Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

[kane_magus]

It was released today. Steam. GOG. Official site. (Well, it's either that or this.)

(EDIT) Twice, now, the game has crashed on me. Both times were when I was attempting to look at a bookcase. So... beware, I guess? (EDIT 2) Oh, and of course, when I got back to that point, I found out that the door right behind the bookcase was a fucking save point, so if I'd just gone in there first, I wouldn't have lost 10-15 minutes of playtime when the game goddamn crashed. *weary sigh* (/EDIT 2) (/EDIT)

Comments

[owsf2000]

I plan on picking it up for the ps4 later today, assuming there are copies available of course. It'll likely be my next "game night".

[owsf2000]

I'm about at 60% map completion myself - I have to admit I've just ... propelled through the underwater section for now until I find a real item for going about underwater (Which admittedly might be in the water level itself but either way.)

Just passed the underground desert when I saved it last night. I likely would have been past 75% myself if I didn't get stupidly held up over pointless shit. (Such as manipulating shit with your hands to bring platforms from the background - despite the many bookcases reminding me of doing that just prior to it, it took me hours to realize they were there in that section. Spent time all over the rest of the map trying to find anything at all I could reach otherwise. Once I realized they were glowing for a reason I just facefaulted then continued on my way. -_-

As for crashes, I'm on the ps4 version. Haven't had a complete crash but I did have one screwed up bug force me to shut the game down. Essentially in the area after the ... bloody... boss. I got hit through one of the room exits. When the screen changed to the new room the area displayed was off. Much lower than it should have been. I'm guessing I was in the floor and couldn't move. I could shoot as I'd see my flying dagger go around although I doubt it was originating from me. At first I figured "Let's try using a waystone to warp back to base - maybe that will auto-correct the map!"

But nope. When I warped back in the view in the room was of the bottom of the room where the two exits to the shops are. And I couldn't move/see myself as before.

That's only happened to me once. But I have to admit there have been a couple of times after killing an enemy where the game would freeze for a good 3-6 seconds and make me think it was about to crash... luckily it would resume. so far. Either way, I remember reading in a review about the game having bugs so I've been saving every single chance I get.

They could have probably handled load screens a bit better though imo.

[kane_magus]

You do eventually get something that lets you actually walk underwater. (You'll be slow as fuck, though, unless you max out that "Amphibian Speed" shard, at which point you'll almost be able to move faster underwater than you do on land. Horizontally, at least, as trying to swim upward is still slow as molasses, even with that, for whatever reason.) I figured you had to get something like that at some point, regardless, given all the chests you have to bypass since you can't open them while only using the water jet thing to shoot around. (EDIT Oh, iirc, the water walking skill is gotten in the desert area, because I remember thinking it was odd that you get the water skill in the desert. /EDIT)

There are so many "traversal" items/skills in this game. When I got double jump at first, I was like "Well, this should open up quite a bit." But then, on going back to the initial ship level, fuck if I still couldn't get to most of the places that were too high, even for double jump. And there were several other areas that I was like "Oh, I'll need double jump for this" that were still too high for double jump once I got it. >_>; (EDIT For that matter, even now, even at 97.8% map completion, there are still a few places that I cannot get to which apparently require a skill I don't have yet, such as a chest and <spoiler> under a couple of bridges in the Oriental Sorcery Lab area. /EDIT)

I just wish that "use your default magic hand to activate/move things" gimmick was used more often, so that you'd be more used to it and expecting it when it comes up. From what I recall, it's only ever used that one time in the beginning to open that one door, once to spin a gear or some shit in the clock tower area, and then with moving the book shelves, (EDIT and the bit on the train when Solid SnakeZangetsu is with you /EDIT) and that's pretty much it.

Aside from crashes, I've been fortunately mostly glitch free. I think the only other annoyance I've had with the game is that sometimes item drops get stuck on terrain, like if you kill an enemy too close to a wall or something, and then you have to stand there and wait for an extra ten or fifteen seconds for the item bag to eventually open automatically and give you the item. (EDIT) And there's an issue where talking to Johannesanyone seems to disable the graphical effects of whatever passives you're using. You either have to go into the menu and turn them off and on again or save, exit to title, reload the save, in order to get them to show again. (/EDIT)

[owsf2000]

Regarding the Oriental Lab chests under the bridges, I haven't gotten around to going back to try this but since there's a slight gap there iirc, you might be able to use the reflector ray thing to warp under to them.

Regarding the bad ending, I got two different trophies and endings with the bad ending so far - one when you go there asap. The other time was after I got the sword from Zangetsu. I'm wondering if the number of shards you have might affect the other endings, although I suspect the different ending I got was because I had the sword but didn't use it "properly".

I saw a High Jump shard that could be made with alchemy out of the double jump but I haven't done anything with that yet. Wasn't sure if that gets rid of the double jump entirely or just keeps it and makes you jump higher as well...

Also, did you get the dash shard? The one you get by beating the ninja dude in the race. I found that damned useful for my item farming.

Anyway I'm just about finished the map/game. There's a couple of rooms I haven't unlocked (Warehorse and Celeste) since I didn't get the keys. Might just poke around online. I might try to max out the shards and equipment stuff prior to attacking the last boss but we'll see.

[kane_magus]

Regarding the Oriental Lab chests under the bridges, I haven't gotten around to going back to try this but since there's a slight gap there iirc, you might be able to use the reflector ray thing to warp under to them.

It's yet another traversal shard you get later on that lets you get in there. By the way, have you found Benjamin the second time yet? (Hint, if you haven't: he's somewhere in the Forbidden Underground Waterway.)

I suspect the different ending I got was because I had the sword but didn't use it "properly".

Yeah, there's another (short) ending if you fight normally with Zangetsuto against Gebel. Hint for real ending: look to the moon.

I saw a High Jump shard that could be made with alchemy out of the double jump but I haven't done anything with that yet. Wasn't sure if that gets rid of the double jump entirely or just keeps it and makes you jump higher as well...

I was worried about that as well, but none of the shards that require other shards to make use up the original shards. Found that out when making Regeneration with the Heal shards. Makes me wish I'd made Greatsword and Katana Expertise shards a lot earlier than I did, though.

Also, did you get the dash shard? The one you get by beating the ninja dude in the race. I found that damned useful for my item farming.

Yeah, I beat him on my second try when I started using Reflector Ray to leave him in the dust. (And then I beat him eight more times to get nine Accelerator shards. I think it made it a little faster, but not entirely sure. Not that it really needed to be much faster to begin with, to be fair.)

Anyway I'm just about finished the map/game. There's a couple of rooms I haven't unlocked (Warehorse and Celeste) since I didn't get the keys. Might just poke around online. I might try to max out the shards and equipment stuff prior to attacking the last boss but we'll see.

I've done just about everything by this point, aside from actually playing the game again on New Game+ Hard or whatever. (From what I understand, you basically keep everything, except for the traversal shards like Double Jump, etc. and a few specific items, i.e. Zangetsuto, Aegis Plate, etc.)

Since that previous post, I've now gotten/made all shards, finally, and found the one room I was missing (thanks to looking at an online map, as I wasn't much interested in scouring the entire game on my own searching for it, which is just as well since there wasn't much interesting in that last room, iirc). I also had to look up where to find the final food item for Susie's quest. Only thing I haven't finished is making all the items/food yet, due to needing to go grind for some of the materials, mainly the ones that are only available from the blue refilling chests.

Once you make the Augment Gold shard (not sure when it becomes available, may be a post-ending thing), getting gold is pretty much a non-issue after that point. You'll start seeing frequent 500g, 1000g, and even 2000g drops from candles. I went to a room that had a few candles in it and after about 20 minutes or so, I'd gotten the 500,000g achievement (and immediately spent most of that on a bunch of the Gold material item).

I also maxed all the Techniques. Some of them are actually really cool, especially some of the katana moves. A couple of them are single-weapon specific and have no mastery bar, but most of them are able to be mastered and unlocked for all weapons of their type. Some of them are just too difficult/annoying/finicky of a button combination to be practical, though. The enemy in the Warhorse room (which is a pretty cool enemy by the way, I won't spoil it, though) can be a good punching bag for leveling up Techniques, if you're strong enough to beat him consistently. He's especially useful for the rapier button-tapping move, since apparently mastery increases from damage, and not just from kills. I was trying to level that with the weak-sauce enemies near the beginning that I'd used to level most of the others Techniques, but saw that the bar was hardly moving. After just two fights with the Warhorse room enemy, though, I had maxed it out.

As for Celeste's room, it's... interesting. (Vague spoilers) If there's a secret to it, I haven't figured it out yet. I do know that if you sit in one of the chairs, a ghostly figure will appear in the other one, and if you sit in a third chair that you create with the Summon Chair shard, both chairs will start to flicker as if the figures are going to appear in both chairs, but I think your summoned chair will disintegrate before they can fully appear (and this is with Rank 9/Grade 9 Summon Chair). As far as the music boxes go (there are, iirc, five of them, and each play a different tune), I have no clue if there's some trick to those either, and nobody else seems to have figured anything out with it yet, either. (/Vague spoilers)

Oh, and one more semi-spoiler... after you do the thing with O.D. I mentioned here, there's another trick with him. Go to the room underneath him and then use the super jump you get from the High Jump shard[1] through the tiny space in the ceiling several times, until a green chest appears in the room below.

[1] - Up+backdash, a skill which I beat the entire game without knowing was even a thing, even though it specifically tells in the description of the High Jump shard when you make it. Since I apparently missed that until way later, I thought all High Jump did was, you know, just make your normal jump higher, which it does and is definitely useful enough, but that's just not all it does. >_>; If nothing else, it probably would have made moving around in the underwater area less tedious...

[owsf2000]

"High Jump" is such a retarded name for that shard as well. I'd have jumped on it much earlier if they named it appropriately like "Rocket Flight". >_>;

Seriously, using it while also using Accelerator/Dash/Whatever is insanely fun.

I did find Benjamin the second time accidentally in my first pass through the waterfall. Not sure if I noticed him in the Oriental area in my first pass through or if I just completely forgot about him thinking "I'll remember to come back" ... and then didn't.

I eventually noticed the moon turn blood red on my third try and went to slash at it.

I ended up getting the Warhouse key from the ice area. So now it's just Celeste remaining to unlock.

I've been using the lantern at the start of the game, with the guy who does your shard enhancements + augment gold + spiked armor to quickly get as much gold as possible. I can't think if a faster way then "enter map, jump, leave." every 2 seconds. Been doing that to build up the various base ingredients to max out the food stuff.

Also maxing out the shards as you recommended. Which has me hunting down enemies. Also trying to get more shards as I go since there are plenty I haven't even obtained from enemies yet.

Will probably work on it again tonight at some point although I'm trying to knock down my manga backlog. Filled some gaps in a few series that I've been following but didn't read yet due to the holes. So only another 14 or so volumes to read. x.x;

[kane_magus]

I've been using the lantern at the start of the game, with the guy who does your shard enhancements + augment gold + spiked armor to quickly get as much gold as possible. I can't think if a faster way then "enter map, jump, leave." every 2 seconds. Been doing that to build up the various base ingredients to max out the food stuff.

The place I used for gold farming was based on a recommendation I saw online. It's a tiny room in the Towers of Twin Dragons area, which has three lanterns hanging in the room. From the teleport mirror in the area, it's to the right to the elevator, down the elevator to the middle exit, and then that room is just to the right of the elevator. The guy recommended just using Accelerator back and forth, but I found it easier to run in with a gun, jump at the edge of the room, shoot once, then use Accelerator to collect the money. Mainly because using Accelerator itself to break the lanterns usually causes at least one of them, maybe more, to drop a mana flower instead of money (more likely if you don't have increased mana regen rate via food), which would suck when they could have been 100g-2000g drops instead.

So now it's just Celeste remaining to unlock.

I looked up the location of the Celeste key because I couldn't remember where I found it. So... I assume you haven't found the 8-bit Nightmare area yet? Because the Celeste key is found in the room on the way to the entrance to that. A hint is that there is a breakable ceiling in one of the rooms in Hall of Termination which contains the Celeste key and some other goodies. The entrance to the room that contains the entrance to 8-bit Nightmare is behind another breakable wall in that room. I think I found both breakable walls thanks to the fairy familiar pointing it out to me, because I probably wouldn't have found at least the breakable ceiling on my own (maybe if I'd had Detective Eye, which I'm pretty sure I didn't yet have at the time). >_>;

[kane_magus]

Another new (to me) thing I found out when I started a New Game+ run is that you get Boss Medals if you beat a boss without taking damage. I found that out when I beat Zangetsu by shooting him twice with the 32-bit version of Renee's Requiem. Boss fight took less than two seconds. >_>; However, I must have taken a bit of damage somehow when fighting the ship boss, because I didn't get a medal for that one, so, since I'm not very far into it yet, I'm thinking of restarting my New Game+ run and make it into a "try to kill all the bosses without taking damage" run. I don't think the Boss Medals are actually used for anything, though, so may not bother if it gets too frustrating to try.

Oh, and on New Game+, you can easily max out both quest lines for the old woman who wants food and the woman back toward the ship who wants items before you ever even open the door with the key Dominique gives you that leads to the rest of the game proper. Just make sure you have the required items from the initial playthrough before starting a NG+ run. Best reason to do that (for the items quest, at least) is to get a second Solomon Ring, which increases shard drops. The only quest line you can't max out before then, for obvious reasons, is the "KILL THOSE MURDERERS DEAD" woman.

And yeah... Recycle Hat (from the old woman food quest, which makes all ammo infinite) plus gun[1] plus diamond ammo is pretty ungodly. Not quite as strong as the strongest melee weapon, but pretty close. If you combine it with the scarf that increases firing rate (and having maxed out Firearm Expertise and Optimizer shards (Optimizer seems like a generalized <weapon> Expertise shard that affects all weapons and stacks with the specific Expertise shards) makes guns pretty viable. I never fired a shot in my initial game of anything other than the weak-ass infinite ammo, which basically made guns useless to me, as I didn't want to "waste" ammo.

[1] - I used Renee's Requiem (32-bit version) so far, because it has the strongest base firing rate, but Adrasteia, though a bit weaker, apparently has some homing abilities on its shot that Renee's Requiem does not (I haven't tried using it myself to see if it's worth giving up the better damage of the stronger one).

[kane_magus]

Only bad thing about starting NG+ is that you move so slowly, at least compared to endgame if you have all the shit unlocked (such as O.D.[1]'s books), and you can no longer even double-jump (which apparently also disables the divekick, which makes the Buer familiar useless for traversal if you can't bounce off of it with the divekick), much less rocket flying or teleporting around with Reflector Ray or blasting around with Accelerator or whatever. ^^; You can, at least, still use the triple kick technique with the shoes midair to do a little bit of extra traversal (e.g. getting to the room with the Pirate Hat on the ship, for what good that does aside from recoloring that part of the map for map % again).

[1] - Whose full name, I noticed when looking at the Compendium entries, is "Orlok Fahrenheit Dracule," i.e. an blatant riff on "Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes," as if it wasn't already completely obvious he was an Alucard-clone, given they look mostly alike and share the same voice actor and all. ^^; (They should have named him Celsius, instead of Fahrenheit. I'd have found that even funnier, to be honest.) Oh, and after you beat the game and it unlocks the Sound Mode, go listen to the "Special Messages." ^^;;

[kane_magus]

Another kind of obvious tip, in retrospect, but something I didn't think of until later, after I was halfway into it: before you really get into trying to craft items and food, try to max out "Alchemic Bounty" so that it gets on the skills list, and then make sure you have the shard itself equipped, too. That way, you'll have a chance of getting 2 extra of whatever item you're crafting, one each for the skill and for the shard.

This basically means that you're occasionally making something out of nothing, given that you can then turn around and dismantle the extras to get materials back, if you need them. The only thing you'd be using up is Alkahest, but that's dirt cheap (or easy to farm from the Amy enemies in the desert area if you don't want to buy it, since one of their drops is AlkahestX2).

(EDIT)

Hmm... I just noticed/realized something... it's going to take about 1,600,000g to be able to craft all the weapons. This is because when you craft an 8-bit weapon, it unlocks the stronger 16-bit version. And when you craft the 16-bit version, it will then unlock the 32-bit version. And there are 20 of each 8-bit weapon. And... 16-bit Coins cost 21,600g each (with Discount Card, which itself costs 100,000g) and the 32-bit Coins cost 57,600g each (with Discount Card). Oh... and you'll have to run the 8-bit Nightmare area and farm the boss at bare minimum 20 times (and probably many, many more times than that) because the 32-bit weapons also require the 8-bit Nightmare crafting material. At the very least, I guess you could farm the gold while doing the 8-bit Nightmare runs using Cutpurse Rings, then switch to Plunderer's Rings before fighting the boss to increase the chance of getting the 8-bit Nightmare item... but still, yeah... this is going to take a lot longer than I was expecting it to... as such, I'll probably hold off for now. :/

Though, I suppose if you get lucky with the Alchemic Bounty, you could get a bonus one or two 16-bit or 32-bit weapons when you craft one, and then dismantle them to regain the Coins and Nightmare materials to use on the next ones.

(/EDIT)

(EDIT 2)

Yeah, it actually looks like it will be (comparatively) quick and easy to get the coin weapons with Alchemic Bounty and some save-scumming, without having to spend hours doing any of the above grinding for money and 8-bit Nightmare items. At most, you'd just initially need a single 8-bit Coin, 16-bit Coin, 32-bit Coin, and 8-bit Nightmare item. Make an 8-bit weapon, if you don't get two (or, ideally, three, assuming you have both the shard and skill equipped), then reload. If you do get two (or three), dismantle one (or two) of the extras to regain the Coin (and 8-bit Nightmare, from the 32-bit weapon). By the end, you'll have way more than you started with of each Coin and 8-bit Nightmare item, and way more than you'd have needed if you had just bought/farmed for them the "legit" way, with, presumably, far less time spent.

For instance, just from the first weapon (starting with one 8-bit Coin, one 16-bit Coin, one 32-bit Coin, and one 8-bit Nightmare item, all of which you'll need to have acquired "legit"):

Step 1: Make an 8-bit weapon, and get three of them via Alchemic Bounty shard+skill.
Step 2: Make the 16-bit version, and get three of them (uses one of the 8-bit weapons and a 16-bit Coin, leaving you with two 8-bit weapons, i.e. one to keep and one to dismantle).
Step 3: Make the 32-bit version, and get three of them (uses one of the 16-bit weapons and a 32-bit Coin and an 8-bit Nightmare, leaving you with two 16-bit weapons).
Step 4: Dismantle the two extra 32-bit weapons (costs 18 Alkahest per weapon) and get back two 16-bit weapons, two 32-bit Coins, and two 8-bit Nightmare items.
Step 5: Dismantle the three (i.e. the three you started with from making them, minus the one you used to make the 32-bit weapon, minus the one you probably would want to keep [or at least I would, anyway], plus the two you just got back from dismantling) extra 16-bit weapons (costs 12 Alkahest per weapon) and get back three 8-bit weapons, and three 16-bit Coins.
Step 6: Dismantle the four (started with three, used one, one to keep, so one leftover, plus three back from dismantling) extra 8-bit weapons (costs 6 Alkahest per weapon) and get back four 8-bit Coins.

At the end of this, you will have one each of the 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit variants of the weapon, four 8-bit Coins, three 16-bit Coins, and two each of 32-bit Coins and 8-bit Nightmare items.

Now, repeat the process for each of the 19 remaining weapons. So that should be 20x4=80 8-bit Coins, 20x3=60 16-bit Coins, and 20x2=40 each of 32-bit Coins and 8-bit Nightmare items by the end of it, way more than you would have needed to make them in the first place.

The only downsides are having to run to the save point in the next room after every creation, and having to reload it after you don't get any extras, and (a much bigger downside) having to restock Alkahest every little bit, too, which will require either buying it (still way cheaper than buying the Coins, since Alkahest only costs 720g [with Discount], so a full stack of 99 is not quite 72,000g) or grinding for it from the ghost enemies (which could, maybe, break up the [still lesser than running 8-bit Nightmare multiple dozens of times] tedium of creating/dismantling the weapons).

Actually, while I'm already doing all this math shit anyway, let me try to also figure up the total required Alkahest and cost, if starting from scratch, and if dismantling all of the extras... 2x20 32-bit weapons x 18 Alkahest per weapon = 720 Alkahest + 3x20 16-bit weapons x 12 Alkahest per weapon = 720 + 720 + 4x20 8-bit weapons x 6 Alkahest per weapon = 720 + 720 + 480 = 1,920 Alkahest. Or basically 20 stacks. One full stack of 99 Alkahest per 3 variants of weapon. In other words, 1,920 x 720g is not quite 1,400,000g. Assuming all that math shit is correct, of course, which is by no means certain. So... still a fairly hefty chunk of change (if you just buy it instead of grinding for it), and actually not all that much less than you'd need to just straight up buy the Coins in the first place. That said, if you wanted, you could sell the extra Coins (making sure to leave enough to make the next weapon variants) as you go to cover the costs, instead of farming for gold. 32-bit Coins sell for 6,400g (8,000g with maxed out "Money Is Power" shard equipped OR the skill turned on, 9,600g with BOTH the shard and skill) and 16-bit Coins sell for 2,400g (or 3,000g with either/or "Money Is Power" skill/shard and 3,600 with BOTH, so, obviously, it'd pretty useful to get max Rank/Grade on "Money Is Power" before starting this as well). So, selling all the left over Coins would be, going for max value, 40x9,600g = 384,000g, 60x3,600g = 216,000g, 80x600g = 48,000g, with a total of 648,000g, which would leave 734,400g to be gotten the old fashioned way (which would still be faster to get all at once than grinding for the Alkahest itself per each stack, given you'd have to stop grinding each time you hit 99 and go back and do some dismantling for a bit before getting back to the grinding).

And, of course, you don't have to dismantle all of the extras. You just need to dismantle one of each variant in order to regain the needed Coins and 8-bit Nightmare item for the next set of weapons, so that would save some time/money, though you wouldn't be getting back the extra Coins to sell of course.

Honestly, though, it still might be faster in the end to just go ahead and grind out the almost 1,600,000g and simply buy the Coins outright, and then just use the Alchemic Bounty save-scumming trick only for getting back the 8-bit Nightmare items from the final variant weapons, to save you from having to run the 8-bit Nightmare dungeon over and over. Like I said in the previous comment, it only took maybe 20 minutes or so to grind out 500,000g for the achievement, it'd take maybe an hour or a little more to get almost 2,000,000g.

Let's tally up the absolute bare minimum, assuming you just initially grind out the 1,600,000g-ish money to buy the needed Coins. Make a 8-bit and 16-bit variant, not caring about duplicates (unless you just want one left over). Make a 32-bit variant, going for at least one extra via Alchemic Bounty. Dismantle the extra 32-bit weapon to get back an 8-bit Nightmare item. Need 20 8-bit Nightmare items, including the one you get "legit" to start with. So you'd need to dismantle 19 of the 32-bit weapons (not needing to dismantle the final one, since you're already done at that point), 19 times 18 Alkahest per weapon (342 or roughly 3.5 stacks) times 720g per Alkahest = 246,240g for the Alkahest needed to get back the 8-bit Nightmare items. And, again, all of this assumes you have the 100,000g Discount Card... so it might be easiest/simplest/fastest to just grind out fucking 2,000,000g for everything needed and just be done with it... I don't know. But I do know that running the 8-bit Nightmare dungeon and fighting that boss multiple dozens of times would probably be rancid ass, though, even if the RNG Gods were feeling benevolent, which they almost never are. ¬_¬

Hell, all told, it probably took about as long or longer for me to type all this shit up as it would be to actually do it in game. ^^;;

(/EDIT 2)

[kane_magus]

And, of course, every calculation above is all fucked up and wrong, because I only just realized that my Alchemic Bounty was only at Grade 2. After getting 7 more shards, it now seems possible to get up to 5 items at once from one creation. Or, at least, 5 is the max that I've seen so far. *weary sigh*

(EDIT)

Pretty sure it's 5 tops. It's like you only ever get all of the bonus (5) or none of it (1). Haven't seen anything in between, except in the cases where you might be trying to, say, make potions when you already have 6 of them, in which case, the most you'd get would be 3 more instead of 5.

(/EDIT)

[kane_magus]

Have all the Coin weapons now. I found out about halfway through making them that they don't actually count for item % completion, though. Not that that matters, because I wanted to make them anyway. Now just to get the materials needed to make the rest of the normal equipment, I guess.

[kane_magus]

Pretty much finished my current playthrough now and about ready to move on to New Game+. Might hold off on that for a while, though, just due to not really feeling up to jumping right back into an all new playthrough just yet, interesting though it might be to just wreck everything in the beginning with endgame weapons.