[Introduction]
It has almost been six years since Fromsoftware's Bloodborne hit the PS4 and to this day the waves that game caused are still felt by many. Riding the increasing popularity of the Dark Souls series it sparked interest as something new and different and it was no surprise that the game itself practically sold consoles for Sony. Indeed, even I myself bought a PS4 just to get my hands on it.
Amidst the distant and longing cries for a sequel or a remaster, or anything to do with it at all, we'll be taking a look into just what made this game give the lasting impression that it did.
[First Impressions]
On initial load-up you might find the game to be strikingly similar in all but theme to Dark Souls and its predecessor Demon's Souls. The menu is familiar, the character creator is familiar, and the UI is also quite very familiar. The formula could be considered the same but where the game quickly set itself apart in was theme and combat.
As is tradition for Fromsoftware you start the game very much at a disadvantage and often faced with a much stronger foe than you'd regularly encounter in the starting area. Many people will likely die to this first encounter and they won't truly know anything about the combat other than 'that dog one-shot me'. Which is still very much in the realms of what any Souls game provides for its starting experience.
It's only once you die and come back with weapon in hand that you get a fair start at the game. What immediately becomes apparent is the speed of the game. You're much faster than you ever were in Dark Souls, you can take very few hits, and your defensive options are limited. There are no shields here, only dodging and shooting. The game rather quickly shows you just how hectic it can be with the 'rally' system. That being should you take a hit a portion of your health bar will turn orange. Striking any enemy will recoup some of that lost health, and the more you do it within the time frame before it decays, the more health you get back. Literally an eye for an eye. This system encourages you to be aggressive, to really just get back into the thick of the action after taking a hit, and it works wonders down the line.
The setting itself lends well to the game. Yharnam is a bleak gothic city with narrow cobblestone roads, bridges and tunnels, houses and wider open streets. Creating a mental map for the city is harder than it ever was with Dark Souls and you can get turned around fairly easily. There are plenty of hidden nooks and crannies too, so exploration is highly encouraged along with a good amount of completely optional bosses.
[Development]
Originally titled with the placeholder name of Project Beast; Bloodborne began development during the Prepare to Die edition of Dark Souls and was developed besides Dark Souls 2. The game came as a result of Sony wanting to collaborate with the studio which leading director Hidetaka Miyazaki was all but too pleased to agree to so long as they got to make it for the PS4 since with his vision he had doubts that older generation consoles would be able to support what he wanted to deliver. Outside of that no hiccups that I can find. Development must've progressed rather smoothly. Some leaks came out a few weeks before the actual reveal of the game, but that's about it.
[Game Mechanics]
Bloodborne plays similarly to Dark Souls and Demon's Souls but only really in a foundation sense. What makes up the combat of Bloodborne after that is vastly different. As mentioned earlier; no shields means no standing and waiting. Enemies are going to rush at you and attack you and you need to be ready to counter. With a well-timed shot from a gun you can stagger enemies into a vulnerable state. Approaching a staggered enemy and attacking will deal a visceral attack, which is essentially a parry and riposte from the Souls series. When you first start out visceral attacks are an exceedingly good way to get through tougher enemies providing you can land those shots.
The weapons in Bloodborne are particularly great too. Every weapon you pick up is called a Trick Weapon and they all have a kind of second, or alternate, form. An example is the saw cleaver. It's basically a giant razor blade and has short range, but it's fast with a decent amount of damage. However, upon pressing L2 you'll activate the trick weapon and the blade of the saw cleaver will fold out in an instant; giving you a weapon with much better range and higher damage but at the cost of speed. The creativity of the trick weapons is fantastic and my only gripe is there aren't more of them.
I think that the moment you're really taught how to play this game is after encountering the first progression boss Father Gascoigne. He's a Hunter like you, only he's been driven mad by the blood. When you fight him he shares much the same kit as yourself. He has swift dodges, a shotgun he can fire suddenly and even stagger you, and he has a trick weapon of his own, the Hunter's Axe (Which is a weapon you too can select at the start). Gascoigne is fast and aggressive and you'll find yourself with scarcely a moment to heal should you take hits. But after numerous deaths it'll finally click for you. The best defense is a good offence. When Gascoigne takes a chunk of your HP, take a chunk of his and heal your own back. Don't backpedal away from him, get up in his face and slip behind him, shoot him during his attacks, don't give him a chance to play by his rules and set the pace yourself. Of course the second part of the fight only makes it all the more intense, but the method remains the same. I adore Bloodborne's combat and the way it forces you to be aggressive, it's great.
Being a game from Fromsoft though we can expect the usual progression in the form of leveling up through increasing your stats. Blood echoes are your new soul currency and you lose them upon death. Sometimes an enemy will pick them up and you'll have to kill them to get it back. You've got your standard weapon upgrades too and this time around we also have blood gems which are slotted into weapons to increase their stats in various ways.
Bonfires are somewhat done away with in favor of lanterns. You can't rest at a lantern; only return to the hub or light a new one that you just found. Bosses seemingly come out of nowhere sometimes as there are no fog gates to clearly show you where they are. The fog only appears after you've first encountered the boss.
There's a bunch of NPC quests to get through too that have some pretty specific conditions but generally provide good rewards for following them through. As expected there's more than one ending too, so if you don't get it the first time you can head into New Game+ with all your stats and gear and take another crack at it.
[Graphics]
I'd personally say the game is only just starting to show its age but Yharnam is still a visual marvel and a delight to navigate. Some areas are less so appealing like the forest or the hamlet, but whenever you're in Yharnam proper the amount of detail is pretty staggering. Visually the combat is quite clear and easy to tell what's happening and when. Sometimes the camera can really freak out when locked onto a large enemy right in front of you though.
I must however commend whoever designed all the armor and weapons for the game though, as they're all visually appealing. I go out of my way to mix and match gear just to get that perfect look, stats be damned.
A nice feature I've always enjoyed was how blood visually appears on your character in dynamic fashion. I liked using the Kirkhammer in the early game, it's just a giant hammer that's also a sword, but after swinging it around enough the hammer itself is completely covered in blood and so are you. You can essentially tell how much progress you've been making by just looking at your character and seeing how much blood is on them, and you can get utterly covered in it.
[Story]
The story this time around is a little more direct than previous Fromsoftware titles as now we've cutscenes with dialogue taking place here and there. There's also the standard method from Demon's and Dark Souls in the form of item descriptions and NPC dialogue letting you essentially fill in the blanks yourself and interpret exactly what's going on. The basis of Bloodborne however is that you're an outsider who came to Yharnam and for reasons unknown you undergo blood ministration and become a Hunter, whisked away to the strange and mysterious Hunter's Dream where you're instructed to just hunt beasts, as that is what Hunters have always done. Of course the story isn't so simple and things do indeed go places down the line. For me though, the setting itself is the story. The world itself will show you exactly what's going on.
[SPOILERS]
Hey do you like H.P Lovecraft? I sure do, and so does Miyazaki. As you're running around more strange occurrences start to appear around Yharnam and its neighboring locations. You start to notice some kind of worship, or reverence of some other entity, and more than one. You start seeing mention of 'Old Ones' more and more, and slowly you begin to really notice the madness taking hold.
As you progress through the story it'll become apparent that we're not playing some simple horror beast hack and slash, we're playing a cosmic horror game and god damn did they pull it off so perfectly. The realization of cosmic horror only increases the further you go as you're exposed to more of it, and they did it so perfectly that I'm more than certain that Lovecraft would've shed a tear at it. I'm not going to go into specifics as usual, because this one really needs to be seen yourself to be experienced fully.
[Pros]
- Great combat.
- Story twist is fantastic.
- Intricate level design.
- Visually still holds up.
[Cons]
- Not enough trick weapons.
- Some stats (Bloodtinge) find little use.
[Conclusion]
Believe me when I tell you I tried pretty hard to think of more cons, but I really can't. There not being enough trick weapons is only my desire for even more variety in a game that has plenty enough already. Everything else from level design, combat, bosses, gear, progression, music, there's really just nothing more I can find to pin against this game as being bad. I suppose one of the greatest sins is that we don't have another? Or that there isn't some kind of remake or a PC port. Bloodborne is an all time classic by now and it wouldn't surprise me if it was even selling a few PS5's to people who hadn't played it before. I don't often give out 9's but when it comes to Bloodborne I just can't give it anything lower. If I were to be asked what game I'd recommend people play when it came to Witcher 3 and this? Then it most definitely has to be this.
/DEAD
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