Jeff gets Bloodborne/Souls

Based on the talk during this week's Bombcast, it seems like Jeff has turned a corner and he now sees the appeal of Bloodborne (and by extension, the rest of the Souls games), or at least he is seeing the same things that appeal to me. He says something along the lines of "it's not hard, you just have to pay attention to the enemies" which, while I disagree with the notion that the game isn't hard, is about half of what I like about these games - the other half being exploration. I will say that I don't understand where the Bombcrew is finding all of the internet hyperbole about how these games are incredibly hard. I always thought that people talked about how these games were hard but fair - that even the regular enemies can make quick work of you, but all of the combat systems are laid out plainly and you just need to avoid getting cocky or failing into traps - but maybe I just haven't followed the conversation about these games closely enough. I have always thought that's why the response to people complaining about these games being unfair is always "get good," because the games are so rarely unfair or extremely difficult, and you always have the in-game tools needed to defeat your enemies. Also, while I haven't finished the game yet, I have the impression that Bloodborne is more forgiving than its predecessors, which makes the difficulty talk on the Bombcast extra confusing for me, but I guess it could just be that I have become better at these games with practice.

Anyway, I think it's cool that Jeff has been sticking with Bloodborne and I hope he feels like he's getting something out of the time that he's putting into it. I'm excited to see some more of him playing it on the site this week!

I just find it funny that so many people care about if jeff likes it. Is his validation that important?

@ripelivejam:

Yeah it strikes me as really strange too. Well good for them if it makes them happy I just don't get why Jeff being competent at and liking a game is a big deal for Bloodborne as opposed to any other game.

I agree. The souls games are really a great measuring stick for how the standards have changed for what is required from players today. I feel that the majority of the people saying these games are super hard probably are kids that had a ps3/360 for their first console, or it was the one that they grew into video games with.You could of been 10 when you got a 360 and now you're 18 and new boxes just came out. It's widely agreed upon that games got a lot easier over last generation, or at least required a lot less of a players respect. The souls games simply bring back the old concept of the game daring you to beat it, it is possible but you need to put skin the game to do it.

I'd say Bloodborne is more forgiving in terms of the dodging windows, healing, and just having less bullshit reasons you died. I just played Dark Souls 2 for the first time on ps4 and that game feels like it's difficult for some crappy reasons like random exploding barrels, or how bosses are constantly in your face making the slow estus flask way less useful , or dudes straight up running around a corner and kicking you off an edge lol, but I'm really enjoying Darks Souls 2 anyway.

Jeff actually saying "That game is alright" about Bloodborne kinda blew my mind, didn't think we would ever see the day.

Other than maybe getting some more videos of Jeff playing and the Bloodborne actually having a change at getting in the GOTY top 10, I don't think it matters much though.

I don't care either way if Jeff likes it, but I do think its cool that he's given it a real chance. Too bad he couldn't give the same treatment to Red Dead Redemption.

No probably not that important. That's why that manifests on nothing but a forum comment rather than a blood sacrifice.

It is strange seeing how much people care whether or not Jeff likes the game. I much prefer his critique rants where he goes off on why he dislikes a certain game or business practice.

I told people it would be cool if Jeff played Bloodborne. "No," they said, "all he's going to do is complain!"

Never doubt the Choo.

Because Jeff is a grumpy old man that doesn't like anything unless it's appropriately ironically dumb. Him saying something is alright is like the greatest praise it can get.

I have no problem with anyone not liking Souls games, but I'm always happy to see someone skeptical of those games giving them a real chance.

Bloodborne is the easiest game in the series by a fairly large margin. If you've played the previous games as an agile character, you can apply the same principles to Bloodborne and bullrush through the game like I did. It doesn't work the other way around though, if you've played Bloodborne you're still going to have to adjust to the previous games first.

That said, as I've said many times before over the past years, none of these games are particularly hard. They just require you to pay attention to what you're doing and pick up on what the game is telling you. There are patterns, and if you refuse to learn from them you're going to be stuck on the same boss forever.

Regarding the internet hyperbole, that shit was fucking nuts. I clearly recall on this very site during the Quick Look of Dark Souls that I called out that the game was not that hard, and being blasted by people that 'I clearly hadn't played it' and 'probably wouldn't even make it past the bridge'. It was annoying the shit out of me and I'm glad we're past that, but that hyperbole existed very strongly during Dark Souls for whatever reason.

@ripelivejam: @pierre42

I mean, it's not a huge deal to me one way or the other since I'm going to watch and listen to most of the stuff that gets put on the site anyway, but Jeff liking and continuing to play Bloodborne means I'm getting more podcast and video content on a game that I enjoy, which is pretty cool. His perspective on the game is pretty different from Brad and Jason now that he's getting into it, so it's cool to hear from someone for whom these games are fresh.

Also, as someone who has been on board with these games since about the end of 2009, seeing the site's progression from the original Demon's Souls QL with Vinny saying "this thing is weird and kind of clunky but I think there's something to it" while everyone else thought he had lost his mind, to a point where a majority of the duders are enjoying the latest game has been pretty cool!

Some of the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne are actually just plain hard. Especially the Defiled Chalice Dungeons.

Yeah I agree with what Jeff said on the bombcast, I think the games are challenging but not difficult. I find that the Souls games and Bloodborne are more about exploring the crazy environments and dealing with obtuse situations. Yeah there are some tough boss fights, but they're not as tough as some NES era bosses.

That being said, I've come to the realization long ago that Souls/Bloodborne are the best 3d Castlevania games ever. Yep I just said that.

@rongalaxy: His loss man. His loss.

As to the OP, it might've calmed down with time but when Dark Souls was big and in the run up to DS2 it wasn't very difficult to find people calling the Souls games brutally difficult and cruel games. It's still not difficult to find it.

@zevvion: The notion of the "difficulty" in the souls games really started on Dark Souls. Within the Demon's Souls community the general feeling about the game's was that it has a very specific set of rules you have to abide by and if you veer from them you get punished. It required your attention and patience, but it was never viewed as so difficult as beyond the means of gamers. That point of view was more of someone looking at the game from the outside without trying to understand it.

I remember back in when Vinny was the only one who gave Demon's Souls a fair chance and if you go back and listen to the podcasts from that time you can hear the cast's lack of understanding about the game. As I recall a one Mr. Shoemaker saying how the game looks like something he will never be interested in playing, or something in that line. It was actually a pretty sore spot for me as I also expressed my feelings that the game isn't as hard as people make it and they should maybe give the game a fair chance.

"Important" is a weird word in this context -- I think it just comes down to the fact that people like Jeff and they also like Bloodborne/souls and feel content when those two things doesn't clash.

@ripelivejam: I would say it's just more interesting to hear that he is actually enjoying himself considering how much he loathed the other souls game. it's been kind of s cool process to slowly see all of them go from not knowing anything about these games to them actually being anticipated by half of the crew.

I respect Jeff and value his opinions. I like that he can from time to time take a step back and admit that yah, Guns N Roses was a shitty band. So it's not so much that I want Jeff to like a game that I enjoy, but it's that I'm happy he stopped writing every one of these games off before even playing them.

I don't think Jeff playing more of Blood borne makes him like these types of games, Just Jeff trying whole game so can have complete opinion on the game. You can play a game and enjoy certain aspect of it but still hate game as total.

Plus Jeff watched someone play final fantasy x 2 so curiosity enough for him to play a game even if doesn't like it. But either way does not matter if he likes it or not if you enjoy the game it will not take away your enjoyment of it. And its good to have both sides of opinions on a game it help buyer in long run make better purchase decisions.

I'll admit, I'm genuinely surprised that Jeff seems to have turned the corner on this game, to the point of wanting to live stream it on the site. It's like alternate dimension day here or something.

I'm glad he's come around to it enough to look past its reputation. I was afraid the general zealotry of its fanbase would keep pushing him away by flooding him with opinions the moment he showed a bit of interest. Well, that definetly happened, but he stayed the course. I don't expect him to become a fan of the series, but having some first hand experience with the series is probably a good thing to have with where we are at with the popularity of the games right now. In the media and otherwise.

Personally, I believe that the souls games' reputation of being hard comes from a combination of their unforgiving, minimum hand-holdy and slightly punishing nature taking reviewers and other non-niche game playing people with a voice in the industry by surprise. They are not easy games, but they ask more out of you than the genral action or action rpg game these days do. The PR jumped on board at a point with the whole "Prepare to Die" bit which worked in the game's favor. Getting into and conquering this "impossibly hard game" became a badge of honor while some of the game's own hard-to-grasp mechanics and muddled objectives added to its alluring mystique.

Jeff saying that its reputation has potentially alienated newcomers is probably true, but I feel like the series also got to where it is today by the very same reputation. Maybe now that it has gained some ground they can start turning that narrative around.

@humanity:

Sure I guess I can toast to Jeff opening his mind a little. Hopefully it'll happen with some more things after Bloodborne.

@mordukai: Importers of the asian version of Demon's Souls definitely played up the difficulty of that game. I remember a lot of pre-release hype about how that game was going to kick my ass.

@spoonman671 said:

Considering very few people had played a game like Demon's Souls before, the idea that it was going to kick people's asses is not unfounded. Demon's Souls was so radically different than anything coming out at the time that nobody really knew anything about it, or how it was supposed to work. It took a small community banging their heads against it to really dig deep and understand the various systems and how they're meant to be approached.

It's probably worth mentioning that people who grew up with hard games most likely had an easier time adapting to the Souls series. If you're used to games telling you exactly what to do and when to do it, a Souls game is going to come out of left field and feel incredibly obtuse, if not outright sadistic.

I do kinda wish they would have done a Metal Gear Scanlon type thing with Jeff and Bloodborne. Gerstborne or something. It would have been interesting to see his opinion start to change as he played the game (or not, if it didn't). That said, I'm not sure I would want to play the game that way for the first time, but it would have made for decent content. I know he said he'd be posting some stuff this or next week, but I do enjoy watching people play through things I've recently played through. Been getting my fix there on Polygon.

That's what I thought as well after playing Bloodborne for a while. Then I went back and played Dark Souls 2 for the re-release and holy shit are the bosses in that game complete walk-overs. Sure, the Souls games are more punishing due to the much longer heal animation, but once you figure out how to play around that it's just laughably easy compared to Bloodborne.

@ripelivejam: Eh it's always nice when someone likes what you like, particularly when you value that person's opinions. Some people take it to extremes, but in general there's nothing wrong with it.

Bloodborne was the first one I really got into. Like Jeff, I realized the reputation did a lot of harm to my perception.

These games are cool and well-made. They're not crazy.

This is just false.

If you ever want to evaluate a challenge with more than a simple opinion you should consider: how's the timing on the openings? and on your combos? attacks have tracking? and how hard? hows the scenario? they punish healing? "on sight" or it's imput reading? how's the damage dealt by monsters compared to the PvP meta HP? etc, etc, etc.

Anyway, you can use speedruns as a reference, every half decent player will curbstomp Dark Souls, while for Blood Borne this is only possible with some extreme cheating.

It's somewhat interesting because for years, literally since Demons Souls came out, Jeff has adopted the most stubborn and dismissive attitude possible about that entire series. I remember when Demons Souls was getting big back in 2009 and Jeff responded to people wanting him to play it as if they were calling him "chicken" and how he's "not going to Marty McFly that shit" and play it. It literally took like over 5 years for Jeff to overcome that reaction and see the games for what they really are. I don't personally care for his validation of games I will love regardless of what he thinks, but it is sort of a big step, considering how infamous Jeff is for not stepping outside of his comfort zone.

It was especially frustrating when Dark Souls 2 came out, because a lot of decisions in it, to me, felt like they were made to specifically cater to the notion that 'SOULS GAMES ARE SO HARD' when, really, all those decisions did was break the flow of the game in a really inelegant and disenchanting way. Like, if I wanted random horseshit, I would (and do on occasion) play a Roguelike. I expect a bit more thought from this metaseries than that, but from what I've seen of Scholar of the First Sin, B-Team is still obsessed with it being 'HARD HARD.'

I think it's just interesting to hear him speak about playing it when he's been Souls-averse since the beginning.

I knew Jeff would eventually come over to the Souls side, but I think it needed to be Bloodborne. The game is a lot more fast paced than the other Souls games and it rewards people who prefer a fast in your face style of gameplay.

Jeff would struggle with Dark Souls even now because it's a lot slower and methodical with a sword and board unless you get the Uchigatana early and two hand it like the true Katana master race should.

Perhaps the biggest myth about Souls games is you have to be "good" at games to get the most out of them. Like they're on some other level for a special sect of gamerdom. Not true,

Seems like opinions about Bloodborne's difficulty are all over the spectrum anyway. These games are very consistent in how they play so if you've beaten them, of course you're going to think they're easy. I'm going from Dark Souls to Demon Soul's at the minute and I'm having trouble getting to grips with Demons. Part of it is because it's fresh and new to me but I'm merely walking into a level and then getting swamped from time to time. I suspect if I had a playthrough already under my belt, this would be less of a problem.

There's few random elements to these games so you learn by repetition so a true barometer of the games' difficulty will be really tough to gauge.

Okay, first off: whether a game is difficult or not is entirely up to the experience you had with it. Therefor, the notion that I am 'false' in saying Bloodborne is the easiest game of the four, makes no sense to begin with.

Now that we have established that, the rest of your argument makes no sense either. What on earth does a speedrun time have to do with how hard a game is? A speedrun shows how fast a game can be completed, not how challenging it is to complete that game in a way 99% of people will play it in. What determines how challenging a game is, is how easy or tough of a time you had with it.

Nearly every aspect you describe is all easier in Bloodborne. All the timings on windows are insanely large. Want to dodge? Go ahead, you'll have 100% chance of succeeding. Want to parry? 99% chance of succeeding. All that stuff was way harder in the previous games. You have 20+ healing items that heal instantaneously and trigger anywhere between 2-4x as fast as in previous games. By far the most lenient out of all of them.

Do I need to clarify why I think this game is easier? I had times where I had to do a boss 3, 4 or 5 times in the previous games. In Bloodborne, I never had to do any boss more than twice, while beating the vast majority of them on the first try. I never died twice in a row. I died less on my first and second Bloodborne playthroughs than I did on any of my first playthroughs of the other games. I finished Dark Souls in around 40 hours on my second playthrough (not counting the first playthrough of 90+hours because I had no idea how to level in the game), Dark Souls II in 60+ hours on my first playthrough, Demon's Souls in about 35 hours on my first, and Bloodborne in... 23 and change. In fact, I'm coming up on the point where I cleared Bloodborne 3x before I was able to clear Dark Souls II. And I died less in all those playthroughs. And here you are claiming I am 'false' that I thought Bloodborne is the easiest game.

If you think Bloodborne is harder, that's fine. What I've seen from the threads on here is that if you played the previous games exclusively with a shield, you're going to have a hard time with it. But don't think everyone played those games that way, and if you didn't, the margin for success in Bloodborne is so apparent. They designed this game for the player to succeed, rather than to be conquered by the player.

Oh, and by the way, just to put this argument to rest before you try to bring it up again: the record for speedrunning Dark Souls II is 56:28 and the record for Bloodborne, only this close after release, is 39:08 without glitches.

Jeff said MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero is a good game.

Internet Hyperbole - Killing your fun since 1996

No, you said that it was the easiest game in the series by "a fairly large margin", there was no qualifying part of that statement that suggested you were intending for it to be a subjective assessment.

As for your assumption that it's exlusively the people who played the earlier games with a shield that have more trouble with the game I'd like to contest that, as someone who spent most of my time with Dark Souls 2 sans shield. That said, I'm not really sure what it is, other than the general quicker pace of the game, that causes me to fail more at it. Though it also might be as simple as that. I've never been very good at games that require a good amount of speed in decision making, which is why I've always enjoyed the general contemplative pace of the earlier souls games.

I'm mostly used to the rhythm of te game by now, but quick, aggressive bosses tend to trip me up more than not.

First, any video evidence of vials being X3 or X4 (or even X 40.000 if you want it) faster than Moon Grass? I don't think you'll ever find it.

Second, all the speedruns use buged crazy skips, memory leak, dupe, even more intensive IA glitches than the memory leak one, etc. You're plainly wrong, that simple, post a video of a FRESH run without glitches and sub hour if possible, since you claimed a 39:00 run glitchless.

Third, speedrunning have to do like everything with how hard a game with a similar formula is. On Dark you'll 3 shot gargoyles with gold pine resin, that simple, in here the only thing you'll ever see on Gascoigne or Cleric Beast are the instant kill bug for Gasc, crazy skips, or memory leak for both of them. No one will ever be able to beat them fast and consistently because to begin with, Gasc takes more ripostes/viscerals than Gwyn on NG+++++++ without any power up. And that's for NG, they don't do it better or in a more legit way because NO ONE in the world can, that should mean a lot.

You're not given the tools to make bosses fast an easy, like in previous games, and btw, longer battles with potential oneshots = easier to get killed.

As said your personal experience isn't an argument, don't use it like if was. Besides, there's no evidence of what you're telling.

On the other hand if you have to speculate about playstyle, go on, I'd say it's not very tanky:

Hey, they released the load time update just in time for Jeff's stream thing (assuming its a stream and its happening today). And apparently it doesn't reduce load time by 10-15 seconds, but TO 10-15 seconds. Praise the sun!

@rongalaxy: Jeffs stream thing ?

This update may just be the thing to inspire me to do a second playthrough (not NG+ tho)

@ripelivejam: I think it's just refreshing. Jeff practically never changes his opinions on games and very rarely goes outside of his comfort zone, so to hear him actually examine Bloodborne and make a critical argument for why he likes it or not is fun. I still remember the GOTY 2011 talks and Jeff's constant dismissal of literally everything positive about Red Dead Redemption (I think he said "it wasn't that great" about a million times in that entire series) and his consequent silence when Brad said that the only reason he didn't like that game was because he didn't get the horse riding mechanics on the first try.

I mean, I'm very much over Giant Bomb in regards to looking for informed critique of games, but it's nice to hear something else than "insert game name -> fart noise". Especially now that Ryan and Patrick are sadly out of the equation, since they were the guys to always make an honest attempt at giving something new and weird a chance, even if it's just for a Quick Look or a quick write-up. It's not always perfect (I'm still bummed about Patrick's treatment of The Binding of Isaac as just another springboard to talk about Spelunky), but again, if I want to listen someone dismiss something for no reason, there's plenty of that on the Internet already. Hell, I can just follow Tom McShea.

I couldn't care less what this Jeff guy thinks. Now, Brett... that's the gold standard. Do we know what he thinks about Bloodborne?

@ares42: he said he's going to play some more of it for the site this week. Not sure if he means streaming it or recording a video, but there should be something coming within the week, so I assume today.