It’s impossible for me to review my experience with From
Software’s Bloodborne without constantly holding it up to my experiences with their
Demon’s and Dark Souls games. Almost every moment of playing it, a thrill of
being immersed back in that developer’s unique worlds and narratives was constantly
buzzing in my head.
At almost every encounter, I couldn’t help but think how
different - and in many ways how much better - Bloodborne handled combat than
its predecessors. What themes remained constant? What moods? What mechanics? It’s
impossible for me to separate how I played Bloodborne from how I played Souls
games, so this review - I’ve got to say up front - will focus primarily on
comparisons.
Having completed Bloodborne two and half times by now - and
diving fairly deep into its randomly generated Chalice Dungeons as well - I
have yet to find any environmental or story clues that link this world to the
worlds of the games with “Souls” in their titles. It’s perfectly clear,
however, that they are linked in tone (maybe not so much theme). Every world in
the series so far has been built on the premise of “something bad happened
here,” and part of the joy of playing these games is figuring out what went
wrong and how you can become the wrench thrown into the gears that have kept some
cycle of degradation going, bringing the whole thing to an end and, possibly, a
rebirth.
In Bloodborne, that cycle is the hunt. You play as a
nameless outsider who comes to the city of Yarnham to join in on the hunt. You’re
a hunter of beasts. As you venture forth into the world (which from the very
beginning you’re warned might all just be a bad dream) it quickly becomes
apparent that you’re running a little late. The Yarnham citizens have already
strung up and set fire to the beasts they caught roaming the streets, and as
you approach, they inexplicably turn their pitchforks, hatchets, muskets and
ire in your direction. What drove me onward during the early hours of the game
- all the while bloodying myself as I slayed these people left and right in
self defense - was simply wanting to know why. Why turn the hunt upon a hunter?
What the hell is going on here? 
Little by little, as you move through new
areas, find new items, and learn new things, you delve deeper and deeper into
the complexities of such a simple question, and the answers you find are quite
otherworldly and truly horrifying. Needless to say, by the time you reach the
second half of the experience (which as a whole took me roughly 40 hours to complete),
and as long as you’ve been perceptive enough, the story behind Bloodborne
changes directions entirely. There’s much more at stake than just a hunt, and you
can be far more than just a hunter.
Although there are plenty of areas to explore, plenty of
exceptionally challenging bosses to encounter, I found that the world of
Bloodborne seemed a little smaller than previous games in the Souls series. I
was expecting more, sure, yet I realize I may just be bitter because there wasn’t
more to play. (It’s true that I missed two optional areas entirely during my
first playthrough, but even if I counted those, which I played through during
New Game + , the world is still not very large.) I realize that this is by
design, as Bloodborne just feels more cramped on purpose in order to achieve
the game’s mechanical and aesthetic goals that set to be apart from the other
Souls games. Gone are the wide-open castle courtyards and Cliffside pathways,
replaced with claustrophobic alleyways and decaying Victorian-era structures. I
can’t help but stop and marvel at the intricate architecture and grotesque
statues that line practically every inch of Yarnham and the surrounding
environments, from cathedrals to caves, forests, academies, clinics,
graveyards, and nightmare landscapes (literally). And yes, there is still a
castle, but not exactly how you’d expect it. One of the greatest strengths of
the Souls series has been the level design. Each path, each doorway, each
corner fills you with hesitation and dread. What lies at the end or on the
other side could be the unexpected enemy or situation that kills you, or the
narrowly won challenge that rewards you. The true genius of the game’s design
emerges when you turn the former into the latter.
The redesign of the environments was needed to achieve what
I believe is Bloodborne’s greatest strength over previous Souls games: the
combat. The tighter spaces and treacherous spots only make running up against a
monster or madman that can end your life with a single hit that much more
intense. Because of the close proximity, ranged fighting is no longer a viable
option. There are no bows with ranged stats and various arrows to shoot as
there were in previous Souls games. There are no more magic missile type spells
to cast while back-pedaling away from charging foes. In Bloodborne, you may be
able fire a few quicksilver bullets at an enemy within lock on range, but the
damage you’d deal is pitiful, even if you’ve buffed the stat that enhances your
gunplay. You might want to keep your bullets handy anyway, because firing your
gun at the exact moment an enemy is winding up a powerful attack is how you’ll
deal significant damage in what’s called a visceral attack, making you feel
like a truly powerful hunter. 
Bloodborne is much more a game of quick adaptation to fights
than anything else I’ve ever played. There has always been a formula by which I’ve
(literally) lived and died by in the Souls series: Encounter a new enemy, hold up
the shield, retreat for better footing, hold up the shield, absorb a few hits
to learn the attack pattern, hold up the shield, and then - only when I’m
satisfied I know how it all works - will I take some swipes of my own. From
Software set that formula on fire with Bloodborne. Now more than ever, you’ll
find yourself dodging directly into an enemy’s personal space to strike first,
and then either fire a shot to catch them before they can retaliate or dodge
directly out and find the next angle of approach. This beautiful dance of death
is the base strategy for success, but there are a million varieties to disover
depending on the weapons you find and upgrade, the items you toss out, and - as
ever - your own level of personal recklessness.
Still, no matter how you handle Bloodborne, you’re going to
die. Many times. Still, just like in other Souls games, there is a checkpoint
system where you’ll begin again upon death. However, there’s no more
teleporting between these bonfi… I mean lanterns. In the first Dark Souls, the ingenious
level design of the entire world made sense because you were constantly finding
paths that led back to the central hub, therefore making traversal from one
corner of the huge world to another a relatively quick task. Dark Souls 2 gave
its world a slightly grander scale, so teleporting between checkpoints in major
areas made better sense than constantly running back to a central hub. In
Bloodborne, though, there’s a hybrid of these checkpoint systems that may work
well on a story level (no spoilers here!), but keeps players from getting
quickly back into the action. A disembodied area called The Hunter’s Dream is
the central hub in Bloodborne where you’ll do all your leveling up and upgrading,
but don’t expect to do any of that very fast. The time you spend warping back
and forth from the hunter’s dream can really add up.
This tedious turning of the clock is only compounded by the
load time as you travel there and back. Or upon every death, which, in case you’ve
never heard about the Souls series of games, is quite frequent. Each time the
game loads a new area or sends you back to the last lantern checkpoint, you
wait nearly a full minute while the game loads. I get that the intense
graphical drain hungrily eats up the system’s memory, but I wish From Software
had spent a little extra time and polish finding workarounds to improve the
loading speed. (As of this writing - April 23rd - they’ve released a
patch that’s done exactly that!) On one hand, the presentation of the world
really goes far to immerse me there, to make me feel like I’m a real hunter,
part of a real hunt, but on the other hand the long periods of time I must wait
with nothing between periods of play do a lot to take me out of it all.
It sounds to me like there may be more complaining than
comparing at the heart of my review of Bloodborne, or perhaps it sounds like
the complaints are born out of not living up to what’s been done before. While
it’s true I feel there are plenty of problems with the system that holds the
game up (the most glaring issue being the load times), Bloodborne is every bit
as enthralling as all the previous Souls games. Although a lot of the core
themes, mechanics, and overall feel of the game remains the same as its
predecessors, Bloodborne is different enough in some crucial areas to earn its
own identity and stand on its own as a truly unforgettable game.
