Games I Beat: Bloodborne

Bloodborne
Action Adventure
1 Player/Limited Multiplayer
System: PS4
Developer: From Soft
Year of Release: 2015
Beaten: May 7th, 2015

Bloodborne, the reason I picked up a PlayStation 4. I remember those first few moments I played of this at a friend's house, getting my ass kicked and feeling like none of my copious hours of experience with previous Souls games (yes this isn't technically part of that series, but come on) had transferred over to this one. That was the first of many shades of Demon's Souls I felt whilst playing. Eventually I managed to get over that initial difficulty spike, having adjusted to the new mechanics and made my way through Yharnam, purging the beasts from the land. I can't say it wasn't worth going through the trouble of purchasing a new system, but I don't know how much I'll find myself wandering back onto those crowded streets.

Similiar to the Souls series, Bloodborne does very little in explaining the plot to the player. What conclusions I've managed to draw, however, are as follows. Many years ago the church, the ruling body in this land, found that there was healing properties of blood (which blood I'm not so sure and have heard many ideas). Eventually though this blood corrupted man, turning them to beasts. The blood discovery happened along the way to enlightenment, to get in touch with god-like great ones, which are very obviously drawn from Lovecraftian inspiration. These great ones cause madness and blindness in those that manage to discover them. Also, vampires are out there, and a Martyr ended their reign, locking away their immortal queen. And the Queen of an ancient race shares the name with the town where much of the game takes place. Oh, and this is all taking place in a dream that you are trapped in for whatever reason. This game has three endings, all of which are really vague and honestly leave me with more questions than answers. I'm really glossing over a lot of this, mainly because I'm not really sure how a lot of it fits together exactly, and also to leave it for you to discover. I don't want my assumptions painting your assumptions. Overall I feel that this plot isn't quite as well crafted as Demon's or Dark Souls, but it probably is more cohesive than Dark Souls II.

A heavy emphasis on aggressive combat is blatantly obvious from the get go, movement and attacks feel faster, if you get hit you have a small window of opportunity to heal back up if you hit your opponent fast enough and there is (essentially) no shield option, just parrying with guns or double handing heavier weapons. Initially looking at the pool of weapons it seems really underwhelming, but instead of crafting several different weapons categories with numerous mostly similar weapons within they opted for a smaller selection with mostly unique movesets. This compromise works perfectly, and aside from a few progression related complaints I really do love this weapon system. All of the main hand weapons are "trick weapons" meaning they transform, which results in all sorts of options. Some weapons just become much larger and require another hand, some change form complete, and others add in slight firepower capabilities. Messing around with a new weapon was always a joy. Off hand weapons are more simplistic, with a few variations of guns, a couple flamethrower-esque weapons, and torches. Another major change from the Souls series is that back stab and parries are both technically gone, replaced by the visceral attack system. You still can parry enemies, as mentioned above, but it sets them up for a visceral attack, likewise backstabbing is done, but if you hit an enemy from behind with a charge attack it too opens them up for a visceral attack. I didn't really like this system at first, but it was just a matter of acquainting myself with enemy patterns, it has grown on me quite a lot, though it hasn't surpassed my affection for the traditional backstab/reposte attacks.

The world of Yharnam is fucking brillant. Incredibly gloomy and oppressive feeling, madness bounces off the walls as blood flows through the streets. Roaming gangs of half-mad men hunt you down, as a few slightly saner remain boarded up in their homes, slowly losing their grip on reality as the night progresses. While the game does tend to consist of mostly muted colors it does fit the atmosphere very well. Aside from a few very embarrassing missing bits found hidden around (mostly hidden away where most players wouldn't both to look, but I always try to!) the world itself looks great and is very well constructed. Shortcuts lead to shortcuts lead to shortcuts, it can get a little confusing, but most of these feel very natural and lead to a feeling of progression no matter how insignificant a path they open. Enemy and beasts design look fantastic as well, as the night goes on more and more demented looking creatures emerge, as do strange cosmic creatures, quite a few little blue men show up, and they actually feel like a really natural fit.

So overall Bloodborne is a really good game, ripe with fast and rewarding gameplay and a world that honestly rivals that of the original Dark Souls in both looks and cohesiveness. Sadly, Bloodborne falters in a few key areas.

One of my favorite aspects of the earlier Souls games was the open-endedness of them. Sure, there was a set path you were supposed to take, but there are all sorts of weird shortcuts (some intentional, many not) that allow players to explore beyond where they should be able to, to allow people very familiar with the game to increase the difficulty for themselves, or at least allow them access to a weapon they want to use earlier. Bloodborne has none of this, in fact, Bloodborne has so much none of this that they actually patched out an unintentional shortcut that didn't really affect things too much. Even more damningly though is the weapon restrictions. The small weapon pool is small, but my god is it unevenly spread out. Several weapons are obtainable only in the late game, one exclusively shows up in chalice dungeons, and one is only available after defeating the final boss. You literally won't be able to use that weapon except for in NG+, or possibly against the secret final boss. It's a damn shame that they would go to such lengths to restrict the player. I'm not saying give away all the really nifty goodies right away, fuck that actually. The ability to go through hell and back, risking life and limb to obtain a really powerful relic though? That IS Souls in a way. And, again, it can be easily argued that this isn't a Souls game technically, but, again, come on.

Sadly restricting that one weapon deep within the chalice dungeons isn't only tedious, but awful. Chalice dungeons are a cute idea, and while I wouldn't go so far as some as to say that they are wholly out of place in Bloodborne, I can't deny that they are horribly implemented. The beginning depths are piss easy with no real rewards to show for it, whereas you eventually hit a drop off point where even after beating the game the difficulty is beyond reasonable. With a really high vitality stat (that dictates HP) I was still getting one-shotted. What the fuck. The design of the place, at first, is kinda of delightful, but after about two floors the sameness rubs off really quickly. I understand that creating enough content to make randomly generated dungeons thoroughly interesting throughout is an incredible task. But maybe that's why randomly generated content doesn't belong in a series, by a developer, known so fondly for its impeccable attention to detail. And then to dump quite a bit of lore down there is just insulting. The idea of chalice dungeons is fine, from both a gameplay and a story perspective, but they just missed the mark. (I must note this was written before playing that patch that "fixed" a lot about the chalice dungeons, but with the limited amount I have spent back down there since my impression has not improved.)

Hands down the biggest disappointment to be found in Bloodborne is the severe drought of NPC's, or side stories. These are things that gave the prior Souls game's their soul. The foundation is perfect, the vague stories are dark and intriguing, but the side stories are where the personality of the game itself can be found. The queer humor, the sad tales, the jolly cooperation. Key elements that really pull you into the game. Bloodborne so barely scratches the surface of this aspect that it comes across as insulting. There are three NPC types in this game, NPC's you send away, NPC's who want so badly to run a covenant (a mechanic from Dark Souls 1 and 2) and just regular NPC's. There are two places you can send various NPC's early in the game, so they can avoid the madness. The plot here is that one of them is good and one is bad, and depending on what you do these people live. In typical Souls fashion, even if you do keep them all alive, they manage to go insane and have terrible things happen to you. You'll find the Lautrec wannabe in this group. I just want to say, there is an instance of basically body snatching involving aliens, while this is a neato reference to a classic movie, it just feels really odd. More so because while the game never overtly informs you of what happened, it is blatantly obvious something strange has happened. The three NPC's who have the most development are the ones linked to Oaths, this games sad attempt at covenants. All of the Oaths are highly underdeveloped. Due to the nature of talking about their stories I kind of spoil things, so skip the next paragraph if you're into secrecy!

Eileen the Crow runs the Hunter of Hunters, as the title suggests you run into her at various times and help her slay two hunters who have succumb to beasthood. Afterwards she gives you a Caryll Rune (essentially this games rings), and then promptly vanishes from the world. Her Oath does nothing for you when you're "in" it. Alfred meanwhile is on a quest to finish what his predecessor set out to do, becoming a martyr in the promise (or so sayeth his title). Apparently there were vampires in this land, called vilebloods, and Alfie's mentor slew almost all of them. You talk to him a couple of times, and finally find his mentor as an optional boss. After going through the only illusory wall (outside of chalice dungeons at least) you discover Annalise the last of the vilebloods. If you tell Alfred about this, he destroys her, then you find him dead elsewhere. No explanation, maybe he wanted to "martyrize" himself? Maybe he got ganked? Doesn't matter. Annalise on the other hand can be brought back to life by beating another unrelated optional boss you can bring her guts to an altar which reverse her timeline (???). Upon visiting her she doesn't mention anything about being brutally slaughtered. She's the only Oath giver that interacts with players, upon bringing her an item you can earn in PVP while under he Oath she will reward the first time, and that is apparently it. Her, and Alfred's Oaths are in opposition, and during PVP if summoning each other without a password will become hostile no matter what. It doesn't work because there is no reward, literally, for one side, and only one reward for the other faction.

Sorry about that, no more spoilers! The lacking characters, side stories and Oaths really make me think this game was rushed, ambitious ideas that just didn't have room to come to fruition. I don't know it baffles me. While I love the majority of this game, some of these issues are so glaringly obvious that I'm simply not drawn into the "post-game content" of chalice dungeons or new game+. By the way, new game+ is pointless this time around, no additional enemies, just massively pumped up enemy health, and attack. After a point it becomes ridiculous, and instead of difficult but fair, just simply unfair. Aka, unenjoyable.

Several smaller issues persist throughout the experience as well. While not quite as lacking as the weapon selection, the armor is still fairly limited. It doesn't help when a lot of the armor is just slight alterations of earlier armor. At least there are quite a few pretty good looking sets, keeping the tradition of Fashion Souls alive. Another aspect I realized was how quick of an experience Bloodborne is, and how limited in size Yharnam really is. It does take place in and around one city, with some exceptions, and I haven't done any actual looking into it, but the map feels small. Like I said earlier, it is all mostly well designed, but it feels like there should be more. A long standing tradition of Souls games is having a magic system, and while Bloodborne delivers, it sure doesn't meet any sort of standard. My only experience is per-patch, wherein they made the spells more effective, and easier to cast, so maybe everything is hunky dory, though I doubt it. Magic uses up blood bullets, which you can only have twenty of, basically, there are very few spells, and they don't start showing up until a decent way through. Dedicating your character to the Arcane stat to be able to cast the really impressive stuff just seems like a bad idea as they will wind up being pretty under powered. On the hand, levels aren't terribly difficult to come across, so maybe dumping into that stat late game wouldn't be so bad? Speaking of stats, one seems to be absent. The plague of beasts is what is tearing Yharnam apart, and it affects all men. You even have a "beast" stat. Multiple items refer to a beast transformation. Yet there is no such thing. This is an awkward complaint, because it isn't essential, but it is so heavily implied and would just be plain awesome. Like a kind of reverse humanity system? Sad missed opportunity.

With all that being said, I still absolutely love Bloodborne, it has a lot of problems, and honestly I'm not sure where it stands in my rankings of the Souls series (well, really is this or Souls II last place). The biggest disappointment for me, is how limited the game feels upon replaying it. New Game+ is, for me, completely out of the picture based on my experience and second hand accounts. I have a skill based character who a decent ways in, but as of yet I haven't been too interested in touching the game again. I'm sure with time I'll eventually earn each of the endings, but for now I'm content with my memories of the game. Hopefully the announced expansion will be sizable, answer some questions, and maybe even fix some of the bigger problems with the game overall. Who can really imagine the depths of From Soft's depravity?