Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

 PlayStation 4
User Score
8.4

Generally favorable reviews- based on 514 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 421 out of 514
  2. Mixed: 43 out of 514
  3. Negative: 50 out of 514
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  1. Spidort
    Sep 21, 2019
    7
    It's not Symphony of the Night 2; more like an unofficial mod that shuffles the game around. It's got a crap story, average graphics, terrible characters, and a whole lot of generic caverns retouched with themes. There's a ton of jank too - the running animation is completely off, making the protagonist look like she's running in place, constant loading screens, terrible animations, andIt's not Symphony of the Night 2; more like an unofficial mod that shuffles the game around. It's got a crap story, average graphics, terrible characters, and a whole lot of generic caverns retouched with themes. There's a ton of jank too - the running animation is completely off, making the protagonist look like she's running in place, constant loading screens, terrible animations, and plenty of enemies that move (and shoot) through walls. The art style is also quite generic, and it definitely fails to visually impress through and through.

    What it is a fairly rudimentary Castlevania clone. If you like those, you'll be fine. If you aren't familiar with those, play Symphony of the Night instead. Bloodstained is an okay game, but it's not the glorious return to a classic formula I had hoped it would be.    … Expand
  2. kirkender
    Jul 5, 2019
    7
    Bloodvania is Fine. There I said it. It doesn't do anything particularly new, or interesting, but its far from bad. So, its fine. The gameplay is right where it should be, the shard system is the same as the souls system from older Castlevania games. The crafting system is mostly useless but a fun distraction. I don't particularly care for the art style - 2.5D has never really worked in myBloodvania is Fine. There I said it. It doesn't do anything particularly new, or interesting, but its far from bad. So, its fine. The gameplay is right where it should be, the shard system is the same as the souls system from older Castlevania games. The crafting system is mostly useless but a fun distraction. I don't particularly care for the art style - 2.5D has never really worked in my opinion, go 2D or go 3D, none of this half measure stuff. You can see a lot of work went into the game, and... its fine.… Expand
  3. pongkrit03
    Nov 17, 2019
    6
    I beated this game first time on hard difficulty with true ending. This game has some merits and problems. First of all, the normal difficulty is too easy for me to continue so I decided to play on hard, (you could unlock hard difficulty with some secret code). The thing is, HARD DIFFICULTY is very MASOCHISTIC for the first and second bosses. I almost gave up but was to tough it up toI beated this game first time on hard difficulty with true ending. This game has some merits and problems. First of all, the normal difficulty is too easy for me to continue so I decided to play on hard, (you could unlock hard difficulty with some secret code). The thing is, HARD DIFFICULTY is very MASOCHISTIC for the first and second bosses. I almost gave up but was to tough it up to somehow beating them. Some of their movesets are too difficult to react. Enemies along the way also hit very hard and if you die, you will lose all progress you accumulated after your last checkpoint. Nevertheless, once I got pass the first few bosses, I have come to realize the power of upgrading shards (skill), which SOME SHARDS are SUPER OP if you max their lv. They break the game actually. I switched from melee to mage build and nuked everything on my way. However, in order to do that, you will have to GRIND A LOT, because you need to kill same monster to obtain materials and shards for specific upgrade. It was a bad design from dev part. The game, though look complicated in map, is surprisingly linear. You have to go from area A to area B, it was heavily scripted. There were also few times FPS DROP issue. I played with PS4PRO, game is clearly not optimized. I also got one crash, but that cost me 30 mins progession because this game does not have autosave at all. Bosses are not much memorable. Loading time takes a little too long for 2D game.

    Aside from things that I have complained, the GAME looks very BEAUTIFUL and STYLISH. MUSIC is also BRILLIANT crafted. STORY is also GOOD and understandable. Morevoer, there are so so many skills availible in the game but sadly, in order to effectively use them, you need to upgrade (grind) for each one and it takes a lot of time to do so. In the end player will only use few skills that they like. It was a waste of skill designs here. Anyway, its action gameplay is fine, fast, accurate. Enemies are vary, some has interesting concept. Level designs are good. Eating food for permanent stat is creative.

    In sum, in my 17 hrs of play, afrer some enjoyable and frustrating moments, Bloodstained gets 6/10 score from me. Poor difficulty and imblanced skill play big negative roles here. If you are casual player who just want to relax by playing normal difficulty, don't care abount min/max your power, then the score could be 8/10 for you. If you are hardcore gamer like me, I am warning you, hard difficulty on early game is just ****** (very unacceptable), some boss's moveset are cheap/ unreactable, but normal difficulty is too much easy. Tough it up, or not play it at all.    … Expand
  4. Axcalay
    Jul 28, 2019
    6
    I was looking forward to this game, but unfortunately after completing it 100% with the real ending, my conclusions are that I didn't have much fun with it overall. It is too easy, level design is boring, and instead of all areas of the castle having exclusive enemies, most are just reskins. The boss fights are an absolute joke, and most can be beat using the same strategy, apart from theI was looking forward to this game, but unfortunately after completing it 100% with the real ending, my conclusions are that I didn't have much fun with it overall. It is too easy, level design is boring, and instead of all areas of the castle having exclusive enemies, most are just reskins. The boss fights are an absolute joke, and most can be beat using the same strategy, apart from the two secret bosses which were the only ones who posed a challenge. There are way too many shards to collect in the game, and although quantity may not seem a bad thing, I found myself sticking to one or two throughout because the rest just didn't seem any better or worse even. The graphics aren't bad I suppose, but some of the animations and poses that the characters do, especially the main character stand out as a bit strange and unnatural. The voice acting is fine, with voice actors such as David Hayter lending their voice to Zamatsu, but other NPC's are quite repetitive. The music is mostly forgettable.
    Unfortunately I found some parts of the game frustrating, having to resort to a guide, but then upon completing said frustrating part, the NPC who is supposed to give me information on the very subject decided to give it to me way after. Little inconsistencies like this are rampant, as is the polish of the game. Loading times can be lengthy and stutters are common, especially when collecting new shards. A certain boss fight brought the whole game down to a crawl, the likes I hadn't seen since the old 8-bit and 16-bit days.
    All in all I don't hate the game, but I can't say I'd rush to play it again either. I wish I'd have waited to get it on sale. This is coming from a Castlevania fan since the NES days, SCVIV, Rondo of Blood and SOTN being my favourites. If you haven't played the previous bloodstained, curse of the moon, I recommend that over this.    … Expand
  5. mbestvina
    Jun 25, 2019
    7
    It took me about 10 minutes to determine that this was a vastly inferior successor to Castlevania than Hollow Knight. This feeling permeated every aspect of this game, as it regurgitated the Igavania games that came before with flaws intact and no meaningful change. ROTN tries its hardest to recreate SOTN's feel and structure, while its combat is a bloated emulation of Dawn of Sorrow's,It took me about 10 minutes to determine that this was a vastly inferior successor to Castlevania than Hollow Knight. This feeling permeated every aspect of this game, as it regurgitated the Igavania games that came before with flaws intact and no meaningful change. ROTN tries its hardest to recreate SOTN's feel and structure, while its combat is a bloated emulation of Dawn of Sorrow's, and its overly linear level design more closely resembles Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia, the weakest Igavanias in terms of level design. The only new thing this game does offer is 3D graphics and judging by the 5 year development span and buggy final product, it's safe to say that even that was a mistake.

    The key culprit here is the level design, it's just not very good. The first third of the game is a straight line to the double jump, and the entire thing feels like they built the levels separately and stapled them together, then elongated the entire thing. In my eyes, the "biggest castle yet" stretch goal has had a seriously negative impact. This level design is closer to Order of Ecclesia, Chasm, or Timespinner than SOTN. As the game progresses, it rarely loops back on itself in meaningful ways, it's so large that warping is always better than organically backtracking, and it has a few progress-halting Metroid-moments that will drive most to a guide. The library-card and holy-glasses moments from SOTN have always struck me as the weaker moments of MetroidVania level design in SOTN yet they're both recreated here and in an even more obtuse fashion. Props if you have the patience to get through this without a guide.

    As with the level design, the combat feels bloated. The soul system gives you so many worthless options across FIVE magic types (Aria/Dawn had 3) that it's paralyzing and I ultimately stopped using it. I legitimately struggled to find magic attacks that were more useful than my sword. Then, there's farming, cooking, soul enhancement, book rentals... It's overwhelming even as someone that's played all the Igavania games. The difficulty teeters between being laughably easy and demanding strict pattern memorization. Just like Ecclesia, a few of these bosses will kill you in 3 or 4 hits, rendering all the RPG complexity I just enumerated pointless. With a few of these bosses, you simply have to either memorize all their attacks or cheese them with healing items, neither of which is particularly enjoyable.

    Then, around hour 6, I got the 1.2 update and it makes a necessary key item unobtainable... I was able to continue by downgrading and playing offline but this is unacceptable. 5 years for this bug-ridden mess? At this point, I said "I regret kickstarting this game." I eventually cooled down as I finished the game but this game never dazzled me like SOTN or Aria of Sorrow. Even once they fix the bugs, this game will still live in the shadow of its 22 year old predecessor, and even that has since been bested. I'm really done with these underwhelming kickstarter spiritual sequels. Quit paying people to pander to your nostalgia and go buy something like Hollow Knight that actually pushes the genre forward.    … Expand
  6. curzon_dax
    Sep 13, 2019
    6
    meh, overrated; the gameplay has very clunky animations for the physics of the player, the maps are chaotic and generally not rewarding to explore and very repetitive.
  7. Ithxsmir
    Jun 26, 2019
    6
    Bloodstained: RotN tries very hard to be Castlevania SotN, but falls short in many ways. The music is not quite the memorable experience, the graphics need some work (especially anything that is supposed to be liquid or reflective as it just makes everything look like plastic), there is some pretty significant slowdown in some situations (using the oracle blade which shoots out combinedBloodstained: RotN tries very hard to be Castlevania SotN, but falls short in many ways. The music is not quite the memorable experience, the graphics need some work (especially anything that is supposed to be liquid or reflective as it just makes everything look like plastic), there is some pretty significant slowdown in some situations (using the oracle blade which shoots out combined with the shard that creates shadow duplicates against any boss with projectiles for instance), and an insane amount of recoloring of enemies despite having far more room than SotN did to work with.

    This being said, if you liked SotN, you will find some sort of enjoyment with this game. For the price-point of $40 it's not a bad deal.    … Expand
  8. chesaro
    Jun 27, 2019
    6
    This game really hurt me, they canceled the vita version, when I played the demo i thought it just needed some polish, but after playing it for 3 or 4 hours i just see wasted potential, the right ideas are there, you even feel you are playing a castlevania game, but the execution of almost everything feels really incomplete, the graphics (it really shows they don't have much 3dThis game really hurt me, they canceled the vita version, when I played the demo i thought it just needed some polish, but after playing it for 3 or 4 hours i just see wasted potential, the right ideas are there, you even feel you are playing a castlevania game, but the execution of almost everything feels really incomplete, the graphics (it really shows they don't have much 3d experience), the music, the animations, the menus, the loading times, the bugs (i got stuck like 3 times on the starting loading screen), i think the fact that they forced it to be 3d was the doom of this game… Expand
  9. tomvs123
    Feb 3, 2020
    5
    A competent Metroidvania game, but with no amazing or stand-out points.

    I'm primarily into story and atmosphere. Both are serviceable, but not great. Much of the story and character actions are questionable, but are acceptable because of the story's vagueness. The best way to avoid plot holes is to not explain certain things, and the writers here know that. But there are a few points    A competent Metroidvania game, but with no amazing or stand-out points.

    I'm primarily into story and atmosphere. Both are serviceable, but not great. Much of the story and character actions are questionable, but are acceptable because of the story's vagueness. The best way to avoid plot holes is to not explain certain things, and the writers here know that. But there are a few points here and there where it slips up.

    For example, many of the people you meet could simply explain their goals to you to prevent conflict, but they don't. And at one point, you need to show an ID to an automated system to board a train. Someone will let you borrow their ID, but you'll need your own photograph to paste to the ID. You'll need some silver bromide from a particular boss to take a photo. Why does the boss have silver bromide? And does this automated train system really scan your ID photo and compare it to the person holding it? It's getting close to logic plot hole territory here. But anyhow, it's obvious that the story takes a back seat to the gameplay systems.

    The exploration is good. Uncovering parts of the map, finding treasure, finding secret breakable walls, and finding new skills that allow you to progress further are what the game is primarily about. The world does seem a little small though, with me being able to complete the map (and game) in about 17 hours.

    Dealing with the enemies in the game is difficult. Unlike 3D action games that have several options for dodging, blocking, or parrying, you're much more limited here. Sometimes spamming your attack while the enemy is hitting you is the most efficient way to get through an area. Bosses are more complex though, with it being necessary to learn their patterns before you can effectively defeat them. Healing is also very difficult, requiring expensive and limited healing potions, and a few spells that heal you only tiny amounts. There are no hearts or generic healing items to pick up, so your main limitation to exploration will be your health bar.

    Melee combat is good, given the genre limitations, with several weapon types and loads of weapons to find, craft, or buy. But most effort appears to have been spent on magic combat. For just about every enemy in the game, there's a magic type you can obtain. The options are overwhelming. The amount of time that it would take to farm the magic and items needed to upgrade all magic, so that you can see which one you like best, simply isn't worth anyone's time. Because of that, I stuck with only a few magics that I got early game, which were not the optimal ones to choose.

    Post-game play is limited. There's a boss rush mode, speed run mode, and that's about it. Unless you want to farm to get the best weapons and armor, or finish clearing the map or mundane fetch quests (given by a few people in town), there's nothing to keep most people coming back.

    Not a bad game at all, but it does seem basic. Before buying future games in the genre, I'll research to make sure there's substantial improvements over this game.    … Expand
  10. egoBorder
    Jun 13, 2020
    6
    This game will scratch your "metroidvania" itch in a good way, however be warned that it's not completely polished and despite some nice touches keeps greatness at arm's length. Some of the flaws may result in deep frustration. It's sad to say but if you stick with the game through bad pacing early on and a "twist" about 40% into the experience, you'll be rewarded with good action andThis game will scratch your "metroidvania" itch in a good way, however be warned that it's not completely polished and despite some nice touches keeps greatness at arm's length. Some of the flaws may result in deep frustration. It's sad to say but if you stick with the game through bad pacing early on and a "twist" about 40% into the experience, you'll be rewarded with good action and spectacle but never a good story. Luckily this game is more modern and complex than Symphony of the Night, so you can expect more than a simple homage to the older games. Priced at $40 on release, I think it's worth the time but some initial frustration may turn players off before the good stuff.… Expand
  11. Burattix54
    Jun 26, 2020
    7
    A pretty cool game and spiritual successor to the castlevania series. Unfortunately, it feels clunky and dated, and the metroidvania genre has made massive steps forward in the last years. Both Ori and HK do everything this game does and do it waaaay better.
  12. poker909
    Sep 3, 2019
    7
    I was completely addicted to this game start through finish, but looking back, it’s flaws are more memorable than the great gameplay. This is of course from the same director as Castlevania Symphony of the Night on PS1, and improves on that great game in many ways. Where it really lacks is the art direction, character design, and the music (which something SOTN was known for). All ofI was completely addicted to this game start through finish, but looking back, it’s flaws are more memorable than the great gameplay. This is of course from the same director as Castlevania Symphony of the Night on PS1, and improves on that great game in many ways. Where it really lacks is the art direction, character design, and the music (which something SOTN was known for). All of that feels very generic in Bloodstained. Where this game shines is the gameplay, the precise control/combat that is simply a joy, and the classic level design that defines a “metroidvania”. After beating this game I went back to play SOTN, to check my memory, and the minor details like the geometric patterns on the wall, the trails Alucard”s movement leaves behind, the way the skeletons shake all just ooze style that Bloodstained just lacks. SOTN had jaw-dropping bosses I remembered for decades, like the giant sphere of reanimated corpses white bodies wriggling off crawling as you attacked, where as Bloodstained has lame bosses like a dudes face on a snake grunting cringe-worthy expressions. Overall - the mechanics are great, but the art elements lack style. I’ll still play the sequel!… Expand
  13. The_BlueRose
    Mar 16, 2020
    7
    Bloodstained es un metroidvania clásico, puede que demasiado clásico. Y eso afecta negativamente a varios aspectos del juego.

    - La historia es bastante floja, en un inicio te interesa el universo y los personajes pero apenas se desarrollan. - Técnicamente esta bien, resultón pero con un 2.5D que no va más allá de lo aceptable. - Jugablemente es donde más flojea, recordáis cuando    Bloodstained es un metroidvania clásico, puede que demasiado clásico. Y eso afecta negativamente a varios aspectos del juego.

    - La historia es bastante floja, en un inicio te interesa el universo y los personajes pero apenas se desarrollan.

    - Técnicamente esta bien, resultón pero con un 2.5D que no va más allá de lo aceptable.

    - Jugablemente es donde más flojea, recordáis cuando dije que el juego era demasiado clásico, pues en este apartado es donde más se nota. Ya no estamos en los 90, un sistema de combate tan tan simple como el de este juego le quita bastante calidad.

    Bosses que se basan el machacar el botón de ataque y con fases, (algunos ni eso) muy poco inspiradas.

    El que haya varios finales esta bien, pero una vez más apenas aportan nada. Y el backtracking no es nada del otro mundo.

    - En conclusión, es un metroidvania desfasado que pretende vivir de los éxitos pasados en vez de buscar una nueva formula.    … Expand
  14. Chain_Affinity
    May 22, 2020
    7
    This game should be called Bloodstained: Farming of the Night, because you'll be farming well into the night. Or Bloodstained: Ritual of the Farming, because it'll become a ritual every time you play. There's so much farming in this game, it's practically a farming simulator. I've never farmed so much in a game, and I've played some pretty intense MMO's throughout the years. You get theThis game should be called Bloodstained: Farming of the Night, because you'll be farming well into the night. Or Bloodstained: Ritual of the Farming, because it'll become a ritual every time you play. There's so much farming in this game, it's practically a farming simulator. I've never farmed so much in a game, and I've played some pretty intense MMO's throughout the years. You get the point.

    Bloodstained should be a good game. It has all the elements to make a pretty engaging Metroidvania styled game. Here's the problem if you would like to get the most out of the game: It's 1% story, 6% actual gameplay, 15% exploration, and 78% farming.    … Expand
  15. RuriGokou
    Oct 5, 2019
    7
    Bloodstained is a decent game, and not without flaws. The initial 10 hours were a lot of fun, but after that I started to notice levels were getting smaller. They also felt rushed because of their design and the different colored enemies types didn't help. The levels looked very generic and lacked any kind of connection. We got our fire stage, water stage, cathedral, even a train stage andBloodstained is a decent game, and not without flaws. The initial 10 hours were a lot of fun, but after that I started to notice levels were getting smaller. They also felt rushed because of their design and the different colored enemies types didn't help. The levels looked very generic and lacked any kind of connection. We got our fire stage, water stage, cathedral, even a train stage and Japanese-like stage.

    I liked the crafting system but many of the weapons are kinda useless and that's okay. I liked that eating food permanently boosted stats. Very cool, and made it worth finding materials for cooking.

    The story was pretty generic, but so was Castlevania Sotn's story. It's the gameplay and that is fun. I only played on the normal difficulty and that was all. The normal game campaign did offer some challenge. I did have to grind to beat some bosses toward the end, but generally it wasn't too bad. It's a lot of fun to mow down enemies once you are stronger and trying to collect everything for 100%

    The music was most disappointing. I mean, it's good for the game, but nothing I would listen to on my music player. I'm still listening to tracks from Castlevania Sotn.

    There were a number of bugs I encountered as well. Mostly dealing with the sound. For example, I would be playing and a sound effect would occur. Only the sound effect wouldn't end, but instead it would just keep repeating until I restarted the game. I did encounter one error where the game completely crashed. I was grinding for materials, and luckily the error was after I had made a save. Sometimes the game would freeze for a second, and that bothered me.

    Overall, I'd say it's worth a buy. Bloodstained isn't a perfect game, but they tried. I'd love to see what they have in store next. Hopefully something with even more polish.    … Expand
  16. RedDragon1240
    May 5, 2021
    7
    I was very much hyped about this game. Castlevania SOTN is in my top 3 favorite games ever so I had a very high standard and tbh, Bloodstained ROTH didn't meet my expectations.

    My major concern is that this game is extremely influenced by Castlevania SOTN, so much that it seems "forced" at times. We have a castle that has so much of SOTH in it. We have a library, we have a "clock"    I was very much hyped about this game. Castlevania SOTN is in my top 3 favorite games ever so I had a very high standard and tbh, Bloodstained ROTH didn't meet my expectations.

    My major concern is that this game is extremely influenced by Castlevania SOTN, so much that it seems "forced" at times. We have a castle that has so much of SOTH in it. We have a library, we have a "clock" tower, we have underground lakes. We have different endings, which is good, but the antagonist is controlled by a demon (just as in SOTH). Even the castle is destroyed the same way as in SOTN! They could've done something completely different but no, we have a very similar castle, the story has some things that are very similar to SOTN and even the music is very similar at times!

    The game is just...good. You will have fun and good action but not so much of a very good story. The graphics are really good (but I can't belive my PS4 can't handle a game like this and I have constant fps drops), the music is great, the amont of enemies and types of magic is huge but I would've been happier with a remake of Castlevania SOTN than this game.    … Expand
  17. MrNorth
    Jan 21, 2023
    5
    Personagens sem carisma e história confusa, porém a gameplay é agradável apesar de alguns bugs, no entanto se você busca os 100% você só fica farmando pra pegar itens e craftar outros itens que você nunca vai usar o que é muito chato e demanda muito tempo, game superestimado pelos fãs.

Awards & Rankings

21
#21 Best PS4 Game of 2019
32
#32 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2019
16
#16 Most Shared PS4 Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
83

Generally favorable reviews - based on 54 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 48 out of 54
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 54
  3. Negative: 0 out of 54
  1. Games.cz
    Aug 19, 2019
    90
    An awesome spiritual successor to old Castlevanias. The story is the weakest point, true, but everything else is splendid, especially the level design and the sheer amount of creative ideas. If you want a great action RPG platformer, you’ve got one right here.
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  2. PSX Extreme
    Aug 8, 2019
    85
    Bloodstained has a lot going for it. Satisfying gameplay, many secrets to find, and a huge castle to explore. There is a lot to discover in how you play, especially as you find more secrets and items. The shard system is an interesting way to customize your gameplay style. It is very much more of what you love from Symphony of the Night and other Castlevania games of that era. But Bloodstained doesn’t do anything new with the genre. It borrows many concepts to create a game with more of what people loved about the other games. In short, if you’re a fan then give this one a go. Minus a few iffy aspects, Bloodstained is fun experience. Whether it falls into the realm of one of the greats is unlikely but I enjoyed my time anyway.
    Read full review
  3. PLAY! Zine
    Aug 2, 2019
    85
    The king of Metroidvanias is finally here with a new title. A few bugs and weird animations will not prevent it from sitting on the throne.
    Read full review
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