next »

[melos]

eh, a month later and bb is honestly just okay.  not bad, of course. it's good. not great? hm.

[s0]

i think its the 2nd best after dark souls 1 but ok.

[TeeGee]

It bores me. Level design is really poor. Initial area is just a corridor filled with dudes. None of those cool, clever traps and ambushes like in Demon's Souls. Just dudes and maybe a dog or two.

As it's the start of the game, you'll be fighting those same dudes quite a lot, each time trying to stay patient as you cheese the poor AI coding. Because areas have less shortcuts and there are no items to find aside from mats/bullets/potions, I don't feel like I'm progressing anything when I die. I just stare at the loading screen and proceed to beat those same dudes again. It must be even worse for people who haven't played Souls before.

I still enjoy the mood and looks of it all, as well as the cryptic story and juicy feel of the combat. But after n-th loading screen I realized it doesn't trigger that "just one more try" feel in me. Maybe I've just become too old for this shit? Even Dark Souls dragged at times, and this one's even more filler right away.

[Dragonmaw]

Are you playing the same game we are?

I think I've found a shortcut in literally every single area I've played. It's really clever!

[TeeGee]

Dunno, maybe it gets better later. But I stopped buying into "it gets better later" since I realized I don't have all the time in the world to play video games anymore. And since Final Fantasy XIII.

[s0]

As it's start of the game, you'll be fighting those same dudes quite a lot, each time trying to stay patient as you cheese the poor AI coding. Because areas have less shortcuts and there are no items to find aside from mats/bullets/potions, I don't feel like I'm progressing anything when I die. I just stare at the loading screen and proceed to beat those same dudes again. It must be even worse for people who haven't played Souls before.

what? the areas have tons of shortcuts and are among the most complex in the series. im guessing by "corridor" you mean the early setpiece fight in the round plaza? you're relatively close to unlocking a huge shortcut, boletaria palace 1-1 style. from there you'll have 2 bosses to choose from and a complete sub-area with 2 different entry points and some PHAT LEWT (that leads to 1 of the bosses) to play through. and there definitely IS stuff to find, just not in the first few minutes of the game haha.

EDIT: actually after the plaza fight the path already splits in 2 come to think of it.

Dunno, maybe it gets better later. But I stopped buying into "it gets better later" since I realized I don't have all the time in the world to play video games anymore. And since Final Fantasy XIII.

yeah but youre soooo close to the game opening up and "getting better".

[DJFloppyFish]

Central Yharnam & Cathedral Ward are easily two of the best levels in the series. The way Central Yharnam connects is Undead Burg on steroids. Also that corridor with dudes is only one part (which is specifically designed to show off the new ways enemies dynamically patrol), and the rest is all very clever enemy placement. Of course, that stuff doesn't speak to everyone. If you wanted more variety early on, I guess I could see that. Personally I don't think enemy variety becomes a problem in BB until way later.

Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne are kinda tied for best souls game for me right now. I have to play more to truly make up my mind.

[TeeGee]

What can I say. I played it for around 2hrs and don't feel like playing more.

I'm honestly tired of all the "you just have to get out of the boring initial area and then it opens up" bullshit in vidyagames. Heard it in Final Fantasy 13, heard it in The Last of Us, in Dragon Age: Inquisition, and in countless jRPGs. In almost all the cases it wasn't true, but even when it was, the initial area should be enough to hook me in. If it doesn't, then either someone botched the design or the game simply isn't for me (which I fully accept as an option). I know you guys like it a lot, and it's great you have the patience to get to the fun parts. I'm just sharing my own personal experience.

EDIT: BTW, I got further than the plaza fight. I think I'm close to the first boss or something. I still went through that damn plaza one time too often.

[DJFloppyFish]

honestly if you played 2 hours and you didn't like central yharnam, you probably will not like the rest of the game. so yeah, your choice makes perfect sense.

[s0]

EDIT: BTW, I got further than the plaza fight. I think I'm close to the first boss or something. I still went through that damn plaza one time too often.

were you on the bridge with the 2 big werewolves? because that means you were like a minute away from opening up the shortcut that lets you skip the plaza completely.

[TeeGee]

I honestly don't know if this isn't just me getting tired of the formula, but here's how I see it:

Demon's Souls employed a similar design where the game didn't open up until you defeated the first boss. But it was all fresh back then, so just exploring how it plays felt exciting. Boletaria Palace was actually a cool level too. It felt a lot like MegaMan. You had to memorize each room/area and its unique kind of challenge/ambush. Each time I died, I wanted to get back there right away, 'cause now I knew how solve it and progress at least one room further, get a new item or unlock a shortcut.

Dark Souls did this even better imho. Short-but-intense tutorial level with a boss that you wouldn't see at the start of any other game. Nicely conducted that shit is real in this gam, but was also tight enough to finish in minutes if you failed and had to re-do it or simply played it already. The game then opened up completely.

BB feels like Boletaria Palace again, but without the novelty factor. Enemy encounters base their difficulty on being crowded and Souls never did crowd battles well due to sloppy coding and the strategic nature of combat. I can't memorize and get through rooms quickly on sub-sequent runs now, too. I have to play the same AI-pulling game again and again. And if I fail, the loading time is there to remind me how tedious it is.

[s0]

really? i can kill these guys easily without pulling every single one of them. and this game actually does group battles pretty well with the combat changes i think. maybe part of your problem is that youre trying to play it too much like the old souls games? like i already said several times in this thread, bloodborne wants you to take risks and be aggressive.

my first few hours with bborne actually reminded me of my first few hours with DeS: at first i tried to play DeS like a normal hack n slash (remember this was before any of the hype) and got my ass handed to me. then at some point (i was already thiiiis close to giving up on this stupid janky game) it dawned on me that this game actually wants me to be cautious and pay attention. that's when the game "clicked". i didnt play anything else for the next 2 months or so.

BB feels like Boletaria Palace again, but without the novelty factor.

ok i can understand that. i mean truth be told im a huge fanboy of this series (who would have guessed?). demon's souls at the time felt like someone made my dream game for me basically. and because theres almost nothing else out there that scratches the same itch (particularly in terms of atmosphere/lore/mechanics integration) i don't mind a bit of repetition. bloodborne actually recycles less than dark souls 1 and 2 btw and does new things (the biggest change being the different combat mechanics).

oops sorry for gushing so much, i just really really think this game is awesome

[Dragonmaw]

I think the biggest thing is that the first area and general pacing of the start of Bloodborne is really, really bad. I also felt like I was lost and unable to do anything interesting or important. It doesn't help that leveling up is gated behind getting your first Insight, which only happens once finding Cleric/Father.

Once I reached Cathedral Ward, though, I felt like it started to make more sense/be more fun. I'm just very much not a fan of gating basic mechanics (leveling up and such) behind a wall of difficulty. Same reason why I don't like the removal of Estus: it feels unnecessarily punishing for no effective purpose.

[DJFloppyFish]

could it be that beckoning the moon actually means beckoning the moon presence?

I still don't fully understand what moons mean in this game

[s0]

welp the moon presence's role is kinda unclear as to whether it only exists in the hunters dream or just controls the moon in general. im guessing its the latter because "beckoning the moon" is obviously beckoning a great one. also imo paleblood is the blood of the moon presence. in the "true" ending you kill it, absorb its blood and are reborn as a babby slug great one.

the note you read in the unseen village reads "the mensis ritual must be stopped or else we'll all turn into beasts". i think that both the moon beckoning and micolash entering the nightmare to meet mergo are part of the ritual. theres 1 thing that is unclear however: we don't know whether the moon shitting out the one reborn was the intended result or not. im guessing the ultimate goal was to have the moon presence basically take over the entirety of the "real" world and in exchange the school of mensis would be granted the power of the great ones.

also as i see it rom somehow prevented the ritual from being completed and you got duped into killing him by the moon presence (remember gehrman is basically a slave to the moon presence and acts as its "middle man" and so are by extension all hunters).

im basing this partially off of similar themes that show up in demon's and dark souls.

[s0]

btw in case anyone has trouble understanding the endings: theyre basically the same thing as in demon's and dks1. they all involve a choice between either a large personal sacrifice for a (supposed) "greater good" or attaining unimaginable power but plunging the world (again, supposedly) into chaos. the endings are morally ambiguous tho because in all 3 games the player character is under the secret influence of powers whose motivations are not entirely clear

in demon's you either become the most powerful demon or become a monumental

in dks1 you either become gwyn's successor (euphemism for burning forever in the kiln) and prolong the age of fire. or you become the dark lord who ushers in the age of dark (and thereby the end of the old lords).

in bloodborne you either become gehrmans replacement as the host of the hunter's dream and the moon presence's "middle man". or you kill the moon presence and become a great one. bloodborne adds a third ending where nothing happens tho lol

[s0]

Once I reached Cathedral Ward, though, I felt like it started to make more sense/be more fun. I'm just very much not a fan of gating basic mechanics (leveling up and such) behind a wall of difficulty. Same reason why I don't like the removal of Estus: it feels unnecessarily punishing for no effective purpose.

demons and dark souls did the same thing fyi. idk i personally enjoy the "trial by fire" style of souls early game. i think its supposed to teach the player that 1. "this game means business" and 2. "grinding and leveling up will only get you so far".

[JWK5]

Grinding and leveling up in the Souls games turns your character into a running lawn mower mindlessly cutting down most enemies (summoning friends takes care of the rest). Dark Souls 2 did alleviate this a bit with the enemies eventually expiring and no longer re-spawning (which forced you to keep moving in the early game before Bonfire Ascetics got the soul-farming train moving again). The catch is you have to learn the areas enough to survive the initial build up (i.e. you first have to learn how to farm an area before you can do so in any manner that is remotely efficient).



On another note regarding Dark Souls 2, Stone Trader Chloanne is still MIA. Her gravestone is nowhere to be found. I am 20 hours past her death, I've had my sins forgiven, I've scoured every area of Majula. She's vanished without a trace, never to be seen again (until NG+). The best I can guess is either it glitched and removed her grave entirely, or perhaps it is lodged in the environment somewhere (trapped in a wall or something).

Also, I've farmed out most of the bosses so the majority of their bonfires are +7, most other bonfires are at 3-5+. What happens when I finally do go NG+, does it just bump up the bonfires not yet at +7?

[Dragonmaw]

Once I reached Cathedral Ward, though, I felt like it started to make more sense/be more fun. I'm just very much not a fan of gating basic mechanics (leveling up and such) behind a wall of difficulty. Same reason why I don't like the removal of Estus: it feels unnecessarily punishing for no effective purpose.

demons and dark souls did the same thing fyi. idk i personally enjoy the "trial by fire" style of souls early game. i think its supposed to teach the player that 1. "this game means business" and 2. "grinding and leveling up will only get you so far".

i enjoy the trial-by-fire nature of Souls games, but I'm not keen on gating very basic functionality behind multiple hours of newbie play. it's a very bad design decision.

make gems and runes a later-game thing, whatever, but leveling and weapon reinforcement should be available the moment you step foot into the Hunter's Dream imo. they are so crucial and essential to doing well along the game's standard path that hiding them is just a dick move. i think dark souls did this the best (making estus/leveling/etc available at all bonfires, but gating weapon reinforcement, the "late game" feature)

also bring back estus

[s0]

Grinding and leveling up in the Souls games turns your character into a running lawn mower mindlessly cutting down most enemies (summoning friends takes care of the rest).

ok but you cant really beat bosses through sheer grinding unless you invest A LOT of time and massively overlevel yourself, time that would be better spent GITTING GUD or using co-op which is basically babby mode anyway.