This stylish, beautifully animated 2-D game is called what? Bloodrayne?!

cloudeagle

So I'm sure that most of you not named Jazz may or may not vaguely remember a video game series called Bloodrayne. After you get past the half-vampire chick in the tight black leather, the series is mainly known for being mediocre and inexplicably spawning 47 shitty Uwe Boll movies.

So a new one was announced at E3, and the response was pretty much "zzzzzzzz." But that's a mistake. Forget everything you know about Bloodrayne (except the protagonist), and watch this video. Seriously. WATCH IT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G_-AsaxujI&feature=player_embedded

Holy shit. This thing is bloody... yet it's got a look like no other. I'm not even sure how to describe it, other than "beautiful."

It's a 2-D hack and slash for the 360 and PS3 made by WayForward, the guys who did the amazing A Boy and His Blob remake no one played. Here's an interesting quote from IGN:

The Way Forward representative that I was speaking with informed me of an interesting statistic to put Betrayal's look into perspective, and to solidify with me just how excited the Way Forward team was to finally work on the high-definition consoles that allowed them to make a game that looked this crisp. Rayne herself has 4,000 individual animations, something that I was told would have brought a device like the Wii to a standstill. Way Forward's Wii title A Boy and His Blob on the other hand? It had 4,000 animations too. In total.

http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/117/1174773p1.html

This is going to be available for download in August for $15. Wow. Suddenly I actually care about Bloodrayne.

fragglefart

Yeah dude this looks amazing. Love the music too, kinda campy-cheese electro-blackmetal.

Moioink

You had me at "made by Wayforward".

DarkPrimus

Where's Jazz? I would have thought he'd have made a thread about this by now.

Hedgethorn

Any word on how this plays? After watching the trailer, I think it might be a Metroidvania...?

Warlock82

Moioink wrote: »

You had me at "made by Wayforward".

This so much. Though the really awesome gameplay video does help a lot

It looks a lot like a Castlevania game, which is nice.

Nerdtendo

Watching the blood everywhere along with spikes and sawsblades with some walljumping just made me want an exploration based Super Meat Boy game.

L Ron Howard

Warlock82 wrote: »

It looks a lot like a Castlevania game, which is nice.

I was just going to say the same thing. It also reminds me of Shinobi 3 for Sega Genesis. Very action-y, with the need for precise jumps, but with tons of melee combat. Though a lot of the levels that were in that preview look like something you'd see in a newer Castlevania game.


It does look pretty as all heck though. I hope to get this once it gets released. I wish I would have been paying more attention during E3 so I could have seen it.

Zxerol

DarkPrimus wrote: »

Where's Jazz? I would have thought he'd have made a thread about this by now.

Yeah man. His 'Rayne fanboyism has slipped hardcore. I mean, dude had replaced his avatar was some Mass Effect harlot. That simply would not do at all!

Kaseius

Looks too much like it was made in Flash to me. Having only seen praise for Shantae and how great the animation/sprite work is, this doesn't impress -- but that was just at a quick glance and I could be very, very wrong. Music was good, though, for sure!

Nocren

I still remember the time I got to meet Rayne's father.
Technically the model that posed as Rayne for the box art, it was her father I got to meet. At a random Gamestop in Chula Vista. He even had a few of her business cards to pass to me and the clerk, he just walked in to buy the games because his daughter was on the boxes.

Jebral

I was getting a Castlevania vibe too..... And the handheld SotN knockoffs being some of my favorite games ever...

Holy shit is it wrong for my hopes to be so high based on so little?

*Hopes for a Metroidvania* :rotate:

Lars

Apparently PSN now has it's own version of Summer of Arcade called "PSN Play" and they added this game to that...causing it to be delayed on both systems.

Now instead of coming out at the end of this month, PS3 players can get it on September 6th, but 360 players can't get it until October 5th (so unlike Summer of Arcade's year-long exclusivity, this exclusivity only lasts a month).

As a side note, has there been any evidence that this really is a Metroidvania? The only thing I've seen mentioned is that it has "15 stages" which seems to lean more towards just normal stage progression.

Shadowfire

Summer of Arcade isn't a one year exclusivity. It varies by title, but I think it's only a month (From Dust comes out next month on pc).

cloudeagle

So Joystiq really, really liked this game, giving it four and a half stars out of five:

WayForward's BloodRayne: Betrayal doesn't just succeed as a game despite the baggage of the moribund BloodRayne license. WayForward took the franchise fully into "campy" mode, turning the characters and settings into something you're clearly not supposed to take seriously, presented in an incredibly sharp hand-drawn cartoon style. Rayne herself is even kind of uncharacteristically cute.

That presentation is married to a combo-heavy brawler that you must take seriously at all times, at the risk of oft-repeated death. Just surviving the game requires near mastery of Rayne's repertoire; to actually earn a grade higher than "F" in the game's score-based rating system requires ... well, I still have to figure that out.

Rayne is transported via "coffin rocket" to the exterior of an underground castle, where she's to guide a bunch of soldiers in and help destroy her father, the caped and stereotypically diabolical Kagan. Rayne is, of course, the only one capable of making any progress through this castle, and so she is left alone to fight armies of identical, frilly-cravatted vampires, green demons, electric frogs, bloodsucking bugs and, of course, mummies.

To make her way through the periodic gauntlets of enemies, she has a variety of combat moves with an emphasis on crowd control. Enemy attacks must be constantly interrupted by timely slashing, kicking, shooting and, for lack of a better term, head-bouncing. Combining those moves with a dash allows her to juggle multiple enemies, and the ability to bite and "poison" an enemy, then cause it to explode with a button press, allows her to set up a chain reaction to dispatch all of them at once.

Many of the same abilities are equally useful in locomotion. Rayne must frequently jump kick onto stationary flying enemies, to bounce between them on her way up a vertical shaft or across a chasm. The dash can be combined with a jump for extra horizontal distance, and she can execute a backflip by running, switching direction, and then immediately jumping for extra vertical distance.

As a result, it's extremely fun to simply move Rayne around the screen. You can kick a vampire into a toxic sludge, jump onto his floating body, and then use a flamethrower-like weapon as a jet to propel yourself around. Fun. Occasionally (I'd say in exactly two places) the enjoyment is overwhelmed by difficulty, but those spots can't take away the goodwill I have for the game as a whole. And I begrudgingly respect the design of those spots, after having died around 50 times trying to get through them.

The 15 levels won't take you too long to get through the first time, but completionists will want to hunt down the red skull items WayForward hid throughout the campaign, five of which can be used to upgrade your ammo or health capacity. Chances are, you'll miss most of them your first time through, or you'll see them without knowing how to get to them.

I don't even think those skulls, or the brutal scoring system, were needed to encourage replayability. Bloodrayne Betrayal has enough style, substance and butter-smooth combat to pull me in for a sweet reprise.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/06/bloodrayne-betrayal-review/

UnbreakableVow

I was looking forward enough to this game that I pre-ordered it on PSN and got the theme for it (also it was only $12 'cause I'm a Plus member)

Can't wait for the Store to update. Game Informer's review was that it is an incredibly punishingly difficult game, so...wooooooooo!

Apparently, Rayne has over 4,000 frames of animation alone

Adda

The game has disappeared from the EU PSN store so who knows what's going on. The UK Playstation site lists today as the release date for it as well.

reVerse

Adda wrote:

The game has disappeared from the EU PSN store so who knows what's going on. The UK Playstation site lists today as the release date for it as well.

I blame Germany.

Adda

reVerse wrote:

Adda wrote:

The game has disappeared from the EU PSN store so who knows what's going on. The UK Playstation site lists today as the release date for it as well.

I blame Germany.

Yeah why not!?

Hey Germany, where's my BloodRayne?

Skull2185

BloodRaynes 1 & 2 were awesome, and I loved them. This game, however, does nothing for me...

Xagarath

Wayforward, and their Boy and His Blob, are good things. I'm on board if they actually manage to release the thing on PSN.

UnbreakableVow

Skull2185 wrote:

BloodRaynes 1 & 2 were awesome, and I loved them. This game, however, does nothing for me...

The original Bloodrayne games were fun even though they're incredibly generic. Oversexed females, Nazis and vampires all in one place? Huzzah!

However I really appreciate what WayForward is trying to do with it here. I really love when brands can branch out like this and try new things. You end up with great one-off products like Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and (possibly) Bloodrayne Betrayal

RoyceSraphim

You got your Bayonetta in my Metroidvania, I'd kill you but I can't stop playing!

Seriously, I'm broke, someone gift me $Texas so I buy this and support the awesome!

Monger

So Giant Bomb put up a quick look of this the other day. I want it in my bones.

UnbreakableVow

RoyceSraphim wrote:

You got your Bayonetta in my Metroidvania

It's not a Metroidvania

It's just kinda like Castlevania

No Metroid-style exploration or anything

UnbreakableVow

Also, this game is up in the US!

And I got another theme! I thought there was only the standard one for pre-ordering, but it downloaded a dynamic theme in addition when I downloaded the full game

Cantido

UnbreakableVow wrote:

RoyceSraphim wrote:

You got your Bayonetta in my Metroidvania

It's not a Metroidvania

It's just kinda like Castlevania

No Metroid-style exploration or anything

Than it's not a CV! CV didn't start until IGA *rabble rabble*

Cade

Really does look quite great I got to say.

Who would have thunk it.

Zombiemambo

I feel like attaching it to the Bloodrayne franchise only hurts it. It would have turned more heads if it was a new IP.

urahonky

How much is it?

urahonky

$15!? Bah!

Alfred J. Kwak

honestly, I'd be all over this if it was a Metroidvania-type game

and a coop mode would have been nice too.

Zombiemambo

Not sure how I feel about the I Wanna Be The Guy platforming portions. Never been a fan of that playstyle.

UnbreakableVow

Cantido wrote:

UnbreakableVow wrote:

RoyceSraphim wrote:

You got your Bayonetta in my Metroidvania

It's not a Metroidvania

It's just kinda like Castlevania

No Metroid-style exploration or anything

Than it's not a CV! CV didn't start until IGA *rabble rabble*

You're not saying anything correct here

Oh wait you're being facetious, never mind

Cantido

UnbreakableVow wrote:

Cantido wrote:

UnbreakableVow wrote:

RoyceSraphim wrote:

You got your Bayonetta in my Metroidvania

It's not a Metroidvania

It's just kinda like Castlevania

No Metroid-style exploration or anything

Than it's not a CV! CV didn't start until IGA *rabble rabble*

You're not saying anything correct here

Oh wait you're being facetious, never mind

I must confess it took me a second playthrough to appreciate Super Castlevania. I went back and got all the rape-tastic CVs for NES as well as Rondo of Blood on VC.

UnbreakableVow

The game's grading system is designed to make you feel bad

I got an F the first time I went through the first level, but the second time through I got just enough to get a rank above it and it goes straight to C (for Cadaver, as opposed to Worm Food for an F)

I really like this game!

Tostigo

As much as I'm turned off by excessively gory games, which may not be the case here, with it going with the style, The animation for this game looks really smooth. Super nice. I might just have to look into this.

mastrius

So amazingly hard. I tried the demo and died a shitload right away and then quit out. I keep feeling so oddly attracted to it though. Like all day after that I've been waiting to get back to it and trying again even though I anger quit it. It's weird. Going to try again soon. May even end up buying it. Why has this happened?

RidleySaria

urahonky wrote:

$15!? Bah!

Constant markdowns have trained me to never buy anything on PSN until at least the first pricecut. I guess it sucks for Wayforward who probably deserve their $15, but if they don't like it then they should have put it on WiiWare (ha).

Local H Jay

yes, this seems like the kind of game that will be on sale at some point, but looks like a ton of fun. there's just... too many games coming out...