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

There’s no ideal ending but the game might end before you realize it. When there is a major change to the safe zone, go wrap up everything you were doing. Unfortunately the game goes straight to NG+.

If you plan to play multiple times you might prefer to skip the DLC the first time. It’s pretty long and difficult. The regular game has a good pace to it. You might want to experience that once.

The chalice dungeon system is also a pace killer you could save for another character. But you can’t go wrong either way.

I certainly don’t have the timing down on the regular Central Yarnham enemies, but the big, tight-shouldered ogre-like gentlemen seem fairly easy to parry.

There was one dual-wielding guy near the first “bonfire” that took a couple of tries. Only to find, of course, he was guarding nothing.

edit: what’s the difference between the 2 starting guns? I couldn’t see a statistical one.

Basically range vs spread. I don’t recall much of a practical difference. I swap between them on each new character.

I was trying to think back to why I stopped playing this back in July. I think it was that feeling of “too many options” in what was, up to that point, a linear game. Suddenly it feels like I have lots of options on which direction to go next. It’s probably an illusion, but nevertheless, in a game like this it leads to this paranoid thinking about how maybe I’m choosing the wrong area to go and maybe I won’t be able to handle this direction yet.

I should fire this up again tonight and get back into the groove now that I own the DLC.

My recollection is one increases the parry window but is really only close range. The other has a smaller parry window but you can use it to pull as well. At least that’s what I perceived the difference to be. The parry window difference could just be my mind playing tricks on me.

Thanks, all. I heard someone talk about spread vs. distance for the starting guns. And someone else talk about the relative speeds of the guns. Parry window would be my biggest concern, if you’re right, @porousnapkin.

I’m having a great time so far. Still haven’t taken on Cleric Beast (after stumbling into him and getting him to 50% in a surprised state) because I keep finding more stuff in the first level. I have a hard time keeping my sense of direction (and the whole) in Bb, so far. Much more so than any of the DSes. But the level design is amazing and some of the detail is blowing my mind.

Mostly I’m just incredibly excited to have another Souls game to experience for the first time. I’d like to savor this one – after charging through DS3 without smelling enough roses.

You don’t absolutely need to use the guns at all; that’s always an option. I never really cared for them.

Soon you’ll stop thinking of this guy as a true boss battle, if memory serves me right.

Killed it (Cleric Beast) in one shot. As I suspected, it was a pretty easy fight. I even unnecessarily used urns and molotovs on it, but realized later it was much cooler to dash underneath and go to town. Next up, the french-named Father and some heartache for a little girl.

Of course, the starting weapons became available pretty quickly, so my questions are moot. @rowe33, I decided I wanted to learn how to parry in this game because I never really mastered it in the Souls games – sorry @TimJames, I had failed you – so I think I’ll go with a gun for a while.

Meanwhile, my weapon of choice has been the Hunter’s Axe. I started with a strength character, so it made sense. Now I’ve grown to love the moveset and everything else feels awkward. This will change, no doubt.

I love this game. I’m already obsessed with it like all 4 of the Souls games. Thank you all for bearing with me so long after the buzz has faded. (drink lots of water)

Don’t worry about me. I never use the parry much in these games except in DS3 PvP where it was really easy before the patch.

Bloodborne’s parry is the best because you can stand off a bit. Less commitment. I mostly use it for those large brick trolls.

It can trivialize two humanoid bossed that are the best in the game, so be careful you don’t overdo it.

Bearing with you? Come on man! Threads should be revived more often, not less often. If there’s less pressure to play games at launch in order to play them along with everyone else, then more of us can be bargain hunters. I almost wish there was a way to coordinate a “revival” of certain games on the forum. Tom’s streaming Dark Souls 3 was the biggest instance of that I’ve ever seen on the forum, and I want to see more of that.

Keep us updated! And when I join in, I’ll try to do the same.

Oh, don’t worry, @Rock8man, that’s how I feel, too. Thoroughly enjoyed the forum’s revisit of DS1, spearheaded by you and a couple others.

I’m probably not going to get much gaming in in the next week, but I will certainly post any Bloodborne travails here.

Oh god, I’ve totally forgotten the controls. And where to go, which headstone I was on. I went to the last headstone, the one that’s broken, and went to the second last name on the list, just so I can take a little easy. And right away someone rings a sinister bell so I can’t go back to the Hunter’s Dream anymore. And then someone invades me and kills me.

This part of the game is really giving me headaches. It’s just so hard to see and differentiate at a distance if I can go in a particular direction, and if there is something to pick up on the ground.

Let me explain.

This particular area is like a giant rolling hill swamp graveyard type place. Think a cross between the final level of Metro 2033 with it’s VR look, and a swamp. The graves on the ground are all dark, so you run into them constantly. Then there’s these white flowers all over the rolling hills that are the same color as a shiny loot that you pick up. Then there’s the giant boulder throwing dudes who keep throwing rocks at you so you can never stand still for 2 seconds to look around properly. Walking in the poison-laden swamp area doesn’t help either.

It’s just so hard to see and get a good sense of this place. Artistically, the feel of the place is quite a bit different than the Victorian England feel of the beginning of the game. This place feels more like a computer simulation VR playground for some reason.

Fanboy goes to Japan and discovers FROM Software might be collaborating with the creator of Berserk for one of their new games.

https://gonzzink.com/2016/12/22/3-days-in-tokyomeeting-creators-of-dark-souls-berserk-and-metal-gear-solid-part-1-praise-the-sun-i-met-miyazaki/

Just a rumor at this point.

So, in my first trip to Father G, I didn’t think to equip the music box, so it was a man to man fight. I realized quickly that much of the scenery blocked his pistol shots, so I kited him around gravestones and traded axe-blows across them. I got into a groove and quickly got him to phase 2. We traded again, this time with me forcing myself, against all Souls training, to use the regain mechanic as much as possible. I managed a visceral and he began to transform.

Holy crap! Get behind the gravestones!

Well, there goes that mechanic! He’s leaping…I guess I’ll dodge…Okay, that hurt…He’s doing something…Parry!..Visceral!..dodge dodge…he missed…whack whack…oh he’s so low!..he’s charging…he hit a tree and it didn’t explode!..ring around the tree rosy…whack whack…oh, I’m so close…I’ll get to come on the forums and boast about a one shot…yeah, baby!..

Classic Souls mistake, thinking I could trade with him to get that last sliver. All I needed was a shot or two. I got careless. I learned a couple of key mechanical things, though. 1) some bosses might be able to hit you while you’re down. 2) you can dodge when you’re down much sooner than you might think.

2nd run. Died because I was learning the music box mechanic. I can do this. This is fun. Good boss!

What is this about a music box?

Edit: Ok, I guess I’ll do the same.

Oh, crap. Is that a spoiler? I’ll put it in a spoiler smudge above.

Details on the item:

Spoiler

One of the lamp NPCs is a little girl who’s missing her parents. If you exhaust her dialog she gives you a music box that supposedly calms her father (who turns out to be Father G). You can use it in the fight with him to daze/stun him. I don’t know all the details about how that works yet – only that it’s limited and takes a couple of seconds to actually use.

Did this spoiler work for you? It’s showing in the post for me. Let me know. It should be hidden. Blurring for double security just in case.

It’s not really a story spoiler but potentially a spoiler for those who like discovering things without guidance:

EDIT: I was beaten to it.

All you guys talking about it makes me want to do another playthrough.

I was able to get a little time in and defeat Father on the second try. It was pretty easy after a music box stun to the beast form comboed into a backstab visceral and finished with a molotov. On to the next areas. I’m deep into Old Yharnam and feel another boss battle coming soon.

The Hunter’s Axe, at +3 now, is by far my favorite of the weapons I have access to. The only move it’s missing that I tend to like in weapons is an initial thrust attack. I’ve heard great things about the Ludwig blade but don’t have it yet. I hope it’s not an obscure find.