cell
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Post by cell on Jul 27, 2019 14:15:46 GMT -6
I am creating this thread to share about how I feel this game.
I am an old gamer, and I start my gaming life since the days of Nintendo Family Computer ( Or NES to the US folks). As an adult, I can only spend around 5 hours a week on video games if I am lucky.
The first Castlevania game I play and love is Sega Saturn SOTN. It is classical, no matter on the aspect of graphics, game play, and story. To this day, I can still sing the song in my head, both in Japanese and English version (BTW : I don't speak Japanese at all).Some of the tracks from the OST will sometimes pop up in my head as well(No, I don't hear them...).
And then it was the games on the NDS, and I love all of them too. For every of them, I will try to collect all the souls, drops, and gears. Kind of weird though, I actually completed all the NDS titles before I played the GBA titles.
And then Bloodstained comes along.
First time I hear this game is when it is in the kickstarter. When I hear the news, I immediately tell myself that : "On my gob, I MUST buy it, and I MUST play the hack of it. I miss the good old SOTN style Castlevania so much!I will buy this game no matter what !"
So when it finally comes out, boy, do I actually buy it. I actually purchase the download version from the PSN and，to show my support, I also purchase a new hardcopy as my collection. To tell the truth, that is the first time, in my 30 plus years of gaming life, do something like this.
In Hong Kong (I am a local Hong Konger), there are 3 shopping malls that are well known for housing more than 30 small game stores. When it is the first week this game is out, I go through all these three malls in search of this game but in no vain. It is all sold out in day one and I have to come home empty handed. However, I am still happy --- since it means that this game sells well and I am hoping that we will have a sequel very soon because of this!
I am currently in about 70% in the map completion rate (Cause I have to work 15 hours of OT per week......), and right from the start of it, when I am entering the name in the save creation screen, the OST already melt my heart. Then when I reach the waterfall in the Forbidden Water Way, I cannot help but tell my wife "That is SOTN
all over again".
All in all, it is still not as good as the SOTN. But I will say it is the second best among all the Castlevania titles I played. SOTN has the best OST ever, but Bloodstained is also a master pieces from my point of view (well, at least not counting the unfair hiding place of the traps nutif gear).
Finally, in turns of DLC, I wonder why IGN will focus on making Shard + Gear packages, instead of real areas for us to explore. Let's make the inverse castle with new monsters, gears, and bosses back to life. I will pay $30 us dollars for that!
Figure crossed and hope to die that we will have a sequel and it will come with one to two years!
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Post by DSLevantine on Jul 28, 2019 21:35:12 GMT -6
I agree with new areas, new monsters and bosses dlc. I think cosmetic is just fast cash grab.
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Aztec
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Post by Aztec on Jul 28, 2019 23:35:11 GMT -6
cellMassive lols at hoping for a full sequel in a year. It took them 4 years for this one and they will probably keep working on this one for at least the rest of the year on all the DLC (both paid and free) and you think Bloodstained 2 could happen in 2020? Because if you do I have an overpriced mansion in Antarctica to sell you. As for the Bloodstained we did get? Rocky (to say the least) launch but quirks and all it’s still my favorite game of 2019. It’s everything I wanted it to be. And as for this dumb “controversy” about them wanting to release some cosmetic paid dlc for stuff that goes beyond the scope of what was promised? To that I say let them do whatever the fuck they want. As long as it’s no loot boxes or they start selling us premium currency for real money I’m fine if it helps make this game a financial success to turn this into a franchise. And then let us have a Bloodstained sequel by 2021 or so.
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gradius
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[TI0]Walking dead
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Post by gradius on Jul 29, 2019 2:17:54 GMT -6
Game is really great, even if half finished, incomplete and with a number of bugs/issues. It has that old, die-hard, unmistaken feeling. Great design, satisfying gameplay, cheesy items, memorable NPCs and unique environments. Although i feel like it doesn't surpass Sotn (from personal taste to overall performance/quality), it is obviously a cult classic, through and through.
I can't help but having a bad feeling... The curse of Sotn will most probably afflict Bloodstained, as well... I foresee it remaining incomplete forever, alas... Hints of money running out, need for monetization of newly designed cosmetic items, no time scedule of the remaining content that should be released, not even developer announcements on stuff that matters! Instead, completely irrelevant and actually, "hostile" interventions to the game, which only divide community and fans (cough, nerf)...
Don't Jinx it! Please! It has great potential! Resolve the old curse that plagued Sotn and do finish this castle, before it collapses back to hell!
The only things that honestly inconvenienced me, are: The soundtrack... Instead of a code to redeem on Steam/GOG, we got a download link. The manual and artbook, similarly, would be best inside the game's store page, like most extras/goods. Splitting between libraries and micromanaging files, is a drag; especially since most digitally distributed games, usually bring the entire package together. And the minigame becoming Steam exclusive... While a certain portion of backers, demanded DRM-Free version, ever since Kickstarter launched. When i hopped on board, i was seriously expecting a nice package, with all content, in one place... I like collecting games and i am quite proud of my built-in GOG library. I hate hunting pieces and missing bites. But other than that, i LOVE this project. And i hate unconstructive alterations, such as nerfs. Single player games, much less Igavanias, had never been about no stinking "balance"!
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Post by aurora2100 on Jul 29, 2019 11:13:57 GMT -6
It's a fun game overall. I enjoy it for what it is and it scratches (or will scratch) most of my itches for what I love to see in Metroidvania games. I'm hoping the backer content gets added in not too long from now as I'm curious to see what Chaos mode, Rougelite mode and boss revenge mode in particular are like. The Castle itself felt smaller than I had hoped. While playing the game, before going across the bridge of evil, I was expecting it to kinda lead into a huge new area that served as the "epic 2nd half of the game" and instead it just lead to a small sorcery lab after the work it took to access the bridge. I enjoyed the elemental themed cave areas in the game, but they felt a little smaller than I would've liked to see, and felt like they didn't "blend in" well with the rest of the Castle. Would've liked to see them blend in more. Especially with Inferno Cave which felt like it was built up to be a climax area of the game. On the other side, I love how the shard & alchemy system works in this game. It felt fun to increase the power of abilities like Riga Storahma and Tis Rozain, and It was very fun to turn passive shards into skill shards and feel more powerful from them. While it does make the game easier, it is by choice since I enjoy becoming powerful and dealing with powerful enemies that way. That's kinda how it is in many Metroidvanias, if you go out of your way to get a lot of powerups, you'll become very overpowered by the end of the game. The in-game resources giving info on the demons, and items is very fun to have for making it easy to find everything without relying on external help at all. I also agree gradius I'm annoyed that they decided to not release the prequel on GOG. I 1st learned about Bloodstained in the 1st place from GOG, and naturally as a result, I want to support the game on GOG for being DRM-free. I didn't buy, and won't buy CotM since they won't release it on GOG. I also take pride of my GOG library and want to support the developers on there since GOG helped promote this game very well. I can feel the flaws in the game that exist now, there are noticeable bugs, but overall it's still a great experience. I still have Hard Mode and Nightmare Mode to offer more challenge. The game provides a fair amount to explore and interesting enemy designs. As long as the developers can add the promised backer content in the end, I would probably support a sequel developed the classic way. |
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kandrax
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Die monster, you don't belong in this world...
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Post by kandrax on Jul 31, 2019 12:14:39 GMT -6
tl;dr: Game needs more bosses, more areas, more ''metroid'' items and more backtracking and secret areas to uncover with them, needs more secrets and flavor stuff in general. The castle feels honestly empty and soulless at times and the ''just hammer every wall'' thing gets old quickly. There are next to zero surprises, traps, or moments that make you wonder ''wtf ?'' There's also too many cave type areas (volcanic cavern, ice cavern, ''japan-cavern'', please don't get me started about the last one, it shouldn't even exist in this game...). It needs more oldschool castle areas, like prison/dungeon, treasure chamber and so on) Boss/gating item placement sometimes feels dull and unimaginative and lazy, the double jump guy is ''just there'', there is no buildup to prepare you that a major item like double jump is coming, the underground sea in particular feels rushed and it was surely meant to feature a boss. Deep sinker shard is pointless, there's no backtracking with this item or other areas, you just get it to pass one specific spot, might as well not exist. Then again even before that you have to figure out that a major progression shard is dropped by an obscure enemy (which brings us to the missing boss again...) thousands of people including me had to look up where to progress at that point..., aegis plate is an offender as well, not as bad tho. If you want to see a game that has done metroidization and secrets right look at H....w K....t.
It also needs a second playthrough with new and tougher enemies BADLY (sotn inverted castle), atm the game feels way too short.
Bloodstained is by no means a bad game but it does need some work, as right now it doesn't compare to SotN in any way.
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Post by mobilevil on Aug 1, 2019 6:55:59 GMT -6
cellHi there I am also a long time fans of castlevania, and I am also a Hong Konger. I still think SOTN is better overall because, it has a legacy to inherit. Game design is a trail and error process, and "bad" enemies are dropped and "good" ones are left behind. That's why we have death recurring over and over again. Also because of the legacy, even if SOTN has a very limited dialog, we know what is happening, the story still feels richer. And as usual, 2D characters can be as complex as it can be, but when things go 3D, they usually look too simple, too smooth. I didn't count, but I feel that SOTN has more areas? even if the map of bloodstained is supposed to be bigger.
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