I came to the comments to say the same thing. I actually didn’t play it until the Intellivision collection on PS2, and it stood out as one of the few games that was still actually fun to play at the time. 

I keep seeing “the genre has evolved” as a criticism. The main complaints all these guys seem to have is they have an issue with only being able to attack in one direction instead of omnidirectional. It is like they forgot that Castlevania’s legacy was mixing in the platforming WITH the combat. Each enemy is a puzzle…

I think you missed a genre in your “conversation between genres”. Action RPG loot collector. That is a direction that IGA incorporated into his Metroidvania games that other recent games in the genre largely have not. This game goes heavy into stats and lots of loot and lots of builds. It’s an angle that remains…

Not sure what you are reading here. Most comments seem pretty tame. My biggest issue is the reviewer opens with some weird pointless and contradictory take on genres that then sets a weird tone for review.

I chafed against the way the game set out to recapture the feeling Symphony gave players over two decades ago without offering anything new.

As a backer of both, I’d argue that. Bloodstained definitely added and changed things in a positive way. Also the Metroidvanias of the SOTN era hold up a LOT better than 3d platformers of that era. Yooka-Laylee was too rigidly hamstrung by trying to be an N64 era platformer and was worse for it. Bloodstained followed…

Also I’d add that the crafting definitely does add something new, as does a few of the later powerup and level design ideas.

and borrowed from another to codify something that felt new, a genre that, over time, was collected under one of the worst colloquialisms in games: “metroidvania”

I think I get your overall point, “advancement” doesn’t necessarily have to mean “improvement” in the context of the time it was created.

But I’m not quite making the leap to a lack of advancement being seen as an inherent flaw, and that those that don’t see it as such are “living in the past”. Can you clarify?

Bloodstained ignores the modern conventions of these games, as well as their conveniences, like swift, speedy movement and the ability to strike in directions other than right in front of you.

I appreciate your review and feel like people are coming off heavy handed with their responses, so I’m going to try and be as respectable as I can with mine.

One of the biggest problems with “Metroidvania” as a genre name is that it was coined not to describe a genre but to distinguish SOTN and its successors from other Castlevania games. That ends up actually obscuring some aspects of the true “Metroidvanias” that aren’t present in non-Castlevania games given that…

You should really watch someone else play it then, because it is 100% “modernized” for a Metroidvania.  What do you think is needed for it to be so?  What would make it “modern”?

It’s too bad you were disappointed in the product when every negative thing you had to say about it is, in my book, a positive for something made by Igarashi. Lots of the silly stuff is just a call back to the bygone era of janky video games. There is no need to hold up every game ever made to the standards of…

Generally when someone makes something that is not intended for me I just sort of ignore it and not make a long rambling post about how I feel this game that a lot of people said they wanted is unnecessary. 

Basically it comes down to this:

I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I actually ‘beat’ the game last night, after about 14 hours, but with only around 50% completion on everything... So I reloaded my save and went back to exploring.

The focus of the Kickstarter was Ritual of the Night, not Curse of the Moon. Curse of the Moon was a stretch goal that was given significant less attention than the actual main product, and that is part of the reason why it felt like an original NES release game... the other reason is this entire project was built to…

I am so tired of the “Oh, it plays like an old game, that’s a strike!” mentality. This game absolutely drips craftsmanship from every angle, and above all, it’s FUN, and more fun than any recent metroidvania I’ve played. 

i have to eat some crow on this one. i got burnt by mighty no. 9 and was one of those schmucks going “ooo this is gonna be mighty no. 10" - nah this game is good after all. SOTN is one of my all time favorite games, and this really scratches that itch through and through. i got to the final boss in about 10 hours but…