First Impressions: Bloodstained – Ritual Of The Night (Switch) ~ Middle Ages Magic.

Official website – Nintendo Microsite

So, a new Metroidvania game has been released. The Metroidvania genre is one of my favorite style of games. When I heard that Koji Igarashi of Castlevania fame was the director of this game, I was beyond hyped. I even mentioned this game in my top 10 games I wanted to play in 2019. And, yes, the game was even twice on that sort of list. Anyways, this game was a Kickstarter game were major flops like Mighty Number 9 and major hits like A Hat In Time. Where does this game fall? On the major flops or on the amazing titles part of the spectrum? Let’s find out in this first impressions article. Also, feel free to give your opinion on the content of this article and/or the game in the comment section down below. A small editor note I have to make is that I have played this game before and after the visual improvement patches applied, and I will keep this in mind for this review.

Middle Ages Magic

During the Industrial Revolution, the Alchemy Guild got scared of losing their followers and patrons. So, they decided to create Shardbinders. These are humans who are forcibly fused with demonically charged crystals. Thanks to these crystals, the Shardbinders obtained magical powers. Everything was peaceful until the Fire Nation attacked, well sorta. Kinda. The Shardbinders were sacrificed and abused to summon demons from Hell (let’s be honest, this is a sort of Fire Nation. 😉 ). Now, this whole plan backfired and brought mass destruction over the whole of England. Thankfully, the Church was able to intervene and save some areas of destruction.

Two shardbinders survived the whole massacre, Gebel and Miriam. Ten years after the incidents, Miriam wakes up from her unnatural slumber and finds out that Gebel has summoned another demon to continue the revenge of the Shardbinders on what the alchemists did to him. Miriam starts her journey accompanied by Johannes, who is a former member of the Alchemy Guild. Miriam wants to stop Gebel before the whole world is destroyed.

The story itself is nothing that special. To be quite frank, the story didn’t really grab my attention. Now, I have reviewed two Castlevania games in the past: Castlevania – Portrait of Ruin and Castlevania – Lords Of Shadow – Mirror Of Shadow and of both these games, I don’t remember a lot about the story. It’s a shame since the story has quite a lot of potential to go quite in-depth and in different directions. The story takes a backseat in this game, to a point that sometimes the story is used as a sort of in-game guide. Like, when you have defeated a boss and you talk to one of the members of the Church, she straight up tells you (this isn’t an exact quote but it’s quite similar): “I have heard rumors that one of the high ranking officers can jump again in the air. (…) You need to look for a tower where…”

Now, the cast of the voice actors of this game is just mindblowing. Miriam is voiced by Erica Lindbeck who voiced Barbie herself in a few movies and also voiced one of the leading characters in Fire Emblem Echoes. Gebel is voiced by Ray Chase who’s a voice you can also hear in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as Roy and in Final Fantasy 15 as Noctis. Zangetsu is voiced by a voice acting legend by the name of David Hayter who is famous for his voice work on Solid Snake. You can dig deeper into the voice cast using this page from Behind the Voice Actors. With so much talent on board and pretty good direction, you can be sure that the dub of this game is pretty well done.

Now, what could have improved the story? Well, first of all, a bit more character development. Some characters are quite two dimensional. I barely notice any progress in these characters. Secondly, I feel that too many stereotypical characters were used. A more diverse cast of characters or characters that broke their stereotype would be a great twist in the story. And finally, be a bit less hand-holding. If you want to guide the players to a certain location to gain a new power-up, you can do that by other means. I loved the system the developers used in Monster Tale on the DS. In that game, you also have a guide to where you need to go, but it’s up to you to fight through the enemies and find your way there.

Metroidvania at its finest

In the previous section, I have already mentioned three games I have reviewed that were in the same style as this game. The two Castlevania games and Monster Tale.

If you have played games like Castlevania, Metroid, Monster Tale or Axiom Verge then you’ll know what to expect in this game. In this game, you explore a huge map, defeat different bosses, learn new techniques to make exploring easier and access unknown areas. Meanwhile, you have to fight through a lot of enemies and try to balance your items right in order for you to stay alive.

Most Metroidvania’s are anything but easy. This game is no exception. This game can be quite difficult. But, the difficulty is fun difficulty. Sometimes you aren’t strong enough or don’t have the right gear to survive the encounters. Now, some people would enjoy the challenge of this game and try to defeat this game with the weakest gear possible. Now, this means that this game has some minor forms of grinding to improve your stats and defeat some bosses easier.

Now, the map of this game is quite huge. Thankfully, there are several warp points that allow you to fast travel to other areas in the castle. These warp points are in special rooms marked in green on your map. A minor nitpick I have is that the warp point to the central base of the game is outside right after some enemy encounters. I think that it would be better inside so I can go with full health to the boss. Yeah, I’m that kind of a player. So, that’s why I mentioned it as a nitpick.

Anyways, the warp rooms aren’t the only special things on your journey. You also have to save rooms. This game doesn’t have an autosave feature, but you can save (and heal your HP/MP) at the various save rooms that are shattered around the castle.

I really love the freedom of exploration in this game. While the story is a minor disappointment to me, the gameplay more than makes up for it. Exploring the castle and the areas around it is a ton of fun. Trying out the different mechanics and abilities of Miriam is just a great experience to have.

Together with the decent controls, this game is a blast to play. Now, I have read in different reviews that the controls of this game have a bit of input lag or are a bit floaty. Thankfully, I find that they improved them a lot in the patches that the game received and I think that the future patches in November 2019 will improve the game even more.

Visually underpowered

Allow me to address the elephant in the room. Look, there it is. His name is Dumbo and he has a movie made about him. Now, let’s be a bit more serious. Visually, this game doesn’t look that great when you compare it to the other versions on PlayStation or PC. The publishers even posted a statement on the rather spotty technical performance. Now, I think that’s a great move to improve technical performance through patches. On the other hand, delaying the Switch port to work on the technical performance would have been an even better move in the first place.

While the Switch is quite powerful, compared to the other consoles on the market today… Well, it’s underpowered. So, I can understand that the Switch version has some fewer animations or visual effects. Something I think that I don’t understand is the inconsistent performance of the game and the input lag in certain areas. Now, these things will be addressed in the patched that is scheduled for November. This is a shame since this game would be an amazing title to play on Halloween night, but they will miss the mark on that completely.

With all that talk about the Switch version having a spotty performance, I do have to say… I don’t find it that bad. The issues are the worst when you play the game in undocked mode. When you play this game in docked mode, this game plays just … decent. In very rare spots, the game has a bit of frame or input lag but nothing game-breaking.

In its current state, the game still looks quite good. I think the visual presentation is great and the animations are quite good as well. Together with the amazing music and enjoyable sound effects, the audiovisual presentation still gets a pass from me. So, I’m a bit mixed on this whole thing.

The game is a blast to play and has some extremely helpful features like the ability to leave markers on your map so you can remind yourself to visit these areas later. The game even has a lot of depth with its own crafting system, various shops, various unlockable skills and builds you can make… Even when you change your outfit in the menu’s, Miriam wears the armor and outfits in the game, during gameplay, and during cutscenes.

But, the whole game is held back by the lack of polish that is now coming in the form of patches. It gives the game a wrong first impression to a lot of players. Not everybody knows that this game’s performance and visuals are going to improve. Also, I have stopped playing this game because I want to replay this game when all the patches have been released so I can experience this game in it’s the best form. And that’s what’s so disappointing to me. I’m already halfway the game and now I have to restart the whole game. Well, then again, it’s my own choice…

So yeah, this article is going to be continued. I think it would be a bit unfair to fully judge the game right now when I know that there are patches to improve the visuals, the controls and the gameplay in the near future. But, I still wanted to talk about this game so here we are. So, for a full review, you will have to come back a few weeks after the patches have been released. If I don’t forget, I’ll also link the updated article here: [TO BE ANNOUNCED.] And maybe I should go more in-depth about the gameplay in that updated article as well.

And that’s everything I currently wanted to say about this game. I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

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Personal: My pet cat Sparta, my twinkling star

Sparta

° 24/04/2008 –  † 13/07/2018

For those who don’t follow me on social media, I have to bring sad news today. My pet cat died due to the consequences of kidney cancer on 13th July 2018. I have to thank everybody who sends me supportive messages over Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, mail, Discord…

Sparta’s death affects me a lot. So, that’s why I decided that I wanted to write this article for her. I want to honor and thank her for everything she had done for me. Also, for everything she has done for my blog too. So, I’m going to talk a bit about her. I’m sorry if the article is a bit all over the place… Anyways, let’s not get distracted.

In my opinion, she was the mascot for my blog. She served as an inspiration to my nickname. In the past, I had only “Jonez” as a nickname. But, I quickly found that was a commonly used name. As a kid, I had the bright idea to make it “Jonez001”, which was a YouTube username suggestion spit out by the registration form.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Japanese culture. So, I decided to work that into my nickname as well. At that moment, Sparta was enjoying a nap on my lap and that’s when I decided to rebrand myself to NekoJonez. Neko is the Japanese word for cat.

Sparta also served as inspiration for my blog icon. As you can see, it’s a Gameboy cartridge with my nickname on and with a cat paw print. When ZoeF and I were in a call deciding how it should look, I remember me saying that I really wanted a cat paw print on it.

Besides being an inspiration and mascot for my blog, she was an amazing family cat. She was one of the most affectionate cats that I have ever met. She was also a great companion. She jumped on the sofa closest to me while I was gaming and first watched the TV when I was playing before falling asleep. Sometimes she jumped on my lap, and I remember a few times she actually started purring when I finally had beaten a level or a boss. To be honest, the fact that I started to pet her might have something to do with it.

If the weather was clear, she spent most of her days in our garden. Watching that no other cats or animals entered the garden. She was a small cat, some people even though she was still a kitten. But, that didn’t stop her. She attacked or scared the other cats away if they dared to enter her domain. The fact that she does this surprises me since when she was one year old, we got another kitten. And those two became best friends. Sadly enough, that other kitten didn’t come home after a few months.

If the weather wasn’t clear and especially during the winter, she wanted to stay inside. She didn’t like going outside, besides when she had to do her “little room visit”. Something she will be remembered for is when you were sitting on our sofa underneath a blanket, she would jump on the sofa and then go on your legs and fall asleep there. She did that with my mom, my godchild, my sister and myself. And if she didn’t do that, she jumped on the nearest sofa were nobody was sitting and started to sleep there.

During her life, we had to move houses twice. And every time she moved with us. She adjusted pretty quickly after the move as well. It almost felt that she didn’t care where she was. The thing that mattered to her was that she was close to us.

Not long after Sparta was born, she became a stray. Her mother left her behind on the playground of the school where my father teaches. My dad brought her home and placed her into the garage. Not too long before her arrival, I was listing to the Mean Kitty Song by Mr. Safety on repeat on YouTube. That song actually gave Sparta her name. The song is about a very playful kitty that shows a lot of affection. The kitty bites a lot, but in a playful manner. And that’s how Sparta and I met. She actually bit me playfully and then started to play with the ropes on my sweater.

I can sit here and write a whole novel with stories about Sparta. How we found her once sleeping in a watering-can and how I helped her defending herself when she was young. Yeah, Sparta ate her food outside and she was too afraid from other cats to defend herself when they came and stole her food. That’s why I often sat down next to her while she was eating and scared all the other cats away. At night, I used a very strong flashlight my dad has to repair the underside of cars.

Also, for some stories, you had to be there. For example, in my garden, we have a wall covered with ivy. During the summer, the birds love making their nests in it. Sparta knew this and climbing in the ivy to get the nests out of the ivy. And yes, she even caught some birds. It was a funny sight, seeing Sparta disappear into the ivy and then suddenly appearing on top of it.

Something I will never forget about her is that she knew our routines. On 99 out of 100 times, she recognized when we came home or when our car arrived. When she heard that, she came out of her nap spot and sprinted towards the back door and waited to be let in for food. Very occasionally she climbed our garden wall to use the parking lot of our neighbor (which is a martial arts studio) to suddenly appear between your legs at the front door. We never expect this and when she does it, we jumped every single time.

But, seeing her running from the back of the garden when I came downstairs, actually miaowing when we shouted out her name and just being a companion is the Sparta I’ll remember.

So, thank you Sparta for being in our lives these past 10 years. When I take another cat, I’ll give a name to that cat in reference and honor to you. But, you will be missed Sparta. Nothing will be able to fill the void that you left. Now, you are going to twinkle like the star you are in our hearts, where you will live forever in memory.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you didn’t mind me writing this in honor of Sparta. It helped me mourning and processing her death. Thank you for all the support and amazing messages I got from all of you. So, until the next time and I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day.