Well, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night wasn’t going to have a low-key, understated launch, was it?
That’s right, friends. As we know, as soon as any anticipated title is officially revealed, the hype train starts chugging along. There are leaks, spoilers, occasional tidbits of info from the developers, opinions ricocheting all over the internet, unveilings of the inevitable season passes and pre-order bonuses… all to keep us interested in the run-up to launch.
Now, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night isn’t a AAA Big Deal™. It doesn’t have a multi-million dollar advertising campaign behind it, with commercials featuring celebrities who aren’t too sure what’s really going on. It was a Kickstarter title, actually, which garnered a lot of support thanks to the involvement of lead producer Koji Igarashi - not to mention the whole Castlevania thing it’s got going on.
What the game does have, though, is… well, a whole dang lot to make up for. It’s been a rough ride to get to this point, punctuated by missed deadlines, fan disappointment, and fears that the Bloodstained we were getting wasn’t going to be the Bloodstained we were promised.
Praise the great Igarashi, then, for doing something that so few developers take the time to do: actually listening to feedback and vowing to be better. Heck, in response to criticism of the game’s visuals and lighting, it was given a full rework. Everything looks phenomenal now. Even better, the announcement that Bloodstained was being overhauled was accompanied by one of the sassiest trailers you’ll ever see.
Igarashi, clearly, recognizes the importance of sometimes dropping a heaping helping of cheesy melodrama to get your point across. Now that it’s launch trailer time, here he is, at it again.
Well, dang. Twice as big as your last game, Igarashi? 13 DLCs, all for free? Now you’re talking. This is looking like the Bloodstained we were promised, which is just as well, really, because it’s available right now (on some formats). If you already knew that and you’re in knee-deep already, we applaud your life decisions.