The Bloodborne Identity with JanThe Bloodborne Identity with Jan: Part 19

A lot of people are returning to their work places in New York today. This is probably foreshadowing the end of Lockdown 2020 all over the USA. One of the good things that have come out of Lockdown 2020 is getting to experience Jan's content during this time. Love your work Jan. As for Lord of the Rings, the book was great, the Jackson LOTR trilogy was great and the Jackson Hobbit trilogy was dreadful. It speaks volumes for your antipathy toward LOTR, if you can say the Hobbit movie trilogy doesn't deserve the internet dislike it garners :))

message from the future

sorry to break to you. Lockdown is still happening

is this Trails in the Sky?

Lady Maria is my fav boss in Bloodborne.

As far as the Sekiro boss comparison question goes, some of the flashy sword swipe moves look similar to maybe one boss (mostly visual). The combat underpinning the whole thing makes the boss fight comparison with other From games a little too apples and oranges. Its fast. Definitely faster than the games that came before. But like Bloodborne, expect to die on your first try with any new boss because you're just starting to learn their pattern and timing. This is key for getting down parrying, which is not tied to a consumable item. And your health items refill between checkpoints. And there's no stamina. But there's no summoning of other players or NPC's. And you'll only ever have the one sword from beginning to end and no new outfits to dress your Sekiro up in. You'll either love it or absolutely hate it.

almost three hours? nice.

Good stuff Jan as always. I hope he continues on to Dark Souls 3 or another Souls game after he's finished the hunt, Breaking Bad Demon's Souls and Load Our Last Souls is some of my favourite content on the site!

I really thought he was gonna get her on his first try.

I haven't seen all of this yet but I expect Jan to uphold streamer tradition of making the same joke everyone else makes when they see the Living Failures boss.

Also, for being such a silly boss, the failures have a crazy good boss theme.

Edit: Wow, I think Jan avoided making the "Living Failures? I didn't know they put ______ in this game" joke.

How does Jan solve a problem like Maria? I can't wait to find out!

Some good ass music in this part of the game. The whole DLC, really.

The Maria theme is so damn good.

Pooping on LotR while liking Harry Potter reminds of when Dan would shit on real sports to make himself feel cool for liking wrestling. So it’s good to hear that Jan has grown out of that behavior.

Blast Monae and Outkast during the boss fight to give you strength!

@humanity: He was putting out some major damage and I thought he had a real shot at it.

Jan, there are moments in Bloodborne that may look similar to Sekiro, but the biggest difference that I cannot stress enough with Sekiro, is SPEED.

Bloodborne plays fast, but Sekiro is a whole other level. Unlike all previous From games, if you are stuck, you cannot just grind levels until you're ready. You must rely on your skill. And Sekiro's combat demands perfection. There is no margin for error.

Sekiro does have many similarities to Souls and Bloodborne for sure (and you WILL notice that when you're playing it), but it's a radically different game as a whole. Possibly the most unique From game so far.

Once you wrap up Bloodborne, you should play (and hopefully stream) it! You seem interested, and the game is AWESOME.

Thanks Jan!

@bestyhammar: I would actually argue that Bloodborne plays faster than Sekiro in many ways. While in Bloodborne you weave in and out of your enemies attack patterns trying to get hits in, with Sekiro you are sometimes just standing there, anticipating the attack in order to counter. Generally I would say that Bloodborne is about acting while Sekiro is a lot more about reacting.

All in all I think they are very different games and hard to compare. At the time a lot of people complained about the lack of build options in Bloodborne, and this focused gameplay style is even more overbearing in Sekiro where you can only really play the one way.

Also Sekiro on base consoles is a big no no. Even on my XB1X several areas just performed way too poorly, one boss fight with a lot of lightening and storms in the background being especially rough, which doesn't go very well with the split second based nature of the gameplay. I tried the game on PC at 60FPS and it's a night and day difference in terms of enjoyability.

@humanity: Sekiro feels like an actual sword fight, which no other From game does; very back and forth, back and forth. So there is absolutely an element of waiting (or defense, if you will), before you strike, absolutely.

Bloodborne is a very fast game, especially coming off of Souls, but as a whole, Sekiro is so much faster IMO. The increased focus on movement, (especially with the grapple) was such a fun adjustment, and it really sped up the game. It'll be interesting to see how they (most likely) slow it back down with Elden Ring.

As far as which platform to play it on, I've played all of them on either PS3 or PS4, and that just feels natural to me. I love a smooth framerate for the most part (thanks Quake), but these games just feel right when they run around 30 or so. When I've tried playing them on PC, it just feels off. That seems odd I'm sure, but it works for me.

@bestyhammar: I've also played them all on console but performance has been a big issue for me in past games but never as much as in Sekiro when you need to hit those parries at the right moment.

I was thinking about how me and many viewers thought jan would quit or get frustrated and never beat this game at the beginning. Its like we have a bias for thinking the crew cant beat hard games even though they have done so plenty of times in the past. SO i looked up some info to help me understand my weird bias thinking.

Its funny. Games these days and for a while have become consumer-friendly for completing yet devs cant solve that their hasn't been an dramatic increase or decrease in the general amount of people completing all genres of games past 50%-75% of the main game. Soulsborne games, actually do not have a lower completion rate than other games. according to achievement data they get completed more often yet people think their hard so that equals less push to complete for the average gamer. That said it could be bais seeing as souls borne gamers usually see completing the game as more of an important challenge they will bang their head against vs some indie platformer that they will drop at the hat for not being easy enough. Makes you wonder since the length of 100 hours vs 15 doesnt matter as people just seem to get their fill and move on soon after a bit of play time. Do devs even need to make late game as polished. Sadly the best parts are late game as the devs know you have mechanics down and can shove all their ideas at you along with better dev time experience. SMH.

Jan: "I've been Sky curious"

Keep em coming Jan :D

Maria might be my favorite FromSoft boss because she perfectly encapsulates how much more dangerous person-sized bosses are AND her fight feels the most fair out of all the NPC fights. To say nothing of her badass character design and backstory.

It definitely has nothing to do with the fact that I beat her my second attempt and felt like a TOTAL BADASS reading about how tough she is. After 4 1/2 hours of slamming my head against Ludwig.