6 New Things We Saw During the Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night E3 2017 Demo

During E3 2017 we got some hands on time with the highly anticipated title from former Castlevania series producer Koji Igarashi, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Once the most funded video campaign on Kickstarter, it received over $5.5 million from backers after originally asking for $500,000, and since then 505 Games have come on as publisher with plans to release in 2018 for PC, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

A demo of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was shown last year at E3, and again this year with a few new inclusions. Kickstarter backers will be able to play the latest demo for themselves in just a couple months, as it’s scheduled to release for them sometime in August. Along with the apparent polish that came with another whole year of development, check out all the new things we saw during our playthough of Bloodstained’s E3 2017 alpha-stage demo on the Xbox One.

CHURCH LEVEL

Those who played the demo at E3 2016, and later for backers who pledged $60 or more on Kickstarter, got to check out a level that took place on a creepy, swaying ship where you could use your fire abilities to ignite cannons and fight weird jellyfish creatures in the beginning portion of the game.

This year a whole new Church level was shown off, complete with massive hanging bells that you can knock onto the floor if you stand on them long enough. Creepy organ music created a great atmosphere, that went both outside and inside the cathedral-like building along long, decorated hallways.

Special, high-up areas of the level with several hidden chests could only be accessed if you were able to pull off a double-jump dash into a floating enemy. These are pretty tough to do, as half of it relies on an enemy floating by at the perfect position for you to make it up. The demo also had chests hidden within breakable walls with as well, which were destroyed simply by hitting the wall a few times with whatever weapon you had equipped. This of course leads us to…

GAMEPLAY WITH NEW WEAPONS

Protagonist Miriam can fight with her fists, but she also has numerous weapons at her disposal that players should defiantly take advantage of. Along with a basic sword that was also in the demo last year, quite a few other weapons will be included in the game’s eventual release, with some examples including whips, rapiers, daggers, spears, and more.

Each weapon will hit and effect enemies in a certain way, with swords better for close combat while whips will let you have a bit more space between you and a monster as you go all Indiana Jones on them. In the demo you can use the sword, knife, katana, claymore, rapier and more with gameplay of the whip, dagger, and spear also shown off in the game’s 2017 E3 trailer.

NEW ENEMIES

The demo had a few new enemies making their gameplay debut. From left to right in the image above there’s a Gieremund that are demon wolf monsters, Dullahammer Heads that are blue eyeballs with spikes and a tail, harpy-like creatures, and massive armor-clad guards. Also in the demo were some basic Ghoul-like guys, and man-eating apes that can be summoned later as a shard power.

The flying harpies were particularly hard to kill since you need to jump in the air to fight them. Times like those are when the whip came in handy as you could lash out at them easily while still maintaining a safe distance. For as tough as the armor guys look, they were some of the easier enemies. A couple of fireballs and those guys were left shaking in their iron boots.

NEW SHARD SKILLS

In Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, skills are collected by gathering shards that Miriam absorbs, after they are horribly shoved through her torso that is. The first skills in the demo granted the ability to shoot fire ball from Miriam’s hand, with total 360 degree aiming so you can choose exactly where you want to send them.

Other abilities in the demo can be collected through shards as well, such as spear throws, bone throws, and holy resist. Arguably the most useful skill is the passive ability for double-jump, which felt like a total game changer when activated for both exploration and combat.

You could also summon creatures in the demo once you defeated a few of them. Both the Gieremund and man-eating apes could be used, with the Gieremund shooting out directly in front of you and the apes sort of jumping around in the general direction you aim dealing damage to anything they touch.

FAMILIARS

Familiars are awesome travel companions that aid Miriam in battles in certain ways. Even though it’s been known for a while that familiars will be included in the game, the E3 2017 demo showed off the first ever gameplay for them so we know a little more on how they operate. In the demo, Miriam gains the ability to use the Dullahammer Head Familiar, which is a fish-like, floating eye-ball that snaps at nearby enemies causing damage. It’s particularly good at killing other Dullahammer Head enemies, which look identical to the familiar minus a light blue glow.

In the final game you will be able to level up your familiars, and some of the designs for them were actually chosen by Kickstarter backers when a poll was taken offering up several different options to choose from. A Familiar that wasn’t featured in this demo won the poll, a floating torso of a suit of armor called the Armor.

FIRST EVER BOSS

We first learned about the newest, and first, boss Bloodless a couple of days ago when Bloodstained’s E3 2017 trailer was released. She finished off the demo with a bloody battle, and let’s just say a few heath potions were needed to get through her interesting fighting moves and abilities.

Made of the liquid herself, she is able to control blood in battle and use it to deal damage with a variety of attacks. Besides shooting out blood in direct blasts at Miriam, she can use “Bloodrain” and make it pour from the ceiling hurting whatever it touches. If you’re smart you’ll try hiding under the blood-made umbrellas that she conjures up in the air, but make sure not to get too close as those will hurt you as well. As you fight Bloodless, blood sprayed and pools around the level altering the look of the environment.

Bloodless starts out the fight in an extravagant blood dress, rising from a bathtub filled with, you guessed it, blood.  But the more you fight her the more it slowly dwindles away, until she is left in a what is essentially a blood bikini before meeting her demise.