Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Switch)

Stranger than the comet as it streaks across the sky
Stranger than the truth I know before my open eyes
I have dealt in mysteries and trickery of light to entertain
Looked into the abyss, called it by its name

Being a fan of the Castlevania-series, and especially the action-rpg games for the Nintendo handhelds it was just a matter of time before getting this game made by the same people for those other games after IGA left Konami. This game was apparently delayed, they released a short 8-bit game in the style of the first Castlevania games, which I got but never finished. This game stars the Shardbinder Miriam, a girl that have been asleep during the last 10 years as the Alchemy guild unleashed demons upon the world by sacrificing the other shardbinders. Sharbinders are somehow fused with a crystal that gives them tremendous power and the ability to absorb demonic powers and use them for themselves. Problem is that the crystals will devour them. The alchemist tried to use them to summon  the king of demons Bael, but since Miriam fell asleep they didn't have enough power. They still went through with it, but it failed and instead unleashed lesser demons upon the world wrecking havoc and killing innocents. All but two shardbinders where killed, one being Miriam and the other Gebel, her best friend. Gebel seems to go insane and starts killing alchemist and disappears... and then Miriam wakes up.

Together with Jonathan, an alchemist apprentice that tried to stop the ritual they set out to stop Gebel, and are helped by Dominique, an exorcist from the church. They travel to the Alchemist Guild location where a demonic castle have appeared and fused with the guild base. Miriam rescues a couple of villagers just outside the village and heads into the castle to find Gebel. From here it plays like any other Metroidvania game. Miriam is very much like Soma Cruz from Aria of Sorrow (GBA) and Dawn of Sorrow (DS) that takes the souls from the monsters and can use their abilities as weapons, abilities, summons or stat boosts. Dominique acts as a shopkeeper where you can buy stuff or sell things you don't need or even shards. Jonathan can use his alchemist skills to create weapons, items, shards or food or just enhance the shards you got. That one is new for me and is one of the more fun things in the game since you gather ingredients and such making it a bit more justifiable to carry those 20 rings. There's also a couple of quest giving villagers. One gives you a couple of bounty hunters quest in order to avenge the killed villagers. The other is a nun that want to give the dead one a proper burial so you gather different things and bury with the dead. The third one is some old lady that wants some food.

You're not alone in searching the castle for Gebel. Skulking around is also Zangetsu, a demon hunter from Japan that have been asked by Dominique to find Gebel and Alfred, Jonathan's master that ensured that the corruption of Gebel and Miriam from the crystal didn't kill them but now looks for the Liber Logaeth, the book that was used to summon the demons in the first place. Other denizens are the cursed barber Todd and O.D., the vampire librarian. Good time to mention that the game is voice acted and you got David Hayter, the voice of Solid Snake, as Zangetzu and O.D. is voiced by the same voice actor that did Alucard in the original Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Cool.

It's a fun game if you like the Metroidvania games. Music is great and it looks good as well, but I don't know if I'm all that into the 3d character models and such. I assume also that is the reason why the game gets seriously sluggish when too much is going on, especially in rooms that are gigantic, like the Twin Towers that sometimes feared the game would crash. Of course, the reason why it might not was due to me waiting until they released a patch at the beginning of November that solved the most egreroius parts, with another patch supposed to follow afterwards. Apparently the Switch version was almost unplayable before they fixed some bugs and stuff. Still, I got to Gebel began slashing away and after some time I gets out victorious, Miriam stands outside the castle and... Game Over? I beat the boss what more do you demand of me?.... What do you mean I only finished 60 % of the map? Great, now the game crashed and didn't allow me to finish it... guess I have to wait a bit before continuing.

To be continued...