Yo, listen up here's a story
About a little guy
That lives in a blue (shift) world
And all day and all night
And everything he sees is just blue (shift)
Like him inside and outside
Blue (shift) his house
With a blue (shift) little window
And a blue (shift) corvette
And everything is blue (shift) for him
And himself and everybody around
Cause he ain't got nobody to listen to

I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di

I have a blue (shift) house
With a blue (shift) window
Blue (shift) is the colour of all that I wear
Blue (shift) are the streets
And all the trees are too
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue (shift)
Blue (shift) are the people here
That walk around
Blue (shift) like my corvette its in and outside
Blue (shift) are the words I say
And what I think
Blue (shift) are the feelings
That live inside me

I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di

I have a blue (shift) house
With a blue (shift) window
Blue (shift) is the colour of all that I wear
Blue (shift) are the streets
And all the trees are too
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue (shift)
Blue (shift) are the people here
That walk around
Blue (shift) like my corvette, its in and outside
Blue (shift) are the words I say
And what I think
Blue (shift) are the feelings
That live inside me

I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di

me playing the game: okay time to jump on the platform

platform: ;LJNDSVGOLJVL;AJLKVDSALASFADLL;DASJFDLSHGVJKZ;CJVOKPASDDG;LFHNDSAKGHVFKL;,MVNK,;LBML

me playing the game: okay nice

Not, so, fast
Cortana says you're Greek. So why don't you stick these lyrics up your ass?
They built a monument to my sins
You're the soldier they need you to be
Ain't no way that you can beat me
Even my initials spell MC
While you and your companions were all camping in a canyon
Took a campaign to your house and showed your Queen my Plasma cannon
They should've thrown your rhymes over the cliff because they're sickly
You will not enjoy this
But it will be over quickly

You got a bad case of no shirt there Fabio Flintstone
Your whole plan got messed up by a hunchback with down syndrome!
300 asses need a kickin'
Get more tea bags than Lipton
So why don't you quit your bitchin'?
My trigger finger's itching

In February 1997, I remember stumbling upon a PS1 game in my local blockbuster with a haunting cover. A fog filled town, zombie-like villagers roaming about, with the giant presence of a vicious werewolf with blood dripping from its terrible fangs. Almost nobody had ever heard of the game at the time. I was lucky that my now late brother had decided to pick up the game at a whim one day without our mother's permission. At around midnight, I was curled up in my bedsheets as I watched my brother play Bloodborne.

A short masterpiece, Bloodborne picks apart the psyche of the player as they dangerously go through the game. At first, my brother was infuriated at the game due to its difficulty. He kept blaming it on the controller, or the enemies being cheap. One time he tried to give the controller to me, but I was too much of a baby at the time to play. Though there was something about the difficulty that made every moment more intense than the last. Checkpoints were scarce, resources even scarcer. Every corner felt like danger was lurking, and I would often see my brother jumping at the littlest of things all too often. The pixelated graphics and low draw distance made enemies and danger hard to see, which meant that we had to be paying attention at all times.

To be honest, I still don't know how the developers pulled off this kind of look with the PS1. 1997 gave us Symphony of the Night and Final Fantasy VII, yet I had never seen anything quite like Bloodborne. Extremely violent, yet oddly beautiful. The graphics and sound were absolutely incredible. Enemies were grotesque and struck fear directly towards our hearts. Spaces in the town of Yharnam felt very closed and claustrophobic, and pressure was felt in our throats as everyone in the town were always out to get us. Specifically, the part with all the villagers by the burning cross really got to my brother. He kept dying over and over...until eventually he just started getting it. Like he attuned with the night, my brother started getting through the game like it was a second language. He dodged enemies at the right times, learnt mechanics that I had never quite seen in a video game up until then. An experience beyond words.

I'll never forget the time when we went through a loading screen on the Great Bridge to encounter the Cleric Beast for the first time. I nearly screamed and woke up my parents. My brother was all too focused, and despite everything managed to beat it on his first try. Frankly, I'll never forget the screams of that creature. Gascoigne was something else, that intro cutscene still plays in my head as an adult working at a newspaper company. The slow swing of his axe and his cold breath gave me goosebumps. When he transformed into a beast, I stood up with excitement as my brother focused. That boss took us a good number of tries...And the ending was something else entirely. Something so beautiful and haunting, that I will refuse to spoil the surprise for anybody who hasn't seen it yet.

Me and my brother started Bloodborne at midnight and finished it at dawn. We were both so tired, we accidentally slept through the entire Monday. Our parents were mad, but luckily they never found out what we were playing that night. With that, it's no exaggeration for me to say that Bloodborne is a masterpiece. It might have been short, but it also chilled to the bone. And the fond experience I had shared with my brother before he fell into a pit of hot tar will stick with me forever. Yet, I had seen almost no discussion of the game online aside from a very few forums talking about it. My only guess was that the cover and content of the game was too horrific back then, prompting major retailers to pull it from the shelves.

With that being said, I was shocked to find out in E3 2014 that the game would get a full remake. A game so obscure that almost nobody had heard of it; it was being born again. Bloodborne on PS4...I couldn't believe it, the years have finally caught up to me. It had been years since my brother died, and with that Bloodborne slowly became a distant memory to me. It's back. Bloodborne is back.

It was incredibly disappointing. To be fair, they added much more to the game, which I felt like must have been the creator's original intention. Despite that, the game could not carry the same charm that the original had. Almost all of the loading screens have been replaced with a seamless world which breaks up the simple fear of waiting for what the game had in store next. There was no more low draw distance, so threats could be seen a mile away. Instead of a horror experience that broke boundaries, it ended up being just another action game. It did not help that the game was incredibly easy. The parry window of the gun was made much more forgiving, which made many of the challenges trivial at best. And the plot was just confusing! There was a spider thing, a guy in a stupid cage, aliens?? They changed Winter Lanterns to be regular enemies which was just cruel, and they scrapped the original ending so the main character can turn into a slug. Pathetic. This is not Bloodborne, not the one I knew, not the one me and my brother played together before he fell in that pit of hot tar. It's a shame that people don't see it that way, but I guess mediocrity sells this day and age.

At least I was lucky enough to play this game again with the recent PC fan port. My first time playing it, and I felt like a kid again. I was so giddy playing it that I woke up my wife who had been sleeping in a separate room. She was a little upset haha. Either way, I'll always love you Bloodborne.

~ To my late brother, Frank