'Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night' Has Advantages On All Platforms Except The Switch

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a love letter to Castelvania: Symphony of the Night, the game that virtually defined the Metroidvania genre.  It melds the classic with the new in ways that welcome both fans and those who haven’t spent much time with Metrodvania games. Bloodstained is available on Xbox One, PS4 and Switch but the experience is strikingly different depending on the console you choose. Digital Foundry took a look.

Good for graphics

Bloodstained is a beautiful game that looks it’s best on the Xbox One X. The One X renders at native 4K (3840 x 2160) and nothing else comes close. There is a drawback to the visual presentation on the One X, however. Bloodstained ’s HDR mode on the One X tone maps colors which produces an image that doesn’t look much different from SDR. The Xbox One S comes in at 900p (1600 x 900) which is common for Microsoft’s base console.

The PlayStation consoles don’t have the HDR issue but they display markedly lower resolution. The PS4 renders at 1080p (1920 x 1080) which is common for games on Sony’s base console. The PS4 Pro also renders at 1080p which is an unwelcome surprise as resolution on the Pro typically falls between the base PS4 and the One X. The image on the Pro doesn’t look bad, but it doesn’t look nearly as good as you would expect from Sony’s top-tier console.

Digital Foundry reports that the Switch appears to produce 720p (1280 x 720) docked and 576p (1024 x 576) undocked. Both resolutions are common on the Switch. As we will see, Bloodstained on the Switch has major problems but resolution isn’t one of them.

Here are the resolutions for each console organized in terms of how close they come to native 4K. The superiority of the One X is obvious.

Good for performance

The One X is the winner by a wide margin for players who favor visual quality. The same isn’t true for performance where the Pro takes the crown. Bloodstained targets 60 fps on the PlayStation and Xbox consoles and the Pro hits the target more frequently than any of the others. There are occasional dips into the mid-to-high 50s but, with an exception noted below, the Pro locked on 60 fps almost all the time in Digital Foundry’s tests.

The One X’s huge resolution advantage comes at a performance cost. The One X drops a frame or two in places where the Pro doesn’t and runs about 5 fps slower in areas where the Pro falls below 60 fps. The performance decline on the One X does not have a large effect on gameplay, but Bloodstained is more stable on the Pro.

Performance is not nearly as good on the base consoles. The PS4 frequently runs about 10 fps slower than the Pro and falls into the 40 to 50 fps range in areas where the Pro hits the mid-50s. Performance on the One S is similar to the PS4. Performance on the Switch is very stable, but frame rate is capped at 30 fps.

The exception mentioned above comes during a boss fight late in the game. Frame rate on the Pro drops to the mid-to-low 20s and the PS4 falls to the mid-teens. There are moments that come close to resembling a slide show. Digital Foundry was only able to test the PlayStation consoles so it’s unknown whether the Xbox One and Switch have the same problem.

Good for . . . nothing?

The One X is noteworthy for having the best graphics. The Pro stands out for it’s stable 60 fps gameplay. The Switch leads the pack when it comes to problems. Bloodstained has serious drawbacks on Nintendo’s console.

As we’ve seen, the Switch doesn’t fail when it comes to the core metrics of resolution and frame rate. Docked play at 720p is common on the Switch and undocked’s 576p is low, but the disadvantages are partially offset by the Switch’s small screen. Bloodstained’s 30 fps is often seen on the Switch and it’s very stable.

The situation becomes dire when you look beyond the basic metrics. The most serious problem is input lag which Digital Foundry estimates as lying somewhere north of 140ms (milliseconds). That’s dreadful but it does have a silver lining. As I’ve written elsewhere, latency or ping is a serious consideration when deciding whether a player’s internet connection is sufficient to handle game streaming from services like Microsoft’s xCloud or Google’s Stadia. 150ms is a rough dividing line between latencies that are not good and those that are doable but not likely to be enjoyable. Bloodstained's 140+ms can serve as a test case. If you’re happy playing it on the Switch with 140ms or more input lag, you might enjoy cloud streaming even if you have bad ping.

Aside from resolution, graphics quality is markedly reduced on the Switch. Textures are obviously inferior to the other consoles and a lot of added detail such as the water shader shown in the image above have been eliminated from the Switch version. Shadows are often absent and dialogue scenes that have dynamic backgrounds on the other consoles are static on the Switch.

Long loading times are an issue for all platforms but they’re more of a problem on the Switch. Digital Foundry noted one sequence of jumps to a higher level that produced loading times in the 9 to 14 second range which quickly becomes frustrating if you don’t make it on the first jump.

The developers are aware and working on correcting these problems but until they do, the Switch isn’t a good platform for Bloodstained.

Conclusion

The striking differences among the consoles make for easy recommendations. If you value high-quality graphics, choose the One X. If performance is your thing, play on the Pro. If you revel in thinking that nobody suffers like you suffer or if you’re prepared to wait in the hope that Bloodstained’s developers will fix it’s problems, the Switch is for you.