Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has had me hooked like no other game released this year. Koji Igarashi and those who have worked with him have proved that there’s still life in the old Metroidvania formula and delivered a modern-day classic. It perhaps loses a little something without the iconic Dracula as the big-bad, but the gameplay surpasses that of any previous Castlevania games created with the same mould. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night looks great, has a brilliant soundtrack and is overwhelmingly gratifying to play. If only it had a little more polish, then it’d be pretty much perfect.

A game worthy of being called a spiritual successor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and one of the great examples of a very good Kickstarter video game.

Beyond the time-tested mechanics, gamers also get an experience that looks and sounds really good. Even with the Switch’s inferior processing power, it runs more than well enough. Of course, there are still worthwhile improvements beyond the need to fix any crashes. A few slight tweaks to the early game difficulty curve and earlier access to a few mobility oriented powers would have been nice, but those are small hurdles in lengthy, and fun, enough experience that will almost certainly keep you interested beyond the initial playthrough. Altogether, it’s the worthwhile successor many fans have been waiting for.

It's Castlevania in everything but name and fans of Igarachi's earlier work will find a lot to love between excellent combat and rewarding traversal. The Switch port is harder to recommend at present, but the game is likely to be among the console's best after a patch or two.

Despite its numerous shortcomings, I can’t shake the feeling of how much I loved playing Bloodstained. It scratches an itch I didn’t think I necessarily had. It’s fun leveling up, crafting bizarre weapons, upgrading my spells, getting sidequests done, and filling out more of the map bit by bit.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a welcome return to the exploration-heavy Castlevania games of the past. Visually, the art style is likely to be off-putting for some, but the gameplay is fun and varied throughout, and finding hidden passages and treasures never gets old.

It’s exactly what fans expect from an Igrashi-produced Metroidvania game, and even the inferior Switch port is still a fun time that should satisfy Castlevania fans who are tired of waiting for Konami to properly continue the series.

The work of 505 Games is a proposal that pays homage to the metroidvania genre in a conservative way. Polishing with great success its formula but without offering anything innovative to what we already know about it.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a good game, don't get me wrong, but boy, waiting for it to become great has been a job in itself! [Issue #48 – September/October 2020, p. 72]

The Nintendo Switch version of Bloodstained is certainly the worst, for an extraordinary game that deserves more.

By the time the final performance update drops it will be those who snatch the game at a sale price that will ultimately benefit the most. There’s a 1.04 update that is expected by the end of November, and I would bet money that it won’t be the last. It’s a real shame because underneath the stigma of a troubled release and a lost first impression of a polished product, lies a potentially magnificent game that holds true to what it once ambitiously set out to achieve.

Despite the fact that this is unquestionably a very fine video game, there's no escaping the fact that the Switch version has some serious issues; assets are noticeably weaker than they are in other versions, the frame rate is halved and the loading times are maddeningly protracted at points. Fingers are crossed that the developers can remedy some of these problems with proposed updates, but for the time being, this is arguably the least impressive edition of the game – although the fact that it's portable perhaps counts for more than you'd think.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a game that many fans wanted and it does a very good job when it comes to its fan service duties. If only the game’s performance matched its level of challenge, this would be an unforgettable, indispensable title but unfortunately, Ritual of the Night’s framerate drops and strange inconsistencies make this an experience that could have been much more of a breeze. Fans of Metroidvania games will still find plenty to be happy about it, though.

All of Bloodstained's excellent qualities make the Nintendo Switch version even more disappointing. Though 505 Games has acknowledged its technical shortcomings and committed to issuing updates, at launch it is simply too compromised for its own good. If you have no choice but to play on Nintendo Switch, it may still be worth overlooking the weak spots and taking in the experience. If you have other options, though, play on a different platform. The portability of the Nintendo Switch could have made it the absolute best version for a retro-inspired game like Bloodstained. Instead, it’s the worst.

While gameplay on the Switch is poorly optimized, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is (to steal a Symphony of the Night meme) more than a “miserable pile of secrets.” In its purest form, it is worthy of Koji Igarashi’s legacy and will live on as a strong representation of the genre he helped birth. With matured mechanics with the shards system, options for varied play styles, and the edition of quests, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night will join the ranks of high quality Metroidvania titles worth replaying over and over again.