How good is this game?

[Goneja]

Comparing to hollow knight?

[RaustBD]

Do not compare this game to Hollow Knight, because there are very few metroidvanias that will look good from that comparison. I cannot justify buying ANY metroidvania before playing Hollow Knight, mostly because Hollow Knight is a little over a third of this game's price and yet totally didn't need to be. Hollow Knight is way better balanced and the lack of rpg mechanics makes it much easier to freely explore in lots of different orders without the difficulty dropping like a rock.

Hollow Knight is a 15 dollar masterpiece. This game's pretty good, but it's missing a lot of polish, the soundtrack is meh, the quests are lame, and it has some problems with its difficulty curve due to writing exploration checks that its leveling system prevents it from being able to cash. Also, as far as I can tell, you can't play on the hardest difficulty without beating it twice, which takes something like 40 hours.

[Duck]

Having played both, I can say that Hollow Knight does a lot of stuff better than Bloodstained but Bloodstained does Castlevania better than Hollow Knight. Maybe that is a nonanswer, but I think it helps demonstrate what kind of gameplay to expect from Bloodstained.

[Kyutaru]

I played and loved both. Bloodstained is the better Castlevania game with plenty of RPG mechanics and tons of weapons to choose from. Hollow Knight is the hardcore platformy no-life variant of brutal boss fights and perfecting your one weapon style.

Hollow Knight is glorious if you want the most unforgiving approach to castle exploration and want to master trick jumps to avoid instant death spikes, similar to what some older Castlevanias required, with a true final boss that nigh demands cheats to survive.

Bloodstained is better if you want the customization and level ups of a real RPG with an assortment of weapons and spells to completely accommodate your playstyle. It has precious few platforming segments and is primarily about the battle and exploration.

In a sense, Hollow Knight has a very limited hero who has to figure out how to survive in a world that is tougher than he is. Bloodstained has a very overpowered hero who has to use her anime-like power to stomp through enemies while searching for secrets. Hollow Knight at your strongest will just be a ninja. Bloodstained's Miriam at her strongest is a literally flying Goku.

[BloodDragon]

Glorous!

[Solaire of Astora]

I give bloodstained somewhere around an 11 out of 10

[Seraphita]

This game kept me constantly busy for 50 hours and I enjoyed every moments of it. Can't really compare but I'd recommend it. If you skip everything though, you might end with a shorter time.

[Midas Welby]

Just get the game! This is directed by the guy who made the game recipe that hollow knight, cave story, ori, and a ton of other masterpieces have stuck to for almost 20 years now.

First of all, hollow knight is about the best value per dollar of any platform game and one of the best in the genre. The value is insane. I would put bloodstained up there with ori, hollow knight, and the other classics. You guys are forgetting that hollow knight has had tons of updates and free content. Bloodstained is getting multiplayer and new game +, lots of addon content to expand the game. 13 free dlc updates

[Epic_Caesura]

Both are great, but in my opinion Hollow Knight is meaningfully better, even ignoring that it's also cheaper. That said, I think any fan of the genre absolutely should play both, regardless.

(And neither is perfect, which is a bit frustrating. There are serious discoverability issues with both games, for example. It's as if the devs *want* everyone to find things out online instead of through playing...)

[Sticky White Stuff]

I clocked double the amount of hours here than in Hollow Knight. And Hollow Knight IS better. The atmosphere is unmatched. Even Bloodborne doesn't match it. Thing is, the combat in this game is second to none, weapons, techniques, blood splatters, etc. It feels good to play with various weapons opposed to Hollow Knight which did the best it could with Charms and one weapon.

If you love Castlevania, SOTN, GBA and DS ones, then you should seriously consider getting this. Hollow Knight would have never existed if those games weren't made. And no, Metroid doesn't count for crap when comparing, so no one should bring that up. Hollow Knight was directly inspired by the games i listed while adding its own twist. This is pretty much old-school in a new era.

Also, there are still like 14 free DLC coming out for this. Rougelite, Chaos Mode, Co-op, Battle Mode, etc.

[Sen]

This game is good. But nothing compares to hollow knight imo

[Sparky mark phillips]

this ones more about combat and loot with the traditional rpg style stats i wish we had more games like this i can't stand all the platforming crap that most of the genre is these days.

[Ryuudou]

It's a good game, but a lot the shards make it stupidly easy and definitely need to be nerfed. I would play it on hard mode if possible.

[Der Guteste TTV]

This game is good overall but Hollow Knight is just on a different level.

Bloodstained has a real Castlevania feel to it. Personally I dislike the balance tho, some shards/items are straight up OP it's not even funny and you can cheese the game so hard (welcome party, dullahead fam. Tiz Rozain for example) that the hardest part of the game is imo the beginning, when you don't have the OP stuff yet. Ofc you can limit yourself to using bad spells and stuff but idk, seems kinda weird.

Also, at some points the game is kinda unclear on how to progress.

Anyway, still a good game. If you really like metroidvania's, give it a go. Just don't expect it to be basically perfection like Hollow Knight.

[dannyaic]

They’re different. Bloodstained has balance issues where you can abuse the system to become close to invincible. Hollow knight does not. Hollow knight is a much more balanced game. I had fun with both but if you’re looking for a good challenge, stick with hollow knight.