This game would be so much better if it weren't as bland and occasionally frustrating as it was. I can tell a lot of heart was put into developing this thing but it really left a lot to be desired in just about every regard. The presentation is pretty good but it's hard to really talk about the game without pointing out how disappointing it is.
The design can be pretty dumb sometimes. There are times where the game expects the player to briefly grind/farm for a particular ability to progress (or even use a non-passive ability on the field...), and the bosses all range from braindead to having twice as much HP as they should. Money is also weirdly hard to come by, and teleport/save points are sort-of off at times. All these things add up to be annoying, really. Nothing that'll ruin a game, but enough to make it lose its luster fast.
The story is as bog-standard as bog-standard can get and the setting is even more so. The characters are legitimately hard to care about; I only gave a shit about ones like Alfred and Gebel because of them being great to play as in Curse of the Moon, not for the writing in this game. The new added characters are nothing-tier. As for other artistic sides of things, I personally didn't love the 3d graphics (though they were good for what they were) and the music was good but not great. It gave the impression of someone wanting to pass a final test by recycling the answers from their midterm while just changing a few words here and there to make them slightly worse.
Everything about the game is average to good but never breaks that ceiling. The castle layout is pretty good but far too horizontal, though I do applaud the game for at least giving the player some nonlinear options for tackling decently large sections of the castle. Unfortunately, though, while all the movement abilities acquired are unique in concept, they often feel tacked-on and are quite unwieldy. The bosses are far better than most of the ones in the metroidvania Castlevanias, yet too many of them are just 1v1s with a human. The crafting systems and quests are improvements to the shops and quests of previous Castlevania games, but once again are more or less tacked-on. The combat equipment system is similarly more robust than most Castlevania games but has way too much going on at any one time. It has the SotN problem of too many combat-related mechanics mixed with the AoS/DoS problem of too much ability bloat. Still, at the very least most of these abilities are actually functional and practical... though that's not a huge compliment.
Anyway, this game fittingly earns a score equaling what I gave Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow because of how much it tries to ape both while adding very little outside omnidirectional aiming. Neither of the games it takes after were particularly mindblowing already, which only makes its lack of improvement even more disappointing. It seemingly ignores the improvements that Portrait of Ruin/Order of Ecclesia made to Castlevania's formula. It would've been a great opportunity to take those games' flaws and truly perfect the Castlevania style of metroidvania, yet it caves into relying on popularity rather than quality. Ritual of the Night is a good starting point for a possible Bloodstained metroidvania series but not much else can be said in its favor.
The design can be pretty dumb sometimes. There are times where the game expects the player to briefly grind/farm for a particular ability to progress (or even use a non-passive ability on the field...), and the bosses all range from braindead to having twice as much HP as they should. Money is also weirdly hard to come by, and teleport/save points are sort-of off at times. All these things add up to be annoying, really. Nothing that'll ruin a game, but enough to make it lose its luster fast.
The story is as bog-standard as bog-standard can get and the setting is even more so. The characters are legitimately hard to care about; I only gave a shit about ones like Alfred and Gebel because of them being great to play as in Curse of the Moon, not for the writing in this game. The new added characters are nothing-tier. As for other artistic sides of things, I personally didn't love the 3d graphics (though they were good for what they were) and the music was good but not great. It gave the impression of someone wanting to pass a final test by recycling the answers from their midterm while just changing a few words here and there to make them slightly worse.
Everything about the game is average to good but never breaks that ceiling. The castle layout is pretty good but far too horizontal, though I do applaud the game for at least giving the player some nonlinear options for tackling decently large sections of the castle. Unfortunately, though, while all the movement abilities acquired are unique in concept, they often feel tacked-on and are quite unwieldy. The bosses are far better than most of the ones in the metroidvania Castlevanias, yet too many of them are just 1v1s with a human. The crafting systems and quests are improvements to the shops and quests of previous Castlevania games, but once again are more or less tacked-on. The combat equipment system is similarly more robust than most Castlevania games but has way too much going on at any one time. It has the SotN problem of too many combat-related mechanics mixed with the AoS/DoS problem of too much ability bloat. Still, at the very least most of these abilities are actually functional and practical... though that's not a huge compliment.
Anyway, this game fittingly earns a score equaling what I gave Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow because of how much it tries to ape both while adding very little outside omnidirectional aiming. Neither of the games it takes after were particularly mindblowing already, which only makes its lack of improvement even more disappointing. It seemingly ignores the improvements that Portrait of Ruin/Order of Ecclesia made to Castlevania's formula. It would've been a great opportunity to take those games' flaws and truly perfect the Castlevania style of metroidvania, yet it caves into relying on popularity rather than quality. Ritual of the Night is a good starting point for a possible Bloodstained metroidvania series but not much else can be said in its favor.