Gamersledge Review: Bloodborne (PS4)

by John O’ Callaghan / NewGithiun

Introduction:

Welcome to the world of Bloodborne where death, frustration, more death and even some real world destruction from fits of rage may occur. From the developers at From Software and the direction of Hidetaka Miyazaki, Bloodborne is the spiritual successor to the Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls franchise; but not truly a sequel. This new iteration gives a fresh and much faster-paced feel where offense is the only defense. Being a veteran of the entire soul’s series, I was confident coming in that I would just destroy the first area of the game and really experience little to no learning curve — I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Looking back, the game really isn’t that difficult; but the learning curve was extreme to start with. Overly aggressive and mostly sloppy game play was punished, severely. This could be interpreted as difficult — but this game series, and especially Bloodborne, shows you that blind aggressive tactics will not be met with kindly.  It will force you to be more strategic, but still keep you in a fast-paced and offensive mind set. Bloodborne: not for the faint of heart or the easily enraged. You have been warned!

Gameplay:

Similar play style to the Soul’s games, Bloodborne is a brutally fast action RPG with an emphasis on strategy and tactics. Choosing an appropriate weapon for your preferred play style is an absolute must. Even the beginning area requires you to learn, understand and even anticipate your enemy in order to survive. As a veteran of the Souls series, I tried to adopt a similar play style to what I was used to and was met with cruel and brutal deaths. It wasn’t easy acclimating to the different styles and vocabulary that Bloodborne demanded. This true successor to the Souls series with several new mechanics, weapon modes and styling make the learning curve tough.

Bloodborne implemented a new parry system by adding the use of a one handed pistol. These guns have low damage capabilities, but will allow for breaking attack combos and stunning your enemy. Stunned enemies are left open to a visceral attack which is an increased damage, critical attack. Each enemy has a different hit box, timing aspect and stun probability. In theory this new mechanic can seem great, fresh and fun but has caused more than a few deaths and countless near misses due to timing problems.  I did not like it because I felt it was extremely unreliable.

There are not as many unique weapons as previous Souls games, but with the transformation capabilities of each weapon there are more than enough weapons to suit anyone’s play style. Each weapon has both a 1 handed attack mode and a “transformed” mode which can be either a heavier 1-hander or full fledged 2-hander. From Software did an amazing job making the transformation between weapon modes fluid and even allow for combo attack integration between modes. This is probably one of my favorite changes to the series. I enjoyed the fresh new upgrade methods introduced in Bloodborne. Traditional player level increases and weapon upgrades are a main staple of the series, but now you have an opportunity to attach gems and runes to your weapons and character. This allows you to change your weapon in the main hub to suit your combat needs for the upcoming area.

I’m torn with the lack of build varieties and over all statistics in Bloodborne. With previous Souls games you were thrown into the game with a long page of various stats that you generally had no clue what they did or how they would affect your gameplay. For a new player to the game series this causes a sense of insecurity and loss to how to allocate those stat points or when to switch. This also provides an in-depth and complex character build potential that is not present in Bloodborne. With only a total of six attributes to put points towards, there really is no complexity given. Start dropping points into Vitality, Endurance and the primary stat of the weapon you chose to start with and you’re done. I understand this lets more people enjoy the experience at the start of the game but at what cost? Will you want to re-roll just to try a different build type, or maybe two to three build types? It seems doubtful.

I’ve always loved the multiplayer apects of the Souls games. So when I heard that not only would I be able to easily play with multiple people off my friends list AND they added a procedurally generated multiplayer dungeon, I was on Cloud 9. Similar to the previous games’ multiplayer and yet very different, From Software fails miserably to elaborate on how to access its multiplayer features. Day one gamer’s spent hours trying to figure out how to group with their friends only to realize there is another item, some what hidden, that is required for joining friends. This caused many of us, myself included, to waste precious resources early on in the game for absolutely no reason.

Something new that caught me off guard was the forced PVP in certain areas. In past games you were able to avoid PVP, invasions as it’s known in game, by avoiding certain game mechanics. This time, we were introduced to a bell ringer in certain areas that would allow people to invade your game regardless of you wanting PVP or not. You could seek out the bell ringer to end her life and stop invasions but this usually requires a fair amount of map travel or hunting for her location. Many times I was caught off guard in the middle of a normal fight, just to be jumped from behind by an invader. I like PVP as much as the next player but not when I’m forced. Nothing worse than losing 100,000 echoes because someone jumps me while I’m in a fight.

Presentation:
Welcome to one bloody and extremely creepy nightmarish world! Based in a Gothic Victorian time period, each area of the map is unique, beautiful, expansive and ultimately very creepy. Whomever dreamt up some of the creatures in this game needs to seek serious mental help. The world is very dark and continually gives you the tone of sadness and despair, both with the atmosphere of your surroundings and from its occupants. The overall graphic quality is pretty top notch but every now and then I would spot how something in the environment that looked out of place or just noticeably low quality which took me out of the moment. Certain aspects of the visuals are amazingly high quality and realistic while certain things seemed overlooked or just neglected.

If you’re an ambiance kind of person, wow! The soundtrack of this game is amazing — from the little noises of going through grass to the demonic chanting. The cries of a baby in the night and the wails of a bell ringer; the sound of this game is truly epic. Turn the lights down and put on a good set of surround sound headphones and you’ll be looking over your shoulder every few seconds.

There are a lot of things in the game that you can interact with and break but it can be difficult to tell at first what is breakable and what isn’t. I would have liked to see more areas to interact with, hidden passages and more breakables but it doesn’t detract greatly from the experience.

The levels are expansive, sometimes too complex and confusing, but generally follow a good path and can be memorized with a few runs of the area. They do a better job at allowing for short cuts than the previous games, which is really helpful and eliminates the having to wade through countless enemies that you’ve already killed 100 times before.

Story:

Even though it was expected, I was disappointed with the lack of a focused and direct story line. As with previous Souls games you get the basic gist of what’s going on to get you moving but you have no idea why. You find yourself lying on a table as an ‘outsider’ being prepared to receive a blood transfusion. An outsider coming into a land of death and despair only to be given blood of the locals to become a hunter. Why? How? Who? This is the traditional style of story telling with the Souls games and as I said, expected but I was hoping for more. Bloodborne was looked at as a way to improve upon all things of previous iterations and the story telling would have been on the top of my list to update and improve.

It’ll be up to you to dive into the story by scouring the maps for NPC’s, having conversations with them and pulling out the information you want/need to understand the story. Honestly if you play straight through the game without actually trying to get more information about the story, you will probably have no idea why you’re doing any of it. For some, this may be fine but for others who need something to drive them you’ll need t probe a little further and explore each NPC’s “talk” option and item descriptions.

Summary and Verdict:

I’m giving the game a 8.5/10. Albeit an amazing game and one that shines in so many areas, it manages to fall flat in a few as well. Beautiful graphics, amazingly fast paced combat and a truly successful addition to the Souls game series.

Lack of a story line that is reasonably easy to follow, horribly long load times, hit or miss multiplayer with friends, and a too-simplistic character build format hold this back from being a solid 9/10.

Whether you’re a veteran of the Souls games or first timer jumping into the fight, Bloodborne is definitely a must buy!