Bloodborne Catch-all

Glad you're enjoying it ccesarano.

I don't know if anyone cares about my chronicles through this game, especially as my outrage to Dark Souls comparisons is as predictable as the Dark Souls comparisons to every game ever created. At the same time maybe there'll be a sense of "Ha! You see? We've converted you!" though I doubt that's actually the case. Playing Bloodborne only hammers home all the things Sekiro did wrong from my perspective and there are still plenty of issues to be had. For example, I remember that other complaint I had: enemies still swivel in place even if you dodge the original direction of their attack. However, Bloodborne is largely fast-paced enough that it's less of an issue, especially as some of these slower attacks are ideal to blunderbuss and stagger.

I think I'm going to leave most of my other thoughts to my blog, though. It's a lot of design philosophy stuff and I'd rather not immediately clutter this thread with it all.

Nonetheless, I left the wolf priestess boss lady from the Cathedral and headed for Hemwick. Once more, as the game is getting more difficult, I was worrying about my ability to solo things and if I'd eventually grow tired of the game's hard foes and bosses. However, I only died once, and it was due to my carelessness and inability to take an old lady with a sickle seriously. Fortunately retrieving those blood echoes was no problem and I continued on my way until I reached the Witch(es) of Hemwick, where I began getting low on blood vials and decided to use a Bold Hunter's Mark to scamper on out of there, purchase and upgrade Ludwig's blade, and up my vitality a point. We'll see how my second attempt will go, but I'm fairly certain I can solo that boss. Assuming it doesn't go and add a third health bar, that is.

It continues to be enjoyable, but I also believe that Bloodborne might have just the right combination of design elements that makes it the best execution of From's "vision", and for me personally only clarifies the elements I disliked about Sekiro (and also clarifies how Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order took a lot of superficial elements without understanding why or how they worked so well in a Souls-like, and why I eventually grew to really enjoy Darksiders 3).

I'll get into it more on my blog, but the funny thing is I'm not sure "Souls-like" as a genre makes a lot of sense, or at least it indicates how shallow people's understanding of game design is. Ultimately, Bloodborne is action-horror. It has a lot in common with Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space. The only difference is that, because it doesn't follow the precise template of those games, it's not listed as being in the same "genre". But the games all have a very similar feel to one another, and accomplish many of the same goals.

In another universe, I could see someone rebooting the original Devil May Cry in this style, and it might have been suitable. I'm glad they didn't, though, because there aren't enough people making those fast-paced action games as well as Capcom.

A three-way comparison between Bloodborne, Jedi: Fallen Order, and Darksiders 3 would make for an interesting blog post.

Well I didn't do that comparison yet, but I did compare Bloodborne to the Resident Evil games in order to try and address why the manner in which we define game genre is flawed. It will probably not be the last time I write about that topic, either, as I very much wish to dabble again in Fallen Order and Darksiders 3 and do that comparison.

As for my latest playthrough, buddy and I went through a bunch of the next zone, a haunted forest where things start getting nasty. Took a break from it yesterday but may get back to it today or tomorrow. It was also the first area where we actually ran into invaders. I had assumed that adding a password to our game would prevent any invaders from busting in, but that was clearly naive of me. Of course you are either all-in with the online or not in at all. It was weird that we'd not run into invaders around the Cathedral or Hemwick, but ran into two separate ones in that forest. Now that the wretched woman ringing the bell has been defeated we should be good, but it's still an irritating inconvenience. The setting is already threatening enough without invaders.

Guess I'm going to just have to get used to that from now on.

Going Mad, Together: Finding Quarantine Connections In 'Bloodborne'

Here my grotesque escapism fully begins to resonate with reality. I notice that Yarnham's sane survivors have taken refuge behind closed doors — and while Bloodborne has nearly no exposition, I piece together a grim backstory from brief cinematics, obtuse notes, and snatches of dialogue. I knock on windows and the residents pity me, curse me, or laugh derisively at my plight to be out on the night of a hunt — a night that never seems to end. These people are in quarantine, and I'm the closest thing Yarnham has to a first responder

I played Bloodborne toward the end of 2015 without having played any of the Souls games and I haven’t played any Souls or -like games since. I’ve put about 10 hours into Dark Souls Remastered this week and I’m definitely engaged by it but also feeling an impulse to replay Bloodborne. If only there were more time.

Dark Souls might be my favorite game ever. Stay engaged! What platform?

Bloodborne is the best game From has made by a country mile (and then some). Maybe I should take another trip through.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Bloodborne is the best game From has made by a country mile (and then some). Maybe I should take another trip through. :)

As someone who has played all the Dark/Blood/Souls/Borne games recently, Bloodborne is definitely the best.

I adored Demons Souls, liked Dark Souls a lot but Bloodborne is genius. Those locations, enemies & bosses will stick long in the memory for decades to come.

PS4.

The setting and aesthetic of Bloodborne appeals to me so much. I could see myself ultimately liking it the best.

The Bloodborne DLC by itself might be the best thing From ever did. I mean, just the Ludwig and Orphan fights alone get to that level.

But, I have to leave Dark Souls at the top of the pile because your first addiction is always your favorite.

psu_13 wrote:

The Bloodborne DLC by itself might be the best thing From ever did. I mean, just the Ludwig and Orphan fights alone get to that level.

But, I have to leave Dark Souls at the top of the pile because your first addiction is always your favorite.

Lady Maria for me.
Also, her weapon is the best for my standard build.

You are all* crazy. And wrong. Bloodborne got best setting, but that is about it. Dark Souls forever.

*Does not include anyone named psu_.

DLC was great. But then, all the DLC in SoulsBorne is the games at their best.

So, I guess I'm the only guy who really preferred Sekiro over Bloodbourne and the Souls series, huh?

Shadout wrote:

You are all* crazy. And wrong. Bloodborne got best setting, but that is about it. Dark Souls forever.

*Does not include anyone named psu_.

DLC was great. But then, all the DLC in SoulsBorne is the games at their best.

You disturb the peace of our sietch by not recognizing me as a fellow Dark-Souls-is-best-er!

Nightmare Frontier was the first zone I actively disliked. Lengthy stretches of poison water combined with Frenzy huggers was not my idea of fun.

My buddy and I are streaming on Mondays and Thursdays at 8pm ET these days, and right now Bloodborne is our game of choice. We're totally pros at this game.

Gravity is the strongest enemy in this game.

I didn't care for the Nightmare Frontier either. Add in that it's a pvp zone, and it's a ... wait for it ... nightmare.

Fortunately, you can still find and kill the bell ringers to disable PvP... and I think they stay dead though reloads, making the area easier.

Rambling time.

My buddy has been trying to semi-nudge me into moving onto Dark Souls after Bloodborne. The idea is certainly tempting, as sometimes all you need to "get" a genre is the right introduction to it. While I had played Ninja Gaiden 2 and Devil May Cry 4 in the mid-aughts, it wasn't enough for me to understand or appreciate what made Bayonetta so good. I had found it incredibly over-rated. Then I play games like Darksiders, The Wonderful 101, and DmC: Devil May Cry, all of which sort of "train" me to better understand character-action play styles, and I'm going back and figuring out just what makes Bayonetta a blast. I think some genres just require that introductory game for things to click, to get the player to better understand the approach to a game type, and to find the joy in that genre. Honestly, while I like Bayonetta, it still remains one of my least favorites in its respective genre because I feel its primary audience are the more extreme and dedicated of that fanbase. I prefer Devil May Cry over it.

In regards to Soulsborne, I think Darksiders 3 was the game that made it "click". I suddenly better understood kiting enemies instead of taking on whole groups. It helped me better understand that those item drops that gave experience/currency were for when you died, allowing you to level up slightly for that second or third run through a zone (or to perhaps give you just the boost you needed to level up a bit more). I started to learn the greater patience required, though simultaneously Darksiders 3 was more accommodating with many checkpoints placed closer to a boss' lair.

All of these elements came back to me while playing Bloodborne. I can tell that Darksiders 3 isn't as difficult a game (even before the patches that enabled dodge-canceling and other more character-action adjustments), but that allowed me to better understand the approach to these games so that I could better enjoy what it is Bloodborne is doing. Simultaneously, it gave me plenty of Resident Evil 4 flashbacks, as noted on my blog.

Right now, however, instead of wanting to replay Resident Evil 4 (though I sort of do for different reasons), I want something that includes that melee combat. There is a distinct separation in my mind between melee combat games and ranged combat games, and right now I want something that gets that risky, visceral feeling of melee. So do I replay Darksiders 3? Do I just start a new character and do some solo play in Bloodborne since I'm going to wait until my pal and I stream on Monday to tackle Bergenwyrth? (Or was it Byrgenwerth?) I explored all I could of the Gaol this morning and unlocked the route to the clinic, waiting before tackling Ioleska (Ioleshka? I am so bad with names) herself. Yet I'm sucked back in, and I kind of want more. Dare I check to see if Dark Souls Remastered is on sale? Do I go back?

I'm not sure, because Bloodborne feels faster paced than I remember Dark Souls feeling. Speed is important to me and my play style, and I think the greatest reason I actively disliked the Nightmare Frontier is because the water robs you of that speed. Worse, the poison climbs at a great speed, punishing you for daring to enter the water. In order to effectively fight the creatures within you must "sprint", exhausting your fatigue while expending it to fight. It felt like every system working against me. I hated it, and it felt as if the game hated me back. I don't know if I could handle a slower game like Dark Souls.

Nonetheless, I've added it to my wishlist because I'm a sucker.

Final note: I never got around to beating Hollow Knight. I believe when it first released there were many Dark Souls comparisons, though these days it's largely just called a Metroidvania. It's an interesting execution given the side-scrolling nature, but I sort of had a realization this morning contemplating what else I could play to scratch the itch Bloodborne is leaving me.

I felt as if Hollow Knight had too many zones, that it was too big of a game. In truth, I'm not sure I've played a Metroidvania yet that connects its world together without having some form of cruft. Then again, I've not played many Metroidvanias, and I'm still holding the Metroid games as my standard. Even then, I digressed pretty thoroughly in a video a couple years ago into the design of Super Metroid's map, and where the Wrecked Ship feels superfluous and breaks an otherwise great flow between the original zone. I also highlighted how we might be able to learn from Echoes' hub world, yet create further connections between zones. I digress now because I always felt like Hollow Knight was a perfect example of when you have too many zones. They stop connecting so smoothly together, there is no hub, and fast-travel becomes a necessity since back-tracking would become too obnoxious.

Bloodborne has a large, interconnected world. Most of its zones connect to one-another in some way. People have described it as being "Metroidvania", though to me unlocking new routes has as much to do with new abilities as it does simply finding the door or lock. Nonetheless, I've begun to realize that these zones may connect, but there's not necessarily a linear order of progression between them. There is a critical path, and there is a point where you run out of possibilities before having to complete a step. But it's not designed like a Metroid game, where you're pretty much just unlocking the critical path in the order the game wants you to, its option digressions relatively small in old areas and existing only to maximize your collection of power-ups. Hollow Knight has this same approach, where there's a critical path but fewer bumpers in the gutters. You're allowed to go into areas you may technically be too early for. The game won't stop you. It is, therefore, doing the Soulsborne approach to the world, but in a 2-D perspective.

The size of the world makes more sense in that regard, when comparing to Bloodborne rather than Super Metroid.

And that concludes my rambling. I will probably end up starting a replay of Darksiders 3 on Xbox One or something to help get scratch that itch, and it'll make for a nice sort of comparison between the two games, I think. We'll see if I'm itching for more of this type of content by Sony's Days of Play sale, where I may possibly grab Dark Souls Remastered if it is on sale.

Does make me realize that, of the Metroidvanias I've played, they take more influence from Castlevania's world design than Metroid's, and that's depressing because it means Metroid is the only place I can get the world design executed how I like it, and in a 2D format, that's largely still Super Metroid.

Localgod54 wrote:

I didn't care for the Nightmare Frontier either. Add in that it's a pvp zone, and it's a ... wait for it ... nightmare.

Oddly enough, we never got raided in my world. However, every time I died or my buddy died, he got raided upon returning to his world. Every. Single. Time.

Taharka wrote:

Fortunately, you can still find and kill the bell ringers to disable PvP... and I think they stay dead though reloads, making the area easier.

This doesn't seem to be universally true. I think maybe they're disabled once you beat that zone's boss? But in both Forgotten Woods and Nightmare Frontier, the vile woman kept coming back.

Play Dark Souls 1 if you want the best map.
Play Dark Souls 3 if you want the best overall experience.
Play Dark Souls 2 if you want the best combat puzzles.

Play Darksiders 3 if you have lost your sense of taste.
Play Lords of the Fallen if you have lost your will to live.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Play Darksiders 3 if you have lost your sense of taste.
Play Lords of the Fallen if you have lost your will to live.

This made me chuckle heartily.

Dark Souls 1 is sadly the only one of the three that I think has any real Metroid DNA. I adored Metroid, Super Metroid, and Metroid Prime.

ccesarano wrote:

And that concludes my rambling. I will probably end up starting a replay of Darksiders 3 on Xbox One or something to help get scratch that itch, and it'll make for a nice sort of comparison between the two games, I think. We'll see if I'm itching for more of this type of content by Sony's Days of Play sale, where I may possibly grab Dark Souls Remastered if it is on sale.

As much as I love Dark Souls, I think you're likely to be put off by its speed based off everything you've said. I'd suggest going with Dark Souls 3 if you want to try a Dark Souls. It's my least favorite of the series because of how few risks it takes compared to 1 or 2, but for your first entry into the series, I think you're most likely to jive with it. It is by far the most polished Dark Souls game, and it can play quite fast with the right weapon and build choices. Not quite Bloodborne speed, but pretty fast.

Dyni wrote:

As much as I love Dark Souls, I think you're likely to be put off by its speed based off everything you've said. I'd suggest going with Dark Souls 3 if you want to try a Dark Souls. It's my least favorite of the series because of how few risks it takes compared to 1 or 2, but for your first entry into the series, I think you're most likely to jive with it. It is by far the most polished Dark Souls game, and it can play quite fast with the right weapon and build choices. Not quite Bloodborne speed, but pretty fast.

I shall add Dark Souls 3 to the wishlist as well, then. My buddy was speaking that one up as well. We'll see what happens, either way. The From games have some limited form of co-op, but it is co-op nonetheless and therefore can reduce some of the hurt.

On another note, I tried the Code Vein trial, which was...a bit much in terms of character design even for me, and I'm a downright deplorable. The combat didn't seem too bad but nothing I'll be rushing out to purchase. I started a new game of Darksiders 3 on Xbox One today, though, and call me tasteless because it's a blast, and I definitely think doing a threeplay of Bloodborne, Darksiders 3, and Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order could help reveal just what it is that Fallen Order does wrong, because holy cow the more distance grows between me and that game the more my feelings juggle between apathy and disgust.

Check out the Surge games as well. I found them exceptionally done. Especially the second.

And if you would like some anime in your Souls-like, I've been enjoying Code Vein.
It is quite anime, though, with all the fan-servicey aspects that can go along with it...
Anyway, I find Code Vein to be faster than Dark Souls, but slower than Bloodborne.