Bloodborne

Introduction: It was an inevitability that I would eventually play this game, whether through the Dark Souls franchise or through its Lovecraftian influence and cosmic Victorian horror. Bloodborne had been on my radar for some time but never got around to it because Sony needed their bloody (pun intended) exclusive. And now that I’ve taken my time in getting to it, I could play it without the hype or distractions, and you know what? I quite enjoyed myself.

Gameplay: Bloodborne’s mechanics on the surface are quite similar to that of Dark Souls: dodging is key to survival, Estus is now Blood Vials, and other thesaurus swaps for items, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Why some things are basically renamed, they are used in slightly different ways, and these small changes make the game what it is. The other larger change is the lack of shields, instead, you are given the choice of a pistol or a rifle. Your primary weapon also has two modes, well, depending on the weapon really, but this adds another layer of complexity and nuance to how combat is approached in the game. Compared to Dark Souls 1 & 2, Bloodborne is very fluid once you get a hold of the controls. Yes, you’re still dodging attacks, but knowing when to let out a shot from your firearm could be the difference between life and death, as I found myself using it as a means to reorientate myself in a particularly fierce encounter.

That said, Bloodborne’s level design is far more consistent and compact as compared to other games, as structures weave in and out of each other, interconnecting different areas of a city like an old medieval kingdom with cramped streets and alleyways complete with the diseased and the dying around every corner. And while it’s all impressive to see FromSoftware’s growth in level design, the compact nature of Yharnam and its surrounding areas make it feel a lot smaller than it really is. If anything, it’s more like Dark Souls 1 & 3, taking place in a single zone that turns in on itself from time to time.

My only other complaint with the game was that it was the most hands-free storytelling I’ve encountered. It’s nothing new with this studio, but I felt like a majority of the story was being told through the item descriptions (maybe that’s why the loading times were so long?) and felt like I was left out of major plot points just because I didn’t catch one thing or another, and while Dark Souls had the same approach, there were far more interactions with NPCs that filled in the story or at least lore of the area to help build a picture or tell you what your role is in all of it. If anything, the Hunter’s Dream where you spend your time upgrading your items and self should be a prime location to read up or listen to lore and those things. Maybe there were plans for it, but couldn’t make it because of the PS4’s limitation? Who knows, and to some people, who cares?

Aside from these, the bare bones of the game follow its spiritual predecessors with enhancements and other resources that can make the game easier or tolerable, but not guaranteed to actually do that. A majority of the game still relies on “git gud” by learning enemy movements and attacks, paying attention to the environment, and experimenting with your own character with their arsenal.

Audio: From the jarring music to the twisted ambiance of Yharnam and its surroundings, sound plays a vital role in telling the story of Bloodborne. While there are moments of silence, the world is alive from the cries of citizens hiding in their homes waiting for the nightmare to end to the cries of the denizens and infected as you slice away their last sliver of life, calling you a cursed beast: from Hell’s depths I stab at thee.

The one thing that separates Bloodborne from its predecessors when it comes to sound is how much more organic everything is. Dark Souls in a lot of ways is unnatural, the unending death of the world that is meant to end, if not now then later. Bloodborne on the other hand is alive, fluids pouring between crevices, creatures moaning in agony or lust or both, flesh forming and reforming into something more hideous than before, beings beyond belief just around the bend, just out of sight, just outside your vision, patiently watching you make a foolish mistake time and time and time again.

With all of this organicness slithering through the streets offers one of my favorite parts of the game: the dichotomy between what you hear and the source of that sound. A prime example of this is the Winter Lantern foe:

It’s a strangely harmonious melody, almost sorrowful and longing for something once had but now lost, and the first time you hear this is long before you see its source:

This creature easily became my favorite in the game just because you often heard it long before you saw it, and because of that, you already knew what to do: avoid it or avoid it at all damn costs.

Visuals: Oh gods – why are there so many eyes? By the Old Ones — WHY ARE THERE SO MANY MØŪŦɧŞ!? Bloodborne has obvious and not so obvious Lovecraftian influences without directly naming anything specific, save for the term “Old Ones” or Elder this-and-that. It would be easy to say that the asymmetrical nature of certain enemies is there just to mix things up, but I, for one, really welcomed their appearance, especially in the Nightmare Frontier area, where things get thrown upside down visually. The DLC, admittedly I did not finish, continues this trend of eldritch horrors and body mutilation to an even greater degree, and arguably tells a better story than the base game. It’s also quite obvious where Dark Souls 3 got most of its visual inspiration from for better or worse.

Content: Bloodborne came abruptly closed to me. It’s the shortest time I have spent with a FromSoftware game (at the typing of this, I’ve only spent 22 hours in Sekiro and I’m told that it’s even shorter than Bloodborne), but that’s not to say there isn’t much to explore. Yharnam is a dense, complex, interweaving place that twists and turns in and on itself like a knotted tree trying to hold itself up by growing its trunk around its base and working upwards. Taking a straightforward approach will garner a quick end, but the sheer amount of stuff in a small location is staggering, yet to find it all requires a lot of backtracking, over and over certain areas after certain events. Visiting, revisiting, and revisiting once more may or may not show something new, opening a place you couldn’t reach before. I’m absolutely sure I would have spent 70+ hours on my first playthrough had I not gotten frustrated at a certain DLC boss.

Story: Hidetaka Miyazaki is known for his vague storytelling that is mysterious, intriguing, and ambitious. Having played through the Dark Souls trilogy back to back, I was able to gather the general story of each game. If I wanted more specifics, I’d ask the experts, but when it came to Bloodborne, things felt even more vague than usual. As I progressed through the game, I didn’t feel like the story was going anywhere. A small dialogue or cutscene would happen here and there, but it still didn’t explain anything, but maybe that’s the point? That this eternal looping nightmare cannot be ended. Even then, it doesn’t feel that way while playing, even the ending didn’t feel like an ending.

Multiplayer: Bloodborne has those classic FromSoftware Souls multiplayer invader/summon a helper mechanic, though I didn’t really run into many others. I even paid for PS+ just to experience the online features that come free on PC gaming, but that’s a different story. Most of this is due to the fact that not as many players are playing the game these days as during its launch, a major downside to my style of gaming: playing when I get to it years later.

Design: While I’ve been playing FromSoftwar’s game somewhat out of order, Bloodborne definitely stands as one of their best-designed games, from aesthetics, cohesive themes, and level design. This easily could have been like Dark Souls 1, but instead, it flows and encourages exploration and revisitation of certain areas. It also feels oddly alive, with the audio ambiance to the way things move in both the foreground and background. I just kinda wish the NPCs gave out more lore or random gossip.

Performance: I played Bloodborne on a 500GB PS4 standard edition. Loading times still feel like they take a long time, and I’ve been told they used to be worse. When’s the PC release coming?

Verdict: It was one of a handful of games that made me want to get a PS4 just so I could play it and not because of the PS4. Exclusivity means absolutely nothing these days outside of one company owning a title that the other doesn’t. To me, it makes more sense to release an exclusive game on a console and PC, not just because I’m primarily a PC gamer, but to showcase the full potential of a game, and Bloodborne is one of those games that could really spread its horrific eldritch wings across many games on PC.

That all said, Bloodborne is a solid game from start to finish minus certain creative road bumps and I might replay it when the real version comes out on Steam.