A modern successor to the Castlevania formula, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night manages to feel familiar even to me… and I haven’t played Symphony of the Night. From the very beginning, this demon-infested journey feels familiar simply because I’ve toyed with Castlevania NES, and the movement feels similar. As an ode to those old games, even little tricks like jumping backward while striking forward and getting quick attacks by timing jumps correctly still work. Bloodstained isn’t content with just emulating the classics, though. It wants to move forward.
Along my playthrough, I was wowed by the architecture that surrounded me. Despite being a side-scroller, the game found ways to play with the foreground and background that often made the world feel alive. Late-game upgrades allowed me to interact with the world in surprising new ways, that went far beyond ‘use this key to open the colored door.’
While the exploration was fun, the combat was so-so. It was good, and felt responsive, but the game leaned hard on some of its RPG roots. Bosses especially had ridiculous amounts of HP. This meant that battles could become a slog unless I engaged with the crafting and upgrade systems. And in the late game, that struggle is where everything broke for me.
The crafting and upgrade systems are, without a doubt, amazing. I can make weapons, armor, and accessories, prepare food for stat upgrades and healing, form or upgrade shards to give myself new special abilities and powers… it’s not overwhelming either, but was easy to understand and get into. I’ll admit that I even got sucked into grinding out certain shards and enemy drops to create items anew, for missions or for myself. I grinded for far too long, even, enjoying the rewards I received.
And yet this broke everything.
In the last four bosses of the game, I hit an upper limit on the damage I could do. The battles became a long slog, and the enemies did vast amounts of damage to me if I made a single mistake. Some attacks were also frustrating to dodge, since I could not move while attacking. I sought ways to give myself better armor, attack power, or spells, but each of these ways required way too much grinding. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I had an easy out. I sold everything I had for curry rice and corn chowder.
There is no cap on healing foods in this game, like there is on potions. I stocked up and entered the final battles with dozens of meals equipped, in a nearly endless supply of HP. Not enough? I’ll grab more. This is not a unique problem to this game… Skyrim and the newest Zelda games also allow for infinite eating from the menu. But as it was, especially with the final boss, I was able to invalidate the battle. I still had fun with the two battles just before the finale, but the final boss had me looking at the clock and wondering how many times I had to hit him. Did I bring enough food? Or would I need to go smash lamps for money and buy more curry rice?
That’s a big complaint that basically boils down to me not liking RPG grinding. I like skill-based metroidvania combat, where I can walk in without upgrades and, with enough skill, take down the boss in a reasonable timeframe. Hollow Knight, Metroid, Haiku the Robot, and Lone Fungus all operate this way. I don’t like being pushed to use stats to invalidate the game.
For me, the first two thirds of Bloodstained were amazing, and the last third was a slog. Smashing my way through stuff got old once I had to grind, upgrade, and heal through it. If you like metroidvanias that rest on the ‘vania’ side more than the ‘metroid’ side? This game will do you just fine. It has a lot to offer.
The story and lore, while not particularly fresh, had several enjoyable twists and turns. The character design is good once you get used to it, the enemy design is beyond fantastic, and there are some powerful moments along the way. There are boss battles I’ll remember from this game for years to come, and it doesn’t take long to get to them. I’ll give the game credit, whether or not it was a slog, I was obsessively hooked for over a dozen hours. That doesn’t come easy.
Verdict: Beat the game, got all three endings, ate 30 bowls of curry rice while fighting an apocalypse demon.
Kyle Adams 