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I might be a little biased here, but this game has all of the things I love wrapped up into a nice little package and I would argue that it will go down in history as one of the best games ever made.

Also, I like to pronounce it "bloodborny" just because it pisses my girlfriend off.

The reasons for this:

1: It is made by From Software, famous for the Demon Souls and Dark Souls games. These people made the King's Feild games back in the early PS1 days. All of these games are very unforgiving and difficult. To be honest, King's Feild was a pretty shitty series for many reasons and I would argue the same with the Soul games for various reasons. The Souls games focused more on defensive play whereas Bloodborne requires you to be aggressive. It feels very similar to Ninja Gaiden from Team Ninja in this sense and is even more difficult. The first few hours of playing Bloodborne might force some people into a rage fit and a thrown controller; however, once you "get it" you will realize how ingenious the gameplay risk/reward system works. Again very similar to Ninja Gaiden. From Software really turned it up to 11 with Bloodborne.

2: The art direction is amazing. It has a very strange gothic horror/ Lovecraftian theme in everything from environment art to enemy design and is extremely well done. It has some Christian/Catholic overtones mixed in too, but it is not overdone or offensive.

3: The level design is very Metriodvanian. Every part of the game connects back to previous sections in multiple ways and always makes it interesting to go back and visit previous places to see how they have changed or how they all flow together in strange ways. The game itself changes at three different phases. It starts off at dusk then after killing one boss it turns to night and new enemies appear and the same thing happens again after killing another boss with a blood moon appearing. Byzantine would be the best way to describe the level design.

4: This game is very obtuse/obscure. This adds a layer of mystery to both the story and the core game design. It feels like an old NES game like Faxandu/ Milon's Secret Castle ect. It does not hold your hand and basically you are placed into a strange (very hard) world with no context and this really contributes to the creepiness factor almost giving it a survival horror feel (this is especially true due to the difficulty and a constant fear of dying very easily to everything around the corner or to each new enemy introduced).

5: The boss fights are great fun. Every boss fight is unique and you never know what to expect going in. I admit some are a little too "cheesable", but the variation for each fight makes each boss a fun experience. These bosses get a lot more challenging after starting to do the Chalice Dungeons late in the game or in New Game plus; these are procedurally generated dungeons that are by far the most difficult areas of the game.

6: The secrets. Anyone remember having to kneel with the crystal at the lake in Simon's Quest to proceed? Did anyone ever find out how to do so without reading a Nintendo Power? Well there are several such instances in this game. Even with the Internet and the combined knowladge of hundreds of thousands of people playing this game I still find it fascinating that people have found some of the secret areas and bosses so quickly after release.

7: The story. I can't help but feel like David Lynch channelled Lovecraft from beyond the grave to write the story for Bloodborne. Even after beating the game there are several questions that are only answered by diving deeper and deeper into the hidden parts of the game, but even that really doesn't give you a clear understanding of what the hell just happened. This also adds to the creepiness. Don't want to spoil anything but whores, virgin births, infanticide, priests who sleep with said whores, Lovecraftian old gods, creatures from outer space and dreams vs reality all fit into a very odd story. Truthfully I still don't think anyone really knows what the fuck is going on, but in a good way (DLC please).

Anyways, buy this game if you have a PS4. If you don't have a PS4, then buy a PS4 and Bloodborne. instant classic...

TLDR: My favorite games: Castlevania SOTN (Favorite series), Super Metriod, Chrono Trigger, FFVI ect. Dare I say, Bloodborne might be at the top of the list.

I rarely play through any game fully or attempt getting all the achievements/trophies these days and most games just sit on my shelf after a few hours. This game is an exception. I am very close to getting platinumed. =)

Currently Streaming on Twitch @ http://secure.twitch.tv/probable_muppet/mobile when playing. Got to get those last few trophies...

The-Excel wrote:

I tried Dark Souls and I just can't find the appeal in it. Sure, it's hard and punishing and all that, but I never once felt really rewarded for getting past a difficult area, or worse, stumbling into a zone I wasn't supposed to yet and getting ripped apart in seconds. It seems that for hours at a time you walk forward a little, die, respawn at campfire, repeat until you eventually get another and once you do find a way to get past enemy waves, you repeat it over and over and try to lose less life next time. It's trial and error gameplay at its worst and I'm baffled anyone can see otherwise. If I want unforgiving, unfair difficulty I would rather play a roguelike. At least I don't have to see the same numbing scenery and enemy placements every single run and I get opportunities for improvisation rather than brute forcing for solutions.

This is exactly the issue I have with the Souls games that I sort of eluded to in my post above. I feel like most of the game is walking slowly in ridiculously clunky armor and combat is basically blocking and waiting to cautiously attack. Bloodborne is exactly the opposite of this.

Again it is very similar to Ninja Gaiden from Team Ninja. The first couple (few) hours of Ninja Gaiden are quite difficult. I worked at a video game store when that came out and would put it into the demo unit just to amuse myself. Some people would spend hours standing at the thing just trying to get through the first level with many four letter words being shouted upon each death. However, once you get the mechanics down and you start to get it you are in the zone and feel like well, a ninja...

There are still some pretty hard walls in that game. A certain boss is infamously difficult and the Black Spider Ninja Clan will fuck you up fast if you don't know what your doing by the time you reach them.

There is going to be memorization of enemy placement ect. in most games. In Bloodborne this is not necessary the case, exactly like Ninja Gaiden, eventually you will start to naturally respond to each encounter. When I first started playing the game I played it like a Souls game and played cautious and defensive. Big mistake. This game rewards fast paced aggressive "balls to the wall" behavior. It is hard to explain without seeing it in action but in Bloodborne there is a system in place were you have an opportunity to regenerate lost health by attacking back within a short window. This is a major change from the Souls series and one of the best things about the game. This allows you to survive going blindly into a new area or new enemy encounter by not knowing enemy placement but how to respond properly. Even the defense mechanic (rolling, dodging) is aggressive in its own way. It's extremely fast paced and fun. I cannot say the same about the Souls games (well not true, I like these games but they are an acquired taste for sure).

I sort of feel like From Software fans got trolled and just expected a Souls game with a different name. There are many similarities but this is a totally different experience and a pleasantly surprising one. First starting the game, I died within minutes trying to kill just one or two of the starting enemies. I find it interesting that when making a new character I can now mow down dozens of enemies at a time and not die for over two hours and down the first five or six "hard" bosses. There is something to be said about how it is possible to beat the same game in under 5 hours after your initial play-thru was closer to 40 hours; this is the definition of good game design IMO.

Not to mention NG+ or the procedurally generated dungeons where rote memorization is all but impossible. It feels very rewarding and this is no Souls game, it is much closer to the Ninja Gaiden reboot.

I also have to mention that the art direction really bleeds into the gameplay. I have never seen anything like this before. Everything from the little details in level design visual cues, enemy animations and their models telegraph how you should respond without you even knowing it. The closest any other game has done to this is Half Life 2.

Really well made game. The only thing that is really punishing are the loading times in this game; not rote memorization. My solution to this problem is don't die.

This video review does a pretty good job of illustrating the above:

http://www.gametrailers.com/reviews/zeq6tw/bloodborne-review

Edit: Agree with you about the numbing scenery is Souls, very bland run of the mill/generic fantasy aesthetic. Not the case in Bloodborne.

JoshWoodzy wrote:

Looks kinda generic aesthetic wise, though I've heard the gameplay is groovy.

This is why I said I may be a little biased. I love the Victorian/Gothic setting and I prefer it over mid evil generic blah blah Souls games. Castlevania being my favorite series may have something to do with this. However, there are games on the PS4 that make this game look a generation older that don't hold a candle to how well this game uses its art direction to fuck with you and subconsciously lead at the same time. It's very subtle.

Syd Lexia wrote:

JoshWoodzy wrote: Looks kinda generic aesthetic wise, though I've heard the gameplay is groovy. I feel exactly this way. The game looks like about 15,000 other AAA releases. People keep insisting it's really good though, so it probably is. I plan on picking up a PS4 at some point in the future, two years from now at the earliest. I will definitely play this game at that point. But I am not so impressed that I will expedite my plans.

Again, I have a thing for this motif. However, I believe at the very least it is an improvement over the the previous Form Software titles. They have been sticking with the same fantasy setting for over two decades. I think it's nice they made a change. It is a great game. Also, of course it looks like a current generation AAA, how could it not and how does this make it bad? Castlvania/Lovecraft has been done before yes but so has everything else. It's preference, I just really like this setting. Name another current generation game that uses the same motif with art direction. I can think of only one.

I am a little bit livid at the moment because I just lost about 20 hours of gameplay to Sony's cloud system when I was fifteen minutes from platinumed in one of the hardest games of this generation. Therefore, it is on the shelf for a while until I have the time and patience to redo everything I lost to this bug.

Despite any issue you might have with the way it looks it is more important about how the game is designed and plays.

JoshWoodzy wrote:

I was mostly saying how it's just drab and grimdark looking like many other titles, I think that's what Syd meant to. It's definitely a preference thing, lots of people like that look and that's fine, I do too sometimes. Reminds me of a souped up Nightmare Creatures with it's gothic setting and creepy monsters. I didn't care for Demon/Dark Souls though so I probably won't enjoy this too much, but I can appreciate it.

I understand it's preference. Not saying otherwise.

Some people hate the grimdark thing, I get tired of it myself. However, it is a horror game so it's kind of hard to avoid this no? It's not like you could dress Lovecraftian horrors up in bright pretty colors.

Funny that you mentioned Nightmare Creatures. I thought the same after seeing trailers/footage for the game.

This is intersting:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/bloodborne-exploit-found-to-significantly-lower-di/1100-6426458/

Bloodborne "bug" that makes the game easier the longer you play it. Originally attributed to a memory leak, this is not possible.

To paraphrase, if you play the game longer than 12 hours the bosses start to not use some of their more brutal abilities.

The longest I have played the game was about six hours or so attempting to beat a single boss in one of the hardest chalice dungeons. The Firebeast shown in the picture at the bottom of the page. It really throws you a curveball at this point in the game and requires a lot of patience and you to play very defensively. The opposite of every other boss in the game as you need to be aggressive not defensive in general. When I finally downed this boss it was very rewarding even though the next day was pretty miserable due to lack of sleep. =).

Again, most games I buy I play for maybe a few hours at the most. I just don't have time for playing many games anymore. However, being obsessed with this game I did spend six hours and a sleepless night before finally downing this boss. All other bosses I downed pretty quickly, including the "harder" bosses that proceed the Firebeast.

This is not a bug. This is From Software's way of throwing the player a bone after spending some 12 hours attempting a single boss and realistically at this point that player is probably raging pretty hard and screaming a number of four letter words after each attempt. I can relate because fuck you fire dog...

I usually have a problem with this. In the case of a From Software title as hard as this game gets the deeper you go, I sort of appreciate their forgiveness to that poor player trying to down a boss after 12 hours of attempting it over and over again.

It's just unfortunate that it appears to be exploited. It will most likely be patched out within days but will remain in some form after patched. The example videos in the link of Legorias, he appears to be extremely neutered. That is a little too easy as it appears he losses all of his abilities. That's going a little too far...

No, I am not going to STFU about Bloodborne.

I have never had so much fun screaming four letter words as I have had in the last two weeks playing this game. At the same time I am pissed off about how much time and sleep this game has deprived me of, but also saddened by the fact that it is over (well sort of there are a number of unanswered questions and secrets others and myself are still obsessing over).

This game is nothing short of brilliance. Never has a game came closer to the feelings I had when getting my NES for Christmas and playing Super Mario Bros. for the first time back when I was seven years old. It is that good. I remember raising the controller in the air in attempts to get Mario to jump when playing Super Mario Bros. as my first game (don't lie, you did this too). I found myself doing the same playing Bloodborne with little to no sleep many times.

I am trying to not be biased, but I honestly can't find anything wrong with this game and I am also saddened because I fear that nothing will come close to being as immersive and groundbreaking for a long time to come. Many people appear to feel the same way.

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/240839/Bloodborne_You_are_the_experience_points.php

It is a long read but...

Even if you hate these types of games, or have had some bad experiences with the Souls games or whatever, this game is worth a second look/chance.

This by far the best game I have ever played. It is chess (or MTG with a chess timer) ramped up to crazy. I am baffled by how calculated and meticulously designed this game is and how it is an actual thing. Fuck you From Software, you won...

http://boingboing.net/2015/04/10/bloodborne.html

"Was Bloodborne "punishing"? Absolutely. But that's a loaded word, and one that too often gets conflated with the idea of pain for pain's sake. In an ideal world, punishment isn't intended to manipulate or harm, but to instruct. Failure isn't a prison cell in Bloodborne; it's a classroom, and like any teacher that's tough but fair, it's not giving you difficult assignments because it wants you to fail; it's doing it because it knows you can succeed.

It's not a sadistic game, and you don't have to be a masochist to like it. Not everyone will, of course, and not everyone needs to. But I fell in love with Bloodborne, not because it hurt me but because the more effort I put into it, the stronger and better I felt. Despite being laborious, scary and often grotesque, it was its own sort of fantasy for me, a perfect ecosystem of intense effort and almost sublime reward.

When I really thought about it, that was the answer to the question; the difference between perseverance and masochism is the difference between building up and breaking down, between holding out for something that's worth the effort or abandoning a sinking ship.

What Bloodborne offered was what I'd always really wanted from the jobs, the people, the places I had found it so difficult to quit, the bottomless maws of time and energy that took everything, and gave nothing back. It was what I believed they could be, if I only tried harder, believed more, and just kept on grinding. But it wasn't that I failed at them; it was that they had failed me.

They were just shitty games, I realized suddenly. I should have quit all of them a lot sooner. There are just so many better games to play."