While at PAX East I finally had the opportunity to try Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. What I played left me intrigued but ultimately underwhelmed. Of all the Castlevania-inspired games due out this year, like Cyber Shadow and upcoming DLC for The Messenger, I’m now less excited about the one actually coming from one of the series’ most renowned developers.
Ritual of the Night was announced as a Kickstarter in 2015. Koji Igarashi, a Konami veteran who worked on the Castlevania series for nearly two decades, asked fans for $704,932 so his newly-formed game studio, ArtPlay, could make a spiritual successor to the series. The campaign ended up raising $8 million.
Since then the game twice. The Wii U, PS Vita, Mac and Linux versions of the game were cancelled, and a Switch version was announced.
It’s now set to arrive later this year, releasing at least on the Switch by this summer, according to a trailer from the February Nintendo Direct.
On paper, Ritual of the Night looks like a Castlevania game. Everything you’d expect is there: conjuring various familiars, enemies knocking you back when you get hit, and even a connection to the previous games via Igarashi.
But in the demo I played, things don’t quite come together. Everything felt a little off, like a piece of furniture that looks fine from afar but wobbles when you use it.
My session started in the middle of a giant clock tower in Demon Castle. Miriam, the main protagonist, has awoken from a 10-year coma after magical crystals were put into her body. She’s ventured to the castle to kill another subject of the experiment who’s letting demons take over the world.
At the demo’s start, she had already collected a number of crystals enabling her to perform all sorts of special attacks. Her inventory is likewise full of various regenerative potions, crafting materials, and other loot. With all of this in tow I set about exploring my surroundings.
The first thing I noticed was how dark and grimy the world is. Ritual of the Night isn’t exactly an ugly game, but at least in the demo I played, Miriam and the other characters felt detached from the environment, like actors performing in front of a green screen.
Miriam’s animations are fluid but she’s not quite tethered to the ground. In a platforming section involving spinning gears, she stood just above them as they turned. While the arcs of her double-jump feel accurate and satisfying, they feel out of sync with the various platforms jutting out in the game’s 2.5D world.
This lack of harmony carries over into some of the combat. Miriam can handle various medieval weaponry and dodge backwards or slide forwards to avoid foes. She has special attacks like fireballs, and throwing knives, and she can summon demonic tentacles to attack, each of which consumes magic points. These special attacks are helpful for dealing with less conventional monsters, like a flying harpy or armoured knight hiding behind a giant shield.
Special attacks don’t feel as powerful as they should in moment-to-moment combat. Damage is shown via numbers, but there’s little in the sound or visuals to make the maths feel visceral. Sometimes fights can feel like clumsy brawls where you just exchange health with opponents until one of you dies.
This came through strongly during the demo’s boss fight. A two-headed dragon cornered me on one level of the tower, with each head taking up one side of the screen. I had to dodge their biting and fire attacks and then counter with my own, but I often found myself confused about where the enemy’s hitbox began and mine ended.
Miriam would take damage but not suffer the normal amount of knockback, and my attacks landed with little visual or auditory feedback. The combat animations looked great, but the actual fight felt like tangoing with a ghost.
Ritual of the Night is ambitious, both in its visual style and scale. Igarashi has said the size of its castle will be twice as big as anything he’s done before, and the levels I explored certainly backed that up. But they also felt sparse. It’s hard to know how much of this will be recalibrated or polished before launch, but Ritual of the Night feels unwieldy compared to some of Castlevania’s more recent homages.
Comments
5 responses to “Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night Doesn’t Feel Quite Right In Its Latest Demo”
I haven’t backed anything on KS in years but this was one I did open my wallet for and have been waiting a loooong time to receive (though I’m glad it’s on Switch now instead of the Wii U). I really hoped it would be amazing and one of the few projects I backed that didn’t turn out to be some sort of disappointment. Oh well…I quite enjoyed Curse of the Moon.
Same, although after playing a little of the demo/alpha/whatever a while back, I was a bit underwhelmed as well.
Similar here, I would NEVER back games on KS on principle alone (it’s usually just a download code that’ll be on sale for a fraction of the price by the time I get around to actually playing it – plus without reviews etc you don’t know whether it’s crap or not) but being a physical Wii U release swayed me over on this. So much for that 😛
Reading the above is hardly a surprise though, with how off the various clips and whatnot have looked over the years. Wasn’t able to try the demo at all but my expectations are nice and low. Haven’t checked out CotM yet, only just recently was able to add it to my Switch since the codes they originally sent out were incompatible with the AU eShop. It’s been a ride alright.
Will be gutted if this is a failure. SOTN is one of my all time favs as well as the titles on DS. Been looking forward to this for a long time (as has everyone else I guess!)
I backed this as well having been a MASSIVE fan of the 2D Castlevania’s. Sadly they’ve gone for 2.5D look that I really don’t like, and it all just looks a bit clunky gameplay wise.
I was far more impressed with Timespinner which I also backed, which turned out to be excellent. That one went 2D (rather than 2.5D), and was all the better for it.
I’m looking forward to the finished game, since I’ve enjoyed both iterations of demo that the backers have been provided and each has been an improvement on the previous.