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.
G0dot
18 days ago
All that aside, Great review. Hope to see more from you! :D