Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Nintendo Switch [Digital]

As you would know by now, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a Castlevania Symphony of the night clone, and a very good one. The game mechanics, presentation, action is very good. The story is interesting, and presented in a good way. The draw back to the Switch version is it runs in a lower resolution, and has graphical glitches. Hopefully will be patched later on. But if you want to play on the go this is the only way to go.

So the port is bad to the switch 30fps compare to 60 for ps4/Xbox 720p compare to 1080 Oh the steelbook. Is a ps4/Xbox one. They just switched the plastic to hold a switch game. I know they came with the game could you be any cheaper . It’s like putting lipstick on a pig. It’s still an ugly pig.

This much maligned Switch version Of Bloodstained isn’t nearly as bad of a port as it’s made out to be online, especially after a number of fixes present thanks to the latest patch. Sure, there are frame rate issues every now and again, and the visuals aren’t quite as good as they are on the PS4 and Xbox One versions, but the ability to play Bloodstained portably on the Switch makes this the definitive copy to get in my opinion. As for the gameplay itself, it’s a Metroid-vania style game courtesy of Koji Igarashi, the man behind perhaps the best Castelvania game of all time (Symphony of the Night), so all of the different systems and RPG elements should be familiar to people that have played this style of game before. For the uninitiated, what that means is a compelling mix of combat and platforming, with the added intrigue of character progression via leveling up and character customization with items. The shard system in particular is interesting, allowing you to really hone your character in based on your play style, be it with items that grant you huge bonuses for lumbering greatsword attacks, or stats that benefit a long range gunplay strategy. The items are designed in such a way that they rarely feel like simple upgrades, instead offering different bonuses for different sorts of play styles, leaving it largely up to the player to decide what sort of demon slayer they’d like to be. All of these things come together in a package that winds up being pretty fun and addicting, albeit with a few technical hiccups here and there. It’s not an overly long game, but thanks to a tough but fair difficulty level and a whole host of side missions and extra items out there, it doesn’t feel scarce content-wise. If you listen to everyone else on the internet, this Switch version should be avoided. But in my opinion it’s the sort of game that feels uniquely well suited to play on the go in bite size increments, jumping from one save point to another in the space of 10 or 15 minutes. In short, this game is fun and you should buy it, and that recommendation goes doubly if it’s on sale at all. It’s a heck of a lot of fun despite some minor blemishes, and it’s the closest thing to a real Castelvania game that we’re going to get at the moment.

I'm only about 8 hours in or so but needed to write this. I have both the PS4 version and the Switch version (had to show love and support for Iga). Castlevania Symphony of the Night is my favorite game of all time. I lament not being a backer for this project. Anyways, I've spent more time on the Switch version as I can play it while my girlfriend watches TV. Yes, the PS4's graphical fidelity is way better than the switch. Bouncing between the two versions, there is a frame rate difference that most people will probably feel (about 60 fps for the PS4 and approx. 30 fps for the switch). I did experience some slowdown in some moments but no crashing yet. The gameplay however, is top notch. I'm having a blast playing it. There will never ever be a Symphony of the night, but this game is the closest and has it's own identity. The composer from SotN came back for this one so the music is great. The difficulty seems harder than SotN which is one thing I wouldve changed from that game to make it more difficult. The portability has been great because I can play it at work and still enjoy the A+ gameplay. This review is all over the place but to say the switch port is unplayable is a gross misrepsentation. Try it out for yourself and/or watch gameplay videos if you're still skeptical. Again, aside from the technical differences, the gameplay and sound is there.

Bloodstained is a decent game, but the Switch version is plagued by performance issues. I’m generally not someone that is all that sensitive to frame rate drops, but Bloodstained has some of the more egregious frame rate drops that I’ve seen. The game also has poor load times when dong simple things like traveling between rooms. There were a few times where I would jump off of a platform at the top of one room and it would be several seconds before the screen would show me coming up from the bottom of the next room. A few times it was so bad that I thought the game froze. These issues occurred whether I played in hand-held mode or connected to my tv using the dock, and I split my time pretty evenly between them. As for the game itself, overall I think enjoyed it. The visuals are good during gameplay, but the cut scenes look really low-res. The combat is generally fun and there are a lot of weapons and powers that you experiment with until you find what works best for you. I think the amount of shards is probably s little overkill though and I think a lot of people will stick to only using a few different ones. If you are big on story games, I don’t think Bloodstained will hold your attention in that area, but this game is more about combat and exploration. Speaking of exploring, you’ll need to do a lot of that. There were a few times where I wasn’t sure where to go and had thought I missed a clue from a character. A couple times I was so confused that I had to consult the Internet in what I was supposed to do next. I tend to try and avoid this on my first play through of a game because I like to have my own experience and don’t want to risk spoilers, but o was just wandering around aimlessly. All in all, I’d say that the game is good on combat and exploration and is a nice homage to games like Symphony of the Night. The weaker aspects s are the story and the performance issue make me not want to recommend it for the Switch (at least at the time of this review)