Incredibly accurate simulation of living in London
miyazaki said fuck shields
There is no such thing as a perfect videogame, but this is the damn closest I've ever seen one get.
As majestic, thoroughly horrifying, & rewarding in its brutal, relentless gameplay that's complemented by a Victorian era premise of a world on the verge of death as its brilliant in its use of that premise as a backdrop for heart-wrenching, tragic stories that all tie to the endgame boss through meticulous & intricate lore that flips the world upside down & shows different sides to the spectrum, revealing how the blood crazed beasts we once thought of as merciless, wretched animals, are nothing but victims of an upper system ruled by The Great Ones & a disease that plagued the streets of Yharnam. What makes this gem of a game special is how it slowly, but subtly peels off layers of its core, & turns from a game of beast hunting to replacing God himself to end the Nightmare. That change in storytelling feels so sudden and jarring on paper, but Miyazaki made it work and it resulted in what's one of the best, most well crafted games ever made that'll leave an everlasting impact on its players
I try not to let contrary opinions about media affect me. It's an awful trait, one that stems from tying part of your identity to a product. There's plenty of games I care deeply about, but if someone else doesn't like them, that's not a personal slight against me. Likewise, if someone enjoys something I passionately dislike, it doesn't make their opinion any less valid than my own. Of course I'm not perfect, I slip up sometimes. We all do. The important thing is having enough self-awareness to catch yourself doing it, pull back, and evaluate whether it's worth it. 99.99% of the time, it's not.
Bloodborne is the .01% exception.
I've beaten this game about four times now, and each completed run has only reaffirmed my belief that this is the worst entry in the Souls series. I'm sorry, I mean "Soulsborne", because apparently it's so good that it's now suffixed at the hip with the overarching franchise's namesake. Despicable. Feels about as good rolling off the tongue as "Metroidvania," and is about as unearned. I genuinely cannot enter into the same headspace as everyone else. Have we played the same game? This is one of - if not the best game From has ever put out?
Bloodborne feels like the byproduct of a rushed development. Locations and mechanics are so woefully underdeveloped that it simply feels incomplete. Take combat, which is designed to be more fast-paced compared to previous Souls titles. Trick weapons provide more utility and varied movesets, making each new weapon more impactful than the myriad swords you loot in Dark Souls, and gone are shields (ThEy EnGeNdEr PaSsIvItY har har har) in favor of sidearms, which can be used to initiate parries with a very generous window. A quick step was added in place of a roll, at least while locked on, making dodging and weaving between enemies more snappy. All of this contributes to a combat system that feels more aggressive than previous Souls titles, one that asks the player to unlearn the tired strategies they've relied upon for three games now.
The problem is that very little about the game is actually balanced around these drastic changes, and it's apparent that From is not nearly as willing to evolve their approach as they expect their players to be. The camera and targeting system become even bigger liabilities here than they have been. Lock on to any large aggressive boss and you'll see what I mean, it just spins around like a whirling dervish, all chest fur and particle effects. Apparently Dark Souls 2 is bad because of the way enemies track you, something Bloodborne doesn't do? Blood Starved Beast would like a word with you, and he'll pivot 180 degrees on a dime to tell you. To be fair, this is only really an issue with a few late game bosses, whereas most encounters seem to be reused or rejected concepts from previous Souls games. I was surprised to see people had trouble with Rom or The One Reborn when they're quite literally Phalanx and The Tower Knight from Demon's Souls, only now you can run around them like Sonic the Hedgehog.
The lock on system is more consistently problematic with mobs. Boy I sure do love targeting the guy to my right instead of the one immediately in front of me. Hey this guy is charging right at me, I should lock on and side-step him and oh no, I'm now locked on to something on the other side of the floor. A lot of Bloodborne's difficulty feels imbalanced, if not artificial, like the solution to the game not being hard enough was to just overwhelm the player with a bunch of bullshit ambushes in areas where the geometry and camera do not get along. The advice I often hear is "well then don't lock on," except the game clearly wants me to by including the quick-step as a targeting-only feature. Also, completely disengaging with a system that is bad isn't really the solution people seem to think it is for the system being bad.
I'm going to invoke Dark Souls 2 again, that rascal, that perennial black sheep. It's remarkable to me how the B-team had the wisdom to let the player warp to any location from a bonfire, and while removing the ability to level up at them as well was a step in the wrong direction, at least jumping between areas didn't feel sluggish. Bloodborne, on the other hand, makes you warp back to the Hunter's Dream for everything. You can't even rest at a lamp post to restore blood vials and quicksilver bullets. Want to replenish your inventory before a boss? Fuck you, back to the Hunter's Dream. The original Dark Souls may not have let you warp until halfway through the game, but that at least made sense with how its world was laid out, how it was meant to be explored. Bloodborne is just inconvenient for no reason.
One of the more interesting deviations from the norm, however, is its setting. Yharnam's makes a solid first impression. The opening "dungeon" is vast, and similar to the Painted World in Dark Souls in that it feels as if it was designed in tandem with Bloodborne's core mechanics. The city streets are laid out in a way that presents satisfying arenas to test out Bloodborne's snappy new combat, and its non-linear design allows you to just get lost, find some sub-quests, and take on one of two different bosses in any order you please. Unfortunately, the game immediately loses this sense of design, reverting back to very rote by-the-numbers dungeons that feel more at home in past entries. There's a distinct lack of location variety too, with some of the more interesting dungeons either being painfully brief or entirely optional. Most of your time will be spent in the streets of Yharnam, and god damn does it start to drag. If you need a break, you can always check out the Chalice Dungeons, which are randomly generated excursions featuring high value loot and challenging new encounters. Except that's a lie, most of them are not randomly generated and are designed to appear procedural, which is to say they're made to be shitty on purpose.
Well shiiit, what about multiplayer? Everyone loves multiplayer in Souls games. Well guess what, there isn't any. And no that's not because I'm replaying this in 2022, long after Bloodborne could reasonably be expected to be active. It was always like this. There's like, maybe two covenants and they they lack any interesting conceits. You can still invade or summon, but even at release it didn't seem like anybody was bothering. I'm not sure I've ever been invaded in this game, and I could probably count the amount of real living breathing co-op partners I've found on one hand. Of course it also suffers from some incredibly bad netcode, but hey, that's par for the course.
Look, I'm a Dark Souls 3 apologist. I was singing Dark Souls 2's praises before it became vogue to reevaluate it. I just don't "get" the appeal of Bloodborne, maybe, but I just wrapped up getting the platinum trophy and played this game to completion at least three times before that and I still find myself walking away thinking it's just a bad game. It feels like it needed another year in the oven or at least two dozen community mods before it approaches playability. And yet, everyone eats this game up. They can't get enough of it. So good it's not just Souls, it's Soulsborne. I feel like my head is a gigantic tumorous mass of eyeballs that permit me to see this game for what it is, though the truth has only driven me to madness, leaving me a derange piteous creature waiting to be euthanized.
Bloodborne is the .01% exception.
I've beaten this game about four times now, and each completed run has only reaffirmed my belief that this is the worst entry in the Souls series. I'm sorry, I mean "Soulsborne", because apparently it's so good that it's now suffixed at the hip with the overarching franchise's namesake. Despicable. Feels about as good rolling off the tongue as "Metroidvania," and is about as unearned. I genuinely cannot enter into the same headspace as everyone else. Have we played the same game? This is one of - if not the best game From has ever put out?
Bloodborne feels like the byproduct of a rushed development. Locations and mechanics are so woefully underdeveloped that it simply feels incomplete. Take combat, which is designed to be more fast-paced compared to previous Souls titles. Trick weapons provide more utility and varied movesets, making each new weapon more impactful than the myriad swords you loot in Dark Souls, and gone are shields (ThEy EnGeNdEr PaSsIvItY har har har) in favor of sidearms, which can be used to initiate parries with a very generous window. A quick step was added in place of a roll, at least while locked on, making dodging and weaving between enemies more snappy. All of this contributes to a combat system that feels more aggressive than previous Souls titles, one that asks the player to unlearn the tired strategies they've relied upon for three games now.
The problem is that very little about the game is actually balanced around these drastic changes, and it's apparent that From is not nearly as willing to evolve their approach as they expect their players to be. The camera and targeting system become even bigger liabilities here than they have been. Lock on to any large aggressive boss and you'll see what I mean, it just spins around like a whirling dervish, all chest fur and particle effects. Apparently Dark Souls 2 is bad because of the way enemies track you, something Bloodborne doesn't do? Blood Starved Beast would like a word with you, and he'll pivot 180 degrees on a dime to tell you. To be fair, this is only really an issue with a few late game bosses, whereas most encounters seem to be reused or rejected concepts from previous Souls games. I was surprised to see people had trouble with Rom or The One Reborn when they're quite literally Phalanx and The Tower Knight from Demon's Souls, only now you can run around them like Sonic the Hedgehog.
The lock on system is more consistently problematic with mobs. Boy I sure do love targeting the guy to my right instead of the one immediately in front of me. Hey this guy is charging right at me, I should lock on and side-step him and oh no, I'm now locked on to something on the other side of the floor. A lot of Bloodborne's difficulty feels imbalanced, if not artificial, like the solution to the game not being hard enough was to just overwhelm the player with a bunch of bullshit ambushes in areas where the geometry and camera do not get along. The advice I often hear is "well then don't lock on," except the game clearly wants me to by including the quick-step as a targeting-only feature. Also, completely disengaging with a system that is bad isn't really the solution people seem to think it is for the system being bad.
I'm going to invoke Dark Souls 2 again, that rascal, that perennial black sheep. It's remarkable to me how the B-team had the wisdom to let the player warp to any location from a bonfire, and while removing the ability to level up at them as well was a step in the wrong direction, at least jumping between areas didn't feel sluggish. Bloodborne, on the other hand, makes you warp back to the Hunter's Dream for everything. You can't even rest at a lamp post to restore blood vials and quicksilver bullets. Want to replenish your inventory before a boss? Fuck you, back to the Hunter's Dream. The original Dark Souls may not have let you warp until halfway through the game, but that at least made sense with how its world was laid out, how it was meant to be explored. Bloodborne is just inconvenient for no reason.
One of the more interesting deviations from the norm, however, is its setting. Yharnam's makes a solid first impression. The opening "dungeon" is vast, and similar to the Painted World in Dark Souls in that it feels as if it was designed in tandem with Bloodborne's core mechanics. The city streets are laid out in a way that presents satisfying arenas to test out Bloodborne's snappy new combat, and its non-linear design allows you to just get lost, find some sub-quests, and take on one of two different bosses in any order you please. Unfortunately, the game immediately loses this sense of design, reverting back to very rote by-the-numbers dungeons that feel more at home in past entries. There's a distinct lack of location variety too, with some of the more interesting dungeons either being painfully brief or entirely optional. Most of your time will be spent in the streets of Yharnam, and god damn does it start to drag. If you need a break, you can always check out the Chalice Dungeons, which are randomly generated excursions featuring high value loot and challenging new encounters. Except that's a lie, most of them are not randomly generated and are designed to appear procedural, which is to say they're made to be shitty on purpose.
Well shiiit, what about multiplayer? Everyone loves multiplayer in Souls games. Well guess what, there isn't any. And no that's not because I'm replaying this in 2022, long after Bloodborne could reasonably be expected to be active. It was always like this. There's like, maybe two covenants and they they lack any interesting conceits. You can still invade or summon, but even at release it didn't seem like anybody was bothering. I'm not sure I've ever been invaded in this game, and I could probably count the amount of real living breathing co-op partners I've found on one hand. Of course it also suffers from some incredibly bad netcode, but hey, that's par for the course.
Look, I'm a Dark Souls 3 apologist. I was singing Dark Souls 2's praises before it became vogue to reevaluate it. I just don't "get" the appeal of Bloodborne, maybe, but I just wrapped up getting the platinum trophy and played this game to completion at least three times before that and I still find myself walking away thinking it's just a bad game. It feels like it needed another year in the oven or at least two dozen community mods before it approaches playability. And yet, everyone eats this game up. They can't get enough of it. So good it's not just Souls, it's Soulsborne. I feel like my head is a gigantic tumorous mass of eyeballs that permit me to see this game for what it is, though the truth has only driven me to madness, leaving me a derange piteous creature waiting to be euthanized.
i refuse to be beaten by a game that arin hanson can complete
This review contains spoilers
Oh, good hunter...
I've never written a Backloggd review, and I do not plan to make my first one a review style written piece. It is my favorite game of all time, and considering its now 7+ year age, this is a justification of what makes Bloodborne stand amongst the crowd of almost-perfect video games, and why my love for this game still prevails after all this time.
One of the most important parts of Bloodborne's unique is the world building. The game thrusts the player into the world of Yharnam; a dark, gothic, victorian city that has been infected with a disease, and now, it is time for the player to hunt. Right off the bat, the world is engaging, disturbing, and even has people behind their doors ready to give you a dose of the good news and tell you to fuck off, it's great. The first few major areas of the game build the conventional world of Yharnam perfectly, but as you progress deeper, the facade of this victorian city wears off and in comes one of the best thematic switch-ups in a videogame I've ever seen. The change to lovecraftian horror was more than a welcome change of pace. This plays into the mechanic of insight as well, a strange mechanic never much elaborated on in the early stages of the game. With progression, you realize that your insight is what keeps you from seeing the actual horrors of the world of Yharnam. Otherworldly monsters lurk around every corner, and with high enough insight, you can see these eldrich creatures before you are forced to gaze upon them. From this game, I have two areas that stand amongst the most well crafted and excellent areas in games, those being Castle Cainhurst and the Research Hall. These areas are challenging, well thought out in design and layout, and always a joy to explore.
No world building is complete without music, and Bloodborne, as well as Souls in general, lacks music for the most part. However, this is key to creating a way more intense atmosphere as you traverse a world without hope. So when you encounter bosses to triumph over, you finally are introduced to music. The boss music is some of the most well composed pieces I have heard in a video game, from Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower, Ludwig the Holy Blade, Queen of the Vilebloods, The First Hunter, Laurence the First Vicar and more, your heart will race with every encounter. Not to mention the areas that do have music to create a more tense atmosphere. These include Hypogean Gaol, The Upper Cathedral Ward and the Hunter's Dream.
All of this ties into the lore, and it is cryptic. Bosses are more than just spectacles waiting to be conquered, they have importance in the story. NPCs are more than just jesters waiting to laugh at you since you did not understand shit they told you since their dialogue is all giggles and riddles. What you make of Bloodborne's story is what you make of it. The lore is in the dialogue, item descriptions and the world, but you have to go out and find it. A lot of the lore is more readily available and better explained elsewhere other than this essay. Just know, one of my favorite stories is told through this game, for the secrets of Yharnam beckon so sweetly.
Another thing I appreciate about Bloodborne was the new mechanics that differentiated the game from previous Souls games. The rally mechanic is something unique to Bloodborne, until Elden Ring (granted, that game does not well implement the mechanic), to force you to be aggressive instead of the passivity of Souls. The lack of a shield, and the introduction of a gun to solely parry pushes the player to really understand the depth of the combat, and fight against your enemies with every skill you've learned. Fights become dances, and truly makes you feel like every victory is earned. Bloodborne has conditioned me to play every Souls game more aggressively, and I can never go back. Also, the trick weapons are such a perfect weapon system and the depth they provide is endless joy. One drawback I can admit Bloodborne has was the finite amount of healing, instead of the beautifuly crafted Estus Flask. When you want healing outside of rallying, and you run out, you must farm for more. Granted, Blood Vials, the item for healing, do drop from enemies often upon death, however, it is still not a perfect system.
One of the final things I want to touch upon is the bosses. The bosses are always some of the best parts of every Souls game, and that applies in Bloodborne. How can one forget their first triumph over Father Gascoigne, or learning how to successfully manage the Shadows of Yharnam? The emotionally compelling fight of Gehrman, a battle of a mentor vs student, to let the other free from suffering. A horrific first encounter with Ebrietas in the depths of the Upper Cathedral Ward. Ludwig and the Orphan of Kos, two difficult fights that are some of the most well crafted in Soulsborne to date. Then, I mentioned earlier in this essay how two of my favorite areas are Castle Cainhurst and the Research Hall, and they hold two of my favorite bosses in the game. Martyr Logarius and Lady Maria are elegant dances of ferocious combat and aggression. Lady Maria stands as my favorite boss fight in a game ever, it is that good.
I have rambled on for a long time about this near-masterpiece. I have shilled this game to almost everyone I know, and tried multiple co-op sessions even thought 99% of those fail because my friends are COWARDS.
Hopefully in the future, we see this game remastered, and brought to PC in Sony's new efforts, for more people to experience this game.
No, Bloodborne is more than a video game, it is a masterful, well-crafted work of art that is a necessity to experience.
I've never written a Backloggd review, and I do not plan to make my first one a review style written piece. It is my favorite game of all time, and considering its now 7+ year age, this is a justification of what makes Bloodborne stand amongst the crowd of almost-perfect video games, and why my love for this game still prevails after all this time.
One of the most important parts of Bloodborne's unique is the world building. The game thrusts the player into the world of Yharnam; a dark, gothic, victorian city that has been infected with a disease, and now, it is time for the player to hunt. Right off the bat, the world is engaging, disturbing, and even has people behind their doors ready to give you a dose of the good news and tell you to fuck off, it's great. The first few major areas of the game build the conventional world of Yharnam perfectly, but as you progress deeper, the facade of this victorian city wears off and in comes one of the best thematic switch-ups in a videogame I've ever seen. The change to lovecraftian horror was more than a welcome change of pace. This plays into the mechanic of insight as well, a strange mechanic never much elaborated on in the early stages of the game. With progression, you realize that your insight is what keeps you from seeing the actual horrors of the world of Yharnam. Otherworldly monsters lurk around every corner, and with high enough insight, you can see these eldrich creatures before you are forced to gaze upon them. From this game, I have two areas that stand amongst the most well crafted and excellent areas in games, those being Castle Cainhurst and the Research Hall. These areas are challenging, well thought out in design and layout, and always a joy to explore.
No world building is complete without music, and Bloodborne, as well as Souls in general, lacks music for the most part. However, this is key to creating a way more intense atmosphere as you traverse a world without hope. So when you encounter bosses to triumph over, you finally are introduced to music. The boss music is some of the most well composed pieces I have heard in a video game, from Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower, Ludwig the Holy Blade, Queen of the Vilebloods, The First Hunter, Laurence the First Vicar and more, your heart will race with every encounter. Not to mention the areas that do have music to create a more tense atmosphere. These include Hypogean Gaol, The Upper Cathedral Ward and the Hunter's Dream.
All of this ties into the lore, and it is cryptic. Bosses are more than just spectacles waiting to be conquered, they have importance in the story. NPCs are more than just jesters waiting to laugh at you since you did not understand shit they told you since their dialogue is all giggles and riddles. What you make of Bloodborne's story is what you make of it. The lore is in the dialogue, item descriptions and the world, but you have to go out and find it. A lot of the lore is more readily available and better explained elsewhere other than this essay. Just know, one of my favorite stories is told through this game, for the secrets of Yharnam beckon so sweetly.
Another thing I appreciate about Bloodborne was the new mechanics that differentiated the game from previous Souls games. The rally mechanic is something unique to Bloodborne, until Elden Ring (granted, that game does not well implement the mechanic), to force you to be aggressive instead of the passivity of Souls. The lack of a shield, and the introduction of a gun to solely parry pushes the player to really understand the depth of the combat, and fight against your enemies with every skill you've learned. Fights become dances, and truly makes you feel like every victory is earned. Bloodborne has conditioned me to play every Souls game more aggressively, and I can never go back. Also, the trick weapons are such a perfect weapon system and the depth they provide is endless joy. One drawback I can admit Bloodborne has was the finite amount of healing, instead of the beautifuly crafted Estus Flask. When you want healing outside of rallying, and you run out, you must farm for more. Granted, Blood Vials, the item for healing, do drop from enemies often upon death, however, it is still not a perfect system.
One of the final things I want to touch upon is the bosses. The bosses are always some of the best parts of every Souls game, and that applies in Bloodborne. How can one forget their first triumph over Father Gascoigne, or learning how to successfully manage the Shadows of Yharnam? The emotionally compelling fight of Gehrman, a battle of a mentor vs student, to let the other free from suffering. A horrific first encounter with Ebrietas in the depths of the Upper Cathedral Ward. Ludwig and the Orphan of Kos, two difficult fights that are some of the most well crafted in Soulsborne to date. Then, I mentioned earlier in this essay how two of my favorite areas are Castle Cainhurst and the Research Hall, and they hold two of my favorite bosses in the game. Martyr Logarius and Lady Maria are elegant dances of ferocious combat and aggression. Lady Maria stands as my favorite boss fight in a game ever, it is that good.
I have rambled on for a long time about this near-masterpiece. I have shilled this game to almost everyone I know, and tried multiple co-op sessions even thought 99% of those fail because my friends are COWARDS.
Hopefully in the future, we see this game remastered, and brought to PC in Sony's new efforts, for more people to experience this game.
No, Bloodborne is more than a video game, it is a masterful, well-crafted work of art that is a necessity to experience.
this shit garbage
"Beasts all over the shop... You'll be one of them, sooner or later..."
There are many reason to love bloodborne. The viscerally engaging combat system that is simple yet satisfying, the brilliant level design that is complex and rewarding, the raw-ass enemy and boss design, the stellar art direction that perfectly encaptulates the victorian gothic feel(seriously the graphics of this game simply cannot age, I'll be looking 50 years from now at this game and I would still say it's jaw-dropping), the fucking banger soundtrack, the general story and its characters. This game just has it all. But I want now to focus on one aspect of this game, the one that I consider the best thing this game does, the lovecraftian horror
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"In case you've failed to realize...
The things you hunt, they're not beasts. They're people."
The game starts off as just a gothic horror game and does a good job hiding its true intentions and themes for the first half of the game or so. Heck even the trailers didn't capitalise on the cosmic horror aspect which makes the reveal all the more compelling. But it's not random. The game gives you small breadcrumbs that can be easily spotted by people who know the game well but for new players it will go right over them still creating a sense of surprise in them when it is revealed.
To change subject a bit, this game has a phenomenal roaster of npcs. From the terribly kind chapel dweller, to the maniacal but understandable suspicious begger, to the misterious Eileen the Crow it has plenty of unique and interesting characters to talk and interact with. But the best of them has to be Djura. A powder keg hunter that was once just like the player but came to the odd realization that the things he killed were more than just mindles beasts. And it isn't just pulled out of the games ass for some cheap symphathy, oh no. If you just stop and listen in Old Yharnam whenever you want, you can softly hear the beasts cry and weep while hinding in corners. You can perfectly understand why he feels this way and why he has to protect them to make up for killing so many of them in the past. Games are at their best when they combine gameplay and narrative into one and this game does this flawlessly
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"We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open..."
Now to cut back to the aspect I like the most about this game. Video games and cosmic horror have a quite rough relationship. Some attempts have been made but almost none were very successful. Mostly due to them just ripping HP Lovecrafts mythos with no though or deeper understanding of the source material. Also if you remove the lovecraftian aspect, they are pretty shit games on their own. Bloodborne is still an excellent game without them and a true masterpiece with. It does a couple of things to differentiate itself from the rest, mostly by actually putting the work to create its own mythos and abominations. It's cosmic horror, unarguably, but it's still feels fresh and unique. On a surface-level, it seems like the game is a contradiction, you kill the things that are supposed to be eldrich, unreachable, horrors? But then you realize, are the things I kill truly great ones, or just mere rejects? Lesser great ones or literally "left behinds"? The NIGHTMARE SLAIN title appears only in 3 distinct locations. One is after Mergo's Wet Nurse is defeated and Mergo stops crying, another after hitting the spirit of the Orphan of Kos and the last after the Moon Presence. Are these the true great ones or are they just puppets controlled by them? This game fundamentally understands cosmic horror and takes full advantage of it.
The enviromental horror isn't far behind either. One of the scariest moments in bloodborne for me is seeing the corpses in yarha'gul and realizing they are just men, women and children trying to run away from.........something. The game doesn't say anything more about this. It just lets you imagine what happened. It goes hand in hand with the brief storytelling of the game by creating a real sense of unknown and mistery. Or how as the night goes on the citizens start to go mad the simply vanish with no trace whatsoever when the blood moon falls. Or how when you say to the gatekeeper the pasword to access the forbidden woods but when you open the door he is long dead. This doesn't make the game scary, it makes it fucking terrifying.
The funny thing is that before this game I never really cared about lovecraftian horror all that much but after completing it, it's BY FAR my favorite kind of horror. I even bought a book with the entire fiction Lovecraft made lol.
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"As you once did for the Vacuous Rom... Grant us eyes, Grant us eyes! Plant eyes on our brains to cleanse our beastly idiocy!"
Bloodborne has a lot of excellent areas, and I mean A LOT, everybody knows that, but my favorite one has to be Nightmare of Mensis. A couple of reasons why:
Fantastic level design
Solid enemy variety
Thick atmosphere
The best enviromental hazard in the series
Intriguing lore
There are so many more things about this area. The Brain of Mensis, Mergo itself, the winter lanters which have my vote for most terrifying enemy in the souls series, both mechanically and design-wise, Micolash and his fascinating dialogue. The fact that Mergo's Wet Nurse ost is a fucking lullaby and it works so wonderfully is outstanding. One of my absolute favorite moments in all of gaming is just simply looking at the giant pale moon in the sky in the area. Just blindly starring and thinking about this whole game and what it means to me
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"Ah, sweet child of Kos, returned to the ocean. A bottomless curse, a bottomless sea. Accepting of all that there is, and can be."
Will try to keep it brief here since I aready made a separate review for the dlc but safe to say this is one of the best dlcs ever, if not the best. It has 3 incredibly well designed areas, 4 of the best bosses in the game, fixed the weapon variety issue from the main game, new interesting lore and some of the best music fromsoftware ever composed. Legendary.
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"Tonight, Gehrman joins the hunt..."
When I first played the game, Gehrman was underwhelming to me for some reason. Maybe he was too easy, or I didn't understand the lore but now I want to take it all back, he's one of bloodborne's best bosses. The emotions, the music, the gorgeous arena, the fight itself, it's all majestic.
In conclusion, bloodborne is my favorite game of all time and my favorite piece of media I've ever had the pleasure of consuming. It's an artistically rich, superbly designed game and I am forever grateful for playing it. This doesn't mean it's perfect(chalice dungeons are a complete waste of time, the build variety is kinda shallow, the healing system is good but inferior to estus and some technical issues that could be fixed in a pc remaster port that will probably never happen) but I don't care honestly, it's very dear and close to my heart and soul.
I love you, Bloodborne
There are many reason to love bloodborne. The viscerally engaging combat system that is simple yet satisfying, the brilliant level design that is complex and rewarding, the raw-ass enemy and boss design, the stellar art direction that perfectly encaptulates the victorian gothic feel(seriously the graphics of this game simply cannot age, I'll be looking 50 years from now at this game and I would still say it's jaw-dropping), the fucking banger soundtrack, the general story and its characters. This game just has it all. But I want now to focus on one aspect of this game, the one that I consider the best thing this game does, the lovecraftian horror
.......................................................................................................
"In case you've failed to realize...
The things you hunt, they're not beasts. They're people."
The game starts off as just a gothic horror game and does a good job hiding its true intentions and themes for the first half of the game or so. Heck even the trailers didn't capitalise on the cosmic horror aspect which makes the reveal all the more compelling. But it's not random. The game gives you small breadcrumbs that can be easily spotted by people who know the game well but for new players it will go right over them still creating a sense of surprise in them when it is revealed.
To change subject a bit, this game has a phenomenal roaster of npcs. From the terribly kind chapel dweller, to the maniacal but understandable suspicious begger, to the misterious Eileen the Crow it has plenty of unique and interesting characters to talk and interact with. But the best of them has to be Djura. A powder keg hunter that was once just like the player but came to the odd realization that the things he killed were more than just mindles beasts. And it isn't just pulled out of the games ass for some cheap symphathy, oh no. If you just stop and listen in Old Yharnam whenever you want, you can softly hear the beasts cry and weep while hinding in corners. You can perfectly understand why he feels this way and why he has to protect them to make up for killing so many of them in the past. Games are at their best when they combine gameplay and narrative into one and this game does this flawlessly
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"We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open..."
Now to cut back to the aspect I like the most about this game. Video games and cosmic horror have a quite rough relationship. Some attempts have been made but almost none were very successful. Mostly due to them just ripping HP Lovecrafts mythos with no though or deeper understanding of the source material. Also if you remove the lovecraftian aspect, they are pretty shit games on their own. Bloodborne is still an excellent game without them and a true masterpiece with. It does a couple of things to differentiate itself from the rest, mostly by actually putting the work to create its own mythos and abominations. It's cosmic horror, unarguably, but it's still feels fresh and unique. On a surface-level, it seems like the game is a contradiction, you kill the things that are supposed to be eldrich, unreachable, horrors? But then you realize, are the things I kill truly great ones, or just mere rejects? Lesser great ones or literally "left behinds"? The NIGHTMARE SLAIN title appears only in 3 distinct locations. One is after Mergo's Wet Nurse is defeated and Mergo stops crying, another after hitting the spirit of the Orphan of Kos and the last after the Moon Presence. Are these the true great ones or are they just puppets controlled by them? This game fundamentally understands cosmic horror and takes full advantage of it.
The enviromental horror isn't far behind either. One of the scariest moments in bloodborne for me is seeing the corpses in yarha'gul and realizing they are just men, women and children trying to run away from.........something. The game doesn't say anything more about this. It just lets you imagine what happened. It goes hand in hand with the brief storytelling of the game by creating a real sense of unknown and mistery. Or how as the night goes on the citizens start to go mad the simply vanish with no trace whatsoever when the blood moon falls. Or how when you say to the gatekeeper the pasword to access the forbidden woods but when you open the door he is long dead. This doesn't make the game scary, it makes it fucking terrifying.
The funny thing is that before this game I never really cared about lovecraftian horror all that much but after completing it, it's BY FAR my favorite kind of horror. I even bought a book with the entire fiction Lovecraft made lol.
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"As you once did for the Vacuous Rom... Grant us eyes, Grant us eyes! Plant eyes on our brains to cleanse our beastly idiocy!"
Bloodborne has a lot of excellent areas, and I mean A LOT, everybody knows that, but my favorite one has to be Nightmare of Mensis. A couple of reasons why:
Fantastic level design
Solid enemy variety
Thick atmosphere
The best enviromental hazard in the series
Intriguing lore
There are so many more things about this area. The Brain of Mensis, Mergo itself, the winter lanters which have my vote for most terrifying enemy in the souls series, both mechanically and design-wise, Micolash and his fascinating dialogue. The fact that Mergo's Wet Nurse ost is a fucking lullaby and it works so wonderfully is outstanding. One of my absolute favorite moments in all of gaming is just simply looking at the giant pale moon in the sky in the area. Just blindly starring and thinking about this whole game and what it means to me
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"Ah, sweet child of Kos, returned to the ocean. A bottomless curse, a bottomless sea. Accepting of all that there is, and can be."
Will try to keep it brief here since I aready made a separate review for the dlc but safe to say this is one of the best dlcs ever, if not the best. It has 3 incredibly well designed areas, 4 of the best bosses in the game, fixed the weapon variety issue from the main game, new interesting lore and some of the best music fromsoftware ever composed. Legendary.
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"Tonight, Gehrman joins the hunt..."
When I first played the game, Gehrman was underwhelming to me for some reason. Maybe he was too easy, or I didn't understand the lore but now I want to take it all back, he's one of bloodborne's best bosses. The emotions, the music, the gorgeous arena, the fight itself, it's all majestic.
In conclusion, bloodborne is my favorite game of all time and my favorite piece of media I've ever had the pleasure of consuming. It's an artistically rich, superbly designed game and I am forever grateful for playing it. This doesn't mean it's perfect(chalice dungeons are a complete waste of time, the build variety is kinda shallow, the healing system is good but inferior to estus and some technical issues that could be fixed in a pc remaster port that will probably never happen) but I don't care honestly, it's very dear and close to my heart and soul.
I love you, Bloodborne
Más incluso que Boletaria o Lordran, la noche de cacería de Yharnam se presenta como un contexto a explorar y explotar. Un contexto lo suficientemente retorcido y desviado de la vida real como para dar algún sentido al único lenguaje de la violencia. Y aunque se pueda llegar a justificar, se nota demasiado la elección por conveniencia de la misma base jugable de los souls.
Bloodborne no debería haber sido un juego de acción. Para empezar, porque la acción es muy floja (más rápida, más permisiva, pide menos implicación y premia la imprudencia). Segundo, porque la ausencia de peso parece conspirar en contra de la aproximación lenta y meticulosa que piden sus entornos. Pero sobre todo, porque el mundo que plantea es lo suficientemente rico para merecer todo el protagonismo.
La cantidad de misterios, zonas secretas y sorpresas que esconde; la variedad de momentazos; el mix de horror gótico y cósmico; la monumental arquitectura de Yharnam que, aunque repita el mismo patrón de diseño para cada zona en particular, es lo suficientemente contundente en global. En comparación, los vistosos jefes finales se sienten fuera de lugar y rompen el ritmo.
A pesar de lo disperso que pueda parecer en planteamiento, sorprende lo centrado que es temáticamente. Todo en el juego apunta en una dirección bien definida. Si las constantes referencias a la maternidad y la regla, la luna y la sangre, no eran lo suficientemente evidentes, el último tramo se encarga de enmarcar toda la pesadilla entorno a algo tan concreto y personal como es el sufrimiento de una madre cuyo hijo ha nacido muerto. Solo espero que a Miyazaki le vaya todo bien a nivel familiar y tenga una vida feliz y tranquila.
Bloodborne no debería haber sido un juego de acción. Para empezar, porque la acción es muy floja (más rápida, más permisiva, pide menos implicación y premia la imprudencia). Segundo, porque la ausencia de peso parece conspirar en contra de la aproximación lenta y meticulosa que piden sus entornos. Pero sobre todo, porque el mundo que plantea es lo suficientemente rico para merecer todo el protagonismo.
La cantidad de misterios, zonas secretas y sorpresas que esconde; la variedad de momentazos; el mix de horror gótico y cósmico; la monumental arquitectura de Yharnam que, aunque repita el mismo patrón de diseño para cada zona en particular, es lo suficientemente contundente en global. En comparación, los vistosos jefes finales se sienten fuera de lugar y rompen el ritmo.
A pesar de lo disperso que pueda parecer en planteamiento, sorprende lo centrado que es temáticamente. Todo en el juego apunta en una dirección bien definida. Si las constantes referencias a la maternidad y la regla, la luna y la sangre, no eran lo suficientemente evidentes, el último tramo se encarga de enmarcar toda la pesadilla entorno a algo tan concreto y personal como es el sufrimiento de una madre cuyo hijo ha nacido muerto. Solo espero que a Miyazaki le vaya todo bien a nivel familiar y tenga una vida feliz y tranquila.
Remember that scene in Ratatouille where Anton Ego bites into the ratatouille and he’s suddenly transported back to his younger self? That was me playing this game for the first time. This game made me feel like a stupid kid again, I got lost, I got stuck, I didn’t know where to go, I explored, I discovered, I found secrets, I got better at the game, I felt things I felt way back when I was a kid playing Spyro for the first time, things I thought I’d never feel again because I’m an adult now. The way this game is framed, with you as just some guy as opposed to some special chosen one, and structured in a way where your curiosity is what drives you forth, it’s so ingeniously planned out. Every location, every creative enemy, every NPC, every boss encounter (especially the final one, my word), every inch of it’s evoking art design is locked in my brain. Cemented as one of my all time favourites.
esto es lo que pasa cuando Inglaterra pierde un partido de fútbol
The seminal 21st century horror masterwork. An utterly consuming post-modern translation of Victorian anxieties; the dangers of industrial progress being married to church doctrine as told with both gothic and celestial aesthetics. However it doesn't stop there. That's nothing to say on how the game further goes on to explore the terrifying Eldritch possibilities of unspeakable extraterrestrial beings beyond comprehension lying dormant within labyrinths and our attempts to understand and exploit these cosmic powers. How the result of humanity's endless search for more knowledge is ultimately rendered as capital once it breaches the surface. Just an unimaginably dense work capable of being terrifying, moving, sexy, and amusing in equal measures and completely goes all in on these facets; never shortchanging. My mind spins on the many narrative tangents this game takes you on, its profound sense of empathy for the cursed victims of exploitation, and beyond that it's also just a really fun and addictive gameplay loop with gorgeously designed areas and haunting bosses/enemies that ring in the head long after the television powers off. So stimulating exploring different weapons and builds and seeing what works and what doesn't. Perhaps some of the areas are more annoying than others (Nightmare Frontier, Upper Cathedral Ward, and Yahar'gul can fuck right off) but for something I deeply loved the first time I'm just shocked how much better this feels now. The m-word gets thrown around a lot nowadays but this work of art truly deserves the plaudit of being labelled a masterpiece. A sweeping culmination of everything FromSoftware has been striving to achieve. Everybody else should just stop trying.
I never have any idea where I’m supposed to be going but once you stumble your way into a boss fight you’re treated to some of the best enemy design out there. Except Micolash but we don’t talk about him.
this game ruined me because whenever i play any game now, i just say "i wish this had Bloodborne's combat". THAT'S how good this game is.
lady maria of the astral clock tower and ebritas, my DMs are open
lady maria of the astral clock tower and ebritas, my DMs are open
Back in Junior High, I had this duo of friends who would not stop talking about Dark Souls whenever we were at our table at lunch. Dark Souls 2 had just come out and they were obsessed with it. This is the first time I ever even heard of Dark Souls, and with them always nerding out about it, it did intrigue me a bit. Fast forward to March 2017, I had just gotten a PS4 a couple months prior and I was itching to get into all these types of games I never did before. On a whim I decided to pickup both Dark Souls III and Bloodborne. Boy was that timing perfect, because the next day it snowed big time and it wouldn't let up for like an entire week so I was playing Dark Souls III nonstop. A couple weeks later I then moved on to Bloodborne. I love Dark Souls III, as you know from my reviews of that, but Bloodborne especially really captivated me. I ended up beating it months later during my thanksgiving break I think (sadly getting the bad ending and missing out on the final boss) and thought it was really great. Fast forward again to like March 2019 I think? I on a whim felt like playing Bloodborne again. I really sucked at first, struggling immensely with Gascoigne, but once I got the hang of it again, I honestly had an absolute blast and knew it would be one of my favorite games ever. The platinum and several playthroughs later, here we are and yeah it's back in my top 5 again.
The very first thing the drew me into the game, and I honestly think it's hands down the best aspect, is the Gothic-Horror Lovecraftian aesthetic and the art design as a whole. It's my absolute favorite aesthetic in any game next to Automata's post-apocalyptic world. That's like one of the main reason's I rate this game so highly tbh, it carry's so hard imo. From Central Yharnam, to Cathedral Ward and even something like Nightmare Frontier, I don't dislike any area's aesthetic. Cainhurst is the absolute highlight, just exploring a creepy gothic castle while it's snowing outside...hoo baby. Like even something like Byrgenwerth, which is absolutely tiny, is an area I like going to everytime because of the seaside aesthetics. Plus it's really lore important which is rad.
Speaking of lore and the story of the game, it's the absolute best in the Soulsborne series imo. It just makes the whole world feel so alive, first starting off with basic stuff like the hunt and then eventually delving into cosmic horror by the end. I was never too into Dark Souls lore ever but this game? Yeah I'm totally into it, the horror aspect just intrigues me way more.
Next in the combat and yeah it's a total blast. Instead of hiding behind a shield like in Dark Souls, you're totally defenseless and can only rely on your dodging skills. That may seem like it's tougher, and yeah it is but it rewards you for being super aggressive. The rally system allows you to get some HP back for a short time after being hit which means you can be more risky when fighting enemies. I just find this combat system way more fun than the souls games personally and is another reason why this is my favorite. To go along with the combat, you of course have the weapons. Unlike the souls games, Bloodborne has a much smaller batch of them but I think that's much in the games favor. Every weapon is viable and every weapon is memorable. That paired with the transformation mechanic, where if you press L1 you essentially have two weapons in one, just make these weapons the best ever imo. I usually use the kirk hammer, then Ludwig's Holy Blade and then maybe I switch it out for one of the DLC's weapons and yeah this playthrough was no different.
As I said, I really love the look of every area and that's not all, the actual areas are quite good for the most part. The beginning areas like Central Yharnam or Cathedral Ward are simply some of the best level-design wish because they're so interconnected with other areas. It's not quite Dark Souls 1 level of interconnectivity but it's really a nice change from something like Dark Souls 2 or even 3. By the end it does get more linear, but since the first half is well connected, I didn't have much of an issue with it. I think one of the most memorable moments is when you're all the way into the forbidden woods. You find this path down into a poison cave, you climb up a ladder and you end up at the very beginning of
central yharnam. You unlock the first gate you ever see when playing and I just think that's so cool. The game has several moments like this, like Yahar'Gul connecting to Old Yarhnam after you defeat Darkbeast Paarl, but no moment will be as good as the aformentioned Forbidden Woods interconnectivity.
Now on to the bosses, I think they're generally pretty great. Early game definitely has the more consistently good bosses, tho endgame definitely has some bangers like Gehrman and Martyr Logarius. The mid to end game definitely does have some not great bosses gameplay-wise, but some of them do have other aspects that make me not hate them. Witches of Hemwick is pathetically easy but the especially creepy atmosphere and semi-interesting way to defeat her, I really enjoyed. Plus she had one of my favorite songs in the game. Rom is somewhat annoying but at least has a beautiful area to fight her in. The one reborn is really easy too but I like the callback to Tower Knight. Celestial Emissary is um, yeah I can't really defend this one but it sure is a goofy boss. Micolash was probably my least favorite in the game before, and even tho I had a much better time with him this time, he still isn't great. What really makes up for it tho is he has hands down my favorite dialogue in the game, god it's so entertaining and goddamn whoever voiced him is amazing. The rest of the bosses I either like or love, and again even some of these I do like because of certain other aspects. I know a lot of the bosses aren't perfect but I'm surprised I never outright hated any of them, can't say the same for something like Bed of Chaos or Dragon God lole.
Don't really have much to say about the OST besides the fact it's great like most other souls games. My favorite tracks were the aforementioned Witches of Hemwick theme, the Cleric Beast theme, Micolash's theme, the hunter's dream theme and Gehrman's theme. Those were definitely the standout songs.
My take on the Chalice dungeons are they're a nice distraction from the base game but I probably won't play them again on future replay's. I only dived into them on that playthrough in 2019, and while they were cool they do get tedious if you're going for them all. It is nice how they have unique bosses in them, but yeah not super keen on them. Tho I never hated them like other people and I don't think they detract from the game because it feels more like a side thing which I'm fine with.
Before I end of my review, I just wanted to list off a couple issues with the game. Blood vials are obviously a big point of contention for some people and yeah it is annoying how you might have to eventually grind them if you run out, I never really had an issue with this personally. It's really easy to get them naturally and there's a really good early grinding spot right next to the first lamp in the game lol. Speaking of lamps, I guess people find it annoying how you have to warp back to the Hunter's Dream every time and then warp to another place from there? I guess it's a minor convenience but it never bothered me ever. Now this being 30 FPS is definitely jarring when going from games like Dark Souls III or Sekiro (I know I was taken aback when I came back to this after DS3) and while it would be so awesome if a remaster came out (please no remake dear god) I again never had a major issue with it. People saying it makes the game unplayable, I don't get you lol.
Anywho, this was another long ass review from me but I just absolutely adore this game despite some small flaws. It just gets even better with the DLC which I also beat this time around. Look out for that review very soon!
The very first thing the drew me into the game, and I honestly think it's hands down the best aspect, is the Gothic-Horror Lovecraftian aesthetic and the art design as a whole. It's my absolute favorite aesthetic in any game next to Automata's post-apocalyptic world. That's like one of the main reason's I rate this game so highly tbh, it carry's so hard imo. From Central Yharnam, to Cathedral Ward and even something like Nightmare Frontier, I don't dislike any area's aesthetic. Cainhurst is the absolute highlight, just exploring a creepy gothic castle while it's snowing outside...hoo baby. Like even something like Byrgenwerth, which is absolutely tiny, is an area I like going to everytime because of the seaside aesthetics. Plus it's really lore important which is rad.
Speaking of lore and the story of the game, it's the absolute best in the Soulsborne series imo. It just makes the whole world feel so alive, first starting off with basic stuff like the hunt and then eventually delving into cosmic horror by the end. I was never too into Dark Souls lore ever but this game? Yeah I'm totally into it, the horror aspect just intrigues me way more.
Next in the combat and yeah it's a total blast. Instead of hiding behind a shield like in Dark Souls, you're totally defenseless and can only rely on your dodging skills. That may seem like it's tougher, and yeah it is but it rewards you for being super aggressive. The rally system allows you to get some HP back for a short time after being hit which means you can be more risky when fighting enemies. I just find this combat system way more fun than the souls games personally and is another reason why this is my favorite. To go along with the combat, you of course have the weapons. Unlike the souls games, Bloodborne has a much smaller batch of them but I think that's much in the games favor. Every weapon is viable and every weapon is memorable. That paired with the transformation mechanic, where if you press L1 you essentially have two weapons in one, just make these weapons the best ever imo. I usually use the kirk hammer, then Ludwig's Holy Blade and then maybe I switch it out for one of the DLC's weapons and yeah this playthrough was no different.
As I said, I really love the look of every area and that's not all, the actual areas are quite good for the most part. The beginning areas like Central Yharnam or Cathedral Ward are simply some of the best level-design wish because they're so interconnected with other areas. It's not quite Dark Souls 1 level of interconnectivity but it's really a nice change from something like Dark Souls 2 or even 3. By the end it does get more linear, but since the first half is well connected, I didn't have much of an issue with it. I think one of the most memorable moments is when you're all the way into the forbidden woods. You find this path down into a poison cave, you climb up a ladder and you end up at the very beginning of
central yharnam. You unlock the first gate you ever see when playing and I just think that's so cool. The game has several moments like this, like Yahar'Gul connecting to Old Yarhnam after you defeat Darkbeast Paarl, but no moment will be as good as the aformentioned Forbidden Woods interconnectivity.
Now on to the bosses, I think they're generally pretty great. Early game definitely has the more consistently good bosses, tho endgame definitely has some bangers like Gehrman and Martyr Logarius. The mid to end game definitely does have some not great bosses gameplay-wise, but some of them do have other aspects that make me not hate them. Witches of Hemwick is pathetically easy but the especially creepy atmosphere and semi-interesting way to defeat her, I really enjoyed. Plus she had one of my favorite songs in the game. Rom is somewhat annoying but at least has a beautiful area to fight her in. The one reborn is really easy too but I like the callback to Tower Knight. Celestial Emissary is um, yeah I can't really defend this one but it sure is a goofy boss. Micolash was probably my least favorite in the game before, and even tho I had a much better time with him this time, he still isn't great. What really makes up for it tho is he has hands down my favorite dialogue in the game, god it's so entertaining and goddamn whoever voiced him is amazing. The rest of the bosses I either like or love, and again even some of these I do like because of certain other aspects. I know a lot of the bosses aren't perfect but I'm surprised I never outright hated any of them, can't say the same for something like Bed of Chaos or Dragon God lole.
Don't really have much to say about the OST besides the fact it's great like most other souls games. My favorite tracks were the aforementioned Witches of Hemwick theme, the Cleric Beast theme, Micolash's theme, the hunter's dream theme and Gehrman's theme. Those were definitely the standout songs.
My take on the Chalice dungeons are they're a nice distraction from the base game but I probably won't play them again on future replay's. I only dived into them on that playthrough in 2019, and while they were cool they do get tedious if you're going for them all. It is nice how they have unique bosses in them, but yeah not super keen on them. Tho I never hated them like other people and I don't think they detract from the game because it feels more like a side thing which I'm fine with.
Before I end of my review, I just wanted to list off a couple issues with the game. Blood vials are obviously a big point of contention for some people and yeah it is annoying how you might have to eventually grind them if you run out, I never really had an issue with this personally. It's really easy to get them naturally and there's a really good early grinding spot right next to the first lamp in the game lol. Speaking of lamps, I guess people find it annoying how you have to warp back to the Hunter's Dream every time and then warp to another place from there? I guess it's a minor convenience but it never bothered me ever. Now this being 30 FPS is definitely jarring when going from games like Dark Souls III or Sekiro (I know I was taken aback when I came back to this after DS3) and while it would be so awesome if a remaster came out (please no remake dear god) I again never had a major issue with it. People saying it makes the game unplayable, I don't get you lol.
Anywho, this was another long ass review from me but I just absolutely adore this game despite some small flaws. It just gets even better with the DLC which I also beat this time around. Look out for that review very soon!
Bloodborne is an excellent game in many ways - especially combat and atmosphere.
No other Souls game forces you to be so aggressive and it's honestly a very refreshing take on the already established formula. The various levels are amazing in structure and nail the gothic aesthetic, also I love how they used the connected level design instead of linear progression, really makes unlocking shortcuts feel satisfying. The weapons have some really unique gimmicks and definitely offer a playstyle for each individual player.
Something I really liked about Bloodborne is how I actually could piece together the story after just one playthrough - I was never able to do this in a Souls game before! And the background lore is actually great, Fromsoft did a fantastic job with the worldbuilding here.
Now, my only flaws with this game would be the vial system and some bosses. While the latter point is somewhat subjective, vial farming can be an absolute chore (without using chalice dungeons) if you're stuck on a part and definitely puts the pacing to a halt. Also it's very easy to just outheal bosses if you just spam some of the twenty vials you're given - not the most optimal solution, but it somehow works most of the time anyways.
My final verdict? This is a definitive must-play if you just so happen to own a Playstation. Hoping for everyone it will be freed from the PSN shackles one day. Until then, fear the old blood.
No other Souls game forces you to be so aggressive and it's honestly a very refreshing take on the already established formula. The various levels are amazing in structure and nail the gothic aesthetic, also I love how they used the connected level design instead of linear progression, really makes unlocking shortcuts feel satisfying. The weapons have some really unique gimmicks and definitely offer a playstyle for each individual player.
Something I really liked about Bloodborne is how I actually could piece together the story after just one playthrough - I was never able to do this in a Souls game before! And the background lore is actually great, Fromsoft did a fantastic job with the worldbuilding here.
Now, my only flaws with this game would be the vial system and some bosses. While the latter point is somewhat subjective, vial farming can be an absolute chore (without using chalice dungeons) if you're stuck on a part and definitely puts the pacing to a halt. Also it's very easy to just outheal bosses if you just spam some of the twenty vials you're given - not the most optimal solution, but it somehow works most of the time anyways.
My final verdict? This is a definitive must-play if you just so happen to own a Playstation. Hoping for everyone it will be freed from the PSN shackles one day. Until then, fear the old blood.
The real reason Bloodborne owns is that there are a truly absurd number of wives in this game, including;
- Lesbian Wife (Lady Maria)
- Other Lesbian Wife (Eileen)
- Likes-Biting Wife (Thiccer Amelia)
- Eldritch Monstrosity Wife (Ebrietas)
- Dollification Wife (The Doll)
- Medfet Wife (Iosefka)
- Breeding Kink Wife (Rom)
Anyone who was shocked by Miyazaki admitting he's a masochist really wasn't paying any attention
- Lesbian Wife (Lady Maria)
- Other Lesbian Wife (Eileen)
- Likes-Biting Wife (Thiccer Amelia)
- Eldritch Monstrosity Wife (Ebrietas)
- Dollification Wife (The Doll)
- Medfet Wife (Iosefka)
- Breeding Kink Wife (Rom)
Anyone who was shocked by Miyazaki admitting he's a masochist really wasn't paying any attention
I had zero expectations and was still underwhelmed.
I'll get the positives out of the way first.
Visually the game is beautiful. The environments perfectly capture a dark Victorian aesthetic. The lovecraft and Angels Egg imagery is apparent. The texture work is phenomenal, with details like grooves and scratches in metal, cracks and rots in wood etc. The particle effects wowed me and the fog was a marvel to look at.
Now for the negatives.
The story is nothing special. If you've played previous games you'll have a good idea of what to expect. You have your realm ruined by human and god (Great ones in this case) hubris and malice, NPCs that are crooked etc. But it does nothing interesting with the standard souls story formula. The Lovecraft influence here is incredibly shallow, and is mostly window dressing over a standard souls plot. The endings are just DS1 but lamer. The premise of a bloodborne plague is dropped around the halfway point in favor of a blatant rehash of DS1s "Preserve the world or Become a God" 2nd half. I was astounded at how the game fell on its ass so bad in this regard.
The DLCs plot is a very shallow story about the cost of secrets and not digging them up. And then it just ends.
I was told that this game and its DLC had intricate lore and a compelling plot but it was already done far better in Demons and DS1. One of the redeeming qualities of these games sans DS2 was the stories and lore, so to see it botched so badly here is baffling.
The music was a jumbled, bland mess.
Demons and DS1 and 2 had a distinct style that contributed to their atmosphere and setting. With Demons having a TV composer bringing a dark brass style and Dark 1 and 2 having industry veteran Motoi Sakuraba's bombastic-somber flexibility flurishing.
Bloodborne bungles this by having at least a dozen composers. None of the OST stands out or feels stylistically consistent. It's all bland, dark orchestral sound.
But I don't blame you for thinking there isn't OST because unlike previous entries. Most bosses for what ever reason, feel the need to constantly scream and drown out the ost and sound effects. This becomes incredibly annoying to outright aggravating when fighting bosses like Amelia and Kos. If the intent was to contribute to a horror atmosphere, my eardrums were certainly shook for the wrong reasons.
The gameplay was further Streamlined from DS2, stats were combined or removed, leveling up costs way less this time as the combat has been streamlined to be very melee focused. This makes the common joke of Soulsborne being a press circle and R1 sim very accurate to this game. The rally mechanic entices players to get aggressive and mash R1 to regain health, but this becomes moot once weapons with long reach are found.
The dodge covers way more ground this time to compensate for the shift in combat focus. But as stated earlier. A long two handed weapon lets players safely wail on mooks and not have to focus on on the rally mechanic as much as the devs intended. This is made very egregious when the player finds Ludwig's Holy blade. As not only does it have the best stats in the game (and you find it in the first 15 hours), it also has generous hitboxes in two handed mode and is good enough for the entirety of the game.
Magic was mostly removed in favor of fire arms. But Fire arms are mostly useless since you can just spam Charged R2s and zip around enemies with the generous dodge distance. Parrying with firearms can open up visceral attack chances, but this can be also done by Back stabbing fully charged R2s anyway. Making Quicksilver bullets mostly redundant until one gets powerful guns like the canon that can topple smaller bosses.
Boss fights are once again mediocre to terrible. They still aren't designed around co-op and one can simply summon help to distract the boss while they spam charged R2s. They once again try and balance this by giving bosses extra health to compensate, but the DPS of NPC summons and Player summons are so massive it makes little difference. And the player will be constantly gifted insight by the truck load for each new area and boss discovered, to the point where at the middle of the game players could have over 60 insight to summon and never have to worry about tough bosses.
What also doesn't help is that the camera is probably the absolute worst it has ever been in the series up to this point. Since 90% of the bosses are huge, and the combat is melee focused, the camera goes berserk when they get in close when locked on. And most of the damage from bosses you'll take will be from bosses eating up the entire screen with their character model while you can't see.
Remember when I said magic was mostly removed? Well, you do get certain items late game like call beyond that let you cast powerful spells in exchange for bullets. This brings back the classic problem of enemies being designed around melee builds and being unable to handle ranged magic. And while you can only manage at most 3 casts with certain runes equipped, the DPS on melee weapons with co-op partners will simply exacerbate this classic flaw.
One redeeming quality of soulsborne that is still somewhat present is the level design. Yharnam feels like a real place with how shortcuts are designed and checkpoint placement is smart and non annoying. But this doesn't help the fact that most of the level layouts are just long narrow hallways or big open spaces. While the shortcuts are logical in how they work in universe. They don't fix the bland, unimaginative room layouts.
Leveling up and fast travel has for some reason been made more tedious by forcing player to return to the hunters dream hub to do both. This is exacerbated by the games long load times, some lasting up to 20 seconds.
For reasons beyond us, fromsoft felt the need to bring back vertical menus when one of DS2's few fixes was making horizontal menus. Why they decided this was a good idea is bewildering. As menu navigation is a complete chore.
The healing system still has not been fixed. DS1 and 2 had the right idea with the Estus system but fell on its ass by having Humanities, life gems and Healing miracles. Bloodborne's blood vials half copy the estus system but instead of having them refill at a lamp, you have to grind for them and can run out after the hunters dream refills your stock after heading to and from it. Why this team keeps getting so close, but so far in regards to this mechanic is baffling.
When I mentioned two paragraphs ago that the level design was mostly good, I was meaning to use that as a way to lead into describing how atrocious the chalice dungeons are. If you wanted to play the same 8 rooms with different textures and particle effects for 15 hours, this is the segment for you. The level design here is barebones, boss fights are 30% new, 40% regular enemies with more health, and 40% reused bosses from the main game with extra health.
The chalices make searching levels in the base game somewhat redundant, as you can input custom codes for specialized dungeons with rare items, you can even get a weapon from the final boss early this way. Making much of the "reward" for finding rare gems and weapons in the base game moot.
The DLC level design is very underwhelming, which is surprising as both DS1 and 2s DLC was excellent and actually transported you to brand new worlds and lands. The Old hunters reuses assets from the base game for 40% of it's 12 hour runtime. With the first area just being cathedral ward covered in sand. And it follows the same under designed narrow hallways and big rooms of the base game. Yet another case of Bloodborne blowing its tires and not even living up to soulsbornes standards.
There is genuinely nothing special about bloodborne. The gameplay is a boring loop of R1 circle for 40 hours. The story is rehashed, unpolished and unoriginal, the lovecraft and angel egg imagery is 95% window dressing, the music is a jumbled bland mess.
The bosses are still mediocre to terrible, and co-op still breaks them. The chalices are blatant bloat that makes exploration of the main game mostly redundant, even the series usual stellar DLC is a letdown.
If this is the only PS4 game as the jokes say it is, you'd be better off not touching this with a ten foot pole. It's one of the most bland, boring games on the platform (and that is saying something, when it comes to 1st party ps4 games) and there are hundreds of better RPGS on other systems better worth your time.
4/10.
I'll get the positives out of the way first.
Visually the game is beautiful. The environments perfectly capture a dark Victorian aesthetic. The lovecraft and Angels Egg imagery is apparent. The texture work is phenomenal, with details like grooves and scratches in metal, cracks and rots in wood etc. The particle effects wowed me and the fog was a marvel to look at.
Now for the negatives.
The story is nothing special. If you've played previous games you'll have a good idea of what to expect. You have your realm ruined by human and god (Great ones in this case) hubris and malice, NPCs that are crooked etc. But it does nothing interesting with the standard souls story formula. The Lovecraft influence here is incredibly shallow, and is mostly window dressing over a standard souls plot. The endings are just DS1 but lamer. The premise of a bloodborne plague is dropped around the halfway point in favor of a blatant rehash of DS1s "Preserve the world or Become a God" 2nd half. I was astounded at how the game fell on its ass so bad in this regard.
The DLCs plot is a very shallow story about the cost of secrets and not digging them up. And then it just ends.
I was told that this game and its DLC had intricate lore and a compelling plot but it was already done far better in Demons and DS1. One of the redeeming qualities of these games sans DS2 was the stories and lore, so to see it botched so badly here is baffling.
The music was a jumbled, bland mess.
Demons and DS1 and 2 had a distinct style that contributed to their atmosphere and setting. With Demons having a TV composer bringing a dark brass style and Dark 1 and 2 having industry veteran Motoi Sakuraba's bombastic-somber flexibility flurishing.
Bloodborne bungles this by having at least a dozen composers. None of the OST stands out or feels stylistically consistent. It's all bland, dark orchestral sound.
But I don't blame you for thinking there isn't OST because unlike previous entries. Most bosses for what ever reason, feel the need to constantly scream and drown out the ost and sound effects. This becomes incredibly annoying to outright aggravating when fighting bosses like Amelia and Kos. If the intent was to contribute to a horror atmosphere, my eardrums were certainly shook for the wrong reasons.
The gameplay was further Streamlined from DS2, stats were combined or removed, leveling up costs way less this time as the combat has been streamlined to be very melee focused. This makes the common joke of Soulsborne being a press circle and R1 sim very accurate to this game. The rally mechanic entices players to get aggressive and mash R1 to regain health, but this becomes moot once weapons with long reach are found.
The dodge covers way more ground this time to compensate for the shift in combat focus. But as stated earlier. A long two handed weapon lets players safely wail on mooks and not have to focus on on the rally mechanic as much as the devs intended. This is made very egregious when the player finds Ludwig's Holy blade. As not only does it have the best stats in the game (and you find it in the first 15 hours), it also has generous hitboxes in two handed mode and is good enough for the entirety of the game.
Magic was mostly removed in favor of fire arms. But Fire arms are mostly useless since you can just spam Charged R2s and zip around enemies with the generous dodge distance. Parrying with firearms can open up visceral attack chances, but this can be also done by Back stabbing fully charged R2s anyway. Making Quicksilver bullets mostly redundant until one gets powerful guns like the canon that can topple smaller bosses.
Boss fights are once again mediocre to terrible. They still aren't designed around co-op and one can simply summon help to distract the boss while they spam charged R2s. They once again try and balance this by giving bosses extra health to compensate, but the DPS of NPC summons and Player summons are so massive it makes little difference. And the player will be constantly gifted insight by the truck load for each new area and boss discovered, to the point where at the middle of the game players could have over 60 insight to summon and never have to worry about tough bosses.
What also doesn't help is that the camera is probably the absolute worst it has ever been in the series up to this point. Since 90% of the bosses are huge, and the combat is melee focused, the camera goes berserk when they get in close when locked on. And most of the damage from bosses you'll take will be from bosses eating up the entire screen with their character model while you can't see.
Remember when I said magic was mostly removed? Well, you do get certain items late game like call beyond that let you cast powerful spells in exchange for bullets. This brings back the classic problem of enemies being designed around melee builds and being unable to handle ranged magic. And while you can only manage at most 3 casts with certain runes equipped, the DPS on melee weapons with co-op partners will simply exacerbate this classic flaw.
One redeeming quality of soulsborne that is still somewhat present is the level design. Yharnam feels like a real place with how shortcuts are designed and checkpoint placement is smart and non annoying. But this doesn't help the fact that most of the level layouts are just long narrow hallways or big open spaces. While the shortcuts are logical in how they work in universe. They don't fix the bland, unimaginative room layouts.
Leveling up and fast travel has for some reason been made more tedious by forcing player to return to the hunters dream hub to do both. This is exacerbated by the games long load times, some lasting up to 20 seconds.
For reasons beyond us, fromsoft felt the need to bring back vertical menus when one of DS2's few fixes was making horizontal menus. Why they decided this was a good idea is bewildering. As menu navigation is a complete chore.
The healing system still has not been fixed. DS1 and 2 had the right idea with the Estus system but fell on its ass by having Humanities, life gems and Healing miracles. Bloodborne's blood vials half copy the estus system but instead of having them refill at a lamp, you have to grind for them and can run out after the hunters dream refills your stock after heading to and from it. Why this team keeps getting so close, but so far in regards to this mechanic is baffling.
When I mentioned two paragraphs ago that the level design was mostly good, I was meaning to use that as a way to lead into describing how atrocious the chalice dungeons are. If you wanted to play the same 8 rooms with different textures and particle effects for 15 hours, this is the segment for you. The level design here is barebones, boss fights are 30% new, 40% regular enemies with more health, and 40% reused bosses from the main game with extra health.
The chalices make searching levels in the base game somewhat redundant, as you can input custom codes for specialized dungeons with rare items, you can even get a weapon from the final boss early this way. Making much of the "reward" for finding rare gems and weapons in the base game moot.
The DLC level design is very underwhelming, which is surprising as both DS1 and 2s DLC was excellent and actually transported you to brand new worlds and lands. The Old hunters reuses assets from the base game for 40% of it's 12 hour runtime. With the first area just being cathedral ward covered in sand. And it follows the same under designed narrow hallways and big rooms of the base game. Yet another case of Bloodborne blowing its tires and not even living up to soulsbornes standards.
There is genuinely nothing special about bloodborne. The gameplay is a boring loop of R1 circle for 40 hours. The story is rehashed, unpolished and unoriginal, the lovecraft and angel egg imagery is 95% window dressing, the music is a jumbled bland mess.
The bosses are still mediocre to terrible, and co-op still breaks them. The chalices are blatant bloat that makes exploration of the main game mostly redundant, even the series usual stellar DLC is a letdown.
If this is the only PS4 game as the jokes say it is, you'd be better off not touching this with a ten foot pole. It's one of the most bland, boring games on the platform (and that is saying something, when it comes to 1st party ps4 games) and there are hundreds of better RPGS on other systems better worth your time.
4/10.
Shot clock turned off, Miyazaki has missed two free throws to give the team the lead. There's 4.6 seconds on the game clock and he's down by two, this nigga makes Lady Maria and takes a step back 3 and hits nothing but net. HE'S DONE MIRACLES
an absolutely MADDENING masterpiece, with some of the best bosses i've ever had the pure agony of experiencing. a hauntingly beautiful nightmare.
A potential masterpiece riddled with flawed systems. Trick weapons are genius, and FromSoftware should definitely revisit the concept in future games, but all of the ones I tried had a form I preferred to use almost exclusively in any given fight. The rally mechanic is a really good idea, but I still often felt it was optimal to back off and heal instead, given how much less health I regained from rallying than blood vials. Blood vials are a great healing system mechanically, ruined only by being a finite consumable for some reason (of all the things to bring back from Demon's Souls, why this). Lamps are easily the coolest looking variation of the Bonfire, but are also easily the worst implemented. A limb-break system sounds cool on paper, but basing it on damage dealt rather than implementing a posture system meant I wasn't able to play around stance-breaking enemies like I would in Elden Ring despite using the heaviest weapon available (first the Kirkhammer and later Ludwig's Holy Blade) and focusing on charged heavy attacks.
For me, one of the most important parts of a FromSoftware game is the boss roster. Having started with Dark Souls 3, which I personally feel has some of the worst regular enemy encounters and many of the best bosses, I expected Bloodborne to be similar. In some ways, it was. Many of the standard encounters in Bloodborne are frustrating to me in the same ways they are in DS3. Too many fast, aggressive enemies all bunched together in small rooms or wide open spaces with no good way to split them up. Call it a skill issue, but I just don't like playing through most of the levels in these two games. In DS3, the bosses counterbalance the frustrating levels by being pretty consistently excellent. I even like the Curse-Rotted Greatwood somehow, DS3 just understands what makes bosses fun. Bloodborne simply doesn't have a comparable boss lineup. The best of them are pretty good, but still not amazing. Father Gascoigne and Martyr Logarius were the only bosses I actually liked before playing the Old Hunters DLC. A lot of Bloodborne's bosses were just forgettable or annoying, but none came close to being as bad as Micolash, who sits solidly at the bottom of my FromSoft boss tierlist with only Bed of Chaos for company. I waited until after finishing the Old Hunters to fight the final three bosses, and that might be part of why I found them so lacking. Mergo's Wet Nurse looked very cool, but wasn't mechanically engaging. Gehrman I expect to enjoy more in future playthroughs, but his fight didn't click with me this time. The Moon Presence was a disappointing final boss, mechanically just another beast boss with a few spell attacks that I barely had to try to dodge and one arena-wide "you have 1 health now" spell that didn't really add anything to the fight.
Some of my problems with the game might have been less grating if its performance wasn't a hunter's nightmare. On PS4, where I played most of the base game, this was one of the worst performing games I've ever experienced. Load times were agonizingly long, so needing to sit through two loading screens to fast travel was very annoying. The framerate and smoothness of my PS4 experience can't all be blamed on the game, as I had it hooked up to a cheap TV that definitely hurt performance, but even on my PS5 and 165hz monitor, it's still noticeably choppy. Load times do seem much better on PS5 at least.
Despite how much I complain about this game, I do still think it's good. I don't think it's the masterpiece a lot of people say it is, but the bones that make the Old Hunters DLC so incredible are built here in the base game.
TLDR: I can't get gay married to Eileen the Crow, 0/10 fuck this game.
For me, one of the most important parts of a FromSoftware game is the boss roster. Having started with Dark Souls 3, which I personally feel has some of the worst regular enemy encounters and many of the best bosses, I expected Bloodborne to be similar. In some ways, it was. Many of the standard encounters in Bloodborne are frustrating to me in the same ways they are in DS3. Too many fast, aggressive enemies all bunched together in small rooms or wide open spaces with no good way to split them up. Call it a skill issue, but I just don't like playing through most of the levels in these two games. In DS3, the bosses counterbalance the frustrating levels by being pretty consistently excellent. I even like the Curse-Rotted Greatwood somehow, DS3 just understands what makes bosses fun. Bloodborne simply doesn't have a comparable boss lineup. The best of them are pretty good, but still not amazing. Father Gascoigne and Martyr Logarius were the only bosses I actually liked before playing the Old Hunters DLC. A lot of Bloodborne's bosses were just forgettable or annoying, but none came close to being as bad as Micolash, who sits solidly at the bottom of my FromSoft boss tierlist with only Bed of Chaos for company. I waited until after finishing the Old Hunters to fight the final three bosses, and that might be part of why I found them so lacking. Mergo's Wet Nurse looked very cool, but wasn't mechanically engaging. Gehrman I expect to enjoy more in future playthroughs, but his fight didn't click with me this time. The Moon Presence was a disappointing final boss, mechanically just another beast boss with a few spell attacks that I barely had to try to dodge and one arena-wide "you have 1 health now" spell that didn't really add anything to the fight.
Some of my problems with the game might have been less grating if its performance wasn't a hunter's nightmare. On PS4, where I played most of the base game, this was one of the worst performing games I've ever experienced. Load times were agonizingly long, so needing to sit through two loading screens to fast travel was very annoying. The framerate and smoothness of my PS4 experience can't all be blamed on the game, as I had it hooked up to a cheap TV that definitely hurt performance, but even on my PS5 and 165hz monitor, it's still noticeably choppy. Load times do seem much better on PS5 at least.
Despite how much I complain about this game, I do still think it's good. I don't think it's the masterpiece a lot of people say it is, but the bones that make the Old Hunters DLC so incredible are built here in the base game.
TLDR: I can't get gay married to Eileen the Crow, 0/10 fuck this game.
Cope Zach
Bloodborne is arguably one of the PS4s finest exclusives. The gameplay is beautifully fluid and heavy, even after going through the same areas the gameplay never got old. The inclusion of trick weapons and the numerous play styles keeps the game fresh and is incredibly unique and original.
Although the story is like its predecessors, you get what you put in, to me it’s incredibly deep and well formed. Yharnam has a dark story to tell, with terrible Eldrich secrets to uncover. The game is a shining example of environmental storytelling, incorporating its level design intrinsically with its overarching plot.
The musical score, a standout being ludwigs theme is not only beautiful but a piece of incredible classical music. Boss fights are elevated to an extreme degree due to all of the things mentioned above working in complete tandem to produce one of the best Lovecraftian pieces of media since HP Lovecrafts novels.
Time for you to join the Hunt!
Although the story is like its predecessors, you get what you put in, to me it’s incredibly deep and well formed. Yharnam has a dark story to tell, with terrible Eldrich secrets to uncover. The game is a shining example of environmental storytelling, incorporating its level design intrinsically with its overarching plot.
The musical score, a standout being ludwigs theme is not only beautiful but a piece of incredible classical music. Boss fights are elevated to an extreme degree due to all of the things mentioned above working in complete tandem to produce one of the best Lovecraftian pieces of media since HP Lovecrafts novels.
Time for you to join the Hunt!
"Are you ready for your From Software tutorial boss lessons?"
Phalanx left.
Asylum Demon nodded.
The Last Giant gulped.
Iudex Gundyr shivered.
Margit, the Fell Omen, blinked nervously.
Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa collapsed.
"Yes, Father Gascoigne."
Seriously though, this replay gave me a much greater appreciation for him. Everything about the buildup to him, his related sidequest with his family, his arena, his design, his music. The pacing, spectacle, difficulty and teaching tools of his fight. It's all so beautiful and tragic but exhilirating and cool at the same time. There isn't quite another first/tutorial boss in video games that captures so many things like Father Gascoigne does to me (who cares about Camera Beast I'm not counting him). He's also got some of the most memorable entrance cutscenes, paired with some of the most memorable quotes, among any boss From Soft has made.
He's also just one of the most interesting stories within Bloodborne before the Lovecraft twist. Like nothing else in the early stages of the game elicits much of a reaction compared to him.
Before this replay I liked him a fair bit but seriously? I think he's one of my favourite bosses in video games now.
Phalanx left.
Asylum Demon nodded.
The Last Giant gulped.
Iudex Gundyr shivered.
Margit, the Fell Omen, blinked nervously.
Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa collapsed.
"Yes, Father Gascoigne."
Seriously though, this replay gave me a much greater appreciation for him. Everything about the buildup to him, his related sidequest with his family, his arena, his design, his music. The pacing, spectacle, difficulty and teaching tools of his fight. It's all so beautiful and tragic but exhilirating and cool at the same time. There isn't quite another first/tutorial boss in video games that captures so many things like Father Gascoigne does to me (who cares about Camera Beast I'm not counting him). He's also got some of the most memorable entrance cutscenes, paired with some of the most memorable quotes, among any boss From Soft has made.
He's also just one of the most interesting stories within Bloodborne before the Lovecraft twist. Like nothing else in the early stages of the game elicits much of a reaction compared to him.
Before this replay I liked him a fair bit but seriously? I think he's one of my favourite bosses in video games now.
Pra começar a atmosfera é perfeita e combina com a história do jogo (que também é perfeita), a gameplay é muito completa e interessante, com a opção de transformar as armas e as armas de fogo, que eu pessoalmente acho mais legais que os escudos pra dar parry. Além da trilha sonora que é uma orquestra sensacional e os bosses que são bem desafiadores e legais de se enfrentar. Eu sinceramente não gostei muito dos cálices, mas eles são completamente opcionais e cumprem seu papel. Se tornou meu jogo favorito da FromSoftware e de todos, muito bom!
I got carried lol
Why don't I get it?
It's a question I asked myself again and again when I played Bloodborne. At this point, I was two thirds of the way done with the game, and was frustrated. Frustrated with the sneak attacks, lacklustre boss fights, long boss runs, and swarms of enemies.
For me, enjoying Bloodborne was hard.
For Sekiro, it was the same. I didn't get it for a long time, at least until owl father. Attempt after attempt, days of slamming my head against the wall. How could someone possibly enjoy this?? But then something clicked. The fun from the boss fight wasn’t obtained from beating it. It came from the fight itself. It came from the ballad of swords clashing, swift dodging, and the ever so satisfying mikiri counter. Mastering the move-set of bosses and flowing through each attack effortlessly was the greatest feeling, more so than seeing “shinobi execution” flashing on your screen.
I couldn't for the life of me understand what wasn’t clicking when I was playing Bloodborne.
The game is not perfect. Far from it. It's littered with so many flaws, so many features that make so little sense. Oftentimes, it's an infuriating experience that’s lacking in fun, fairness, and riddled with obnoxious obstacles.
From my initial impressions, It was by far the weakest souls entry in terms of boss design, difficulty scaling, and grind.
But at the same time, when you slow down your pace, when you're less focused on the objective at hand, you're sucked into the world of Yharnam. And the game is so, so, beautiful, with a solid foundation of gameplay to boot.
I think Bloodborne has a lot to offer. It's not difficult, if anything, it's the second easiest souls game I've played. Despite this, the streets of Yharnam still demand a lot of patience, more so than any other game in the series. But if you can sift through the dirt and grime, I think you’ll be able to see why so many find this to be fromsoft’s magnum opus.
----
The Good
One thing I immediately noticed about bloodborne was the brilliant art design. Not to spoil anything, but the clash of colour palette later on in the game left me in awe at the wondrous skybox. The levels too, yharnam in particular, it feels infected, riddled with disease. The bleak, sinister atmosphere seeps into every crevasse, every brick, every pore in your skin. The horror of living in a decrepit, haunted city filled with grotesque creatures, their terse groans interrupting the eerie whistle of the wind. The haunting yet prepossessing feel of each environment changes ever so slightly, with each area more beguiling than the last.
Combat in this game is also impeccable. Dashing from left to right, sidestepping as a new movement mechanic feels buttery smooth, and the gun parry feels chunky. The weapons too. Snapping a saw, clicking the sheath onto Ludwig's blade. The trick weapons are probably the best in the entire series, with every weapon feeling unique and powerful.
The rally system allows for much more aggressive play. Unlike most souls games. It's not a dance anymore. It's a hunt. You're a predator with an unwieldy pizza cutter, feasting on the blood of your prey. It's messy. It's filthy. As the blood coats your clothing, it shines in the dim flaxen glow of deteriorating streetlights. You claw and maim each other until one of you is a bloody pulp.
It feels great!
Although I personally enjoy the more fluid battles of sekiro and dark souls, I can understand the appeal of the back and forth bloody brawls that take place in this game. It fits the theme, and though not as fun for me personally, it's a fantastic combat system that deserves all the praise it gets.
The sound design and animation in this game, as per usual, is immaculate. You really feel your weapon cleave through the flesh of your enemies. It's visceral and bloody, the chunk chunk chunk of your hefty tool depriving your victim of their blood has never felt this good. The Foley artists of Fromsoft have done an impeccable job.
---
The Bad
By far my favourite part of the series is the boss design. I think the feel and rhythm of all the souls games' bosses feel phenomenal. It's what I look forward to for every fromsoft title. And it's in this feature that the game is anemic.
This is by far my biggest gripe. Good boss encounters are few and far between, with the majority of them being in the fantastic DLC. In sekiro, every clash of blades feels like a dance. In Bloodborne, most bosses feel like you're fighting either an epileptic old animal with awfully telegraphed attacks, a lump of flesh that barely moves or just a bunch of guys throwing shit at you. Rom is the worst offender, with awful enemy spam and a boring moveset. All the boss runs are pretty painful as well, with logarius being by far the worst. Not to mention that much of the difficulty from the bosses stem from fighting the camera instead of the boss.
Another issue I have are the NPC fights. Being so incredibly unbalanced, they're probably the most difficult part of the game. Infinite stamina, insanely high damage, bullet spam and bottomless health pools make every single NPC fight a chore. And there are so. many.
This may be more of a subjective complaint, but I don't find the level layout in Bloodborne particularly intuitive in some cases. People sing the praises of the game's level design, and sure, before you reach the church, it's pretty great. But once you reach the cathedral, some areas in yharnam becomes so labarynthine, so infuriating to navigate, it becomes a chore. It takes such an inordinate amount of time to run from one place to the next even with shortcuts. The lost woods is the worst offender, with shortcuts that don't even save that much time.
I think interconnected levels are a great idea, and are particularly well done in dark souls 1, because it led to a plethora of unforgettable moments. When you think you're stuck, in the thick of a horrifying area, you take an elevator, not knowing where you'll end up. Then you hear the oh so comforting theme of firelink shrine. A wave of relief crashes over you. It feels incredibly satisfying. There is no such thing in Bloodborne. There are just shortcuts for the sake of shortcuts, with no payoff like in dark souls, just a fewer number of checkpoints, and some of the longest runbacks in the series.
One problem I feel that most people would agree on are how unfun consumable healing items are. Making blood vials and bullets consumables was probably the worst decision Fromsoft made in this game. This is an objectively stupid choice, and I know for a fact nobody likes farming for bullets in the middle of their playthrough.
Another subjective gripe I had with the game was the sheer amount of surprise attacks and gang fights. Difficulty in enemy variety and move set is great. I think sekiro does it best by peppering in minibosses and enemies that are tough to deflect, providing a tough, but fair challenge. Exploration is quite enjoyable, and every time you enter a new area, you're excited to see what challenges you encounter next. In Bloodborne, Miyazaki made it his life's goal to make the most torturous, Kafkaesque experience imaginable. Every corner, every turn, there is a group of enemies there to jump you. Down a certain staircase, ten guys and an amygdala. Down an alleyway. Ten guys and a jailer. I think the intention is to keep you on wits end, but I didn’t particularly enjoy this feature. Thankfully it happens much less in the dlc.
---
The base game of Bloodborne sometimes struggles to find a good midpoint between too easy and unfair, and often ends up being both at the same time. It has many confusing design choices that muddy the otherwise crystal clear waters that would have made for a great and memorable game. I think there was a lot missing, and left much to be desired. It felt like it laid a solid foundation for a great game, but made a few missteps in the process. Despite this, it was thoroughly enjoyable, which goes to show the strength of the core gameplay loop, as well as the art direction.
---
DLC
I don't feel very strongly towards the base game of Bloodborne, and I don't think it's a particularly strong entry in the souls series either.
But the old hunters is a different story.
If I could find an analogy, bloodbornes base game is like a chunk of wagyu beef. It's alright on its own, but has the potential to be something fantastic.
The old hunters DLC is like if you drenched it in crack.
It manages to fix every single issue that I had with the base game, with three of the best bosses in the entire series. If the base game was a foundation, the old hunters built a whole condominium on top of it. It has some of the most memorable areas in the entire series, and oozes style from every orifice. Its by far the best expansion Fromsoft has ever made.
If the entire game was at this quality, it would probably be my favourite souls title. By a long shot.
---
Despite bloodborne floundering in its first half, It finds its footing in the second and does a triple double in the DLC. I don’t know if its their best game, but I think its objectively a fantastic one.
It's a question I asked myself again and again when I played Bloodborne. At this point, I was two thirds of the way done with the game, and was frustrated. Frustrated with the sneak attacks, lacklustre boss fights, long boss runs, and swarms of enemies.
For me, enjoying Bloodborne was hard.
For Sekiro, it was the same. I didn't get it for a long time, at least until owl father. Attempt after attempt, days of slamming my head against the wall. How could someone possibly enjoy this?? But then something clicked. The fun from the boss fight wasn’t obtained from beating it. It came from the fight itself. It came from the ballad of swords clashing, swift dodging, and the ever so satisfying mikiri counter. Mastering the move-set of bosses and flowing through each attack effortlessly was the greatest feeling, more so than seeing “shinobi execution” flashing on your screen.
I couldn't for the life of me understand what wasn’t clicking when I was playing Bloodborne.
The game is not perfect. Far from it. It's littered with so many flaws, so many features that make so little sense. Oftentimes, it's an infuriating experience that’s lacking in fun, fairness, and riddled with obnoxious obstacles.
From my initial impressions, It was by far the weakest souls entry in terms of boss design, difficulty scaling, and grind.
But at the same time, when you slow down your pace, when you're less focused on the objective at hand, you're sucked into the world of Yharnam. And the game is so, so, beautiful, with a solid foundation of gameplay to boot.
I think Bloodborne has a lot to offer. It's not difficult, if anything, it's the second easiest souls game I've played. Despite this, the streets of Yharnam still demand a lot of patience, more so than any other game in the series. But if you can sift through the dirt and grime, I think you’ll be able to see why so many find this to be fromsoft’s magnum opus.
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The Good
One thing I immediately noticed about bloodborne was the brilliant art design. Not to spoil anything, but the clash of colour palette later on in the game left me in awe at the wondrous skybox. The levels too, yharnam in particular, it feels infected, riddled with disease. The bleak, sinister atmosphere seeps into every crevasse, every brick, every pore in your skin. The horror of living in a decrepit, haunted city filled with grotesque creatures, their terse groans interrupting the eerie whistle of the wind. The haunting yet prepossessing feel of each environment changes ever so slightly, with each area more beguiling than the last.
Combat in this game is also impeccable. Dashing from left to right, sidestepping as a new movement mechanic feels buttery smooth, and the gun parry feels chunky. The weapons too. Snapping a saw, clicking the sheath onto Ludwig's blade. The trick weapons are probably the best in the entire series, with every weapon feeling unique and powerful.
The rally system allows for much more aggressive play. Unlike most souls games. It's not a dance anymore. It's a hunt. You're a predator with an unwieldy pizza cutter, feasting on the blood of your prey. It's messy. It's filthy. As the blood coats your clothing, it shines in the dim flaxen glow of deteriorating streetlights. You claw and maim each other until one of you is a bloody pulp.
It feels great!
Although I personally enjoy the more fluid battles of sekiro and dark souls, I can understand the appeal of the back and forth bloody brawls that take place in this game. It fits the theme, and though not as fun for me personally, it's a fantastic combat system that deserves all the praise it gets.
The sound design and animation in this game, as per usual, is immaculate. You really feel your weapon cleave through the flesh of your enemies. It's visceral and bloody, the chunk chunk chunk of your hefty tool depriving your victim of their blood has never felt this good. The Foley artists of Fromsoft have done an impeccable job.
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The Bad
By far my favourite part of the series is the boss design. I think the feel and rhythm of all the souls games' bosses feel phenomenal. It's what I look forward to for every fromsoft title. And it's in this feature that the game is anemic.
This is by far my biggest gripe. Good boss encounters are few and far between, with the majority of them being in the fantastic DLC. In sekiro, every clash of blades feels like a dance. In Bloodborne, most bosses feel like you're fighting either an epileptic old animal with awfully telegraphed attacks, a lump of flesh that barely moves or just a bunch of guys throwing shit at you. Rom is the worst offender, with awful enemy spam and a boring moveset. All the boss runs are pretty painful as well, with logarius being by far the worst. Not to mention that much of the difficulty from the bosses stem from fighting the camera instead of the boss.
Another issue I have are the NPC fights. Being so incredibly unbalanced, they're probably the most difficult part of the game. Infinite stamina, insanely high damage, bullet spam and bottomless health pools make every single NPC fight a chore. And there are so. many.
This may be more of a subjective complaint, but I don't find the level layout in Bloodborne particularly intuitive in some cases. People sing the praises of the game's level design, and sure, before you reach the church, it's pretty great. But once you reach the cathedral, some areas in yharnam becomes so labarynthine, so infuriating to navigate, it becomes a chore. It takes such an inordinate amount of time to run from one place to the next even with shortcuts. The lost woods is the worst offender, with shortcuts that don't even save that much time.
I think interconnected levels are a great idea, and are particularly well done in dark souls 1, because it led to a plethora of unforgettable moments. When you think you're stuck, in the thick of a horrifying area, you take an elevator, not knowing where you'll end up. Then you hear the oh so comforting theme of firelink shrine. A wave of relief crashes over you. It feels incredibly satisfying. There is no such thing in Bloodborne. There are just shortcuts for the sake of shortcuts, with no payoff like in dark souls, just a fewer number of checkpoints, and some of the longest runbacks in the series.
One problem I feel that most people would agree on are how unfun consumable healing items are. Making blood vials and bullets consumables was probably the worst decision Fromsoft made in this game. This is an objectively stupid choice, and I know for a fact nobody likes farming for bullets in the middle of their playthrough.
Another subjective gripe I had with the game was the sheer amount of surprise attacks and gang fights. Difficulty in enemy variety and move set is great. I think sekiro does it best by peppering in minibosses and enemies that are tough to deflect, providing a tough, but fair challenge. Exploration is quite enjoyable, and every time you enter a new area, you're excited to see what challenges you encounter next. In Bloodborne, Miyazaki made it his life's goal to make the most torturous, Kafkaesque experience imaginable. Every corner, every turn, there is a group of enemies there to jump you. Down a certain staircase, ten guys and an amygdala. Down an alleyway. Ten guys and a jailer. I think the intention is to keep you on wits end, but I didn’t particularly enjoy this feature. Thankfully it happens much less in the dlc.
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The base game of Bloodborne sometimes struggles to find a good midpoint between too easy and unfair, and often ends up being both at the same time. It has many confusing design choices that muddy the otherwise crystal clear waters that would have made for a great and memorable game. I think there was a lot missing, and left much to be desired. It felt like it laid a solid foundation for a great game, but made a few missteps in the process. Despite this, it was thoroughly enjoyable, which goes to show the strength of the core gameplay loop, as well as the art direction.
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DLC
I don't feel very strongly towards the base game of Bloodborne, and I don't think it's a particularly strong entry in the souls series either.
But the old hunters is a different story.
If I could find an analogy, bloodbornes base game is like a chunk of wagyu beef. It's alright on its own, but has the potential to be something fantastic.
The old hunters DLC is like if you drenched it in crack.
It manages to fix every single issue that I had with the base game, with three of the best bosses in the entire series. If the base game was a foundation, the old hunters built a whole condominium on top of it. It has some of the most memorable areas in the entire series, and oozes style from every orifice. Its by far the best expansion Fromsoft has ever made.
If the entire game was at this quality, it would probably be my favourite souls title. By a long shot.
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Despite bloodborne floundering in its first half, It finds its footing in the second and does a triple double in the DLC. I don’t know if its their best game, but I think its objectively a fantastic one.
Did you know that it is against the law to say anything bad about Bloodborne? It's true. If you ever even think about how it would've been better as an action game rather than trying to be like a Souls game, you'll see police officers outside your house. They'll say you have the right to remain silent and that anything you say can and will be used against you. But that doesn't scare you. You shriek as they drag you away about how it's not fun making a build for a weapon you only get after beating the final boss. As you're waiting in your cell, your provided attorney will try and work out a plea bargain, claiming that at the very least you did play the game for 300+ hours on your PlayStation 4, way more than the weekly amount that all PlayStation 4 owners are required by law to play. While on trial however, you lash out. You say that it's not fair that Bloodborne can't even be ported over to PC, and that not getting an FPS boost for PlayStation 5 is even more outrageous. The judge bangs his gavel. You've dug your grave. You find yourself some years later, serving a life sentence because you couldn't play ball and just have fun with your hyper Lovecraftian atmospheric action adventure game. Guards walk by your cell and wince, and your fellow prisoners whisper nothing good about you. They're intimidated by you. And not because you were so brave to say that Bloodborne has flaws. But because of the same repeated phrase you have carved all over your cell. A phrase that only says... “cummmfpk”.
It's strange, Bloodborne emphasises vertical exploration in level design and alien cosmology in vision but it also makes sure we're always confined to the matter of the violent instant. We have the ability to rotate the camera in a direction other to the one the player character faces — the player character moves, and the camera moves elsewhere — but the dislocation of camera from body rejects a sense of player-mastery over space (seeing more than the player character can see) and avatar-mastery (seeing all that the player character detects from their embodied position) alike. There is no negative space the player character can traverse. Instead Bloodborne's environment is a horrible amalgam of viscera, place, and action, that pulsate from the same sticky flesh. Everything in it glistens with the stickiness of connection. Pitch darkness draws things closer instead of pushing them away; the glow of lamps reveals the thickness of the atmosphere already present; the night sky reminds us that the earth is in the orbit of something else.
This claustrophobic, sticky presence is achieved through the synthesis of a heavy engine with agitated, jerky movement, and a design of disgusting tactility. There's an exhaustive precision to the hitboxes not found in a newer title like Elden Ring and this sets the player character as its own fragile body within the space, emphasising the dignity of the ongoing collision between equal adversaries. But then instead of slow and measured, Bloodborne encourages the balancing act of graceful movement and calculated barbarism. The roll mechanic is switched out for the dash, and so we sweep left and then and right, connect, and sweep again. It's both slippery and grounded, and success is entirely contingent on commitment to the flow of this weird ice dancing. To approach an enemy wanting to just inflict blunt violence is to fail, and so too is standing back to consider future action. If it's not felt, it won't work. The absence of shields for guns in parry is interesting, because there's no in-game penalty for getting the timing wrong, but the way it breaks the flow of combat spoils the feeling of its violent harmony. Backstabs too are arduous because they require multiple steps, the first charged. It's a quick victory but nothing next to the fluid carnage of the duel the game insists on and feels so good to perform.
Extending a weapon to its long-form is hardly ever practical, but emphasises the weird junk-mechanical nature of the instruments available. Assessing which weapons are required for which enemies is never a matter of looking at in-game spreadsheets but instead thinking about what the weapon's texture looks and feels like, and the quality of the enemies' flesh. We know when the jagged machinery of the saw will work, and when a clean cut would be better. In a world of crackpot physicians we're the worst, because instead of experimenting with different tools to deliver different ends, our vast and heavily modified toolset is entirely given to the act of bloodletting. There's a perverse intimacy to it that only grows more perverse and more intimate through the repetition of bloody violence. Every FromSoftware game is about a certain type of madness, but instead of the other games' desire to usurp one's tormentor (not as revenge, but to confirm the pain suffered was real and not a dream), Bloodborne unambiguously dramatises the madness of catharsis and will to eruption. The fight with Gehrman is most plain about this. We rush through white lilies, swaying at our feet, romantic music accompanying the game's climactic pas de deux.
Bloodborne lovingly invokes the vampire in order to place the brokenness of modernity alongside the endurance of the flesh. At a distance the romanticism of bodily fluids ("Will you drink my blood?") is contrasted with a Lovecraftian view on the insignificance of human life in the face of the cosmic, but for Miyazaki the vampire and the alien are consistent in the way they relate to the human body. Stacey Abbott points out that Méliès' film Le manoir du diable appeared before Bram Stoker's masterpiece, and that it conflates the vampire with the scientist, transfiguring human and nonhuman forms, conjuring visions, and deforming temporal order. The emphasis in that period was the more we understood about reality through novel scientific methods and instruments, the less 'real' and hospitable the world around us came to seem. Bloodborne follows in this tradition, using blood as the living string between cosmic, body horrific, and epistemological distortion, nodding to the dual concerns of horror fiction and scientific discovery. Its science-fiction is first and foremost of the body: what's seen in the cosmos implicates itself in the flesh.
Bram Stoker's vampire actually appears in the margins of records encountered within the volume, giving him the kind of formless-yet-omnipresent quality we might now associate with Miyazaki's reading of Lovecraft. The forces that most concern us are the ones only glimpsed in objects, conflicting manuscripts, and strange patterns of animal behaviour, and otherwise evade our comprehension. Alison Sperling has criticised Lovecraft scholars for placing too much of an emphasis on the limits of human knowledge — what Thacker characterises as "life according to the logic of an inaccessible real" leads to a lot of thinking about thinking, and that's all. A better picture of this horror, Sperling argues, is life completely saturated in the real. Miyazaki takes this reading too: the point is never the presence of an ancient or extraterrestrial force in itself, but the way awareness of these forces disturbs embodied reality. The revelation of the God that structures reality is that we are its dolls; the revelation of the alien that birthed us is that we are some mutant synthesis of the human and nonhuman, which is to say the human as we know it never was.
And so what's so good here is that it's all so addicting. Miyazaki does not expect us to recoil from the alien flesh but to embrace it, to want to see ourselves turned inside out along with the rest of the world. Everything in Bloodborne is calibrated to draw us into its ultraviolent dance, so we can feel it in our nervous system. Then, coated in blood, and guts spilled across the room, we're not supposed to be able to tell whose is whose. There's a tragedy to this vulnerable body that seems to exist just to erupt, but in that is ecstasy.
This claustrophobic, sticky presence is achieved through the synthesis of a heavy engine with agitated, jerky movement, and a design of disgusting tactility. There's an exhaustive precision to the hitboxes not found in a newer title like Elden Ring and this sets the player character as its own fragile body within the space, emphasising the dignity of the ongoing collision between equal adversaries. But then instead of slow and measured, Bloodborne encourages the balancing act of graceful movement and calculated barbarism. The roll mechanic is switched out for the dash, and so we sweep left and then and right, connect, and sweep again. It's both slippery and grounded, and success is entirely contingent on commitment to the flow of this weird ice dancing. To approach an enemy wanting to just inflict blunt violence is to fail, and so too is standing back to consider future action. If it's not felt, it won't work. The absence of shields for guns in parry is interesting, because there's no in-game penalty for getting the timing wrong, but the way it breaks the flow of combat spoils the feeling of its violent harmony. Backstabs too are arduous because they require multiple steps, the first charged. It's a quick victory but nothing next to the fluid carnage of the duel the game insists on and feels so good to perform.
Extending a weapon to its long-form is hardly ever practical, but emphasises the weird junk-mechanical nature of the instruments available. Assessing which weapons are required for which enemies is never a matter of looking at in-game spreadsheets but instead thinking about what the weapon's texture looks and feels like, and the quality of the enemies' flesh. We know when the jagged machinery of the saw will work, and when a clean cut would be better. In a world of crackpot physicians we're the worst, because instead of experimenting with different tools to deliver different ends, our vast and heavily modified toolset is entirely given to the act of bloodletting. There's a perverse intimacy to it that only grows more perverse and more intimate through the repetition of bloody violence. Every FromSoftware game is about a certain type of madness, but instead of the other games' desire to usurp one's tormentor (not as revenge, but to confirm the pain suffered was real and not a dream), Bloodborne unambiguously dramatises the madness of catharsis and will to eruption. The fight with Gehrman is most plain about this. We rush through white lilies, swaying at our feet, romantic music accompanying the game's climactic pas de deux.
Bloodborne lovingly invokes the vampire in order to place the brokenness of modernity alongside the endurance of the flesh. At a distance the romanticism of bodily fluids ("Will you drink my blood?") is contrasted with a Lovecraftian view on the insignificance of human life in the face of the cosmic, but for Miyazaki the vampire and the alien are consistent in the way they relate to the human body. Stacey Abbott points out that Méliès' film Le manoir du diable appeared before Bram Stoker's masterpiece, and that it conflates the vampire with the scientist, transfiguring human and nonhuman forms, conjuring visions, and deforming temporal order. The emphasis in that period was the more we understood about reality through novel scientific methods and instruments, the less 'real' and hospitable the world around us came to seem. Bloodborne follows in this tradition, using blood as the living string between cosmic, body horrific, and epistemological distortion, nodding to the dual concerns of horror fiction and scientific discovery. Its science-fiction is first and foremost of the body: what's seen in the cosmos implicates itself in the flesh.
Bram Stoker's vampire actually appears in the margins of records encountered within the volume, giving him the kind of formless-yet-omnipresent quality we might now associate with Miyazaki's reading of Lovecraft. The forces that most concern us are the ones only glimpsed in objects, conflicting manuscripts, and strange patterns of animal behaviour, and otherwise evade our comprehension. Alison Sperling has criticised Lovecraft scholars for placing too much of an emphasis on the limits of human knowledge — what Thacker characterises as "life according to the logic of an inaccessible real" leads to a lot of thinking about thinking, and that's all. A better picture of this horror, Sperling argues, is life completely saturated in the real. Miyazaki takes this reading too: the point is never the presence of an ancient or extraterrestrial force in itself, but the way awareness of these forces disturbs embodied reality. The revelation of the God that structures reality is that we are its dolls; the revelation of the alien that birthed us is that we are some mutant synthesis of the human and nonhuman, which is to say the human as we know it never was.
And so what's so good here is that it's all so addicting. Miyazaki does not expect us to recoil from the alien flesh but to embrace it, to want to see ourselves turned inside out along with the rest of the world. Everything in Bloodborne is calibrated to draw us into its ultraviolent dance, so we can feel it in our nervous system. Then, coated in blood, and guts spilled across the room, we're not supposed to be able to tell whose is whose. There's a tragedy to this vulnerable body that seems to exist just to erupt, but in that is ecstasy.