The Therapist Gamer

Bloodborne is frickin' awesome.  It was made by same team behind Demon's Souls and Dark Souls - personal favorites of mine.  The game follows it's predecessors in that it is a third-person action combat game that requires precise attack strategies.  Though all of the games in this series are legendary for their difficulty, the games are beloved for so much more.

 

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls featured combat with a sword and shield, and veterans of the games are used to constantly holding up their shield as a safety net in case an enemy suddenly attacks.  Well, there are no shields in Bloodborne.  Actually, there is one crappy wooden shield - the description of the item perhaps conveys the thoughts of the game creator: "Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity."  The pace of combat in Bloodborne is consequently more quick and brutal than in the prior games - most enemies don't have shields either!

 

Due to the increased potential to take damage, a "regain" system was implemented in Bloodborne.  It works like this: when you take damage in Bloodborne, part of the health you lost will stay orange for about two seconds.  If you land attacks on enemies in that brief window, then you can regain part of your health.  Once that window is closed, the health is lost and a healing item must be used to gain it back.  This combat system rewards an aggressive fighting style as landing attacks is the primary way to gain health.  

 

Most of the game takes place in a city called Yharnam, a dank, twisted city crawling with insane townsfolk.  As the moon looms over the town, you learn that it is the night of "The Hunt" wherein monsters roam the street.  However, those who hunt the monsters also gradually go insane and transform into monsters themselves.  Your motives are not quite clear - are you trying to join the hunt and slay the beasts, or simply trying to escape this horrid place?  The game is dripping with atmosphere and I imagine most people will find the game quite creepy.

 

One aspect of Bloodborne that I love is the variety - variety in weapons, in enemies, in environments, and in bosses.  Though much of the game takes place in the city, there are striking differences in many of the environments.  There are over 100 distinctly different types of enemies in the game, which is documented in my video below.  There are at least two dozen different bosses in addition to the regular enemies.  When a game is about precise combat, it is nice that there are actually a variety of enemies to fight.  In other words, it's nice that there is variety in the one gameplay element that is most important.  Remember Doom?  There were TONS of different types of enemies.  How many different enemy types are in Modern shooters?  Two?  Three?  Bloodborne delivers where it matters most - having a lot to do with the main mechanics of the game.

 

Guns having secondary functions have been around since the late 1990's, but this is the first game I'm aware of where weapons such as axes and swords have secondary functions.  Each weapon has an array of attacks, but the press of a button transforms the weapon into something else entirely, complete with its own move set.  For example, a sword might insert into a giant cement bock - thus creating a mighty war hammer.  A nimble cane transforms into a long whip.  Though there are fewer weapons in Bloodborne than in the Souls games, each weapon feels much more relevant.

 

The game also features optional randomly generated dungeons.  These add the ultimate challenge for players as the final dungeons require significant skill.  They also add a lot of replayability as you can play through fresh dungeons and test your skill - with rewards at the end, of course.

 

As you can see, I really like Bloodborne!  There is so much to love and basically nothing to hate.  I highly suggest you play this basically perfect game.

 

 

 

As a bonus, I've decided to provide a little history lesson.  Back in the early days of the PlayStation 3, PlayStation commissioned Demon's Souls from the development team From Software.  From Software is a Japanese development studio, which is noteworthy because games are typically developed somewhat differently in the US than they are in Japan.  In the US, developers will develop all aspects of a very small part of a game - called a "vertical slice" - and perfect everything about this small section (about 5 minutes of gameplay).  They will perfect the voice acting, the lighting, the graphics, the animation, the environment, the particle effects . . . everything.  Once the developers are satisfied with this "vertical slice," they then make the rest of the game match that quality.  Japanese game developers typically develop one aspect of a game at a time.  That is, they will develop the environments for the entire game, then put in the animations for the entire game, then add in the particle effects, etc.  This is known as a "horizontal slice."  There is a reason I'm telling you this.

 

The head of first-party games for PlayStation, Shu Yoshida, visited the workplace of From Software to check on how Demon's Souls was coming along.  He was expecting to see a vertical slice, but instead saw what he considered to be a sub-par demonstration of the game.  This was because he saw a rough-around-the-edges horizontal slice.  Unimpressed, he decided to no longer work in tandem with From Software to develop future games exclusively for PlayStation.  When Demon's Souls came out, however, it was a hit.  Gamers loved everything about it and praised it endlessly.  Shu Yoshida himself played through the game and loved it.  He publicly stated he regretted withdrawing his partnership with From Software, but they had already begun work on their next project - Dark Souls (they couldn't call it "Demon's Souls 2" because Sony owns the Demon's Souls name).  Dark Souls was released on PS3 and XBOX 360.  Soon after it released, Shu secretly met with the head of From Software.  They struck a deal where Sony would offer development support and a new game - Bloodborne - would be made exclusively for the then-unannounced PlayStation 4.  

 

During the Electronic Entertainment Expo (the biggest annual event in gaming) in 2014, Shu Yoshida - now the President of PlayStation - took to the stage.  He almost appeared tearful as he explained that the following announcement had personal significance for him as it allowed him to correct a major mistake in his business career.  Bloodborne was then shown to the world.  It was released to critical and commercial acclaim.