RPG Elements in Bloodstained?

Yes, I'd be all for that.

Wow..... so did I like kill the thread or what???

I don't see how programming that would be very hard at all. I find all too often people find that theoretical or conditional concepts would be hard to program when they are actually amongst the easiest IMO. For example, it would be significantly more difficult to make harder difficulties harder by making the enemies smarter. You'd have to reprogram new AI code for each enemy type. But nobody would say such a thing with THAT kind of difficulty modifier.

That being said I've always had my own views on how game devs should handle difficulty, but I never would expect anyone to ever impliment it because...well, I dunno. People often just stick with what works.

But as I said before, giving the player options is kind of my personal general view on how games should be designed, so I've always thought difficulty settings should be modular, with an overall % 'score' afterwards... for example, just take your typical console rpg... Most don't even have difficult settings, but lets say I made one, instead of just having easy/medium/hard.. I'd make it so when you start a new game, you COULD select easy/medium/hard pre-sets if you were lazy or uninterested. but if you cared enough, you could goto advanced options and you'd see something like:
Enemy attack power 20%|-----100%-----|300%, and you could use the slider bar or whatever to manually set it. and you'd have similar sliders (or input, whatever) for
Enemy hp count
enemy spawn count
gold drop rate
shop prices
item drop rate
experience generation rate
experience normalization (so that you can't get full experience killing level 1 rats when you're level 50 for example)
enemy evasion/hit

You get the idea...
Then afterwards, you'd get an overall % that represents how hard or easy the game is for you. so if everything was at 100% (normal), it woudl be 100%. but if enemy hp was at 200% and everything else was at 100%, then it'd probably be like 110% or whatever. The math of course would require tweaking, playtesting, etc but you get the point (enemy damage would obviously be a more significant variable than their hp)..

Then of course you'd actually get a score at the end of the game (For an RPG, I'd make it so you get higher scores by defeating bosses and clearing dungeons at lower levels), modified by your difficulty %, which would be use to purchase perks or bonuses.... or maybe not, maybe just have everything availalbe right from the getgo, and simply have the score there for bragging rights (most people I know don't pay attention to score in games, but I've never met one who was like "OMG STUPID SCORE, it RUINED the game! If that score wasn't there! This game would be so much better!" so why not =P. It'd just be fun to personally challenge yourself if you really liked the game.

off topic from the difficulty thing. One 'rpg' element that many games with rpg elements do really poorly IMO is currency. Far too often they make it so in-game currency is practically meaningless after the first 10% of the game or so, and shops rarely sell anything of value other than the newbie tier starting equipment. Dungeons frequently offer better stuff than shops do from treasures, boss drops, etc, and money ends up being some number you never have to worry about.

I like etrian odyssey, and it ALMOST gets currency done right. For the first stratum or two in etrian odyssey, money is TIGHT, and that isn't just fun from a difficulty perspective, it's fun from a SHOPPING perspective! Shopping is LOADS more fun when you really have to pick and choose what to buy, when even a rest at the Inn is something you agonize over if you should do or not because if you don't you might be able to buy some not-even-major gear upgrade that will actually be major in practice on your next trip.

Unfortunately even Etrian odyssey makes money a meaningless commodity after the first two stratums or such, and the only thing that you ever have to consider the cost of are items crafted by boss drops, which are end-game gear so duh(even from the very first boss). Every other RPG is even worse, where as soon as you run into a new town you can immediately buy every possible gear upgrade for your entire party.. boring.

The leveling, weapon and item collection are all elements borrowed from more traditional RPGs. If it is true to the Igavania style there will probably be at least one shopkeeper and a solid narrative as well.

Same.  The forging system in those games wasn't bad, either, though one with lots of materials like Bloodstained is supposed to have would be a step up.

Ah, shoot.  

Souls as forging materials? Sounds like Dark Souls. =P

I think Johannes will do most of the crafting for you while playing as Miriam.

Or Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, which came out in 2005, a wee bit earlier than Dark Souls