FANTASTIC (IF YOU CAN ACTUALLY PLAY IT).

Here’s some behind the scenes for this site: I am not supposed to be reviewing Bloodstained, Ken was. However, Ken received the Xbox One copy and that is, as of writing this on June 29, 2019, still unplayable. There is/was a bug in all versions outside the PC release that would prevent an item appearing in a treasure chest halting all progress, meaning a completely new save would have to be made after a patch was released to fix the issue. This is not at the beginning of the game either, so one could potentially waste hours playing Bloodstained and then have to do all that work again. Ken is patiently waited for a patch that did come to PS4, but still hasn’t been confirmed as being on Xbox.

Furthermore the Nintendo Switch version released a week later was apparently a buggy mess, and I am not referring to a visual downgrade but complete crashes and not loading the models in and various other bugs. The Bloodstained team came out to let people know they were shifting focus to patch this version. They still did not speak about the Xbox version, which may or may not allow players to progress. So since I bought a PS4 copy and seeing as how Ken may never be able to play his copy, here we are.

In short: This is completely unacceptable, and while part of me wants to destroy the game for basically leaving one group of consumers in limbo while catering to others who also received a product that should have been in better condition, I do love this game. Before reading any further, just know that what I speak of is only applicable to the PS4 and PC versions.

PLATFORMS: PS4, XB1, PC, SWITCH
MSRP: $39.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $39.99

Bloodstained is the new game from Koji Igarashi, arguably one of the most influential game developers ever, as he helped bring Castlevania from platformer to a large scale, Metroid inspired adventure. Igarashi is responsible for helping spawn the “metroidvania” genre, and his best works are the Castlevania titles that followed this formula. After being treated poorly at Konami (less publicized than the Kojima events) he left and went to Kickstarter with plans for a new game in the formula he had arguably perfected. This game was Bloodstained, and now I get to play it, and it is exactly what I wanted.

Anyone familiar with Symphony of the Night or any of the Gameboy Advance or Nintendo DS Castlevania titles will know what they are getting into here. For anyone that doesn’t, Bloodstained is an action platformer where exploration of a large world is rewarded with new techniques to further explore, with RPG elements like leveling up and equipment screens to assist with the combat portions of the game. Lots of secrets are to be found backtracking through old areas with new abilities, rewarding curiosity. I love this genre, and to see the master return and really recapture everything that got me into it was really exciting.

The plot really does feel like a Castlevania game (down to having a false ending), but this time the main character and primary antagonist are Shardbinders (people who were experimented on to receive great power but are also cursed to eventually be consumed by it). This introduces the shard ability to the formula Igarashi created, which is essentially a redone version of the souls system from Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. Some enemies drop shards which then allow the main character Miriam to access certain enemy abilities. Some shards are offensive, some defensive, and some passive. These are how new abilities are introduced into the player’s arsenal, and I was glad to see they weren’t all the standard game abilities of swimming and double jumping (which are there as well).

A big new feature is the alchemy lab, where ingredients can be used to level up items and shards as well as make food. There’s a lot to digest (no pun intended) at first and it can be overwhelming, but this is a necessary feature to engage with to be successful in this game. One shard ability is firing a single arrow in the direction the right analog stick is pointed in. Once upgraded that same shard fires multiple arrows that radiate out in one direction from the origin point of Miriam’s hand meaning one enemy can take multiple hits at once if the player is standing close enough. Choosing to not use the alchemy system is a sure fire way to not enjoy Bloodstained.

The only real issue I have with Bloodstained is its lack of direction at times. At one point I ended up retracing the entire map looking for where to go next. While my time wasn’t completely wasted as I leveled up and got other upgrades, I was irritated when I realized what to do. At one point I got to a gate that I needed open. Character A indirectly suggested I speak to a certain type of person who I had met previously and who gave me a temporary item. They said this line to me once and once only. Had they said it every time I saw them again I would have likely figured out who to visit, but because Character A was more interested in repeating their generic introduction before letting me access their shop I didn’t know to meet Character B to progress.

Another time this was an issue was when I needed to figure out how to go underwater. I am willing to spoil this one because unlike every other main progression power up, this is not delivered to the player in a key moment. No, the swimming ability is received from a normal enemy type and because it still had a drop rate for the shard I had actually killed one of these enemies before and received nothing. This is the only power up like this. This, as Jae from this site said to me, is bad game design and I have to agree. I stumbled onto it by accident and this was after bashing my head against the wall trying to figure out what I missed.

Other than these small issues (and the aforementioned larger technical issues on other consoles) Bloodstained is great. More content is promised for the future. I sunk way too much time into it when I had other games to review. It’s addictive and likely making my top 10 this year. I hope it does well enough that this isn’t the last we see of Bloodstained.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.