Bloodborne - PS4

[Maledict]

Also if you have the music box from an earlier quest, you can save it until the enrage then use it to stun him for a few seconds. Then lob molatovs in his face!

[Cyrrex]

Yeah, the music box was what made the difference for me. 

For all the legit complaints we can make about this game - and I personally feel there are many ways in which it is a small step back from the other Souls games - I find it almost equally enjoyable anyway.

[Falconeer]

I have to say. The setting is just unbelievable. I mean, clearly it hits a personak weak spot of mine, but it is beyond fantastic and it only starts to show its real face after the 4th boss or so.

Basically, and I am not gonna spoiler anything here, From Software did an incredible job in hiding what the game was really about. And what the game is really about (or it seems, I am only halfway through it) is one of my favourite literary things ever.

[Morfiend]

Stuck on the second boss; that enrage phase is some bullshit 

Anything with a bit of fire really hurts beasts.

[Velorath]

Finished the game earlier. Might continue to mess around with the Chalice Dungeons a bit since they don't reset or scale with NG+, but don't really feel the need to go back through the game again and it doesn't sound like there's anything special to see or do in NG+.

[Falconeer]

I heard of a good amount of secret bosses and full areas that are easy to miss on the first run. Did you kill Amygdala? I am asking because I just did and so far it has been the hardest boss, so I'm kind of pumped and satisfied.

Anyway, generally speaking I am against replaying games. All I am asking for is a rich, fulfilling run from end to finish. So far, this has been extremely gratifying.

[Velorath]

Yeah, I got all the secret bosses including the end one. I think Martyr Logarius was the hardest boss, at least for me anyway.

[Falconeer]

I just beat the game. 48 hours is my total.

All in all, while I think is inevitably a great game and I clearly enjoyed it a lot, I think this is obviously the worst of the four *Souls game so far released. There's a lot of things to love, and the action combat is, if possible, better than ever with much improved hitboxes than any of the previous games. Other than that, I think it's fair to say that there's not a single aspect of the game that hasn't been simplified, stripped out, and impoverished.

They wanted it make it more accessible, and they probably succeded if you think that of all the 4 games this is the one with the better metacritic average (Demon's Souls 89%, Dark Souls 89%, Dark Souls 2 91%, and Bloodborne 93%). But that annoys me so much. OF COURSE the weakest, shortest, easiest, emptiest game of the series gets the highest praises on planet Earth. I am so fucking tired of humans. Someone please rapture me away.

[schild]

it doesn't bother you more that Dark Souls 2 is above Demon's Souls given that Bloodborne doesn't have the word "souls" in the title?

[Falconeer]

It does, of course it does. To me it's all backward. Demon's Souls is the best and has the worst score. It DOES drive me nuts. But this one has clearly so many things LESS than the previous games that it is just quite insane to give it a higher score. It really feels like lots of people were kind of giving the cold shoulder treatment to the previous games because it sounded too hipster or something to openly appreciate, but somehow decided to jump on this one bandwagon now exactly becuse it doesn't have the *souls* name and because it is clearly less hardcore.

But yes I see what you mean. Maybe I am just pissed because this one ended abruptly when I was still expecting so many things (systems, NPCs, features) to show up, and instead I was at the end of the game. Outside of the roguelike random dungeons, this feels like a weird, strange, huge step back on so many levels. And I am not gonna get into details not to spoiler too many things, and also because I am still buzzing with disappointment. Which I didn't have until I realized it was over all of a sudden and the end credits were rolling.

[schild]

But yes I see what you mean. Maybe I am just pissed because this one ended abruptly when I was still expecting so many things (systems, NPCs, features) to show up, and instead I was at the end of the game.

Need I remind you that Demon's Souls ended pretty abruptly, we never got access to the land of the giants, and pretty clearly an entire dungeon was cut from the game? I still consider it the best console game ever made, I'm just saying.

[Falconeer]

Sure, sure. But we didn't have expectations back then, didn't we? And yes that's hands down the best console game ever made.
This one has a growing history behind its back and DELIBERATELY fall flats not to alientate a customer base that doesn't want to deal with "too much stuff".

We can disagree, but I assume you are still waiting for the guide. I am genuinely interested in your opinion once you'll be done with the final boss. If you have already beat it, I am genuinely interested in your opinion now

 

EDIT: Also worth mentioning that my complains are not about the "story", or a bad ending. It's just the lack of stuff. All of it. Gear, NPCs, systems, features. I can't wait for my guide to find out that maybe it's my fault and I missed who knows what.

[schild]

I am waiting on the guide, but at this point I'm more like "What are the 576 pages devoted to?" 

That said, all the support systems in Demon's Souls were secondary to the brilliant level design for me. So we'll see where this falls flat. At the end of the day though - I've played Demon's Souls. When I started it, it was pretty clearly the best Zelda we'll ever get. And by the end of it, the whole experience was "new" in the pantheon of gaming classics.

Bloodborne never had and never will have that opportunity to be "new" so I can't even pretend to think it would do novel things in such a way that I view it as more than an expansion of that particular school of design. A little DNA from Souls goes a lot further than a little DNA from any other license though.

From what I've played, I don't see a way it could massively let me down.

[Velorath]

They wanted it make it more accessible, and they probably succeded if you think that of all the 4 games this is the one with the better metacritic average (Demon's Souls 89%, Dark Souls 89%, Dark Souls 2 91%, and Bloodborne 93%). But that annoys me so much. OF COURSE the weakest, shortest, easiest, emptiest game of the series gets the highest praises on planet Earth. I am so fucking tired of humans. Someone please rapture me away.

Obviously there's a lot of factors as to why the metacritic averages are different beyond people thinking that one Souls game is better than another. Also, I still think a big reason for the streamlining here was trying to get a game out on the PS4 in a reasonable amount of time. There's currently only 8 games for the PS4 (XB1 is in an even worse situation with only 2). Of those 8, Bloodborne is the only one that is not a port of a previous gen game. If you pull out all the HD remakes, indie games, annual sports titles and such, developers seem to be struggling to put out anything to make the current gen consoles relevant. Even something like Destiny that had a shitload of time and resources put into it came out disappointing and bereft of content (and hamstrung by having to include previous gen consoles). I think From did what they could with the time and resources available and that maybe that meant stripping out a lot of the systems and hidden content and just focusing on the core game and filling out the content a bit by adding the ability to randomly generate dungeons.

As far as what schild said about level design goes, I don't think any of the other games have been able to achieve what Demon's Souls did in that regard. Largely I think that has to do with the later games having open worlds that have to have some logical sense of progression. The hub system of Demon's made it so they didn't have to worry about how a Castle connected to a mine, which leads to a swamp, etc...

[Falconeer]

Big spoiler (you have been warned). But a cool 3D map showing the level complexity of Bloodborne.

[Fabricated]

I dunno, I don't think Bloodborne hits Demons Souls level of "This is really fucking cool" but I thought Dark Souls was bleh where Bloodborne is really fun/good/interesting.

[Sophismata]

Nifty map. I now own Bloodborne and am waiting on the PS4 to arrive. I bought a PS3 to play Demons' Souls so this is kind of a trend now.

Dark Souls was fun but a tad disappointing. I didn't think Demons' Souls was as challenging as people seemed to believe but it was definitely engaging and fairly deep mechanically (but also incredibly obtuse).

[Falconeer]

Rumor has it that a lot of stuff has been cut from Bloodborne due to release date constraints which were in turn a consequence of the need for a killer PS4 app as soon as possible. This would explain why so many parts of it feel so deflated and dehydrated.


On a different note, the random roguelike dungeons are really cool. Interestingly, you can find loot and enemies that you haven't met in the main playthrough. And what's not to like in endless dungeons where you have to find the lever to unlock the door to the next floor, get to the bottom and fight the boss? Especially with such an amazing combat. Endless bliss.

[Cyrrex]

I agree with all the criticisms, and academically I am not happy about the dumbing down of the game.  But in the real world, I played like 7 hours of this game in one stretch yesterday and was highly entertained for every single minute of it.  At the end of the day, that is what matters most to me.  Cool shit happened, and I did cool shit.  I killed the shit out of a few bosses and even did the "double middle fingers dance of ecstasy and swearing at the TV"...which is literally what I do when killing a boss that I previously failed to kill a few times.

I think the combat encounters flow a little better in this game, and I think it has something to do with the fact that in most cases you are more in danger when you are getting ganged up on.  In the Souls games, you kill a few drones here and there with ease, and then you suddenly run into some (initially) impossible-to-scratch juggernaut.  It was challenging and cool as hell in its own way, but different.  Here, you waves of moderately challenging stuff and have to watch out that you don't bite off more than you can chew.  And then you meet something that looks like a juggernaut, but is only a bigger, more dangerous version of what you were just fighting and you have to again be careful that someone doesn't jump you from behind, because that is what will kill you.  Moderately challenging combat all the time, as opposed to easy easy easy easy OH FUCK.  Also, the grinding aspect here is better.  I always felt in the other games that you would get to a point where only killing bosses and other huge nasties was the only way to really get enough souls to advance.  Here, you get a constant, steady stream of them.  Am I the only one who sees it this way? 

So, apples and oranges, IMO.  Same can be said of the world building parts.  I loved the hub concept in Demon Souls, but I also love the more connected worlds in the other games.  These motherfuckers know how to build cool worlds, no matter the methods they choose.

[Falconeer]

I had a blast with Bloodborne too. Combat, atmosphere & setting are just too good so my criticism is in comparison to its predecessors. But these games are in a league of their own, and to me pretty much 10 to 100 more fun than anything else.

About what you said, one my complains (which doesn't include Demon's Souls) has always been that the moment you learn the ropes and start growing in power and upgrading your weapons the proverbial difficulty goes away and the game becomes almost trivially easy. This -if possible- has been even more evident for me in Bloodborne. The hardest area for me has been the first. Towards the end I was almost unstoppable, and that's disappointing for me.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Yeah I don't regret my purchase at all and when I have more time I'm gonna explore the game to the fullest, there are a few nooks and crannies most people don't know about still.  That said the game is a solid B+,  it's just missing a bit of depth to make it truly great.

[Nija]

Yeah, after a single play through I don't see a reason to play NG+ at all.

I'm going to shelve it until it's patched a bit and an expansion hits before trying again.

It doesn't seem like there are that many character builds. I mean, there isn't really an armor system at all in this game. It's just dress up. You can't do a build centered around guns due to the way ammo (and damage scaling on guns) works. Str covers pretty much everything. Arcane stuff is all late game. Ludwig's is DRASTICALLY better than any other weapon. The list goes on.

Lacking in a lot of areas, while still being good overall. I guess that says a lot about the general design principles - despite missing a lot of crap it's still good at the core.

[Nightblade]

Say what you will about the game, but I don't want any of the drugs that you're on that makes you think that Dark 2 is somehow a stronger entry than this game.

I'm a fair bit into it now, but I already can't wait to start another game with an arcade build, or even a dex build to use all of those weird weapons I found. Arcane builds can get a weapon early on that's pretty good for them, and the flamespitter; another early item also scales from arcane. I'm also curious as to what secrets that huge guide that's coming out is going to have in it.

[Velorath]

Say what you will about the game, but I don't want any of the drugs that you're on that makes you think that Dark 2 is somehow a stronger entry than this game.

I'm a fair bit into it now, but I already can't wait to start another game with an arcade build, or even a dex build to use all of those weird weapons I found. Arcane builds can get a weapon early on that's pretty good for them, and the flamespitter; another early item also scales from arcane. I'm also curious as to what secrets that huge guide that's coming out is going to have in it.

Dark 2 is absolutely a stronger game than Bloodborne.

[Quinton]

Grabbed this tonight and I'm liking it, but (of course) dying a lot (which I expect from a *souls game, part of the learning process and all), but the loading time to the lantern after you die and to/from the Hunter's Rest is absolutely brutal.

[Falconeer]

There is simply not a single thing wrong with Dark Souls 2 (Except the disappearing mobs).
Somehow some people decided to try and convince themselves that it wasn't that great but that's an exercise in self-trolling. It's like when you meet that someone who tells you they don't like Stanley Kubrick and convince themselves that everyone who does is just pretending or simply weird.

There isn't a single aspect of Bloodborne that wasn't done better and more extensively in Dark Souls 1 and 2.

- Bigger world, meaning more areas and so more game.
- More area diversity.
- Better NPCs.
- More weapons.
- More armours, and they had a meaning and a purpose unlike in Bloodborne.
- Better and more Covenants.
- Better PvP.
- More stats, which meant waaaay more character customization.
- More playstyles, including magic and ranged if those were your thing.
- Better NG+.


You can make a case for the setting and lore, but that's a matter of personal taste. And all the nonsense about offensive play vs. shields makes no sense as the Dark Souls could be played as offensively as you liked since you even had dual wield and power two handed stances on top of a million other things to really experience very different playstyles (as opposed to dodgedodgedodgedodgedodgedodge in Bloodborne).

[Nightblade]

There is simply not a single thing wrong with Dark Souls 2 (Except the disappearing mobs).
Somehow some people decided to try and convince themselves that it wasn't that great but that's an exercise in self-trolling. It's like when you meet that someone who tells you they don't like Stanley Kubrick and convince themselves that everyone who does is just pretending or simply weird.

There isn't a single aspect of Bloodborne that wasn't done better and more extensively in Dark Souls 1 and 2.

- Bigger world, meaning more areas and so more game.
- More area diversity.
- Better NPCs.
- More weapons.
- More armours, and they had a meaning and a purpose unlike in Bloodborne.
- Better and more Covenants.
- Better PvP.
- More stats, which meant waaaay more character customization.
- More playstyles, including magic and ranged if those were your thing.
- Better NG+.


You can make a case for the setting and lore, but that's a matter of personal taste. And all the nonsense about offensive play vs. shields makes no sense as the Dark Souls could be played as offensively as you liked since you even had dual wield and power two handed stances on top of a million other things to really experience very different playstyles (as opposed to dodgedodgedodgedodgedodgedodge in Bloodborne).

Dark Souls 2 had a bigger world? I'm not so sure about that, but even so the game was so poorly designed and ugly that I fail to see how that's a point. The level design fell to shit as soon as you left Majula, and with the exeception of Dragon Aerie, all of the areas were either ugly, badly laid out/designed or both. Remember that area after the mist forest that looked like a really bad Turok level? In regards to area diversity, I don't know, an entire game + an expansion might have more diverse areas than a game that just came out; but who cares when most of them are a slog to play through?

Better NPCs... Hm; Bloodborne, provided you take your time to find them has quite a few NPCs in it with interesting tidbits to share. The extent of what I can remember about Dark Souls 2 is Lucatiel and er... Hold on let me google this -

Oh yeah Rosabeth. She was ok I guess; even though she had nothing going on whatsoever after you rescued her. (Remember how in earlier games NPCs actually had their own agenda, and did things? Happens in Dark Souls 1, happens in Bloodborne; this doesnt happen in Dark Souls 2)

More armor I'll concede. I liked the bigger variety of looks you could have in Dark Souls 2, but I think the lack of wildly different armors was more of an intentional design choice.

PVP... you mean that ritual where two people stand opposite of one another with absurd amounts of armor on casting buffs for 20 seconds before actually fighting?

More stats, but how many of them were actually used? How many of them were useful? Remember that time your dodge roll effectiveness was arbitrarily reliant on a stat; so everyone had to put 20 in that stat to not have dodge rolls that were garbage?

Dark Souls 2 had ranged and magic! As opposed to Bloodborne that has neither of...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1BRWSn3jU4

Oh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK-0md6sOLU

o....


Covenants! DS 2 had more covenants I, but how many of them did people actually use? Well; people played the shoehorned in sunbro covenant to grind medals to get a spell; so Im sure that added a lot to the game.

Other than that; it was all Bell Tower and Rat mainly. Oh and the dragon covenant that people... used to grind dragon scales to get a set and then never use it again. So really; the only things people actually joined was the Rat, Bell and MAYBE blue covenant.

And in closing, NG+ - Haven't got there myself so I can't comment too much; still - Dark Souls 2 had some neat ideas by changing the bosses a bit on NG+ - a shame that a majority of the main game bosses were terrible and were broken by the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il_cQrugDgk


If you'd like to see the above stated in a clear and concise matter; watch the following!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UScsme8didI

[Falconeer]

I am sorry but none of your points make sense.

[Nightblade]

I am sorry but none of your points make sense.

Then good news, you can just watch the video.

[Rendakor]

If you'd like to see the above stated in a clear and concise matter; watch the following!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UScsme8didI

A 49 minute video cannot be called concise.

[Falconeer]

Also that's not a comparison. There are lots of flaws in Dark Souls 2, but that wasn't the topic. There's a reason I always thought it was the weakest game in the series... until Bloodborne. And who's the author, you? Cause if it isn't you why should we care about a random internet guy's opinion anyway? Is anyone going to watch my 49 minutes video critique of Bloodborne? That's what I thought. 

[Nightblade]

Also that's not a comparison. There are lots of flaws in Dark Souls 2, but that wasn't the topic. There's a reason I always thought it was the weakest game in the series... until Bloodborne. And who's the author, you? Cause if it isn't you why should we care about a random internet guy's opinion anyway? Is anyone going to watch my 49 minutes video critique of Bloodborne? That's what I thought. 

That's not me; as much as I'd like to be able to produce content like this guy.

The flaws went over in the video are things addressed in Bloodborne, the most obvious being the level design and boss design; two things that are sort of important in these games. There's a lot to say about what's wrong with Dark Souls 2 which is why its 49 minutes; I'm sorry that's more than your attention span will allow.

I'm not really sure how to explain this better.

[schild]

Dark Souls 2 was so uninteresting I played it for less than 5 minutes. By comparison, I played Dark Souls for about 3 hours.

I logged about 60 hours in Demon's Souls.

So, ahem, size isn't everything. Or anything really.

[Falconeer]

You'll know what I mean when you will put more than 5 minutes in... Bloodborne.

[Velorath]

Dark Souls 2 had ranged and magic! As opposed to Bloodborne that has neither of...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1BRWSn3jU4

Oh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK-0md6sOLU

o....

So you've got one video that shows a guy using the magic items in the safe area and one with a guy just using a gun against a boss. Neither of these are actually viable ways to play through the majority of the game. Even the guy in the gun video seems to only have that one video where he relies on the gun that much. You just can't always count on having enough ammo. The magic items in particular take anywhere from 2-10 bullets per use.