I love this game to bits but the fact that the map system was shipped in its current state is fucking laughable.
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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night |OT| We Have Paid Our Tribute, Igavania Is Resurrected
- Thread starter Dancrane212
- Start date
Getting an
8-bit Coin(there's one in a chest)
Encrypted Orchid
I just read up on that weapon and people seem upset because it was nerfed in a patch. Did you play post-patch?
So I was looking at the PS4 trophy stats yesterday and I was pretty impressed by the percentage of players that 100%'ed the map (~20%) and got the "true ending" (~35%). That's pretty significant compared to some stats on the subject from years ago.
It's a shame the technical issues drag the experience because honestly this would be the in masterpiece category for me otherwise. Curious if they're going to add trophies for the DLC and how many people stick with it.
It's a shame the technical issues drag the experience because honestly this would be the in masterpiece category for me otherwise. Curious if they're going to add trophies for the DLC and how many people stick with it.
It's definitely resonating with its audience. :) It's like when I look at stats for visual novels. The platinum/100% rate on those are really high, even though with most of those games, they require multiple playthroughs and very specific actions you have to do to trigger certain trophies. I mean, yeah, I'm guessing most use guides for the trickier ones, but still. Bloodstained somehow taps into that completionist in a lot of people. This is the first time where I've been trying to get all the drops, rank/grade up shards, craft everything, etc. It runs counter to how I play a lot of games with similar systems, which is puzzling to me in a good way.
I'm struggling to find that hidden enemy who's missing in the bestiary, it's next to the Dragon iirc.
Does it have anything to do with that weird bloody portrait who observes you with his eye moving in the cathedral?
Does it have anything to do with that weird bloody portrait who observes you with his eye moving in the cathedral?
#44?
On the train.
Sit down on the train in the first seat until it shows up. It'll take a while.
Can't recall the number but thanks for the advice, I'll try to go back there.
As for the weird portrait in the background, I guess it's just for fun and has no purpose?
It makes me think of similar portraits who watched you in Dawn of Sorrow!
Deleted member 59
Guest
Just about to fight the final boss. 99% map completion excluding the final room, don't think I'll bother with 100%.
Superb game, but I've found normal a bit easy. Only boss fight i died on was
bit since then I've dealt with them all first time.
Been rocking either a mace or sword throughout with either Dantallion or Dulahammer head familiar, and the grinder shard which i try not to use too much as it's the ultimate cheese.
Looking forward to the post release DLC. Glad i bought this on pc. 4k60 pretty much 100% of the time with maximum settings other than one boss with a stacked chip attack which killed my fps every time he did it!
Superb game, but I've found normal a bit easy. Only boss fight i died on was
Zangetsu first fight
Been rocking either a mace or sword throughout with either Dantallion or Dulahammer head familiar, and the grinder shard which i try not to use too much as it's the ultimate cheese.
Looking forward to the post release DLC. Glad i bought this on pc. 4k60 pretty much 100% of the time with maximum settings other than one boss with a stacked chip attack which killed my fps every time he did it!
Has it been determined what the highest DPS loadout is? I'm still partial to Renee's+Diamond Bullets with ATK/firearm gear.
Is it just me or is the signposting in this game very hands off? I rarely have problems in these kinds of games. Hell, I never complained about the obtuse direction of Hollow Knight. However, in Bloodstained I sometimes have no idea what do do next or where to go. For example: After the thing with the
I have no idea where to go next. I may have missed that piece of dialogue. There is no real quest log and the map is bare (even the names of the locations are missing). I am having a lot of fun otherwise. But I feel lost without being really lost.
the photograph>ID
So i got this at release and i've been wanting to start this but i read something about chests glitching? Am i safe to start this on the ps4, or has this issue not been fixed yet?
I'm received my backers copy last week, I'm with the last update and everything is working fine.
My only nitpick is even with PS4 Pro sometimes the game have performance issues.
The game is incredible, I hope you like it!!!!
Haha, I was given a great gift, and I squandered it.
Something bugged out in they
Something bugged out in they
8 bit world and I couldn't die. Still took me about 10 minutes to complete, and then it dumped me back into the castle with 1 HP. I immediately was killed by a horse and lost all that progress. It's really hard and I don't want to do it again.
It was only a problem if you started the game weeks ago on an older version then updated.
Oh that's great then, looks like i'll be starting this tomorrow.
I'd suggest using a waystone in that situation next time.
Curious what happened though. I've been farming that area for shards (stupid 4% drop rate on overlord) and haven't found any bug like that.
Y'all should be bugging them on twitter. It's ridiculous that one is bugged.
That was one of two things I absolutely would not have found without looking it up. The other involves a certain piece of armor that you're supposed to have prior to accessing the final couple of areas of the game.
I didn't even get the armor the first time. I just brute forced my way through using iframes and healing items. I get the feeling that the game was partly designed to allow for some sequence breaking.
Pay attention to what people are saying, make sure you try out new shards and level up your favorite ones, craft or farm new weapons whenever you need some damage boost, you can break some walls so always try hitting what looks suspicious, always keep some warpstones with you, eat as many different dishes as you can for permanent buffs.. that's about it I guess!
Have fun, the game is a blast.
I'm still going through this game, but I wanted to get something out there: I see a lot of comparisons between this game and OoE, and people have the right to like one more than other, but can we at least agree that this mops the floor with OoE when it comes level design and platforming? It's not groundbreaking by any means, but it's such faithful nod to SotN whereas Ecclesia level design was a hot, steaming, runny garbage. I replayed it 3 years ago and couldn't fathom how lazy it was.
Just wanted to give this game due credit. That is all.
Just wanted to give this game due credit. That is all.
The funny thing is, I got stuck at that point too and I just happened to remember that Dominique needed silver bromide for the camera so I just randomly went back there and just started talking to everyone until I went back to O.D. and poof...he made me an ID. Like it felt like there was no breadcrumbing or anything to get to that point. All it just said was you needed credentials to get through.
i was lost about 3 or 4 times in Bloodstained, however your one wasn't one of them. There wasn't any where else on the map with anything that could be a "thing" so I went right to
OD
I ran into gebel by accident, is it possible to fight him and end the game sooner than your expected to? I've only done 50% of the map
Yep. You get an ending, and can continue right before to go explore more.
OoE is way better, IMO.
I much prefer any of the DS castlevanias to this one.
I enjoy Bloodstained but....
AOS>STON=OOE>/=DOS>POR>Bloodstained.
Yes. All of the DS games are better than Bloodstained.
Strictly talking about level design and platforming. Y'all think OoE is better overall? Ignore that one challenge cave.
I really loved OoE's glyph combo system. It led to a lot of experimentation and finding combinations that worked together (e.g. fire + sword = fire sword). Would have liked to see more of an exploration of that kind of system in Bloodstained. That said, we have way more shards than there were glyphs.
I feel like Bloodstained's level design is better than OoE, and the technique systems for weapons keep them always interesting and give reasons to try out weapon classes you might otherwise have ignored. Overall, I probably like Bloodstained better.
I feel like Bloodstained's level design is better than OoE, and the technique systems for weapons keep them always interesting and give reasons to try out weapon classes you might otherwise have ignored. Overall, I probably like Bloodstained better.
I got lost in that exact part, and right before that. You have to
talk to OD
Start on hard mode, never use potions, IMO. Otherwise the game starts off easy and quickly becomes broken.
I'm pretty late in and only recently have I gotten pretty OP. I still die a few times due to forcing no potions, but otherwise the game is an enjoyable challenge for the most part.
Since you have the second part item
Aaaare you really that bored that you cannot continue to explore the castle parts ? You have still accessible non-explored explorable areas i believe?
No ? you have all ?
No ? you have all ?
Even under the towers ?
There's a locked train gate there... that if you went before getting the ID would have seen a message along the lines "i cannot pass, it's locked, i need an ID"
Explore more, or don't skip text ;) because you have another one of these incoming ! (there are two chests-unlocked locations in all, the one you are chasing right now and another one)
Explore more, or don't skip text ;) because you have another one of these incoming ! (there are two chests-unlocked locations in all, the one you are chasing right now and another one)
the only times I died in this game are from environmental shit. Spikes, underwaterspikes etc.
Finally bought the game and am loving it so far. Had a weird glitch occur though. My game crashed at the first wrap-around castle section with the werewolves. When I booted it back up nothing in that area can hurt me. I just walk through all enemies.
I can still kill them but also can't pick up any loot they drop. As soon as I leave the area the game goes back to normal.
There are two patches of the map there that won't turn blue when I explore them. So I dunno if I'll be able to get 100% of the map now.
I can still kill them but also can't pick up any loot they drop. As soon as I leave the area the game goes back to normal.
There are two patches of the map there that won't turn blue when I explore them. So I dunno if I'll be able to get 100% of the map now.
So after spending almost 50hrs in Bloodstained and doing everything except Nightmare I decided to play the 3 DS titles (the last 3 Igavanias before Bloodstained) because I wanted to check how good or bad they feel these days. You know one thing is memory, one thing is reality, sometimes we idealize things from the past, right?
Here are some short comments, I'll post more once I've finished OoE again, wonder if anybody else did the same as I'm doing right now recently.
Dawn of Sorrow
Portrait of Ruin
Also noticed that NG+ in DoS and PoR reset your level to 1 but let you keep the majority of equipment and stuff you unlocked.
Bloodstained lets you keep your level too.
Wonder if this is right. Resetting your level probably would've been better.
I also feel like the "level 1 capped" runs should be a separate option from Nightmare.
Personally I would've enjoyed a Nightmare level of difficulty in Bloodstained, but keeping the ability to level up from 1 to wherever I can get to before the end of the game.
Here are some short comments, I'll post more once I've finished OoE again, wonder if anybody else did the same as I'm doing right now recently.
Dawn of Sorrow
Most of the music feel really, uh, off. Some are nice, like the initial zone one, love it. In general you can feel the DS-quality (HQ chiptune, almost) compared to the orchestral stuff in Bloodstained.
The areas look so... my my, so bad. I'm not even talking about art style, I'm talking about pure graphics. Most stages are completely unanimated in the background, everything feels so... static. Some areas are also completely uninspired and bad. I thought that applied to some of the late game Bloodstained areas but man, DoS has its good share of bad taste areas.
There's more weapons than I remembered.
There's no ticket to instawarp to the shops zone? Or is there? I couldn't find it.
Game feels smaller than I remembered.
Also I noticed I had already spent 45hrs (multiple runs) in it. Wow! Didn't remember playing DoS this much lol
Game felt easy, very very easy, on the other hand some bosses felt hard, or at least harder than I remember. They don't seem to have as much HP as some of Bloodstained bosses but they sure do deal a fuckton of damage.
Granted it's hard to compare, Bloodstained offers waaaay more instruments to power up your character to retarded levels compared to DoS.
Which in itself it's both good and bad. It's good for the feeling of power, achievement and growth it gives, it's bad because it makes it much harder to keep the game balanced, challenging and ultimately fun.
I didn't remember that you had just 2 equipment slots either.
What I did remember though was the retarded seals system and the forced touch screen interactions. So annoying!
Overall I still loved the game and finished it again, I guess worse than I remembered it in my memories though
The areas look so... my my, so bad. I'm not even talking about art style, I'm talking about pure graphics. Most stages are completely unanimated in the background, everything feels so... static. Some areas are also completely uninspired and bad. I thought that applied to some of the late game Bloodstained areas but man, DoS has its good share of bad taste areas.
There's more weapons than I remembered.
There's no ticket to instawarp to the shops zone? Or is there? I couldn't find it.
Game feels smaller than I remembered.
Also I noticed I had already spent 45hrs (multiple runs) in it. Wow! Didn't remember playing DoS this much lol
Game felt easy, very very easy, on the other hand some bosses felt hard, or at least harder than I remember. They don't seem to have as much HP as some of Bloodstained bosses but they sure do deal a fuckton of damage.
Granted it's hard to compare, Bloodstained offers waaaay more instruments to power up your character to retarded levels compared to DoS.
Which in itself it's both good and bad. It's good for the feeling of power, achievement and growth it gives, it's bad because it makes it much harder to keep the game balanced, challenging and ultimately fun.
I didn't remember that you had just 2 equipment slots either.
What I did remember though was the retarded seals system and the forced touch screen interactions. So annoying!
Overall I still loved the game and finished it again, I guess worse than I remembered it in my memories though
Portrait of Ruin
Still have to finish it, I'm about >33% into a new game plus.
Noticed NG+ makes it a bit confusing to tell what you still have to explore and what you haven't, at times.
Game feels much bigger than I remembered it, even compared to bloodstained.
Some of the features feel so fresh compared to all other Igavanias. The special moves/skills you learn from Wind, the interactions between the two characters... too bad they get forgotten from the game itself after the initial part, mostly.
Also way more weapons/variations than I remembered and seeing all those equipment slots was a boon coming from DoS.
Music feels better than DoS to me and so do the stages as well, way more animations/levels in the background.
From an artistic pov it's full of highs and lows but it sorta compensates for the lows with a lot of variety. Arguably too much as some could say some things feel off place in a Castlevania setting, thanks to the cheap excuse of the paintings.
There's a lot of re-used stuff too.
Level design is nice, but I still feel that separating it soo much into different zones rather than an unique single one hurts the Igavania genre. As far as I remember OoE has it even worse with even more separation and even more linearity in the level design. I'll check in a few days if my memories are still good or not.
Overall PoR was a pleasant dive in the past.
The two characters thing wasn't fully used for the whole duration of the game but it was a really nice feature, I feel sad it wasn't furtherly expanded and tweaked in future games.
Really solid game that personally loses a few points because of the setting, characters and the extreme separation of areas.
I'm surprised I spent less hours playing PoR (my DS runtime says a bit over 30hrs, compard to DoS's over 45) than DoS, I wonder why.
Maybe a chunk of my time in DoS was Souls farming? I dunno.
Noticed NG+ makes it a bit confusing to tell what you still have to explore and what you haven't, at times.
Game feels much bigger than I remembered it, even compared to bloodstained.
Some of the features feel so fresh compared to all other Igavanias. The special moves/skills you learn from Wind, the interactions between the two characters... too bad they get forgotten from the game itself after the initial part, mostly.
Also way more weapons/variations than I remembered and seeing all those equipment slots was a boon coming from DoS.
Music feels better than DoS to me and so do the stages as well, way more animations/levels in the background.
From an artistic pov it's full of highs and lows but it sorta compensates for the lows with a lot of variety. Arguably too much as some could say some things feel off place in a Castlevania setting, thanks to the cheap excuse of the paintings.
There's a lot of re-used stuff too.
Level design is nice, but I still feel that separating it soo much into different zones rather than an unique single one hurts the Igavania genre. As far as I remember OoE has it even worse with even more separation and even more linearity in the level design. I'll check in a few days if my memories are still good or not.
Overall PoR was a pleasant dive in the past.
The two characters thing wasn't fully used for the whole duration of the game but it was a really nice feature, I feel sad it wasn't furtherly expanded and tweaked in future games.
Really solid game that personally loses a few points because of the setting, characters and the extreme separation of areas.
I'm surprised I spent less hours playing PoR (my DS runtime says a bit over 30hrs, compard to DoS's over 45) than DoS, I wonder why.
Maybe a chunk of my time in DoS was Souls farming? I dunno.
Also noticed that NG+ in DoS and PoR reset your level to 1 but let you keep the majority of equipment and stuff you unlocked.
Bloodstained lets you keep your level too.
Wonder if this is right. Resetting your level probably would've been better.
I also feel like the "level 1 capped" runs should be a separate option from Nightmare.
Personally I would've enjoyed a Nightmare level of difficulty in Bloodstained, but keeping the ability to level up from 1 to wherever I can get to before the end of the game.
Thank you for this! I played a couple of hours of it last night and had a great time.
There's a lot of shards! I never expected so many.
Might be a stupid question I know, but how do the warp stones work? I tried using one and it took me back to the entrance of the castle, is that where they'll take me everytime?
I haven't had a chance to eat any dishes yet :( Not had the right things in my inventory to craft a meal.
Oh, I started on medium haha. This is my first Castlevania game so I'm quite average. I certainly would have struggled against the two bosses I've fought so far if I didn't use potions.
Don't worry. For someone new to the genre, Hard is probably going to be like smacking yourself against a brick wall, and Potions/Food are a valuable assist that you can use to meter difficulty for yourself (do I want to sit here and die/repeat on this boss until I master all of their patterns or so I want to just improve a little, tank a few hits and move the hell on to see what cool stuff is next?). They're also decently expensive for a majority of the game.
Once you get some experience under your belt, you can always do another run of the game on Hard. It's what I'm currently doing after completing Normal, which I found to be a moderate challenge for most of the run, and I'm not exactly new to Igavanias.
I replayed the DS games last year and agree with most of your sentiments. The increased fidelity from GBA made it really apparent how unpolished a lot of the assets were. Almost looks a bit fangamey in some parts. Still, I'd place Bloodstained around the same level as the DS games on average which I ultimately find sort of disappointing given that the GBA/DS games were rushed out insanely fast on non-existant budgets. With that in mind I expected more. Guess I'll just chalk it down to Iga's team not having exercised their muscles on this kind of game for many years now and don't quite have the momentum/synergy yet.
I'm playing new game + on nightmare right now and for ng+ I think the level freeze is fine. If you've farmed all the gear and shards from previous playthroughs they still make you insanely powerful. I can still pretty much brute force my way through the bosses without a care. The only reason they're mildly challenging now is because I'm aiming for the no damage medals (and even then I didn't have any problems at all just nuking the bosses down up until the tower dragons).
I think we'll have more unbiased/sober opinions a couple of years from now, about Bloodstained I mean.
I wouldn't place it on the same level as the DS titles, it's quite clear it's on a higher level and that's not only because it runs on hardware that gives developers less limits compared to GBA or DS.
At the same time though there's a lot of merit in your sentence.
Several areas of Bloodstained feel very rushed (the caves zones, the final zone etc to name a few, could name more).
I think ultimately what hurts Bloodstained the most is the in-game art direction (a problem shared by DoS and PoR as well I'd say though) and the monster design.
Quite... full of high and lows, mostly lows though lol.
Despite the improvements in the visual aspect of Bloodstained and despite the fact I consider the game overall "okay", there are still several issues in the shaders.
It's like they didn't have a clear direction, like they shooted in multiple directions trying to hit the target.
Or rather it's like they had different people working on that, without them talking to each other.
You get this pretty clear feeling of lack of a clear direction, coherence, in the visual aspect.
I think this really hurts the game.
At the same time though I think it's pretty clear the game has a larger scale than the DS ones.
As for the budget being higher or lower we can't say.
We all assumed the Bloodstained budget to be so insanely higher than the DS titles given the success of the kickstarter campaign, but can we really be sure about it?
Plus I think Bloodstained had several additional expenses that the DS titles didn't have because:
1) It was their first experience as a new team, think about all the bureaucracy stuff for instance. For the previous Konami titles IGA probably didn't even have to worry about it, I bet it was a matter of copy/paste for their office bureaucrat. Here they had to start from scratch
2) Because of above and related reasons, they wasted a lot of resources trying to get this boat sailing
3) Development cost of a 3D game like this surely costs more than developing 2D stuff with recycled assets on the DS
So in the end I wouldn't really take it for granted, like I did many times myself, that the Bloodstained budged what so OMG INSANELY BIG compared to the DS titles ones.
Despite all of that, I feel your disappointment, there's plenty of reasons to feel disappointment at the fact Bloodstained could've been much better. But it still is a pretty nice game though.
If I think about the "big" Kickstarters campaigns we've had in the last few years, that brought many of us to think Kickstarter could've represented a way to imbue new life into the VG market (think again...) it turns out that Bloodstained is actually the best one.
Or someone could say the least bad lol, regardless from your point of view the result is still the same. Bloodstained could've been much better but it still is a pretty good game!
Agreed, so powerful it actually "ruined" my Hard run.
I wasn't making it a matter of me not feeling powerful enough in Nightmare mode.
More a matter of me liking to see that number (your level) go up as you progress through the game and kill stuff.
I know it's stupid but it's quite a powerful drive for me xD
I'd put Bloodstained over every DS title except OoE - and that's only because OoE has better combat and boss fights. Bloodstained probably outdoes it on level design.