From my blog:

And the day has finally come! The fifth game in the Souls series, continuing on from Lords of the Fallen. This wasn’t necessarily a game that I had the highest of expectations for, other than it being good but it’s actually turned out pretty well so far. The game doesn’t leave a particularly strong first impression as you quickly discover that you can’t level up immediately and wonder as to why. A safe assumption is that killing the first boss will get you to magical level up land, but that’s not it either. Nope, at least for the majority of players dying to the first boss is what will give you the capacity to level up.

That is the game obfuscates the levelling system just to say fuck you and then when you have the capacity to level it says “hahaha dumbass, you don’t have any souls.” A lot of people accuse the Souls series of being unfair and for the most part that’s not true, but in this case it really is just being a dick for no reason. Another big mechanical thing is that locking on changes your dodges to strafes which behave completely differently than your traditional Souls roll (which is what you get when you’re not locked on). The strafing is okay in some circumstances but in general the roll is superior, thus locking on is gimping yourself in a fair number of fights, and not just because of the camera like usual. “You want to lock on? Okay then, now you can’t dodge, have fun dumbass, hahahaha.”

So, the game has some problems but it’s still a fun and interesting Soulsish experience. The first few areas seem to be a lot more linear than Dark Souls or Dark Souls II, you can explore in various directions but they all kind of go to the same places. I’m not sure if this changes later on (one would assume it does) but the game feels more like Lords of the Fallen did, which is to say you’re exploring a small environment instead of a large one.

Of course a major redeeming factor here is that there’s randomly generated dungeons, I’m not sure how random they are nor if all of them are random (there’s several different kinds) but they’re very interesting and have a different set of enemies than you find in the main game and bosses galore. I’m definitely extremely underleveled for the current boss I’m fighting in my level 3 Chalice but it’s kind of fun just knowing I have a shot at beating him.

Because there’s no shields in the game Stamina is no longer immensely overpowered. I’m sure it is still quite useful but most enemies don’t have particularly long openings for you to attack them, thus the traditional spam R1 strategy has fallen by the wayside in favor of slightly more frenetic action in which the enemies attack much faster and you… don’t really. For some reason it still works, just the pace and number of enemies you have to fight is a bit higher than what you might be used to.

Spoilers abound ahead:

To start with I died on my first character to what I assumed was a tutorial “boss” and it immediately teleported me to another area. Not to be dissuaded I made another character and bypassed that enemy, only to find out it didn’t matter at all. I didn’t die with the new character for about an hour, but randomly my PS4 went to the dashboard midfight and so ended the streak. This made me not care too much about dying for a while so I had a fair number shortly thereafter, losing a fair amount of souls in the process. Of course I had no idea what to use the souls on other than weapon upgrades since there wasn’t a way to level yet.

Eventually I made my way to every new player’s two best friends, a couple of giant wolf men (hereafter referred to as wolves); I like to call these guys Fuck You and Fuck You Too. The wolves aren’t too bad if you’re soloing them one at a time but for a fresh character they just completely annihilate you in a group and it’s fairly inconsistent luring one out at a time. Lo’ I discovered a masterful method to deal with this situation!

Yes that’s right, don’t even bother fighting them; you’ll need enough endurance to fight either the very difficult “first” boss or the not especially difficult “second.” This game also seems to have extremely long walkbacks for most fights (outside of the magnificent Chalice dungeons), which is pretty annoying in general. In Demon’s Souls usually you had a bunch of shortcuts to make it quicker but usually the shortcuts in this game just make a really long walk into a pretty long walk instead. I don’t mind a handful of long walkbacks per game but if there’s another 15-20 in store that’s going to be rough.

After I beat the first boss (who might as well be the Vanguard Demon from Demon’s Souls in difficulty level) I straight up had no idea where to go, having exhausted what I thought were all my options. Thus I was about to use the magical mini guide pages I got for pre ordering for some reason, but I had a better idea, which was to summon assistance. One gigantic, amazing, game of the year improvement this game has over Dark Souls II is that the online actually works at my house!

Wow. So I summoned a buddy into the area where the first boss was already dead, baffled my newfound companion slowly followed me around as I eventually meandered my way to finding the correct path (oh but it was down this nebulous identical pathway!). Another summon joined us and we went on to fight the second boss. Wait a minute fuck that shit, I quit to the main menu midfight. To summon help in this game you ring a bell and it costs you 1 influence (I believe you get 3 for killing each boss and 1 for discovering each boss), but in turn I’m pretty sure you can just get infinite summons until you die or kill the boss; which is neat.

The second boss actually got me once on my brute forcing attempt, then I parried the shit out of him and he went down pretty quick. Near the beginning of the game you get to choose a weapon and a gun for yourself, so naturally I went down the Axe and Shotgun route. And of course this boss had the exact same weapon layout demonstrating my deep understanding of the Souls series. After this I was finally “locked in” as it were and didn’t die for quite a while.

Each area in Bloodborne is reasonably sizable to this point and the next area is no exception. Descending into “Old Yarnham” is actually fairly refreshing after having cramped quarters for most of the first parts of the game. Now you get a large, vertical and expansive section in which you have to take cover from a gatling gun. Fret not, it isn’t as bad as it sounds and there’s creative ways of dealing with the enemies in this area. One thing to note is that this area has “Crystal Lizards” which are now basically just regular ass enemies that run away and disappear; they don’t sparkle or make a sound effect and often tend to lead you toward hidden pathways. This area is probably the first point where I just started enjoying myself immensely and adjusted to the new systems (other than parrying) more effectively.

The boss of this area was fairly easy, until it reached its enraging point and completely murdered me a few times. I wouldn’t mind if the rest of the fight was the same difficulty level but it really forces you to backload your resource management which can get pretty annoying. “Gold Pine Resin” as it were makes an appearance here and naturally if you take too many attempts you lose that potential advantage. After this I received a Chalice, aka the reason why this game is great.

I took a short break but was quickly enthralled by the wonderful design of these smaller, bite sized areas that still had challenging sections and potentially very difficult boss fights (perhaps I’m a little low level to be doing this). The layout of the rooms is very similar to something like The Binding of Isaac, perhaps showing some direct roguelike influence; but the rooms have quite varied enemies and much different hazards than the rest of the game to this point. Don’t worry too much about overlevelling here, just have fun exploring as you won’t get a ton of souls so doing, instead you’ll get more chalice materials and upgrade materials. At some point I’m sure most players will reach a brick wall in terms of progression and have to continue with the main game, but Chalice Dungeons seem like they’re a fantastic diversion.

I don’t mean to sound overly down on the game, it’s really good but things like having to farm for items and 2 loading screens for fast travel (I don’t care that much about the times in and of themselves) are a bit of a bummer. One thing to note is that you should absolutely try to write good or humorous messages as you get healed when your messages get a “fine” vote, which can be a really huge deal if you’re low on healing or even if you’re conserving healing for a future fight.

Death Count:

Wolf – 1

Random Dashboard – 1

Wolf Guy – 1

Generic Guys – 1

Spazzy Guy - 1

Black Knight Equivalent - 2

Cleric Beast – 3

Father Gascoigne – 1

Blood Starved Beast – 4

Chalice Floor 1 – 5

Chalice Floor 2 – 5

Chalice Floor 3 - 7

Edit: I did actually beat that Chalice boss last night, really awesome design on this guy. First dog boss that's actually difficult by his lonesome. About as hard as Kalameet at low SL.

Skipped past the spoilers abound point, but while I'be been totally lost, it's been fun. I think I missed the first boss, actually opened up a shortcut but haven't found another lamp after central yharnum. I like the strafing, higher risk for higher reward, same with the more generous party over the Souls blocking.

I would say your discussion of the bosses is reversed. If you aren't REALLY good at the gun timing any hunter like enemy is seriously dangerous and strong. Meanwhile the other boss you combared to vanguard is a total joke and just required either oil urn+molotovs or circle strafing to their rear. I suspect a lot of it is weapon choice. I feel like I gimped myself but not using the axe, and still not using it ;p.

@karkarov: I mean obviously you can beat it with items and make it a lot easier but if you fuck up you'll be farming items for a long ass time. As far as the Vanguard Demon comparison I think it's basically supposed to be the tutorial boss that kills you, and while it doesn't one shot you usually it has much less exploitable AI than the Vanguard demon. You should definitely use the Axe just so you can spam L1 while you run around town.

So I just died in a new area and woke up at a bonfire which I had just been at and turns out there's suddenly a badass NPC there (meaning right at the bonfire) ready to kick my ass, then another buddy shows up and helps out and it ends tragically; naturally I must slay this newfound opponent... but I have to grind out a bunch of healing items first yay.

You don't need to get to or even die to the first boss to level up. You just need Insight, and you can find an Insight giving item before the boss.

I cannot fathom why they decided to back track on estus. It's by far one of the best changes they did from Demon's to Dark Souls. That and the lack of build diversity is quickly making me think this might end up being my least favorite of these games. Still having a good time with the game so far (think I'm 4 or 5 bosses in), but they've certainly done a good job at switching focus away from the things I enjoy the most about these games to the things I enjoy the least.

Was that Old Yharnam? The guy doing the one thing there is annoying as hell, and a tough fight besides. Wait no you have already been there. Guess I haven't been there yet but it is hard to tell since the whole city does look the same.

@karkarov: I don't think it will happen to most people but I keep forgetting which bonfire is which and went to one behind (the game locks out teleporting there once the guy spawns, of course if you're already locked to it you can still spawn there and get fucked).

@donchipotle: Virtually no one is going to figure that out blind, also it is extremely apparent that it is an intentional design decision.

Enjoyed my first day with it. Was able to clear two bosses I guess? Was in the middle of Old Yharnam last night and got a bit passed the super annoying Gatling Gun guy who I cheesed off the roof because I literally could not get near him without getting slaughtered before I had to go to bed.

The game looks and sounds amazing. I haven't really seen any of this horrible framerate stuff people are talking about. It runs pretty solid for me. The load times are a shame but I've only found them to be a slight annoyance at this point. I usually use the time to refresh forums and read new posts. The gun parry stuff is kinda cool and either pretty easy or stupid hard. I also spend the vast majority of the time using my Hunter's Axe in long range mode as I prefer the various attacks and the dodge roll? It feels the most similar to combat from the previous games.

That's all I can think of. Today the journey continues.

Given that Brad about in the QL don't think I need to put this in spoilers: I highly recommend dying to a bagman if you want to see some next gen graphics. Holy shit.

I think that its a pretty solid game but I vastly prefer DarkSouls II over this. The diversity in DSII was far greater then anything that Bloodborne has to offer.

People ragged on DS2 but this game every single boss seems to be "giant creature with insanely huge arc attacks that moves way faster than they have any right to that has a metric ass ton of HP". I have fought like 5-6 bosses to this point and every single one of them except one maybe two of them could be described that way. I don't dislike the game so far but I think they drank the kool aid a little too much this time. If I had to "rate" the souls games from best to worst right now this one would be on the bottom, and I actually am not a huge fan of DkS1.

@donchipotle: Wow wow wow I did not know this thank you

I like this game a lot but I am very bad at it

Perhaps not, but at least it makes people aware that there is a way to start levelling up without encountering a boss. Taking the trip to the sewers is handy before the first boss anyway since it has a better set of armor than the initial one down there and isn't difficult to traverse. It might be easier to just run to the first boss, but there are options and isn't that part of what gives these games their charm.

@fredchuckdave: What are your thoughts on the soundtrack? I personally feel like it's the best one since Demon's Souls. Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 just didn't have that same vibe.

I totally dig the settings but I'm a sucker for anything Lovecraftian so I am not a real good reference point to judge it.

@mordukai said:

Seems really solid so far (ironically the best boss fight music I've heard was in the Chalice dungeon), there's an area with a dark choir background music (yes that's right, background music in an area!). More on your point of the setting I think I've figured out what makes Bloodborne work despite the varied differences with the Souls series that some might find off putting. The world in Dark Souls feels like a semi generic yet still interesting Dark Fantasy piece, but the world in Bloodborne feels like a creepy-as-fuck horror film a lot of the time; I recently came to a high point in that regard which is just fucking amazing; there's no extended dialogue or explanation of anything you're just in the middle of this creepy ass shit and left to digest it for yourself, it's really something else (apparently not that many people have found it yet).

For anyone still wondering there are "spells" in the game, doesn't really fit in with my present build though.

Right now it looks like Bloodborne wins the atmosphere title, Dark Souls wins the world exploring title, and Dark Souls II wins the gameplay title, take that as you will.

If there's something Miyazaki does well is creepiness. I don't know want to to spoil it for anyone who still has not played Demon's Souls, but there's a part in the game that also very thine on dialogue and at the end of it you just left to your own devices to soak and understand what just happened. Not many players found it as interesting and deep as I did but to me it was the most creepy and sad thing I've ever experienced, up to that point, in video games that really left me with this really creepy sense of emptiness.

Thanks for the spell clarification cause my fiends keep asking me about it.

If anyone actually manages to beat this whole thing completely blind hats off to you, there is some ridiculously obscure shit on the main route and everyone seems to find their own little parts of the world, a lot of which is mandatory for progression (basically you think that you've gone over an area as much as possible so you don't think to go back there but nope that's where you had to go). I've gotten to two bigass areas simultaneously and while one of them has been seen by 0.7% (i.e. in line with the natural progression) the other is still at 0.1% somehow.

@mordukai: Here's some HP Lovecraft for you (I'm a red phantom):