I bought Bloodborne back in 2019. I had heard so many great things about it and wanted to use Bloodborne as my entry point to the souls-like genre.
5 years later I finally beat it.
Now having several other souls games under my belt, I knew I wanted to come back to this. My first attempt all those years ago was horrible, I truly didn't know what I was in for. The blood vial system, the lamps, the horribly british Yharnamites, the RPG character creation and builds systems, it was all so new to me. Thankfully after returning to it in the last few days, it instantly hooked me and I lost the track of time. I essentially went through the entire game (minus cleric beast) in the span of two days.
Bloodborne is an all time classic playstation game and definitely my favorite game that Fromsoftware has put out. The Lovecraftian, Victoran era art direction and world kept me engaged in what the story had to offer, even if a lot of it flew over my head.
I could go on and on about the amazing combat system (with weapons splitting into two types) and the incredibly satisfying parrying and engaging enemy AI, but it has already been talked to death. I want to focus in on something more specific.
Something I've noticed throughout many souls games and especially Bloodborne is how the game presents itself to the player. Many gameplay moments have you coming across enemies and bosses with little to no fanfare; and I think this is what makes the worldbuilding so enveloping. If every enemy was given a brief tale before I fought them, or I learned about them through a text box, I seriously don't think the world would be as effective. Enemies will just appear in this game and you're learning more about the world through these enemies. What happened to these people? Why are there random little alien dudes? What's up with the birds who just chill on the ground? Why do I fight a big dumb spider in the same arena that Demise from Skyward Sword is fought in? All joking aside, you just come to accept the world and the beings that live within it. Every character design is appealing or at least interesting to look at. Every part of this world feels realized, and the level design emphasizes this. Every area weaves into and loops around each other in such a cramped but intriguing way that I feel is so unique compared to a lot of game maps.
The bosses in this game are incredibly fun and almost none of them felt cheap to me. I went for the true ending of the game, and fighting Gehrman truly felt like a battle I had to learn. Every time I died against him I knew it was my own fault. And what an epic battle! Moon Presence was a good battle, like a bonus for defeating probably the hardest boss in the game. But Moon Presence was kinda easy.
The music is also so good. I really need more classic, orchestral arrangements in my games. Like seriously a lot of these tracks sound so wonderfully haunting and fit the game atmosphere so well.
Already I'm finding myself starting up a New game plus. With the amount of incredibly fun weapons you can find in this game, I'm sure I'll do another playthrough sometime.
5 years later I finally beat it.
Now having several other souls games under my belt, I knew I wanted to come back to this. My first attempt all those years ago was horrible, I truly didn't know what I was in for. The blood vial system, the lamps, the horribly british Yharnamites, the RPG character creation and builds systems, it was all so new to me. Thankfully after returning to it in the last few days, it instantly hooked me and I lost the track of time. I essentially went through the entire game (minus cleric beast) in the span of two days.
Bloodborne is an all time classic playstation game and definitely my favorite game that Fromsoftware has put out. The Lovecraftian, Victoran era art direction and world kept me engaged in what the story had to offer, even if a lot of it flew over my head.
I could go on and on about the amazing combat system (with weapons splitting into two types) and the incredibly satisfying parrying and engaging enemy AI, but it has already been talked to death. I want to focus in on something more specific.
Something I've noticed throughout many souls games and especially Bloodborne is how the game presents itself to the player. Many gameplay moments have you coming across enemies and bosses with little to no fanfare; and I think this is what makes the worldbuilding so enveloping. If every enemy was given a brief tale before I fought them, or I learned about them through a text box, I seriously don't think the world would be as effective. Enemies will just appear in this game and you're learning more about the world through these enemies. What happened to these people? Why are there random little alien dudes? What's up with the birds who just chill on the ground? Why do I fight a big dumb spider in the same arena that Demise from Skyward Sword is fought in? All joking aside, you just come to accept the world and the beings that live within it. Every character design is appealing or at least interesting to look at. Every part of this world feels realized, and the level design emphasizes this. Every area weaves into and loops around each other in such a cramped but intriguing way that I feel is so unique compared to a lot of game maps.
The bosses in this game are incredibly fun and almost none of them felt cheap to me. I went for the true ending of the game, and fighting Gehrman truly felt like a battle I had to learn. Every time I died against him I knew it was my own fault. And what an epic battle! Moon Presence was a good battle, like a bonus for defeating probably the hardest boss in the game. But Moon Presence was kinda easy.
The music is also so good. I really need more classic, orchestral arrangements in my games. Like seriously a lot of these tracks sound so wonderfully haunting and fit the game atmosphere so well.
Already I'm finding myself starting up a New game plus. With the amount of incredibly fun weapons you can find in this game, I'm sure I'll do another playthrough sometime.