Almost a decade after it set crowdfunding records on Kickstarter, and five years after its release, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’s developers have announced the final free update for the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night successor.
]]>Metroidvanias, Metroid-likes, and Castlevania-likes are games that heavily feature non-linear exploration and cool discoveries that open up parts of an interconnected map. Otherwise known as good game design. A new Humble Bundle has now compiled seven great Metroidvanias for the low price of £12/$15, available here from now until June 20th.
]]>Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night headlines this month's Humble Choice bundle, which includes a host of other excellent indie titles. For the princely sum of £8.69 or $12, you can pick up all twelve games - not a bad deal, methinks.
]]>Castlevania spiritual successor Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night is getting its own actual successor, publishers 505 Games have confirmed. The side-scrolling demon-whipping series will continue with a sequel, though it's currently in the early planning phases. In the meantime, 505 say that finishing everything planned for the first Ritual Of The Night takes priority.
]]>The grim Catholic fantasy world of Blasphemous will get slightly more cheery and colourful with a free update bringing over Miriam, the kickwizard from Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night. Launching Thursday, the free 'Strife & Ruin' update will add a new mission to help her return home. It'll also bosh in a new Boss Rush mode and a retro-styled 'Demake' hidden area. Have a peek at it all in the new trailer, below.
]]>So that Kickstarter thing eh? People have funded more stinkers than gems, but I think the biggest success was Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night.
]]>The makers of Bloodstained today announced their old school Castlevania-style adventures will continue with Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon 2. This is the follow-up to a small game they made as stretch goal for the Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night crowdfunding campaign. Where Ritual was all about Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night vibes, Curse called back to Castlevania's early 8-bit days. I've heard good things, and evidently it's popular enough for ArtPlay to make a sequel to a spin-off.
]]>The "roguelike" mode touted as a stretch goal on the 2015 Kickstarter campaign behind Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night will not be made, the developers have announced, to be replaced with a smaller feature. Roguelike Dungeon was the stretch goal for $5m (£3.9m), and the campaign hit that. The mode would rebuild the Castlevania 'em up as a a roguelikelike, sending players to plunder procedurally-generated dungeons. But now, eight months after the finished game launched, the devs say they can't make that and have binned it. Instead, they plan to make a Randomizer Mode shuffling item locations. The mode doesn't sound bad in itself but ditching a funded stretch goal isn't great.
]]>I’ve put in dozens of hours into as many Metroidvania games at this point, and whenever I play them I get anxious. Mostly about getting hopelessly lost, failing to circle back for something important, or forgetting the extensive and mostly unspoken rules the genre has developed over its history. After playing Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night, I think I’m starting to properly get the appeal.
]]>If there's one thing that's guaranteed to sweep through the Steam Charts like a giant fart, it's a Steam Sale. Blowing out all the fresh, original or interesting new releases, the mid-year discount warehouse (Junction 45 off the M91) ensures it's a top 10 of games you already bought or decided you don't want to buy.
So who is buying them? Baddies. You lot are the goodies. It's the baddies who do this to us.
]]>Hello friendly people! Welcome to the always-lovely, always-cheerful soft-play-of-fun-and-hyphens that is Steam Charts!
Today we're going to laugh together, learn together, and maybe, just maybe, if we're lucky, laugh and learn a little. Please, pull up a trouser, take a seat (take as many seats as you need - we have too many seats), and prepare to enjoy, laugh, and maybe even learn.
]]>Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night, the crowdfunded return of Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night director Koji Igarashi, is out now. Produced by his new studio, ArtPlay, it's a series successor in all but name. There might be a shortage of Belmonts or Draculas, but there's a big gothic castle to explore, bosses to clobber, and a bundle of RPG elements to pad out the platform exploration and brawling. Below, a very tongue-in-cheek launch trailer, featuring Igarashi hamming it up in front of the camera again, daft character customisation, and free DLC plans.
]]>As much faith as I have in Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night as a game, the Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night spiritual successor (headed up by SOTN director Koji Igarashi) has looked a little rough up until now. Today, along with announcing a June 18th release date, developers ArtPlay put out a a very self-aware new trailer, highlighting just how far the game has come. Character designs are improved, the lighting is overhauled and the backdrops not only look far nicer, but are much better differentiated from the foreground action. Take a look for yourself below.
]]>Draculas are notoriously fond of a lie-in, rarely even opening the curtains before dusk, so it's no surprised that the launch of Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night is delayed again. The vampiric new metroidvania from Koji Igarashi, who's best known as assistant director of the seminal Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night, and his gang at ArtPlay is now expected to launch in 2019. Responses from folks who backed its crowdfunding campaign and got to play a recent private beta demo suggest it needed more time, so more time it shall have.
]]>Castlevania is on its way back, whether Konami want it to or not. Minus the license but not much else, Symphony of the Night director Koji Igarashi and his new crew, Artplay, have been busy on Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Some were disappointed that we didn't see anything new of the game at E3, and now it seems the team were busy putting the finishing touches on their new story trailer, which you can rub your eyes all over within, and even play a new demo build if you backed the game on Kickstarter.
]]>You spend forever waiting for a new Castlevania (that isn't a weird God Of War clone), and two come along at once, albeit under a different name thanks to Konami doing their thing. We're still waiting on Koji 'IGA' Igarashi's full resurrection with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, but its pseudo-8-bit Kickstarter stretch-goal companion game Curse of the Moon just rolled out on Steam, and by all accounts it's a lovely piece of old-school whip-crackin', vampire-bothering fun.
]]>Koji Igarashi’s Kickstarter for an exploration heavy Castlevania throwback Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is set for release later in 2018. But a stretch goal reward for one of the most successful crowdfunding titles of all time will reach your unholy game devices sooner than you might expect. The spin-off title Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was just announced in Kyoto at BitSummit, and it will be yours to possess forever in just a few weeks. Inti Creates is putting out the 8-bit whip-em-up which was listed on the Kickstarter page as a mini-game. How "mini" this game is might be up for interpretation.
]]>There's no shortage of great Metroidvanias out there these days, so to help narrow your search for what to play next, we've put together this list of the very best Metroidvania games to play on PC right now. Metroidvanias can be a little tricky to define at times. Most have big, knotty worlds to explore that often require the use of specific abilities to access its farthest corners, but while some put a greater emphasis on slow and methodical combat, others stuff every pixel with rock hard platforming challenges to test their players' mettle. We like to keep an open mind when it comes to these things, but that does mean our list of the best Metroidvanias may include the odd controversial choice or two. What's important, though, is that all of these games are brilliant, and come with our seal of approval.
]]>Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night [official site], the crowdfunded Castletroid from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night assistant director Koji Igarashi, has been delayed into 2018. They'd been planning a release in March 2017 when when they turned to Kickstarter in 2015, which drew a grand $5.5 million, but now they say they want more time to make it good. Fair enough! Better a good game later than a so-so one sooner.
]]>A new RPG from former Planescape: Torment folks, a new adventure game from Tim Schafer, a new Mega Man from the Mega Man man: some game pitches sound such sure-fire hits and strike such nostalgic nerves that they effortlessly breeze past crowdfunding goals. To that list you can now add a new Castlevania from a big Castlevania name.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night [Kickstarter] is an attempt to make a new explore-o-punch-a-platformer in the Castlevania style, lead by Koji Igarashi. You know, him who co-directed Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. You know, that one with the line about a man being a miserable little pile of secrets. Ooh!
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