This Game Gives Me A Raging Bloodborner

What can I say about Bloodborne? She is a cruel and unforgiving mistress. With brutal boss fights and a terrain you can easily get lost in, why do I keep going back for more? Maybe it's the feeling of satisfaction you get with mastering the combat and beating bosses with ease; or maybe I actually hate myself and this is my punishment. Whatever it is, Bloodborne just sucks you in like no other game in recent memory has.

For those unaware, Bloodborne is the spiritual successor to the Demon's Souls and Dark Souls series. There are many similarities between these games, though one of the biggest differences is the game’s setting. Unlike the dark medieval period which the previous Souls’ games took place in, Bloodborne is set in the world of Yharnam, a very dark, Victorian era city. A plague has infected the city of Yarhman, for reasons not made immediately clear. Some people lock themselves indoors to stay safe and avoid fighting, while others go crazy and turn into blood hungry beasts.

You're an outsider caught out during the hunt. Aside from this basic setup, the game's story is given to you only in snippets, and for the most part you have to search for it yourself, usually by reading item descriptions in your inventory or by just going online and basking in the fruits of other peoples' labor. I would recommend the latter.

Born In Blood

The combat in Bloodborne is incredibly satisfying, and being a third person action game you always hope for that to be the case. Unlike its predecessors, Bloodborne forgoes the whole sword-and-shield thing and turns its combat into a more aggressive affair with a sword-and-gun combo. In the older games you were able to block and parry, but now with no shield, blocking would be a bit hard. Fortunately in Bloodborne they still kept the parry part. One well timed shot with your gun will stop most enemies in their tracks and let you do a special attack on them; incredibly useful for taking out larger enemies, who also happen to attack a bit slower making the timing easier.

There are also quite a large variety of main weapons at your disposal. From simple swords and axes to ridiculous gun spears and something called a Stake Driver, you can easily tell there is something out there for everyone. Each weapon has 2 separate forms you can switch between by tapping L1; each effectively serving as both a light and heavy weapon on its own. Each weapon combo’s differently and you can even transform your weapon mid combo. It's fun to see the variety of all the weapons and how the designers really worked hard to make them all unique instead of over filling the game with cloned weapons.

Another way the designers tried to get Bloodborne players to be a bit more aggressive was with a special healing system incorporated into the combat. Whenever you get hit and lose health, you're given a short window of time where this health is recoverable. All you have to do is hit an enemy with a melee attack and you'll get some health back. Throw in a combo and odds are you'll recover all of it. It's a pretty interesting system and like I said, it encourages a much more aggressive style of play which suits me just fine. Sometimes it's a little easy to abuse though. Periodically you will come up against NPC Hunters. The first time you see one, you may get overwhelmed. They are fast, smart, dodge properly and use all the tools at their disposal. One thing you can easily do though and it took me a while to figure out but, you can just switch to a heavy weapon, back up and start charging an attack. For whatever reason, the NPC Hunter will just run at you and attack. Nine times out of ten your charge will finish and you'll begin your un-stoppable attack. The hunter will hit you, and then you'll hit him, healing in the process. Figuring that easy way of disposing these hunters had a huge impact on my anxiety level.

Bound by Blood

Bloodborne has created a very large and organic world for itself—and a very dark one I might add. It definitely isn't scary in the usually sense of the word, but much like its predecessors, fear is in the unknown...that and dying. The game is hard, and you are going to die. Everyone will at some point get cocky, and then get bludgeoned to death right in the face. The reason why dying is scary though is because you lose all unused experience / currency upon dying. Mix that with the amount of exploring you do in the game, and now the unknown is a whole lot scarier. But Bloodborne goes much further than that. Previous Souls’ games had this same sort of death fear to them, but Bloodborne adds this just really creepy atmosphere to go along with its anxiety inducing gameplay. It's like a whole new level for the series, and damn did they do a good job. It's captivating and very hard to put down.

Even if you do get a little bored with the main story path, you can break it up with a thing called Chalice Dungeons. These dungeons are extra levels you can play that are optional fun to be had within Bloodborne. Optional fun that can be had with a friend I might add. There are quite a few of these pre-made dungeons to be explored. And on top of the pre-made ones, there are also randomly generated ones you can create and share online with your friends/who ever. The further you go down the dungeon though, the harder it gets—eventually even harder than the main game if you can believe that.

Final Thoughts

Honestly if you have a PS4 and you haven't played Bloodborne yet, I'm not sure what you are waiting for. Yes it may be difficult; yes you might get discouraged; but push through it and fight on. I can't talk for all those Dark Souls veterans out there since I only ever played the original Demon's Souls, but Bloodborne is just such a fantastic experience and it's probably better if it's your first experience with the series anyway. I really can't remember the last time I was this into a game.