either, having something close to a metroidvania game back in Castlevania 2: Simon's quest. But if you ask any Castlevania fan, from the old or from the new, what game best defines such series, the answer, in almost 99% certainty, will be a single title: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
That game, directed and produced by Toru Hagihara, whose assistant director was Koji Igarashi, wasn't really a success when it first came out, back in March 20, 1997. It was just some months later, when more people started playing, that the wide critical acclaim really paid off. That game not only completely redefined what Castlevania was (and still is) but also launched the career of it's assistant director, Koji Igarashi, known nowadays as IGA.
With several other games from the series under his sleeve, IGA turned the Castlevania series into the flagship, the staple of what a metroidvania game should be. But things became darker when Konami (and Nintendo too) stopped developing games like these. Quite a long time since the last "Metroid" and the last "Vania" had anything to do with the genre they helped reforge and recreate. But just like Dracula from his beloved series, IGA didn't want to give up.
After being removed from the Castlevania series and feeling uneasy to continue, IGA decided to seek for a way to create a new game, following the steps of the Castlevania series he helped to forge. Named "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night", he asked for $ 500.000 on Kickstarter and "farmed" more than 5.5 million. No one can say that it wasn't a dangerous ride. IGA put his name and career on the line and the game got quite a few delays and some valid (and unfair) criticism along the way. But it was finally released. After four years, some great and bad decisions, it is time to see if the game was able to pay off the hype, the backers and the fans.
You play as Miriam, a cursed orphan, whose body is turning into crystal thanks to a ritual made by recondile arts. She and her best friend, Gebel, the original host for the said curse, were the only survivors of such ritual performed by the Alchemy Guild. Said ritual was made to call up demons to earth, to strike fear into people's hearts, after the alchemy guild itself started to fear that the industrial revolution could put them aside, with people losing their faith on the supernatural and their wealthy patrons and people of power abandoning them.
Gebel, as madman, summoned a demonic castle from hell itself and started to plot the downfall of humankind, while Miriam fall into a unknown sleep who stopped time for her for 10 years. As soon as she wakes up and realizes what's happening, she decides it is up to her to stop him.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night feels, plays and sounds like a Castlevania, from the beginning to the end. Anyone can see that IGA and his team made their best efforts to emulate the Castlevania series, to the point where some elements of it scratches close to plagiarism (can you be accused of plagiarism from your own games, i wonder?). He basically got what worked best in almost all of his older games and cramped everything inside Bloodstained, and surprisingly, everything worked really well. You have the Shardbinder power that is a upgraded version of Soma's Soul Dominance from Aria and Dawn of Sorrow (get enemies powers to use against them), a forging system that seems to be a more refined version of the forgemaster from Curse of Darkness, weapon skills that pays great tribute to Symphony of the Night's weapon skills and several specific weapons, gear, powers and solutions that you can trace back to other games, specially if you are a diehard Castlevania fan and be looking for small details.
The game has a lot of new features, such as customization of the main character, some really creative powers and mechanics, some interesting-looking areas that was never seen in Castlevania titles, among other things. My personal adventure took around 20 hours to get the real ending and i'm going to get back to the game because i still have things to find and the castle is so damn fun to explore that i want to see every small thing i can.
Something else that can easily be considered a vast improvement over IGA's last games, is his and his team dedication on explaining the game's lore. Since this is a complete new series, they put everything they could inside a compendium of information. From people to demons, everything has a description and you can find bookshelves that gives you new weapon techniques to try out (you can discover them by luck too) and new light to the events of the game. Even some gear has bits of interesting story behind them. IGA was always prone to explain even the smallest of details of his games, but Bloodstained took a step further on that. For those who like to be immersed, you have a ton of material to dig. I didn't read everything yet, and i already consider you have at least 3 or 4 new whole games they could craft with just those tiny bits of information.
The number of weapons, gear and powers is simply amazing and overwhelming. Of course, a lot of them doesn't seem really useful at first glance, but most of them has their moments and can be seen to be used at certain situations. If we would try to say a single word to Bloodstained's gameplay, "customizable" would be it, because not only you can heavily customize Miriam's looks, but you can also customize her gameplay with the tons of options offered to you. The game is pretty generous with the drop rate of Shards (Miriam's powers) and crafting material, so it isn't like you will be underpowered on your adventure.
Bloodstained enemies, the demons, are, by far, one of the most creative and interesting features of the game. It's really hard to imagine any other game where you can have a evil carriage, giant pet-looking cats and severed dog heads, winged flying ominous demons and a solo guitar player all inside the same game and for some unknown reason, all of them makes sense in the bizarre context of it. To those who played Castlevania: Curse of the Moon, some enemies from that game, are here as well (with some overly powered versions too, good lord!) including some bosses.
The bosses are also something else. Most of them are very interesting looking and their fights are almost always unique and balanced, although, we need to consider that some bosses are rather easy or can be beaten in cheap ways, but even that was a staple of Castlevania series so i wonder if they even planned that. Who knows.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's soundtrack, composed mostly by Michiru Yamane (Castlevania fame composer) and Ippo Yamada (Megaman) is great and delightful to listen. It's really hard to say if it surpassed Symphony of the Night though, because that particular soundtrack may be the best OST ever made for any entertainment material to date, but Bloodstained's OST was made with care and attention to details. I specially loved some certain songs, whose names i'm not going to say here to not delve into any spoiler, as small as it could be.
The game's plot is interesting. It isn't groundbreaking nor has any absurd unpredicted plot twist, although i do consider the game's plot is even darker than any other game IGA made, specially Castlevania games. Don't expect to see anything really creative or mindblowing, and even some small bits and pieces of the plot actually fail to be properly explained or shown, but again, usually, the castlevania series, whose Bloodstained drank until dry, never had a overly creative plot anyways, since it was always much more focused on gameplay and fun factor.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night shows that Koji Igarashi still has a "A new, vital heart, pulsing with the old blood" as he said so himself. Exploring the game's castle is fun, discovering new powers and weapons felt as much awesome as it was when we did that back in the golden era of Castlevania series. Not only that, but IGA was able to actually listen to criticism and respect his fans to the point the game was almost completely redone and refined to meet their (and IGA's perfectionism) standards.
May Bloodstained series live long. The gaming world needs developers who actually listen to the outcry of their fans.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was one of the best games ever made. The Castlevania series is among the most respected, fun and enjoyable gaming series to date. And now, all that finally has a worthy sucessor.
That game, directed and produced by Toru Hagihara, whose assistant director was Koji Igarashi, wasn't really a success when it first came out, back in March 20, 1997. It was just some months later, when more people started playing, that the wide critical acclaim really paid off. That game not only completely redefined what Castlevania was (and still is) but also launched the career of it's assistant director, Koji Igarashi, known nowadays as IGA.
With several other games from the series under his sleeve, IGA turned the Castlevania series into the flagship, the staple of what a metroidvania game should be. But things became darker when Konami (and Nintendo too) stopped developing games like these. Quite a long time since the last "Metroid" and the last "Vania" had anything to do with the genre they helped reforge and recreate. But just like Dracula from his beloved series, IGA didn't want to give up.
After being removed from the Castlevania series and feeling uneasy to continue, IGA decided to seek for a way to create a new game, following the steps of the Castlevania series he helped to forge. Named "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night", he asked for $ 500.000 on Kickstarter and "farmed" more than 5.5 million. No one can say that it wasn't a dangerous ride. IGA put his name and career on the line and the game got quite a few delays and some valid (and unfair) criticism along the way. But it was finally released. After four years, some great and bad decisions, it is time to see if the game was able to pay off the hype, the backers and the fans.
"(...) just like Dracula from his beloved series, IGA didn't want to give up."
You play as Miriam, a cursed orphan, whose body is turning into crystal thanks to a ritual made by recondile arts. She and her best friend, Gebel, the original host for the said curse, were the only survivors of such ritual performed by the Alchemy Guild. Said ritual was made to call up demons to earth, to strike fear into people's hearts, after the alchemy guild itself started to fear that the industrial revolution could put them aside, with people losing their faith on the supernatural and their wealthy patrons and people of power abandoning them.
Gebel, as madman, summoned a demonic castle from hell itself and started to plot the downfall of humankind, while Miriam fall into a unknown sleep who stopped time for her for 10 years. As soon as she wakes up and realizes what's happening, she decides it is up to her to stop him.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night feels, plays and sounds like a Castlevania, from the beginning to the end. Anyone can see that IGA and his team made their best efforts to emulate the Castlevania series, to the point where some elements of it scratches close to plagiarism (can you be accused of plagiarism from your own games, i wonder?). He basically got what worked best in almost all of his older games and cramped everything inside Bloodstained, and surprisingly, everything worked really well. You have the Shardbinder power that is a upgraded version of Soma's Soul Dominance from Aria and Dawn of Sorrow (get enemies powers to use against them), a forging system that seems to be a more refined version of the forgemaster from Curse of Darkness, weapon skills that pays great tribute to Symphony of the Night's weapon skills and several specific weapons, gear, powers and solutions that you can trace back to other games, specially if you are a diehard Castlevania fan and be looking for small details.
The game has a lot of new features, such as customization of the main character, some really creative powers and mechanics, some interesting-looking areas that was never seen in Castlevania titles, among other things. My personal adventure took around 20 hours to get the real ending and i'm going to get back to the game because i still have things to find and the castle is so damn fun to explore that i want to see every small thing i can.
"Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night feels, plays and sounds like a Castlevania, from the beginning to the end."
Something else that can easily be considered a vast improvement over IGA's last games, is his and his team dedication on explaining the game's lore. Since this is a complete new series, they put everything they could inside a compendium of information. From people to demons, everything has a description and you can find bookshelves that gives you new weapon techniques to try out (you can discover them by luck too) and new light to the events of the game. Even some gear has bits of interesting story behind them. IGA was always prone to explain even the smallest of details of his games, but Bloodstained took a step further on that. For those who like to be immersed, you have a ton of material to dig. I didn't read everything yet, and i already consider you have at least 3 or 4 new whole games they could craft with just those tiny bits of information.
The number of weapons, gear and powers is simply amazing and overwhelming. Of course, a lot of them doesn't seem really useful at first glance, but most of them has their moments and can be seen to be used at certain situations. If we would try to say a single word to Bloodstained's gameplay, "customizable" would be it, because not only you can heavily customize Miriam's looks, but you can also customize her gameplay with the tons of options offered to you. The game is pretty generous with the drop rate of Shards (Miriam's powers) and crafting material, so it isn't like you will be underpowered on your adventure.
Bloodstained enemies, the demons, are, by far, one of the most creative and interesting features of the game. It's really hard to imagine any other game where you can have a evil carriage, giant pet-looking cats and severed dog heads, winged flying ominous demons and a solo guitar player all inside the same game and for some unknown reason, all of them makes sense in the bizarre context of it. To those who played Castlevania: Curse of the Moon, some enemies from that game, are here as well (with some overly powered versions too, good lord!) including some bosses.
The bosses are also something else. Most of them are very interesting looking and their fights are almost always unique and balanced, although, we need to consider that some bosses are rather easy or can be beaten in cheap ways, but even that was a staple of Castlevania series so i wonder if they even planned that. Who knows.
"If we would try to say a single word to Bloodstained's gameplay, "customizable" would be it"
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's soundtrack, composed mostly by Michiru Yamane (Castlevania fame composer) and Ippo Yamada (Megaman) is great and delightful to listen. It's really hard to say if it surpassed Symphony of the Night though, because that particular soundtrack may be the best OST ever made for any entertainment material to date, but Bloodstained's OST was made with care and attention to details. I specially loved some certain songs, whose names i'm not going to say here to not delve into any spoiler, as small as it could be.
The game's plot is interesting. It isn't groundbreaking nor has any absurd unpredicted plot twist, although i do consider the game's plot is even darker than any other game IGA made, specially Castlevania games. Don't expect to see anything really creative or mindblowing, and even some small bits and pieces of the plot actually fail to be properly explained or shown, but again, usually, the castlevania series, whose Bloodstained drank until dry, never had a overly creative plot anyways, since it was always much more focused on gameplay and fun factor.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night shows that Koji Igarashi still has a "A new, vital heart, pulsing with the old blood" as he said so himself. Exploring the game's castle is fun, discovering new powers and weapons felt as much awesome as it was when we did that back in the golden era of Castlevania series. Not only that, but IGA was able to actually listen to criticism and respect his fans to the point the game was almost completely redone and refined to meet their (and IGA's perfectionism) standards.
May Bloodstained series live long. The gaming world needs developers who actually listen to the outcry of their fans.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was one of the best games ever made. The Castlevania series is among the most respected, fun and enjoyable gaming series to date. And now, all that finally has a worthy sucessor.
PERSONAL SCORE: 9 (out of 10)
yey