Before you smash that dislike button because I said some negative things about a game people seem to love - leave a comment and tell me why you think I might be wrong! Additionally, if it wasn't clear, I DID love this game, I just think there were many aspects that could be improved, ironed out and just simply made BETTER.
Appreciate the love. It's kind of cool how this has become somewhat controversial though - I genuinely expected about 200 people to watch this over the course of a few weeks..
Haha, I'm not going to stop! While this may be a very divisive review, it's also incredibly engaging. Dislikes aren't the end of the world, it's just awesome to see the passion from both sides. I just wish the dislikes would also throw in a comment or two about why they feel I'm wrong - you know, to make this conversation more engaging overall.
Wtf is up with the dislikes. Like seriously this is a really fair review. Based from this I will freaking love this game. Past castlevania games also had a variety of flaws and yet nostalgia goggles seems to cloud their view of them.
You absolutely should. Just because a game has flaws doesn't mean it isn't absolutely amazing. This game was literally redesigned from the ground up because of critique of the artistic style. This game became what it is because of critique, if everyone just said "Wow, this is amazing", the game we're looking at wouldn't be half of what it currently is.
I can't say I had this exact problem, but I did have the opposite problem. Sometimes audio from combat would not go away, sometimes sounds would just repeat ad-nauseam. In particular the ending of the game was ruined for me - as I landed my last hit on the boss, a static sound from one of the attacks got stuck on loop and throughout the entire ending sequence all I could really hear was the sound of static/lightning drowning out everything else.
If anything, I just wish the boss battles had been bigger and more memorable. Curse of the Moon had great boss fights (which are largely the same boss fights in Ritual of the Night), but something about the style of that game and the execution made them more intense and more memorable than they are here.
Hey man, solid review! I absolutely love this game but I do agree with your major flaws. The game definitely is too easy, and that is a shame because the Zengetsu fight had me believing there would be some challenge to the bosses. I felt the other Igavania games were always too easy as well, so I’m eager to try hard mode on ROTN. Also I too got confused about where to go (the train pass mainly). I must have missed that dialogue as well. I must admit I do sometimes enjoy getting lost in these games because when you do figure it out, you feel so good. Anyway, this game is the first of 4 of my most anticipated games of this genre, the others including Metroid Prime 4 (if it is still considered a Metroidvania), Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and Hollow Knight Silksong. So far, so good!
I tried to avoid explicitly saying it during the review- for fear of accidental spoilers - but you nailed it. The first example I was referring to was the boarding pass. The second was learning how to go underwater. Largely because its a mechanic that up until that point isn't even mentioned, when you get most of your abilities from boss fights, who would think that farming a specific enemy in a specific room would get you where you need to go? For me, it immediately felt like hard mode was a step up in difficulty. It's definitely a challenge compared to hard mode, give it a try! Those are also some solid picks, all I can say is that I'm looking forward to them too and will hopefully be able to cover them as well!
JustinMyOpinion Absolutely - agreed about the cryptic underwater stuff. And I am definitely looking forward to the harder difficulties. I plan to go for 100% on hard - that is where the real fun starts for me! Keep at it man, don’t worry about the dislikes. I really can’t believe that as your points were all explained and valid IMO
Sounds like me and you had similar experiences! I played through it start to finish once it launched. I'm not sure why you're getting so many dislikes, your feedback on the flaws of the game are all legitimate. I even would go on to say the weapons don't really have that much variety to them myself, they all have their special abilities but all the types of weapons act the same I didn't feel like they had much personality myself. The game is essentially Aria of Sorrow just bigger and newer, nothing advanced the style of game its just rehashing it again. Which is fine, I love those games so I really enjoyed myself with this one, it was definitely a solid game like you say.
That's actually something I sort of glanced over that maybe I should have mentioned a little more. I feel like most of the diversity comes from varying hit boxes and range that you attack from more than anything else. Over the course of my entire play through I don't think I once intentionally used special abilities. If I can kill most enemies in 2-3 hits, why bother with abilities? I think it's just a matter of - if you're critical of something people absolutely love, you'll get negative feedback. Regardless, it's still the most engaging video I've made and it's kind of cool to see how divisive this is.
@@JustinMyOpinion its interesting for sure. I also have a video up and honestly it's not much different from yours so I'm not sure why yours is so much more divisive then mine. It's also my most engaging video so it's a fun ride either way! I talked about the weapons and that seems to be the most common point of contention on my videos though so maybe better you didn't add that too hahah
I just took a look at it and it's kind of crazy how similar the two videos are. Down to picking obscure clips like the bouncing chair. If I'm trying to pinpoint the difference I think I'm critical before I'm positive, where as you're positive before you're critical. I suspect it may be a matter of people not really sticking around to the end. Who knows.
I like to stick the the principle of start and end positive and put the criticism in the middle. Not sure if that's what made the difference but I too found it interesting how close our videos are hahaha. But yeah, the viewer drop off during a video makes it tough for people to really judge you without watching in full
Absolutely, one of the more engaging games I've played in a while. There was also another update last night for the PC version, so it may be slightly safer to swim now!
Just beat the game and I do agree that there are some imperfections, but overall, damn what a wonderful game. My biggest issue was as you mentioned with difficulty, I was expecting a somewhat hardcore metroidvania and I died only once, and that was mostly due to me finding some sequence breaks and managed to encounter one of the more challenging bosses. Being a completionist at heart I still wanted to immerse myself in the crafting system, get all the weapons, complete all the quests, eat all the foods, find the coolest magics, etc, and the game really isn't balanced for that, when I got to the final bosses they got completely annihilated in seconds. Many of the spells have multiple projectiles and there is little to no cooldown resulting in extremely high DPS and it gets really crazy against big bodies. Against the biggest enemies the DPS reaches over 10k/s. Hard difficulty does however seem to be a challange (haven't had the time to play much of it yeat) but it's a shame that the base difficulty is so low and difficulty settings are locked until you beat the game once. But even though it was that easy I still had a ton of fun playing it, I've been waiting for a new Castlevania since Order of Ecclesia and after a decade that wait has finally come to an end! The controls are perfect, most things look, feel and work exactly as in prior Castlevanias and the map is huge!
Glad to hear you loved it! Even though the jump from normal to hard is pretty huge (in my opinion), I do think the game could have been made a little more enjoyable by making it accessible immediately. Like I mentioned, there do seem to be ways to unlock it immediately, but it's non-obvious. It's interesting to hear how crazy some of the levelled up magic can be though. My strategy for the final boss involved bouncing some flying pigs around the room. It worked surprisingly well. Speaking of, did you experience any negative effects regarding shard collection? The entire game drove home the fact that you have limits, but the only con I could find to collecting everything was an alternate bad ending.
@@JustinMyOpinion Nope, didn't notice any negative effects, there are some slightly different greetings when talking to the vendors and your eyes may start glowing as well. But in all dialogues about not getting too many shards Miriam is always confident that she knows her body and is in full control, and considering the good ending that also makes sense. When I fought the final boss I used the Katana on the first phase as I found it fitting to the story, but on the second phase I felt like testing out my fully upgraded Va Schia (It creates a long line of iceblocks). Don't remember the actual damage numbers but it was around 400dmg/block. I didn't want to just spamkill him but I was hitting for maybe 1600-2000dmg/cast and you can cast it repeatedly if you want to. But yeah, even if the game gets a bit broken I still love it.
For a mostly 100% play-through on normal it took me about 12 hours without guides. If you lookup some of the more cryptic problems, that probably goes down a bit. Depending on how much you enjoy replay-ability, there is a lot you can do after the game with more difficulties, more modes, etc. If you enjoy replaying games for different challenges, I imagine you could get 40+ hours.
@@JustinMyOpinion what do you consider 100% though because you said in the video you stayed away from crafting. Also I heard there are *extra/hidden* boss fights, did you encounter these? If so how many are there?
You're right, I should have clarified that. I was referring to what I said in the video about 100% MAP completion. That would include the extra bosses that are locked behind doors - not really a spoiler, it's pretty obvious they're not 'hidden'. However, after looking into some other bits and pieces of the game, I definitely missed an optional boss that I didn't initially even realize existed. There's also the possibility that there are other bosses that there isn't information for yet tucked away elsewhere in the game that I'm just not aware of. Either ways, there's lots of content that can keep you hunting and going. I'm just referring to 100% map completion (more or less), and there are definitely other things you can hunt down as well.
Bought it yesterday and now I'm a few hours in. Having a blast so far, but I've got to admit that the 2.5D art is not as appealing to my eyeballs as the pure 2D igavania ones. Just an artistic preference.
Yeah, I wasn't completely in love with some of the artistic choices either - but it's a step up from how the game originally looked. This is sort of why I steer away from talking about visuals in my reviews. It's too subjective and honestly, looking at trailers or gameplay I think almost anyone can determine whether or not they personally like the visual style of a game. Regardless, you're right, this game was an absolute blast to play.
well, this is a bit early review.... Have you mastered all hidden weapon technique? Completed all quest by the hungry lady,Questhunt and Item giver? Optional Bosses, 8-bit boss, 100% map completion is possible in this game. Weapon effect, different kind of customisable in skin and in Hat, accessories and weapon.(Spoiler: Hat that give you unlimited ammo, weapon that auto track, Sonic speed run speed abilities,) Do not be surprised that you get a lot of dislike. You only compare it to Symphony...... Source: Dawn of sorrow,Aria of sorrow,Potrait of ruin, Order of esclesia, Harmony of despair, Castlevania 1-4
I don't agree with that at all. There's a large gap between playing a game to experience the story, the world, the combat and playing a game to do every single thing conceivable. Everything that you've mentioned is like icing on the cake. If you've played the game, you love the game, and you feel like you want to keep playing the game, those are all things that can keep you enjoying a game. However, I'd argue that when reviewing something in general, you're looking at the core gameplay, the main story that's laid out, those are the aspects of the game the majority of people who pick up a game will be looking for. Most people don't 100% every game they purchase - I know I absolutely do not. I'm also not surprised by the dislikes, I knew that this video would receive dislikes because it's a somewhat unpopular opinion, or at the very least a critical opinion. I'm find with that. If DLC is added later, things are changed later, it's something I may come back to and look at again. However, the state the game is currently in is the game people are paying to purchase and hopefully enjoy. If you're selling a product, I don't think there's anything wrong with reviewing it day one. In regards to the other games. You're right, there are lots of other games you could compare this to. However, I personally believe that Symphony is the King of this particular genre and while the game clearly takes elements of other Castlevania's as well, I suspect more people can relate to Symphony than they can anything else.
There are without a doubt a lot of graphical problems in the game. I intentionally avoided talking about graphical problems though... For two reasons. 1) I don't think it matters in the grand scheme of things. If you're looking at playing the game, you know what it's going to look like already. 2) This game in particular had an interesting history that involved a full redesign of the artistic style. So, it's basically way better than it was. Are those valid reasons? Maybe not, but I think everyone should be able to draw their own conclusions about a games visuals - subjectivity and all.
Absolutely, I tried to allude to this without explicitly stating it. The point was more that it's non-obvious unless you go digging for it. By the time you realize the game's easy and you want to play on a harder difficulty, you're already deep into the game. As opposed to something simple like... You know, having it available to begin with.
I'd love to know why you think that? I've probably played this style of game for 20 years at this point. I've played every Metroid game since NES, I played Symphony of the Night when it came out, I've played most of the other Castlevania games as well. This game is great, but it's not as great as other games in this genre. If we want to expand our examples, I'd even say Hollow Knight was better. Sorry.
Before you smash that dislike button because I said some negative things about a game people seem to love - leave a comment and tell me why you think I might be wrong!
Additionally, if it wasn't clear, I DID love this game, I just think there were many aspects that could be improved, ironed out and just simply made BETTER.
I'll hit like bro. Don't worry about it 👊🏼
Appreciate the love. It's kind of cool how this has become somewhat controversial though - I genuinely expected about 200 people to watch this over the course of a few weeks..
@@JustinMyOpinion Holy crap bro. Keep making reviews like these. Pretty fair. Don't let the dislikes discourage you.
Haha, I'm not going to stop! While this may be a very divisive review, it's also incredibly engaging. Dislikes aren't the end of the world, it's just awesome to see the passion from both sides. I just wish the dislikes would also throw in a comment or two about why they feel I'm wrong - you know, to make this conversation more engaging overall.
Wtf is up with the dislikes. Like seriously this is a really fair review. Based from this I will freaking love this game. Past castlevania games also had a variety of flaws and yet nostalgia goggles seems to cloud their view of them.
You absolutely should. Just because a game has flaws doesn't mean it isn't absolutely amazing. This game was literally redesigned from the ground up because of critique of the artistic style. This game became what it is because of critique, if everyone just said "Wow, this is amazing", the game we're looking at wouldn't be half of what it currently is.
I'm experiencing a lot of audio cut out during combat.
I can't say I had this exact problem, but I did have the opposite problem. Sometimes audio from combat would not go away, sometimes sounds would just repeat ad-nauseam. In particular the ending of the game was ruined for me - as I landed my last hit on the boss, a static sound from one of the attacks got stuck on loop and throughout the entire ending sequence all I could really hear was the sound of static/lightning drowning out everything else.
I want to like this game, but it's sort of hard to get passed the 2.5D graphics and lackluster monsters. Seems like Safeway Select SOTN
If anything, I just wish the boss battles had been bigger and more memorable. Curse of the Moon had great boss fights (which are largely the same boss fights in Ritual of the Night), but something about the style of that game and the execution made them more intense and more memorable than they are here.
Hey man, solid review! I absolutely love this game but I do agree with your major flaws.
The game definitely is too easy, and that is a shame because the Zengetsu fight had me believing there would be some challenge to the bosses. I felt the other Igavania games were always too easy as well, so I’m eager to try hard mode on ROTN.
Also I too got confused about where to go (the train pass mainly). I must have missed that dialogue as well. I must admit I do sometimes enjoy getting lost in these games because when you do figure it out, you feel so good.
Anyway, this game is the first of 4 of my most anticipated games of this genre, the others including Metroid Prime 4 (if it is still considered a Metroidvania), Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and Hollow Knight Silksong. So far, so good!
I tried to avoid explicitly saying it during the review- for fear of accidental spoilers - but you nailed it. The first example I was referring to was the boarding pass. The second was learning how to go underwater. Largely because its a mechanic that up until that point isn't even mentioned, when you get most of your abilities from boss fights, who would think that farming a specific enemy in a specific room would get you where you need to go?
For me, it immediately felt like hard mode was a step up in difficulty. It's definitely a challenge compared to hard mode, give it a try!
Those are also some solid picks, all I can say is that I'm looking forward to them too and will hopefully be able to cover them as well!
JustinMyOpinion Absolutely - agreed about the cryptic underwater stuff. And I am definitely looking forward to the harder difficulties. I plan to go for 100% on hard - that is where the real fun starts for me! Keep at it man, don’t worry about the dislikes. I really can’t believe that as your points were all explained and valid IMO
Sounds like me and you had similar experiences! I played through it start to finish once it launched. I'm not sure why you're getting so many dislikes, your feedback on the flaws of the game are all legitimate. I even would go on to say the weapons don't really have that much variety to them myself, they all have their special abilities but all the types of weapons act the same I didn't feel like they had much personality myself.
The game is essentially Aria of Sorrow just bigger and newer, nothing advanced the style of game its just rehashing it again. Which is fine, I love those games so I really enjoyed myself with this one, it was definitely a solid game like you say.
That's actually something I sort of glanced over that maybe I should have mentioned a little more. I feel like most of the diversity comes from varying hit boxes and range that you attack from more than anything else. Over the course of my entire play through I don't think I once intentionally used special abilities. If I can kill most enemies in 2-3 hits, why bother with abilities?
I think it's just a matter of - if you're critical of something people absolutely love, you'll get negative feedback. Regardless, it's still the most engaging video I've made and it's kind of cool to see how divisive this is.
@@JustinMyOpinion its interesting for sure. I also have a video up and honestly it's not much different from yours so I'm not sure why yours is so much more divisive then mine. It's also my most engaging video so it's a fun ride either way!
I talked about the weapons and that seems to be the most common point of contention on my videos though so maybe better you didn't add that too hahah
I just took a look at it and it's kind of crazy how similar the two videos are. Down to picking obscure clips like the bouncing chair.
If I'm trying to pinpoint the difference I think I'm critical before I'm positive, where as you're positive before you're critical. I suspect it may be a matter of people not really sticking around to the end. Who knows.
I like to stick the the principle of start and end positive and put the criticism in the middle. Not sure if that's what made the difference but I too found it interesting how close our videos are hahaha.
But yeah, the viewer drop off during a video makes it tough for people to really judge you without watching in full
balanced review - the flaws i agree the the internet updates will fix. I'm getting this gem.
Absolutely, one of the more engaging games I've played in a while. There was also another update last night for the PC version, so it may be slightly safer to swim now!
@@JustinMyOpinion Please update as needed and consider a separate review or something for the free DLC.
Just beat the game and I do agree that there are some imperfections, but overall, damn what a wonderful game. My biggest issue was as you mentioned with difficulty, I was expecting a somewhat hardcore metroidvania and I died only once, and that was mostly due to me finding some sequence breaks and managed to encounter one of the more challenging bosses.
Being a completionist at heart I still wanted to immerse myself in the crafting system, get all the weapons, complete all the quests, eat all the foods, find the coolest magics, etc, and the game really isn't balanced for that, when I got to the final bosses they got completely annihilated in seconds. Many of the spells have multiple projectiles and there is little to no cooldown resulting in extremely high DPS and it gets really crazy against big bodies. Against the biggest enemies the DPS reaches over 10k/s.
Hard difficulty does however seem to be a challange (haven't had the time to play much of it yeat) but it's a shame that the base difficulty is so low and difficulty settings are locked until you beat the game once.
But even though it was that easy I still had a ton of fun playing it, I've been waiting for a new Castlevania since Order of Ecclesia and after a decade that wait has finally come to an end!
The controls are perfect, most things look, feel and work exactly as in prior Castlevanias and the map is huge!
Glad to hear you loved it! Even though the jump from normal to hard is pretty huge (in my opinion), I do think the game could have been made a little more enjoyable by making it accessible immediately.
Like I mentioned, there do seem to be ways to unlock it immediately, but it's non-obvious. It's interesting to hear how crazy some of the levelled up magic can be though.
My strategy for the final boss involved bouncing some flying pigs around the room. It worked surprisingly well.
Speaking of, did you experience any negative effects regarding shard collection? The entire game drove home the fact that you have limits, but the only con I could find to collecting everything was an alternate bad ending.
@@JustinMyOpinion Nope, didn't notice any negative effects, there are some slightly different greetings when talking to the vendors and your eyes may start glowing as well. But in all dialogues about not getting too many shards Miriam is always confident that she knows her body and is in full control, and considering the good ending that also makes sense.
When I fought the final boss I used the Katana on the first phase as I found it fitting to the story, but on the second phase I felt like testing out my fully upgraded Va Schia (It creates a long line of iceblocks). Don't remember the actual damage numbers but it was around 400dmg/block. I didn't want to just spamkill him but I was hitting for maybe 1600-2000dmg/cast and you can cast it repeatedly if you want to.
But yeah, even if the game gets a bit broken I still love it.
How many hours of gameplay?
For a mostly 100% play-through on normal it took me about 12 hours without guides. If you lookup some of the more cryptic problems, that probably goes down a bit.
Depending on how much you enjoy replay-ability, there is a lot you can do after the game with more difficulties, more modes, etc. If you enjoy replaying games for different challenges, I imagine you could get 40+ hours.
@@JustinMyOpinion what do you consider 100% though because you said in the video you stayed away from crafting. Also I heard there are *extra/hidden* boss fights, did you encounter these? If so how many are there?
You're right, I should have clarified that. I was referring to what I said in the video about 100% MAP completion. That would include the extra bosses that are locked behind doors - not really a spoiler, it's pretty obvious they're not 'hidden'. However, after looking into some other bits and pieces of the game, I definitely missed an optional boss that I didn't initially even realize existed.
There's also the possibility that there are other bosses that there isn't information for yet tucked away elsewhere in the game that I'm just not aware of.
Either ways, there's lots of content that can keep you hunting and going. I'm just referring to 100% map completion (more or less), and there are definitely other things you can hunt down as well.
Bought it yesterday and now I'm a few hours in. Having a blast so far, but I've got to admit that the 2.5D art is not as appealing to my eyeballs as the pure 2D igavania ones. Just an artistic preference.
Yeah, I wasn't completely in love with some of the artistic choices either - but it's a step up from how the game originally looked. This is sort of why I steer away from talking about visuals in my reviews. It's too subjective and honestly, looking at trailers or gameplay I think almost anyone can determine whether or not they personally like the visual style of a game.
Regardless, you're right, this game was an absolute blast to play.
well, this is a bit early review.... Have you mastered all hidden weapon technique? Completed all quest by the hungry lady,Questhunt and Item giver? Optional Bosses, 8-bit boss, 100% map completion is possible in this game. Weapon effect, different kind of customisable in skin and in Hat, accessories and weapon.(Spoiler: Hat that give you unlimited ammo, weapon that auto track, Sonic speed run speed abilities,)
Do not be surprised that you get a lot of dislike. You only compare it to Symphony......
Source: Dawn of sorrow,Aria of sorrow,Potrait of ruin, Order of esclesia, Harmony of despair, Castlevania 1-4
I don't agree with that at all. There's a large gap between playing a game to experience the story, the world, the combat and playing a game to do every single thing conceivable. Everything that you've mentioned is like icing on the cake. If you've played the game, you love the game, and you feel like you want to keep playing the game, those are all things that can keep you enjoying a game.
However, I'd argue that when reviewing something in general, you're looking at the core gameplay, the main story that's laid out, those are the aspects of the game the majority of people who pick up a game will be looking for. Most people don't 100% every game they purchase - I know I absolutely do not.
I'm also not surprised by the dislikes, I knew that this video would receive dislikes because it's a somewhat unpopular opinion, or at the very least a critical opinion. I'm find with that. If DLC is added later, things are changed later, it's something I may come back to and look at again. However, the state the game is currently in is the game people are paying to purchase and hopefully enjoy. If you're selling a product, I don't think there's anything wrong with reviewing it day one.
In regards to the other games. You're right, there are lots of other games you could compare this to. However, I personally believe that Symphony is the King of this particular genre and while the game clearly takes elements of other Castlevania's as well, I suspect more people can relate to Symphony than they can anything else.
I dislike the way the character movements look. Looks like a 3d sprite that doesnt belong with the background, looks cheap.
There are without a doubt a lot of graphical problems in the game. I intentionally avoided talking about graphical problems though... For two reasons.
1) I don't think it matters in the grand scheme of things. If you're looking at playing the game, you know what it's going to look like already.
2) This game in particular had an interesting history that involved a full redesign of the artistic style. So, it's basically way better than it was.
Are those valid reasons? Maybe not, but I think everyone should be able to draw their own conclusions about a games visuals - subjectivity and all.
Just put NIGHTMARE(all caps) as caracter name and play on hard right away.
Absolutely, I tried to allude to this without explicitly stating it. The point was more that it's non-obvious unless you go digging for it.
By the time you realize the game's easy and you want to play on a harder difficulty, you're already deep into the game. As opposed to something simple like... You know, having it available to begin with.
SOTN is far easier.
I guess It just kind of sounds like you've never played a Castlevania or metroidvania game before.
I'd love to know why you think that? I've probably played this style of game for 20 years at this point. I've played every Metroid game since NES, I played Symphony of the Night when it came out, I've played most of the other Castlevania games as well.
This game is great, but it's not as great as other games in this genre. If we want to expand our examples, I'd even say Hollow Knight was better. Sorry.
The way you speak reminds me of Dreamcast guy, I blocked dreamcast guy....
I'm going to miss your high-quality comments when you inevitably block me as well :(.