Well I've beaten the game after abour 1.5 month playing it on and off.
Never fired a single bullet - so the guns could be not existing for all I care. Please bring back my Greatshield of Artorias in Bloodborne 2
I think it is amazing and incredible piece of
ART and
GENIUS but it stays 0.05% behind Demon's Souls for me.
What it lacks is the a) variety in the environments b) challenging bosses.
a) I've played this game in the dark and I think I discovered all optional areas:
- Cainhurst
- Upper Cathedral Ward
- Hypogean Gaol
My favourite place in the entire game is the
Nightmare of Mensis with one of the best level arcs in the entire game (the Mind of Mensis) even though it is very similiar to dropping down the Hear in Tower of Latria 3-2.
Given the above the game truly feels like being stuck in "city" and "castle" areas. Forbidden Woods is quite different but it is only one area (my 2nd favourite in the game BTW). Yharnam is basically all castles. Then you go to Cainhurst - a castle. Then to Nightmare - another castle!
But would I have changed it? Designed it in a different way? No. The game is super coherent with being what it is and I do not think any additional (non-DLC) areas were needed in Miyazaki's mind.
b) maybe it is because I've played all other Souls games before but I found the bosses in Bloodborne being unusually easy for a game without shields. They look and act incredible but most of them I saw only once because I killed them on the first try. I made a list actually:
- Cleric Beast - 1st try
- Father Gascoigne - 1st try
- Vicar Amelia - 1st try
- Blood-starved Beast - 3rd try
- Shadows of Yharnam - 1st try
- Darkbeast Paarl - 1st try
- Amygdala - 1st try
- Celestial Emissary - 1st try
- Witch of Hemwick - 1st try
- Rom, The Spider - 1st try
- The One Reborn - 3rd try
- Micolash - 8th try (2nd hardest boss in the game)
- Wet Nurse - 3rd try (only because I was greedy)
- Cosmos Daughter - 4th try (camera issues)
- Martyr Logarius - 4th try (simply tried him too early)
- Gehrman - 8th try (hardest fucking boss in the game)
Now I am sorry but I usually cannot beat a single Souls boss on my first try. For comparison:
- Fume Knight - 44th try (yes, you read that right)
- Aava, the King's Pet - 9th try
- Iudex Gundyr - 8th try (I was naked)
- Champion Gundyr - 11th try
etc.
I still have to do DLC and I've heard about Ludwig so probably the bosses will turn up the challenge in the DLC! After all Fume Knight *WAS* DLC.
That of course does not change the fact that BB contains what I call joke bosses. Celestial Emissary? Witches of Hemwick? Darkbeast? What's the point of those bosses? They never even hit me.
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In any case it is an instant classic. A very memorable game, console-defining even (PS4) that has the fluidity and "newness" that Demon's Souls lack and that's why probably it will be remembered more fondly than the OG.
Time to continue the Hunt...
