It went a little under the radar, but Koji Igarashi's Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has recently received its July development update and it puts focus on the different types of weapons that will be included in the game, as well as their various animations.
The update came from Igarashi himself as he gave brief details about each weapon class, the weapons' range and speed and even the different types of damage that they'll deal. Furthermore, the update was accompanied by a video that shows off the basic animations for a majority of these weapon classes in action.
Igarashi confirmed the existence of 12 different weapon classes in the update: shoes, swords, maces, short swords, rapiers, katanas, great swords, axes, rods, spears, whips and guns. In addition, he confirmed two damage types: pierce and thrust. There could be more in the final build (such as slash or blunt), but they weren't explicitly stated in the update.
Starting off, shoes are in their own category, and using them causes Miriam to use kicks and likely other martial art-inspired attacks that offer her greater attack speed in lieu of range. Igarashi noted that Miriam can kick by default, so it's likely that the use of shoes will boost her kicks' damage.
Next are swords and maces that are used with a single-handed horizontal motion, which is apparently the baseline attack motion for speed, range and power. Interestingly enough, attacking with a mace causes thrust-type damage, rather than blunt as one might expect.
Short swords (which are basically daggers) and rapiers come up next, with both utilizing a single-handed pierce motion. Despite both having similar animations, the way they are used is fundamentally different. For example, players can continuously attack with short swords through the use of "judicious button-mashing," while rapiers offer more range.
Next, katanas use a single-handed vertical slash motion to attack. Igarashi didn't detail the level of damage that they do, but if it's similar to Castlevania games that he's worked on, then it's likely to lie on the higher end compared to other one-handed weapons.
The last of the traditional one-handed weapons are whips, but Igarashi didn't go into much detail about them other than that they have their own attack animation and an increased range in exchange for a slower startup. Also, he mentioned they're different, but didn't mention what exactly they're different from.
On the other hand of the spectrum are two-handed weapons: great swords, axes and rods, all of which use the two-handed vertical slash motion. All three have the same purpose - to deal major damage to an opponent. As far as weapon speed is concerned, however, rods are the quickest, followed by great swords and then axes. It's more than likely that their damage will be inversely proportional to that attribute as well.
Then there are spears, which have their own two-handed pierce motion. As one might expect, range is their strong suit, but their slow attack speed and recovery leaves Miriam vulnerable to attacks if they're misused.
Last, but not least, is a weapon type that doesn't adhere to any melee style: guns. Miriam can use a gun to fire upon enemies from afar, however she uses up a bullet every time she fires.
You can watch the video below (be aware that it's using a special build to show off the animations, so the graphics are simplified).
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is scheduled to be released on March 2017 for the Wii U, PlayStation 4, PS Vita, Xbox One and PC.
