Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannu_1 But I am getting the PS4 next year, completing Uncharted 4, Bloodborne and a few others. |
5 years after I had made that post, I’ve finally completed Bloodborne!
The ending was a bit overwhelming, I decided to pen down some thoughts during my free time. Please bear with me!
For a brief while I had lost touch with gaming. Picked up the PS4 sometime in end-2018 (along with some exclusives; exclusives are titles released only for a certain platform) when I had some spare time after our first Coast Guard OPV was delivered (usually it is the first ship that sucks in most of the time; the successive ones are much easier work-wise). Finished those exclusive titles, sold them off and the console was lying idle. Until one day on a weekend, a colleague who’d dropped by at my home, pointed at the console and asked me,
“What does this thing do?!” Just like the way Deedee asks Dexter.
That was it! Took out the dusty controller from the drawer, cleaned it, fired up the console and loaded Shadow of the Tomb Raider (SOTR) just to show him a brief demo. And that rekindled the 10-year old in me! Started SOTR and wrapped it up within a week. I picked up Bloodborne’s GOTY edition (GOTY – Game of the Year) which includes the only DLC – The Old Hunters (DLC - Downloadable Content).
Enough has been said and praised about this game, including the difficulty, learning curve, the NPCs, the H. P. Lovecraft inspired enemies, adrenaline-pumping boss battles, real world Gothic and Victorian-era inspired level designs from the Czech Republic and Romania and so forth. Since I had completed Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, the learning curve for Bloodborne wasn’t steep. For the
Soulsborne titles, within the gaming communities, we usually say the most hardest title is going to be the first one you’d play. Once you’ve learnt the ropes, you’ll master it like no other! The first level/chapter is going to be the make-or-break deal - here's where you'll end up dying the most since you’re just starting off and the enemies are a couple of notches harder/leveled up than your character is. Try revisiting the first level towards mid-game and you’ll be one-shotting most of them! The first level is also where you’ll grind the most, learn the move-set, the brutal parry-visceral combo, collect the early loot, level up a bit, face the first boss etc.
There are plenty of similarities with the other Souls games – lighting up a lamp (instead of a bonfire) within the level to save your progress and teleport to the central hub - the Hunter’s Dream where you’d find the NPC which helps you level up (the Doll), the central hub also has the workbench where you’ll upgrade, repair and infuse your weapons with gems, trade items with the cute little Messengers with the Blood Echoes (souls from the other games which is essentially the in-game currency) or Insight (a stat which is gained with certain items, visiting boss arenas and beating bosses), die and all the enemies in the level respawn (except bosses) and you’ll lose all the blood echoes with the bloodstain lying on the spot of death OR an enemy who has absorbed the souls which would have glowing eyes, much of the in-game lore is left to the player to read from the different items and understand, accessing doors and elevators for shortcuts, join different covenants by accessing their badges, summon helps from NPCs before boss battles and needless to say, dying a gazillion times! There's no in-game soundtrack except during the boss battles and this lends an eerie atmosphere while playing the title. I played it on my good ol' 10 year old Samsung 40 incher and a set of stereo speakers; folks with larger displays and home theater setups are going to have a lot of fun I reckon.
Speaking of soundtracks, one of the reasons boss battles in this game is terrifying is because of the epic musical score. Each boss battle comes with its own intense theme, one that heightens the sense of terror during the battle. In our gaming communities, we used to joke, if you're constantly getting rekt (for all you grammar nazis, rekt is short for wrecked we use in our gaming communities) and want to learn the boss' moves, the first thing is to lower the music volume! The soundtracks were developed by a cross-cultural collaboration of artists from the east and west, recorded at London’s prestigious AIR Studios.
Check out a behind-the-scenes clip from a recording session:
Oh and please be assured, you’ll see this on your kickass LED TV several times through the course of your gameplay:
Deaths are a mentally painful affair (I cringed every single time I died) because we lose all the blood echoes (the only in-game currency!) at that spot, all the enemies have respawned and you start at the lamp which may be far from your death spot. In short, your progress just took a big hit and there's no guarantee you're going to reach the spot safely. With some luck, you may manage to reach there but you may just fall off that ledge and die or get bludgeoned to death by a brick troll and die or get mauled by a pack of rabid dogs and die. But, as you manage to play, level up and carefully tread your way through, you’ll
git gud at it!
All that being said, there are a few minor differences from the other Souls titles too. For instance, the left hand no longer wields a shield. Instead, it’s a firearm – pistols, blunderbusses, cannons and
wait-for-it, a gatling gun! How cool is that! Except for the cannon and the gatling gun, the firearm is not exactly a weapon. It is meant to initiate a parry followed by a massive critical attack! Just like the ripostes in the Souls games. But miss a chance and you’ll lose a chunk of your health with the enemy landing an attack on you! It has a super cool animation with the blood spattering all around. However, not all enemies can be parried. The first level is the best place to practice this move-set and will come in incredibly handy for the rest of the title.
Check out this short clip demonstrating a parry + visceral attack combo:
And because there is no shield in the game, the developers were kind enough to equip the character with 20 blood vials – each vial restores a portion of the lost health. You can equip a few more with the help of runes. Plus, in combat, the player can regenerate a part of the lost health while attacking the enemy back in quick succession. Unlike the Souls titles which encourages the player to tread the level carefully with the shield raised at all times, in Bloodborne, you are advocated to be a lot more aggressive and agile with faster combat moves. Without shields, the player is encouraged to face the enemy head on, learn its move-set by constantly dodging, rolling and quick stepping. The downside? Enemies are equally aggressive! They have superior tracking abilities while being confronted.
There is a unique concept in Bloodborne which is not found in any Souls titles so far. There are plenty of dungeons which are not linked with the main storyline or the playthrough and, the player can visit them to farm for some rare gems which increases the weapon’s attack drastically or infuse them with fire/lightning/magic. While dungeon crawling isn’t unique to RPGs, some of the dungeons in Bloodborne can get tiresome and repetitive. The enemies in these dungeon levels are basically from the central playthrough save for a few unique ones.
While this is an RPG, the progression is nearly linear, in the sense that you’d be progressing through the chapters as you kill each boss which unlocks the next area. You have the ability to visit some areas early on but the enemies would beat the crap out of you prompting you to level up and revisit the level later. Some areas (and their bosses) are optional and can be completely skipped but at the cost of missing the blood echoes, loot and dare I’d say, the lore and experience too. The level designs are M-I-N-D B-L-O-W-I-N-G! Oftentimes, I end up staring at the landscape just admiring the views! I love the way shortcuts are designed in each level. If you see a door or a gate early on in a level, chances are it cannot be opened from this side yet. Doors and elevators are usually accessed from the other side which grant invaluable shortcuts from the start of the level. Can you imagine spending close to 2 hours reaching the end of the level only to die at the hands of a boss or an unfortunate fall to the depths and traversing all the nightmares once again to reach the boss? FromSoft devs were a little kind in that sense. Almost all boss arenas have shortcuts right from the start of the level cutting down on the time drastically.
Low on the level or some particular item such as health vials, bullets, sedatives or even pebbles? Revisit some earlier levels to farm them! There are a few levels which becomes easier once you have access to better/improved weapons and the enemies can be one shot. It is worth revisiting these levels to farm on blood echoes or items which may come in handy before a boss battle or a particular section of a level.
Throughout the title, while every adversary proved formidable right from the annoying crows to the man-eater boar, there were a few badass ones which stood out, scared the hell out of me and had my heart pumping much faster, every single time I ended up facing it. This post would rather be incomplete if I didn’t list the winners.
- Snatchers
Standing tall with a hood over their face and a bag over their shoulders, these buggers begin to appear right after a particular boss is defeated (Don't want to reveal it for spoilers' sake!). While they walk slow once they detect the player (or until the player aggros them), they have an incredibly high amount of health and an equally high damage output. After they lose a portion of their health (usually a couple of attacks), they will get into a frenzy (with a super-quick animation) and will become a lot more aggressive, sprinting towards the player and flinging their gunny bags. They have a unique grab attack with which they will grab the player, raise him/her in the air, squeeze the blood through the neck and slam them on the ground, instantly one-shotting them! This is one of the most brutal ways to die in the game. Check out this clip to know what I meant:
Good thing they disappear once a particular boss is defeated mid-way! *Phew*
- Brainsucker
Resembling the mindflayer, with tentacles popping out of this head, the first encounter gave me nerly a heart attack! It just grabbed me, a large tentacle popped out and sucked the head draining the Insight out of my character (2 at a time), inflicting a high damage. Whatever Insight drained is lost permanently. This was quite depressing!
Fortunately, I realised its vulnerability to fire and a simple fire torch on the left hand set it ablaze, without sparing it an option to do anything!
- Winter Lantern
As much as the name sounds sweet, this abomination with several eyes and mouths, roams around in unwary areas towards the later parts of the game. The moment the player comes in contact within its line of sight, the frenzy meter builds up instantly and the health drops. She starts off with a grab attack but it doesn’t kill the player because by the time the player encounters this beast, the health bar is large enough to survive at least one grab attack. Best to keep some sedatives equipped while traversing through these areas to nullify the frenzy build up.
- Shark Giant
The developers clearly went overboard with this one. I am so glad this dude was featured only in the DLC and not in the main game! Otherwise, we’d have seen a whole lot of players crying about this beast. This enemy is nothing short of a boss with a super high health level, being incredibly agile wielding a boat's anchor in a hand flinging it all around and with a pouncing attack which covers a great deal of distance. Luckily, there are only four of them in the entire game! The most devastating attack is when it grabs the player, chews him/her and swallows the player in the process! Quite clearly these guys haven’t eaten in ages! Check out the clip:
Here is a collage of all the boss battle trophy screenshots (the PS4 has a neat feature wherein it saves the screenshot every time a trophy is unlocked):
Here is the end-game stats for my character:
And here is a neat little hack to unlock all the endings in one playthrough - once you're back to the Hunter's Dream, the Doll would prompt you to meet Gehrman and talk to him. At this point, exit from the game and copy the save file to a FAT32 formatted USB drive. Consume no more than 2
One Third of Umbilical Cords and speak to Gehrman. Yes and No gives you a unique ending each. Consume 3
One Third of Umbilical Cords, talk to Gehrman and say No for the last ending. Here's proof that I got all the 3 endings in one playthrough:
Summing up, Bloodborne was quite the experience! Just like Demon’s Souls which was the first Souls title I had played. This piece was written back in January; I ended up finishing Dark Souls II: SotFS during February and that was a good title too. Maybe some day, I'll pick up Dark Souls III and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
Here's the
Amazon link for the title and nope, it is not a referral link. So those who're planning to pick up this game, good luck and have fun! You can't step out of your home for the next couple of weeks so now is the time to play all those titles you wanted to but never found the time to.
PS: I am playing Marvel's Spiderman as we speak.