Bloodborne

I have finally come around to reviewing this game. It's almost difficult to put into words of how phenomenal Bloodborne is. The character creation and customization is amazing with how you can define your hunter. The start of the storyline submerges the player into wonder and curiosity, due to mystery of Yharnam and its inhabitants. However, from the start of the game the hunter is given clues to why the city and lands are filled with miasma and misanthropy. Even the in-game items have descriptions that help to tell the storyline.

When playing my first time through Bloodborne I immediately felt immersed into the story and gameplay. While fighting off blood drunken infected people, otherworldly beasts, and even cosmic creatures; I felt not only the rush of action, but horror as well.

The gameplay and mechanics are incredibly smooth, including the character controls. As far as the story goes, it's up to the hunter to unravel the mystery to why Yharnam is infested with ghastly and grotesque creatures.

It's amazing as well of how they embedded the side quests into the story. One of these "side quests" includes rescuing certain people BEFORE the climax. Doing so requires the hunter to tell these people which safe haven to go to. The catch is, there's only one safe haven (though you have two options of dialogue, one of which tells the person where to go).

For H.P. Lovecraft fans, you will absolutely love the fact that majority of the lore in the storyline is HEAVILY Lovecraftian. Mainly because a lot of descriptions on items read, "The Greater Ones" and one of the last bosses is one of these said creatures.

The only two complaints I have about Bloodborne (which are small) are: The summoning system for cooperative play is odd and sometimes takes a while. The other is, you can't drop or trade items with other players. Nevertheless, it doesn't bother me too much. I highly recommend this game, especially if you're craving for a challenge!

I meant what I said there, but equally, I mean it when I say that my favourite game of the Soulsborne series so far also has my favourite expansion released for them so far. This DLC lets you loose on the Hunter's Nightmare, and then lets every trick it has loose on you in return. Make no mistake, if you like the base game, this is definitely a worthy purchase, but I would recommend at the very least, you get to the Lecture Hall 2nd floor and do all the optional areas before this, and have a +9 weapon before you even consider taking this on. It's HARD.

A significant portion of the enemies in the first area are hunter NPC fights, there are traps galore, and god do the bosses in this expansion let you have it. I remember the first time I played this part of the game, and three out of the five new bosses you get took me literal days to beat. Crucially though, in keeping with the game's philosophy, they never felt insurmountable, and with time and practice, they crumbled before me, and of these five, three of them are easily in the top ten, maybe even top five best bosses in the game for me.

The other two though...one of them is okay to me, while the other one is a little disappointing. It has some new and interesting things about it, but mostly it kind of feels like it's copying a boss from the base game, which does kind of suck.

Speaking of copying from the base game, my only other complaint is that the first part of the Hunter's Nightmare is more or less just the Cathedral Ward from the main game reskinned, which feels pretty lazy and there isn't even a story reason for this as far as I could see.

But eeeeeeverything else in this expansion is top-quality stuff, easily on par with, if not better than things from the main game. The new areas are well designed and as gorgeous as ever, the new NPC's are interesting and well voice acted, and every single new weapon and armour set added has its uses and is so fun to mess about with.

And the lore of these new areas and characters is as interesting as it ever was, with the last area in particular being an absolute delight for fans of Lovecraft's works, it being easily the most directly inspired place from one of his stories, yet still has that distinct Bloodborne flavour that I adore so much.

At the end of the day, if you loved the original game as much as I do, the mere fact that this is more Bloodborne is probably enough to make this more than worth it to you, so bloody well get it already, what are you waiting for? It's nearly six years old you dummy.

This game is truly something special. The atmosphere, weaponry, gameplay, music, boss fights, the dlc. Everything is perfect (except blood vials) and it can't get better than Bloodborne. If someone asked me what the highlight of this game is, it has to be none other than the final boss himself, Gehrman. My gosh this is just perfection, the beautiful melancholic soundtrack, the field of white flowers, the looming moon, the lyrics, the gameplay. It's all perfection and honestly just makes me feel so many emotions. Man Bloodborne really is the greatest game of all time. Please play it sometime, you won't regret it.

This is my first game from From Software and boy, what a maaserpiece. Haven't even finished yet but it has a special place in my gaming heart already.

Be prepared to die, hundreds of times. And more. Frustration. Impossible. But for some reason you keep coming back. For more deaths. And then it happens. You kill that boss, that satisfaction!!

This kind of challenge used to be standard in good old games so it's really refreshing to witness it again. A lot of new gamers are soft.

Bloodborne wins it on more fronts. The gameplay is astonishing, it's such a joy to use the weapons and fight all those different creatures. And there is a lot of types of them so you have to use different strategies everytime you open new area.

Graphics are great. The detail on the beasts is wow.

Innovative storytelling where the protagonist doesn't say a word and you basically create your own view on the world with witnessing all the cues/notes/messages.

Great sound design and soundtrack especially when fighting bosses.

But the horror and challenge is the main thing.

So well done. You can see the developers love games and man they put a lot of love in creating this.

Hats down.

Mr. Miyazaki! We are waiting for you from the *New DLC (addon) for a long time, since 2015, take pity on the fans. Please.