On its surface, the genre of the Metroidvania seems obvious. It’s a combination of the Metroid series, and the Castlevania series. Specifically, Super Metroid and Symphony of the night. Take the map based exploration of Super Metroid, with its hidden secrets, ability upgrades, and backtracking, and combine it with an RPG system. The character levels up, and has a huge array of weapons, equipment, and spells to choose from. This allows the player to express themselves in how they wish to tackle the many enemies and bosses as they explore the Metroid space. The genre has gained a resurgence in popularity over the last decade, especially in the indie scene, but as the more astute of you may have noticed while thinking about the two games that inspired the naming of this genre, and thinking about the titles that have gained popularity in the genre (Hollow Knight, Axiom Verge, and Guacamelee for instance), that most of the genre doesn’t actually qualify as a Metroidvania. They’re just Metroid-likes, specifically Super Metroid-likes. Without the RPG mechanics, without the levelling up and the choice in weapons, equipment, and spell usage, these games are building their identity on the foundation of Super Metroid, just like Symphony of the Night did back in 1997.
Which brings us to 2019, and Bloodstained: Ritual of the night. A spiritual successor to not only Symphony of the Night, but the games developer Koji Igarashi made afterwards (as these titles took Symphony of the night as a foundation rather than Super Metroid). Bloodstained is a Kickstarter success story, crowdfunding over 5 million dollars from players who wanted Igarashi to make the type of game he hadn’t been able to make for years. A Symphony of the Night-like in everything but name. Yes, a Metroidvania. The term applies. Let’s talk about it.
The player controls Miriam, a shardbinder, one who is able to absorb the powers of demons. Her good friend Gebel, the only other Shardbinder left in the world has gone rogue. He has summoned a castle full of demons with the goal of destroying the world as revenge for the horrors inflicted upon him by the guild of alchemists. In the town outside the castle, and within its walls, Miriam meets other characters that help and hinder her in her quest to stop Gebel. The player spends their time charting the castle as they explore its halls, collecting shards from defeated demons, and acquiring and crafting all manner of weapons, armour, and accessories. Certain sections of the castle are blocked off until the player finds a specific shard to progress, and like Symphony of the Night, fighting the person you came into the castle for can be the end of the game, but if you have a specific item equipped, you can open up more of the castle and reach the true ending.
Symphony of the Night isn’t the only game Igarashi has taken inspiration from however. Well, calling it inspiration is a bit tongue-in-cheek as Igarashi was producer on most of the side-scrolling Castlevania games after Symphony. Aria of Sorrow has the Tactical Soul system where enemies have a chance to drop their souls when defeated, allowing the player to use their special powers. Hello shardbinder. Order of Ecclesia meanwhile displays glyphs on the main character’s arms and back like tattoos. Both ideas inform the lore of Bloodstained, what Miriam is, and she how interacts with the game. I should also mention that each weapon type in Bloodstained has special techniques that be can accessed through fighting game inputs. These reminded me of the spells Alucard was able to use in Symphony. I remember them being a great help in that game, but rarely used any of them in Bloodstained.
And all this influence ends up leaving Bloodstained with little of its own identity. It’s odd to say that as it has nothing to do with Dracula, Belmonts, or that long-standing world of gothic horror, but even though the lore has been changed, any player who’s played any of the Metroidvania titles in the Castlevania series will feel right at home. This is by design too. Igarashi has said, quote: “I was figuring out how to approach a game for fans who wanted to play another exploration-based action game. This is also the first game I would be making after becoming independent, so I made it my motif to create a traditional game that would meet their expectations”. Endquote. It sounds like Bloodstained was made to directly appeal to the fans of his previous Castlevania titles, and to ensure that such fans got what they wanted, Igarashi didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. That’s why Bloodstained borrows heavily from those other games, and why it felt to me like it lacked its own identity.
But what of the future? Seeing how Bloodstained feels like a “greatest hits” from the Castlevania days, I initially thought that Bloodstained might be Igarashi’s swan song, one last Metroidvania for the fans before riding off into the sunset wearing his cowboy hat. From the interview quoted, it sounds more like Igarashi wanted to make what he was sure would be a success based on past successes before venturing off in a new direction. Does this mean there will be another Bloodstained? If so, will Igarashi move in that new direction? How will the fans react? Igarashi’s feelings were correct because I think the success of the initial Kickstarter was the fans wanting a game like the ones they remembered loving from the past. Reactions to Bloodstained are mostly positive (excluding the Nintendo Switch version), with criticism either being levelled at bugs and performance instability, or that it adheres too much to the design of the past and doesn’t do anything new.
I echo that sentiment. Bloodstained felt like I was playing a spiritual sequel to Symphony of the Night. I loved the variety in shard and weapon choice, and how tense the game became when I was low on health in a new area desparetly searching for a save room. Sadly the story and characters made little impact, and I had to google the way forward on more than one occasion. It sounds like fans got exactly what they wanted, an old school Castlevania game on modern systems. It was fun to play. Good, not great. What I’m interested in now is what’s next. What can Igarashi do when he’s no longer looking at past successes. I’m looking forward to finding out. Thanks for watching.
But what are your thoughts? Was Bloodstained what you were hoping it would be? How do you feel it holds up next to other Castlevania games? What are your favourite Metroidvanias? I’d love to hear all about it down in the comments. I would like to take the time to thank the sources that helped inform this video. There are two. Kris Graft’s interview with Igarashi over at Gamastura, and the video ‘How Bloodstained kept its promise’ by The Sphere Hunter. Links for both are in the description. So what’s next? Well we’re continuing to focus on exploration, but with the next game it’s more about uncovering an understanding of the game world than filling in a map. I’m going to be playing Outer Wilds (not The Outer Worlds). I hope you join me for that one. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for your time and interest. If you enjoyed the video, I’d appreciate a like, a comment, or sharing it with your friends, and as always, I hope you’re all having a wonderful day.
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