Notes from the Author:

• Don't forget the thumbs up. Creating this took a lot of effort!
  
  
• Be sure to check back regularly, as I keep expanding and/or updating this guide almost daily.
  
  
• If you spot any mistakes, know of missing tips and tricks or have some suggestions and/or questions, leave a comment and I'll get back to you and probably adjust this guide accordingly.

If you just downloaded the game and start it up for the first time you'll notice one of two possible things:

1. You're fluent in Chinese (Simplified)     or
   
2. You don't understand a single word

To change the game's language from Chinese to English, navigate to the second to last option (游戏设置) in the main menu and then select the first option on the following screen (设置)...
 

... then change the first value (语言 = Language) to "English" and confirm your changes using the left button at the bottom of the screen (保存)!
 

Yes, this is a "Souls-like" and yes, the game is never really paused but luckily for you, the enemies don't know that. Next time you start a battle realizing you equipped the wrong weapon, just hit [Esc] / [Start] and change it. The enemies (including Bosses) will either stand still or circle you without getting closer or attacking.
This can potentially be exploited if you have the Passive Skill to recover your Bloodthirst and/or Equipment with it, as opening the menu will not pause the game but only the A.I. - in other words, if you have Bloodthirst recovery, you can fully recover your gauge, even in the middle of a Boss fight or a wave in the Bloody Palace, as often as you like.

Warning

Note that this does NOT apply to the "Hard" story mode difficulty! Enemies will keep attacking you while you're in the menu here (not unlike other Souls-like games).
Additionally, the Stone Giants in the later stages of the Bloody Palace are a bit bugged once they sustained some damage and they'll constantly switch between paused and attack frames with some attacks actually connecting, meaning it's not a safe method against them. Finding that out cost my life in the fight against two of them.

It may sound obvious but the Tutorial is a great place to start, as it introduces you to (almost) every mechanic you'll need throughout the game. Basic combat, Light and Heavy attacks, Jumping, Ranged combat and Stealth Kills. Complete the Tutorial and you'll know pretty much anything you need.

Note that the tutorial won't let you proceed unless you equip the tutorial weapon you find there into your first weapon slot. In other words, if you've already played any other mode, do take that into consideration when playing/replaying the tutorial.

Also note that the tutorial dialogue will refer to the Xbox Controller layout, even if you're not using one. After the entity is done explaining the next lesson to you, the correct prompt will show on the left side, though. Alternatively you can check the "controls" section in the options.

There are a select few things the Tutorial doesn't explain: One of said things is the Hook. The Hook lets you grab on to purple hook points in the world, which gets tutorialized in the main game whenever you discover those points.

 
However, the mechanic that doesn't get explained is that you can use the Hook against enemies to quickly get close to them. Just turn your character towards them (or lock on (default [Middle Mouse] / [R3]) if there are several) and hit the Hook Button (default [C] / [RB]) and you'll zip towards them. Note that you're suspended in the air briefly after getting to them, so your next immediate attack will be airborne. This is by far the easiest way to deal with those flying bat-pigs that spit those nasty exploding poison balls.
 

Upon pushing the designated Dodge button, you will find that the dodge in this game is a short-distance dash similar to that in Darksiders III.
If you want to perform a rolling dodge with a higher reach instead, just double tap the button.


While dodging usually is more reliable, there is also a designated Block button (standard [F] / [RB]). Holding it down (with most weapons), allows you to block incoming melee and ranged attacks. While regular melee attacks can eventually break your block and it's completely ineffective against the larger enemies, this can be used to block incoming arrows (which you could also dodge, of course).
 
The exception to this are the weapons from the Knuckles category. With those equipped, the Block button will make your character perform a quick stationary evade move.


There is one other, slightly more viable use for blocking. Some weapon types have unlockable attacks that require you to hold down one of the attack buttons for a few seconds. If you just start holding it down, your character will perform a regular attack before charging the intended Weapon Skill, which can sometimes ruin your timing by bringing you within emeny attack reach. Holding down the Block button shortly when you start holding down the Attack button will allow you to remain stationary and save you some time.


When items drop from chests, enemies, destructables or corpses, don't worry about picking them all up. They will stay on the floor shortly and then automatically float towards you - and they'll find you anywhere...
 
Only objects that had already been in the world before you arrived (weapons, Corn, Iron Ore etc.) must be picked up manually.


Sometimes you find yourself opening a chest that you didn't yet want to open (for example a green chest while you're at full health). As long as the chest isn't open, you can abort by dodging.

The same goes if you want to switch your weapon (default [Q] / [D-Pad Up]) without doing an attack. Just press the button to switch and then immediately dodge to abort the automatic attack.

There are three different kinds of skills, namely Passive Skills, Active Skills and Weapon Skills (basically Combos).

In order to unlock these, you'll need to find the corresponding Blood Ambers and then spend them in exchange for the skill. This is the same for both Passive and Active skills.
Most skills can be upgraded several times. In order to do so, you'll need the same Blood Ambers again, however the needed amount may increase.

Don't forget to assign up to three Active skills in the three slots at the top of the screen or you won't be able to use them.

Unlocking new combos requires Proficiency. You unlock Proficiency by simply fighting. However, each weapon category has its own Proficiency value. This means that if you want to unlock a Weapon Skill for a certain type of weapon, you need to use that type of weapon to farm its Proficiency.

Hint

If a Weapon Skill has the "( Accumulate )" addition after the combo, that means that you can hold down the last input of the combo to charge the attack making it stronger.

On your journeys you will come across mystical constructs, some made of stone and shaped like obelisks, emitting a blueish glow when you approach them and others like metal spiky columns holding an orb that glows in a deep purple.

I dub these constructs Shopping Pillars and Purple Orbs and will explain their raison d'être in this section...

Here you can spend Blood (currency) to buy Blood Ambers or Equipment or sell things for Blood. Most of the Equipment is not worth it - It's the Blood Ambers that matter. Due to the localization, it appears as though you need to spend both Blood and something called "Skill Books" to get a Blood Amber but what it really tells you is how many Blood Ambers you need to learn/improve said skill in your Skill Book (this confused me big time at first).

In other words, in the example screenshot above, we can buy the "Assassin's Claw" Amber and instantly unlock the skill, since we only need one Amber (1/0).

Additionally Shopping Pillars completely heal your Health the first time you activate them‼

Hint

You can tell whether or not you have already activated a Shopping Pillar and thus whether or not it will heal you by looking at it closely. Activated Pillars will stop glowing, so if the eyes on the skulls glow yellow and the Pillar glows blue, it will heal you. This can come in handy if you have saved up multiple heals and are unsure which are still active (especially in the later Bloody Palace stages).

These are one of the risk/reward systems of the game and you should carefully consider when to use them. What these orbs do is allow you to increase your attack power by a randomized value by sacrificing a random Active or Passive from your Bloody Spells.


This can be very punishing as some Blood Ambers are much harder to obtain than others but since the bonus to your attack is permanent and each increase received from the orbs stacks on top of the others it is ultimately worth it.

This game is considered to be in the »Souls-like« genre and while it bears some similarities, it differs significantly from its peers when you die.


Unlike in games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne or Nioh, you'll lose everything except your currently equipped gear and all accessoires upon your death - no chance to reclaim your Blood (currency) and no chance to keep any item.

• Your Blood (currency)
  
• Any weapon or piece of armor (exception below)
  
• All your items (Blood Ambers, Ore, Pages of the Soul Pact etc.)
  
• Your progression throughout the level

• All equipped gear
  
• All gear with the Permanent retention Effect
  
• All gear from the Treasure category (accessoires)
  
• Any unlocked skill and its current level

You'll be at the very start of the level again, the layout of the level will be randomized again and you'll have lost almost everything.

• If you happen to have equipment with the Permanent retention Effect equipped and also have some regular gear that you want to keep, it would be wise to equip those regular pieces if you know you're going to die. That way you won't lose the equipped stuff and won't lose the unique stuff.
  
• Whenever you have enough Blood Ambers to unlock/upgrade any skill, do it immediately. You'll lose those Blood Ambers but you won't lose the skills.
  
• Git gud! - sorry, I couldn't not make that "joke".
  
• Heal yourself before the Boss. While there are no potions or other healing items in the game (that I'm aware of), the game does create an invisible checkpoint before the area where you fight a Boss. If you exit out of the game and then load your save again, you can backtrack an empty world and re-open chests - many of which heal you. I've described this method in detail in one of my other guides and it gets mentioned again in the next section.
  Additionally, there is always a Shopping Pillar near the Boss fight which will heal you upon the first activation, so make sure to find and activate them if you need Health.
  
• Use your Bloodthirst (purple gauge) wisely. Your Bloodthirst is used for several things, the most obvious being your Active skills, but it's also used to free yourself from a Boss grapple and most importantly for fighting for your life. When your Health hits zero, you get the chance to revive yourself by spamming the Heavy attack button (default [RMB] / [Y]). This process uses Bloodthirst and the amount required increases up to three times with each consecutive use, so while it may be useful to obliterate your foes with a strong Active, sometimes preserving your Bloodthirst is the smarter choice.
  

As we established, dying is kinda bad. Whispers in the underworld speak of another way to avoid it but you have to abandon all honor to do so, you filthy dog.

When you lose your last bit of Health, you can fight for your life, sacrificing your Bloodthirst. However, if you do not have enough Bloodthirst left, the shameful [Alt]+[F4] can save your worthless life.

If you've played DarkSouls and/or Bloodborne and/or Nioh and/or Darksiders III before, then you'll probably know this but destroying wooden crates, skeletons, tree roots, furniture etc., will always grant you a small amount of currency. Additionally, like in all of the games above, you can destroy said objects simply by dodging through them. This keeps up your momentum and makes farming them a bit less tedious.
 
Additionally, chests and monsters also grant you currency. Chests you should avoid if you are at full Health or Bloodthirst are those that glow green or purple respectively. Those chests do not drop any currency and will be wasted if you open them without needing their contents. Not to forget that they sometimes hold the unpleasant Banshee/Wraith surprise... see next section.


Lastly, there are some skills (for example Counterattack) that cannot be upgraded beyond level 1. Additionally, skills like Defense Enhancement are capped at level 10, others at level 5. Make sure to always sell Blood Ambers you can't use anymore (unless you're planning to use some Purple Orbs and think you might need the Ambers still).

If you're looking for a somewhat more exploitative method of farming lots and lots of currency (among other things), do check out my other guide:
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1779338024

You'll find that the enemies aren't the only things that make the world of 嗜血印 Bloody Spell a hostile environment for you. Throughout the world there are many traps set on ending your miserable life. While these are easy to spot in the first level, it's easy to miss some in the second one.

If you're having a hard time spotting those nasty bear traps in the high grass, you may want to consider setting the Graphics to "Good" (lowest setting) as that removes some of the foliage, making the traps easier to spot.
 

When dealing with traps and enemies, you have two advantages:

1. Traps react to/work on enemies
   
2. Enemies are dumb and will approach you in a straight line

You'll find that luring enemies into traps can chip off quite a bit of health, making your encounters with them that much easier.


Even though you can use them against your enemies, as established above, you may want to get rid of these hunter traps from the second Story mission on your journeys. If you ever tried nimbly dodging through the trip-wire, you'll know that that approach won't work. Cutting the wire with your weapon also seems to not work, as the wire only detects collision with characters, not objects.

However there is a method to safely dispose of them, that I found. When using a one-handed sword (Blade category), pressing the heavy attack button (default [RMB] / [Y]) mid-air, will perform a very fast slashing move. Using that attack to pass the wire will make you too fast for the launched spear.
 

In some very rare instances regular chests (the small ones that glow red, green or purple) are booby-trapped with a Banshee/Wraith attacking you upon opening them. They come in different variations - some wielding two blades, others unarmed - and are surrounded by purple (dual-wield variant) or green (unarmed variant) souls/flames (dual-wield variation screenshots coming next time I encounter them).
 
These chests are indistinguishable from harmless ones (similar to the Dark Souls II Mimics) and the Banshees/Wraiths can be quite nasty (especially if you opened that green chest because you were near death).

If you hit them several times, their surrounding souls/flames turn red and they enter a sort of Frenzy, using more aggressive melee combos in addition to their regular attacks.
 
Sometimes they then release a small blastwave after which they return to their original color but they will re-enter their Frenzy if you continue to damage them.

Tactics

• Most of the Wraith's standard attacks cannot connect if you just lock on to them and run around them in circles, making it easier to wait for openings
  
  
• Unlike most opponents, Wraiths are unable to block, so you can chip off lots of their health rather easily
  
  
• Avoid the Frenzy melee attacks at all costs - a full combo can nearly or completely kill you! Additionally, while they can't block incoming damage, they're immune to it during those combos

It's possible but unlikely that the color of their souls/flames at the time of their death determines the type of orbs they drop, but I need to confirm this in-game. So far I only killed them in their Frenzy state and always got red orbs, i.e. Blood, exclusively.

Bloody Palace is a mode where you fight waves of enemies, trying to survive as long as you can. The waves get progressively more difficult and every ten waves you'll be faced with a Boss encounter (the first being the Ogre from the end of the first story level on normal or hard difficulty). At certain points you get rewarded with a piece of a unique armor set and at certain other points, chests will spawn to help you recover lost health and earn more rewards.

The arena in which you fight is a medium-sized, circular plateau in a mountainous region. Upon spawning you will be safe to explore a bit, though it is advisable not to destroy the destructables just yet, as some might drop Health Orbs. There are always some useless throwaway weapons at the start of stages 1, 11, 21 etc. which you can sell at the nearby Shopping Pillar, however, since the Shopping Pillar will fully heal you upon the first activation and will only be reset after each Boss, you should save activating it for when you are in trouble. Near the center of the plateau, there is a purple portal, which initiates the next wave of enemies. After beating a Boss (stage 10, 20, 30 etc.), there will be another portal near the start/Shopping Pillar, which will reload the whole Area for the next set of stages.


There are several things worth noting here:

• Starting at a higher Stage
  When choosing "Bloody Palace" from the main menu, you'll see a stage selection (1-20, 21-40 etc.). Note that after clearing stage 20, you will not unlock the next entry point until you step into the portal and load the area for stage 21. In other words, if you quit after clearing stage 20, you'll have to start all over the next time. Instead use the portal and quit then.
  
  
  
• The most unique Equipment
  Unlike some of the "unique" weapons like the Dragon Sword or the Yilong'umbrella, the armor set pieces are unlocked via achievements instead of drops, meaning there is no known way to get them back if you sell them. Since they all have the Permanent retention effect, they won't get lost upon death, though.
  
  
  
• Prepare to Die... again
  While the Bloody Palace is separate from the story mode, everything carries over - including the penalties for dying. That means that entering the Bloody Palace and dying will result in your items, gear and Blood being gone. loading your story progress will not bring those back.

This is where you can challenge yourself further and unlock sexy female costumes and other neat things as a reward.

The goal in this mode is to clear variations of the first Story level in succession, while each run has higher difficulty than the previous one. The spawn location is also different each time. Hell Mode has five different stages, each of which ending in the same boss room but each with a completely different layout and a different Boss. After defeating the Boss, a purple portal will appear that takes you to the beginning of the next stage (or back to the main menu after Stage 5 has been cleared).


Hell Mode is quite the challenge but in one regard it is somewhat forgiving:
If you happen to die in this mode, unlike in the Bloody Palace, you will not have to start at the beginning of Stage 1 but can just repeat the Stage you last played. All other death penalties still apply, though.

Warning

Be aware that quitting at any point will mean that you'll have to start at Stage 1 again. Hell Mode is supposed to be cleared in one sitting.

On picture above: The Boss of Stage 4

After defeating the boss of Stage 5 (which I'm not gonna spoil here) you receive one of the female outfits or a different random reward.


On pictures above: The "Zombie Cosplay-pink" outfit

I won't be giving away any specific secrets here as those would be spoilers and not exactly specific to "Beginners".

There are plenty of secrets scattered throughout the world and I'll show you what to look out for.

If you see a wall that has some suspicious cracks (the ones that are large enough to see through them), you can definitely break that wall down.
 
The sections behind those walls are always short (a singular room most of the time) and always worth checking out.

As mentioned in the farming section above, you can break wooden crates and the likes. While you should do that always anyway, there are sometimes little secrets hidden behind them, so do watch out for those.

If you're looking for something more specific, feel free to check out my other guide:
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1779313568

There are many more secrets than that, so keep explorin'!

On your Weapon Skills screen, you may discover duplicates of all the skills from the Knuckles category inside your Sword page. These skills do nothing for you (they don't even work with the actual Knuckles type weapons) but need to also be unlocked if you want to get the "Master of Great sword" Achievement. Sounds pretty bad, I know. You need to save up the Proficiency and then unlock them but - your Proficiency will not go down when you unlock them, so don't worry about it and potentially unlock them first.

Edit

Since my Proficiency for the Knuckles is now somewhere below -2K and I recently got the Achievement for all combos from that category, I assume that this glitch lets you unlock the actual Knuckles Weapon Skills without having the required Proficiency. It checks is you have enough in the tab you're in (Sword) but correctly subtracts it from the Knuckles tab.

As the name implies Fall Damage is applied when you hit the ground after an extended fall. It is, however possible to fall very deep and not take any damage at all. The trick is to simply dodge mid-air shortly before hitting the ground. Give it a try sometime.

I recently made the discovery that the game apparently calculates how long you've been falling to decide whether or not to apply Fall Damage. This may sound obvious and unimportant at first but the thing is - if your system's performance is somewhat low, you'll be falling slower due to low framerate, meaning you'll be falling longer even if you don't fall far.

I've found my character to take fall damage from regular jumps when I cranked up the Graphics settings on a weak machine for nicer screenshots, so do make sure to choose your settings accordingly.

Apparently a Passive Skill to protect some or all of your equipment, even when you die, is or was planned to be implemented, since there are Achievements that grant the Protect Equipment Blood Amber. Note that at the time of writing, it is not possible to unlock this Passive but it is of course possible to lose your Blood Ambers upon dying. For this reason you may want to consider not claiming the Achievements that award said Amber until the Skill is implemented.

Edit

Of course, seeing as this game has seen some changes throughout it's Early Access already, it is also possible that those Ambers are a relic of an earlier build where you'd lose everything including your equipped gear upon death. If that's the case and this Passive would've prevented that loss, those Ambers would be worthless now.

If you're into making nice looking screenshots, then say hello to my little friend... the [Tab] key. Holding it down will remove the HUD. Some of the screenshots in this very guide have been created using this, so... there you have it!
 

Edit

I recently discovered that you can turn off the HUD completely, meaning you'll have way less problems capturing an action scene without breaking your fingers. To do that, you'll need the Steam Overlay shortcut to be the default one ([Shift]+[Tab]).
Just hold down [Tab] (HUD off), press [Shift] (Steam Overlay) and then exit the Overlay using [Esc]. Your in-game HUD will remain switched off until you hit [Tab] again.

Since this game is currently still in its Early Access, the ending we get at the time of writing this isn't the final ending. Sadly it also isn't translated, yet. So here's what happens...

After you defeat the Boss of the second level, one of the game developers will show up and music starts to play. Talking to that developer will give you a dialogue with a choice at the end.

Choosing "Ok" will basically start a New Game+ by sending you back to the start of the first level. You get to keep your equipped items etc. but you lose your Blood etc. - just like dying. Note that if you have the skill that lets you retain some Blood upon death, you'll start the New Game+ with some Blood accordingly. Choosing "Back" will end the conversation and give you no option to talk to the developer again, meaning you'll have to quit and reload the game. Doing so will reset the Boss encounter, meaning you have to fight and defeat him again.
(Dialogue reads: "Experience 《嗜血印 Bloody Spell》 again?")

Here's what he has to say (with some help of Google's translator):
Yi Long uncle Li: Hello, I'm one of the producers of 《嗜血印 Bloody Spell》.
Yi Long uncle Li: I'm very pleased to meet you here!
Yi Long uncle Li: Thank you for playing our game, you actually made it here!
Yi Long uncle Li: We will constantly move forward in our pursuit of the perfect game to make you happy!
Yi Long uncle Li: We will increase the game's content throughout 2019, there are a lot of maps waiting for your challenge!
Yi Long uncle Li: If you're already done with all the current maps, you can try challenge mode!
Yi Long uncle Li: On 81 Floors, there are 10 new enemy types and the BOSS! Be careful, they're very powerful!
Yi Long uncle Li: Let's meet again in the next version, I wish you happy play!

With what was translated as "challenge mode", he is obviously referring to the Bloody Palace, since Hell Mode only has 5 Floors.

Notes from the Author:

(Yes, again. Don't tell me you haven't already forgotton about this)

• Don't forget the thumbs up. Creating this took a lot of effort!
  
  
• Be sure to check back regularly, as I keep expanding and/or updating this guide almost daily.
  
  
• If you spot any mistakes, know of missing tips and tricks or have some suggestions and/or questions, leave a comment and I'll get back to you and probably adjust this guide accordingly.