Bloodborne is now my favorite game ever

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Late to the party again, but goddamn is Bloodborne awesome. I can't think of a seriously bad thing to say about this game. For me it is practically perfect. A full 10/10. A game worth buying an entire console for. As an experience up there with discovering Spirited Away as my favorite film. Currently the very peak of From Software's track record, and a hell of a bar for Dark Souls III to match.

I'm a sucker for basically all things Lovecraftian, and Bloodborne pulled the feeling off with flying colours. The visual design, the atmosphere, and by gods, the audio design and music. Not a single thing out of place. The combat's more satisfying than ever. Mechanics streamlined to perfection. By jove, the bosses and their variety. The environment and level design put Dark Souls 1 to shame. Whatever technical issues there seemed to be at launch are long gone. Did I already say this game is basically perfect?

I think that's enough gushing. This game met every expectation I had and blew them out of the water. There's basically two criticisms I can think of, and one of them is purely speculation: after the Vicar Amelia boss fight it's really unclear where you're supposed to go, which led me to banging my head against Darkbeast Paarl for like 20 tries before I finally found the way forward. The other is that Arcane builds wouldn't seem to get the coolest and most effective spells until fairly late in the game, which is a bit of a bummer for magic fans.

For discussion, feel free to tell me to die in a fire or just say whatever you want about Bloodborne. Also a question: would you say the DLC is worth the full price tag? Apparently it's really good, but 20 ? is quite steep for DLC for a cheapskate like me.

 

[Dragonlayer]

"Bloodborne is pure perfection in gaming format, a heavenly gift from the Elder Gods to placate mortals with as they descend from the kos (though some say kosm) to devour us all, and I'd happily spend several hundred dollars to get a PS4 *merely* for Bloodborne. But Jesus you guys, 20 bucks for more pure perfection!?"

Sorry, I couldn't resist. But to actually offer something constructive, while I don't think it's 11 cosmic nightmares/10 I *do* think it's absolutely fantastic. And that's coming from someone who traded back Dark Souls on the day he got it. I love the Gothic architecture, with its ominous manors crowding in around you as you become lost in wolf-thing infested side-streets, I love the way the game shifts to the realm of eldritch abominations that are all around us if only we had the eyes to see, and I loved the default Hunter's clothing with its face-wrap and tricorne cap so much I never wore anything else. Enemy design is creative and varied, as are the bosses which only adds to the sense of achievement when you finally down the buggers - particularly when you are at the point of duking it out with starborn atrocities Man was not meant to know.

My biggest actual criticism is that it suffers from the Souls tradition of not telling you anything remotely helpful, forcing you to find internet guides on how to switch weapons. There's inspiring the player to learn things on their own, and then there's just being useless, especially if it's the freaking tutorial pitting you against a quite vicious foe for low-level players. I'd also have liked more in-game documents scattered across the place; again, I know this franchise prides itself on not "spoon-feeding" those disgusting casual players but I think there's some serious wasted potential by not having apocalyptic logs by recurring characters, or papers on Yharnam's history and such to flesh out the background. Moreover, it's very easy to bypass one of the few sources of actual information in this game, namely the NPCs. I didn't know there were a ton of people in the Healing Church streets you could send to the chapel until well after I had activated the Blood Moon and inadvertently murderized all of them!

My other criticism is rooted in personal taste: too much JRPG influence in the weapons. Ludwig's Holy Blade is my absolute favourite, but does it have to transform into that fucking absurd mega-sword?

Regardless, as soon as I get some spare cash I will get the Old Hunters DLC and dive back into Yharnam.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Yeah Bloodborne is pretty excellent, there's only one complaint that I would really level toward it (well, ok, not just one, but here's the major one):

PvP is totally borked.

You see, it's incredibly difficult to punish healing since it's so fast. I mean, in theory it's possible to do (if you shoot them at the moment they heal they go into a riposte state), but in practice it barely works, and so a lot of pvp either ends up with two idiots taking turns shooting at each other or just running over and slashing a couple of times before dodging away, and the guy who started with more health usually wins.

I mean, it's not like DS1 or DS2's pvp was perfect or anything, DS1 was plagued with backstab fishing and DS2 was a bunch of parry finishing, but Bloodborne completely got rid of backstabs (or might as well have for pvp) and the parry fishing is even more essential than before.

But yeah, the single player is pretty amazing. Absolutely love the story and the atmosphere. Have not gotten the DLC yet but so far I've gone completely unspoiled on it so I'm looking forward to that when I have some time.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

My biggest actual criticism is that it suffers from the Souls tradition of not telling you anything remotely helpful, forcing you to find internet guides on how to switch weapons. There's inspiring the player to learn things on their own, and then there's just being useless, especially if it's the freaking tutorial pitting you against a quite vicious foe for low-level players. I'd also have liked more in-game documents scattered across the place; again, I know this franchise prides itself on not "spoon-feeding" those disgusting casual players but I think there's some serious wasted potential by not having apocalyptic logs by recurring characters, or papers on Yharnam's history and such to flesh out the background. Moreover, it's very easy to bypass one of the few sources of actual information in this game, namely the NPCs. I didn't know there were a ton of people in the Healing Church streets you could send to the chapel until well after I had activated the Blood Moon and inadvertently murderized all of them!

The info is there, and there are a few notes scattered around Yharnam. Most of the stuff you learn comes from the items and gear you pick up, and you can piece together the basic history of what has happened to the city from that.

All that being said, I fear I must agree with you. Bloodborne's lore feels a bit...lacking when compared to the Souls games. That, too, is my biggest complaint of the game. The story feels like it was (note that word choice, past tense) missing a few pieces. I think a lot of that is due to the fact that it starts traveling into the realm of the "not quite real, but real" of the dreams and nightmares that you go through. Because of that, logic and storytelling kind of get a bit screwy.

However, my criticism has been reduced GREATLY after playing The Old Hunters. It answers a few key question, and gives just enough information that I can now happily form my own story of how things went down. From the discovery of The Old Blood and the founding of the Vilebloods, to the crumbling of the Healing Church, the Doll (oh man, the Doll...), and even Ghernam, the First Hunter.

So in short, yes. You both need to pick up The Old Hunters DLC. It's more of what made Bloodborne great, with vicious bosses and disturbing levels, but it's the story that I think makes it great. It answers so many questions if you pay attention, and the answers you get are disturbing. We already know that The Healing Church isn't an upstanding example of holiness and being nice, but damn! This DLC shows that no group is the good guys in Yharnam.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

The DLC is 100% worth the price of admission. It doubles, or nearly so, the amount of weapons available to you, includes new spells that are quite useful, and gives you two new runes that are amazing and can change the way you play.

And yes, Bloodborne is awesome. Welcome to the party. Praise the moon, etc, etc.

 

[Dragonlayer]

My biggest actual criticism is that it suffers from the Souls tradition of not telling you anything remotely helpful, forcing you to find internet guides on how to switch weapons. There's inspiring the player to learn things on their own, and then there's just being useless, especially if it's the freaking tutorial pitting you against a quite vicious foe for low-level players. I'd also have liked more in-game documents scattered across the place; again, I know this franchise prides itself on not "spoon-feeding" those disgusting casual players but I think there's some serious wasted potential by not having apocalyptic logs by recurring characters, or papers on Yharnam's history and such to flesh out the background. Moreover, it's very easy to bypass one of the few sources of actual information in this game, namely the NPCs. I didn't know there were a ton of people in the Healing Church streets you could send to the chapel until well after I had activated the Blood Moon and inadvertently murderized all of them!

The info is there, and there are a few notes scattered around Yharnam. Most of the stuff you learn comes from the items and gear you pick up, and you can piece together the basic history of what has happened to the city from that.

All that being said, I fear I must agree with you. Bloodborne's lore feels a bit...lacking when compared to the Souls games. That, too, is my biggest complaint of the game. The story feels like it was (note that word choice, past tense) missing a few pieces. I think a lot of that is due to the fact that it starts traveling into the realm of the "not quite real, but real" of the dreams and nightmares that you go through. Because of that, logic and storytelling kind of get a bit screwy.

However, my criticism has been reduced GREATLY after playing The Old Hunters. It answers a few key question, and gives just enough information that I can now happily form my own story of how things went down. From the discovery of The Old Blood and the founding of the Vilebloods, to the crumbling of the Healing Church, the Doll (oh man, the Doll...), and even Ghernam, the First Hunter.

So in short, yes. You both need to pick up The Old Hunters DLC. It's more of what made Bloodborne great, with vicious bosses and disturbing levels, but it's the story that I think makes it great. It answers so many questions if you pay attention, and the answers you get are disturbing. We already know that The Healing Church isn't an upstanding example of holiness and being nice, but damn! This DLC shows that no group is the good guys in Yharnam.

The information is indeed there, but in incredibly fragmented and distorted fashion. Some scraps of parchment in each big area that have a vague running theme of "Kill the One Reborn", and the gibberish the few NPCs I got to before the Beasts were spouting. I can't say what the lore is like in comparison to the other games, because I've only played the first Dark Souls and almost certainly didn't far enough to learn anything meaningful, so this is just my personal preference for reading in-game fluff speaking. I still grasped the plotline through inferences, but I like having more substantial things to read than connecting the item descriptions in my inventory.

That said, I will shut my pie-hole and check out Old Hunters, particularly if it adds more delicious nightmare fuel....

 

[mysecondlife]

I have a PS4 and I have yet to buy and play this game. You must really hate me right now.

 

[Kingjackl]

It's sitting easily as my game of the year, matched only by Undertale.

I love the setting and the gameplay of Bloodborne more than Dark Souls. The Victorian/Lovecraftian setting (the latter of which is common knowledge now, but was introduced masterfully when the game came out) creates a wonderful sense of atmosphere. And I'm a sucker for the kind of fast-paced, dodge and parry-based combat system in Bloodborne, which feels almost like a Platinum game at points.

 

[Casual Shinji]

To me the only thing Bloodborne has over Dark Souls is the Doll.

Bloodborne is great, but it's hampered by a couple of things;

1) The constant teleporting back and forth between the Hunters Dream is a pain. The load times have been diminished, but they're still a nuisance. If I want to "fast travel" to another area, I need first travel to the Hunters Dream and then pick the area I want to go to, resulting in another load screen.

2) The RPG mechanics add nothing and should've just been stripped for the sake of a smoother action experience. The only options you get are Heavy or Light, with the choice on whether you want to use the fire arm or not. That's as far as the role playing goes. And spells are just a giant cocktease.

3) Apart from Gascoigne, the Witch of Hemwick, and Vacuous Spider, the Bosses are just the same big beast you need to whale on. I'd include what's-his-face in the maze, but he might just as well be an enemy NPC.

It's a terrific game, but it's no Dark Souls.

 

[Fappy]

I think I put Bloodborne and Darksouls on the same level, honestly. It's hard for me to pick a favorite between the two. The main criticism I have for the game is just that the chalice dungeons didn't quite work. Despite the fact that the root dungeons are procedurally generated, they still feel like a repetitive slog most of the time. Still, gotta get dem level 20 bloodgems, y'all.

3) Apart from Gascoigne, the Witch of Hemwick, and Vacuous Spider, the Bosses are just the same big beast you need to whale on. I'd include what's-his-face in the maze, but he might just as well be an enemy NPC.

Have you played the DLC yet? The new bosses are fucking great. Better than the Artorias DLC bosses imo.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

I like Bloodborne, but I think it has too many niggly problems for me to rank it above DkS1. The lack of variety in weapons and playstyle compared to DkS1 makes me a little less eager to replay it. Armour sets feel largely the same stats-wise since most have roughly similar stat values but in different places and equipment weight isn't a thing, the only real purpose of armour is to look fancy (which you definitely do). Arcane also sucks in terms of its usefulness and variety so you can't really make a playstyle out of it. I think the game also suffers from focusing too much world building to the detriment of characters. The characters that are there are largely forgettable and not particularly compelling, save for maybe one or two examples.

The game is still awesome to play and the it nails the oppressive, foreboding atmosphere. It's easily in my top games of the year

 

[Nazulu]

Have you died in that fire yet? lol

Anyway, my problems stem from it's general creativity. I haven't played it all the way through and don't own it, but the intro it didn't grab me at all. Nothing special dialogue wise, or music wise, or effect wise, or design wise, or style wise, or game play wise, or enemy wise. It feels like it's perfected the basics and that's it, which is a lot better than most games, but there are a lot of other games I prefer to play before I push myself to finish Bloodborne.

 

[CaitSeith]

If you felt Bloodborne was that good, then, as far as I heard, the DLC won't dissapoint you. It's pretty much more of the same: more Yharnam, more enemy hunters, more bosses, etc...

PS: Oddly enough, I knew exactly where to go after beating Vicar Amelia. There was an in-game written hint about the gate that requires a password, and Alfred tells you about it too.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Pfft Demons Souls was the best (half joking). Havent finished Bloodbourne and dont have the game (waiting a few years till it goes cheap like DS1 with all the DLC) so dont have a strongly formed opinion on it. From what I played it was fine felt like more of the same again but with a slight twist which I am still down for even if I am getting less and less willing to invest reasonable money into to experience it.

Combat felt easier and I felt much more powerful but the camera angle on the cleric Beast drove me nuts god knows how many times I died because I simply could not see what the things was doing or even my character. Basically strategy went mostly out the window in favour of just get between its legs and hack away and hope.

 

[SomeGuyOnHisComputer]

I actually beat it this morning.

The game is gorgeous, but I honestly don't understand all the praise beyond that. The environments are too busy, and everything looks the same, this can make it pretty hard to notice important details. Like I wandered around lost for hours because I missed a doorway, this happened twice. Yeah, that was technically my fault, but something that important shouldn't blend in like that.

The lock-on is one of the worst I've used in a long time, like the only game I can think to compare it to is Vice City (though, it isn't that bad). It feels both too sensitive and not sensitive enough and it wasn't uncommon for it to cause the camera to flail around everywhere. Also, the camera was too close to the player for my tastes. Another thing is I didn't like how easy it was for the parts of the environment to obscure your view.

The environments are cluttered with crap that gets in your way when trying to maneuver around enemies. I suppose this is meant to be part of the challenge, but because of the issues listed above, it just sucks the fun out of the game. The designers should have had the camera further back and made obstructive objects semi-transparent if they wanted to go for that kind of gameplay.

I could go on, but I would be here all day.

 

[Artina89]

I really like Bloodborne as well, the difficulty is challenging, but not enough that I have given up on it out of sheer frustration. This thread inspires me to replay it again when I come back from Montreal, as I am getting quite burned out by Fallout 4 at the moment.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Being a past...umm goth, shall we say, i still contain the stains of the dark appreciations no matter how. But Bloodborne, without even advertising itself or seemingly trying to be "gothic," it is somehow more goth than any other game i have ever played. More than any vampire or style marketed game. It took goth and went all the way, without ever labelling itself. That is somehow something i find endearing and respectful.

Edit: Oh yes, the game is great, most certainly! (A console purchase for this fool) But it appears this game has been dissected plenty enough that any words of mine will be pissing in the wind.

 

[Fox12]

It's probably the best game of the year, and a strong contender for best From Soft game.

I would compare it to Dark Souls in quality, certainly. I feel like Bloodborne fixed all of the problems I had with Dark Souls, and was consistantly outstanding. Unlike Dark Souls, there wasn't a single dull moment. Every environment was unique, beautiful, and often terrifying. That said, while Dark Souls low moments were lower, it's high moments were much higher. I think the Dark Souls story was better overall, but I would say the art design, gameplay, and aesthetic were significantly better in Bloodborne. It's definitely the best lovecraftian game ever made, mostly because it didn't advertise itself as one. It married gothic horror and cosmic horror perfectly, without ever feeling forced. It's what convinced me to buy a PS4, and I wasn't disappointed.

 

[Evonisia]

I loved everything about Bloodborne except the boss fights which weren't fun but tedious, but I hate the boss fights in all these games so that's more an issue of me than the game's design. I largely got my PS4 for Bloodborne and was so damn satisfied, I'm sad I'll never get to play for the first time again. So I'm really glad to see another person love it as well.

Beyond Rise of the Tomb Raider there's no game I've loved quite as much as Bloodborne this year.

 

[Casual Shinji]

3) Apart from Gascoigne, the Witch of Hemwick, and Vacuous Spider, the Bosses are just the same big beast you need to whale on. I'd include what's-his-face in the maze, but he might just as well be an enemy NPC.

Have you played the DLC yet? The new bosses are fucking great. Better than the Artorias DLC bosses imo.

I've been thinking about picking it up, but I'm already juggling shit on my 500gig harddrive.