Now that to me is not acceptable, especially quests and story cutscenes. I'm not expecting them to be exactly the same as Miriam, but especially with the legendary crowdfunding success I did expect that other playable characters to be given fleshed out modes and stories of their own. A different sort of equipment progression, his own story, new mechanics etc... would be appreciated for Zangetsu to provide another perspective into the game; the same I expect for all future playable characters. I did NOT expect it to be a slapped on slimmed down bonus mode , very limited in scope. That may have been fine for a "SotN Richter Mode" literally decades ago, but that shouldn't be acceptable now! Likewise, I wonder if the "randomizer" options will be viable for Zangetsu and other character play; given the limits on the Zangetsu mode, it doesn't seem likely.
Bloodstained Ritual of the Night as a core game is certainly solid, but they have really cut corners badly post-crowdfunding. They had a legendary groundbreaking crowdfunding raise for a single player game, attaining all possible stretch goals - so it wasn't like they didn't have the money to do it right! However, mismanagement seemingly started relatively early on and I'm not sure how much of it is 505 or ArtPlay (or IntiCreates for that matter), with an issue that still frustrates me greatly - dropping Linux support.
During crowdfunding Bloodstained was promised to offer Mac and Linux support as core features (not even stretch goals if I recall), and for over 2 years we didn't hear a peep from development about anything - assuming it was going along well. Then 2 years in, there's a very short "Uh yeah we ran into some problems and won't be offering Mac or Linux anymore. Sorry! You can pick one of our other supported platforms instead but no refunds!" announcement. Very little detail on the exact problems, no communication nor petition to discuss with the backers, plus with the way it was dropped - not merely delayed - was a massive insult to backers purchased expecting support for those platforms, especially Linux. Circle of the Moon was also Windows only, unfortunately.
Other problems would come later, including having to ship without many features and promise to include them later. Quality issues with consoles, especially the Switch, seemingly took up lots of time and energy. I fully admit my preference for PC but have no problems with a console release provided that the PC release isn't delayed, treated like a 'second class' platform, or is held back by requiring to provide a parity experience on all platforms. While Bloodstained doesn't have issues with the first or second issues I noted , I would suspect that both the additional time and apparent high degree of effort for the console ports, alongside requirements for parity content, likely impacts the PC version in the third regard.
While delays are unfortunate, I'd much rather developers delay content updates if that's what it takes to provide the features and quality promised. While there are a lot of good things about Bloodstained, the near continual issues and what appears to be cut corners - from the aforementioned removed Linux support to the Zangetsu mode appearing rather barebones without story/progression etc... - there is certainly concern. I have to wonder what the future will hold for the co-op modes, the third playable character, and much more not to mention the potential for any actual newly developed update expansion content (ie expansion style and other DLC that was not part of the original crowdfunding stretch goals, but conceptualized and added post launch). It is frustrating to see all these problems with development and content when the underlying game has such promise, provided developers and publishers wouldn't cut corners.
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