10/21 – Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Hello and welcome! My name is Katosepe and I’ll be your host for today’s Video Game of the Day.
Kickstarter has helped bring several games into existence that may never have been without the crowdsourcing platform. Some of these games have been trash but many have been amazing, with some even becoming some of the top games of the year. Today’s game by Koji Igarashi has been widely regarded as the later. Today’s game is Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night takes place in the 18th century during the English Industrial Revolution. A guild of alchemists, feeling the secular shift away from the arcane, has decided they need to do something drastic to bring back their believers. They opted to research Shardbinders, humans bound to demonic powers, and then sacrifice them to unleash a demon horde upon the world which they would then fight back with their arcane might. This plan failed and the demons nearly overran England.
The story takes place 10 years after this event when one of the only two surviving Shardbinders, Miriam, awakens from a coma just in time to learn that the other survivor, Gebel, is trying to summon a second horde to finish the eradication of humanity. Miriam sets out to find out why her friend, Gebel has turned and stop his plan.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a quintessential metroidvania, taking many lessons from the genre’s many hits. The game contains a large castle to explore and while it is 2D, the graphics use many 3D effects to create unique areas. Miriam can level up by defeating enemies but has a number of other methods for increasing her abilities. As a Shardbinder, she can absorb demon energy and almost every one of the demons throughout the game has a chance to give Miriam additional abilities. Gaining duplicate shards makes the ability stronger so there’s always a strong incentive to kill every demon in a room each time.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night also contains a large crafting system. Miriam can craft new weapons and armor which can be equipped to increase various stats but she can also craft consumable items and food items. Food can heal but also provides a permanent stat boost the first time a new food is eaten, giving a good reason to try and craft every food item. Several NPCs will also give Miriam quests which typically are standard fetch quests but it still gives yet another goal for Miriam in a game already jam packed with mechanics.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a Metroidvania through and through and while veterans of the genre aren’t likely to find much new in Bloodstained, it also represents one of the best entries in the genre to date. Highly polished mechanics, beautiful graphics, many quality of life improvements, and an interesting castle to explore makes Bloodstained a game that fans should not miss.
Thank you so much for listening. Quick announcement, I will be out of town starting this Wednesday, October 23rd and won’t be back until the next Wednesday, October 30th. I’m still figuring out plans for what you’ll be hearing on this show. I’m going to try and have something up for you, don’t worry. Don’t forget to check back here tomorrow for another Video Game of the Day.
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