Bloodborne - Demon's Souls Spiritual Successor's Spiritual Successor

Games
1142

Started this up last night during a crazy thunderstorm. Figured I’d lose power, and didn’t want to chance losing progress so near the end of my DS2 run.

It was quite the thing, playing this game in pitch-darkness, rain hammering against the windows, pinging off my chimney caps. A flash of lightening here, a mean rumble of thunder there. Pretty ideal!

This game’s reputation being what it is, coming when it did during the Souls cycle, I guess it’s no surprise I’m loving it. What did surprise me is how quickly I got a feel for it, how deeply invested in the world I am, and just how much fun I’m having so soon after starting.

Started as a Professional. Picked up the cleaver and pistol.

The combat is so, so good. The variety of attacks, plus the ability to transform, makes this starting weapon surprisingly deep. The parry window seems generous. That you can do it from a distance is awesome. I feel like I did in Sekiro, standing my ground waiting for the attack, so I can parry and land a counter, instead of backing/running away, or eyeing the enemy cautiously behind a shield. I do tend to lose track of my stamina when I’m swinging wildly, something I’m going to pay better attention to. The backstab seems a bit finicky, in that I have a hard time sneaking successfully. I get like mid-charge before they turn around and start attacking.

God the world is bleak. Creepy laughter from behind barricaded doors. Burning monsters tied to crucifixes. Sick and lost and wary locals too scared or cautious to even open a window or door, telling me stories of lost/missing loved ones, or cursing my very presence. Inhuman sounds from enemies, along with pleas as they die. I even came across a brute of a thing standing in front of a door seemingly pleading with someone inside (it’s sister?).

I don’t think I made much progress. Didn’t fight a boss. Just spent a long time exploring the starting area. I ended up in some open-air sewer section, fighting ungodly things. And of course rats. Lots of rats. I think I spotted a giant rat at the end of one particularly harrowing stretch of sewer, but I was sitting on a large chunk of blood echoes, and didn’t want to chance it. I felt lost and scared, with no idea how to get back to the one lamp I’d lit, and it was fucking great.

I haven’t read much about the game, so I’m about as blind as you can be for a game that came out four years ago, so a lot of the basics (like leveling up, weapon upgrades, weapon choices, armor/clothes, multiplayer, insight!?!?) seem inscrutable at the moment.

If there is anything you guys think I need to know, I’m all ears.

1143

I think it’s good to have as little advice going in as possible. I’ll give you two really basic suggestions but aside from these I think you’ve played enough of these games to figure it out on your own.

Pick strength or skill as a primary offensive stat for your first game (no respecs in this one). And buy extra blood vials often when you return to the hub. As the game goes on their price increases and fewer enemies drop them so you really can’t have too many.

Enjoy, this is on a very short list of choices for my favorite game and the dlc is right up there with original Dark Souls as one of the best add ons ever.

1144

I think I already screwed up. I started as a skill character, but picked the saw cleaver, and while I did find the spear cleaver at some point, I had already spent all my blood shards upgrading the saw, which I now see has better strength scaling.

I suppose I should have started with the cane…or saved my shards until I knew wtf I was doing.

So psyched.

1145

Early choices shouldn’t be a big deal, you’ll find plenty of blood shards to upgrade multiple weapons. The top line improvements require a different resource that’s very rare. That’s where you have to make the real choice between the different weapons, on which ones you want to have the top upgrade.

1146

That’s good to know.

How hard is it to find the other starter weapons? I assume they are drops at some point, like in Dark Souls.

I’m so early on I may just restart and pick the cane.

1147

You can buy them, they’ll cost basically nothing.

1148

I found the other starter weapons fairly early. You’ll find a cane soon enough. I think I started with the saw, then people recommended trying the Axe, so when I finally found the axe, I switched to that because it was indeed great.

1149

Yeah there are a lot of great weapons in Bloodborne and like the others said you’ll eventually be able to buy the upgrade materials so have fun with it.

I really like weapons with a good transform attack, like the Kirkhammer. L1 transforms your weapon, but instead of backing off to switch forms try tossing an L1 in between R1s. You’ll actually attack while switching. Very satisfying to do on weapons that support it.

1150

I played this for a week during my PSNow trial, and I really can’t stress enough how annoyed I am that it’s never going to come to PC.

1151

Yeah, that absolutely sucks. I think it looks great on the PS4, but the frames can be janky, and it feels a little floaty, especially coming on the heels of the 60fps goodness of DS Remastered and SOTFS.

1152

So badguys can steal my dropped blood echoes eh?

Funtimes.

1153

Oh yeah, that’s a pretty neat mechanic.

1154

I lost count of how many attempts I made on the Cleric Beast before I took him down. Whew. I liked the callback to DS1’s bridge fight vs. the Taurus Demon, but this sucker was so much bigger. It was tricky to get the camera to move the way I wanted it to, so I kept a mix of lock-ons (to get the sidestep dodge) and not locking on (to get the oh shit rolls). I think I parried him once, but it was hard to tell what triggered it. Landed the once visceral. Pretty solid, and intimidating, first boss fight.

Gascoigne was much more manageable, got him on my fourth try. Parries + music box + side-step dodges made that fight super fun. The second phase took me by surprise. Once he transformed I stopped trying to be cute with my parries, and just kept dodging, sliding in for a quick swipe, and sliding back out. Hiding behind whatever I could find if I needed to heal. Felt like a Sekiro duel.

I think I fucked up. I gave the brooch to the little girl and now all she does is cry. No other dialogue options. And I think I gave away a weapon upgrade item.

Central Yharnam was a hell of a great first area. It’s too early to tell so I don’t know how this will play out, but at least for Central Yharnam Miyazaki seems to have solved the Fast Travel vs. No Fast Travel (or, more specifically, the Lordran vs. Drangleic) problem. Having only one lamp in CY, but like four or five shortcuts back to it, allowed me to get a really solid feel for the area, without making traversing it a pain. I also like that you can only fast travel from the Hunter’s Dream. I can’t just zip from lamp to lamp.

And holy shit the Kirkhammer.

I understand why people have been clamoring for a sequel to this game. The lack of a PC port is a fucking tragedy.

1155

I went to Old Yharnam next and pretty much left the game there. Occasionaly I go back, but I don’t know where to go, what to do … the areas so far looked too similar, to really know where you are (other than souls where each area was its own thing) … I should go back sometime

1156

Weird, I think I beat the Cleric Beast first or maybe second try, but Gascoigne had me tearing my hair out.

1157

Bloodborne wasn’t doing it for you? Did anything specific (and non-spoilery) make you stop playing?

Hmmm, yeah I don’t know. I just had so much trouble with Cleric Beast. I kept getting trapped in various spots on the bridge. Would sidestep one too many times to the left and end up on beast’s right side, by the gigantic hand, instead of behind him. I wasn’t doing a lot of damage per hit either, so even when I did beat him, the fight took forever.

I think I got Gascogine down to half health the first time I fought him. Landing those visceral attacks take huge chunks of the lifebar.

1158

some kind of souls-fatigue hit me … maybe old yharnam was too samey. I loved the game up to the point when I hit a “new” area, that did not felt new.

1159

Yeah, I think my problem was I could never parry for shit, and even the music box didn’t seem to slow him down enough for me to get a visceral in reliably. It was the second stage that was the real bastard, though. When I did beat him I was at a sliver of health, and it seemed much more luck than skill.

1160

I worry about this myself…but so far all the games have been different enough that I haven’t hit it. I think it helped playing Sekiro near the end of my first Dark Souls game, and now playing Bloodborne at the end of my DS2:SOTFS run.

I mean I’m still so early in Bloodborne that I can’t say how it’ll stack up, or if this feeling I have right now (adoration) will be sustained. But thankfully I’m still going strong and just want to keep playing.

1161

I can’t remember if Old Yarnham was before or after Forbidden Woods. The Forbidden Woods is where I really started liking the game a lot.