Ritual of the Night - Printable Version

Ritual of the Night - Printable Version

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Ritual of the Night - Dark Jaguar - 11th May 2015

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night

That's right, here it is. Iga, who left the sinking Konami, is doing what everyone ELSE from slowly dying companies does, kickstart a game that's exactly like the ones we love!

Specifically, this game seems a lot like the last of Iga's Metroidvania's, Order of Ecclesia. That's not a bad thing. The basic mechanics of the game were refined to a science with that one. Mechanically speaking, it's the best of the exploration style Castlevania games. That said, the exploration was probably done best in either Aria of Sorrow or Symphony of the Night.

Either way, he was responsible for all of that, so yeah, looking forward to yet ANOTHER one of these games :D.

Ritual of the Night - Sacred Jellybean - 11th May 2015

Sounds like a good place to jump back in. I still have fondness for Castlevania 64.

[Image: VcwXj6S.gif]

fuck yeah skeletons on motorcycles

Ritual of the Night - Dark Jaguar - 11th May 2015

I... am not sure motorcycles existed back in 1850. Neither did skeletons... Oh wait, yeah skeletons existed back then. Okay it all checks out.

I'm just glad Iga is getting over his issues with females being vampire hunters, or demon hunters or whatever the case is with this new series. They could still go for Dracula actually. No one owns Dracula (any more, consider Count Orlok).

Ritual of the Night - A Black Falcon - 11th May 2015

Hmm... two great kickstarters here, Yooka-Laylee and this. Should I back them, though? I mean, these are sure to release, and if I don't back them they'll surely end up cheaper eventually, after they release... unless I want a boxed tier or something, but... probably not. I'll think about it, though, maybe I'll back something. Probably Yooka-Laylee first, I have more confidence in ex-Rare to be great than Iga-- his 2d games are mostly good but isn't entirely consistent. And the less said about his 3d games, the better...

Dark Jaguar Wrote:I... am not sure motorcycles existed back in 1850. Neither did skeletons... Oh wait, yeah skeletons existed back then. Okay it all checks out.

Heh... yeah, actually, I think the game is set before 1850 isn't it? But yeah, no motorcycles then. But then, the Castlevania games have never been at all attached to their supposed setting times. I mean, most of the Castlevania games are set in the 16-1900s, and they've got all kinds of weird outfits, whips, all kinds of random monsters from throughout history and fiction all mixed up together, etc. I guess I didn't really care about the motorcycles because it's a franchise that never in any way tried to have a plausible setting.

Quote:I'm just glad Iga is getting over his issues with females being vampire hunters, or demon hunters or whatever the case is with this new series. They could still go for Dracula actually. No one owns Dracula (any more, consider Count Orlok).

The cynical (but probably mostly accurate) explanation for this would be that Iga went with "guys like fanservice" over "but girls can't go on adventures like guys"... but regardless, yeah, it's good that he stopped opposing the idea of female major characters in his games. (Of course, OoE was the first one with a female main character, but PoR has one character of each gender in the main pair.)

Ritual of the Night - Dark Jaguar - 12th May 2015

I dunno, this is a new company he's working with. An American company that might not be willing to overlook anything too problematic. They aren't Wayforward :D.

Also, when did "fan service" start to mean "creepy"?

Also, I checked the timeline and Castlevania 64 (aka the second half of Legacy of Darkness) takes place in 1864.

Anyway, my biggest problem with a lot of kickstarter projects these days is the notion of "backer exclusive in-game content". It's basically pre-order exclusive DLC, and way too many of these projects are doing it. Mighty No. 9 has the backer exclusive transformation, and this game will have a backer exclusive hidden boss. It's annoying, really, that they went that route.

For my part, backer exclusive content should be limited to physical rewards that don't affect the game, or in-game recognition of that backer that everyone gets to see (such as your name in the credits, or at higher tiers, a boss you get to design). Why would you ALREADY sully the name of what could have been a perfect vision by, out of the gate, excluding future customers from even the possibility of certain content?

InXile got it right. Neither of their games have exclusive content. At best, Wasteland 2 had an exclusive CODE, but that code's been leaked at this point and anyone can input it at the right part to get access to that content.

Ritual of the Night - Dark Jaguar - 12th May 2015

Um, have you looked at these stretch goals?

Let's see, $150,000 gets you cheat codes. Cheat codes? Look, I know game development can be surprisingly expensive, but what exactly is going into a cheat code?

The latest two goals, time attack and boss rush, are 250,000 a pop. Now, I understand playtesting needs to be done to make sure that the times in a time trial mode are tough but fair, and that the boss rush mode is feasible for players to accomplish, but come on! Half a million for those two modes is outrageous! If they intend to use this money long-term, for projects beyond Bloodstained and making sure the studio sticks around for the long term, that's fine. However, they need to be honest about that up front. This "stretch goal" thing? It makes the claim that such basic features actually REQUIRE this much money. Now, the whole game, the WHOLE THING, only needed $500,000 to be funded. It's transparent, is what I'm saying. I can't even see this stretch goal's reflection in a mirror, and I'm not inviting it into my house.

Mind you, this isn't unique to this one. I've seen similar "iffy" stretch goals in some recent kickstarters. I'm glad the game got funded, mind, but it really does seem like they should be a bit more honest about where this money is actually going.

Ritual of the Night - Weltall - 12th May 2015

Ooh, I can't wait to play as Bison Melbont or Arucald and conquer the mysteries of Vastlecania and its evil master, Dlacura.

Ritual of the Night - A Black Falcon - 12th May 2015

Dark Jaguar Wrote:I dunno, this is a new company he's working with. An American company that might not be willing to overlook anything too problematic. They aren't Wayforward :D.

Also, when did "fan service" start to mean "creepy"?

I didn't really mean it in the 'creepy' way; I guess there is an element of that, but I mostly just meant 'most gamers are guys and most people like to look at attractive members of the opposite sex'. Of course there are issues here -- how small a place there is for non-attractive female characters in games is an obvious one, and the oversexed costumes female characters are often wearing compared to the male ones in the same games -- but it's one of the reasons for games to have female playable characters. I'd rather have that as the reason than no female playable characters at all.

Quote:Also, I checked the timeline and Castlevania 64 (aka the second half of Legacy of Darkness) takes place in 1864.

Okay, a little later than I thought. Still, that's before the invention of the internal combustion engine. :p

Quote:Anyway, my biggest problem with a lot of kickstarter projects these days is the notion of "backer exclusive in-game content". It's basically pre-order exclusive DLC, and way too many of these projects are doing it. Mighty No. 9 has the backer exclusive transformation, and this game will have a backer exclusive hidden boss. It's annoying, really, that they went that route.

For my part, backer exclusive content should be limited to physical rewards that don't affect the game, or in-game recognition of that backer that everyone gets to see (such as your name in the credits, or at higher tiers, a boss you get to design). Why would you ALREADY sully the name of what could have been a perfect vision by, out of the gate, excluding future customers from even the possibility of certain content?

InXile got it right. Neither of their games have exclusive content. At best, Wasteland 2 had an exclusive CODE, but that code's been leaked at this point and anyone can input it at the right part to get access to that content.

Yeah, backer-exclusive content's not great. I understand the idea, a reward for the people who back your game, but it's like retailer-exclusive bonuses with purchased games -- it's annoying stuff that makes it near-impossible for most consumers to actually see everything in the game in question, which isn't nice. I'd rather see some way for other people to get that content too.

Ritual of the Night - Great Rumbler - 13th May 2015

Quote:The latest two goals, time attack and boss rush, are 250,000 a pop. Now, I understand playtesting needs to be done to make sure that the times in a time trial mode are tough but fair, and that the boss rush mode is feasible for players to accomplish, but come on! Half a million for those two modes is outrageous! If they intend to use this money long-term, for projects beyond Bloodstained and making sure the studio sticks around for the long term, that's fine. However, they need to be honest about that up front. This "stretch goal" thing? It makes the claim that such basic features actually REQUIRE this much money. Now, the whole game, the WHOLE THING, only needed $500,000 to be funded. It's transparent, is what I'm saying. I can't even see this stretch goal's reflection in a mirror, and I'm not inviting it into my house.

Mind you, this isn't unique to this one. I've seen similar "iffy" stretch goals in some recent kickstarters. I'm glad the game got funded, mind, but it really does seem like they should be a bit more honest about where this money is actually going.

Stretch goals are very often not an accurate representation of the actual additional cost of the feature in question, but rather an incentive to get more people to pledge more money. And all that money will eventually go into the game somewhere, probably going towards the implementation of other features that ended up costing more than initially thought.

Ritual of the Night - Dark Jaguar - 14th May 2015

I can totally support that. I just wish they would be up front about it.

There's another matter. This particular kickstarter, more than most of the other big name ones, is far more dependent on outside investors than before. What I mean is, there are a number of publishers that will not only be donating money, but vast sums of money about triple what they're actually asking for from fans. This has created quite the stir among donators , with many worried that Iga will be more beholden to the will of these mysterious publishers than to the fans donating at kickstarter.

Ritual of the Night - A Black Falcon - 14th May 2015

If someone is using kickstarter, I'd prefer it to be a game actually needing kickstarter and crowdfunding, not someone also using money from big publishers... it is something causing me to think about not donating to both this and Yooka-Laylee.

Ritual of the Night - Dark Jaguar - 31st May 2017

Now that a lot of these Kickstarter games are out, I think it's about time to take stock of this particular one.

As it turns out, when developers already getting massive backing from external parties also go for a Kickstarter, it isn't the best sign. Might Number 9 and Yooka Laylee didn't get the most glowing reviews. Personally, I thought Yooka was a decent game and better than Mighty Number 9 turned out to be, but neither one really lives up to the sheer cash put into those things. The best of these sorts of projects turned out to be InXile's RPGs, which have received glowing reviews from lots of people (and some hate from a certain class of elitist nerd that just couldn't accept certain ultimately minor decisions).

I'm having some doubts about this particular project now. It became clear with Mighty Number 9 (and Comcept's other ideas, like ReCore), that Inafune isn't quite the talent he considers himself to be. Considering the ego trip that Iga also goes through in his promotional video, it's worth worrying about this new project. As for Shenmu 3, why was that ever crowdfunded at all? At least with the established developers, they were no longer with their original companies and were working with some startups, so it made a bit more sense, but Shenmu is being made by Sega, using Sony money, and they still wanted our's. The Shenmu 3 project is... sadly pretty fishy.

Ritual of the Night - A Black Falcon - 31st May 2017

Quote:As it turns out, when developers already getting massive backing from external parties also go for a Kickstarter, it isn't the best sign. Might Number 9 and Yooka Laylee didn't get the most glowing reviews. Personally, I thought Yooka was a decent game and better than Mighty Number 9 turned out to be, but neither one really lives up to the sheer cash put into those things.

I pretty strongly disagree here, in the case of Yooka-Laylee specifically. On the case of Mighty No. 9, yes, the game is a disappointment, as the game is average and doesn't come close to being as great as the Mega Man classics, but the worst thing about that project by far is that Kickstarter backers who backed at physical tiers got stiffed and mostly got nothing for their money. I get that the game did not do as well as they wanted, but they should have been figuring in the cost of physical rewards all along, instead of doing what they seem to have done and decided to abandon their responsibility to their backers as soon as they saw the game wouldn't be a success. As for the game itself though, an average game at a budget that size seems hardly rare in this industry, yes? Games are expensive to make after all...

As for Yooka-Laylee, I still think the game is fantastic and one of the best 3d platformers in years (though yes, Mario 3D World is probably better), but most of the issues it does have come from the game clearly not having the kind of budget that a major Nintendo title would. The game may have made a lot for a Kickstarter, but you can't fun a AAA game on Kickstarter, not even close, and even a smaller project like Y-L shows in a bunch of ways how more budget would have helped, in the occasional camera issues, the mediocre minigames, the inability to easily restart challenges while doing them, etc. Had the game been funded by Nintendo, for example, I don't think it would have shipped with those problems. A "big" Kickstarter budget is what, lower mid-tier as far as game budgets go? Just big indie, maybe even? And this was an ambitious project.

Quote:The best of these sorts of projects turned out to be InXile's RPGs, which have received glowing reviews from lots of people (and some hate from a certain class of elitist nerd that just couldn't accept certain ultimately minor decisions).

Yeah, RPGs like InXile's, Bioware's Pillars of Eternity, or Dinivity: Original Sin are probably the most successful to come out of Kickstarter. Some of those are pretty good games no question.

Quote:I'm having some doubts about this particular project now. It became clear with Mighty Number 9 (and Comcept's other ideas, like ReCore), that Inafune isn't quite the talent he considers himself to be. Considering the ego trip that Iga also goes through in his promotional video, it's worth worrying about this new project.

Iga... he was in charge of Castlevania for some years, but I've always had mixed thoughts on him -- he didn't work on Castlevania early on; he did work on Symphony of the Night, but was only the assistant director, not director, so he was not in charge of the game; he didn't have anything to do with and later disparaged the N64 Castlevania games, which I quite like, and also had no part in the first GBA Castlevania, Circle of the Moon; and then when he got in charge of Castlevania after that, he wrote out those three games (the N64 games and CotM) plus Castlevania Legends from his version of the series chronology... while making some pretty bad 3d Castlevania games on the PS2. His other attempt at 3d Castlevania, in the mediocre Wii fighting game, is not great either, though it can be amusing. (As for ReCore, I've only played the demo but it did seem a bit disappointing, but he only is credited with "conceptualizing" the game, not actually developing it, so I wouldn't blame him too much for it. He doesn't deserve much praise either, for sure, though. At least it's probably better than those boring PS2/Xbox Castlevania games though?) His 2d games were a lot better of course, as he did produce five Metroidvania Castlevania games on the GBA and DS, and yes I do think that htye are pretty good games (especially Portrait of Ruin since that's the one I played most), two pretty good remakes in Chronicles and RoB PSP, and the good classic-style title Castlevania ReBirth for Wii, so it is a good sign that Bloodstained is 2.5d and not 3d, but most of his best work in the franchise is iterative. And of course, that's not getting into his history of sexist comments (and game plots) either, but it's definitely also a problem.

So anyway, will Bloodstained be any good? Who knows, we haven't seen enough to say. I did not end up backing its kickstarter, and don't regret that choice right now. If the game releases and is good I'll get it sometime, probably on sale, and it could well be fun, but right now I haven't seen enough of it to say much.

Quote:As for Shenmu 3, why was that ever crowdfunded at all? At least with the established developers, they were no longer with their original companies and were working with some startups, so it made a bit more sense, but Shenmu is being made by Sega, using Sony money, and they still wanted our's. The Shenmu 3 project is... sadly pretty fishy.

It was crowdfunded because Sega didn't want to spend the money to fund the game, so instead he convinced them to let him pay to license the name for a sequel he would fund elsewhere. Given how much money the original two Shenmue games lost for Sega it isn't surprising they were not interested in making more of them. As for Sony, they probably said ' we will give you money, but only if you prove there is consumer demand for the game through success in something like Kickstarter', which kind of makes sense for that same reason. As I've never cared for Shenmue at all I haven't followed Shenmue 3 since its announcement though, so I don't know how it's going.