Friday, January 6, 2017

Bloodborne - Like Riding a Bike! A Bloody, Eldritch Bike

I decided to go back and play some Bloodborne after a few months of hiatus - unlike WoW, it's not really a came that expects any regularity in play.

I have a second character, this one built much more around Skill (I'd like to get the Rakuyo eventually as her main weapon I think) than my previous Strength-based one.

When I first started playing on my first character, the march through Central Yharnam was a slapstick exercise in getting routinely slaughtered. I actually ran this portion, up through defeating the Cleric Beast on my second character with very little difficulty. In fact, I one-shot the Cleric Beast (I did manage to one-shot (one-attempt, to be precise) a few bosses on my first run-through.

Coming back after a very long period without playing, I expected to have more difficulty than I did. While I did not kill Gascoigne on my first attempt, I did on my second. My gun-parry skills are way more on point than they were when I first started, and if you get really good at that you can pretty much trivialize the Padre. I basically just had one visceral attack to do after he transformed and he went down easy.

So now I'm trying to remember what to do for each quest chain. I've met Alfred and Eileen, though I think I need to get a bit farther to get Eileen to the Cathedral Ward. I believe I need to do Old Yharnam next, and I just got to its lamppost.

Given that I spoiled myself with a lot of stuff online, I don't necessarily think that I'll be able to find any huge revelations about the lore - it's not obvious that that stuff hasn't all been uncovered. But one thing that coming back to this game has reminded me of is just how fun it is. The combat system is so responsive and fluid. And I also just love the aesthetic of the game.

I'd love to see From work more on the Bloodborne IP with sequels, but I'd also be ok with them taking the idea of Bloodborne - a Souls game that escapes from the traditional medievalism - and doing something radically different.

One thought I had was a futuristic sci-fi Souls game that could have players as AIs (rather than Undead or dream-linked Hunters) who are restored to new bodies upon death. There's tons of themes to explore with artificial intelligence and aliens (though Bloodborne does obviously deal with aliens) and it would be cool to see the people who build Lothric and Yharnam construct a massive derelict space station.

EDIT:

Apparently not satisfied with only getting one boss down, I've now also taken out the Blood Starved Beast. This one was not so quick and easy, taking about four or five attempts (I'm pretty sure it took significantly more the first time.) BSB has very clear telegraphing for its most common attack, and I found that if you stay right in its face and dodge (leaning into the punch, as it were) it's not too bad. You'll have to pop an antidote every now and then (especially when it gets a poison aura) but I found that I really didn't have to use many blood vials.

Granted, I'm now pretty close to Vicar Amelia (I figure I'll not fight her until I've done more exploration in the Cathedral Ward and perhaps done the Henryk step of Eileen's quests,) and I'm sure there will be some fights that are a bigger speed bump. I think just knowing that I have beaten every boss in the game (except in the Chalice dungeons, I suppose) makes it easier to be calm in these fights, which is of course a huge advantage in these games.

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