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DISCOVERGAME REVIEWSBloodstained: Ritual of the Night
BRINGING THE CASTLEVANIA SERIES BACK FROM THE DEAD UNDER A NEW NAME.
$69.95 | PC, PS4, Switch, XB1 | playbloodstained.com
IF THE RISE of indie game developers has
fuelled one genre in particular, it’s got to be the
Metroidvania – in 2019, fans certainly haven’t
been left wanting, with gobs of excellent genre
examples on offer – including Owlboy, Dead
Cells and the outstanding (and Australian-
made) Hollow Knight, to name just a few.
The Kickstarter-funded, gothic horror-
themed Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night enters
a rather crowded market, then, with its main
distinction being that its project lead is famed
Japanese game dev Koji Igarashi, creator of
some of the most beloved titles in the
Castlevania series.
Bloodstained was essentially promised to be a
modern version of Igarashi’s earlier hits, and it
follows the familiar Metroidvania formula:
there’s a large open world to slowly unlock
(which you’ll be criss-crossing for the entire
game’s length), alongside a variety of power-ups
and plenty of demons to slay. And as you’d
expect, the core gameplay works well, with
effective platforming and combat, enough of a
story to keep things interesting (albeit in the
melodramatic Japanese-gothic style of
Castlevania) and a surprising amount of
freedom in terms of how you customise your
character’s loadout. There are over 100 ‘spells’ to
be acquired (and then levelled-up) by killing the
game’s various enemy types, and a simple
crafting system lets you turn dropped loot into
a variety of weapons, potions and tasty meals,
with the latter providing a permanent stat boost
the first time you try a new one.
This is also one of the most approachable and
gentle Metroidvanias of late, too – while we
wouldn’t describe it as easy, it’s not as punishingly
brutal as most of its indie kin have become,
making this a good starting point.
Some occasionally questionable design decisions
do mar the overall experience, mind – there’s one
particular occasion in the game where it’s not made
clear how to get hold of a required power-up, and
you may need to turn to Google at a few points to
figure out how to progress. The Nintendo Switch
version of the game was also a bit of a mess at
launch, with occasional performance slowdowns
that honestly have no place in a AAA title in 2019.
Fixes have been promised, but hadn’t yet appeared
at the time of review.
Regardless, Bloodstained does deliver on its
promise of reviving the feel of its Castlevania
inspirations, making it an easy recommendation
to anyone who’s a fan of the genre.
[DAN GAR DINER ]MY FRIEND PEDRO
AERIAL ACROBATICS MEET MOBSTER
MURDER IN THIS DELIGHTFULLY TWISTED
PLATFORMER-SHOOTER.
PC, Switch | $28.95 | http://www.myfriendpedro.com
SIDE-SCROLLING, SCORE-ATTACK
PLATFORMER My Friend Pedro is a game
about artfully blasting a variety of
gangsters with a pair of pistols while
simultaneously jumping, flipping, rolling
and comedically pirouetting your way to
each level’s end zone. Oh, and there’s a
floating sentient banana – the
eponymous Pedro – who occasionally
turns up to guide you through your
murder spree. Neat.
This is a game that rewards skill and
speed – its 40 levels are generally short and
sweet, and to do well at them you’ll need to
learn each inside-out, plotting an efficient
course in terms of both physical
movement, interacting with objects in the
environment, and figuring out when and
how to shoot your enemies. Thankfully,
effective controls make it easy to perform
the requisite deadly acrobatics (at least to a
passable degree), so splitting your aim to
take down two enemies while bouncing off
walls and performing mid-air flips – all
optionally in ‘Bullet Time’ style slow-
motion – really is no big deal.
This isn’t a terribly long game from start
to finish, and its simple gameplay formula
means it probably won’t appeal to
everyone; to really get your money’s worth
here, you do need to be the type of gamer
who’ll compulsively replay the same levels
time and again until you’ve mastered them
and landed yourself a decent position on
the global leaderboard. If that sounds like
you, however, this is one banana you’ll
definitely want to put in your basket.
[DAN GAR DINER ](^44)
WINNER
ED’sCHOICE
AWA RD
WINNER
APPROVED
AWA RD
WINNER
APPROVED
AWA RD