History YMMV / BloodstainedRitualOfTheNight

** Many players were taken aback by the sudden appearance of an ice cavern for the game's final area, while others recognized it as a fitting reference to the Ninth Circle of Hell as mentioned in ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'', the deepest level of hell that is said to have its inhabitants frozen in ice, and is reserved for those who have committed the sin of treachery, which couldn't be more fitting for the game's true antagonist.
** The alchemic ingredients for gunpowder are sulfur and saltpeter. These, along with charcoal mind you, actually ''do'' make gunpowder in real life if you grind them to a fine powder and mix them in a ratio of 2 parts sulfur, 15 parts saltpeter, and 3 parts charcoal, as the sulfur ignites the charcoal fuel which gets so hot it literally tears the saltpeter molecules apart creating an exothermic reaction. [[WesternAnimation/GIJoe And now you know!]]

** Ghosts. Similar to the above but without the spells - so at least it is easier to deal with them.

** [[spoiler:[[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist Dominique Baldwin]] is an exorcist who lost her faith in God after God did nothing to stop the demon invasion 10 years prior and thus [[RageAgainstTheHeavens desired demonic power to transcend any deity]]. To this end, Dominique sets Miriam against her childhood friend Gebel, hoping to [[TheCorrupter corrupt]] Miriam enough to have Gremory possess her and use her a sacrifice to Bael. Dominique is willing to [[HellOnEarth plunge the entire world into demonic carnage]] all for the power to [[KillTheGod kill God himself]] and coldly acknowledges all love for her family swept up in the demonic attacks has long been consumed by her selfish crusade for power.]]

** Bloodless, a mid-game boss, garnered attention and pretty much a lot of love from lots of players, due to both her boss fight, which involves [[EvilIsSexy lots of]] {{Fanservice}} [[ClothingDamage along the way]], and the ability to play as her on Boss Revenge Mode. It was enough for IGA to decide to [[spoiler:make her playable ''in the main game as well'' via the "BLOODLESS" code used as the player name]].
* EvilIsSexy:
** The (second) boss of the Dian Cécht Cathedral, Bloodless. BathtubScene ([[BloodBath in blood]]); GorgeousGarmentGeneration after a brief moment of nudity; ClothingDamage during the fight; and she is an {{expy}} of UsefulNotes/ElizabethBathory, meaning she's very likely a torturer of many victims.
** [[spoiler:Dominique]] in the eyes of some, largely due to her rather buxom figure.

* GuideDangIt: Using Craftwork to get past the iron maiden at the top of Entrance, since the only other iron maiden near that part of the game is the one in the Garden of Silence, which needs Craftwork to reach, but ''that'' iron maiden can be sealed shut into a pushable state if a toad jumps into it, leading nothing to teach that Craftwork can grasp an unsealed iron maiden.

* CompleteMonster: The game has [[spoiler:TheDragon and the real BigBad]]:

* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: Downplayed. Critical reviews of the game called it a solid piece of work, its scores generally falling in the range of "eight out of ten." However, it was also criticized for following in the footsteps of its predecessors a little too closely.

** There's quite a friendly rapport with fans of ''VideoGame/{{Blasphemous}}'', another Metroidvania. The two games are sold together on Steam as part of the "Sword and Whip Bundle". Miraim has also appeared as a guest in Blasphemous.

** There's quite a friendly rapport with fans of ''VideoGame/Blasphemous'', another Metroidvania. The two games are sold together on Steam as part of the "Sword and Whip Bundle". Miraim has also appeared as a guest in Blasphemous.

** [[spoiler:[[SixthRangerTraitor Dominique Baldwin]] is an exorcist who lost her faith in God after God did nothing to stop the demon invasion 10 years prior and thus [[RageAgainstTheHeavens desired demonic power to transcend any deity]]. To this end, Dominique sets Miriam against her childhood friend Gebel, hoping to [[TheCorrupter corrupt]] Miriam enough to have Gremory possess her and use her a sacrifice to Bael. Dominique is willing to [[HellOnEarth plunge the entire world into demonic carnage]] all for the power to [[KillTheGod kill God himself]] and coldly acknowledges that all love for her family swept up in the demonic attacks has long been consumed by her narcissistic crusade for power.]]

** Depending on whether or not you've been stingy with your money, Valefar has the potential to become this. At the start of his second phase, he drains you of every single penny and adds it to his health. For players who have been hoarding cash, the fight now becomes an endurance test as you try to whittle down Valefar's now astronomical health, and while his attacks aren't too hard to dodge, the potential length of the fight means that the possibility of slipping up too many times and dying is all too real. Using an Invert + Aegis Plate combo so that you can stand on the spiked ceiling out of range of a few attacks helps ease the pain a little, though it comes at the cost of being able to take less damage due to the Aegis Plate being fairly sub-par at that point in the game. Thankfully, a patch has since given Valefar's money drain a well-deserved nerf, capping his health gain at 9999 HP.

* ShipToShipCombat: The two most vocally opposed shipping groups are [[BattleCouple Miriam/Zangetsu]] and [[SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan Miriam/Johannes]], mostly coming down to whether the person prefers a RatedMForManly man or a NonActionGuy.

* FanartAtFirstSight: Held a Website/{{Kickstarter}} campaign to encouraged this by adding extra unlocks based on receiving fanart and cosplay photos of the protagonists.

*** Upbeat Heat. It only gets better as you increase its rank and grade as this will allow Tamako-Death to play her theme much longer. While some bosses, [[spoiler:namely True Zangetsu and Dominique]], are too nimble and mobile to be hit effectively due to its arc, others, like [[spoiler:the 8-Bit Overlord, Gremory, and ''especially'' Bael]], are so slow or spend so long being stationary that their HP will just get shredded instantly. For added fun, against smaller enemies, combining Upbeat Heat with Invert means you can cover the entire floor in gouts of fire. Rubella, Aurora's version of this shard, is even better than the normal version since it heals her for 55 HP at Rank 1 and 150 at Rank 9, whenever you summon her and since she gains back large chunks of MP when she attacks an enemy with her sword, she rarely has to worry about survival even without access to any healing items.

*** Upbeat Heat. It only gets better as you increase its rank and grade as this will allow Tamako-Death to play her theme much longer. While some bosses, [[spoiler:namely True Zangetsu and Dominique]], are too nimble and mobile to be hit effectively due to its arc, others, like [[spoiler:the 8-Bit Overlord, Gremory, and ''especially'' Bael]], are so slow or spend so long being stationary that their HP will just get shredded instantly. For added fun, against smaller enemies, combining Upbeat Heat with Invert means you can cover the entire floor in gouts of fire. Rubella, Aurora's version of this shard, is even better than the normal version since it heals her for 100+ HP whenever you summon her and since she gains back large chunks of MP when she attacks an enemy with her sword, she rarely has to worry about survival even without access to any healing items.

*** Augment Gold increases the amount of gold dropped from torches. It can be crafted for only a single gold once you find the Augment Luck shard, can be fully upgraded to 9 for a handful of ectoplasms, holy waters, and one extra gold (so about $30,000 in total), and at this level makes it so the lowest a torch will ever drop is $100 and makes them commonly drop $500, $1000, and even ''$2000 bags''. Or you can double-stack it by setting it as your passive shard as well to make $500 bags ''the smallest possible gold bag that can drop''. This is when enhancing shards and crafting new weapons becomes trivial since it takes maybe 10 minutes of running back and forth between Johannes' and Dominique's room slashing torches to save up around $100,000, meaning you can just buy stuff and alkahests to get whatever ingredients you want.

** Underwater walking/jumping mechanics, in which the slow, plodding controls ''Castlevania'' is known for make a return. Unlike other games in the ''Castlevania'' franchise, here Miriam moves as nimbly as glacial drift, and you need a few other shards to make it bearable. When you first receive the Aqua Stream shard that allows you to move underwater, you actually have to "push" Miriam through the water, which makes navigating past high-damage spike traps a real pain.

** [[LethalLavaLand Inferno Cave]]. The floor literally is lava for the most part, and it hurts like hell. It's also ''crawling'' with incredibly irritating and frustrating enemies, many of which take advantage of the limited means of egress and tricky terrain to box you in and repeatedly hit you with extremely damaging attacks, often also knocking you into the lava. Oh, and CheckpointStarvation is a ''huge'' issue — you have to trudge through the vast majority of the Secret Sorcery Lab just to get there, and you won't find a single save or warp point until you get to the area right before the boss chamber. Thankfully, Orobas itself is something of a BreatherBoss (at least in comparison to some of the other mid and late-game bosses), but it's small comfort when you're burning through healing items like crazy and are only two rooms in. This is especially the case in Nightmare mode, where your HP is usually around 1000 ''throughout the game''. Any environmental hazard will damage you around 400HP. If an enemy knocks you back and you touch the lava, you're basically toast.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Gebel. He's set up as the main antagonist of the game and is seen twice before you fight him in his throne room. Following that, [[spoiler:he dies regardless of your actions, and the remainder of the plot focuses on Alfred, Zangetsu, and Dominique, who all get more screen time than he does]].

** The E3 demo, which, despite being alpha, was so well received for its visuals, gameplay, and music that any fear of ''Bloodstained'' "pulling a ''[=MN9=]''" has all but vanished.

** As far as familiars go, Carabosse is a popular choice due to the fact that she can attack enemies and heal Miriam, which makes her quite useful.

*** Standstill, which allows you to stop time. It's not much of a Game-Breaker on its own due to its absurd mana drain. But when combined with Gebel's Glasses, which give you infinite MP? You can stop time for as long as you like, completely trivializing anything that isn't a boss. The only downsides are that you only get Standstill from beating [[spoiler:O.D.]] in TheVeryDefinitelyDungeon and the glasses are rewarded after acquiring every obtainable shard in the game.

*** Standstill, which allows you to stop time. Not much of a Game-Breaker on its own, due to its absurd mana drain. But when combined with Gebel's Glasses, which give you infinite MP? You can stop time for as long as you like, completely trivializing anything that isn't a boss. The only downside is that you only get Standstill from beating [[spoiler:O.D.]] and the glasses are rewarded after acquiring every shard in the game, meaning you're already at the end of the game and have beaten everything it's thrown at you. So they don't really have a chance to shine unless you do NewGamePlus.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Dominique, who serves as Miriam's supplier for the majority of the game. Fans are split on [[spoiler:whether or not she's a good [[BigBad main antagonist]]. Either she's a TragicVillain with an understandable motivation for turning on God and has a more active role in the story than previous villains from Igarashi's games, or she's a generic villain whose EvilAllAlong reveal becomes increasingly easy to see coming as the game progresses[[labelnote:note 1]]It doesn't help that she's a stereotypical ChurchMilitant, or that TheReveal doesn't happen until the penultimate area[[/labelnote]] and doesn't have enough of an active role for her betrayal to have an emotional impact]]. Complicating things further is the debate on [[spoiler:whether her being EvilAllAlong was even necessary, with some fans arguing that Gremory should have been the BigBad[[labelnote:note 2]]like she was in ''[[VideoGame/BloodstainedCurseOfTheMoon Curse of the Moon]]''[[/labelnote]] instead of TheDragon working for her]].

* {{Narm}}: The piano piece that Miriam plays in the Garden of Silence is simply the theme of ''Bloodstained'' arranged as a piano composition. If she has the Carabosse familiar equipped and present, Carabosse will sing lyrics with her. In Japanese, it's very apparent that her voice actress is a practiced vocalist and the whole piece sounds gorgeous. In English... not so much. With everything from a shaky translation to the Carabosse voice actress clearly not being anywhere nearly as practiced as her Japanese counterpart, the English version of it gets a lot of flak and was left out of the official soundtrack entirely in favor of the Japanese version. The kicker? The singer is Rena Strober, best known for providing Azura's singing and voice performance in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', who ''is'' a professionally trained singer.

*** Surprisingly, Tamako-Death is more than just a visually epic demon to summon — she also ''munches'' through most boss health bars. While generally not a good summon for traveling through the castle for the somewhat cumbersome arc her attack hits at, that same troublesome arc and the fact she constantly spams fireballs means that the usually large and stationary or slow bosses just get ''chunked'' when she starts jamming. It only gets better as you increase her rank and grade — she plays her theme longer, up to around ''17 seconds long.'' While some bosses, [[spoiler:namely True Zangetsu and Dominique]], are too nimble and mobile to be hit effectively, others, like [[spoiler:the 8-Bit Overlord, Gremory, and ''especially'' Bael]], are so slow or spend so long stationary that their HP will just get shredded instantly. For added fun, against smaller enemies, combining Tamako-Death with Invert means you can cover the entire floor in gouts of fire. Rubella, Aurora's version of this shard, is even better than the normal version since it heals her for 100+ HP whenever you summon her and since she gains back large chunks of MP when she attacks an enemy with her sword, she rarely has to worry about survival even without access to any healing items.
*** Standstill, which allows you to stop time. Not much of a Game-Breaker on its own, due to its absurd mana drain. But when combined with Gebel's Glasses, which give you infinite MP? You can stop time for as long as you like, completely trivializing anything that isn't a boss. The only downside is that you only get Standstill from beating [[spoiler:O.D.]] and the glasses are from acquiring every shard in the game, meaning you're already at the end of the game and have beaten everything it's thrown at you. So they don't really have a chance to shine unless you do NewGamePlus.

* SerialNumbersFiledOff: Make no mistake — this is a ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' game in everything but name. Not only does it share [[MyRealDaddy a significant portion of its development team]] with such classics as ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight Symphony of the Night]]'', the plot points [[WholePlotReference follow near-identical beats]] [[note]]A protagonist with a long-standing relationship to the apparent BigBad braves a castle full of monsters to stop him from ending the world, only to discover that there is a [[TheManBehindTheMan woman behind the man]] who is really to blame; there's even a bad ending you can get by failing to realize that this is the case, and a specific item you need to get in order to see through the true villain's deceit. The only thing missing is the Inverted Castle.[[/note]], and it incorporates gameplay elements from essentially every post-''Symphony'' ''Castlevania'' title. Of course, given what Konami is and isn't doing with the ''Castlevania'' IP right now [[note]]general neglect of the franchise outside of using the property for a much-maligned pachinko title (''CR Pachinko Akumajō Dracula'') and a mobile sidescroller-slash-gacha of decent quality but with seemingly little fanfare to it whose service only lasted for about a year (''Grimoire of Souls''); there is, however, [[WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017 the highly acclaimed Netflix series]], which Konami oversees and is actively involved in the production of,[[/note]] [[InvokedTrope this is very much the whole point]].

* ThatOneAchievement: The Gilded Youth achievement/trophy for getting 500,000 gold. To earn it you have to actually have 500,000 gold on-hand. Considering how often you'll be purchasing supplies, crafting materials, and other gear, this can take a very long time. It doesn't help that the Augment Gold Shard that allows enemies and candles to drop 500 Gold bags doesn't show up for a while. It can take even longer to earn it if you're also going for the Item Collector achievement/trophy (itself not an easy achievement either). It also doesn't help that one late-game boss is much, ''much'' harder to beat if you have a lot of gold on-hand.

* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: After the cold reception of other Kickstarter-backed CreatorDrivenSuccessor games such as ''VideoGame/MightyNo9'' and ''VideoGame/YookaLaylee'', as well as [[SpecialEffectFailure how bland the graphics looked]] [[TaintedByThePreview in previews]], many people thought ''Bloodstained'' would be headed the same road as the aforementioned games; being a mediocre cash-grab meant to lure fans of [[Franchise/{{Castlevania}} a beloved and neglected franchise]]. The game released to stellar reviews, with many praising it for its engaging gameplay and vastly improved graphics, and it is viewed by many as a worthy successor to ''Castlevania''. [[CreatorCameo IGA]]'s FlavorText even seems to poke a little fun at the sentiment:

** Most fans were eager to trigger the secret boss fight with [[spoiler:O.D.]] on purpose because the character's various nods to [[spoiler:''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight SotN]]'''s Alucard]] extend to their moveset as well, with [[spoiler:O.D.]] employing the use of [[spoiler:Al's bat, mist, and wolf forms]]. This is on top of their liberal yet judicious use of TimeStandsStill.

** Towers of Twin Dragons is a throwback to ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' Clock Towers, complete with giant rotating gears, flying enemy heads that knock you into spikes, and some of the best music in the game. The sheer size, scope, and unique 3D gimmick takes everything cool about its inspiration and outdoes them, showing off what Iga and the team can do now with modern technology no longer limited by handheld consoles. It's not uncommon to hear players gush about ''this'' level being the moment when they tearfully rejoiced "Oh my God! This really ''is'' Castlevania!"

* CrossoverShip: Ever since Miriam appeared as crossover [=DLC=] for VideoGame/{{Blasphemous}}, people have been shipping her with the latter game's main protagonist, the Penitent One.

** Orlok Fahrenheit Dracule, better known simply as O.D. He's ''Bloodstained''[='s=] answer to Alucard in everything but name, aided by him having Alucard's look and voice actor(s) [[note]]whereas in Japanese he's fittingly voiced by Creator/RyotaroOkiayu, who's consistently lent his voice to Alucard since [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight 1997]], the English version arguably went the extra mile by getting Robert Belgrade, Al's original English voice actor from the same game, to effectively "reprise" the role[[/note]], and the game deliberately gives him a role similar to the Master Librarian from ''[=SotN=]'' — complete with the exact same "High Jump into chair from the room below" EasterEgg (which can also be triggered with Invert). Then there's the matter of [[spoiler:his secret boss fight in the Glacial Tomb]]: hilarious for [[spoiler:its "reasoning" (he was ''[[DisproportionateRetribution not]]'' joking about how valuable the Tome of Conquest is to him)]] and utterly cool in design (as O.D. [[spoiler:employs [[AnIcePersion cryokinesis]] and [[TimeStandsStill chronokinesis]] along with Alucard's various transformations]]).

** As far as summons go, Carabosse is a popular choice due to the fact that she can attack and heal Miriam, which makes her quite useful.

** Bloodless, a mid-game boss, garnered attention and pretty much a lot of love from lots of players, due to both her boss fight (which involves [[EvilIsSexy lots of]] {{Fanservice}} [[ClothingDamage along the way]]) and the ability to play as her on Boss Revenge Mode. It was enough for Iga to decide to [[spoiler:make her playable ''in the main game as well'' via the "BLOODLESS" code used as the player name]].

** The (second) boss of Church of Dian Cecht, Bloodless. BathtubScene ([[BloodBath in blood]]); GorgeousGarmentGeneration after a brief moment of nudity; ClothingDamage during the fight; and she is an {{expy}} of UsefulNotes/ElizabethBathory, meaning she's very likely a torturer of many victims.

* FanNickname: Since his reveal trailer, Zangetsu has started becoming known as "[[VideoGame/MetalGear Samurai Snake]]" due to [[Creator/DavidHayter his voice actor]].

** A number of other Kickstarter-funded games also share a good chunk of fans, which include ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' and ''VideoGame/ShovelKnight''. Bonus points for Creator/{{WayForward|Technologies}} being picked up to help with the game's development late into its cycle and Yacht Club Games' approval of featuring Shovel Knight as the Shovel Armor guest enemy, as well as a summonable Shard attack and playable character via the Ex Shovel Armor due to fanart by Yuji Natsume.

*** The Recycle Hat, the ultimate reward Miriam receives for Susie's cooking questline. Putting it on makes all ammunition infinite. Equipping this, and one of the endgame rifles loaded with Diamond bullets, makes Miriam able to one-shot the vast majority of enemies in the entire game.

*** 8-Bit Fireball is one of the secret Shards gotten from the 8-bit Nightmare minigame in the Hall of Termination. It's a tiny, slow-moving fireball that doesn't seem all that impressive initially. However, after fully upgrading it, the maximum number of fireballs it fires goes up to SIX, and while they still move rather slowly, each fireball ''hits like a truck'' while costing a pittance of MP. At point-blank range, the fireball becomes a very effective substitute for melee that can demolish bosses in only a handful of shots.

*** Surprisingly, Tamako-Death is more than just a visually epic Demon to summon — she also ''munches'' through most boss health bars. While generally not a good summon for traveling through the castle for the somewhat cumbersome arc her attack hits at, that same troublesome arc and the fact she constantly spams fireballs means that the usually large and stationary or slow bosses just get ''chunked'' when she starts jamming. It only gets better as you increase her rank and grade — she plays her theme longer, up to around ''17 seconds long.'' While some bosses [[spoiler:(namely True Zangetsu and Dominique)]] are too nimble and mobile to be hit effectively, others, like [[spoiler:the 8-Bit Overlord, Gremory, and ''especially'' Bael]], are so slow or spend so long stationary that their HP will just get shredded instantly. For added fun, against smaller enemies, combining Tamako-Death with Invert means you can cover the entire floor in gouts of fire. Rubella, Aurora's version of this shard, is even better than the normal version since it heals her for 100+ HP whenever you summon her and since she gains back large chunks of MP when she attacks an enemy with her sword, she rarely has to worry about survival even without access to any healing items.

** The cure for all these annoyances, the Directional Shard Teps Oceus fires a HomingProjectile, HitScan, ChainLightning that goes through obstacles! Instant revenge for GoddamnedBats!

* HarsherInHindsight: A lot of fans and interviewers like to pit IGA against Inafune, since both were behind some of the most beloved side-scrollers ever (''Castlevania'' and ''Mega Man'', respectively) and both began hugely successful CreatorDrivenSuccessor-themed Kickstarters. When jokingly asked if he would "call Inafune to gloat" about beating his record, IGA humbly turned aside the joke and said "I'm sure his next Kickstarter will blow mine away." A few weeks later, Inafune launched a Kickstarter for ''VideoGame/RedAsh'', based on ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'', which ended up being immensely controversial, and failed to meet its goals by a rather large margin. It's also hard to think about this act of humility when ''Mighty No. 9'' ended up being widely considered a major disappointment both shortly before and once it released.

* [[HoYay Les Yay]]: If you repeatedly visit Dominique's shop on a single visit, she'll get just a little flirty about it.

** The knights' long [[TheImmodestOrgasm death rattle]], aka Voice #813 in the Sound Menu. Hear it enough and it goes from funny, to annoying, and [[CrossesTheLineTwice loops back around]] to being [[SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound hilarious]].

* {{Narm}}: The piano piece that Miriam plays in the Garden of Silence is simply the theme of ''Bloodstained'' arranged as a piano composition. If she has the Carabosse familiar equipped and present, Carabosse will sing lyrics with her. In Japanese, it's very apparent that the voice actress is a practiced vocalist and the whole piece sounds gorgeous. In English... not so much. With everything from a shaky translation to the Carabosse voice actress clearly not being anywhere nearly as practiced as her Japanese counterpart, the English version of it gets a lot of flak and was left out of the official soundtrack entirely in favor of the Japanese version. The kicker? The singer is ''Rena Strober'', best known for providing Azura's singing and voice performance in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', who is a professionally trained singer.

** The Switch version was widely lambasted for its numerous serious performance issues. While many expected its lower resolution and slower FPS, the other issues were less acceptable. The numerous graphical issues and borderline 3DS-level graphical performance, input lag, regular crashes, LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading, and extremely dodgy framerate that often dips into the teens and frequently stutters or hangs have all greatly soured the fanbase's opinion of the Switch version, and many fans seriously wondered if they even tried to make the Switch version good. Furthermore, several details suggested that they were well aware of the Switch version's issues (the BlatantLies about the reason for its poor performance at E3, plus the Switch version shipping out a week late in what appeared to be a transparent ploy to get it to fly under the radar and not drag down the initial review scores), which pissed off the fanbase even more. The general mood among backers who chose the Switch version has been one of anger, and, at best, people are hoping that they will actually listen to them regarding the game's issues and address them via patching. [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night/posts/2547316?ref=ksr_email_backer_project_update_registered_users IGA and 505 Games responded swiftly and promised a fix by reallocating their resources and programmers majorly to fix the Switch issue.]]

* SerialNumbersFiledOff: Make no mistake — this is a ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' game in everything but name. Not only does it share [[MyRealDaddy a significant portion of its development team]] with such classics as ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight Symphony of the Night]]'', the plot points [[WholePlotReference follow near-identical beats]] [[note]]A protagonist with a long-standing relationship to the apparent BigBad braves a castle full of monsters to stop him from ending the world, only to discover that there is a [[TheManBehindTheMan woman behind the man]] who is really to blame; there's even a bad ending you can get by failing to realize that this is the case, and a specific item you need to get in order to see through the true villain's deceit. The only thing missing is the Inverted Castle.[[/note]], and it incorporates gameplay elements from essentially every post-''Symphony'' ''Castlevania'' title. Of course, given what Konami is and isn't doing with the ''Castlevania'' IP right now [[note]]general neglect of the franchise outside of using the property for a much-maligned pachinko title (''CR Pachinko Akumajō Dracula'') and a mobile sidescroller-slash-gacha of decent quality but with seemingly little fanfare to it whose service only lasted for about a year (''Grimoire of Souls''); there is, however, [[WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017 the highly acclaimed Netflix series]], which Konami oversees and is actively involved in the production of[[/note]], [[InvokedTrope this is very much the whole point]].

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rayc0H-5HWE Luxurious Overture]] sounds similar to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptfZ3IPkAOY Crucified]] by Army of Lovers.
** The intro of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFHYTci4M1M Exorschism]] sounds similar to that of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPUsaNxUCnU Machtkampf]] by Music/ArchEnemy. Further exemplified by this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFYILSnw82E mashup]].

** [[spoiler:Gebel's death on the True Ending path. He finally comes to his senses and Miriam believes she's finally saved him, but his corruption begins growing at such a rapid rate that it becomes clear he's not going to make it, and there's nothing Miriam can do to help him.]]

* ThatOneAchievement: The achievement for getting 500,000 gold. To earn it you have to actually have 500,000 gold on-hand. Considering how often you'll be purchasing supplies, crafting materials, and other gear, this can take a very long time. It doesn't help that the Augment Gold Shard that allows enemies and candles to drop 500 Gold bags doesn't show up for a while. It can take even longer to earn it if you're also going for the 100% Item Completion achievement (itself not an easy achievement either). It also doesn't help that one late-game boss is much, ''much'' harder to beat if you have a lot of gold on-hand.
* ThatOneAttack: The Death Seal attack that [[spoiler:True Zangetsu]] performs on you on Hard Mode and higher is a OneHitKill attack that, once summoned, cannot be avoided and will likely kill any newcomers who don't know how to deal with it. Although some use the Directed Shield to withstand the attack, others have made use of the Ray Reflector to escape.

** The underwater section of the Forbidden Underground Waterway that leads to the Hidden Desert, which also suffers from CheckpointStarvation. You need to use the Aqua Stream shard to push Miriam through the water and past a series of spike traps that inflict a LOT of damage if they connect. There are no save points in this section, and the closest one is near the boss of the Hidden Desert, which also has some very powerful enemies throughout. If you're low on health and items, chances are the enemies there will do you in before you reach it.
** [[LethalLavaLand Inferno Cave]]. Good lord, where do we begin? The floor literally is lava for the most part, and it hurts like hell. It's also ''crawling'' with incredibly irritating and frustrating enemies, many of which take advantage of the limited means of egress and tricky terrain to box you in and repeatedly hit you with extremely damaging attacks, often also knocking you into the lava. Oh, and CheckpointStarvation is a ''huge'' issue — you have to trudge through the vast majority of the Secret Sorcery Lab just to get there, and you won't find a single save or warp point until you get to the area right before the boss chamber. Thankfully, Orobas itself is something of a BreatherBoss (at least in comparison to some of the other mid and late-game bosses), but it's small comfort when you're burning through healing items like crazy and are only two rooms in.
*** Especially in Nightmare mode, where your HP is usually around 1000 ''throughout the game''. Any environmental hazard will damage you around 400HP. If an enemy knocks you back and you touch the lava, you're basically toast.

** Several demons, such as Nyapon, Macaron, Kamikaze, Puppy, and Rocky, are the photo-realistic heads of real cats and dogs, and look ''disturbingly unnatural'' next to the more stylized designs of every other creature and character.

* UnderusedGameMechanic: Dimension Shift. You gain the ability in the last area of the game, after beating the second-to-last boss. You need to use it to progress only once, and aside from that, it's required for a few sidequests and chests that are inaccessible otherwise, but other than that, it doesn't see much use. [[spoiler:The area based on Journey added in August of 2022 requires it, but is still a purely optional area.]]

** While the game had a good, positive following at first, the first reveal of the graphics of the game made people think twice, declaring it as ugly (despite being ''pre-alpha'' graphics). This was reversed when they showed off new, improved shaders for the game and some updated graphics, which many people declared looked downright beautiful.
** The E3 demo, which, despite being alpha, was so well received for its visuals, gameplay, and music that any fear of Bloodstained "pulling a ''[=MN9=]''" has all but vanished.