99.5% of the map is complete, all that's left is the final fight. I have been pleasantly entertained thus far, and look forward to completing it and finishing some post game stuff!

I got a physical copy on Switch for $32.96 at Wal-Mart. I figure by the time I get around to it the game will be patched.

@Anand
Oh wow I didn’t realize the Japanese VO was included, thanks for the hot tip! The English VO is really distracting. In fact I don’t really love the character models or animations during the dialogue sections. Would have preferred just static portraits like the old games (love a beautifully painted portrait).

@deathly_hallows
I didn't realize the English VO was included!

J/K, I did. But the Japanese voicework is awesome.

@Anand

I might’ve gone with the Japanese VO, but I just couldn’t pass on hearing Solid Snake voice a samurai.

My library ordered a copy of this, so I'm on the waitlist now. Should be able to give it a try by early 2020!

@Hero_Of_Hyrule
Haha, I didn't know that. Samurai are samurai, but the weirdo characters really shine in Japanese. Like the library guy and the priestess/nun.

Finally got the game in at the library and started playing it tonight. I went in with low expectations, and it kind of surpassed those! It feels so much like Castlevania on the DS and I loved Castlevania on the DS so this is pretty much exactly (almost) what I want out of this kind of game.

I say almost because the whole thing feel pretty dang butt-ugly to me, visually. Like... really bad. But the game is fun, so I will probably stick with it. If it had beautiful sprites and such (and not backgrounds that make me think of the PS2) I would even consider buying it, but it isn't at that level where I'd shell out the cash I don't have. Glad I got it from the library and I will go enjoy it, but if they made more I hope they spend a ton more time upping the visual quality. This is simply sub-par. But above-par gameplay. :)

EDIT:
Like what is this mess? Not up to snuff.


On the other hand this looks like what I'd want the visuals to lean towards! (Though obviously ideally I'd rather it be all 2D HD sprites, ha ha.)

@J.K. Riki I actually think it looks kinda nice...on the other consoles. Not mind-blowingly good, but actually kinda pretty. The Switch version is a huge downgrade, and it was even worse before they patched it like last month.

@nate38

I'll take your word for it, I don't have any other systems to look at. But I did go looking at screens and videos online across different versions and I dunno, it just still seems very amateurish for a big time release. The models are alright, but those backgrounds are so dull in so many places.

@J.K. Riki

To be fair, not every location in the game is going to look like a brilliant artistic masterpiece. No game is like that. Heck, there were plenty of ugly locations in The Wind Waker which made this major Nintendo release look amateurish.

@GameDadGrant

Yeah, that is definitely fair. It's just, every location I've seen so far has been ugly, lol.

Anyway, it's fine. The game is fun, and I returned it to the library because I don't have time for it right now (too many real world life things to do) but if and when things settle down I'll re-reserve it and totally play it all the way through. I do love a good Castlevania game.

They're claiming the latest update makes the Switch version nearly identical to the others

Is this true? Anyone who can confirm this?

@Zero

In terms of content. There's still performance issues, from what I've read on Reddit, but people are saying it's enjoyable enough to play through now.

Months later update:

I got the game out of the library again, now, and I guess all those updates really helped a ton because it feels like a night and day difference overall. Still some little glitches visually, but no where NEAR what it was when I first tried it. Now I'm fully loving the game. If I ever saw it cheap, I'd probably buy it to own a copy for replaying down the road. It feels like a brilliant classic Castlevania.

It's due back at the library today, but I think I'm going to just keep it for a few days to try to finish it. Otherwise if I reserve it again it will take another 6 months and by then I'll have forgotten everything and want to start over.

Good stuff, I hope we get a full sequel.

Yeah the updates and bug fixes make things a lot smoother. Pretty enjoyable game.

I do kinda wish they would have prioritized the Switch version and then "up-ported" it to other consoles/PC. I feel it's much easier for a dev studio to make a game look prettier/run smoother when they prioritize the lower-level hardware first, then upgrade it to other platforms if needed. Though I understand the situation for this game, since the weaker hardware this game was being developed for at the beginning was Wii U (and I suppose, a lesser extent the Vita) so priority was likely given to PS4 since it was more popular.

Looking forward to a sequel! Maybe IGA will have a decent budget for it and really knock it out of the park. Maybe even with some cel-shaded graphics or (even better) high-quality, hand-drawn 2D art assets instead!

I guess I "beat" the game. But not really. Apparently (I guess?) you can wander around and find the final boss/Big Bad and beat him, but then you get a very crappy ending and Game Over with no feeling of satisfaction. Which was funny, I haven't seen a game do that in a long time! But anyway, that's the ending I got, and it is due back at the library 4 days ago. :P

So I guess I shall never see the end... Or I will wait for some great eShop sale and just buy a copy to own, because this was a fantastic game.

I'm LTTP but this game is $15 on PSN right now so I bought it. A few hours in and... it's pretty good! I don't know if it is as good as the best Castlevania games but it's definitely a good Castlevani... I mean uh, Bloodstained game.

I actually feel like the graphics are... pretty solid? Some areas look better than others, but it doesn't look bad overall.

I feel like the difficulty balance between the areas and the bosses is very different though, so far anyway. I've had no real trouble navigating the areas and then hit a boss and it feels like a wall. None of them have been TOO hard so far, but there is definitely a pretty big difficulty gap between navigating areas and bosses.

Today this game got a free update with Classic Mode: a short side game in the vein of the old school, linear, stiff-jumpin' Castlevanias, starring Miriam with her sword-whip thingy and using enemies and bosses and assets from the full game.

It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Miriam's movement is a tad more forgiving than the classics, closer to Rondo than the NES games. She can do a Rondo-style backflip, and can even do it forward if you turn around mid-air while doing it. She also has a retreating back-dash like the SOTN style games, which I didn't realize until I saw the CPU doing it during the credits demo.

It's definitely a big step down from the Curse of the Moon games, since there's only one character, six stages, and the 3D visuals are rather ugly and not conducive to the tight platforming these games require...but for a freebie, it's worth a shot.


And there's been a bunch of other updates since I played the main game 18 months ago, fulfilling the other Kickstarter stretch goals. Boss Rush mode, Zangetsu playable, and a sort of Reverse Boss Rush where you play as a handful of the bosses and do a few fights against Miriam and friends. Nice to see they've kept up with the content for this, but I think I'm done with Ritual of the Night at this point.