project343

Yes, you should totally give it a shot. It has a lot of the same sensibilities. Bloodborne is a more polished, better start to finish game that wraps itself up neatly, and doesn't give you much to come back to. Dark Souls 2, by contrast, has highs and lows, is infinitely longer, has more compelling RPG elements, and could easily keep you busy for hundreds of hours with how great the Covenants and build variety are.

Both games punish you for dying in different ways. Bloodborne has finite health potions that you need to farm; Dark Souls 2 lowers your health bar with each death (up to a point), but refills your health potion stash at every death and checkpoint.

Dark Souls 2 is also much less linear. You have options on where to go, what to do, what to find. If you want to build a Cleric, for instance, you know that you need to go rescue to the Miracle seller ASAP. This works together with the RPG elements being better in Dark Souls 2. You find items and gear hidden everywhere. Items that initially seem useless, but have incredible value later on; items that are practically essential in particular builds. Bloodborne, by contrast, is nothing but filler blood gems and dews--stuff that has very little impact on the game (obviously some gems are totally valuable, but they're few and far between).

Bloodborne is a better game, but Dark Souls 2 is a better Souls.

Bloodborne is the best game in the Souls series, but reaching that point of polish and quality has lead to the series losing too much of its soul (in both uses of the word). It very much feels like the AAA-ing of something that is inherently counter-AAA.

They've streamlined the experience by removing the breadth of weapons, armors, spells, etc.. Making Souls more accessible is an admirable goal, but the tradeoffs are not worth it. Exploration is less meaningful when you're only going to find less substantial loot (gems, dews, vials). Builds are less varied when all armor is made end-game viable, and equipment load is removed from the equation. I'm seeing two and a half builds here: quality build, arcane build, and a minor skill variation of the quality build.

Of course, all of this directly affects the PVP in the game. Everyone plays the same, minus the moveset of their favoured weapons. It goes without saying that the game was clearly not designed with a PVP crowd in mind; Covenants feel like an afterthought, and the ease of healing seems like a concession made with PVE in mind.

Linearity is also another massive problem with Bloodborne. Yes, it has quite a few optional bosses and areas (and that's commendable), but the game opens up in very small pockets, and is severely gated. Every play experience is exactly the same. You can't really rush to higher areas to grab key items that you may need; this is a massive problem for arcane builds who have to artificially delay so much of their build until much later in the game.

Bloodborne has no legs is what I'm trying to get at. Like, it's an incredible experience from start to finish, but that finish is exactly that: a finish line where you eject the disk and move on. Where the other games had dozens upon dozens of viable builds that all played completely different, with different paths through the game, different objectives, etc., Bloodborne has one direction and one playstyle (barring weapon movesets). I'm playing an arcane build right now after doing the quality build, and I'm stuck with the same weapon (Holy Blade) because of the superior arcane stat scaling; same path through the game, same moveset, same experience. The differences are negligible: enemies burst into flames after I hit them, I had a different offhand weapon, and I have a couple situational items that I never had before.

It feels like Miyazaki wanted to get away from the traditions of Souls, veering into a traditional action game, but felt like he owed his fans more Souls. The end result is a game that feels like a mechanical compromise. Bloodborne is probably going to be my favourite game of the year, but it isn't as eternally special as Souls.

@kaos_cracker: There is only 1 boss in Cainhurst Castle (Martyr Logarius).

Borderlands 2 turned Borderlands into a proper video game, and polished those extremely rough edges into something digestible. I haven't played enough Pre-Sequel to say, but it certainly comes off as being half-baked.

Father Gascoigne. The intense, savage, kill-or-be-killed feeling during that fight is super refreshing as a Souls fan. Reminded me of an Artorias on crack.

It has the best level design in the series, the most interesting lore, the most refined combat system, and the most polished start to finish experience. That said, the lack of content is sort of disheartening. It is way too short for a Souls game, it has nowhere near enough armor variety, the Covenants and PVP are super disappointing, and a lot of the RPG elements and systems are half-baked. Like, it's an incredible experience that doesn't have the legs of a Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, or Dark Souls 2.

The Lovecraft stuff was incredible, and I adore how it plays in with the Insight mechanic. Probably my favourite part of the game, barring the spectacular final boss (Gerhman).

1. Gehrman, the First Hunter
2. Vicar Amelia
3. Father Gascoigne
4. Martyr Logarious
5. Darkbeast Paarl

Gehrman is just, like, too good. One of my favourite bosses in any game. Aesthetically incredible arena, amazing soundtrack, fun and fair fight. It feels like a natural successor to Gwyn, but mechanically works out much better.

Honorable mentions. There are a lot of them. Moon Presence looks incredible, but simply doesn't have enough attacks. I sort of just hugged her bosom and all of her attacks missed, then killed her without flinching. Mergo's Wet Nurse is also an incredible looking boss, but like Moon Presence, is simply way too easy; you can just hug her butt, and she's basically useless.

List of worst bosses in the game? Basically all the gimmick bosses. Witch of Hemwick is probably the worst, closely followed by Celestial Emissary. Shadow of Yarnham is up there; they get recycled into regular mobs later on, and it just ruins the fight retroactively. Rom is annoying and feels far too random with spider placement and movement. Finally, Micolash; loved the aesthetics and narrative here, but I wish he put up more of a challenge.

@soulcake: All the information you could possibly want is available right here. Insight is your humanity equivalent; more info available right here.

Notable funstuffs:

• You can set a password to have the matchmaking direct your friends toward you.
• Summoning allies brings Chime Maidens into the world; Chime Maidens summon invaders to kill you and your compatriots.

@dispossession said:

Lords of the Fallen takes inspiration from Souls, but is still missing so much of the series' charm. I just finished it today, and I had a good time, but not nearly the same revelatory feeling that I had playing each of the Souls games (Demon, Dark, and II).

Things that separate the two:

• The game is a fair bit easier than the Souls games.
• The combat is significantly more fatty, unreliable, and imprecise.
• The bosses are more about gimmicky mechanics and large health bars rather than animation reads.
• The narrative is presented very directly to you, and it's fucking bad. Exposition on top of exposition.
• Along those same lines, Souls games respect their players as human beings who can experiment, prod, explore and extrapolate. There are few tutorials, no hints, virtually no exposition. It's the player's job to figure out the gameplay, the items, the world; it isn't the designer's job to neatly present everything, then triple-check that the player knows what's going on.
• The game has very few secrets and oddities. Souls games are all about secrets and discovery; finding a seemingly useless item underneath a specific pile of boxes that unlocks a single door at the other end of the game. Lots of murmurings, players left in the dark, hushed hints on message boards, the community coming together to solve these oddities. It feels like a communal uncovering in the same way that FEZ did.
• Level design and linearity. Souls games are generally about a freeform exploration of a single, massive map (less so in DS2). There are hidden pathways everywhere, and shortcuts to open up back to other parts of the world left, right and center. Lords might as well be a straight line with a couple pockets of loot on the side every now and then.
• The world. The world of Lords doesn't pull you forward. It has one visual look, it's beautiful but dull (it looks like an Unreal tech demo). Souls games have bizarre, interesting worlds that constantly make you raise your eyebrow. You want to know more, and that feeds into an exploration of the landscape.
• Multiplayer. Seriously, it's a huge part of Souls. The PVE coop community, the PVP community, the messages left by others (both troll and hint messages), the bloodstains that let you watch how others die, and seeing the images of players walking around. It feels like you're working through this world together, and it gives you reason to keep going: gearing up for PVP (or PVE).

At the end of the day, Lords is a good ride that tries to channel Souls, but misses too much about what makes those games special.

Pros:

• God it's pretty. Best looking game I've ever played.
• Facial animation and sheer artistry of everything is top-notch.
• The art direction and concept is... neat.
• An experience that rarely feels padded.

Cons:

• The most throw-away third-person shooter gameplay; completely underexploited arsenal potential; the most out-of-place Red Dead targeting mechanic; melee combat that is more likely to get you killed than anything.
• Copy-paste encounters. There are two types of werewolf encounters: the boring assaults in warehouses, and the QTE-ridden knife-fights. Both are copy and pasted throughout the game, and neither is compelling enough to warrant the copy-paste.
• It is a single-tone narrative experience that rarely eases the player into its world; it's always grim self-seriousness, unlikeable characters, and throw-away plot conceits. It felt like the game was actively trying to make me not care about the narrative, despite being an extremely narrative-focused experience. A little more lighthearted banter would have gone a long way.
• The value proposition is not great, but that's an argument done to death.

It's such a weird game. They clearly put an ungodly amount of time and money in the audiovisual experience of The Order, but why not spend some of that on hiring more game designers? So many of the mechanics are severely underdeveloped. They almost feel placeholder. Refining some of the core mechanics, adding a larger arsenal of Tesla weapons, adding some more layers of nuance to the cover gameplay... it all could have gone a long way.