Bloodborne - PS4

[jakonovski]

I don't even have a PS4 and despite knowing this will be great, I can't muster the enthusiasm to play.

[Rendakor]

How brutally hard is it compared to Demon's Souls? Also, is there any platforming?

[Tairnyn]

Experiencing a wee bit of choppiness and also the long load times. But. as a DS I & II fanboi I am really enjoying the atmosphere and combat mechanics, but only put an hour in.

Most of all, I was ecstatic to find out that..  (slight game mechanics spoiler)

[Falconeer]

So far, I am not feeling the long loading times at all.
What I am not particularly happy with is the lack of weapons which wouldn't be too bad if it weren't for the rumour that there aren't that many as in Dark Souls 2 anyway. Weapons are one of the coolest things of the Souls games. Reducing them can never ever ever be a good thing.

Other than that, loving it.

[Margalis]

I don't have a PS4. I will play this, but not immediately. Will wait for a couple patches and hopefully a PS4 price drop at some point. I still need to beat Dark Souls 2!

[Cyrrex]

Wait, what was that about not really being able to use a shield?  I.....I don't know if I can play this game without a shield.  And a spear.  Please tell me there are spears.

[Falconeer]

No shields. And I agree, it's very very bad for some people including me because I LOVED shields in the Souls game. This one is all about offense or dodging, it's like playing any of the *Souls with dual wield or two handed weapons. It's cool, except here it's not a choice, it's just mandatory. So yes, no matter what, it's another thing that I like less than in the other three chapters.

No idea about spears yet.

[Velorath]

Wait, what was that about not really being able to use a shield?  I.....I don't know if I can play this game without a shield.  And a spear.  Please tell me there are spears.

The only shield in the game is apparently a joke item. Your firearm is essentially supposed to be your defensive weapon as it can slightly stun enemies (they do shit for damage). The only weapon I've found so far as opposed to purchase is kind of a spear. Without the shield it doesn't really feel the same though, but you can find it fairly early on.

From what I can tell from the more comprehensive wikis, there's around 15 weapons in the game not including the guns and there's three versions of each weapon (Uncanny versions are stronger and Lost are the strongest). The dual functionality of each weapon makes them fairly fun to use though. After beating the first boss the Kirkhammer was available to purchase back at the hub. The normal function is just a sword, but your character carries around a big block of stone on his back and when you switch weapon functionality he sticks the sword into it and the weapon becomes a giant sledgehammer.

Two bosses downed now. I still feel like the camera and the environments get in the way a bit too much and I'm fighting those as much as the bosses. Since the focus in this game is more on faster paced melee combat, there's a lot of rapid fire dodging involved and the camera doesn't always seem to keep up well. So far it's been fairly trivial to max out on the blood vials (health potions) which allows for some leeway but I came pretty close to dying in the first boss fight when I dodged up against the side of a wall and the camera swung around outside it so I couldn't see anything. The few times I died on the second boss were from getting caught on objects in the environment and then rapidly getting beat down before I could get off. Of course in Souls fashion I was also able to use some of those objects to cheese the encounter a bit up until the point where the boss was able to start destroying them.

[Falconeer]

Since i am liking almost EVERYTHING, it's fair that I spend three seconds on the things I do not like:

- Not enough weapons. Why? Sucks bad.
- No shields. Sucks bad.
- No encumbrance and weight management. Sucks bad.

I am very early in the game, so I can't be totally fair. But I don't like these changes no matter what. They kind of piss me off.

Good thing everything else is amazing and it totally makes you forget about it while you play. The mechanic that allows you to get some life back when you counterattack is really cool. I hated it on paper, but plays wonderfully.

[lesion]

I'm so glad there are no shields, because shields are for suckas. Seconding the health regen on counterattack being awesome. Keep it aggressive!

Played almost 5 hours yesterday with two buddies switching the controller whenever we died.

At the start I was doing really well, but we hadn't found a second bonfire (lamp? whatever) and I kept going into dark alleyways or charging new enemies just to fuck with the other guys.

By the end of it we were getting into screaming matches about not being able to counter properly on the first boss. "WHY DON'T YOU JUST FUCKING DAMAGE HIM AT LEAST" "HOW ABOUT I JUST RANDOMLY SHOOT HIM WITH THIS PIECE OF SHIT GUN, ALSO FUCK YOU"

Definitely the most fun hot-seat multiplayer game in years. 5/5 would drink beer at 10 a.m. again.

[Sky]

Dual shield is best shield!

[Falconeer]

Played almost 5 hours yesterday with two buddies switching the controller whenever we died.

At the start I was doing really well, but we hadn't found a second bonfire (lamp? whatever) and I kept going into dark alleyways or charging new enemies just to fuck with the other guys.

By the end of it we were getting into screaming matches about not being able to counter properly on the first boss. "WHY DON'T YOU JUST FUCKING DAMAGE HIM AT LEAST" "HOW ABOUT I JUST RANDOMLY SHOOT HIM WITH THIS PIECE OF SHIT GUN, ALSO FUCK YOU"

Definitely the most fun hot-seat multiplayer game in years. 5/5 would drink beer at 10 a.m. again.

Did the same identical thing last night with three other friends and my son. We are all over 40 so it was a big deal because we met at midnight and stayed up until 3am having to go to work at 8am (these folks have issues getting out at night, family, kids, shit) and I can only agree with you lesion. I didn't have this much hot-seat fun since probably the Nineties, when online multiplayer was practically non-existent and me and these same guys used to play like this all the time.

[AcidCat]

I tried to get into the Souls games but ultimately just found them tedious. I'm glad I took a chance on Bloodborne because I'm enjoying it way more. The looser more aggressive style of combat is a lot more my style, and the frequency of health drops and shortcuts (in the first area at least) make exploration more rewarding than stressful.

[Falconeer]

Bosses so far are GREAT. Having to use the shotgun as a stun/interrupt weapon is a cool mechanic especially in the second boss fight.

But but

it's hard not to notice how many things have been simplified, yes. I still believe that I might have to bite my tongue considering I have seen 2% of the game. But as Velorath was saying, there's about half the stats and numbers we had before. No weight, no encumbrance, no poise, apparently no poison/bleeding meters. All of that also means you are not gonna move and swing faster or slower based on a weapon weight or your personal attributes, which was one of the most impressive and cool things of all the tprevious three games. I wonder what else have been stripped. There's about half the weapons we had before, which also means looting is so far very underwhelming.

There's also about half the fighting mechanics: you can say you like the new aggressive style all you want, but it was more than possible to play like this in the previous games if you wanted to. And on top of that, you had shields and defensive play. Now you have mandatory dual-wield or two-handed, so if anything the possible playstyles have been reduced. Shields were cheesy and dodge-rolling until you bleed is fine? OK.

In short, save for the counter-to-heal mechanic, combat is LESS than it was in all the previous D*Souls, not more. Trick swiss knife weapons? Whatever, really.

For once, this is not a criticism about the game being easier (it's not!) than the previous ones. The word that everyone likes to use now is "streamlined", but there are certain degrees of complexity that even though are not for everyone, certainly contribute to make something amazing. This step back, clearly meant to lower what many perceived as an entry barrier, is the kind of dumbification that I cannot be OK with.

As a final note, I am very disappointed with the character creator tool. There's a ton of sliders but their range has been dramatically reduced from Dark Souls 2. I could do anything from very thin to obese in DS2 and now I had a really hard time to simply get a curvy character. In fact, once I entered the game she looked even leaner than in the creation screen. Minor gripe, but WTF?

Just to clarify, I am already addicted and loving the game. Simply trying to be objective about what I do not like of it, instead of stating the obvious fact that it's overall fantastic. But is it better than any of the three previous *Souls? I am really not sure yet.

[apocrypha]

I'd love to play this, but I don't have a PS4 and this is, so far, the *only* reason for me to get one. I know now that no game is worth spending 100's of £ on, so unless they make a decent PC port it's not gonna happen.

[Fabricated]

This game is really good but coming from Demon's Souls and in general being an impatient asshole I am really bad at it. The swoop dodging is incredibly good and useful but right now starting out it's really hard to eyeball exactly how far away you need to be to avoid some attacks so I keep getting barely clipped. Also I cannot figure out how to properly interrupt regular enemies with the pistol for counters for the life of me.

[Cyrrex]

I kicked the tires on this last night for an hour (and in true Souls fashion, I had absolutely zero to show for it, not souls, no upgrades, no nothing).  I am feeling some of those same things that Falc wrote.  I do not get the dumbification.  The combat so far is less tense, because they have made these trade offs to ensure that you are playing aggressively and that means also being able to take on several mobs at one time.  One on one, the early mobs are stupid easy, and the only reason I die to them at all is when they start to gang up on me because I am being overly (and deliberately) careless.  In other Souls games, caution is always the way to go and any mob you think is easy will suddenly stab you 10 times in the ear for thinking such foolishness.  And what will this, and the lack of weapons/classes, do for replayability?  If I replayed and of the other Souls games, I could drop the shield/sword combo and go full squishy caster...it would be a totally different game.  Will it be the same here?

That said, I have little doubt that there is tons of good game here.  Have to get used to this different style of play.  Can't tell you how many times I hit L1 on the controller, because my stupid chimp brain has permanently mapped a shield to that button, only to do a weapons switcheroo in the middle of the battle and get hacked as a result.  Not cool.

[K9]

This game isn't out in Europe until tomorrow apparently. Because pointless stupidity

[Cyrrex]

This game isn't out in Europe until tomorrow apparently. Because pointless stupidity

<-----------European

[K9]

Apparently it's just the UK that's on the 27th.

Literally no idea why

[Falconeer]

Really weird. It was on PlayStation Network exactly at midnight across the 24th and 25th. It unlocked at midnight CET. What part of Europe are you in? UK. So so strange.

[Cyrrex]

Maybe they had to edit out all the cockney accents and replace them with more proper queen's english. 

[Cyrrex]

Also, at the risk of having Schild go apeshit on me, I think the load times suck.  I can literally stare at the screen, lament the slowness, pick up my phone and check an email or two before it is done loading.  That's too long, kiddos, especially in a game where dying all the time is part of the experience.

[MrHat]

Also, at the risk of having Schild go apeshit on me, I think the load times suck.  I can literally stare at the screen, lament the slowness, pick up my phone and check an email or two before it is done loading.  That's too long, kiddos, especially in a game where dying all the time is part of the experience.

It sucks if you die a lot like me.

[Falconeer]

Another thing that insanely sucks: the game asks you to grind for consumables, and then forces you through two very long loadong screen to respawn the mobs you need to grind, as opposed to the simple rest at a bonfire mechanic of the previous games.

[Velorath]

Bosses so far are GREAT. Having to use the shotgun as a stun/interrupt weapon is a cool mechanic especially in the second boss fight.

I've run into the 3rd and 4th bosses, but haven't beat them yet. When you take into account the 2nd bosses transformation partway through the fight, all the bosses feel a bit too similar so far. It sounds like they switch things up a bit eventually, but a lot of the early boss encounters seem to focus heavily on them just rushing you and doing multiple attacks, and occasionally they'll do attacks that leave an opening. It feels like because they've boiled this game down to just a specific kind of melee combat that they've also somewhat limited what they can do with the bosses.

Overall the game feels a bit like Souls Lite. Maybe it was due to the transition to the new console and they just didn't have enough time to do a fully fleshed out Souls game, but from the direction they've taken things in since Demon's Souls I sometimes feel like they don't actually know what people like about these games.

[Falconeer]

I believe the two series will branch out. Bloodborne represent their new line trying to open up to a wider audience, more keen on attacking and less interested in defending. More inclined to just fight than to compare a million weapons and keep track of how many invulnerability frames did they gain by putting 1 more point in Dexterity. Bloodborne is From Software interpretation of Batman Arkham Asylum.

Dark Souls will retain the hardcore label, with its gazillion stats and theorycrafting numbers on top of a more diverse playstyle due to shields, encumbrance, movement and attack speed and so on.

Not that I know if they are gonna make another *Souls game, but honestly, to me this game doesn't feel like the successor of Demon's Souls at all.

*Disclaimer - I am still only ten hours into the game so this opinion is absolutely weightless.

[schild]

This is all funny to me because things I hated about Demon's Souls:

1. 500 pointless weapons
2. Blocking (because it's for pussies)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Ingmar]

The shield thing is a "historical" setting choice as much as a mechanical one, I think. The game wouldn't look right with shields.

[Falconeer]

Yes I agree, shields wouldn't work in Bloodborne especially because of the setting. But it's also why they were amazing in Demon's Souls and its bastard sons, because they were "historically" accurate. I am not bothered that lots of you seem to prefer aggressive playstyle. Great. You could do it anyway so I don't see the problem. And generally speaking I am happy to be a pussy especially if that's the definition of my favourite playstyle. All the *Souls allowed you to be a massive immovable tank or an extralight murderous spinning machine, and also sooooooo many things in between. Now you can only be a hyperactive tornado of blades and that's why it feels more like Shadow of Mordor than Demon's Souls.

Shields were amazing because they made perfect sense in that setting, because they created an additional playstyle that is usually neglected in these kind of games, because they looked cool, and because they felt heavy, real, and just played great. And ultimately because if you didn't like them you weren't forced to use them.

There are no other games where hitting something is as satisfying as the Souls games (Bloodborne included), and similarly there are no other games where the sound of a weapon clashing against your shield sends vibrations to your spine and other blissful things to your brain.

Which makes me think of another element I am missing in Bloodborne. Metal. This game is all about leather, skin, beasts, soft matter, blood, "animal products". Which once again makes a lot of sense and cannot be circumvented given the time period. But it's hard not to miss all the metal.

[Velorath]

The fictions these guys put together in their games could easily allow for using shields in Bloodborne if they had really wanted. I think this is either the game they wanted to make or at the very least, they game they felt they could make with the time they had to make it.

Just downed bosses 3 and 4 in quick succession. Getting health back from attacking enemies right after they hit you makes it almost counterproductive to dodge a lot in boss fights assuming you're leveled enough to go toe to toe with them a bit. Bosses move too quickly and too wildly at times to be able to count on dodging and waiting for openings, but if you stay in there and go after them you can get back a lot of the health you lose.

Tried out few different weapons, and I've mostly been liking the Hunter Axe. It's a bit slow and when it's transformed you can't use your gun, but it's got decent range and when I do a charged attack with it two-handed I can one-shot most normal enemies. Kirkhammer is supposed to scale more with strength, but it feels even more slow than the axe and the range kinda sucks.

[Cyrrex]

One of the "issues" I am having in the early going (and I mean REALLY EARLY) - and it may just be because I haven't quite figured out wtf to do - is that I can collect a bunch of blood-thingies...and I have nothing to do with them.  The only dudes I can find back at the house don't sell anything I need, I cannot upgrade or buy a weapon, I can't even level up.  So do I just keep these things until I die and lose them?  That can't be right.  These games have always been about figuring out how far you should push before you go back and cash-in.  What am I missing?

Note:  I have not made it to the first boss, and maybe that is my problem.  Still, seems I should be able to do something when I have built up a few thousand.

[Trippy]

Yes you have to kill the first boss. A lot of people won't get that far before quitting

[Lounge]

Yes you have to kill the first boss. A lot of people won't get that far before quitting

I think you only need to have one insight.  There is a consumable one you can get to before you have to fight the boss.

[Tairnyn]

From what I understand, you only need to FIGHT the first boss to unlock leveling. Winning is optional. Granted, I'm not that far yet either due to a combination of no time and old man reflexes.