Update #48: The Village By The Castle

*Insert sloppy presentation complaints from Discord*

Everyone's talking about blending but on other forums there's a lot of people saybig the game looks straight up ugly. Idk where these same people have been this whole time but it seemed people generally thought the look of the game was quite good. The sudden reversal leaves me scratching my head.

Some are straight up uninformed like thinking the game was gonna look like the concept art from the beginning, others are straight up wrong saying it looks equal to mighty no 9 and DXC, and others just seem to be spewing hyperbole. It's an indie Kickstarter game....how good did they expect this to look? If all the money was focused on visuals instead of extra modes than maybe it could look to their expectations but some people have some out their expectations..

Like expecting vanillawear quality. Their games are literally straight repetitive lines, it's just not feasible for an igavania.

Le sigh

A) Are the same people saying the game is ugly now the same people who were saying it was beautiful earlier? I think that's always something to keep in mind when a narrative change abruptly over time - the internet is a big place so even in the same areas you are going to get a diversity of opinions. Those speaking up now may not be the same people that spoke up earlier.

B) Not everybody has been closely following this game. This footage may have been the first footage they've ever seen of the game running. Some people weren't even aware of the E3 demo. That is obviously going to color their perspective.

C) People have a habit of only tangentially reading up on a game or its campaign. A picture is a powerful thing - even if you scream in thousands of words that "X is only concept art", people will just see that image and take it to their graves. It's one of the drawbacks to not having real gameplay footage or a prototype to launch with your campaign. First impressions, even erroneous ones, can be hard to fix. Same thing happened to MN9 and will likely happen to every crowdfunding campaign that only launches with art and no demo or prototype.

D) I would argue, and I think even the least critical of people feel this way, that this area feels less complete than others shown so far. It makes sense it would look worse to those less invested or less forgiving of the project?

E) People, especially fans of this genre, have strong preferences for 2D art. Some are never going to "get over" that this game is in 2.5D or simply would always rather prefer it was in 2D (using sprites or whatever). That will always influence their opinions (and I don't think that's unfair as long as they aren't jerks about it).

F) "It's an indie game still in development" is a fair point but its still not a shield vs. criticism (just that people should avoid hyperbole). I don't think people who said they preferred the look and animations of Shovel Knight while it was still in development would be wrong. For what its is trying to do, Shovel Knight looks amazing. Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero is a visually striking game and was always one throughout its development and eventual release. Critically acclaimed games like Ori and the Blind Forest or Gucameele are known and lauded for their visuals. Indivisible is an indie game also still in development and I would argue it looks better than Bloodstained. There is no doubt in my mind that this game will improve visually over time but I don't think its unfair if some people think it loses out in comparison to other games (released or still in development) visually (putting aside aesthetic preferences like how someone feels about gothic horror).

As an aside, I think some people might be on edge because a common rebuttal when someone criticized how Mighty No 9 looked was for others to say "just wait it's still in development". However that game never ended up looking  much better. Obviously this is not MN9 but I still think people remember how that game never improved and are worried, justified or not, about the same here.

I get that people say it's still in development and that's not a great thing to say considering people still thought Mighty No 9 looked bad on release but I'm talking about people comparing the two visually.


So let's compare -




VS




It's not even in the same league. A lot of the same people were clearly following the game, posting in threads about the other videos... What's changed since? They show an OBVIOUSLY unfinished area as it has no enemies, and no candles in sight and what...all of sudden now the game looks bad?


As far as Vanillaware to the above poster -

I'm not saying they aren't talented, i'm saying that visual style wouldn't work for a game of this magnitude. A fully explorable Castle with intricate level design, over 100 enemies, tons of weapons, tons of spells. It just wouldn't pan out. Vanillaware's games are typically very linear which bodes well for their the visual style.

Burning and glowing parts.. Fire. Sparks. Torches. Lamp-posts.

Keep the flame going! Lavaaa...

Also liked your thoughs on having cracks to appear when you land on platforms that might be weak. I like that idea a lot!

I get it, yeah, that amount of work is simply infeasible in regards to time and money being spent. Especially for an indie game like Bloodstained.

I'm so happy there will be a village. I sure hope we get lots of villager quests like in OoE. Maybe we will have to rescue the villagers from within the castle.

I think CotM looks better than Harmony of Dissonance. HoD has way too bright colors to the point that its rather jarring to look at. And I know because I just finish replaying both games.

Overall, I think this lightning issue isn't a big deal to me. I hardly notice such small details unless it impacts gameplay. I'll have to leave the discussion over lightning to everyone else since I didn't notice any problem when watching the video. But then, I usually don't notice things like this anyway.

Am actually pretty happy that there’s a village and that there’s a stage on the boat to get there. It gives me a good Lament of Innocence vibe and of course Order of Ecclesia vibe since the village will kind of be your base of operation, there will be the store really like LoI and Dawn of Sorrow too you’ll be coming out of the castle and going back then to do stuff. It was a real shame when you see all those animations in SOTN when Alucard goes to the castle but you can’t do much outside. As for Miriam in the vid, I have to say I didn’t vote for her current shader but I accepted the result since, well, democracy. But I do wonder what the team was going to decide and IGA would pick if we didn’t have any influence. I mean to me it just looks like what we asked for so I don’t know why people think it’s different from before.

I think Mana had in mind that they would show something around it pretty soon and since she didn't say much else that just "a village", this is exactly what they showed us.

Regardless, Mana did an excellent job in her interview. Being honest, just like the rest of the development updates and forum posts as far as I can see, read and get the feel for.

I am pretty sure the pressure is super high over at the office, and I would vote on any stuff they throw out at us, if they need the help, we shall aid them in future updates.