I have repeatedly wanted to talk about Bloodborne and stalled out, and I think I kind of know the reason, which is this: I keep trying to list the reasons why I think it sucks, and those reasons are very boring to write or read about. It's a video game who cares. I think a lot of games suck and this is just one of them.
The reason it keeps sticking in my craw is really just the circumstances surrounding that. The fact that Dark Souls 2, one of my favorite games, tricked me into thinking that this was a series for me, but going back I realize that vanilla Dark Souls 2 is the only one of these that I think is actually any good. It took the stuff I liked the DS1 and amplified it, while Bloodborne takes all the stuff I liked in DS1 and just throws it in the garbage.
But that's still not very interesting, really. If I'm reviewing this sucker on graphics, sound, fun factor, mouthfeel, etc then it has to get good grades, and it is also basically mostly successful at what it's trying to do. I think "make the games harder and harder by any means possible" is a boring ethos, but it's the one they went with and it obviously proved commercially successful so that discussion becomes very dull very quickly. I even have bulleted lists of places where it does mess up its ethos, like how it completely fails to encourage aggressive play by relying entirely on boredom and grinding for healing items as a punishment for not playing aggressively. And yet still, I am not interested in getting into that because it's a bunch of tiny things and ultimately the game still works. I know this because I played it and clearly that the general consensus as well.
In fact, the only reason I spend any time on the subject of "random AAA game I don't really like" is just that, while all Fandoms are terrible, From has one of the worst ones who I was unfortunately too embedded in, and they made worshipping a specific game director into a whole point of like, morality or something. I made myself miserable for like a year playing this game I think is bad for no reason. The lesson is don't do that. Find the dipshit nerds you actually like talking to instead. Life's too short. Life's too short!
The reason it keeps sticking in my craw is really just the circumstances surrounding that. The fact that Dark Souls 2, one of my favorite games, tricked me into thinking that this was a series for me, but going back I realize that vanilla Dark Souls 2 is the only one of these that I think is actually any good. It took the stuff I liked the DS1 and amplified it, while Bloodborne takes all the stuff I liked in DS1 and just throws it in the garbage.
But that's still not very interesting, really. If I'm reviewing this sucker on graphics, sound, fun factor, mouthfeel, etc then it has to get good grades, and it is also basically mostly successful at what it's trying to do. I think "make the games harder and harder by any means possible" is a boring ethos, but it's the one they went with and it obviously proved commercially successful so that discussion becomes very dull very quickly. I even have bulleted lists of places where it does mess up its ethos, like how it completely fails to encourage aggressive play by relying entirely on boredom and grinding for healing items as a punishment for not playing aggressively. And yet still, I am not interested in getting into that because it's a bunch of tiny things and ultimately the game still works. I know this because I played it and clearly that the general consensus as well.
In fact, the only reason I spend any time on the subject of "random AAA game I don't really like" is just that, while all Fandoms are terrible, From has one of the worst ones who I was unfortunately too embedded in, and they made worshipping a specific game director into a whole point of like, morality or something. I made myself miserable for like a year playing this game I think is bad for no reason. The lesson is don't do that. Find the dipshit nerds you actually like talking to instead. Life's too short. Life's too short!