Bloodborne
“Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” wrote Dante Alighieri, describing the depths of hell, but that saying kept ringing through my head as I played through Bloodborne, FromSoftware Inc’s latest game. Bloodborne is not just another video game. It is an undertaking, a bizarro trip down into Wonderland where your gaming skills will be tested through a trial of blood and fire.
Maybe I’m being melodramatic, but Bloodborne has earned the title of the most challenging and rewarding PS4 game to date. That should hardly be surprising given FromSoftware’s previous venture with the Dark Souls series, but where battles in Dark Souls were slow, methodical tests of wit, Bloodborne plunges you into chaotic fights for your life. Death waits around every corner, and I do mean every corner. My character died so many times over the course of my play-through that I affectionately named him Kenny.
Journeying into the ruined streets of Yharnam, I started in a decrepit, darkly lit room. Defenseless, I crept forward hoping to find a sword or gun. I had a grandiose fantasy of hunting down monsters, but in turning I came face to face with a werewolf chomping down on a freshly mutilated corpse. Charging forward barehanded to vanquish the beast, I was instantly pinned down and ripped apart—dead in the first 20 seconds of the game.
Awakening in the Hunter’s Dream, a hub-like world where players can upgrade characters, fortify weapons or store items, I received an axe and blunderbuss. Feeling renewed, I returned to the decrepit building, quickly using the blunderbuss to stun the werewolf before I delivered the finishing blow with my axe.
Bloodborne is a game of wit. As I would quickly learn, even the weakest enemy in the game can kill you if you run forward blindly.
Combat in the game is a mixture of heavy attacks and light attacks using the PS4’s triggers. At any time,you can equip a main weapon—like an axe or scythe—and a secondary weapon such as pistols, blunderbusses and torches. By sacrificing a secondary weapon, you can turn your primary weapon into a two-handed heavy weapon that delivers more damage but is slower. Mastering all these weapons is essential when facing down the damned souls that walk the city streets. Bloodborne utilizes a stamina bar that is easily drained, which can mean death in the heat of battle. I often charged the attack button as my enemies neared, and unlike its spiritual predecessor Dark Souls, the block button is virtually nonexistent, forcing you to dodge and roll out of the way of oncoming attacks. Fortunately, part of your health can be restored through counterattacks or through precious blood vials acquired from fallen foes and scattered corpses.
All these systems are placed to prevent the game from descending into a button masher. Ill-timed attacks can leave you vulnerable to the monsters’ devastating combos. Often, it’s better to lead one or two enemies away from the pack by throwing pebbles at them than to charge into the middle of them. These are all tricks that I learned on my own over Bloodborne’s campaign. The actual game does little in the way of telling you what you’re supposed to do, and it’s up to you to figure out where you supposed to go, chasing after elusive lanterns. Lanterns are checkpoints and gateways back to the Hunter’s Dream. Besides lanterns, you can unlock shortcuts and discover secret passageways, bypassing many of the game’s numerous frustrating enemies.
Many of Dark Souls’s features have been carried into Bloodborne, including the ability to see shades of other players and leave tips and warnings through notes. I always found the feature to be one of that series’s more interesting components, and it really brings out a social aspect in the series. If you get stuck on a particularly hard part of the game, you can use the Beckoning Bell to call for other players to help you, but it also opens up your game for invasion from hostile players actively hunting others. Being more of a lone wolf, I didn’t really utilize the Beckoning Bell much, preferring to tackle the game’s challenges alone.
Like Dark Souls, death in Bloodborne means you lose all of the experience or blood echoes you were carrying at the time. The only way to retrieve this experience is to return to the place you have died and collect it or vanquish the beast that consumed it. Blood echoes are important because they’re the only way, a player can level up their character to get stronger and faster.
The graphics in the game aren’t the best on the PS4, but they’re fairly detailed, highlighting the creepy, gothic nature of the world. Creature design is appropriately demented, giving me the impression that I was truly facing the forces of darkness. Boss battles are epic challenges, truly among some of the best moments I’ve ever had in a game, and that’s helped by a design that heightens the horror and scale of these creatures. The world of Yharnam is detailed enough to be believable, and the branching paths a welcome surprise in an era of linear gameplay.
You may have notice that I haven’t said much about the story. That’s because it’s mostly nonexistent and not necessary for the enjoyment of the game. Some games like The Order: 1886 or the Uncharted series you play to experience a interactive cinematic thriller, but Bloodborne is rooted more strongly in the past—you play Bloodborne to kill a bunch of stuff and scream at your television in frustration. The minimal story is told through scattered notes and conversations with the few non-enemy characters in the game, leaving you to make up your own story as you go along. For me, my character was an immortal being named Kenny that kept trying to commit suicide by not rolling out of the way of the Cleric Beast.
One of the few flaws I found with Bloodborne was the long load times between levels and after dying. At times, it seemed like I was waiting to play the game longer than I actually got to play, but in a way it made sense to me. The game was punishing me for dying by showing me a blank wall. It was taunting me with the knowledge that I had failed by making me wait to play the game again. The game is so smart that it puts its players in timeout.
No, in all honesty that’s the only flaw I found, but it doesn’t stop Bloodborne from being one of the most fun and frustrating experiences I’ve had from a game in a long time.
