[Castlevania & Bloodstained] sitting in a tree, S-L-A-Y-I-N-G

Henroid

Konami killed Castlevania as far as new games goes, but Iga has taken matters into his own hands. Soon a new series will be upon us, Bloodstained, continuing the Metroidvania vampire slaying goodness we all loved. Below is their latest trailer, which responded to a lot of the comments (bad faith or otherwise) people had to make about the playable beta version of the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A640g5gDBJA

Michiru Yamane is even on board to do the music. So expect me to nerd out about that when the game is out and we have the whole thing available. Here's just one track for now (it sounds VERY Castlevania aaaaaaaaaa).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EUaVEA8Fcg

Oh also, while I said Konami killed Castlevania having any new games coming out, they're packaging things up in bundles and releasing them as Anniversary Collections. The first is out today and contains:

Castlevania
Castlevania II Simon's Quest
Castlevania III Dracula's Curse
Super Castlevania IV
Castlevania The Adventure
Castlevania II Belmont's Revenge
Castlevania Bloodlines
Kid Dracula (never released in English before)

Blitz Rawket

Shadowfire wrote:

There is some hope that Konami might be trying to rehabiliate its image. They released Konami Pixel Puzzle Collection and acknowledged that they'd probable never make the money back from I. I mean... Maybe?

I mean, yeah. There were some teases at a new Metal Gear game recently. But even with all the negative lipservice surrounding their shift, financially they're actually doing better focusing on virtually nothing but their parlor games, Evo Pro Soccer, and mobile market. At best I see them putting the defibrillator on their heavy hitters every once in a while to keep "core gamers" at bay for reputation's sake and little else.

Steev

Konami, what are you doing:

https://twitter.com/Nitomatta/status/1129082817453776896

Henroid

Dangit Konami you had one job. If they're taking the effort to make international versions available to people maybe they'll also make the effort to fix the audio problem.

Steev

Apparently it's a rom issue. They used the first version of the US release, but should have used the first revision which doesn't have those issues.

Warlock82

Well that's a shame. But I wonder if it's something they will fix. I did hear they are going to patch in the Japanese versions of the games a bit later on.

(it's weird though, usually companies opt for using the last version of their software in these re-releases, not the first :P In other words, why Ganondorf has green blood and all the Gerudo symbols aren't moons and stars in like every OoT re-release)

Henroid

Maybe Konami is the first company to realize that there's a market for international versions, particularly among speedrunners.

Warlock82

Henroid wrote: »

Maybe Konami is the first company to realize that there's a market for international versions, particularly among speedrunners.

Legit I'm waiting for Castlevania 3 to show up on the Switch Online thingy for the bitchin' better music of the Japanese version :P (I love that Switch is region free so much for this stuff) I always wished they'd patch in the proper music to the US releases on some of these re-releases (since at this point, it's an emulator, you could have a billion sound channels if you wanted) but they never do T_T

Capt Howdy

Kid Dracula is pretty fun. I love the Castlevania aesthetic with the kid friendly play style.

KoopahTroopah

Wow those bugs make me really wary, and I'd at least like the option to remap my controls :bigfrown:

Krathoon

Warlock82 wrote: »

Well that's a shame. But I wonder if it's something they will fix. I did hear they are going to patch in the Japanese versions of the games a bit later on.

(it's weird though, usually companies opt for using the last version of their software in these re-releases, not the first :P In other words, why Ganondorf has green blood and all the Gerudo symbols aren't moons and stars in like every OoT re-release)

I wonder if original OoTs are valuable now.

I heard they even made the well less bloody in the DS version.

Capt Howdy

No complaints, thus far, with the CV collection. I am less than pleased with the pro controller's D-Pad, however.

Krathoon

SteevL wrote: »

Konami, what are you doing:

https://twitter.com/Nitomatta/status/1129082817453776896

That sounds fine to me.

Steev

Krathoon wrote: »

SteevL wrote: »

Konami, what are you doing:

https://twitter.com/Nitomatta/status/1129082817453776896

That sounds fine to me.

You don't notice the beeping sound at the 2-second mark when he first whips the knight, followed by crackling music, then another random beep sound?

Henroid

The audio issue isn't the biggest deal, but it isn't subtle and will get annoying after a few minutes.

rahkeesh2000

It's NES, the emulation would be wrong if it actually sounded good.

I can see why reactions are mixed on this collection, if you don't remember the original that well you probably wouldn't complain about this issue. And it may be from using an early ROM revision rather than an emulation error?

Steev

It's just annoying seeing companies drop the ball on official releases of their own games. I have other avenues of playing them, but I do like to pick up official releases if well done. Hopefully they fix the issues.

Warlock82

Krathoon wrote: »

Warlock82 wrote: »

Well that's a shame. But I wonder if it's something they will fix. I did hear they are going to patch in the Japanese versions of the games a bit later on.

(it's weird though, usually companies opt for using the last version of their software in these re-releases, not the first :P In other words, why Ganondorf has green blood and all the Gerudo symbols aren't moons and stars in like every OoT re-release)

I wonder if original OoTs are valuable now.

I heard they even made the well less bloody in the DS version.

Probably. I still have my original gold cart

Kalnaur

SteevL wrote: »

Krathoon wrote: »

SteevL wrote: »

Konami, what are you doing:

https://twitter.com/Nitomatta/status/1129082817453776896

That sounds fine to me.

You don't notice the beeping sound at the 2-second mark when he first whips the knight, followed by crackling music, then another random beep sound?

Not until you mentioned it and I turned the sound up. It's not supposed to do that, I take it?

Capt Howdy

Turns out I still need a guide for Simon's Quest.

Steev

Latest Bloodstained update:

Hey everybody, Roberto (Angel-Corlux) from 505 here. Preorders for Bloodstained are live! (Different platforms at different times.) The base price for the game is $39.99, and we have a lot more to announce…

First, the official Bloodstained website is live here! You can visit the site to preorder, check out all the trailers and screenshots we’ve released, sign up for our newsletter, and more. Feel free to link people to this site if they ever ask “what’s Bloodstained?” or similar questions.

Important: All Kickstarter order addresses will be locked in and FINAL on Friday, May 31, 2019 @ 11:59pm US PT. If you need to change your delivery address, please do so now. Once the deadline passes we won’t be able to change any addresses, no exceptions! (If you no longer have your survey link, you can have it resent to you.) Soon you'll be receiving an email asking you to confirm or update your address: Please confirm it, even if your address is already correct, to ensure you receive your game as soon as possible.

We’re working very hard to make sure that everyone will receive their physical and digital game copies on launch day for their respective platform; we’ll of course be updating everyone as soon as we’re able to confirm this. All the backer rewards aside from the physical copies of the game will arrive later in a single shipment; we're doing it this way to reduce the chances of anything interfering with our goal of the backers getting their games at launch.

Also, there will be a delay for the Amano poster backer reward. It’s still happening and coming your way, Amano-san has just been exceedingly busy, and when faced with a choice between having someone else do the art so the reward would come on time or having Amano make it, even if it comes a little late, I chose the latter. Hopefully you all agree we made the right choice, but we apologize for the delay nonetheless. Will communicate more about this as soon as we can.

Speaking of backer rewards…stretch goals! Stretch goals will be coming after the game launches and will be free content updates for everyone who owns the game, not just backers. We are currently on track to update the game on day one with Boss Rush and Speedrun mode, as well as the Pure Miriam outfit.

Here’s a list of all the extra content coming later. No content has been cut from the stretch goals, so if you think anything is missing call it out and I’ll confirm / clarify. (There’s a lot to keep track of! ; _ ; )

Two additional playable characters
Local and online multiplayer for certain co-op and vs. modes
Roguelike mode
Chaos mode
Classic mode
Boss Revenge mode
Stay tuned for trailers and announcements of when this content will be launching!

As many of you will remember, we also asked the community a while back if they were against us making the ‘backer exclusive’ content (Iga Boss and Swordwhip) available to all players in some fashion. Almost 30,000 of you replied and the overwhelming response was that in general you were ok with it, and the most popular option was to sell it at a price that would respect the purchase the backers originally made.

To that end we’re announcing the “Iga’s Back Pack” DLC for $9.99, launching on June 18, 2019 for PS4, XB1 and PC, June 25, 2019 for Switch. Players who purchase this DLC will be able to fight the game’s creator, Koji Igarashi himself, and earn the powerful Swordwhip weapon by defeating him.

To try and be as transparent as possible, making this content available to everyone wasn’t just about making money. I mean obviously that’s a part of it, but the chief things I was considering was making sure everyone had a safe and legitimate way to get the full game experience no matter when they find out about Bloodstained, whether that’s 5 months ago or 5 years from now, and that we were being respectful of the price backers originally paid (hence the DLC pricing).

As someone who’s pirated games because of bull**** anti-consumer practices, or as a demo to try and then buy (something largely made obsolete by modern refund systems), I wanted to eliminate as many reasons to pirate Bloodstained as possible. All of the above = the “Iga’s Back Pack” DLC. Hope that makes sense. I understand that not everyone will be 100% happy with this decision, but hopefully this helps in understanding the reasoning behind it. And of course all backers entitled to this content will receive the DLC for free.

And finally, it was recently revealed that certain retailers would be giving away a Bloodstained FuturePak steel case for preorders of the game while supplies lasted. I’m happy to announce that we will be selling 800 stand-alone FuturePak steel cases for $14.99 exclusively to backers.




These cases feature a glossy metal renditioning of Mana Ikeda’s fantastic box art for the game, and an internal hinge so when fully opened the case creates a flat surface to display the art. The cases hold game discs and Switch cartridges. We’ll be sure to announce exactly when these will go on sale, so stay tuned!

That’s it for today everyone, as always, thank you for all your incredible support, this community is one of the most amazing I’ve ever seen. Come talk to us on Discord, we actually reply! And listen! It’s crazy, I know! :P Talk to you soon…

Roberto Piraino

“Angel-Corlux”

Global Brand Manager

505 Games

As always, don't read the comments.

MNC Dover

I got the 84th (?!) email update for Bloodstained and decided to go check on the KS since it has been a while. Man, that is one mess of a project. I backed when the Wii U stretch goal was hit and changed it to a Switch copy when the old version got canned.

But now it’s been so long that I don’t even remember what the game was about or what they promised. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Lucascraft

MNC Dover wrote: »

I got the 84th (?!) email update for Bloodstained and decided to go check on the KS since it has been a while. Man, that is one mess of a project. I backed when the Wii U stretch goal was hit and changed it to a Switch copy when the old version got canned.

But now it’s been so long that I don’t even remember what the game was about or what they promised. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

It's about a guy who walks from town to town, spreading good will and cheer to all the people.

MNC Dover

Man, they swerved hard from the original KS promise of a gothic Metroidvania. No wonder the comment section is full of...delightful comments.

Henroid

Roguelike, Classic, and Chaos modes? That sounds fucking awesome. Not entirely sure what Chaos mode means but if it's anything like other "chaos" versions of games people have made mods of, that's some stream quality.

The price point makes this the last video game I can buy for a while.

AbsoluteZero

I'm glad they had the sense not to go a full $60.00 for this. I think $40.00 is a reasonable price point for this style of game. Hopefully they can turn a profit and, if the game is good, make another one down the line.

Warlock82

Oh god they're bitching about the steel case of all things? I thought that was a totally reasonable price for that - those things probably aren't cheap to make. I'm still debating if I wanna try and get one of those myself when they put them up, but 800 available is a super low number too...

Edit: Wait, this is a digital reward, maybe I shouldn't bother... what am I gonna put in there? hahaha
Edit 2: Oh wait, nevermind... it's been so damn long I forgot I backed at a tier that came with a physical copy.. lol :P

Lucascraft

Do we know which retailers will have those steelbook cases? I'm not a backer, but I want to get one.

MNC Dover

Warlock82 wrote: »

Oh god they're bitching about the steel case of all things? I thought that was a totally reasonable price for that - those things probably aren't cheap to make. I'm still debating if I wanna try and get one of those myself when they put them up, but 800 available is a super low number too...

From what I can tell, the main complaint is that originally the steel case was a $60 reward but now it’s free if you pre-purchase from Best Buy. Seems like a fair complaint if true, although unsurprising given the length of the KS and the risks of backing early.

Warlock82

MNC Dover wrote: »

Warlock82 wrote: »

Oh god they're bitching about the steel case of all things? I thought that was a totally reasonable price for that - those things probably aren't cheap to make. I'm still debating if I wanna try and get one of those myself when they put them up, but 800 available is a super low number too...

From what I can tell, the main complaint is that originally the steel case was a $60 reward but now it’s free if you pre-purchase from Best Buy. Seems like a fair complaint if true, although unsurprising given the length of the KS and the risks of backing early.

From what I see the $60 reward is not a steelcase. It's just a normal physical copy (i.e. plastic case). I went and checked and it doesn't say steelcase anywhere

MNC Dover

Oh ok. Glad I went digital to avoid this mess.

Warlock82

MNC Dover wrote: »

Oh ok. Glad I went digital to avoid this mess.

Hehe yeah. I actually would have gone full digital but I wanted some of the other rewards (+ to support them), so I picked the Steam version as my physical copy, since that is essentially a digital copy :P I generally prefer digital stuff these days because it's so much more convenient (hate having to swap disks or carts or whatever all the time)

Capt Howdy

Nice of the backers to be cool with extras being sold. The Friday the 13th game backers were fucking livid when Savini Jason showed up temporially on the PS store.

Lucascraft

Best Buy's site is currently only showing the steelbook on the Switch edition. I preordered the PS4 edition and I'm assuming they will update their site. (Hoping). But if not, I'll just preorder the physical Switch edition instead.

My plan, assuming I love the game as much as I think I will, is to double dip. I was planning on physical disc for PS4 and digital for Switch. But I can reverse that if that's the only way to get the steelbook.

I plan on emailing Best Buy customer service to inquire about the steelbook on the PS4 version.

Henroid

Oh hey it's 10% off on Steam. Bought. Now to wait.

This is the first game I've pre-ordered on Steam and have had to wait for an unlock date, by the way. Everything else I own I've been like, eh, I can wait. I don't pre-order often.

shoeboxjeddy

Nothing should be exclusive DLC that late comers can't EVER have access to. Sonic Generations never put the Casino pre-order DLC up for sale on the console versions. Sorry, you just can't EVER try it. What a stupid idea for a mass release consumer product...

Henroid

Well time to spend the next month listening to a lot of Michiru Yamane Castlevania music. I'm excited!

Capt Howdy

shoeboxjeddy wrote: »

Nothing should be exclusive DLC that late comers can't EVER have access to. Sonic Generations never put the Casino pre-order DLC up for sale on the console versions. Sorry, you just can't EVER try it. What a stupid idea for a mass release consumer product...

Tell that to the Friday the 13th game backers.

ThePantsAssociation

MNC Dover wrote: »

Warlock82 wrote: »

Oh god they're bitching about the steel case of all things? I thought that was a totally reasonable price for that - those things probably aren't cheap to make. I'm still debating if I wanna try and get one of those myself when they put them up, but 800 available is a super low number too...

From what I can tell, the main complaint is that originally the steel case was a $60 reward but now it’s free if you pre-purchase from Best Buy. Seems like a fair complaint if true, although unsurprising given the length of the KS and the risks of backing early.

Backers at $60 get a cardboard slipcase. People who get the game at Best Buy for $40 get the steel case.

[edit] Only 800 backers will have the opportunity to purchase a steel case separately for $15.

Warlock82

shoeboxjeddy wrote: »

Nothing should be exclusive DLC that late comers can't EVER have access to. Sonic Generations never put the Casino pre-order DLC up for sale on the console versions. Sorry, you just can't EVER try it. What a stupid idea for a mass release consumer product...

I agree, hate seeing stuff locked to disk where "you had to be there, sorry you missed out." Or especially when places do that retailer-exclusive pre-order content and you have to choose which one to get because it's different for each retailer (that's literally the worst.. no matter what you get screwed over).

AbsoluteZero

ThePantsAssociation wrote: »

MNC Dover wrote: »

Warlock82 wrote: »

Oh god they're bitching about the steel case of all things? I thought that was a totally reasonable price for that - those things probably aren't cheap to make. I'm still debating if I wanna try and get one of those myself when they put them up, but 800 available is a super low number too...

From what I can tell, the main complaint is that originally the steel case was a $60 reward but now it’s free if you pre-purchase from Best Buy. Seems like a fair complaint if true, although unsurprising given the length of the KS and the risks of backing early.

Backers at $60 get a cardboard slipcase. People who get the game at Best Buy for $40 get the steel case.

[edit] Only 800 backers will have the opportunity to purchase a steel case separately for $15.

That's kinda shitty but backers need to realize when you toss money at a Kickstarter, you aren't buying a product, you're funding someone's project. That you get anything in return is a not-guaranteed incentive.