Bloodborne

This review didn't take me long to make, because I found myself with nothing bad to say about this game. It's a masterpiece.

Bloodborne was released in March of 2015. After the success of the two Dark Souls games that From Software had previously released, a third game by From Software was highly anticipated, and people had high expectations. At the beginning of 2021, I made it my goal to play all of the Dark Souls games, plus Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, before it was my time to head to college. But as a PlayStation exclusive game, it felt inaccessible to me, someone who doesn’t own a PlayStation. When it came time for me to play Bloodborne, I looked all over the web for third party ports of Bloodborne, and found multiple fakes and scam sites. It was only when I looked at Sony’s PlayStation Now service that I found a way to play it without a PS. The only problems were that I had to pay for a subscription for the service to play the game, and I needed a PS4 controller. I borrowed a PS4 controller from one of my friends, got a subscription to PS Now, and prepared to play Bloodborne for the first time. I’ve met a number of people who say that Bloodborne is their favorite game out of the Dark Souls trilogy, Bloodborne, and Sekiro. Because of this, I held high expectations for the game.

After a two month period of playing through Bloodborne, minus a few chalice dungeons and the DLC, I looked back and thought if the game was worth being so many people’s From favorite. And my conclusion was that Bloodborne is one of my favorite games ever, and I know exactly why there are people who consider it the best From Software game. Here’s why.

Since I went into the game completely blind, I had no idea what to expect from it. The only idea I had of what would happen in the game is that it had a great focus on dodging attacks, instead of blocking them like in Dark Souls. In the beginning of my playthrough, I found myself having a lot of trouble killing the simplest enemies. This was mainly because I was completely unfamiliar with using a PlayStation controller. I would miss buttons or press the wrong ones constantly. But I knew that all I had to do was keep playing and I would eventually get better. The rest of the trouble I had with the first area was that I was playing Bloodborne too much like Dark Souls. I would find myself trying to stand my ground against enemies, which only got me killed multiple times. Once I learned to stop playing like that, and start using my greater speed to stay light on my feet and dodge everything, I started having a much better time. It was around the time when I got to the Blood-Starved Beast boss fight that I really mastered Bloodborne’s play style.

The Blood-Starved Beast resides in a church at the very end of a very difficult maze-like alleyway area, filled with some of the game’s strongest enemies. I had already memorized the best way to make my way through the alleyways while avoiding as many enemy encounters as possible, so the only problems I had with the fight came from the boss itself. After at least a dozen failed attempts, I decided to go and grind some levels and items before I came back. I was determined to defeat the boss before I made any more story progress. It was one of those moments in gaming where you just know you can get past it, it’s just a matter of time. After almost three days of being stuck on it, after grinding in-game items and levels, talking with friends about optimal strategies, and dozens of failed attempts, I finally took it down. It was just a matter of getting good. I had that classic From-Soft feeling of released tension and adrenaline after I killed it. That was the moment where I realized why so many people have Bloodborne as their favorite From Software game.

I streamed almost my entire gameplay of the game to the same friend who watched me play the original Dark Souls and Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin. We would talk about the story and lore about the game, speaking of its inspirations from H.P. Lovecraft, and discussing their relations. Some of the monsters in Bloodborne, especially the Amygdala and the great ones, are some of the most unique and cool-looking creatures I’ve ever seen in games. Their countless eyes and limbs, the tentacles and hairs, the exposed skeletons, all of these design details always stuck out to me more than some enemy designs in other games, just because of how memorable they all were. Additionally, some of the bosses’ music has lyrics in Latin, inspired by church choirs. As a Latin student, I tried translating and reading some of the lyrics, discussing their translations and meanings with my friends. I also played through most of the chalice dungeons with another friend, through co-op play. It’s been some of the most fun I’ve had with a game in a long time.

As I played through Bloodborne, I found myself discovering new things about the game and its story that only ever made my thoughts on the game better. Bloodborne has left me with literally nothing bad to say about it (maybe other than the fact that there’s no official PC port). If it wasn’t for my subscription running out, I would be playing this game a lot more than I already have, and I know that if I ever decide to buy a PlayStation, the first game I’m picking up will be Bloodborne.