It's absolutely incredible how drastically a game's mechanical philosophy changes just by slightly readjusting the speed and intensity of a combat system. In Dark Souls you felt like a thing to burned, gnashed, stabbed and pounded until made ash, and thus the combat reflected this by incentivizing the player to tackle it in a ponderous and surgical manner. Bloodborne doesn't just ask you, but demands that you partake in violence in a much more bestial manner, where you have to throw yourself at your enemies, again and again and again, because blood is not just a consequence or need of your journey, but a blissful pleasure in of itself. Even when hunted, you're always the Hunter.

What a game, what a setting, what a feast for the eyes and ears. I do have to give it another go before pitting it against the other Soulsborne games (and Sekiro, of course), but it's just as masterful as I anticipated it being.

EDIT: currently tied with DS1 as my favorite of the series.