Bloodstained "Ritual of the Night"

[*Kenshin Himura*]

It's finally coming! The Kickstarter was a success, and now its almost about to reach 700,000 for the second playable character content bonus. Koji Igarashi decided to go solo with this project instead of funding it through Konami so its a very special project. If your a fan of Castlevania and the Metroidvania style play you should support this game. XBOXONE, PS4, Releases, all on Physical copies!!

If you want to donate, there are some pretty cool donator incentives.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ig ... -the-night

[OL]

For some reason I'm not really digging the art design for it. And then I read further and found that they're making it 2.5D, so the graphics aren't even going to be sprite-based. Big disappointment there. I'm all for a new Castlevania-style game, but a huge part of the appeal of Castlevania for me has always been the beautiful sprite work and wispy artistic design work. They can claim to be making a Symphony of the Night successor all they like, but they're missing almost half of the components to do it effectively.

Cool that it got funded so damn fast though. The execs that told Iga that people don't want these kinds of games anymore can suck a dick.

[*Kenshin Himura*]

^ Yeah 2.5D is kind of a deal breaker for most, but I guess he's trying something new with the visual style of gameplay obviously. As I am a big fan of the character design and sprite work from Castlevania previous games in the series, I just look at it as a new experience and maybe it won't live up to the hype of the successor for SOTN. I appreciate this man for his dedication and independence to make his project on his own. Since the kickstarter got funded so fast, maybe next project around he can look to make it more in depth of higher res/poly Character sprites and designs if he gets suggestion from the fans of what they would like. Also, I feel like this is aimed at 2D fans to give the retro players that nostalgia feeling again.

Edit: The soundtrack is going to be great, Michiru Yamane will be composing and producing a great deal of the project.

[Thief]

The concept art looks pretty good. Maybe the 2.5D will be kind of like Guilty Gear XRD -- where it looks like spritework but it's actually a fully 3D model. Either way, 2D Metroidvania is my favorite genre of videogame so I'm pretty excited.

[Peter]

It's destroyed the $1,000,000 mark now

[Giorgio]

[...] Cool that it got funded so damn fast though. The execs that told Iga that people don't want these kinds of games anymore can suck a dick.

Semi-irrelevant to the topic, but the same hapened with the idea about "Yooka-Laylee"...

...and that, too, got funded within a few hours.

Furthermore, this is interesting (as found here):

"Who will be publishing the physical versions of Bloodstained if the Kickstarter campaign is successful?

We currently have investment lined up if the Kickstarter is successful. We're unable to go into any more details beyond that at this point."

That means, this Kickstarter is also a 'demand measure'.

[*Kenshin Himura*]

The power and innovation of Kickstater. Now, only if Yu-San can get Shenmue funded like this.

I love Metroidvania style genre, i'm really looking forward to the local co-op now since it passed the goal for the 1,250,000.

[Axm]

Jesus, yeah, Shenmue would probably get funded in a single day just like those two. But it's still just a pipe dream, since that's an existing franchise which Sega would have to give up the rights to. And that isn't going to happen.

Honestly, I think it'd be best if Suzuki just popped up with a kickstarter which -- just like Bloodstained, just like Mighty No. 9, just like Yooka-Laylee -- is basically just a carbon copy of the game everyone wants him to make, changed enough so it's technically a new IP.
A new game about a Japanese teenager traveling around Asia looking for his father's killer. Instead of Ryo, name him Nobu or something. Instead of a brown jacket, give him a navy blue one.
As has been shown by Mighty No. 9, you can almost completely rip off the franchise that they aren't letting you make, change names and visuals, and it's totally legal. You can't get sued over structure and atmosphere.
And more than anything, that's the real reason why I would want a new Shenmue (or Shenmue-esque) game: the atmosphere and game flow.

[Raithos]

I think people see huge $$$ and think a game will be successful but don't take into account actual numbers. Just because a game hit 1mil in crowd funding in a day doesn't meant it would be a success if a publisher funded it and released it in a traditional way. If you take the biggest kick starter game of all time (unless I am wrong) Torment, which raised $4.1 million, that only amounts to 68k copies of the game if sold at retail. That would be a failure by all stretches of the imagination.

And I absolutely do not include anyone here when I say this, having back Pier Solar HD, Elysian Shadows and Treachery in Beatdown City myself, but we all know Kickstarter is hipster thing to do. Half these people would never buy these games if they were released on store shelves, or would wait until they were bargain bin prices or pick it up used. Kickstarter is a form of social media and that drives people to be a part of something like this. I'm just saying I understand why it was hard for him to get the game made, especially with plethora of 2D side scrollers every where you look nowadays.

With that said, whatever it takes to get games made I am all for it. When I see a project up that I think deserves my money I don't think twice about it. I love Castlevania as much as the next person, and will most likely back this one but man I really do no like the art style at all.

[Giorgio]

Jesus, yeah, Shenmue would probably get funded in a single day just like those two. But it's still just a pipe dream, since that's an existing franchise which Sega would have to give up the rights to. And that isn't going to happen. [...]

Today I read this post (as found here):

"Kickstarter is meant for people that don't have the necessary funds to start their dream project. It's not meant for a company the size of Sega-Sammy.

The only way you'll see Sega games on Kickstarter is via a third-party. What I mean by that is that a third-party studio acquires the license from Sega to make a game based on one of their IP's, and that studio then goes to Kickstarter and asks backers for funding.

That can work. An example for this is Dreamfall: Chapters from Red Thread Games. That company was formed from ex-employees of Funcom. The latter didn't want to fund the sequel (too risky), but they did license the Dreamfall IP to Red Thread Games. RTG then went to Kickstarter, got the funding, and are currently releasing the game. [...]"

Furthermore, YsNet can be considered a third-party. And Yu Suzuki has said that SEGA is not the problem and that he can acquire the license from them:

"Fans from all around the world have kept providing me support and I can't thank them enough. About Shenmue, Sega is not a problem at all. For Shenmue III, we need to define a specific budget and if I can gather enough for it, Sega will allow me to do it."

[*Kenshin Himura*]

To be honest, I'm actually okay with the character art concept designs.. I mean it could be better in a lot of ways, but its good enough.

[Raithos]

Its not a deal breaker for me. I think it will look a lot better in action. But there's just something about quality sprite work that can't be beat!

[Riku Rose]

Could a Shenmue type game or sequel seriously be funded? I think it's easy to say it would be but even Double Fine had to pump extra money into Broken Age and sell Part 1 to fund it since it went over budget. The most a video game has ever made on Kickstarter is about $4 million and I imagine Shenmue III would need a much much bigger budget then that. Even if they raised $10m I imagine that still wouldn't be enough for Shenmue III and would be tough to meet.

Also as much as I like the look of stuff that pops up on Kickstarter I still can't fund anything on there. I don't like that a game can be canceled or I never get my product and the terms and conditions just says tough luck. I'd have donated to plenty of stuff if the money left my bank account when the game was sent to me.

[OL]

^^I think in the case of Shenmue (or something like it), it'd be best if a kickstarter were used kind of like a gauge to see what public demand for it is like. This game Bloodstained is pretty much doing that; as Iga mentions, he has a third-party backer ready to help produce the game if the kickstarter goals are met. Meaning, of course, that Bloodstained is likely projected to cost more than what their initial crowdfunding goals are.
Shenmue (or whatever) could be something like that.

On the subject of crowdfunding, I've only contributed to one so far, and it wasn't even for a videogame. It was for a cd that an artist I really like is trying to make.

[*Kenshin Himura*]

A "2D" type Shenmue game could be plausible with a decent amount of kickstarter funds, i.e. a side story of the hidden boat chapter from Shenmue in 2D would be acceptable as an appetizer IMO.

On the other-hand, Bloodstained is about to reach 1,750,000 soon and that will bring the speed mode bonus. This game is really getting a lot of donations and there is still 31 days to go.