AutumnLily
Bloodborne 2015
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
67h 35m
Days in Journal
25 days
Last played
July 30, 2022
First played
November 2, 2021
Platforms Played
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
In Defence of Bloodborne
The notion of Bloodborne needing defending is patently absurd; it's one of the ten highest rated games on this site, one of the most beloved games of the last ten years, and seems to be the most common answer when people are asked for their favourite FromSoft title. That said, whilst I really enjoyed the game first time round it was with considerable reservations (a 4 star rating and no more), and only on my recent New Game+ playthrough did the game flourish for me as all my former complaints, amounting more or less to a list of most of the common complaints held against the game, melted away. This review won't address any of the already widely praised strengths of the game (the stunning art direction, atmosphere and level design; FromSoft's best collection of weapons; the kinetic, fast-paced combat brought alive by the rally system; etc etc etc), but instead just seeks to talk through my change of perspective on those weaknesses.
The two most widely criticised aspects of Bloodborne are the blood vial system and the chalice dungeons, and these are both aspects that bothered me in my first playthrough too. Blood vials are very thematically effective, periodically putting you in this bloodthirsty place when you run low on them, desperately searching for sustenance by slaughtering early mobs over and over, truly making you the hunter, but they also necessitate grinding and are ultimately pace-breaking when you're forced to abandon a tough boss fight to go scavenge. Chalice dungeons stand in stark contrast to the tight, creative, intentional level design that FromSoft is known for to instead be more like a Souls roguelike with even the premade chalice dungeons feeling procedurally generated, and it's easy for them to be disappointing with this in mind.
Something widely commented upon about Elden Ring was how the various caves and catacombs allowed you to scale the game to your liking. If you're really experienced with these games already you only had to do a handful of these excursions to stock up on smithing stones, whilst those who are struggling, held up from making story progress by Margit or some other imposing boss, would have a lot of this optional side content to go grind through in order to gain a few extra levels, find a couple nice new pieces of equipment, and return to face The Fell Omen more prepared than before. I think this is how the chalice dungeons are actually meant to be treated. If you vibe with them then cool, go chalice it up to your heart's content; the level design might be a bit janky, but Bloodborne's combat is good enough that the chalice dungeons are still honestly more solidly fun to wander through than I originally gave credit. But if you're getting murdered by a boss so much that you have nary a blood vial left then it's possible what you need isn't just a vial refill, but also a couple extra levels or another good gem to plug into your weapon. People who find places in Souls games to go grind out souls and get those extra levels is already a well-recorded phenomenon, and chalices are honestly the perfect answer to that; near-endless content for people who do want to grind out those extra levels. The blood vial system is the one part of the game I still regard as Decidedly Not Perfect, but I've grown to appreciate the way it says "hey maybe stop just bashing your head against this clearly-too-difficult-for-you-right-now boss and go level up a bit first?", and think that actually listening to those cries and taking breaks from Orphan of Kos to go do chalice dungeons for a couple hours would have led to a better experience than thinking all I needed was to go grind enough blood vials in a mid-game area for a few more attempts at beating that very screamy child.
On a minor note, Bloodborne is the FromSoft game that most wants to support the existence of New Game+ with the last couple chalice dungeons, leading up to a super secret bonus boss, very clearly being content that is meant to be scaled to a New Game+ (or higher) character, and with progress on chalice dungeons being retained between New Game+ cycles. Whilst this might not excuse some of the frustration of running out of blood vials on your initial playthrough, the moment you enter New Game+ and proceed through the game for a second time you'll be earning enough echoes that it becomes trivially easy to have 100+ vials available to you at all times. These frustrations are unfortunate but are also only temporary.
The bosses of Bloodborne are also a point of contention, and I found them uneven initially with some standing out as all-time great boss fights whilst others end up being far less mechanically engaging and even a bit awkward at times. To circle back around to Elden Ring again, one strange thing that game did for me was make me appreciate the boss design of Demon's Souls a lot more. Elden Ring's boss designs follow a very consistent style, and that certainly suits what that game is, but with less than a handful of what could be referred to as puzzle bosses a lot of this content can blur together. Demon's Souls definitely has a bunch of bosses that are not very mechanically challenging or that read as gimmicky, but there are maybe only two or three bosses in that entire game that wouldn't count as memorable. I think the best bosses in these games being ones like Artorias, Gael and Lady Maria, combined with the SoulsBorne reputation of being challenging, has brain poisoned us to want every boss in these games to match that template. All of this is a long-winded way of saying that playing through Elden Ring has turned me into the kind of person that will die on the hill that Rom, One Reborn, The Witches of Hemwick and Micolash are all genuinely good bosses, despite not being that challenging nor testing your combat skills particularly, because they all stand as memorable experiences. A year after originally fighting Micolash I would still quote his lines, the visual design of the Rom encounter remained seared into my brain right up until the start of this New Game+ playthrough, and ultimately the fact that these bosses contrast against the rest of Bloodborne serves as a strength rather than a weakness as it stops the overall experience from homogenising.
Finally, the lore of Bloodborne stands out as the one part of the game I wasn't completely onboard with on my first playthrough that most everyone else seemed to love, but this is an aspect of the game that really comes alive with repeat visits. I don't want to go too deep into this, people have done this enough already and this review is long enough as it is, but two things to consider are; what initially seems like a fairly simple condemnation of the church and the power institutions can wield over people gains a lot more depth when you realise that Bloodborne is less about supernatural critters and madness than it is about eugenics, classism and the myth of intelligence; most of the supernatural critters in Bloodborne were initially harmless, just kind of vibing and doing their own thing, and only became so dangerous because people made them so in our lust for knowledge and power.
Anyways, Bloodborne kind of just whips.
The notion of Bloodborne needing defending is patently absurd; it's one of the ten highest rated games on this site, one of the most beloved games of the last ten years, and seems to be the most common answer when people are asked for their favourite FromSoft title. That said, whilst I really enjoyed the game first time round it was with considerable reservations (a 4 star rating and no more), and only on my recent New Game+ playthrough did the game flourish for me as all my former complaints, amounting more or less to a list of most of the common complaints held against the game, melted away. This review won't address any of the already widely praised strengths of the game (the stunning art direction, atmosphere and level design; FromSoft's best collection of weapons; the kinetic, fast-paced combat brought alive by the rally system; etc etc etc), but instead just seeks to talk through my change of perspective on those weaknesses.
The two most widely criticised aspects of Bloodborne are the blood vial system and the chalice dungeons, and these are both aspects that bothered me in my first playthrough too. Blood vials are very thematically effective, periodically putting you in this bloodthirsty place when you run low on them, desperately searching for sustenance by slaughtering early mobs over and over, truly making you the hunter, but they also necessitate grinding and are ultimately pace-breaking when you're forced to abandon a tough boss fight to go scavenge. Chalice dungeons stand in stark contrast to the tight, creative, intentional level design that FromSoft is known for to instead be more like a Souls roguelike with even the premade chalice dungeons feeling procedurally generated, and it's easy for them to be disappointing with this in mind.
Something widely commented upon about Elden Ring was how the various caves and catacombs allowed you to scale the game to your liking. If you're really experienced with these games already you only had to do a handful of these excursions to stock up on smithing stones, whilst those who are struggling, held up from making story progress by Margit or some other imposing boss, would have a lot of this optional side content to go grind through in order to gain a few extra levels, find a couple nice new pieces of equipment, and return to face The Fell Omen more prepared than before. I think this is how the chalice dungeons are actually meant to be treated. If you vibe with them then cool, go chalice it up to your heart's content; the level design might be a bit janky, but Bloodborne's combat is good enough that the chalice dungeons are still honestly more solidly fun to wander through than I originally gave credit. But if you're getting murdered by a boss so much that you have nary a blood vial left then it's possible what you need isn't just a vial refill, but also a couple extra levels or another good gem to plug into your weapon. People who find places in Souls games to go grind out souls and get those extra levels is already a well-recorded phenomenon, and chalices are honestly the perfect answer to that; near-endless content for people who do want to grind out those extra levels. The blood vial system is the one part of the game I still regard as Decidedly Not Perfect, but I've grown to appreciate the way it says "hey maybe stop just bashing your head against this clearly-too-difficult-for-you-right-now boss and go level up a bit first?", and think that actually listening to those cries and taking breaks from Orphan of Kos to go do chalice dungeons for a couple hours would have led to a better experience than thinking all I needed was to go grind enough blood vials in a mid-game area for a few more attempts at beating that very screamy child.
On a minor note, Bloodborne is the FromSoft game that most wants to support the existence of New Game+ with the last couple chalice dungeons, leading up to a super secret bonus boss, very clearly being content that is meant to be scaled to a New Game+ (or higher) character, and with progress on chalice dungeons being retained between New Game+ cycles. Whilst this might not excuse some of the frustration of running out of blood vials on your initial playthrough, the moment you enter New Game+ and proceed through the game for a second time you'll be earning enough echoes that it becomes trivially easy to have 100+ vials available to you at all times. These frustrations are unfortunate but are also only temporary.
The bosses of Bloodborne are also a point of contention, and I found them uneven initially with some standing out as all-time great boss fights whilst others end up being far less mechanically engaging and even a bit awkward at times. To circle back around to Elden Ring again, one strange thing that game did for me was make me appreciate the boss design of Demon's Souls a lot more. Elden Ring's boss designs follow a very consistent style, and that certainly suits what that game is, but with less than a handful of what could be referred to as puzzle bosses a lot of this content can blur together. Demon's Souls definitely has a bunch of bosses that are not very mechanically challenging or that read as gimmicky, but there are maybe only two or three bosses in that entire game that wouldn't count as memorable. I think the best bosses in these games being ones like Artorias, Gael and Lady Maria, combined with the SoulsBorne reputation of being challenging, has brain poisoned us to want every boss in these games to match that template. All of this is a long-winded way of saying that playing through Elden Ring has turned me into the kind of person that will die on the hill that Rom, One Reborn, The Witches of Hemwick and Micolash are all genuinely good bosses, despite not being that challenging nor testing your combat skills particularly, because they all stand as memorable experiences. A year after originally fighting Micolash I would still quote his lines, the visual design of the Rom encounter remained seared into my brain right up until the start of this New Game+ playthrough, and ultimately the fact that these bosses contrast against the rest of Bloodborne serves as a strength rather than a weakness as it stops the overall experience from homogenising.
Finally, the lore of Bloodborne stands out as the one part of the game I wasn't completely onboard with on my first playthrough that most everyone else seemed to love, but this is an aspect of the game that really comes alive with repeat visits. I don't want to go too deep into this, people have done this enough already and this review is long enough as it is, but two things to consider are; what initially seems like a fairly simple condemnation of the church and the power institutions can wield over people gains a lot more depth when you realise that Bloodborne is less about supernatural critters and madness than it is about eugenics, classism and the myth of intelligence; most of the supernatural critters in Bloodborne were initially harmless, just kind of vibing and doing their own thing, and only became so dangerous because people made them so in our lust for knowledge and power.
Anyways, Bloodborne kind of just whips.
Seems to be considered FromSoft's masterpiece by many. Certainly Bloodborne has the most impressive art direction of the Soulsborne games, which is saying something considering this is one of the strongest aspects of the series as a whole; the realm of Victorian England, nightmares and lycanthropy, eldritch at its most icky and slimy and wet, leads to some stunning and haunting imagery throughout. The level design here is similarly superb, both visually and in regards to how FromSoft manage to take the principles of Dark Soul's wider world design and apply it within individual areas.
I appreciate the more kinetic, fast-pace of the combat here, and the rally mechanic is a lot of fun and offers a very different flavour to the other games in the series, whilst the trick weapons are incredibly cool to use and visually stylish. I also think that stripping back the rpg mechanics a little bit helps Bloodborne craft itself a reasonably unique identity compared to the other Souls games; the weapons you start with remain feasible options all through the game, you can dress your character however you want without having to worry too much about stats (and there are some incredible pieces of fashion here), and even the stats system has been noticeably streamlined to encourage towards focusing on the hunt.
Despite all of this, Bloodborne does fall short for me compared to my favourite FromSoft games, even though I did enjoy it immensely. There are a scattering of smaller issues that contribute to this. Much has been said about the blood vial system, and whilst I can appreciate the thematic way that grinding for blood vials represents you literally being bloodthirsty, desperately searching for sustenance, as hunters are prone to being, the reality is that having to stop attempting the exciting boss fight you keep dying to in order to go grind together some vials is a painful pace breaker; this didn't affect me too many times as this was the final game I played from the Soulsborne games but I can only imagine how frustrating this must be to someone less experienced with these when contrasted with the estus system where you get to keep making attempts and learning.
Chalice dungeons suck. Whilst Bloodborne does have have more enjoyable combat than the games that came before it, the reality is that the big draw to these games is their atmosphere, worldbuilding and level design, and chalice dungeons strip away so much of this in an effort to be a roguelite-esque jamming together of the same ten rooms over and over instead. I tried playing these for about three hours or so, they never meaningfully improved outside of a couple cool boss fights and I swore to not touch them again. The worst thing about chalice dungeons is it's not like you can even totally ignore them because they actively effect the main game too; there were many times where beating a boss or getting to a hard to reach treasure chest in the main game would give me an item whose only use was for a chalice ritual, content that I was never going to engage with, which would feel disappointing every time.
I also found Bloodborne's collection of bosses honestly very uneven? Early phases of human bosses are very prone to getting stun-locked which both feels weird and also makes having to repeat those early phases boring, and I found wrestling the camera against the game's various different giant, savage, relentless, constantly-screaming beasts to be frustrating (the fight against Ebrietas was ruined by this for me). As with everything in the game, the visual design of these bosses are so good that it's hard for me to be too upset about any of this, or even call any of the bosses bad; even fights like Rom, Micolash, The One Reborn and Celestial Emissary are all very memorable in their own ways even if the gameplay itself wasn't great. Still, the number of bosses I'm actually enthusiastic about here was not terribly high and that makes me a little sad.
Probably the biggest problem for me is that the lore and storytelling in Bloodborne didn't connect with me as potently as it does in the Souls games. I wish I had been given a clearer motivation for what I'm doing at the start of the game, rather than just being told some stuff about locating paleblood (which meant so little to me due to a lack of context) and Gerhman hand-waving the very notion of me worrying about why I'm doing what I'm doing; compared to the Souls games I found myself feeling weirdly purposeless here, like I was just going through the motions on some level. On top of this a lot of the game's thematic content fell flat for me; I loved its look at madness, dreams and nightmares and found a lot of the material surrounding this very compelling in large part because of the places the game gets to go aesthetically as a result, but its look at the evils of the church felt very old hat, and I couldn't find much more to grasp onto here beyond all of that. It's perhaps harsh of me to be contrasting this against the excellent thematic content in the Dark Souls games and their look at entropy, decay, patriarchy, cycles of life and death, and maintaining determination in the face of adversity, especially as Bloodborne is certainly ahead of a lot of games in this regard, but I find myself reminded of another review I read earlier this year that commented about how Bloodborne's storytelling ends up feeling too elusive to connect with, yet also too specific to function as a mood-piece.
It feels like I'm ragging on the game needlessly harshly here; Bloodborne is great, I loved my time with it, it just happened to fall a little short for me in some regards and it takes a lot of words to justify why that is the case when a lot of what FromSoft is doing here is so impeccable and exciting.
I appreciate the more kinetic, fast-pace of the combat here, and the rally mechanic is a lot of fun and offers a very different flavour to the other games in the series, whilst the trick weapons are incredibly cool to use and visually stylish. I also think that stripping back the rpg mechanics a little bit helps Bloodborne craft itself a reasonably unique identity compared to the other Souls games; the weapons you start with remain feasible options all through the game, you can dress your character however you want without having to worry too much about stats (and there are some incredible pieces of fashion here), and even the stats system has been noticeably streamlined to encourage towards focusing on the hunt.
Despite all of this, Bloodborne does fall short for me compared to my favourite FromSoft games, even though I did enjoy it immensely. There are a scattering of smaller issues that contribute to this. Much has been said about the blood vial system, and whilst I can appreciate the thematic way that grinding for blood vials represents you literally being bloodthirsty, desperately searching for sustenance, as hunters are prone to being, the reality is that having to stop attempting the exciting boss fight you keep dying to in order to go grind together some vials is a painful pace breaker; this didn't affect me too many times as this was the final game I played from the Soulsborne games but I can only imagine how frustrating this must be to someone less experienced with these when contrasted with the estus system where you get to keep making attempts and learning.
Chalice dungeons suck. Whilst Bloodborne does have have more enjoyable combat than the games that came before it, the reality is that the big draw to these games is their atmosphere, worldbuilding and level design, and chalice dungeons strip away so much of this in an effort to be a roguelite-esque jamming together of the same ten rooms over and over instead. I tried playing these for about three hours or so, they never meaningfully improved outside of a couple cool boss fights and I swore to not touch them again. The worst thing about chalice dungeons is it's not like you can even totally ignore them because they actively effect the main game too; there were many times where beating a boss or getting to a hard to reach treasure chest in the main game would give me an item whose only use was for a chalice ritual, content that I was never going to engage with, which would feel disappointing every time.
I also found Bloodborne's collection of bosses honestly very uneven? Early phases of human bosses are very prone to getting stun-locked which both feels weird and also makes having to repeat those early phases boring, and I found wrestling the camera against the game's various different giant, savage, relentless, constantly-screaming beasts to be frustrating (the fight against Ebrietas was ruined by this for me). As with everything in the game, the visual design of these bosses are so good that it's hard for me to be too upset about any of this, or even call any of the bosses bad; even fights like Rom, Micolash, The One Reborn and Celestial Emissary are all very memorable in their own ways even if the gameplay itself wasn't great. Still, the number of bosses I'm actually enthusiastic about here was not terribly high and that makes me a little sad.
Probably the biggest problem for me is that the lore and storytelling in Bloodborne didn't connect with me as potently as it does in the Souls games. I wish I had been given a clearer motivation for what I'm doing at the start of the game, rather than just being told some stuff about locating paleblood (which meant so little to me due to a lack of context) and Gerhman hand-waving the very notion of me worrying about why I'm doing what I'm doing; compared to the Souls games I found myself feeling weirdly purposeless here, like I was just going through the motions on some level. On top of this a lot of the game's thematic content fell flat for me; I loved its look at madness, dreams and nightmares and found a lot of the material surrounding this very compelling in large part because of the places the game gets to go aesthetically as a result, but its look at the evils of the church felt very old hat, and I couldn't find much more to grasp onto here beyond all of that. It's perhaps harsh of me to be contrasting this against the excellent thematic content in the Dark Souls games and their look at entropy, decay, patriarchy, cycles of life and death, and maintaining determination in the face of adversity, especially as Bloodborne is certainly ahead of a lot of games in this regard, but I find myself reminded of another review I read earlier this year that commented about how Bloodborne's storytelling ends up feeling too elusive to connect with, yet also too specific to function as a mood-piece.
It feels like I'm ragging on the game needlessly harshly here; Bloodborne is great, I loved my time with it, it just happened to fall a little short for me in some regards and it takes a lot of words to justify why that is the case when a lot of what FromSoft is doing here is so impeccable and exciting.