Bloodborne Review: Prepare for the Hunt
Erik Fattrosso ’17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
Anyone who’s played From Software’s Souls series knows exactly what to expect from Bloodborne. The brutal difficulty, finely tuned combat, and engaging setting are all here in full swing. If From Software wanted to join the ranks of Tomb Raider, Nintendo, and Planet of the Apes in the competition for worst naming teams, they could’ve very easily called this game Soulborne and nobody would’ve batted an eye. The differences between the Souls game and this, while small for the most part, do enough to make this feel like a completely fresh experience.
The player is dropped in the decaying city of Yharnam immediately upon starting the game. After choosing a weapon and firearm, they’re left to their own devices. The world this time around is more like Victorian London than the medieval fantasy of Dark Souls, and it’s better for it. This is a setting that’s much less common, and the Lovecraftian enemies enhance it well. The lore is presented in vague bits throughout the game, and you can choose whether to delve into it, or just ignore it completely. It’s typical fare for fans of From’s games, but the combat differences will ensure that even experienced players encounter some trouble early on. From’s games don’t have a difficulty curve so much as they have a difficulty brick wall. The initial hours are often the most difficult, and once you learn the game’s mechanics it becomes much easier. ‘Easier’ is a relative term though, as easy in Bloodborne is still much harder than most gamers are ready for. Ten minutes in, you’ll encounter a mob of around 15 enemies at once that proves to be one of the most challenging fights in the game. It almost comes across as an effort by From to weed out the weaker players early on. Killing enemies grants you Blood Echoes (Souls with a different name). These are used to purchase items and to level up. When you die, you drop everything you had. If you return to the spot of your death you can pick them up, but die a second time and they’re gone forever. To reinforce even further, this game is not for the faint of heart and losing a massive amount of Blood Echoes can drive even the most relaxed person off the deep end.
The largest changes between Dark Souls and Bloodborne are within its combat. Featuring a quicker style than the Souls games, Bloodborne strips you of your ability to block. Replacing your shield with a firearm allows you to stun enemies with well-timed shots, but also forces you to rethink how you play. Whereas Dark Souls combat plays like a game of chess, patiently tanking hits and waiting to strike, Bloodborne has a twitchier feel to it. Rolling is your only form of defense, and the removal of equipment load ensures you’ll always be light on your feet. Even the health system is based around this faster style. When you take damage, part of the health you lost will be highlighted. If you strike an enemy in the following seconds, you’ll regain some of that highlighted health. This counter attack mechanic helps to make the game a much more vicious game of trading blows rather than the old style of waiting to attack. The second large health change has to do with standard health recovery.
Gone are the days of spawning with guaranteed healing items. There’s no Estus or any other refilling healing this time around. The main source of healing is Blood Vials. These can be purchased, or picked up from defeated enemies. You can hold 20 at any point, and keep up to 99 in storage. When you respawn, these will be automatically pulled from your storage to put you at 20, until you run out. Things become interesting when that happens as you will find yourself unable to heal until you farm up more. This makes healing much more of a risk, which in turn makes it more exciting. You can try to use all your Vials on a boss the first time you encounter them, but dying means they’re gone forever and you may need to find more because you can feasibly fight him again.
Finding more can become tedious on occasion, and going back to farm blood vials as well as blood echoes can get a bit dull. Dying also leads to load times that can reach 40 seconds, another inconvenience that really slows the pace of the game. From has promised to fix the loading issue, but as of the time of this review it’s still very much present. Few things are more infuriating than dying hits from defeating a difficult boss and then being forced to wait upwards of 30 seconds before you can even start the walk back to it.
Despite any issues the game may have, it’s still fantastic. It may not reach the heights of Dark Souls (but really, what can?), but it’s a significant improvement over Dark Souls 2. If you enjoyed the Souls games and felt that they were starting to get a little bit too similar to each other, this is the game for you. Experienced or not, this game will give you a run for your money. Even if you’ve beaten both Dark Souls 1 and 2 multiple times each, there may be a point early on in Bloodborne where you genuinely think you won’t be able to progress any further. Of course with a bit of dedication and a lot of loud profanity you may triumph, and that feeling of finally besting a foe is something that few games outside of these can provide.
Final Score: 9/10