Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – Beginner’s Guide

This guide covers the journey of the game, useful tips & tricks, achievements, alchemy, techniques and end game content.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Guides:

• AFK / Manual Gold and XP Farm.
• 100% Map Exploration for the Cartographer Achievement.
• Endgame Gold Farm.
• EZ Mode Combo.

Introduction

Welcome to Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – Guide. This will cover your first journey through the game up to the final boss, useful gear to pick up along the way, as well as a list for achievements and a complete map. Finally any future content will be included in time.

Table of contents:

• Bloodstained Basics
• Miriam’s Journey
• Complete Map

Warning: This guide contains spoilers for the entire game.

Difficulty

The game features 3 difficulty settings. Initially only “Normal” is available, but finishing the game allows the next “Hard” setting to be chosen. Finishing a 2nd time on “Hard” will unlock “Nightmare” respectively.

If you name your file Nightmare you will unlock all options from the start, you can then opt back and rename your file.

• Normal: Recommended for newcomers to metroidvania games and the reference point of this guide.
• Hard: Enemy placement more numerous, swapped around and tougher enemies appear earlier. Damage from enemies and spikes is increased while enemy HP is greater as well. Recommended for people familiar with latter Castlevania games, this mode allows for faster leveling and easier shard/drop farming due to the aforementioned density of enemies.
• Nightmare: Level for both Miriam and familiars is capped at 1, enemy health much higher, everything usually one shots you, only the brave or insane should start with this mode.

Bloodstained Basics

Here lie some of the terminology used in the game and this guide for your convenience.

• HP: your “hit points” or life. If it reaches 0, you die.
• MP: your “magic points” or mana. If is used to power abilities/techniques and regenerates over time.
• Capacity: how many bullets from each type Miriam can hold. Increased only by finding upgrades on the world. You can always have unlimited basic bullets.
• LV: your “level” as you kill enemies you gain EXP, or “experience” and eventually level up increasing in stats.
• Stats: your collective stats include:
• ATK or “attack” how much damage you do with weapons or techniques.
• DEF or “defense” how much damage you subtract from enemy attacks.
• STR or “strength” influences your ATK stat with melee weapons.
• CON or “constitution” influences your HP.
• INT or “intelligence” how much damage you deal with spells.
• MND or “mind” how much damage you subtract from enemy spells.
• LCK or “luck” affects drop rates, shard rates, critical chance and quality of gold drops.
• Resist: your resistances include:
• Slash: reduced incoming slash damage.
• Thrust: reduced incoming thrust damage.
• Strike: reduced incoming strike damage.
• Fire: reduced incoming fire damage.
• Ice: reduced incoming ice damage.
• Lightning: reduced incoming lightning damage.
• Dark: reduced incoming dark damage.
• Light: reduced incoming light damage.
• Poison: reduced poison damage and chance of getting poisoned (poison deals damage every few seconds until cured or wear out) keep in mind certain enemies can be poisoned as well.
• Curse: reduces chance of getting cursed (cursed cuts your max HP and MP by half and locks them at that state until cured or wear out) keep in mind certain enemies can be cursed as well.
• Petrify: reduces the chance of getting petrified (petrified turns you to stone until cured or shaken off my rapid movement attempts) keep in mind certain enemies can be petrified, which will result in them dying instantly.
• Shards: basically, the “souls” of the demons you absorb in order to learn new abilities. Having more of the same shard boosts a parameter, usually the damage of that ability (to a cap of 9 grade) so hoarding shards is not wasted. Shards can also be strengthened with alchemy to give them additional properties such as more projectiles (to a cap of 9 rank) Passive Shards that reach rank 9 will create an ability Shard of themselves meaning you can have that always on, and this can stack with the passive version of the Shard.
• Loot: Demons and monsters drop various items from restoratives, gear, crafting materials and more. Collectively all those things are referred to as loot.
• Farming: Killing enemies over and over in order to get gold/loot/shards is referred to as “farming”
• Alchemy: Using the materials gathered from enemies and crafting weapons, armor, food and more, or strengthening shards.

Another important note is that items you create with alchemy will become available to the shop. Found food or weapons will not be available to the shop.

You can break down items to get their components. This costs Alkahest found in ghosts, amys and poltergeists around the castle or bought at the shop. That way you can find a weapon and it’s recipe, break it down, rebuild it and have it available at the shop.

Latter you will gain access to a passive Shard that gives you a chance at critical success at alchemy. This makes it so you can sometimes craft 5x times the items you select. With enough Alkahest and that Shard, you can break down and then rebuild an item indefinitely creating copies of that item.

• Food: Preparing food will not only serve as emergency healing during combat, but permanently boost certain of Miriam’s stats for each unique meal.
• Techniques: techniques are not required to finish the game but offer unique weapon exclusive abilities. You can find hints about those techniques in bookcases around the world and performing that technique even once will put it into your list. The level of the enemy is irrelevant when training them, so feel free to return to easier enemies and practice them out. Should you master a technique, it will then be available to all weapons of the same category and not just it’s exclusive weapon.
• Quests: certain NPCs will give you quests in your main HQ. Complete these quests to receive new ones and progress further in the quest chain. Extremely powerful items await you in the final stages of these quest chains.
• Candles: Purple candles and other purple torch like objects are breakable and will give Miriam a mana rose which restores MP. If MP is full, these candles will drop gold items ranging from 1G to the ludicrous 2000G with proper gear and Shards equipped.
• Save Room: Red save rooms allow you to save your game and also restore you to full HP and MP upon interaction.
• Teleport Room: Green teleport rooms allow you to teleport to any other similar room provided you have visited that room before.
• Secret Walls: Certain walls can be broken. These often reveal rare items, permanent upgrades to Miriam’s HP, MP and Capacity or entire new rooms. A passive Shard that detects all secret walls around Miriam and indicates them with a cyan shattering motif can be found latter in the game.

Miriam’s Journey (Walkthrough 1/2)

The main story of the game on a straight path to the ending, with the occasional note of importance. This can be useful if you find yourself stuck or if you speed-run the game. Lore is intentionally left out, so you can discover it on your own leisure.

Warning: This part of the guide contains spoilers for the entire game. Although dialogue events, and names are avoided as much as possible.

Pro Tip: Defeating a boss without taking damage results in you hearing a “congratulations” message, and obtaining a mastery medal. (bragging rights)

Galleon Minerva

The starting area of the game, this is a good place to test yourself against simple enemies. Gather your starting weapons and venture forth. Remember to save often in the red Save Rooms.

Pro Tip: You dodge backwards with Q. Make sure to master this as it will be essential to conserve your health during boss battles & exploration.

Pro Tip: It’s recommended to at least try to get each unique enemy’s shard once. While recommendations will be made in this guide, discovering an ability that will suit your play style is always a joy. Plus you will make sure your LV is up to par with further challenges. You can check your Archives for any potential Shard/item an enemy might drop indicated by ??? in it’s description.

Optional: Rare material is dropped by enemies. By going out of your way to find each enemies possible drops at least once, you can then be sure where to find each material by checking your Archives.

Pro tip: In this area you can find your first firearm. Firearms have limited specialized ammo but unlimited weak ammo and attack from long range. Their damage is sub par using this weak ammo but can synergize well with long range ability Shards.

Optional: You may notice certain walls crack upon taking damage. Hit them 3 times to break them. They are Secret Walls and contain rare items, permanent upgrades to Miriam or entire new rooms. A Shard you obtain latter will allow you to see such walls, so don’t go too carried away attacking every wall.

You will eventually encounter a Cannon Morte enemy. Kill him to gain his shard, then use it to light the cannon up so you can proceed further.

The goal is to defeat the boss at the far right of the ship.

Arvantville

Your HQ for the game. Upon securing the village, talk to Dominique to obtain a key and proceed onwards.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget to obtain & complete quests from the people here as well as cultivate crops from the seeds you picked earlier by talking to the farmer outside. These will be necessary for food recopies latter.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget to stock up on Waystones. These allow you to return to the village at any point. Along with the green Teleport Room on the top just outside the village’s right exit, it will make returning back a breeze.

Pro Tip: You will encounter a house with a barred door. Drop inside from above and break the wooden flooring. In the basement go left and smash the wall. Inside the secret room you will find a chest with an 8-bit Coin which can be crafted into a bonus weapon with alchemy.

Recommendations:

• God Cross: Holy damage effective against most demons and a chance to petrify them to boot.
• Blood Grinder: Rare dark damage and a curse effect to cut down enemy HP when successful.
• Renee’s Requiem: Straightforward the best firearm in the entire game when upgraded to the final tier.

Entrance -> Garden of Silence -> Entrance

You will need to cross the Garden of Silence and back at the Entrance on the higher floor. There you will need to fight Zangetsu. Prepare for a tough battle.

Dian Cecht Cathedral

The goal here is to fight Craftwork and obtain his Craftwork Shard. (moves objects with a huge hand)

Pro Tip: Here you will encounter Killer Barbers. They drop the amazing Rhava Bural sword. This sword attacks as fast as you can press the button and does not interrupt your animations, meaning you can use it as you move around. It can even be upgraded latter on.

Pro Tip: By now you should encounter Poltergeists. They drop Alkahest used in alchemy and their Shard, Welcome Company surrounds Miriam with portraits that attack enemies who get close. Not only this ability can boost your damage while engaged in melee, any enemy who touches Miriam must survive the damage in order to interrupt her, making this extremely useful on flying heads, bats and more.

Garden of Silence

Use the Craftwork Shard to move the pillar out of the way and then ride the friendly coach to the other side.

Bridge of Evil

Discover the train station and leave.

Towers of Twin Dragons

Cross the Tower into Livre Ex Machina

Livre Ex Machina

Boss battle vs Andrealphus giving you the shard Double Jump Shard. New areas are now accessible.

Pro Tip: You can now return to the Galleon Minerva and explore a previous inaccessible area with a chest. On the right of the chest lies a breakable wall that rewards the Plunderer’s Ring, an accessory that increases monster item drop rates.

Towers of Twin Dragons

Pro Tip: While scaling the tower you will notice revolving gears. Jump on them and move towards the left, where a difficult jumping section (easy latter on with better shards) rewards you with the Flying Sword, arguably the best utility weapon in the entire game.

The sword attacks without interrupting your animation, meaning it can attack while you move or even while you use shards, has a decent range and damages enemies numerous times during it’s initial and return arcs. It can later be upgraded and benefits from sword Shards and techniques.

Pro Tip: You will notice a Celaeno type of enemy. This enemy drops the useful Teps Oceus directional Shard which auto tracks any enemy on the screen. Simply tapping the directional attack button will launch lightning that will always hit enemies.

Pro Tip: You can’t miss the annoying Dullahammer Head enemy. They drop the Familiar: Dullahammer Head Shard. While other familiars are useful, gathering 9 Shards will result in 5 total heads protecting Miriam and auto seeking enemies even through walls.

Time to defeat Valac, at the bottom of the battle room lies a chest with the important Silver Bromide key item.

Arvantville

Give the Silver Bromide to Dominique and have her take a photograph of Miriam in the far left studio.

Livre Ex Machina

Bring the photograph to O.D. in his library to obtain a Passplate.

Bridge of Evil

The only time limited sequence in the game culminating in a Glutton Train boss battle.

Underground Sorcery Lab

Explore and battle Bathin to obtain his Reflector Ray Shard. New areas are now accessible.

Pro Tip: Unique food materials can be found in chests here.

Livre Ex Machina

Use the Reflector Ray to cross through the mirror path and battle Abyssal Guardian. Continue onwards.

Optional: Hall of Termination is now available and there lies Gebel. However defeating him now results in a bad ending, make sure you saved beforehand.

Dian Checht Cathedral

Use Reflector Ray shard to travel to previous inaccessible areas and explore further. Eventually encounter Bloodless and defeat her gaining her Blood Steal shard.

Miriam’s Journey (Walkthrough 2/2)

Entrance

Use Blood Steal to drain the blood fountain allowing you to drop below.

Forbidden Underground Waterway

Hunt Deesamas until you posses Aqua Stream shard (necessary to proceed) ignore the underwater chests as you can’t open them yet.

Pro Tip: You will eventually encounter the Glashtyn horse-like enemy. They drop the Amphibian Speed passive Shard which is invaluable for underwater exploration. If you rank it up to 9, it will become a skill Shard and you don’t even need it equipped anymore.

Pro Tip: In this area you will encounter an eye like enemy called Seeker. They drop the super useful Detective’s Eye passive Shard that not only detects secret walls, but also picks up loot in higher ranks.

Pro Tip: In this area there is a breakable wall that rewards the Plunderer’s Ring, an accessory that increases monster item drop rates.

Hidden Desert

Proceed onward and defeat Alfred then at the room below obtain the Deep Sinker shard. New areas are now accessible.

Forbidden Underground Waterway

Use your Reflector Ray underwater and proceed to previous inaccessible area.

Secret Sorcery Lab

Explore and fight Doppleganger. Proceed Onwards.

Inferno Cave

Explore and beat Orobas to gain the Invert Shard. While this opens new areas of exploration, my tip is to hold up exploring them as an easier method will soon be available for vertical exploration.

Pro Tip: unique food materials can be found in chests here.

Pro Tip: You will be attacked by a Hellhound here. This enemy drops his Summon Hellhound Shard which deals insane amounts of damage at great MP expense. Useful for dumping a lot of damage fast if you don’t rely on your MP during battles.

(The following part can be skipped with great risk to your health, stock up on food and potions if you wish to power through without it)

Tower of the Twin Dragons

Use Invert and obtain the Aegis Plate Armor at the inverted top of the tower. (negates all spike/lava damage, making exploration of trap/lava ridden areas easy)

Entrance

Use invert in the entrance to find a hallway of spikes and iron maiden at the top. simply move the maiden using Craftwork and proceed, or power through by eating and healing if you don’t have the Aegis Plate Armor.

Oriental Sorcery Lab

You will notice a Haagenti bull enemy here. This isn’t mandatory for progression but obtain at least 1 bovine feather to make a High Jump shard. This makes invert obsolete as now you can basically fly.

The goal here is to have an epic fight with Zangetsu and obtain his sword at the top.

Pro Tip: unique food materials can be found in chests here.

Hall of Termination

Time to fight Gebel properly. Engage and damage him until the moon turns red, then slash the moon with the Zangetsuto without killing Gebel.

Garden of Silence

Find the upper floor with the red moon in the background and slash it once more with the Zangetsuto and enter the portal.

Den of the Behemoths

Explore further and defeat the boss Valefar.

Pro Tip: Beneath the battle table is a piece of Valkirie gear boasting the highest luck and decent stats for it’s slot.

Pro Tip: In this area lies a racing track and a blue ninja who challenges you to a race upon entry. It’s recommended to have Aegis Armor and Reflector Ray on the ready. Upon you winning he will give you the optional, but invaluable Accelerator Shard. This shard will become your number one method of transportation as it allows you to move at immense speed. You keep this shard for New Game+ making it even more valuable for further playthroughs.

Glacial Tomb

Chase after and defeat Gremory, the penultimate boss. This awards you with her Dimension Shift Shard which along with the High Jump, Amphibian Speed, Detective’s Eye and the Accelerator (optional Shards) give you easy access to 100% of the game’s areas.

Either return back to farm and explore or continue onwards to face the final boss of the game.

Post Game.

Towers of Twin Dragons

Using the dimension shift Shard you can clip below the area where the shield knight is. There another part of the Valkyrie set exists boasting the highest LCK of that slot.

Bridge of Evil

Enter the train and sit on the first chair and gaze outside. Continue looking until a weird Kunekune thing pops up and jump scares you. While you can challenge this enemy early, he is broken overpowered and can obliterate you almost instantly. Jump away and use long range Shards (like Teps Oceus) to take it down safely.

8bit Area

Directly above the save & teleport rooms in Hall of Termination lies a breakable ceiling and within that room another breakable wall. Within this final room lies interacting with the portrait will transport you to an optional easter egg 8bit Area containing a few unique enemies (and their shards) The boss drops the “16 bit Nightmare” item used in crafting the final form of all bonus weapons.

Keys & Mini Bosses

There are 4 secret keys and 3 optional mini bosses scattered around the world. Each of the 4 rooms counts toward 100% map completion and each of the 3 mini bosses are tough and drop an item used in high tier weapon crafting.

Extra Boss

Upon finishing the game and exploring at least 99% of the game, the Tome of Conquest book will be available from O.D. Take it and go to the Glacial Tomb for an optional secret boss fight. This will result in an additional entry and shard which will push you to 100% if you completed everything thus far. As a bonus you can now equip all books at once. (poor O.D.)

Pro Tip: Using Alchemic Bounty passive Shard and breaking down bonus weapons will allow you to get their coins back. However since the Shard gives you a chance to craft many at once this becomes the most ideal way to farm bonus weapons efficiently.

Pro Tip: You can farm large quantities of gold from candles and enemies with the Pickpocket and Augment Gold Shards.

Pro Tip: the final Memory quest awards you with the Solomon’s Ring an accessory which increases Shard drop rate making it ideal for Shard farming.

Pro Tip: the final Craving quest awards you with the Recycle Hat a head armor that prevents firearm ammo from depleting allowing you to use unlimited rare bullets.

Complete Map

Below you will see the complete map. Any area in this map and not in yours likely means a hidden breakable wall. This carries over to New Game+