Bloodstained RotN : Kouji IGA's new "Castlevania" game.

[Blinge]

Oh man i’m simply not prepared to do the required item hunting to fight OD

[BIL]

I can't even remember what the fuck causes it Something like not returning a book, or some shit? I actually laughed at the dialogue when you return to his place after killing him, IGA has some decent localisers I guess. Ecclesia raised a few chuckles too (Rotten Meat: "Your ticket to a whole new echelon of gastrointestinal distress"), on top of being fuckin bussin overall, and tbh while I enjoy ROTN I'd chuck it out for BIGSCREEN Ecclesia in a heartbeat.

Or mod my DS, or some other fanny shite! :O

[sky-13]

You need like 90% of the map opened for OD (Dio) to let you borrow a special book and have that special book in your inventory while you make your way to the final boss.

A powered up shield shard makes the fight pretty easy.

[BIL]

Ah yes, that was it - cheers. I couldn't recall it requiring items per se.

I still remember finding that last 1% appreciated that it wasn't a random breakable wall but a visible sight puzzle.

Spoiler

that nook off to the left in the Oriental Lab's torii gate maze

A good map imo. If anything it showed he'd learned his lesson after HOD's misfire (massive map full of dead space). Wasn't anywhere I felt like it was pointless to be.

[Blinge]

Oh I have 100% map haha. okay i'll go find it

[sky-13]

Ah yes, that was it - cheers. I couldn't recall it requiring items per se.

I still remember finding that last 1% appreciated that it wasn't a random breakable wall but a visible sight puzzle.

Spoiler

that nook off to the left in the Oriental Lab's torii gate maze

A good map imo. If anything it showed he'd learned his lesson after HOD's misfire (massive map full of dead space). Wasn't anywhere I felt like it was pointless to be.

I agree it’s a strong map, really the only place I feel could be more interesting/engaging is the Den of Behemoths.

The final areas are often wacky in the Igavania games, chaos realm, abyss, etc.

[BIL]

Oof yeah, Behemoths went from an awesomely foreboding intro to "Wait - SMB3 Giant Land? For real?" fast. Deadliest thing in there is the overly-tight camera zoom struggling with the JUMBO SIZE enemies, even with the zoom-out glasses equipped.

I like the concept of a place fulla boss-sized bastards (AOS's Chaotic Realm is pretty much that), just keep it visible and lay off on the comically unthreatening JUMBO ZAKO This stuff was rad:

[Blinge]

Man final boss fights as zanny is not the one

Edit: okay, did it at around lvl 38
First fight I just used a lot of his fire+warp attack to finish the fight quickly

for Bael.. i didnt realise you could repeatedly stomp the heads to get MP back. that was the game changer.

[Blinge]

Not so happy with Classic mode. It is a super cool remake of CV1 but..

.. buggy. I beat 'death' first attempt and miriam just posed.. and the stage didn't end, nor did the game accept any more inputs.

Later trying again I got hit into a cog and she got trapped in infinite hitstun, in the cog.. until it rolled me down to my death.

[NYN]

They still want money for it, right? It's not suddenly a free game, I mean? Nobody sued either, huh?

Beyond me. Certain games are the trash, it seems. How players cannot care about quality and can be content to "wuh jus play it once for fake player points whatever" aka

Spoiler

the cheap fuck

.

It was there, alright?

I don't despair, mind you. I just define my idea of personal hygienity along such input. Fat load it will do.

[Blinge]

Fucking hell. Regalsin, is that you??

I just tabbed out of classic mode, 1986 mode.. and get this
I tabbed out when I'd killed the 2nd boss.. waiting for the 'orb' to drop on miriam

i tabbed back in and she died

[BIL]

Sounds about right

[NYN]

Fucking hell. Regalsin, is that you??

Oof.
There is surely no need for that name-calling, eh fella? I'm long enough on board to know what that's supposed to mean.
I'll tone it down next time.

[Blinge]

If you've been on board long enough, you'll know it's not totally an insult

the man was a king.

I don't despair, mind you. I just define my idea of personal hygienity along such input. Fat load it will do.

Maybe it's my fault for not having the faintest idea what you mean by this

[NYN]

the man was a king.

And a cracked fool, too. I've got that kind too much around me personally to find it appealing online.

Maybe it's my fault for not having the faintest idea what you mean by this

See, despite your stand here as an enthusiast of video games, you share how you play this IGAme and what you encounter. I find that useful. Thanks to you (and others) I can hear about the flaws that I would have no tolerance for. I can improve my hygiene with it.
Bit clearer now? Don't matter if it isn't, just to say that you do things that I wouldn't.
I'll shut down now.

[Marc]

Just started this. Seems like more SotN with added crafting. Can't say I'm a fan if that bit, but controls and map so far seem legit.

[Blinge]

I see it as like.. Aria of sorrow 3: the bloating

[Blinge]

https://youtu.be/DStXhEM9rDY

Look at this comedy of errors.

The pain, I was so close to the end without a single death.
Also a god run earlier was stopped by OBS having an error and ceasing to record reee

Edit:

EE'S ONLY GONE N FACKIN DUN IT!!

[BIL]

Grats How would you say it compares to the oldschool Draculas?

[Blinge]

I'd consider it a classicvania in its own right.

It's obviously a remake of CV1, but remixes it in a cool way.
Probably a bit on the easy side if I could no miss it after a couple of weeks casual practice

video to come

Edit: oh jesus I said the R-word again..

uhh! reimagining! uhhh

[Blinge]

https://youtu.be/6MQ11INhocc

No miss clear there ^

Man i spent an hour on that thumbnail jesus.

[sky-13]

The amount of crafting and cooking in the game caught me off guard. I don’t recall the Kickstarter highlighting that aspect of of the game at all. Maybe Iga and the team became extremely inspired by BotW or something haha.

[neorichieb1971]

I looked forward to this game for 2 plus years and found it disappointing.

Whilst I think the speech work and narration is very good, there is just too much of it. Going 2 or 3 rooms across and meeting new people and talking for 2 minutes a time drags on the gameplay.


I'll probably offload mine pretty soon.

[Blinge]

That's such a weird non-issue. It's also not true.

I don't feel the need to come to this game's defense but the overwhelming majority of the game has no dialogue.
Also any voice-work not done by Miriam or David Hayter is pretty meh
the side character voices are god awful.

Also, just skip the dialogue? ?

another thing - I ignored the crafting for about 75% of my playthrough, because fuck crafting. it's very doable.
Weapons and equipment OSP forever.

[sky-13]

No love for Johannes Jostar? That VA has a bunch of big roles.

I definitely don’t understand the “to much dialogue” complaint.

Maybe if this was FF7 remake, Jessie and Miriam share a VA which is kind of interesting.

[Blinge]

Welp - I've finished Bloodstained with every character now. It's a thing whereby I never know if i'm actually having fun or enjoying the game, but more satisfying the completionist in me while I'm switched off/ listening to a podcast while playing. It's just a different form of enjoyment I suppose.

Miriam / standard game

Zangetsu - the Richter of this game.. super busted OP character for nearly the entire world until the endgame suddenly fucks you. Kind of like Miriam if you don't go hard into all the upgrades/ farming. (because who wants to do that)
He starts with all his abilities, fighting game inputs are a cool touch - The Richter tribute I guess.
His right-stick to use hookshot ability is completely useless. There's no reason to ever do it as L1+up will do his shoryu-style upwards slash. This thing barely uses any MP so you can essentially fly from the beginning of the game.

Bloodless - A relatively new addition to the cast, She's cool in that her abilities are unlocked over time/ spread around the castle. Including chalice things that raise her stats. Later on she gets a very strong bloodheal that restores both MP for her abilities and HP. I like how it's dependent on how much of the castle you can paint red.
I liked how charging her standard swipe makes it deal more damage and stagger most enemies. Hell some bosses I even managed to stagger-lock in the corner for the whole fight

Aurora - A crossover with Child of Light.
Another bonus character where I appreciate the unlocking of *some* abilities over time. An odd choice was that you get the ability to fookin' fly very early on as her. There is a point to killing enemies and picking up stuff too, as her "friends" are some limited shards from the regular game you can unlock, as well as a couple of innate abilities. She's the only bonus character to have NPCs in her game- Johannes, I think.. is in the village and you can upgrade her abilities using materials.
I found her one of the most fun tbh. Her light-ray allows you to hold R2 to paint your target several times over before releasing the button for several magic explosions. You can dash-cancel this....then cancel the dash into her leaping overhead smash. that's a lotta damage!

There's a cool interaction after the second Zanny fight. Aurora speaks in rhyming couplets, and Zanny says he doesn't speak her language. He then converses with her in his own poetry, and speaks in haikus for the rest of the conversation.

All the bonus characters can level up too like most of the castletroid bonus chars.
no idea why I wrote any of that

[Marc]

Still loving this. Stumbled upon the abrupt ending at about 45% in, now at about 73%, just got the upside down thing. Stage design mostly superb, though the underground lake and fire caves are fucking annoying. Doesn't feel quite as interconnected as Symphony. On the other hand, I'm enjoying all the crafting and shard enhancing far more than I'd expected, and there seems to be even more toys to play with.Titles like this make me glad I'm usually a tear or two late to the party, I've had two hard crashes that threw nevstraight to dash on Series X, but everything else is silky.

[Austin]

Man, it's STILL hard crashing on Xbox? I recall that being such a pain when it first launched (I was on One X at the time).

I really should do another run of this game soon, as I haven't gone through it since shortly after release.

I did fire up Curse of the Moon 2 again though earlier this week and warmed up to it, after coming off as not too impressed on launch. I guess I was just expecting another breezy playthrough like the first, but was put off by the meaner nature of it. In hindsight, it's actually not that bad difficulty-wise, it just requires you to think a bit differently because of the wider array of character mechanics. I finished the first episode several times over the last couple of days, so now I'll have to finally see what the rest of the game is all about.

[nZero]

Man, it's STILL hard crashing on Xbox? I recall that being such a pain when it first launched (I was on One X at the time).

Haven't had a single crash, at 90% map now on Xbox One S, RotN is version 1.4.

[Marc]

Few times for me, sound locks up, freezes, ejects me.
I've also noticed that even though I never unequip the Eye of Horus, sometimes the game will zoom back to default view on entering a new area.