Bloodborne

Atomic Postman

Atomic Postman

Vault Archives Overseer
I've been playing Bloodborne since it released in the UK.

How's everyone finding it?

I think it's pretty amazing.

Graphically it's great, design wise it's great, gameplay wise it's good and the exploration is very fun and dense.

I'm also a fan of the lore/setting as well as it's lovecraftian influences and general themes of forbidden knowledge and madness. On the surface you think it's just about werewolves and plagues, but as you progress through the game...everything starts to go absolutely insane.

The insight system is also ingenious. For those who don't know:

"Insight" is gained from absorbing the forbidden knowledge of madmen,found in the form of skulls cracked open and leaking cosmic energy. As you increase your Insight level, the game gets harder as well as enemies gaining new attacks, but the setting begins to change and you start to see the "truth" as the influence of celestial dark-Gods become more clear, new areas and bosses appear and creatures othewise unseen become visible to you, giant tentacle monsters clinging onto cathedrals etc.

My only complaint is the lack of variety, I can see the lack of build types becoming an issue on repeat playthroughs. The number of build opportunities has been severely chopped down from the Souls games.

So, what does everyone think?
 
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Well although I haven't picked up the game yet, myself, I was gonna post my own thread on it after reading Jim Sterling's review of the game. (Good read by the way.) But I was beaten to the punch.

No matter though. There's a thread dedicated to discussing Bloodborne, and that's what counts.

Only things I can add are my personal ponderings of whether I ought to pick it up for my PS3 or grab it on PS4. Jim Sterline played it on PS4, but he also indicated that they didn't put too much effort into the graphics because they focused it all on the gameplay, so is there anything I'd be tangibly missing out on were I to get the previous generation copy? I dunno. It's too soon and not enough people have played it nor enough played multiple versions to speak of which is better or worse for their various reasons. Thoughts?
 
It's only on PS4 as far as I'm aware.

I don't know what Jim's talking about there, graphically Bloodborne is amazing, easily the best looking Souls game so far.
 
AlphaPromethean said:
It's only on PS4 as far as I'm aware.
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FearMonkey said:
It's a PS4 exclusive.
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Well both yay and darn, I guess. =/

AlphaPromethean said:
I don't know what Jim's talking about there, graphically Bloodborne is amazing, easily the best looking Souls game so far.
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Graphics were never the focus of the series, and from what I can tell, that remains the case. Visuals were stellar by pulling off a combination of alluring set pieces with overall designs. The first games were low budget by comparison of their AAA cousins, and if one were to nitpick, one could easily tell. The reason you didn't hear complaints about the graphics is BECAUSE they did the very thing that more devs ought to; they didn't care about the graphics, they cared about the gameplay and presentation. It strikes me that Jim Sterling was simply reaffirming that the trend has continued. He never came off as though he was complaining about the graphics at all.

I mean, c'mon, he gave it a 10/10, for fuck's sake. He's one of the few reviewers who RARELY ever does that. =P
 
Jim Sterling also said Bioshock Infinite was a good game, and even got mad with people not liking it, so his opinion is kind of iffy.
 
Walpknut said:
Jim Sterling also said Bioshock Infinite was a good game, and even got mad with people not liking it, so his opinion is kind of iffy.
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As usual, putting the cart well and truly before the horse on this matter. Hell, one wouldn't even know there's a horse, you stationed your cart so damn ahead of it...

So his latest episode of Jimquisition was on Bloodborne as well. Damn good episode. =D
 
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Jim Sterling is like the most vanilla youtuber but he pretends to be supper biting and out of the norm.

I think it was just because a bunch of Barely functioning retarded indie devs tried to go after him people tend to think of him as this super honest, hardline, out of the norm youtuber when all he did was calling a bunch of obviously shitty games crappy and made some no name devs angry. Other than that he has the safest opinions I have ever heard.

I liked his parody top ten videos tho, about the only interesting thing he did.
 
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Bloodborne: Looks great, mechanics are a bit 'lolwut'. Already people are exploiting two weapons to make PVP no longer 'enjoyable', the Rifle Spear (Or what I like to call "THIS. IS. MAH. BOOMSTICK!") and the...what the fuck..Bone Ash'd Cannon playstyle. Basically the idea for both is kind of the same, though the Cannon is more entertaining: Shoot2win. For the cannon playstyle, R2 until the player is parried, then press L2 to watch them fly back and insta-killed. Seriously, I don't think any player can survive a one-shot from it when parried and it's not even hard to be parried in BB. For Rifle Spear, just spam the shooting. That's it. You win. Of course, you need to upgrade said weapons, but yes, both are gibbed to do insane damage at the end result.
 
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I'll say more on the game when I have time..... I've been seriously swamped lately, so I haven't been around, and hardly available for anything. But I would like to comment on this:

Zerginfestor said:
Bloodborne: Looks great, mechanics are a bit 'lolwut'. Already people are exploiting two weapons to make PVP no longer 'enjoyable', the Rifle Spear (Or what I like to call "THIS. IS. MAH. BOOMSTICK!") and the...what the fuck..Bone Ash'd Cannon playstyle. Basically the idea for both is kind of the same, though the Cannon is more entertaining: Shoot2win. For the cannon playstyle, R2 until the player is parried, then press L2 to watch them fly back and insta-killed. Seriously, I don't think any player can survive a one-shot from it when parried and it's not even hard to be parried in BB. For Rifle Spear, just spam the shooting. That's it. You win. Of course, you need to upgrade said weapons, but yes, both are gibbed to do insane damage at the end result.
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Not quite. For one thing, the Rifle Spear issue is a bug and will be patched shortly, just like the bullet costs were patched in v1.03 a little while ago.

As for the Cannon... that's a one-trick-wonder, and it's very easy to screw up. You say it's easy to get parries, but it's really not. Latency can be a real bitch, so while it mostly DOES just take one good kapow from the Cannon while staggered to end a fight, a player has to manage their bullets while doing so because they need at least 13 to pull off the stunt (12 for the Cannon, 1 for the Reiterpallasche parry shot), and every shot that misses gets you closer and closer to empty. It's much easier to use the Cannon in PVE with Runes that replenish bullets, but that's virtually impossible to utilize in PVP- all but physically impossible if you're the invader.

The Cannon and its utilities is a hotly raged about topic among BB boards because fans of it hate what v1.03 did to it, and detractors see the nerf as a step in the right direction but taking the wrong path to get there. I myself find the Cannon completely underwhelming for PVE and laughably hit-or-miss in PVP, so I really don't like the way it functions right now. But suffice it to say, it is NOT as overpowered as you make it out.
 
The more I see of Bloodborne the more it looks like a washed down Dark Souls. The combat is too simplified to be comparable with Dark Souls and because of the mechanics it transplanted from DS it's way too slow to be an interesting purely action brawler. It's too middle of the road on every aspect and really doesn't accomplish anything other than being a more accessible Souls game.
Not necessarily a bad game but most definitely not a game I am itching to play that much considering I already have Dark Souls.
 
It's not washed down nor did it "transplant" elements from the previous game. It's the latest installment in a series from a director with a particular vision of games. You could say the same things about Dark Souls being a washed down version of Demon's Souls or having "transplanted" this or that from Demon's Souls but unsuccessfully, etc etc, yadda yadda. But the fact of the matter is, Dark Souls was a spiritual success to Demon's Souls, it functioned the same, but was clearly different and distinct in particular ways, had improvements over its predecessor and failings of its own. The same is true of Bloodborne. It's the latest spiritual successor of the Souls series, and it's learned from the failings of both games. I can go into more detail, but I'm leaving that for later when I write up a more comprehensive commentary (review) on the game, which I simply do not have the time for.

Suffice it to say, on a surface level, it's easy to come away with the conclusion that the combat has been simplified. So your conclusions in that regard aren't at all surprising. Just about everyone came away with that assessment from simply observing the game. But ultimately, observing and experiencing are two whole different beasts (pun intended) and the full package of the game pulls it off very well. Its failings, in my opinion, are elsewhere separate from the gameplay and combat. Mainly, not enough locations, not enough NPCs. But the combat is quite rich, even if it seems otherwise from a cursory assessment. Not perfect, but it's surprisingly deep.

Though I'm not exactly sure how you could CONCEIVE that BB is attempting to be a "more accessible" game than DkS... cause it is a PS4 exclusive and all... Multi-platform is always the way to go if accessibility is your aim. XD
 
Console exclusives are always made to be accesible to players, to convince more people to get the console to play them. They won't risk making it too hardcore because they need to convince people to fork out the 460 dollars to get it.
also if this kind of game is the "vision" of the director then that guy has a single idea only, one trick pony game designer...
 
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I do have a PS4 but I am too busy playing Demon's Souls on the PS3. It's still highly enjoyable. The ways you can customize your characters fighting style is some of the best I've seen in any RPG.
 
Yes, as much as I've butted heads with SnapSlav over it, Demon's Souls is a masterpiece.

I'd advise playing Dark Souls, it's spiritual successor, after you're done. If you feel like more, then move onto Bloodborne.
 
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