Brian picks up where he left off two years ago, in the Forbidden Woods. The first order of business is unlocking a shortcut so he can bypass the area that he’s been stuck in forever.
Bloodborne is a 2015 action role-playing game directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, developed by From Software, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. The game was announced at Sony’s Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014 media briefing on June 9, 2014, where a trailer was shown, and was released worldwide in March 2015, to critical acclaim.
Brian explores the Healing Church Workshop area and has trouble making it all the way down. When he finally gets there, the Beast-Possessed Soul at the bottom of the tower makes short work of him.
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While the multiplayer system in Bloodborne has its similarities to the previous Souls games, it has its differences as well. Instead of using soapstones to leave symbols on the ground for other to see, in Bloodborne summoning is done using bells. And while I received the Beckoning Bell (which let’s me summon other players) pretty much right away, I had to actually purchase the Small Resonant Bell with Insight, a currency similar to Humanity in the other games. And in order to even access the merchant where I could buy the Small Resonant Bell, I needed 10 Insight.READ MORE
Two weeks ago today, Bloodborne was released. And while the last couple weeks have been busy for me outside of gaming, I’ve managed to beat the first two bosses and die a whole heck of a lot. In short, I am having a blast.
And for the first time with the Souls series, I’m streaming and recording a good deal of my gameplay, which has been a really interesting experience as well. Like a baseball player watching videos of his at-bats, I’ve been able to go back and learn from some of my encounters, particularly with the bosses.
This has made Bloodborne a bit of a different experience for me, as I have previously relied quite a bit on guides and let’s play videos to navigate parts of the Souls games that I was struggling with. My previous strategy was to keep chipping away at a particular part of the game until I wasn’t progressing at all, and then seek out a guide or video to give me another perspective.
With Bloodborne so far, I’ve been revisiting my own gameplay videos to see where my strategy is breaking down, particularly with the bosses. Many times I’m just confirming where I thought I went wrong, but a few times I’ve seen things that I was able to go back and do differently the next time around.
Make no mistake, I’ll still be visiting my favorite wikis and let’s players during the course of my playthrough, and I have the hardcover Bloodborne guide on its way to me (if Amazon ever decides to ship it). But, being able to watch pieces of my own playthrough is a new tool that I’m really getting a lot out of. And since learning from death is a core theme with the Souls games, having another way to learn just adds to the fun.
I usually have three or four games that I’m playing at any given time, seeing as I play on pretty much every platform out there. But there are certain releases that I know will be taking a huge commitment of my time, so I try to clean out my gaming slate before I start them. Dragon Age: Inquisition was one of those games, but that was just a warmup for the game that comes out tomorrow–Bloodborne.
I will be writing, talking and making videos about Bloodborne for the next several months, so I’m not going to talk too much about the game itself here, except to say it’s my most anticipated of the year by a country mile. I’ve put at least 400 hours into the Souls series of games, and I expect I’ll put no less than 100-150 into Bloodborne. That kind of time commitment–especially when I don’t have a ton f time to game–requires sacrifices to made.
I won’t be picking up Borderlands: The Handsome Collection tomorrow, as I know I won’t have time for it (but Nick’s grabbing it, so expect to see some videos here and on the YouTube page). I finished Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dying Light and The Order: 1886. The only other game I have going right now is Battlefield: Hardline, and that will be mainly for multiplayer with my Xbox friends over the next couple months.
But the end of March and all of April will be about one game–Bloodborne. And I can’t wait to dive in. Expect a ton of let’s plays, highlight videos and blog posts about the game over the next several weeks.
What was the last game you cleared out your gaming slate for? What’s coming up that you need to make room for?
The other day I talked about the new Crackdown as the first of my top three E3 announcements. The next one on my list came from Sony’s E3 presentation, and it’s the thing I’m most excited about coming out of E3.
Sony finally revealed “Project Beast” at E3 2014, and it wasn’t the Demon’s Souls successor that some were thinking developer From Software was working on. Project Beast is actually Bloodborne, a very Lovecraftian-looking, gothic horror game that is definitely inspired by Demon’s Souls, but not beholden to it. Check out the trailer:
Now, that trailer doesn’t show any gameplay, but we have seen this leaked footage from the game in action, with a nice breakdown by YouTube user VaatiVidya:
Between the world and creature design, Bloodborne certainly has the markings of a From Software game. But watching the main character wielding a shotgun also says this is a pretty stark departure from what we know the Souls series to be. it was further confirmed that there are no shields in Bloodborne, so the emphasis is clearly on having more dynamic, fast-paced combat.
I know some may disappointed that Bloodborne isn’t more of a direct Demon’s Souls sequel, but I could not be more excited. As a horror fan, the world design is right up my alley. And as a fan of the Souls games, I’m still playing Dark Souls 2 and we know we’ll get more in that series moving forward. Having a sister series begin with Bloodborne would be awesome, and the game looks to be offering something that you can’t get in the current Souls games.
