Bloodstained: Ritual of The Night Review

Bloodstained: Ritual of The Night
Developed By: ArtPlay
Published By: 505 Games
Date of Release: June 18, 2019
Price: $40

In the year 1997, a legend was unleashed upon the night. A masterpiece of 2D platforming with nonlinear exploration and RPG-style progression, it took the gaming community by storm. It was Castlevania: Symphony of The Night for the Sony PlayStation, by Koji Igarashi. Featuring superbly fluid sprites, glorious paralaxing backgrounds, and a sweeping score by Michiru Yamane, it was the pinnacle of the franchise and led to the term that would be used to describe it's genre for the decades to come, "Metroidvania". And now it would seem that a worthy successor to this legendary title has been born. And that successor is Bloodstained: Ritual of The Night. After a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign and a lengthy development time of around 4 years, it has finally been released. But does it truly live up to the hype?



The first thing noticeable in Bloodstained is the fluid cel-shaded 3D graphics. Though a major departure from the sprites of yore, the new look adds a vast feeling of depth to the games aesthetic. Levels have a true feeling of 3 dimensions as you explore them despite the game being confined to the traditional 2D plane. As for the sound design, Michiru Yamane has returned with a score that invokes feelings of the Castlevania series, and cements Bloodstained as the true successor to the franchise. The voice acting is also on point, with excellent performances from all the cast, and even appearances by some fan favorites.



But how does it play? Well, Bloodstained feels quite like Symphony of The Night for sure, but through the shard powers that the protagonist can use it feels a lot like the soul system from Castlevania: Aria/Dawn of Sorrow. In the end it becomes a wonderful blend of fine-tuned gameplay seasoned with ample amounts of fan-service. If you have ever been a fan of the Castlevania series, then Bloodstained will feel like coming home after a long time away. And for newcomers to the genre, it really is a good starting point as well. All in all, Bloodstained: Ritual of The Night is proof both that Kickstarted games can be good, and also that Koji Igarashi has not lost his touch.

Guilty Gear/Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R Switch Review

Guilty Gear/Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R
Developed and Published By: Arc System Works
Date of Release: May 16, 2019 (June 20 in Canada)
Price: Guilty Gear: $9.99/AC+R $14.99

In the year 1998 a small development group within Arc System Works referred to as "Team Neo Blood" quietly released a fighting game for the Sony PlayStation known as Guilty Gear. Led by game designer/illustrator/composer Daisuke Ishiwatari, the production values (especially the soundtrack) and excellent technical gameplay quickly propelled it to be a smash hit. The popularity of the series resulted in several sequels, and tweaked versions of the game, which resulted in the culmination of the 2D iteration of the series, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R. And now for the 20th anniversary of the series they have both been re-released for the Nintendo Switch in remastered form.



The first thing you'll notice about Guilty Gear is Ishiwatari's badass metal soundtrack. The next thing is the gorgeous crisp pixel art that comprises the entirety of the game's graphics. The fighters are massive fluidly animated sprites that take up a good amount of the screen. The controls are precise, which is a good thing considering the technical nature of the series. This is one game you will not be able to get through just mashing buttons, as the AI is brutal and unforgiving. That's not to say it's unfair, if you take the time to learn the combo systems you'll do just fine. Now plenty of fighting games have impressive finishing moves that you can use to end a match once you've whittled away enough of your opponent's health, however Guilty Gear introduced "Intent Kill" moves that you can use the moment you start a match. However they can be blocked or avoided, and if you miss, you end up burning through most of your powers and will have a hard time pulling off flashier moves for the rest of the match. All in all Guilty Gear for the Switch is an amazing port of an amazing game and I can highly recommend it.



Now on the other hand, with Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R I'm not entirely sure WHAT went wrong with the switch port. The graphics are completely scaled wrong in both docked and handheld leading to jagged edges on sprites rather than the crisp pixels on the previous versions of the game. Normally the pixels would be perfect squares but they are distorted and artifacted on the Switch port, leading to shimmering and aliasing. Even more jarring is the soundtrack which has been compressed down to 22khz and only has the left channel data which is played in mono through both channels, resulting in the audio dropping out when the original song would have panned between the left and right. Oddly the intro FMV is still in 44khz stereo, but if you play the opening song through the sound test it suffers the same unmixed 22khz mono weirdness. All this bizarre audio shenanigans persist despite the game somehow being double the size of previous releases. How can such a drastic drop in quality cause the game's size to balloon like this? In all honesty I would suggest avoiding this disastrous Switch port until Arc System Works addresses these issues.