The term "Metroidvania" was coined to describe 2D action games that emphasize gaining new skills and tools to expand your ability to explore very large, interconnected areas, often with RPG-like character development and equipment mechanics. The name comes from two game series, Metroid and Castlevania, and was born when Castlevania: Symphony of the Night combined the exploration elements of Metroid with the gothic horror elements of Castlevania, layering RPG stat growth on top of it all. It became the standard format for most Castlevania games to come after it, and is a common structure for many excellent indie games like Hollow Knight. Konami hasn't made a new Castlevania game in years (with the exception of its recently released retro collection of pre-Symphony Castlevania games), and the director of Symphony of the Night, Koji Igarashi (IGA) is long gone from the company.
While IGA has left Castlevania, Castlevania never left IGA, which is why he started his own ArtPlay studio and produced Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Bloodstained is a Metroidvania game for the PC and every major game console, and it faithfully evokes Symphony of the Night. While it's not an official Castlevania game, it combines the mechanics and aesthetics of the best Castlevanias IGA directed to become one of the purest "spiritual successors" to a beloved game series we've seen so far. We primarily played the Nintendo Switch version of the game, with some time spent with the PC version to compare performance.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was funded on Kickstarter, was developed with support from Dico, Inti Creates, Monobit, and WayForward. In the interests of full disclosure, I backed Bloodstained during its campaign. This backing does not affect my review process or influence the game's rating (and I believe the broad response to Mighty No. 9 should quell any concerns about crowdfunding enthusiasm influencing critical reception).
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Horrible Night for a Ritual
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is about Miriam, a "Shardbinder" with the ability to take the powers of demons in the form of colorful shards. A disaster involving the Shardbinders and the alchemists who created them left Miriam unconscious for 10 years. Now, a demonic castle has appeared in the middle of the countryside, seemingly summoned by the only other remaining Shardbinder, and Miriam's old friend, Gebel. Miriam must fight through the castle to stop Gebel and the demon invasion.
It's a fairly direct narrative that calls back to several of IGA's Castlevania games, including Symphony of the Night (an old ally seemingly turning evil and summoning a castle), Aria of Sorrow (the hero can directly absorb the powers of enemies), and Order of Ecclesia (a dubious organization calls a young woman to fight demons). While it doesn't offer much new narratively, and even though the twists in the story can be seen from the very beginning if you're familiar with the Castlevania series and especially Symphony of the Night, it's capably executed with a varied cast of characters and fully voiced cutscenes (Robert Belgrade, who voiced Alucard in Symphony of the Night, provides a fun little cameo).
Shards and Swords
The action is just as faithful to the Metroidvania-era Castlevania games as the story is. The game takes place on a very large 2D map, using 3D graphics for a 2.5D effect in places (like a tower with a spiraling path around it). Miriam can run and jump like any platforming hero, attacking with a variety of weapons like daggers, swords, spears, whips, shoes for kicking, and even guns.
This selection already gives you plenty of options for how you want to play the game, whether you prefer the heavy swings of greatswords, the quick kicks of shoes, or the long-range options and ammo management of guns. Miriam also gets different pieces of armor and accessories that offer various benefits, many of which change how she looks (the "cat ears" accessory, for example, literally gives Miriam cat ears).
Miriam can also use shards, powers taken from defeated enemies. She can equip one each of five different types of shards, three of which you can actively use with different buttons. Conjure shards send out fixed attacks, often directly forward, with the press of the X button. Directional shards can be aimed in various directions with the right analog stick and fired with the right trigger. Manipulative shards are triggered with the left bumper and enable certain buffs or temporary effects. All three of these shards use magic points, which Miriam recovers slowly. Passive shards provide a constant benefit, like increased strength or more gold from enemies, and Familiar shards enable helpful companions to fight alongside you, like a ghost or a flying head. Finally, Skill shards are always enabled once you collect them (they can be manually turned off), and provide new movement skills like double jumping that let you explore more of the castle.
The various weapons and shards let you play the game however you want to, based on the pace of action you're comfortable with. I used a greatsword for most of the game, supplemented with a shard that fired multiple arrows at enemies. Later, I started using a much faster sword that let me hit more often, sometimes with a shard that summoned a big spinning blade to drill into enemies.
2D Action, 3D Graphics
Visually, Bloodstained relies on 3D graphics rather than sprites. This lets the game play with interesting lighting and particle effects, but at the cost of gameplay precision and visual crispness. When you have sprites in a 2D game, you can be certain down to the pixel of where you can jump, what you can hit, and what can hit you. 3D models are more fluid, which means certain jumps can feel more awkward than they should. It doesn't really hurt the feel of the game, but sprites would probably have felt better in platforming sections. The action still largely feels varied and excellent, with tight combat controls.
Sprites can also be made to look very sharp on lower-resolution screens, which makes the Nintendo Switch version suffer. Bloodstained only renders at 720p in both handheld and docked mode, which results in muddier, far less detailed graphics than the PC version or other console versions of the game. The Switch port is also plagued with frustratingly long load times and instabilities, which the developers are currently working to fix with patches.
While the graphics could have looked better, the sound is impeccable. Michiru Yamane, the composer of Symphony of the Night (and other classics including Rocket Knight Adventures and Suikoden III), returns to work with IGA once again and creates a thoroughly Castlevania-feeling soundtrack. It's energetic and atmospheric, though like the game's visual design it embraces the Castlevania aural aesthetic far more than developing its own musical identity. Which isn't bad, since Castlevania as a series has some of the greatest soundtracks in video games.
Lengthy Quest
Fighting through the castle is challenging, especially early in the game. Miriam isn't frail, but certain enemies hit very hard and can take a lot of damage; learning their patterns is necessary to get past them. An RPG-like experience system lets Miriam level up as she kills enemies, which combined with different equipment, balances the challenge out (especially if you're willing to grind levels). By the time you get to the end of the game, Miriam feels unstoppable in all but the last areas, destroying most demons with a single hit as she races through the castle. It's an occasionally uneven difficulty curve that, like so many other parts of the game, feels very much like Symphony of the Night.
The castle and its surrounding areas are properly massive, sprawling across a map at least as large as Symphony of the Night's. There's a ship (which serves as the tutorial area), a nearby village beset by demons, cave systems, alchemy labs, and even a hidden area with 8-bit graphics reminiscent of the first Castlevania. You can run through the game in a few hours (especially if you play Speed Run mode, which removes cutscenes), but fully exploring everything and fulfilling the surviving villagers' requests in side missions can easily take 8 to 12 hours. It's a satisfying playthrough, with plenty to discover and revisit.
As a crowdfunded game, Bloodstained met every stretch goal it set. Those goals added a slew of features onto the game, but only some are currently present: Boss Rush and Speed Run modes are available, along with an extra-hard Nightmare difficulty setting. Eventually Bloodstained is planned to get local and online multiplayer with both co-op and versus modes, two additional playable characters besides Miriam, a roguelike mode that randomizes elements, and other modes to add replayability.
For Castlevania Lovers
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a fun, satisfying Metroidvania game that slavishly mimics its inspiration, and IGA takes it expertly down almost all the same paths he took Castlevania for years. This is an excellent Castlevania game in everything but name, hitting the same beats Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrow, and Order of Ecclesia did. It doesn't tread any new ground or develop its own identity like Shovel Knight, but that's fine. If you've been waiting for a new, enjoyable 2D Castlevania games that call back to before Lords of Shadow rebooted the series and Mirror of Fate completely failed to capture any of its luster, this is the game for you.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a Castlevania game in every aspect except name, and will satisfy anyone looking to revisit Symphony of the Night and other Metroidvania-era games.
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