Update #102 - Game Mode Details, Content Cadence, and More

I'm with Snorlax on this one. The second I touched a playable version of this game, I immediately thought "Rougelike would be impossible". I was willing to keep an open mind, but I'm sad that I ended up being right.

It's been one thing after another with this game. At least unlike Mighty No. 9, you avoided the fate of being a mediocre(for the first few minutes) to an absolutely awful experience all around. The game is great. Out of the two games I backed that eventually had 505 involved, the other being Indivisible, the quality lies with this one. The irony is that this game was even more rushed than Indivisible. The other thing that Indivisible seems to be doing right is delaying the Switch version until it is absolutely ready. It would not surprise me if it had something to do with this game's Switch port being the disaster that it was.

To those of you worrying about the Classic Mode, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being something completely different. Let's face it, this Kickstarter has been off the rails from the start. The prequel 8-bit game turned into this weird, yet awesome, alternate universe game that has nothing to do with anything. Despite my issues with the story, a prequel would have been cool. I had a guy many months ago react with shock to my lack of knowledge that Inti Creates is no longer involved with the game. I didn't learn that until the betas came out and bothered to ask. It wasn't in any update that I can recall. In short, they swapped out a publisher, a partner dev, and then had to bring in another developer for the last 5 months or so. Speaking of that developer, I'm still waiting on Jake Kaufman's music. People were upset about the visuals, they spent a lot of time on those in general. There was that little issue with cancelling 3 ports. Nothing too big right....RIGHT?

I didn't find out about the cut boss until I read this thread. It made me realize that the turtle boss was the only boss from Curse of the Moon that didn't show up.(technically)
Frankly, it wasn't a very good boss in that game. I'm always up for more content, but the bosses in this game have been less than stellar. Especially some of the ones from Curse of the Moon. I still recall a boss I was excited for getting stuck in a wall. Another boss I was excited for didn't even fight back...it was a mercy killing.

I've talked a lot around it, but I never addressed the actual elephant in the room. I didn't personally back this game for it. I thought it would have been a neat bonus if it worked. This randomizer looks like a feature I would never touch. I prefer content like characters and classic mode to making my experience "wacky or random", it tends to resonate with me more. That's partially why I've never been into rougelikes in the first place. I prefer carefully constructed content by a human hand.

Less is not more, so them bringing something else in its place instead of just leaving it out will always get SOMETHING of an approval from me. Just don't cut the third character and instead give us Green Miriam and call it "maniac mode" or something. Maybe I shouldn't give them ideas....

I could not have said it better myself.

Because it got so much press hype and awesome reviews, I gave Dead Cells a try. After about 30 minutes of total game play, I completely lost interest. I can't imagine IGAvania type games working like Dead Cells. IGAvania and rougelike just don't mesh well together based on how the games are designed today. I prefer to think it can work if enough thought is put into the game design; but it's going to take some REALLY creative thinking.

Again, I bring up Chasm. They tried to bring one aspect of rougelike into IGAvania - procedurally generated levels. After playing through about half way, I had to push myself to finish the game and I never looked back. The level design sacrificed beauty and uniqueness for re-usability. As a result it just got boring. 

Hi guys. I'd like to put an highlight on co-op mode.
I and my friends we decided to buy Bloodstained only to play in co-op mode with friends in a Castlevania like game. There's no official date on its update.

For me, and for all people like me that bought for this reason, it's a bycicle without wheels.

I feel like I've been robbed. -_-

PS sorry for my english but it's not my language

Well, instead of compensation, how about just the things you think aren't coming?

This boils down to, the extra features aren't in the game yet. They haven't given up, and it isn't a matter of not having the resources, etc. The Kickstarter's money has been gone for years now, but the game has done very well. By conservative estimates, it's the biggest launch of a game Iga has ever had (Steam copies sold made it to the 500k-1m mark in a week's time, and SotN in its lifetime of sales was around 1.3m - Steam is only one of 5 platforms that Ritual is on. Sony has 400-500k by data, Switch probably close to the same, etc). The game we're talking about here isn't an unpopular, underperforming dud that everyone is mad about. Its reception, as the Steam page says, is "overwhelmingly positive". WayForward is still working with them to get these things done.

My point is, on the numbers and resources thing, the game has what it needs to keep moving, but not because of the KS' 5 million. That money was likely mostly gone before 505 even picked them up. The messy and staggered way that the game was patched and improved in 2019 slowed down its rolling out of content, but they'll be on a better schedule with all that being in parity now.

If you look at the steamdb entries for the game, you can see that the devs have been routinely updating the "OnlineChaosMode" for different difficulties and characters. I'm 90% sure that this is co-op and "vs" mode content.

At this point, I just want Zangetsu mode done properly. And scrap the paid micro-transaction shit altogether, you dropped the ball too many times. Better luck next game. I have trust in Iga has a developer but he also stumbles quite a bit when he ventures into unknown territory/different genres and it's obvious they over-promised with some features and modes.

The only thing carrying this post-release support is the fact that the game is GOOD. But several decisions from that point-on have been baffling, nonsensical, kinda greedy and sometimes just impossible. Hell, I would've bee a much happy camper about the whole thing if I didn't follow this as closely as I do.

I'd rather they start working on a different game, honestly.

I suppose I'm the odd man out who was primarily hyped for the original vanilla game and the added modes were just bonus fluff. Still, it's a shame to see so much get cut since the campaign was launched. I have a gut feeling that given how long it's taking to release Zangetsu mode, I would not be surprised in the slightest if they cut the third playable character.

It's utterly absurd how incompetent Bloodstained looks when compared to its fellow Kickstarter game Hollow Knight. The graphics, animations, worldbuilding, map design, gameplay balance, boss design, progression design... just about everything was done a thousand times better in Hollow Knight, and with nowhere near as much behind-the-scenes bullshit as Bloodstained has had.

Not to mention each port to each console plays perfectly. And the sequel is looking like it'll be just as amazing as the first.


What the hell happened Bloodstained. Why is it possible for Hollow Knight to be so beautiful, yet Bloodstained must be such a mess.




Bloodstained is lucky that I love collecting junk and leveling up stats so much....which is something Hollow Knight does not offer.

This, and the general easy to play relaxing nature of Igavanias, are sadly why I can't get into other Metroidvanias much at all. They're similar, but just don't scratch that same itch Igavanias do. Especially with the whole Soulsish trend of being focused on being challenging and/or even punishing. A lot of people love them but it's not what I go to games for, and it feels like Souls's popularity has left me starved for content.

I really don't like it one bit, that i am the one about to break it to you, but you know... It just so happened that the "Co-op" tag on the game's Steam store page, has been silently removed, sometime ago. Of course, there was no comment and complete radio silence ever since, concerning the matter. I wouldn't be surprised if co-op and multi, are the very next things to get botched and/or replaced by an inferior mode (just like loot randomizer instead of Roguelike)...

Also:

"Expect a worryingly large amount of announcements and updates, everything from updating the look of this Steam page to the game in general. It's going to be one wild ride."

I haven't seen a single word or tiny pic change on its page, for that matter. And the only "update" to this game so far, has been a NERF-PATCH!