Decided to make a dedicated thread now that the game is released, for things that don't have to deal with its development and the Kickstarter and just for playing the game itself.
I'm just over 50% through the map thus far after putting probably 8-9 hours into it already (spent close to an hour alone on Zangetsu).
Already came across the "bad ending" too. Looks like they're sticking to the habit of needing pre-requisites met going into the Gebel fight to advance to the better endings. Currently backtracking to see if I can find anything I missed or hints towards what I'm supposed to do to advance.
Dominique is something I wish IGA did with Mathias back in LOI. He should've played a much bigger role in Leon's quest so that his betrayal would've been a surprise.
Finished it just now. What a ride. What they did with Dominique is something I wish IGA did with Mathias back in LOI. He should've played a much bigger role in Leon's quest so that his betrayal would've been a surprise.
Kinda wished IGA didn't go so heavy handed with the foreshadowing, I put 2+2 together when seeing the portrait in the cutter's room and seeing her in the secret lab, however the Alfred twist did catch me a little off-guard.
defeat Bael at the deepest lair of Glacial Tomb
When trying to find a way into the upper cathedral, I of course tried backtracking to the tower of twin dragons, but the mechanics of how it works with the 2.5 d there were particularly horrible. I didn't look up any FAQS to figure it out, but I saw the chest on the upper level that I later found out was the Spike Breaking armor. But I couldn't figure out how to get the chest due to bad alignment issues, inverting where I thought I should do it didn't put me where I needed to be
Needless to say that I ended up finding my way to the Oriental Sorcery Lab / Upper Cathedral without getting the requisite item--just stocked health potions and equipped items to make me speedier for the dangerous run through spikes. Needless to say, I just barely make it, and died several times, but that was frustrating...
Oh yeah and doing it that way through the spikes permanently destroyed several pieces of gear I was wearing and auto equipped something else. Wasn't anything from shortcuts either. Not sure if that was a bug or not but was still kinda thematically cool considering the heavy damage I took in that passage.
So what I can gather about Bloodstained’s plot from playing the game so far is Solid Snake doesn’t like Kung Fu Maria Renard because she smells like stinky crystals.
DO NOT CLICK THE SPOILER IF YOU'RE STILL PLAYING THROUGH THE GAME FOR THE GOOD ENDING FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!
With the addition of the fact that Solid Snake is supposed to be the Not-Belmont and Gebel taking the role of the guy that Miriam chases like Maria did with Richter in SOTN, except that the Not-Shaft part (the Bayonetta-looking church girl who goes full "In This Moment I am Euphoric" before the final battle of summoning Not-Chaos) and Not-Death (Gremory) swap roles in terms of plot and gameplay progression towards getting the good/best ending, if there's a difference. Does Miriam say something different if you collect every shard in the game like Soma did at the end of AoS?
For those still playing the game, it's yours truly remarking on how safe the game plays it with the plot and how certain things...play out.
Spoilers for the entire story:
So yeah, the story is fine. However, I was surprised at how much IGA recycled his own tropes. There's the "good guy is actually controlled by a bad guy"-element from SotN, Zangetsu is a very obvious Belmont analogue complete with the "I could curpstomp you at any moment but I choose not to"-attitude, a character who pretends he's evil but is actually doing this because he's trying to protect the main character, and of course the betrayal from someone who pretented to be your ally.
I still have to replay the game, so I'm not sure about this, but I didn't really like the "character who pretends to be an asshole but is actually doing it to protect the main character"-element, because it relies on Miriam and Alfred not properly communicating with each other. This is actually lampshades by Zangets when he says that if he could have teamed up with Alfred and Miriam, the first part of the game would be over in five minutes. So I feel they could have come up with a better reason for why this team up didn't happen.
Spoilers for the entire story:
So yeah, the story is fine. However, I was surprised at how much IGA recycled his own tropes. There's the "good guy is actually controlled by a bad guy"-element from SotN, Zangetsu is a very obvious Belmont analogue complete with the "I could curpstomp you at any moment but I choose not to"-attitude, a character who pretends he's evil but is actually doing this because he's trying to protect the main character, and of course the betrayal from someone who pretented to be your ally.
I still have to replay the game, so I'm not sure about this, but I didn't really like the "character who pretends to be an asshole but is actually doing it to protect the main character"-element, because it relies on Miriam and Alfred not properly communicating with each other. This is actually lampshades by Zangets when he says that if he could have teamed up with Alfred and Miriam, the first part of the game would be over in five minutes. So I feel they could have come up with a better reason for why this team up didn't happen.
The story was kind of "meh" for me...I didn't really get invested in the beginning, but his recycling of ideas certainly didn't help it, either. Not only in story, but in gameplay elements, as well. Spike-nullifying armor, familiars, a huge waterfall, the doppleganger, a librarian, and those are just off the very top of my head. I still really love the game for what it is (I think I actually liked this better than the GBA and DS games, tbh), but it feels like a patchwork of previous CV games, especially SotN.
One thing that I missed the most in Bloodstained RotN was the creepiness on the CV games. The supposedly dark and scary areas were not so impressive.
Just remember the perfect SotN Catacombs. This is probably the best creepy area in ALL Castlevania games. I missed that a lot in RotN.
I feel the same. I really love RotN and Curse of the Moon, but they still can't touch CV in terms of atmosphere and enemies, especially the earlier games. But for me, they don't really have to, either. Bloodstained could never really be a replacement for CV. I like to look at it as its own series. And both Bloodstained games were really, really fun to play.
I never expected IGA to step out of his own shoes for this game. As the sole creator/director he only has so much in his well of creativity before falling back on old ideas. It happened while he was making CV games I noticed. I think there should have been more creativity involved. This would have allowed IGA to dip his bucket into other wells of creativity and bring up some fresh ideas cause there's only so much one person can do over a few decades.
I really think this could've helped, too. He could've gotten help from someone for the storyline, or started with basic ideas and handed the rest over to someone else entirely. Then just keep his focus on making the gameplay tight and fun. He seems to be really good at building great gameplay, but it really takes a lot of effort to come up with a compelling, cohesive story.
I finally beat the game yesterday!
Bloodstained beat me to this idea:
We currently have a whip wielding zombie that wears a very familiar costume in Carpathian Night... now I’m not so sure about keeping it in there, seeing as Bloodstained included the exact same joke. Maybe I’ll just have to be more creative and think of a different joke reference.
I finally beat the game yesterday!
Bloodstained beat me to this idea:
We currently have a whip wielding zombie that wears a very familiar costume in Carpathian Night... now I’m not so sure about keeping it in there, seeing as Bloodstained included the exact same joke. Maybe I’ll just have to be more creative and think of a different joke reference.
I wouldn't worry too much about that. Bloodstained isn't even the first Igavania to do that joke... there's the Simon Wraith in Dissonance, the Hellmont in Despair... and whip skeletons have appeared several times other than those.
Actually if you want, you could double down and put in a zombie that looks like Miriam as well.
They should really patch out the portrait in the Barber's Room. It asks an obvious question a little too early.
I hope there's more Hair-styles and colors in-bound, I think it's a cool idea but a little bare-bones. Maybe an option to turn OFF visual effects of passive Yellow shards.
Also, the modding community is slowly emerging, but beware.
Ok I need some help. I just beat 8 bit nightmare (though not sure what it does.). Anywho, I dont know how to kill the evil force that controls Gebel or even what it is
Ok I need some help. I just beat 8 bit nightmare (though not sure what it does.). Anywho, I dont know how to kill the evil force that controls Gebel or even what it is
Progression through the full game requires you to find:
Craftwork
Double Jump
Paperwork to ride the train
Reflector Ray
Blood Steal
Deeseama's Aqua Stream
Deep Sinker
Invert
Aegis Armor (well-hidden, btw, here's a nice hint... it's in one of the previous boss rooms)
Boss Weapon (use on the moon when it turns red during a boss fight, and in one other area)
Dimension Shift
Name the last thing on that list that you acquired and we can tell you where you need to go next. That said, I'm willing to bet that you're missing:
Blood Steal. Take the Reflector Ray shard to the Dian Cecht Cathedral (the area with the Barber) and look for a room with reflector ray pads on the lower right and upper left. Use the ones on the left to get up to a higher area, and search that area for Blood Steal.
If you have Blood Steal, there's an area early on in the game where you need to use that shard.
If you have done that already, you may not have found Aqua Stream, or you may not have realized that it allows you to swim (sort of).
Progression through the full game requires you to find:
Craftwork
Double Jump
Paperwork to ride the train
Reflector Ray
Blood Steal
Deeseama's Aqua Stream
Deep Sinker
Invert
Aegis Armor (well-hidden, btw, here's a nice hint... it's in one of the previous boss rooms)
Boss Weapon (use on the moon when it turns red during a boss fight, and in one other area)
Dimension Shift
Name the last thing on that list that you acquired and we can tell you where you need to go next. That said, I'm willing to bet that you're missing:
Blood Steal. Take the Reflector Ray shard to the Dian Cecht Cathedral (the area with the Barber) and look for a room with reflector ray pads on the lower right and upper left. Use the ones on the left to get up to a higher area, and search that area for Blood Steal.
If you have Blood Steal, there's an area early on in the game where you need to use that shard.
If you have done that already, you may not have found Aqua Stream, or you may not have realized that it allows you to swim (sort of).
Even if you can figure out or know exactly where that one particular item is (spike breaker) , it can be hard enough to get due to the nature of the room that if you perform the move necessary from a wrong location even though it "looks" right, you can think it is not possible to get the item, and move on and get stuck a bit.
Even then, because of that , I ended up figuring out a few ways to get past the spike room without the spike breaker armor...
Progression through the full game requires you to find:
Craftwork
Double Jump
Paperwork to ride the train
Reflector Ray
Blood Steal
Deeseama's Aqua Stream
Deep Sinker
Invert
Aegis Armor (well-hidden, btw, here's a nice hint... it's in one of the previous boss rooms)
Boss Weapon (use on the moon when it turns red during a boss fight, and in one other area)
Dimension Shift
Name the last thing on that list that you acquired and we can tell you where you need to go next. That said, I'm willing to bet that you're missing:
Blood Steal. Take the Reflector Ray shard to the Dian Cecht Cathedral (the area with the Barber) and look for a room with reflector ray pads on the lower right and upper left. Use the ones on the left to get up to a higher area, and search that area for Blood Steal.
If you have Blood Steal, there's an area early on in the game where you need to use that shard.
If you have done that already, you may not have found Aqua Stream, or you may not have realized that it allows you to swim (sort of).
Ok, I am missing aqua stream. I did get blood steal and went inside the bloody fountain towards the beggining of the game but couldn't figure out how to swim or dive.
Ok, I am missing aqua stream. I did get blood steal and went inside the bloody fountain towards the beggining of the game but couldn't figure out how to swim or dive.
I can see where it may be annoying trying to find where to go if you don't have the water stream, if I remember correctly it doesn't come from a boss, but rather a regular enemy.
the turtle boss from Curse of the Moon was probably going to carry the Aqua Stream shard, but he must have been cut from RotN for some reason. As a result, a shard needed for mandatory progression is stuck to a random enemy, which seems to have tripped a lot of players up.
It seems like
the turtle boss from Curse of the Moon was probably going to carry the Aqua Stream shard, but he must have been cut from RotN for some reason. As a result, a shard needed for mandatory progression is stuck to a random enemy, which seems to have tripped a lot of players up.
That really peeves me. But it makes sense....
I honestly felt the game really needed a water boss or at least a boss in the water area similar the the Scylla Worm. Again given how the Turtle Boss' moveset with spraying water looks similar in design to the aqua spray , it makes perfect sense
It seems like
the turtle boss from Curse of the Moon was probably going to carry the Aqua Stream shard, but he must have been cut from RotN for some reason. As a result, a shard needed for mandatory progression is stuck to a random enemy, which seems to have tripped a lot of players up.
THIS
A mandatory progression-based item/power/etc. should NEVER be a drop from a random enemy. That's game design 101.
THIS
A mandatory progression-based item/power/etc. should NEVER be a drop from a random enemy. That's game design 101.
QA testers are a dying art.
The trick is to play as an idiot and learn only from what the game teaches you while keeping your experience.
IMHO from the ID to the Swimming the progression is rather sloppy.
The way he taunts you in poorly voice acted engrish when he kills you is gold