Bloodstainedː Ritual of the Night

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a Metroidvania-styled independent video game developed by Japanese indie studio ArtPlay and published by 505 Games. Development was headed by former Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi and was developed as a spiritual successor to that series after a successful kickstarter campaign.

Plot
Late in the industrial revolution, the human race is put in grave danger by the discovery of hell and experiments conducted to summon demons with human sacrifices known as Shardbinders. Awakening after a 10 year long coma, during which she hasn't aged, Miriam sets out on a quest to save her friend Gebel, the leader of the demons, but may have to kill him in the process.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) This one feels like a genuine love letter to the game it's parodying rather than a cheap, low quality copy, unlike other spiritual successors funded on kickstarter. It's a very well done spiritual successor that takes loads of inspiration but also takes plenty of original approaches and is still a fun game nonetheless.
 * 2) A pretty interesting story that debates the ramifications of scientific progress and spirituality while also just being pretty unique all around. There's also plenty of lore in the world that's explored through the compendium and diaries scattered throughout.
 * 3) Likeable characters, like Miriam herself who is a strong female character without being overtly feministic or in a contradictory way. She's a smart and dedicated character as well as a good fighter. There's also her caretaker Johannes who gives plenty of helpful advice and so on.
 * 4) Really fun gameplay that's almost exactly like Castlevania, except there's also some combo moves you can perform with certain weapons with varying degrees of usability as well a shard system reminiscent of Castlevaniaː Aria of Sorrow's Tactical Soul system, where you can gain abilities from an enemy after killing a certain number and level it up. The controls are also very tight and responsive without being too sensitive and it uses the right stick for aiming Miriam's magic (some of which can unlock magic-locked doors) and other abilities.
 * 5) Loads of different weapons that all handle differently, like how shortswords aren't very damaging but very fast, boots allow you to do kung-fu abilities, and larger weapons are more damaging but much slower. You can even use guns which have infinite not-very-damaging ammo, though you can swap out the ammo for finite, but harder hitting, bullets.
 * 6) A very creative setting that, while it does take a lot from Castlevania as previously mentioned, still manages to be unique and fun to explore. There's also more variety in the environments as you even start out the game on a ship full of demons and have to defeat a boss before you come to land, go through a village, and then go to the castle. And by the way, you can go through all those areas at will, there's nothing preventing you from going back to the beached ship.
 * 7) Incredible graphics for a 2.5d game which blend realism and an anime aesthetic pretty well, with backgrounds of each area rendered in gorgeous detail and making full use of the extent of the game engine.
 * 8) Gebel is a decently interesting villain, having been emotionally broken by the Shardbinder experimentation and driven to exact revenge on humanity for it, though there's still a human side to him that actively prevents him from hastening his plans and one that can still be reached despite the damage already done.
 * 9) Plenty of fun boss fights throughout that require a different strategy in order to defeat.
 * 10) Like Castlevania, you have to explore a lot of the world and gain new abilities in order to progress further and get stronger to defeat stronger enemies.
 * 11) Cool musical score that fits the tone of each environment pretty well.
 * 12) You can play as three different characters, with the story progressing through Miriam's campaign and the others playing largely differently from her, like how Zangetsu is highly powerful but not all powerful, allowing you to progress through the game with little holding you back and you can even play as Aurora from Ubisoft's Child of Light.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The Nintendo Switch port is terrible.
 * 2) The game encourages you to play as Zangetsu first to get a better feel for it, and while it can be fun for those looking for a mindless power fantasy, it will also confuse new players because it completely skips over the story and can be too easy for them. Also, it removes a lot of the core features like healing items, new equipment and moves, and the like (though it does have a reason as he's not a shardbinder), and is way too easy.
 * 3) Some may feel that the game relies too heavily on nostalgia for Castlevania or be too distracted by the many parallels to that one.