BLOODBORNE given Feb '15 Euro/NA release date, deemed worthy of own thread by ilxor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pz_T6Kog6k

When you accidentally click on the New York Times crossword puzzle thread thinking it is the Bloodborne thread and for 30 seconds wonder what the fuck you've missed...

I thought this game was “not for me” but now I realized I was dead wrong

After several years of From immersion I think this might be the pinnacle of their achievements in terms of streamlined combat brilliance and inventory inside baseball

I remember thinking the Chalice Dungeons were “an unfortunate misstep” insofar as they felt like a bland matzo ball occupying an enormous footprint of the game soup

But now that I realize that “they’re for farming” (and Elden Ring taught me that “farming is fun”) my entire outlook on them has changed

They’re far too obscurantist in their execution— even their nomenclature is ridiculously confusing. That said, the fact that “you can’t share items over PvP” means that instead, to hyper power your weapons, you have to spend a lot of time reading spreadsheets? and building random dungeons and rushing through them to murder an overpowered boss? It’s… amazing. This is so fun. It’s like the “boss rush” concept crossed with “the collector bug” and it is pushing all the right buttons for me, this week

Mad coming back to this now that I've beaten Elden Ring, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.

No wonder I found it so tough as my introduction to the genre. Even for a Souls game it is extremely SCARY and ARCANE and STRESSFUL.

One thing it does, which Elden Ring doesn't, is that it assumes a lot of prior knowledge from the player, so I assume Miyazaki had experienced Souls fans in mind when he made it. As such I would never recommend it as a first Souls game

My order was (I think) DS1, DS3, BB, DS2, ER, Demons. Maybe I did BB second? I wonder what it would be like to go back after playing the two most recent and best optimized Souls/From fantasy games most recently. Would DS and BB seem too janky? Somehow I kind of doubt it, the jankiness has always been a feature, not a bug.

I went back to my early posts in this thread - there was so much ILG co-op happening!

My order was BB, ER, Demons, DS1.

I haven't fully completed BB but in retrospect I had no idea what I was doing. I was pretty much winging it and/or following a YouTube playthrough.

In fact I don't think I really fully clicked into the whoel logic and nature of these games until I watched a lore video about Magma Mansion in ER and then I was like: "AHAAaa! So you have to read the item descriptions and observe the environment, I see!!!" - also: learning about different builds took a long time to click.

I'd be forgiven: Bloodborne diverges from other Soulsborne games in that there are fewer items, fewer item descriptions, and the scenery is so dense with "cool scary shit" that the environmental storytelling and character-build aspects are far less obvious. It's not like you can really specialise in a class in Bloodborne in the same way as the other games; I mean, I know you COULD do a bloodtinge build, but why?

Demon's Souls seemed a lot better for all this, I felt. The story felt less obfuscated and it seemed easier to diversify into different classes. I really really love Demon's Souls Remake - it's easily my favourite after ER - just a joy.

Dark Souls 1 doesn't feel "jank" at all, but it has a patina of grime over it that the other games don't and some of the environments can suddenly grow really dark for some reason, like you're looking through a phone camera lense with a dodgy aperture. I enjoyed it to an extent, but in the same way as eating a very boney piece of fish is enjoyable - you have to know what you're doing to get "pleasure" out of it or else it's very annoying and tough.

I am very tempted by DS2. I hear such wildly mixed reviews of it, but I feel I should at least give it a fair trial. Having played maybe just an hour or two of it so far my impression is that it's a bit janky compared to all the others. Would be brilliant if they did a Bluepoint remake of it

I think I followed the EpicNameBro YouTube walkthrough, and it was illuminating. So many tiny details I would have missed, like slight story driven details that change in the background. His was a really good balance of gameplay and lore. Usually I don't care about the lore, but I really liked it in this particular game.

I would love to see a ground-up DS2 remake using the art style/animations/engine of more recent From games.

I guess the catch is that game has more or less been remade once already, hasn't it? Sort of?

In 2011 I watched my neighbour play DS1 and was impressed. In 2019 I got the Switch version and played through and was perplexed and addicted.

In 2020 I got a PS4 and replayed DS1 and it made more sense the second time. Then I played BB and followed some recommendations and guides and basically hit a wall around Ludwig/Maria, I thought Chalice Dungeons were dumb and not what I liked about From games— the exposition of the environments and immense detail.

Then DS3, and thought it was “the best game I’ve ever played”. I played about four hours of DS2 and said “naw” and haven’t looked back.

Elden Ring came out and I lost a year of my life to it. (Sekiro is too hard for me). Then I came back to Bloodborne. The Chalice Dungeons made sense to me now. I got really into gem diving, I killed probably a hundred Pthumerian Descendents this time last year. Kitted out all my weapons with 20 level gems.

Aside from Baldur’s Gate this past fall for a couple weeks I am done with gaming, I think. Between the new Zelda and the forthcoming Elden Ring DLC I feel like I could lose another year to gaming. It’s too addictive!

I guess the catch is that game has more or less been remade once already, hasn't it? Sort of?

Scholar of the First Sin is more of a remix - enemies and items in different places, lots of red phantom npcs invading you. Something to shake things up for people who played the original version. Although I've seen people complaining that SotFS is the only version that's easily available now, and has become the default definitive version even though it's sort of a riff on the initial release?

Fgti I admire your resolve (although no shame if we see you back for the ER dlc, lol). In my life routine I can't really binge games anyway, I just play when on the exercise bike. And if I'm really obsessed with a new From game I'll get up early before work, and play on weekend afternoons instead of working on music. So far they've been polite about not releasing new games when I'm in the throes of mixing a record.

Arcane is a viable build in Bloodborne. You can do serious damage with some of those hunters’ tools like the Executioner Gloves etc. And the cap is 99 so you can keep pumping points into arcane and adding damage.

DS2 had Scholar of the First Sin but it wasn't a huge jump in quality or anything.

There are big calls to remake Bloodborne, mostly cos it's 30FPS, but I don't think it looks bad at all?
If I were in charge I'd maybe tone down some of the overall clutter, especially in places like Central Yarnham where the amount of coffins and other debris confuse my eyes a bit. It would be lovely to get some proper depth definition on that, really increase the atmosphere etc.

The fps discussion drives me insane. Sure, I can tell the difference now, but it doesn't matter once you start playing. Looks great, plays great.

I previously managed to get up to Micolash and Martyr Logarius in BB, both of which felt like walls, and then ER came out and it felt like a natural place to put it down.

I don't know whether to carry on with this playthrough and just beat it (I understand I'm fairly near the end game anyway); but I'm tempted to just start again from scratch, daunting as that is. I feel like I might gain a lot more from a second playthrough now that I know what I know.

yup, i don't get the FPS stuff either - I can barely tell

I could really do with mothballing my PS5 for a while. Gaming really has gone from being a casual hobby to a several-hours-a-week habit, and I find myself switching on the PS5 most nights by default as soon as I've finished dinner.

I shelled out for Ableton recently and I keep telling myself I need to get stuck into learning how to use it but Baldur's Gate beckoned every night and I haven't even used it yet!

Yeah, I got a Zoia. I have the same obsession going on that I had for games. Making synths that track with violin and guitar, making audio triggered synth drum sounds. I feel weirdly sheepish about how much of lockdown I spent playing From games. I’ll play Elden Ring DLC sometime but not this year I don’t think

I had a go at the Challice Dungeons last night in the hope I could get some upgrade materials and I'm afraid I don't really see the appeal. Maybe I don't really get what they're for other than grinding, which seems dull to me.

I made the mistake of ignoring them when I played the game, so that when I finally dipped in out of curiosity it was pretty silly, beating bosses in one hit or whatever.

It seems at first to be tedious in comparison to the main game, and it is, but the repetitiousness of it starts to appeal like “many hands of bridge” or “many crossword puzzles”. The bosses escalate in difficulty precipitously and become challenging/fun, the rewards are worth it, and once you get into the gem farming part of it it becomes extremely addictive

In a sentence: cursed blood gems offer a big upgrade and a minor debuff. They scale to impossibly high levels of power, and if you get one with an “easy curse” (ATK vs Kin down, or the minor stamina debuff) then stacking these gems makes for wonderful results.

You can also acquire upgrade materials (incl blood stone chunks) so any weapon you desire is maxed out. It’s definitely more of the code-divey “enjoy your combat” kind of play, but very much worth delving into.

The basic progression to attempt to murder the Pthumerian Queen is a big challenge and worth pursuing. You’ll have to fight a much upgraded Amygdala again which sucks but aside from that it’s very pure gaming enjoyment

I was after the Blood Stone Chunks in fact. Im not entirely sure I understand how the various rituals work. I have loads of the materials but I can only seem to create certain types or altar(?) or something(?) Eh...

Anyway, I seem to be doing this because I'm bouncing off both Logarius and Micolash. I think I can probably cheese Micolash but Logarius is NAILS. The other tough fight I can't do is that Cainhurst Crow NPC.

Is it fair to say that Bloodborne is maybe the hardest of the Soulsborne games overall? I haven't played DS2 enough to find out

DS2 has the annoying feature of tying iframes to a stat (adaptability), or at least it used to. So the early game was tough because you barely even have a functional roll, lol. But other than that I'm sure BB is tougher. But really it's just a question of getting used to the rhythms of each game, right?

I remember Logarius taking many tries. But Micolash is the gimmick boss who runs away from you, right?

Yeah that's right. My sense of direction is appalling so I end up running around the labyrinth house and getting decked by skellingtons a lot

It's worth learning about how Chalice Dungeon generation works so that you can generate any dungeon you desire. It is esoteric and confusing, I still don't fully understand it. Once you've unlocked the capacity to generate any possible dungeon, you can consult online databases of glyphs and find gems and items and armaments and anything you want. You'll also face some insanely hard enemies.

My last play through, I was focusing on an Arcane build. I had three weapons that I used. A fire-based Saw Spear, a bolt-based Saw-Cleaver, and a physical-based Church Pick. The best gems for these involved generating a cursed (you have half-health) 5-level root dungeon and descending down to the bottom and killing a Pthumerian Descendent. He would drop, usually, a level 19 or 20 gem; ideally, I wanted a level 20 "Cold Abyssal Cursed Blood Gem", one that paired maximum damage boost (either fire, bolt or physical) with a manageable curse (either stamina debuff, atk vs. kin down, or durability). There are many found glyphs that created optimal conditions for this endeavour, listed online. I would make it to the bottom, save outside the arena and killed him and save-scummed and reloaded and killed him again, over and over, until I got the gem I wanted. It was a highly enjoyable chore. I killed that Descendent 200 times at least. Immediately after getting my first useable Abyssal gem, my weapon went from flimsy to ironclad, and the game became much more manageable.

Cainhurst Crow NPC.

Oh shit, is this the one in the cathedral later? I don't think I ever bothered with him. Whatever guide I was following I think essentially warned that no matter how good or strong you are, it's basically a long slog of a fight.

Yeah, a crazy NPC who Eileen the Crow has trouble with (you meet her outside rather dishevelled). He heals constantly, has quickstep and I think has ranged attacks too