Bloodstained is absolutely, unapologetically a game made for Symphony of the Night's many fans, and it lives up to that legacy better than I ever could have hoped for.

The occasional two-second load screen is a paltry price for experiencing a near-masterwork.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is pure fun, and I couldn't be more pleased with the experience. Diving back into creator Koji Igarashi's iconic style of gameplay has been deeply nostalgic for me; I even found myself humming old Symphony of the Night tunes after playing the new release for a few hours.

It’s more than obvious that Bloodstained could be very well named “Castlevania” and nobody would mistake it as a true sequel to Symphony of the Night. Igarashi managed to completely capture and expand one of the more influential metroidvania titles no matter if sometimes it may look a tad familiar.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is everything Castlevania fans could possibly want and is a great 2D action platformer in its own right. Played by someone without no familiarity with Castlevania, this is a great game that does everything one would hope from the genre, but this really is a nostalgia goody bag for Castlevania fans and because of that it’s so far my personal favorite 2019 title. The developers did play it safe with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and drew heavily from previous Castlevanias instead of introducing some new ideas and concepts. The result is an excellent game and it would be great to see Bloodstained grow as a franchise, adding more innovations to help balance out the heavy-handed sprinkling of nostalgia.

The bugs are the worst of what you’ll find here, and fail to get in the way of one of the finest metroidvanias currently available for purchase. Longtime fans have decades of games to compare this to, but they’ll probably still be bowled over by the myriad of secrets, set pieces, and combat approaches available to them in Bloodstained, a metroidvania that feels eminently modern but also notably graceful and considerate to its history. This is a must-play game that — with a few more bug-fixes and substantive DLC — will likely end up on most best-of lists by the end of 2019.

While it's crammed full of fan-service alongside good core combat and exploration, Ritual of the Night's technical instability and some discomforting design decisions keep it from rivaling its influences. It was clearly made for the fans, so those without an already-established fondness may find it hard to enjoy.