Thoughts on Bloodstained Boss Designs This is one area that disappointed me. For a series of games that attracts mainly an adult audience why do the bosses in a *demon* focused game feel so tame design wise? A lot of them just felt odd. Where's the grotesque designs like Legion or like Beezlebub? Or just monstrosities in general? in the future it'd be nice to see more designs that really brought on more of the darker creepier elements that made some of his earlier Vania titles memorable. The game didn't feel dark enough in that regard and I loved all the light-hearted moments but a better mix would have been great.
Huh, now that you mention it, we didn't get a single creepy dark enemy, did we? I wonder if that was a design choice from IGA or something else, he hasn't made any comment on it I think. That's a subject we should probably look more closely.
I'm so torn on this OST. I feel like a lot of the tracks we heard from the beta turned out to be the better music, so it was a bit disappointing to play the game and the remaining tracks didn't do much for me. I felt like it lead me to be disappointed. I'm also not sure if the Orchestra direction paid off like I hoped it would. There's something thin about some of the tracks that you never got when Michiru Yamane did the old games.....listen to *Garden Forgotten by Time* for example and compare it to one of the new tracks. One feels full and has loads of energy and a lot of these feel kinda empty.
On top of that the OST lacks major variety compared to SOTN's ost. Maybe I shouldn't compare to that OST but I thought with the amount of time this game was worked on there'd be far more to bite into. Where's piano centered tracks? Where's guitar lead centered tracks? Where's completely bizzare arrangements ....ala wandering ghosts.... I feel like in the process of using an orchestra the game pigeon holed itself into mainly using strings for everything instead of doing all sorts of sounds. My favorite tracks at the end of the day were the character themes.....especially Gebel's which features gorgeous piano, i only wished the game would have done more like that itself.
Certainly a budget decision, I even recall Michiru Yamane talking about how young the staff was, in that behind the scenes with the music team video. It seems that orchestrated tracks are expensive, and Michiru Yamane even more expensive, so that's probably what happened.
I'm honestly surprised by how everyone is now hating on Dominique from what she has done. I still think she's cool as hell and here I am hoping she's going to be the 3rd playable character. Even as a christian I'm not that bothered of what she did, at this point I'm used to the trope of "the Church were the bad guys all along!" that is frequently used on JRPGs.
It's probably mostly just me rather than "now". I was deeply invested in that character. The trope is extremely common these days, yes, and that's my problem - Castlevania classically has been one of my few escapes from it. It's what drew me more into liking it over other things. Now, even CV itself and Bloodstained are doing it. RIP.
Have to wait for a new exorcist or something, I guess. Like I said, at least she's just one bad apple - hopefully.
I see where you're coming from, seeing your preffered character reduced to a simple trope that you even don't like. It's a shame indeed, and I can somewhat relate with what you're feeling. Maybe not in this case because I probably have a thing for girls in unrealistic nun outfits doing cool things and being cool. I guess it's a Chrno Crusade and Trails in the Sky influence lol.
Their budget might have been amazing for a kickstarter, but barely enough to make the game, to be honest.
First, once Kickstarter's take and the rewards are factored in, they are left with something like half of the funds for the game's budget.
Then, the game gets delayed for two years. The funds obviously ran out, so 505 had to help out.
Remember, everything had to be created from scratch, and a ton of extra modes had to be implemented.
The funds might seem stratospheric to us, but building a high-def 3D game of that size doesn't come cheap (and btw, making it high-def 2D would have likely made it even more expensive to make and also more difficult to port).
In that regard does anyone know the budget of SotN? I say that because I compare them pretty closely.
I don't think it's fair to compare this game with SotN. Not only because of what dareka said, but SotN also reused a lot, and I mean A LOT, of assets from Rondo of Blood. Almost every enemy of that game makes an appearance on SotN, if not all of them.
That said, I do agree with some of your points, especially regarding Den of Behemoth. My theory is that area was a necessary filler to complete the stretch goal of "IGA biggest castle". By then they have probably ran out of ideas so they decided to blatantly reuse assets to keep their promise. Having completed the game, I now think that stretch goal was probably a burden on IGA during the development. That's probably the reason behind the lacking of enemy variety: they had to spend too much time making backgrounds, drawing map sketches and figuring out enemy placement. I mean, think about it, why is
Valefar, a gambler, doing at an oversized garden? It doesn't make any sense at all, seems like they made the boss fight early in development without deciding where to put him, and in the end they tossed him wherever had a free boss spot.
Overall though, I'm very satisfied with the game and how everything turned out. Lacking of enemy variety, blatant filler at the end and some graphical nitpicks (excess of asset copy & paste in the background, overly shiny environments, character and enemy models with extreme aliasing and clipping literally everywhere, scarfes and hair being the most obvious) are the only complaints I have, which at the end it wasn't enough to hurt my experience. Story wasn't that good sure, some points are still bugging me but honestly, I don't care that much because I wasn't expecting something amazing considering Castlevania wasn't known for its plot. The game is incredible, the Kickstarter was done almost flawlessly, and this is the best gaming community I've seen in my life. It's hard to focus on the bad side of things when the whole package is anything but bad.
I'm honestly surprised by how everyone is now hating on Dominique from what she has done. I still think she's cool as hell and here I am hoping she's going to be the 3rd playable character. Even as a christian I'm not that bothered of what she did, at this point I'm used to the trope of "the Church were the bad guys all along!" that is frequently used on JRPGs.
I noticed they are only showing 2 clans: the one you chose and one more. I think the other clan is tied to the difficulty you just finished. Don't quote me on this though, I haven't confirmed yet.
I'm missing two head Head Armors: - The one between Bunny Ears and Maid's Hairband - The very last one, after Pleiades I have no idea where to find them, and apparently they aren't craftable so I'm at a loss here.
Edit: I got it! If anyone is having trouble with these: First one is at Livre Ex Machina, on a hidden room at the right side of a save point. It's above a room full of spikes a the bottom, you have to break the roof to get access to it. I don't know how I missed, the game even puts a platform to be accessible. The last is behind a pillar of poker chips in the Den of Behemoths, there's a hidden chest there.
I noticed that in the game that the portraits have been rearranged. I kinda wish they were randomized a little. That being said, my portrait which was at the entrance in the demo, I now have no idea where it is in the full release of the game so far.
I saw yours a few times at the Cathedral, I noticed that the portraits there changes randomly everytime you leave the area.
I found Jinrai (Katana) to be extremely useful for almost everything, it helped a lot on some bosses even. Its input is easy enough for reliably usage and the damage is insane, so I've been using it a lot.
Exactly! It was even a major feedback point last year (see here) so it left me wondering why it was untouched in the final version, and the only conclusion I can think of is DICO's incompetence in using some of Unreal Engine features.
Something is really wrong here. I clicked your link, but every time I go there, the site acts as if I am logged out, and will not let me log back in so I can comment.
That's because there are two host names for this forum: bloodstained.forums.netANDbloodstainedfanforums.com, the latter being the older as this forum first started as an unnoficial community. I still use the old link mostly because that's just how I bookmarked this site 4 years ago and I was too lazy to log in again in the new host.
Also, Ciel, did you mean how some of those areas seem.....full of static or too much shine? Some parts do appear a bit too shiny or plastic, especially wall breaks.
Exactly! It was even a major feedback point last year (see here) so it left me wondering why it was untouched in the final version, and the only conclusion I can think of is DICO's incompetence in using some of Unreal Engine features.
This review is the prime example of why I should probably leave this community for good and let everyone being happy because they don't seem to see any of the faults the game has.
I know where you're coming from but I somewhat disagree. All major complaints I have with Bloodstained are more about some specific points of the campaign (mainly how the Linux/Mac situation was handled) than the game itself. From what I have seen so far, here are my nitpicks about the game:
1. The graphics are still pretty rough. They improved A LOT from that Beta Demo last year and is now visually acceptable at least, but the assets are still low quality and sometimes the game appears to be way too "noisy" (I don't know how to call this effect, I'm talking about that rain at the Galleon and the lightning effects on the underground caves). The textures of a lot of characters and enemies are most of the time low quality as well. Also, the frequent copy & paste of assets in the background annoys me everytime I take notice of it.
2. Quests are boring and way too repetitive, why did they even bother I wonder. It seems they put them only to jab at Konami with all those Castlevania references in the name of those villagers.
3. Launch bugs that are going to be solved (I hope so).
Honestly I blame DICO for all these issues, they sure proved to be incompetent and most likely they had no idea how to translate the artstyle into 3D graphics. It seems like they developed the whole game only using Unreal Engine Blueprints, because a lot of the effects and texture options seems to be templates that comes bundled with the engine. I think it's funny how the graphics only started to really improve when IGA brought WayForward. And that bring us to one of my major complaints about the project: DICO was a bad choice of a developer. I have no idea of what the hell was IGA thinking when he decided that a no-name mobile developer with almost no experience whatsoever was a good choice to develop his game. I would love to know the reasonings behind that choice, it sure would be interesting.
That said, the fact that the game turned out to be amazing is a miracle by itself. IGA proved himself with this project, as an amazing producer and game director. He managed to deliver an awesome game with lots of features, almost perfect gameplay and good soundtrack within a reasonable time frame, tight budget (given the scope of the project) and a terrible developer. The end result, at least in my opinion, is a very positive one and I'm thrilled that the Castlevania legacy is going to live on.
I'm not tech savy, why can't the Switch version hit 1080p docked?
Unreal Engine 4 is bloated and was not made with a somewhat weak platform in mind. To my knowledge there is no UE4 game running on 1080p 60 FPS on Switch, not even first party titles like that new Yoshi game, which runs at 720p 60 FPS docked. If DICO was a better developer they probably could manage to get the same result with Bloodstained, but as you can see with all these bugs and even framerate drops on a much powerful console (PS4 Pro), they aren't exactly competent.
OMG Miriam mimicking Zangetsu's voice in the Japanese dub is absolutely hilarious!
Yeah I'm surprised by how playful JP Miriam is, given that her english voice was giving a more serious vibe. I'm really glad they decided to go with dual-audio for the release version, missing this would be a shame.
Okay, a couple of questions on uses for found items:
Johannes says that you need recipe books to unlock new alchemy and cooking recipes, but how do you actually use them once you have them? There doesn't seem to any way to actually give them to him, and you can't use them yourself.
You can buy rice and potato seeds from Dominique that say you can grow rice from them, but there's no indication of where or how that is done. Anyone figure that out yet?
1. I was confused as well, but it works "automatically". The new items will be there at the same time you pick up a new recipe and you don't really need to do anything. It's not very intuitive, but that's how it works.
Have you tried tuning down some of the options in the Graphics section of the configuration menu (like antialiasing/post-processing/texture/shadow quality etc)?
Well it has a dedicated graphics card at least. My theory is that the game isn't using said graphics card, so all workload is being made by your Intel onboard. Try to set "High Performance profile" on the energy options and see if it helps.
I mean, that sucks, but if that is what your wages are, and that is how expensive things are, it seems you have more to be worrying about instead of playing video games.
It's moot, though. Nothing anyone here at this forum can do about such a situation, as bad as it is.
Regional pricing exists for that reason, that's why the converted prices for Bloodstained are all over place, with a range from 9.41 USD to 53.65 USD. In the case of Brazil, Steam prices are generally good, with only a couple of publishers screwing us for no reason at all (I'm looking at you, Bethesda). However, console games over here historically have a higher pricetag than the PC counterparts, and that's why even digital games for consoles are most of the time more expensive than Steam. There are some cases of price parity, but it's the exception and not the rule.
Redogan: Some people are gonna get to eat a meal and play some games with IGA! Awesome!
Mar 23, 2023 11:27:24 GMT -6
LeoLeWolferoux: Sooo... I guess some dude on Twitter stumbled across a financial document from 505 games indicating that a '2nd version' of Bloodstained was in the works??? back sometime in like 2021???
Apr 15, 2023 21:00:49 GMT -6
LeoLeWolferoux: How am I just now finding out about this/ C'mon, IGN. Get it together.
Apr 15, 2023 21:01:12 GMT -6
LeoLeWolferoux: Dunno how this Twitter user came across these documents, tho, assuming since they don't know any further details, it wasn't someone *from* 505 Games. I certainly hope it was obtained via legal means...
Apr 15, 2023 21:02:13 GMT -6
XombieMike: Shortly after 505 let that document go public the official Bloodstained twitter confirmed there will be a second game. ArtPlay is finishing Bloodstained DLC and then we will learn more about the next game.
Apr 17, 2023 5:50:56 GMT -6
Motoko: I have returned
Aug 15, 2023 23:15:43 GMT -6
Redogan: Any ideas on when we get the rest of the updates? I'm still waiting on my physical copy with everything on it for my CV collection.
Aug 23, 2023 12:48:28 GMT -6
Redogan: Nice to see a project update! I like the new Classic 2.0 mode with Dominique. Looks like it plays like a traditional CV game--which is a good thing. Glad to see some gameplay video of Chaos and VS modes, too!
Sept 6, 2023 18:16:32 GMT -6
ShroudedTraveler: Did they say when they were releasing the update with Dominique? I don't recall seeing anything in the video, so I'm assuming not
Sept 7, 2023 16:40:01 GMT -6
Redogan: I didn't see anything about the release date. I just know that it is paid DLC. (So, us backers don't get it for free. Which is fine.)
Sept 8, 2023 16:54:52 GMT -6
ShroudedTraveler: Yeah. At this point, with the game being as old as it is, I'd be fine paying for the content.
Sept 12, 2023 19:00:02 GMT -6
XombieMike: Classic mode 2 will be canon!
Sept 15, 2023 19:55:00 GMT -6
Ciel: Been a long time since I last logged here, but it seems that until we get any news of a sequel, there won't be much to discuss. Oh well!
Sept 25, 2023 14:32:30 GMT -6
purifyweirdshard: The discord is certainly where the activity is, but we'll keep this forum up and running as long as we can. Bloodstained's subreddit also still moves along pretty well
Oct 3, 2023 15:31:05 GMT -6