Bloodborne - Commentary and Critique

This is the second of 3 videos that I'm doing on Bloodborne. The first was about the good part of the series, and what changes Bloodborne brought, for better or worse. This one will be a walk-through of the entire base game, looking at every level and every boss. I'm going to speak about things that we go through in each section, so I want to give a warning that some of this will just be me describing what happens in the game as you play. This is both so it's easier to understand the points I make, and so people who haven't played the game can follow what's happening. Having said that I do recommend that you played the game yourself first. But I know full-well that a lot of people can't justify getting a PlayStation 4 for just one game, or like to watch these videos without having to play the game. I always approach games in the Soulsborne series in the same way. I try to avoid all the information that I can on them before they released. I then play them blind without any outside help. I tend to find the weapon that I think feels good to use rather than one that has super powerful stats or anything. I never use items unless it's strictly necessary. I also never summon other players or NPCs to help on bosses. I go through the whole game solo with my own mini set of rules here. After completing the game, I let myself look up some hints for things that I missed, and complete the rest of the content in the same manners as before. I've had incredible time with every game in the series while following these rules. I'm only mentioning them so you have an idea what my first experience with all the games is like, and how it might be different than yours. The game starts with the scene that plays out from your character in first person. You're told that you're entering to some sort of contract to get some Pale Blood. It's not really clear what's going on. You go through a character creation menu, which is, apparently, the contract that you're signing. You witness some fairly unsettling imagery, and you're then swarmed by these evil babies called the Messengers. Believe it or not, by the end of the game, you'll end up quite fond of these little guys. I think they're sort of cute now. You wake up alone and abandoned in some sort of hospital. There are a few messages on the floor to follow like in the previous games, but this is NOT a tutorial area. You're meant to go down the stairs, and get promptly murdered by a werewolf. You died, and respawn in another area called the Hunter's Dream. This is the game's central hub. It functions identically to the Nexus in Demon's Souls. It is physically separated from the rest of the game. And the only way to leave here is to teleport out using the giant tombstones near by. You warped to lamps in this game instead of bonfires. Now, already, there are a few things I dislike about this. Without a central location in the game, there is nothing that resembles Firelink Shrine, a place many other levels circle back to, with shortcuts and paths to open leading from there. The level design in Bloodborne is great. But the larger world design is still subpar compares to Dark Souls 1. In fact I argue that the way all the levels fit together is only barely better than Dark Souls 2. It just a bit more clever about how it hides all the divergent paths. The other problem is that I think the game uses this lack of connectivity as an excuses to not tell you a damn thing about your goals in the game. People have complained that Dark Souls 1 is a bit vague, but at least there you have the intro cinematic and the prophecy to guide you. Here you're even told not to really think about it at all, just go out and kill monsters. Ultimately,this is fine. But I think that the only reason that the game gets away with it is because there is only one way out of the first area. There are no multiple exits to places like The Catacombs or Ruins of New Londo, or the blocked shortcuts in Valley of Drakes, and Undead Church like in Firelink Shrine. I really missed that about the first game. How there was this larger world around you that you can explore and get lost. It's more focused than Bloodborne, which, admittedly, some people might vastly prefer. There is also no version of the Asylum or Things Betwixt. There is no tutorial sequence of combat encounters that teach you things with enemies and messages on the floor. Technically, you could say that the werewolf functions in the same way as the Asylum Demon does, since when you leave the Hunter's Dream, you do so after choosing a weapon so you can easily kill it. Instead, this area is cramped with messages on the floor that were overwhelming for me, a guy who has put hundreds of hours into this series. I think this is a poor introduction to the game. And that this could have been done far better. I wondered if the intention was solely to make it easy to start new runs of the game, instead of easing newcomers in. It's a shame that some middle ground couldn't have been thought of. So you can't level yet. There are a few things in the Hunter's Dream are locked for now. You choose a starting weapon here. Like I said in the previous video, I run with the Hunter Axe in my first playthrough, which I was convinced was borderline overpowered by the time I finished the main game. I looked online after I was done to see people praising the cleaver and cane just as much, so I guess this choice is fairly balanced. I didn't use the other weapons as much, so I can't say for sure. You teleport back to the clinic, you woke up and then go down to fight the werewolf. The best way to kill this guy is just spam your attack button and keep him staggered, he doesn't have a full HP bar. It's possible that this is meant to teach you that attacking relentlessly is a good way to get through combat and encounters, but I think that's overanalysing it. Although I would do my own bit of over analysis on this guy a little later. Try to remember this wolf. I think it's more likely that this is only here to teach you to death isn't the end, and there are no limited lives. You may have also noticed that your bloodstain is hell a lot smaller in this game. This is another change that I don't really understand. It can be surprisingly difficult to find this little thing sometimes. Welcome to undead burg 2.0. It’s a lot prettier this time around I know that I said it in my last video, but it’s worth repeating. This game is downright gorgeous It’s one of a few games that my wife would sit with me just to watch me play because it looks that good If you’ve watched my Dark Souls 1 critique then you’ll know I’m critical on the stories in this series I won’t be speaking much about it in Bloodborne, but one thing that this game nails is atmosphere I might not buy into the game’s story, but the city? Absolutely Yharnam is dripping with details. From the streets that look like they’ve been abandoned in a riot, to how this is a place where deaths can be taken for granted There are so many coffins that weren’t trusted to stay locked and closed, they had to be chained as well This is a place with so many of these things that they’ve been left on the streets Levels in the Souls & Bornes series can usually fit into one of three categories: Maze-like with many different paths that often layer over each other on different vertical levels; or Concept, or trial, some sort of unique mechanic that requires you to play differently in order to win; or Traditional, straight forward, easy to understand, and mostly about combat Yharnam immediately sets the standard for Bloodborne, that it’s going to be mostly in the first category It starts off slowly, however, and eases the player into the concept It can also be seen as a slowly boiling pot of combat encounters that steadily increases until you reach one of the bosses in the area Initially, things are simple. You are confined to the small strip of streets You meet your first human enemy, then you run into two more These guys are inactive at first, and it’s gently showing you that not every enemy is going to be standing about, sticking outs for you to notice You need to pay at least a little attention There’s a locked gate here that I think most people won’t really think about looking at It’s the glowing loot that draws your attention which also happens to be right next to this lever You pull it, a ladder drops down, you climb it and hey there’s another lamp for you to light There’s a guy that you can speak to through the window that I missed until I came back here later He gives some advice on what to do, but you are still left to basically stumble your way through on your own Although it does help to make the city feel populated I don’t really like how often the game has you speaking to people through doors and windows It feels sort of forced, but it does build into the idea of the hunt that is happening This is the second part of the game’s setting Yharnam is a city that’s addicted to the power of blood Tonight, people are turning into beasts There’s some sort of infection of lycanthropy loose in the city, and tonight is when the whole place is going to hell People would shut themselves inside at dusk and already the streets are wrecked As a hunter, your job is to go around clearing the city of beasts, and those on the brink of turning into them There’s another closed gate here. This time I think most new players will notice You only have one path forward to the right There is a guy that burst through some clutter well ahead of time so he doesn’t ambush you There’s an optional path left here to fall down and kill another guy, or you can continue going to the right This doesn’t change anything but it’s opening you to the idea that there will be multiple paths around and places to drop down from one street to another A lot of central Yharnam is like this We’ll go to the right for now. There’s another duo of enemies not a big change from what we have dealt with so far, but up next is something that is not only new to this game, but also to the whole series Bloodborne has a lot of patrols. Many of the areas use them actually, and I’m surprised that they are introducing it in such an extreme way here There’s a veritable mob of guys roaming around that can easily kill you if you are caught in the middle of a battle My guess is that these guys pose quite a challenge to those brand-new to the series Transforming a hunter axe works wonders here. We can use the longer range to take them down To the left we can unlock the gate near the ladder that we called down This isn’t a useful shortcut, but it helps in giving you the impression that you are opening up some of the streets To the left here is the Bloodborne version of the black knight his is an optional challenge that is a significant step up in difficulty than the rest of the enemies in this area This guy looks imposing enough that he’s a cool challenge Unfortunately, he is a good example of two sorts of attacks that the game sometimes uses, but I absolutely hate: a quick slam, and a grab attack The grab attack doesn’t seem so bad at first, but the more I see enemies with it, the more I don’t like it My reasoning is that it doesn’t function like any other type of attack in the game, instead there being a wind up that results in some sort of attack that you need to avoid, the enemy instead enters this active state and runs at you If your models touch then the attack lands on you There’s no animation to dodge or any chance to avoid the actual grab part It’s handled by the animation afterwards It’s not a big deal but it just doesn’t feel right, since you are not dodging the grab itself, just this active state on the monster The slam is this headbutt, from the start of the animation to when it hits you is about 9 frames, which translates to just under a third of a second This is comfortably in the realm of being dodgeable but only if you instinctively hit the dodge button when you see the guy flinch There’s not enough time to reasonably notice the attack, acknowledge what it is and then decide whether to dodge right away or not These kinds of attacks can lead to trouble if the enemy does a different attack that requires a better time dodge, but I’m curious what others think about this thing and maybe I’m the only one that has a problem with it The only other way to go is back of the street. There are a few more human enemies waiting in ambush to test your skills of studying your surroundings while you move forward, including a guy that I always forget about and get hit every single time This area around the giant beast that’s been burnt at the stick is another spike in difficulty that’s comparable to the executioner There are a lot of enemies in this area and you are shown the first type will shoot at you Like the patrol I think this part would be quite challenging for a new comer especially since it also introduces dogs at the same time Chances are high that you’ll explore this area carefully after the first time you cleared it out You’ll likely notice a large set of doors with something banging on them from the other side I have never seen this break open It’s enough to get your curiosity going and on the other side you’ll meet a lone enemy that’s a fair tough fight at this early part of the game I think the introduction to this enemy draws your attention more deliberately than most others so that you are more likely to find it and kill him while he’s alone in this empty safe space since this level expects you to kill 2 at the same time toward the end There’s another set of human enemies and dogs, complete with another patrol across the courtyard here You’ll also come across the first set of roaring crows I love these enemies. I think they are hilarious and they are pretty easy to kill if you had a weapon with some range on it There are two paths from this section. The clearest one, after you beat the dogs and the patrol, leads up to the bridge where two werewolves are waiting for you The hidden one is behind some breakable objects The game has been putting loot and enemies behind these before now This path is an easier loop back around to the gate that you saw next to the lamp If you go the other way and cross the bridge instead of fighting the werewolves, there’s another opportunity to use this lesson about things hiding behind this type of clutter This leads to a secret area in the sewers below There’s a set of armor down here, that’s a huge upgrade from your starting set This also shows a strange part of the game: this is arguably the best set of armor in all of Bloodborne, because it doesn’t really matter. They all have different variations of roughly the same stats This could be argued as a way that this game is streamlining its features, since it wants to focus on weapons and mobility instead But then you have to wonder why even bother with it and just have cosmetic items instead Why does the game still bother with the weapon durability is another example Two werewolves are likely beyond new players The other path takes you past some dogs and cages and through a house with a gun crazed guy in a wheelchair Already the map you are trying to build in your head, consciously or not, is probably becoming strained, so it’s a welcome relief when you open the gate and see the familiar lamp It’s another click of the level fitting together, although you do have to wonder why your character couldn’t have opened this gate from the other side This is the first of many shortcuts you’ll open in the game, and it’s a good return to what made some of the levels memorable in Dark Souls 1 Unfortunately, this concept of locked doors and elevators is used too much in my opinion, but that’s something we’ll get to later With this gate open you’ll never have to go through the other street ever again You avoid the patrol and the big mob around the werewolf barbecue From there you have a much quicker route through the dark house to the bridge Now, to your right, are the werewolves. There is no real a good reason to ever kill these To the left is another one of those big guys with a brick and a congregation of roaring crows Behind them is the path to the first boss I think most players are still going to try to kill those werewolves, and this part of the game feels a little unfair to those people Fighting both of these guys is surprisingly difficult They are aggressive enough here that even if you are comfortable with the game, it’s overwhelmingly likely that you’ll get zoned back into the dark house They can’t follow you in there, and get stuck in the door This happens so naturally that I’m left wondering if it’s intentional It seems like a strange oversight in a level that’s been carefully constructed Let’s finish up the rest of the area for now There’s one final path we haven’t explored yet and the dogs in the cages This leads to a warehouse above the other part of the sewer street The enemies down here are slightly more difficult versions of the humans above They’ve progress to a later stage of lycanthropy There’s a secret area here where you can meet your first fellow hunter, Eileen the crow, and she gives you as warm a welcome as you are going to get in this game In the sewage you’ll fight some rats and also find that some enemies seem to be undead in addition to beasts The saws pear's down here which also allows players a second weapon before they have to commit to killing a boss, which is good if they end up not liking the first one There’s also a madman’s knowledge down here which can be used to unlock the ability to level up a little early Insight is a secondary currency in the game that’s like humanity in Dark Souls 1, only you don’t lose it when you die It equates to how in tune you are with the horrific forces that work in Yharnam, and changes how you perceive the world in minor ways At one insight, the doll in the Hunter's Dream comes to life and lets you spend echos in order to level up The usual way to unlock this is by seeing one of the first bosses. Which automatically grants you one insight If you die to them, you even respawn in the dream so you learn to level up Continuing on there’s more than one way out of the sewers You can climb a ladder to open up another gate in the courtyard where you fought your first guy holding a brick There’s also a path through a long tunnel where you come across the first giant pig in the game Climbing another ladder nearby will eventually lead you to another bridge There’s an elevator here that takes you back up to near the lamp This is another street next to the dark house that has two of the big guys with bricks Back down the elevator is a bridge with a giant mob and a burning ball that is pushed against you all Both of these encounters match the duo of werewolves as the combination of the enemy groups in this area They test your ability to dodge multiple attacks and either use superior range to wipe them out, burst one down to make it easier, or lure them apart to sneak in hits while you can These fights are challenging at this stage Big guys are pretty fair since they have significant delays after many of their attacks The mob on the bridges mostly are tests of your reaction speed to dodge the burning ball The werewolves I think are purposely unfair, for reasons that we’ll get to later Across the bridge is the next boss, which you could argue is the real first boss since the one we skipped earlier was optional. And that’s it for Yharnam If you haven’t played the game you might be surprised to know that this first level is one of the most complex ones in the entire game It’s quite large for one and has many hidden routes and paths to learn I think it also has one of the highest amounts of shortcuts to open with the gates and the elevators The first levels in these games always tend to be like this, very well designed and full of more ideas than what comes afterwards So, let’s talk about Cleric Beast and Father Gascoigne Both of these bosses are prime examples of the two main archetypes you’ll be fighting at the end of each level A fast paced, layered fight against a human sized enemy, or a struggle against a big rampaging beast I like both of these fights, but they are far from perfect The larger problem the game has is that reusing these types of bosses results in a lack of variety in these encounters Individually, however, the issue with them at this stage in the game is that they are too difficult for new comers to this series They are also too easy for those who have played the previous games for an extensive amount of time But providing a challenge for those people requires some fundamental changes like difficulty options The reason that they aren’t good for new players isn’t so much that they are hard to dodge or anything, but rather that they have to be handled very differently than what the game has had you doing so far Exploring Yharnam is rewarded with caution and careful play, especially with the focus on waiting for openings in the multiple enemy fights near the end If you approach Cleric Beast and Gascoigne this way, with dodging their attacks and then attacking in an opening, then you are likely going to get wrecked It’s still possible to kill them in this way, and it is even satisfying to do so, but the far more effective way is to charge in and become just as aggressive as these bosses are to you Cleric Beast is a fight that’s partly ruined by the area in which you fight him Camera can often get caught on parts of the bridge around you He also displays one of the great sins that many beast bosses commit in this game: jumping up in the air, and vanishing with no reasonable way to keep track of them before crashing down on you It’s possible that this fight is here to teach you more about leveling up in the hunter’s dream than it is about attack patterns and avoiding them all but in the end, your best bet is you try to stay behind them, while attacking as much as possible After you kill him, you discover that it was mostly for nothing You get a badge that you can use to purchase a weapon in the dream, but the lamp and door here lead to nowhere, which feels like cut content, or an alternative path to sequence break part of the game instead of going for Gascoigne. Maybe you were originally meant to choose between these two As for the hunter himself, he is best killed with the similar method the arena here is crammed full of things to get in your way, which can make quick stepping difficult I wonder if that’s intentional to encourage you to try to parry him instead, or dodge close to him and continue your attack This works the other way however, and that he can often get stuck on all the tombstones and you can get some easy hits in Parrying is near overpowered on some bosses, and this one is no exception Once again, this isn’t a great learning experience for new players in my opinion In Dark Souls 1 you are informed about how to parry, and immediately given an enemy on which to do it you don’t get that from the isolated messages in the dream, which might as well be along checklist of things to try that you should write down if you’re brand new It’s also possible that Gascoigne, being a hunter himself, who will use his own gun against you, is another prompt that’s meant to get you thinking about using it back at him Toward the end he transforms into a beast and becomes another rampaging enemy, like many other bosses This is also introducing the idea of a phase change in a boss battle that several other bosses use in the game It should also be noted that there’s a puzzle solution to this boss that makes it easier In Yharnam there is a girl who’s been left alone in her house Her father has gone mad and her mother has gone out looking for him There are enough hints and clues that someone who was really paying attention can work out that Gascoigne is this father, and that using the music box that the girl gives you is something you should try during the fight I did not work this out for myself while I played With this boss dead the way is open to the next area in the game, one that’s initially much smaller than central Yharnam, and branches off many different sections not unlike Majula in Dark Souls 2 The climb up at central Yharnam is fairly short。 A movie plays as an introduction to the chapel, which is kind of unusual for this series There’s a lamp and a friendly NPC in here who explains a little more about the hunt that is going on in the city He asks you to send any sane people that you find to seek shelter in the chapel with him Another NPC in the clinic where you started the game asks you to do something similar She offers a reward whereas the chapel guy does not, which led me to believe that he was the better choice my first time through As for now there is only one person that you can collect, an old woman in one of the homes in central Yharnam The cathedral ward, at the moment, is quite a small area There are many gates that are locked and you can’t just open yet Technically you can purchase an item to get through this area early, but it’s not something really worth discussing here This location is a continuation of the city theme, although it’s clearly a more wealthy section There are a lot of statues around here to the point that it stretches the believability of this place, unless you are willing to accept that a similar outbreak of a masonry related curse happened, before this beast one. As with the rest of the game, it looks fantastic The enemies here look like the aliens from <i>Prometheus</i> They are taller humans that are a bit harder to stagger with attacks There are also giant versions of them that are so tall that it’s sometimes hard to see what kind of attacks they are about to do You get a great view of central Yharnam as you continue fighting against some enemies It’s here that you can find your first stat gem that, using an item that you get after killing Gascoigne can be slot into your trick weapons for some bonuses There’s also a locked door here that I assume was meant to link with the area where you fought Cleric Beast, but it can never be opened, at least according to my google searches I really dislike that this door is still useable, despite never being able to open It should be changed to be like all the other decorative doors in the game, no button prompt, no message I can imagine some guy who spent hours of his life trying to work out how to get through with no result This is kind of cruel for a game in the series that can be cryptic about its secrets There’s a similar bug nearby with this randomly spawning ball of light If you get near, you get flown rapidly into the air and then killed or spat back down It’s really weird. I don’t understand how this made it into the final release of the game There’s only one path for you to follow: some stairs to another smaller chapel There’s another friendly NPC here after some more fights against some humans and dogs The battles in this area ease up on the difficulty a bit from central Yharnam I also should have mentioned that, if you can beat Cleric Beast and Gascoigne, then I’d wager you’ve shown enough skill needed to go on to beat the rest of the game They are the gate keepers for progression in Bloodborne as far as I see it, although there are a few more bumps in difficulty along the way Before reaching the next level, you’ll meet the fourth werewolf in the game It’s waiting for you in the dark at the bottom of the staircase It’s quiet and I think the way it’s skulking about waiting for you with its eyes glowing in the dark is meant to be creepy There’s a lamp down here and that’s it for cathedral ward for now. we’ll be coming back here soon Old Yharnam is another level with the city theme, and I already might be noticing another minor flaw in this game No matter how good it looks, a lot of it are similar Even toward the end of the game, you never quite get away from these streets and places cluttered with tombstones There are breaks from these environments, but they are too few in my opinion But this is also linked with another criticism that holds some water, that the main game is too short It’s not a big flaw, but I do agree with it in some ways We’ll go into detail on these issues a little further into the video But I want to mention now that it’s alleviated somewhat by the chalice dungeons Regardless, old Yharnam is pretty good It draws from all three of those level categories that I mentioned earlier, parts of it are very focused on straight forward paths with combat challenges There’s a unique trial mechanic that changes how you play, and there are sections down here within paths and shortcuts that make you have to understand how the area fits together It also has the game’s first bullshit moment We start off from the note on the door that we have to read before opening it If we don’t bother paying attention, then a guy starts speaking to us after we enter the area to reiterate that we are not welcome here This place has been burnt a fire and beast now rule the land To the left is the way we are meant to proceed To the right is a hidden area that will become a shortcut back to the lamp toward the end of the level There are also some enemies here that will put slow poison on you, which is pretty good as a learning experience, since the boss here uses the same poison I think the beast down here are afraid of fire but I never had any great need to use it The enemies are more humanoid like you’ve seen already, and don’t feel any more difficult than what you’ve dealt with so far Things change when you approach this area The guy who spoke to you earlier does so again and, if you push on, he opens fire with a mounted gatling gun on top of the clock tower Now this isn’t some mind-blowing mechanic or anything, but it’s something new for the series and it’s fairly enjoyable, fighting your way down this area while avoiding windows that expose you to the gun It’s also a good way to teach players to keep track of enemies close to you while also remembering about range fire from somewhere else My first time through, I didn’t notice these stairs here, so I just ran off the edge and fell then raced forward under the gunfire, which meant I died here a few more times than I should have There’s a cool moment at the bottom with the enemy hunter that constantly tries to lure you back into the range of the mounted gun There’s a secret here that I didn’t find until my second play-through: another dark area with some loot and a new armor set I really like how many secrets are stuffed into these sorts of locations They rewards exploration and feels natural, that there would be a lot of places to find in the city You pass a locked door that can either continue through a large church or climb a ladder to the left This leads to some other hidden paths, but also to another ladder that takes you up to the gatling gun This enemy here, if fought at this stage in the game, at level-appropriate stats and gear, is the hardest fight in all of Bloodborne, and that includes all the DLC And that’s absolutely ridiculous and ruins a big part of this area If you leave him alone, you can come back later and become bros with him But I hate this guy so much that I always go out of my way to kill him He’s the first of many gigantic difficulty spikes that come in the form of bullshit hunter battles These guys have the same tools as you do, rolls, quick steps, trick weapons and firearms Most of them don’t heal, but all of their blood vial are instead based into their massive health bars The difference is that they have infinite stamina, and infinite ammo, which leads to some very frustrating battles that feel unfair The most difficult part of this fight however, is actually getting to kill him before the AI wigs out and he rolls himself off the tower and dies This is one of very few moments in Bloodborne that I genuinely hate Continuing on, you fight a mob in the church and reach the ground floor of old Yharnam You’ve explored most of the maze parts of this place now you’ve also gotten past the trial mechanic You open two shortcuts back to where the ladders were earlier, and have to fight through a path with some more challenging combat encounters, specifically, werewolves. So, let’s talk about them This is the part that I referenced earlier about overanalyzing the game It’s something that I’m constantly paranoid of doing, since it’s an easy trap for critics to fall into The assumption that every detail in a book, movie or game is carefully measured and deliberate simply isn’t true I can tell you from writing myself that there are many happy accidents that can look like moments of genius, when you don’t know that they weren’t done on purpose So, with that disclaimer said, let me do exactly that I think the game tries to instill a fear of werewolves into you early on so that you can conquer that fear in this sequence: The first enemy that kills you is a werewolf, and if you don’t spam attacks on it early on, it will probably kill you again It’s an enemy that you barely kill even though it was already damaged Then when you find two more later on, they are super aggressive and can’t be split apart to kill individually Bloodborne specifically wrecks you again with the same enemies and, if you use the doorway to cheese them, you proceed through the game with a guilt and worry in the back of your head, that you didn’t really killed them now did you? What are you going to do if there’s no door next time? The fourth werewolf is waiting for you growling in the dark This one is a more fair one-vs-one, but the setting here is clearing trying to be unnerving, just like the opening movie when you are suffering from sleep paralysis and have to watch it reaching for you out of the blood Then you reach the bottom of old Yharnam, and the game clearly says to you: “No more messing around. Prove that you can kill these things.” There are five werewolves down here that you fight one on one, three of which are set up to ambush you if you are not playing cautiously. And you will kill them. They are actually fairly easy opponents once you learn their attack patterns and notice that stagger will lock them down with quick attacks I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the boss here is more werewolf-sized than giant Cleric beast-sized and has similar fast flailing attacks The game allows you to face and defeat your fear with this enemy, right before it throws you against a tougher version of it, to repeat that process all over again, or maybe From just thought "it would be cool to have werewolves down here" And I’m reading too much into it Blood Starved Beast is the first boss that feels very Dark Soulsy, although it is yet another example of a wild flailing monster It has easier tells than Gascoigne and Cleric beast. At least I think so Although that might just be that its smaller size means you can see the whole thing on your screen I think it’s a good fight for new players and a better one for those returning to this series since it has quite a bit of health It’s more of an endurance fight than the other two, and you either need to get your dodge timings down, or learn what side you need to stay close to, in order to better avoid what he’s throwing at you Toward the end of the fight he starts emitting poison, and it’s for this reason, when combined with that larger health pool, that I wonder if this boss is meant to be Bloodborne’s version of the twin gargoyle fight It’s a DPS check, to make sure you’ve upgraded your weapons There are a lot of blood stones in old Yharnam that are easy to find When the poison starts taking down, it can be seen as a race to kill him before you run out of vials Although if you play the game a lot, you can stay away from him to avoid being poisoned at all, although that does prolong the fight Conversely the game goes so far with suggesting that you can use some items to make it easier, that it puts some antidotes in the boss room itself I’ve also read that it’s weak to putting a fire buff on your weapon which matches a theme of the area, but it’s something I personally choose not to do Sometimes I think that this guy should have been the first boss of the game I think it’s a better fit, but visually he’s not that impressive and doesn’t have that same wow factor that the other bosses do Either way I like this level. It’s a bit simple when compared to central Yharnam, but that can work in its favor. It’s a break from that complexity After killing Blood Starved Beast, you receive you first chalices There are a couple of things to go through before we explore the rest of the Cathedral ward properly. firstly, I want to talk briefly about chalices. These are dungeons in the game that have their own separate line of progression from the main story. You use chalices with ingredients and echoes to create these dungeons. Some of them can be randomly generated. I am going to be talking about these along with the DLC in the next video. For now I want to say that Bloodborne becomes a much larger game. If you mass around with these chalices dungeons, they have unique setting, bosses and enemies that you don't see anywhere else in the game. My suspicion is that you are meant to run a few these in between story sections and it might be a flaw that the game does not make that more clear. With blood-starved beast dead, a door opens up in the chapel in the cathedral ward for a reason I do not understand. I don't know why these actions are linked. If anyone knows, please tell me in the comments, because I am really carious. there is a badge here the lock door that allows you to purchase Ludwig's Holy Blade. which is my favorite weapon in the game both visually and for its move set. before we loop through the war, you should know that there is an optional area nearby This sacked napper guy has appeared outside the chapel. and if he kills you, you are abducted to another area. This did not happen on I first play-through and I miss this but it's only a tiny bit of content. You get to go there later anyway, like in dark souls, being captured does not make a whole lot of sense. You are not assured of your weapons or anything else. it is less offensive than the rules broken in the Duke's Achive but still a little odd. you can get a quite a few blood stones in this area to upgrade your weapons in the next yard. so it is worth going through. the sack guys can also be challenging. until you learned to knock them down with this roll attacks before they hit you for a mass of damage. Darkbeast Pearl is an optional boss here. but we will be discussing him later on when we turn to this area. Back to the Cathedral Ward we have to fall through this tower. platforming sections like this never feel good in the souls-borne games. so I often wander why they insist on including them. I will admit that it is a memorable way to transition between areas. but the fact that it is so dark here can make it awkward to judge the height of things so I even survived dropped all the game can be in consistent about this sort of things too and do not always allow you to survive a drop to a place that looks like somewhere you can reach. down here is a mini-boss, a mini tall wear full thing that throws fire at you. I think this is the only place in the whole game that you see the same enemy outside the chalice dungeons. But, maybe I am forgetting one. The real thing I want to talk about down here is the brainsucker. So the set up feels a little cheap There is an elevator out of here That brings you to the other side of one of the closed gate near the chapel. But to open it, you have to drop down from this platform after riding the elevator. which means if you want to get back down to this ally. You have to go through the tower and down again. So it is best to explore this whole area first. which I imagine some new players will do when they find this drop. That is what I did There is a brain sucker at the end of this ally. It's likely the first one that you will meet. I like that it's introduced in a very modest way when it turns out to be one of the worst enemies in the game. at least if it is your first time through. I used to hate these enemies a lot more than I do today. I have some problems with them, but for this encounter specifically. I don‘t like how punishing it is trying to learn how they work. their grabs and stuns are difficult to dodge the first time around. and you lost a lot of health in the insight which you can never recover when you are hit. If you die, you have to drop down the whole tower again. If you want to be safe to open the shortcut first, you still have to drop down the tower again. Today they are one of the easiest enemies for me to kill, and I like that about the game. these guys are Bloodborne's versions of Dark Soul's Basilisk for my first time through. Dark Soul's Basilisk, try, try saying three times fast, holy shit. I felt an overwhelming sense of dread when I right saw one. now that I know how to kill them in a way that honestly makes them less of threat than the standard human in Yharhnam it is quite satisfying to have turned the tables. However, there is still two issues with consistency about this enemy. that I want to talk about a little later. When we get to Byrgenwerth we have to fight another one. You open some gates throughout the Cathedral Ward. You fight more of tall blue men, the giant versions. And another street area for the same kind of enemies you saw in the Central Yharnam. There is even some more people to speak to by knocking on doors. And this isn't bad by any means but the setting starts to feel the same for me here. this is the fourth area and road that stuck in the city streets. And although it is beautiful looking as ever, I would like some variety. The game play doesn't introduce anything new but that is fine, The game's combat system deserve some sections like this where you just get the fight and have fun with all the mechanics. The next area after this is Hemwick Lane and it is refreshing the part from the city. So much so that I wish the game had found a way to send you here driftly after Old Yarnham. maybe it could loop-back to the Cathedral Ward and it could be a click moment. Before that however, we should go the Cathedral and look at the boss here. The guards around this arena can inflict you to a frenzy but they are pretty easy to dodge It is worth mentioning that you can do it but if you forget the repetition This is something that I want to talk about later There are also two hunter NPC fights after the site of the cathedral that are much easier than the guy in Old Yarnham. but still suffer from the same imbalance: infinite stigma, infinite bullets. They can still be fun though since you have a lot more room to maneuver during the fight. and it is a one-time challenge since they stay there forever once killed. let us look at the Vicar Amelia who is one of the coolest and strangest introductions in the series. if there is a boss that can embody all the differences of Bloodborne from Dark Souls, then it is Amelia. It is yet another giant flaying beast. There is a lot of fast, relentless attack. Some people have been critical of Dark Souls II for overusing big human bosses with large weapons. And they are definitely right to do so. These beast types are Bloodborne versions of this flaw. And if you haven't pick that upon yet, the lack of variety in challenging in game's boss is one of the most disappointing things in the game for me. Amelia is still a decent fight despite this, and she is a great learning tool for any Soul's players who might have stumbled their way through some lessons before now. you cannot really kill her in the same way that you might have approached blood-starved beast. If you dodge all of her attacks and then wave into strike now and then, basically treating it like one of the toughest Dark Soul's bosses, then you are going to be here for a long time, and you are not really taking advantage of all the tools valuable to you in combat. You can make a strong argument that Amelia is the real DPS check boss, not blood-starved beast. to do deal enough damage to intrude her healing phase to compensate with more attacks after she regains that health. More than anything though, it is just simply easier to hit her as hard and as often as you can, to knock her down and kill her before she kills you. Playing it fancy with a lot of dodges doesn't fit well with that. The boss in Hemwick Lane is far worse. I really like this area. The visuals continue to be impressive and like I said a moment ago, even with all the tomb stones littered about it still feels like a big change from the city. The human enemies here is easier to deal with than the ones in Central Yarnham in my opinion. There is the occasional slender man monster that appears They are also simple to kill. This is more of the standard combat area than anything else. There is no complex maphther to build here. Although there are two shortcuts you can open up to skip some of these linear paths full of enemies There is a small difficulty spike near the end, when you fight more those executioners with big axes. I like that the game has these more straightforward levels of breaks between the more complex ones. I'd even argue that Bloodborne could have gone the way with having a few more of these to flesh out the main story part. So it's unfortunate that the boss here is the worst one in the game. The witch of Hemwick monsters is what you could have already seen and fought in the unseen village section earlier. In this room they are invisible. You run around until you find them. You hit them a bunch. They vanish. Some of the slender man monsters spawn. You can mostly ignored. You keep finding the witches. You kill them. The end. This mechanic should have been used in the surrounding area. and instead to make some of the fights a little more interesting. and an actual boss could have been put here instead. I don't think it should even count toward the bosses in this game which is already on the low side. Regretfully this is not the only lazy boss I met in the Bloodborne, although it is definitely the worst. You unlock the ability to use rune after cleaning this area. These function like ring slots. There are also a lot of tier 2 upgrade stones here. So I think this is meant to serve as a alternative area for players to go through. after they find Amelia to be too hard. You come through here, level up a bit, open your ring slots and get weapon upgraded too. which should be enough to push pass any trouble that Amelia might be given you. I'd sus it that this is roughly the end of the first-third of the game. In Dark Soul's term, this is about the point you be ringing the second bell awakening. The game changes after killing Amelia. You watch a movie that gives you a password to get through a sealed door in the Cathedral Ward. But the big thing that you might notice is that the sun is finally set. Night has fully begun and the city is deepen to the hunt. I suspect this is an incomplete feature, just like some of the other strange parts of the game. that feels like something wasn't really finished. not much changes in the city itself despite the sun going down. In this area, those giant guys are sleeping. That’s about it, though. Nothing dramatically changes in the previous area in regards the enemies plays or type. It's a shame because I think it could have made a turning to these places, and finding new things really interesting. Like some of those coffins burst open with new enemies in them. However you could also argue that consistency is more important, and that having the enemies remain in the familiar pattern It's a rewarding for those who really committed the time to learning those areas. In any case, that locked door is the way to proceed for now. It‘s communicated reasonably well with messages around the place but only if you fully explore areas. That appears to be the best way to get through Bloodborne. Don't really think about any goals or anything. and instead just wander around, killing everything and inspecting everything. We leave the city for the second time and enter the forest. This happens to be my best section in the base game for many reasons. not least among them is that it's not another dame city environment. There is several some distinct sections down here and I think it is a minor flaw. that this change in scenery wasn't immediately matched by change in enemies. You are once again fighting those guys from the first area. This is another problem in the game that is bewildering because it's actually a lot of enemies right in Bloodborne. It's just poorly spread through the game. A lot of different enemies types in Chalices Dungeons are probably things that many players will never see, which could be used to spice things up in some of these areas. Anyway, despite this thing I love this area. Let me take an opportunity to talk about something else that I think fall short in this game. Something that I think some of you might be disagree with. But I want to make the argument anyway. Maybe some of you will see where I come from. Some of you might think this is really nitpicky though. If you watch the whole video so far, then you see that every level in-cooperate short cuts in some way. It's like they've taken that great quality from Dark Souls and focused attentively on it. Many levels only use one lamp. And have been built around making paths back to that starting point. You open new routes to the end and by-pass areas that you've already gone through if you die. This is a more natural check-point system than simply placing more lamps all of the place like bonfires in Dark Souls II. This is a great feature in the game and forest no difference. You went to here, had the scenic view of the moody ruined windmill. You explore some side-path, but eventually end up at lamp. You come to unlock door that in windmill and you know immediately that at some point, you are going to be come back through that door. And what I just said there became a little bit of problem for me when I first arrived here. Because with one or two exceptions, these shortcuts are all the same. locked doors and elevators. You are almost always shown ahead of time. This was the door that made me realize how inevitable these loops had become. And, while I want to stress again, they are still good. They don't meet to any of the cool click moments when you piece them up together in your head. There is no surprises like kicking that ladder in Undead Burg. or coming back through an area in an unexpected way latter. I would guess that a lot of players was surprised in the elevator that pass them back to the Firelink. Dark Soul I has quite a few moments like this for me. Bloodborne only had one. It's in this area, but not in the windmill. There's a cave deepen to the waters full of the poison. It's one of the most annoying area in the game. because of the small maggots, snakes can use from the session. with randomly fraying, tiny enemies that weight to much health. and deal away too much damage. Ignoring them you for forward to find a ladder, which leads to another ladder. You emerge, wandering what the hell are you going, and realize you are right back to the start of the game, the clinic in Central Yarnham. You can finally open the gate you saw earlier, and get into a new area. It is a great moment. Opening the door in the Windmill however, for like I was just going to the motions. Like I said, I know some of this may be seen as nitpicky. and it's not a big issue. But I like it that some of these shortcuts were surprises, unexpected. Breaking down a wall, or throwing down a ladder that you didn't see before. Some could be extreme like collapsing a building or something. Because seeing this door got me thinking the whole time that I went through the forest, that soon I am going to have to ride an elevator at some point and hit back to the lamp. That's said, this level is massive. It puts a lot of strain on you both in term of endurance, to fight through so many enemies in the road. And it's a map of the whole thing. There are many vertical layers to this place, makes it fun to explore them together. And it's probably the only place in Bloodborne that I could still see myself getting lost even after several play-throughs. There are also traps here, which have been absent in the game until now. They are introduced fairly well, and close enough to the lamp, they don't feel cheap if you don't know this the first one. It's a good warning. There are a couple of other minor shortcuts you could open as you move further downward to the woods. before you looping through the base of Windmill. There is a transition here that I really like between the old enemies and the new. A human has his head busted open because it's full of snakes. if I find another one just like it. Then you get to the second part of the forest after linking back to the lamp, and fight a bunch of those same snakes. You go from humans. to humans with snakes to just snacks. I was expecting a boss at this point, But we actually only half way there. This is another huge area that feels different from what came before. There are a lot of snakes and I really like that the game doesn't waste any time in upping the ante. You are likely still learning how to fight these small classes of them when you find a giant's set, which is far more dangerous and will spit poison at you. There are also patrolling humans and some packs of small snakes when you engage. There are also some more pigs in the swamp area, the bottom of the forest. And, if you explore all the side paths, you will encounter you first group of mush aliens in the game. If you're like not really doing this place just for this walk through, I like this area because it was the only time in the game that I feel stressed about how many monsters I was killing and the size of the area I have to learn. However, fray back up a bit, you could argue that there is tactically a boss here. It's the monster baggier I mentioned in the previous video. It's also one of the worst encounters in the game. This guy's another large piece that attacks wildly. He continues the tradition of bosses that act like Bart in that one episode of the Simpsons. When he tells Lisa that he just gonna waves his arms forward, and that if she gets hit, then it is her fault, nit his. I was really negative about this fight, until I got to fight them again the Chalice Dungeons. I still think some of his attacks are cheap, but it's the arena that is the real problem. You have a lot more space in the Chalice Dungeon version which helps so much. Here you have to constantly wrestle with the camera. and be aware of the walls and falling of the roof. something that the bagger doesn't have to worry about. This fight is optional however, and actually it's secret. So I don't count it too harshly against this area. The final shortcut is another elevator that links back to the windmill. It makes the course run to the boss one of the longer ones in the game. The boss shadow of Yarnham, and it is one of my favorite thing in Bloodborne. I really like fights gets multiple enemies are carefully built around that fact. instead of just running two big guys and even saying "Good luck~~" These three look similar but they all have different moves and tactics, a short-range guy, a middle-range guy and a caster who stays in the back. You are not constantly overwhelmed by all of them charging at you. But you do have to keep track of more than one thing at once. to expanding on the concept of the gatling gun the Old Yarnham. I think that killing any of these guys first can work. The fight stays roughly the same difficulty for the second half too, since after you kill one, the other two become more powerful When two are dead, the last one consorted summoning giant snakes. The place they find can sometimes be unpredictable. But I think it is meant to, like panicking to you to end this fight as fast as you can. The last guy standing should not be too much trouble if you rush him down. This boss doesn't quite reach the height of Elana or Dark Lurker in Dark Souls II. But it's still enjoyable. if only because it deviates from the wild-beast-pattern thing so far. It also builds on the skills of keeping track of multiples of the woods have been teaching you so far, with lots of the slow moving snakes to watch in time your attacks in order to kill them Like with the other bosses, you get a lamp in the arena after they are dead, which is weird, because there is another lamp immediately after this. You move forward into Byrgenwerth. This is a small but important area. Two new enemy types are introduced that I don't think ever come back in the main part of the game. There are also a number of shortcuts to open around the lake side manor that are apparently useless. It's a strange place that I wonder if it's meant to make you easy by a hell lot of this. There's another brainsucker here. There are also the fly-man creatures. Both of these break consistency in the combat system. Staggering opponents by chaining attacks is something you meant to be doing throughout Bloodborne. Enemies and even some bosses can even do it to you. Both of these enemies types are frail enough that you can keep them lock down, if they both break this rule when they enter certain states. The fly will start hovering in the air, which makes it more susceptible to being knocked off balance. But nope, these now are immune to stagger. and you are likely get grout, figuring that out. The brainsucker do the exactly same thing when they start casting the range pellet grab. This is far more frustrating than it has any right to be, and if it's intentional to prevent the player from reliably staggering them, I wish there was a better way to show it. Especially if you dodge the sucker's first spell, and start attacking before you realize it's already casting another one. The other issue this monster has is that it can sometimes change spells in a way that will immediately hit you before you regain control of your character. This is straight up bullshit as far as I am concerned and along with some enemies being able to hit you when are meant to be in a recovery state, Must be a bug. I know that you can roll away when you got knocked to the floor. But some enemies can hit you when you are in the stain and some can't. So, even if you are meant to time rolls away, It is inconsistent for some enemies and it should be consistent throughout the whole game. It would not be so bad except these attacks stun you into grabs and do obscene amounts of damage. and forever steal your insight. Even if you kill the sucker after this, you cannot get it back. I went back into the game and test this after I got to this part of the video. and after you get hit by the brainsucker's grab, when you get in back up after getting all the insights sucked out your head. you actually can't roll away, no matter how many times you hit the dodge button. you just don't. You are locked into this slow recovery when you get up, and yeah, so it is definitely an issue that you cannot roll away from it and that you have a chance to getting locked into this unavoidable hit if you get hit the first time. The other new enemy type is a synaptic-nerve, centipede monster thing. which looks cool but is also unfortunately buggy. It can hit you through walls. It is fairly easy to kill though and it fits the theme of this area. There is not much exploration to do in the manor. There is the next in the series of broken hunter battles though. This one can cast the spell that is random in both how it can hit you, and how much damage it can do. Sometimes it does little damage, and sometimes it one shots me. Like with the other fights in this type, your best bet is to be relentless in your attacks and parry spams. Try to keep these fights in mind for later on. They are good to remember for Bloodborne final boss. For the end-fight here however, you are up against Rom, the vacuous spider. which is a great addition to the ridiculous and awesome boss names in the Souls-borne series. I really like Rom. I like the introduction in the boss arena. Seeing the moon beaming over the great lake beforehand is one of the game's best visuals. You gain a lot space and you are likely to need it. I am not sure if I genuinely like this fight. or because like Shadow of Yarnham before it, it's just because it is not another beast. You have to put some thought on how you approach it. and requires more than just spamming attacks. Rom is defended by baby spiders that become hyper-aggressive if you dodge past them and attack her. so your best bet is to wipe all the little ones so you can have a safe time attacking Rom. but the baby ones have a strong directional defense. their heads are armored, so you have attack them from behind. or wait until they do a spikely vallum(?) and get themselves stuck in the floor. A weapon with a sweep attack is great here since you can clip pass defenses from the side. but there is more to this fight. Rom will regularly summon magical rocks from the ground. Sometimes these fly up in the circle around her. other times it will fall in the series of where you are standing. so your task was keeping track of all the spiders. but also keeping an eye on Rom and learning each of the tells. If it is the circle one, run away from her. If it's the barrage from the sky, you need to start running and don't stop until the attack is over. if she starts thrashing around when you get close, dart away and then move back into attack. You have to do this three times, like killing all the babies and then attacking her before she teleports away. It ends up being one of the longer fights which also helps distinguish it from the others. After she's dead, you see the ghost of Yharnam herself, a baby starts to cry and the moon looms over head. It might be a cool story moment but like I said, I won't be going into any detail on that this video. Another change happens after this. The nightmare moves on to the next phase, and the moon becomes corrupted. If you only count the mandatory parts of the game, you are surprisingly close to the end even though I say killing Rom is roughly the equivalent of acquiring the Lord Vessel in Dark Souls. There are a lot of side content to do though. The sky is once again changed. The moon is turned kind of evil. I like the different stages the sky goes through the game. It gets a lot of character. We wake up in an area next to the Grand Cathedral where we fought Amelia. We have a few things to get through here. But first I should confess to you that I lied to you earlier, when I spoke about the bugged ball of light that can kill you. After you've done watching you might want to scroll down to the comments, and see if anyone running into a rage but called me an idiot. for saying it was a glitch. So killing Rom has pierced the veil or something. You can also see changes if you gander up inside. There are now things in Yharnam that have always been there, but you just can't see them until now. If we go back to the chapel, It's one of these giant evil insect human things. An"'Amygdala" or Amyg'dala as the game pronounces it. There is another in the room where you wake up after Rom which you could have access before now. The door is open here which leads to the next level, But these giant monsters actually serve a purpose. The one on the chapel is the way you access to the Old Hunter's DLC. The one here is the route to a secret area. That's simple in the game after Amelia. An NPC will take over the house and windows in the game. He will talk to you and give you an item with some vague instructions. You can read the item too for more help. I figure this out on my own when I first played. but just going to this area and seeing what would happen. Basically if you have this tonsil stone in the inventory, then the Amygdala will teleport you to another location when he picks you up. instead of killing you. Just like the DLC key. There is an short area first that some strange small university hallway with lecture rooms. There are these goo monsters that can swarm you. This is a good place to go if you want to see your frame rate tank. it is an interesting area because it is so unexpected. But it is only the appetizer for a much larger one. Nightmare Frontier is a grand aperture from the rest of the game. It is one of the three secret levels like the painted world in Dark Souls one. This might just be the largest single level in the whole game. if not it is definitely up there. The fact that it is yet another location brimming with tombstones spoils is ever so slightly for me. But that there are apparently full of blood is a neat touch. The enemies here aren't so tough. There are some giant sit-through boulders that require some additional strategic thinking on how you get through it all. And two more hunter fights that you only need to kill once. There are stages of progression here. since there are at least five large areas that leading to each other. and into link with an elevator, a toppleed tomb stone, in-caves and bridges. It would be one of my favorite areas in the game if it were not for two reasons, although it is still a decent level. The first is that, like the bottom of Blighttown, there is a poison swamp that slows your movement speed. I do not consider this to be challenging in a good way even in Dark Souls. But I really don't like it in Bloodborne because each of your healing vial isn't the same way as your Estus Even antidotes don't work here because you just get poisoned again within seconds. If Blood Vials are refreshed when you respawn then that will just be just as okay with this I am about Blighttown. But because it eats into a resource that you may have to farm for, it gets some melodramatic thumbs down for me The other smaller problem is the only other bullshit moment in the game in my opinion. the way that it introduces frenzy. This debuff isn't as bad as toxic or curse, but you might have to die to it a few times before you even understand what is happening. You also might start seeing the bar fill-up if you get tagged by the guys outside the cathedral. and then recover from it before it caps out. Here however, it is introduced in one of two ways depending on where you go first. After a long fight in the poison swamp, you have probably spent a lot of healing veils and are still poisoned. or on the side path that is near the very end of the level, but before you unlock the elevator shortcut, you have to clear back and do it all over again. I'll be fine with this being a tough enemy that acts as the gate keeper for the shortcut. But frenzy is just a bar that starts filling up when you see the tumor-head guy. and unless you starts running away immediately, it's going to cap out and deal massive damage to you. You have to learn that you need to charge at them and then rush them down, and then heal up before frenzy caps, and then heal again. The issue here is that opportunities were missed to teach frenzy in a safe environment. Maybe we see Amygdala for the first time in the chamber room after Rom You are at full HP. You look up in there and there's this enemy you can't fight. It could the shining light thing that the tumor guy do from its head to build frenzy. you learn how it works and there is nothing else here that deals damage that can kill you. if by some corrupt miracle that you do die, then you should respawn right here and do not lose any progress. or you could have done something similar one in the lecture room in the place before Nightmare Frontier. I think these enemies are actually pretty good. There are different sorts of encounter. It's only the way to introduce it could be better. The boss here is one of the big Amygdala guys. It shouldn't be the same one who sends you here But since it is a From Software games, who knows. This fight is ok. I am sorry to sound like a broken record but it is another big beast monster that flail his arms around like crazy. You can kill this guy in two distinct ways. Stay close to him and randomly flail back at his arms and head and eventually he will fall over, or stay far away from him and bait out attacks then sprint in for some quick hits and then sprint out. Either way isn't that challenging. One is obviously more reliable than the other but it takes longer. What is interesting about this fight though is that the enemy has weak points, you can't just attack his body or his tail or anything, It has to be his arms or his head. Which is weird because I feel like this concept of weak point isn't really expended much after this and it isn't used as well as it could have be in the game. The other interesting thing about this fight is that you do it again in the Chalice Dungeon progression path. It is a lot more difficult there. and goes to show you how much numbers can dictate difficulty regardless of attack patterns. because that is the only thing that is different. He has more HP and does more damage. His attacks are exactly the same. My plan is to talk about it briefly in the next video. Let's do another secret area before moving forward in the main story Cainhurst Castle & Martyr Logarius First off, getting there has a lot in common with Painted World. Remember the ladder from the poison cave? This is an alternative of entrance into the clinic where you start at the game. There’s an NPC in here that you can kill that could contribute to the game's alternative ending. It's surprisingly unimportant and leads to a secret Boss that is one of the worst in the game. For now, we are here to pick up an item. This unlocks the way to Cainhurst Castle in the same way that the door opens the way to the Painted World. You go back to the Hemwick Lane then you approach this obelisk thing. A horse-drawn carriage shows up boarding it takes you to the castle. I love many things about this place. The first is that it also looks similar to the Painted World The cold, snowy castle. Your arrival here is equally nonsensical It was a broken bridge in Dark Souls. Here the way are similarly shattered behind you and horses that took you here are long dead in run. It’s a surreal introduction that like much of the series, I can't see there ever been a logical explanation for. However, there is more here to like. I don’t know if but one does this out of tribute or attempt to poke fun at it, but this level is very much like a DLC pack from the Dark Souls II. Even the name is close to a parody You have a separate location. Your arrival makes little sense. There is a Boss here who is just some sort of lost king. There is a crown to collect and wear. There is also a queen to speak to. Just like the areas in those games, it's a kingdom that was once prosperous that is found prey to some disaster. I don’t think it's as well-designed as the Dark Souls II's DLC. It’s definitely better looking though. The interior reminds me a little of Duke's Archives as well. All of the enemies are new to this location. The blood-sucking bug women outside that are, for me, one of the more difficult enemies to kill without taking any damage. There are more of these in the DLC that have consumed more blood that are easier to kill. Inside we have the little servants and the ghosts of dead women, or maybe it’s the same woman who has several ghosts. They are not interesting in terms of mechanics but standard enemies are fine. It's the animations tight to them that I’m like. The one bit of petty criticism I can lay on these are the dart spitter servants. I have a lot of troubles seeing the actual dart coming at me. Maybe this is intentional but the other games usually make it clear when you're being shot at. It’s not a that big of the deal. There are a couple of ambushes from gargoyles posing as statues as you wander outside the castle. I think this concept could have been taken a bit further in some of the statue rooms and maybe even in other areas in the game. These enemies are pretty easy to knock down to which makes for less challenging fights. One of the game's better shortcuts is in this location. You open up a standard elevator route, but shortly afterwards, you loop through the study area and pull a lever to drop back a book case. This is a shortcut that isn't broadcast to you ahead of time. And, well, I know some people might think this doesn't matter. How much I enjoy this unexpected reveal makes me wish more of the shortcuts were like this. Maybe I’m alone here though. Much of this level is fairly straight forward and mostly about combat The path to the Boss requires the same sort of ridiculous drain-climbing found in much of the series. It’s like a running joke at this point. Why would the Boss even have a throne appear on the roof? This is Martyr Logarius and he is a contender for my favorite Bosses in the base game. He is a humanoid that isn’t a hunter. He incorporates a lot of spells as well as melee attacks. So, no matter where you are in the arena, he has different moves to use against you. There is a descent flow to be found to dodging all his magic and then avoiding his attacks. Part way through, he enters a new phase and becomes more aggressive. He reminds me a little of Gwyn in this part from the end of the Dark Souls I. The stand-out move is when he summons a torn of weapons that spew out at you. I died learning that you are meant to use your fire arm to shoot at these instead of running in and trying to swipe at the weapon he leaves on the roof or leaving it active for its whole duration and hoping for the best. This phase is more frantic. He suffers from the same parry cheese that a lot of the Boss do unfortunately. Killing him this way was the first time I started wondering if parry is a good inclusion at all. I know that's a big change to propose and I'm curious what other people think of it. I know that you can always commit to a run that you don’t use it just like many optional features in the soulsborne games. But just like I said in my Dark Souls II series I wish there was a built-in challenge system in these games so you can do it officially for a lack of a better term. I think it could add a lot of replay-ability to the game. There's a little bit of an extra content behind this Boss that’s kind of a secret but I don’t think its worth going into it in this video. It’s really not that important. And that would it be for the optional areas for now. There is one more but we have to go back through the Unseen Village first. So, this is the point in the game that you return to the part of the city that the kidnappers could have taken you to earlier. Because I missed that on my first playthrough I only got to see one side of this place. And I have to wonder what all the broken lamps were about. It’s a lot more surreal the second time. The whole place has gone to shit. This is the point where the game begins its rapid descend into madness. And in the terms of atmosphere, it’s nothing short of glorious. It's been a slow-built until this point and now there are monsters clinging to wall shooting lasers at you, enemies being conjured out of blood, skeleton jack-in-the-boxes, and the most revolting Boss in the game that caps them all of. Although I do think it suffers a bit because it once again used the city setting. It’s helped by how twisted and corrupted it is. Even the name Yahar’gul looks like the defiled version of the city. In terms of gameplay however, things aren't so hard. Or at least, they are more conflicted. And I think that people’s reaction to this area can also be heavily altered by whether or not they saw it earlier. The path to the first lamp is under the Amygdala that takes you to the lecture hall. The game repeats a lot of enemy types here and I like that. It adds some variety to the level and it’s a callback to all of the places that you’ve been to so far. This level has a few hidden path but it's mostly a straight forward trial level, at least it is for the first half. You have to learn how to deal with the bell ringer summoning waves of enemies and the Amygdalas leaving laser trails on the stairs. Both of these mechanics were best dealt with by sprinting forward with confidence to either get pass the dangers or take out the root of all the enemies. The bell ringing is fairly clear as is the red tint on the enemies that's signified they aren't truly real. This is used to lead you to a secret near the end of this gauntlet, since there are endlessly respawning enemies but no bell ringer in an obvious location. There is also a locked cage room with a door that you can only open from the inside. If you explore enough and put these two things together. You will find a place that drop down to find this bell ringer and the loot. The key here is needed to unlock the way to the final optional area in the game. There are shortcuts that link back to lamp at the start of this level including a teleport and an elevator that were clearly meant to make a path to the street at the bottom and to the Boss. But there is a second lamp here which stands out in my mind and is the only time that the game gives you a second checkpoint so close to the first one. You could argue that some of the others in the game are just here to get your foot into the level, or to obey the rule that killing a Boss always bonds a lamp. But this one feels different. My theory for explaining this is that one of the most unbalanced rooms in the game is up next. You're thrown against not one, not two, but three overpowered NPC hunters. I don't know why the game doesn't have a different mini-Boss here instead of conceding and putting a lamp as a half-ass attempt to make this room OK. But this is the only explanation I can think of. This trio makes me question the hard but fair ideal that the series is meant to stick to. This encounter can definitely be fun. It's chaotic as all hell and you don't have to kill all three of them at once since they stay there forever. But fighting all three these guys at the same time is likely harder than every Boss we've seen so far. One of these three hunters has a grenade launcher that can be fired without any ramp up. And it explodes with bash damage when it lands and depending on how you level this can be a one-hit kill. Combining with the other hunter that shoots a cool-looking lightning spell you can end up screwed no matter what you do. I don’t know why the game feels a need to throw you to the walls like these areas ever so often Especially since it makes the rest of the game which I'd argue is too easy feeling even. The box skeletons have claimed this street. There are a few ambushes here and some side areas to explore. But the path is mainly straight forward the Boss. These enemies are OK. Like a lot of things in the game they are best dealt with long-ranged weapon. They flail a lot but that's the trend with a lot of the bigger enemies in this game. Before we talk about the One Reborn, let’s rewind to when we were here last time. There's another Boss in this area that you can kill when you were abducted, or you can do it now. Darkbeast Paarl is yet another rampaging beast Boss only this time with a zesty lightning twist. I don’t think I’ve ever died to this Boss and because of this he is the best example of that flaw that I keep repeating. Just keep attacking, and you win. If you hit Paarl hard and after he collapses into a heap of bones, and you just keep hitting in, and then he dies. I thought this might have been because on my first playthrough I didn’t see him until near the end of the game after I leveled so much. So on my second time through, after reading about the abduction trigger, I went out of my way to fight him early. And it was the same thing even then. He just crumbles to the floor and that's the end. My guess is that he's more difficult if you can't initially lock him down like this. Then the fight simply becomes a dodge-fest until you finally do land that starting hit and you just win after that rough opening. Or maybe this is a fight's that meant to be more difficult if you use a lighter weapon. It’s a very strange encounter, even stranger is that you open the way back to Old Yharnam through a door behind him which isn’t that useful. It’s nice that they're connected like this, but I have to wonder if these locations even make sense to be linked like this in relation to where you went through each area. The One Reborn isn't much better. His entrance is revoltingly awesome and suits the madness that has been increasing as you go through this area. Unfortunately, this Boss is so easy that it might rival the Witches of Hemwick. The smaller enemies in the building around him make me think of the Tower Knight from the Demon Souls. But in that game the Boss was still, you know, an actual fight even after you killed all of them Here I think you could kill this Boss by accident just by hitting him at random after all the bell ringers are dead. It’s a shame since this thing is so visually impressive but I wonder if that was the problem. It was too difficult to attach fair attack animations that compose a threat and also be understood by the player. If the game have a lot more Bosses then I'd be willing to forgive a more spectacle type encounter like this. As it is now it joins list of many others that aren't really worth their name and health bar at the bottom of the screen. There is a teleport after this and take you to another part of the lecture hall that we are at earlier. This time you are on the second floor and we're moving through here to get to another nightmare location. There are only two levels left. Let's continue with this part before the final secret area. So, welcome to the final mandatory level in the game, the Nightmare of Mensis. Considering how much of the game is about birth and blood and the moon in that corrupted cycle, the name of this area is a bold one. As you gain more insight, you can hear a baby crying in some locations as you played. This was incredibly annoying when I first played this game since I kept thinking it was my actual baby crying the first few times that I heard it. This level is quite long. It incorporates all through the level types in this series in good ways. Your end goal is to climb to the top of what is effectively a tower. You start off far from it however, and are given a good view of the whole thing as you approach. Then the light snap on and you're starting taking damage over time that rapidly escalates. I really like this part of the game and I wish that it had been used more in this level. You have to break the line of sight with whatever it is that shining on you from the distance It can be a struggle to fight enemies here while trying to avoid the light, but the enemies are also affected by it, so it feels fair. The only way I cannot get it is the building frenzy meter takes a bit too long to fade when you are just running cover to cover. I think this could've depleted faster after a few seconds to cut down the waste of time. The enemies in this first part are the same as you found in the other nightmare level. There is a second lamp to light but this isn’t used for anything right now. You have a long way to go before the shortcut here can be used. When you reach the other side of the building, the trial concept ends. You don't have to worry about the evil eye of Sauron anymore. You have spiders instead which, given the size of this thing and the space you are given in this room, looks like an unfinished Boss encounter. There are some more new enemy types here that aren't used anywhere else in the game. There are more humanoids but since Bloodborne reuses the basic crazy humans from the first level so much, It’s a shame that these couldn't have been seen in more areas. This part leads to a Boss that many hate, and they are absolutely right to do so. It rivals the Hemwick Witches for the game's worst encounter. Micolash is a guy that runs away from you. You chase him until he retreats into a room. Then you fight. Then he teleports away. You chase him some more. He retreats to another room. You find a way in and then you kill him. He has no unique moves or special patterns. Just a few spells that you’ve already seen and a melee attack. There isn’t even a puzzle solution that cornering him either. He uses enemies to distract you and mirrors to get away. There could have been a mechanic built around smashing the mirrors or pulling levers ahead of time to close doors in order to funnel him down a direct path so he is cornered. Instead he always runs to the worst location on his own. I’m not trying to say that these suggestions would make the fight good by any means. But at least that'd be, you know, something instead of what the fight is now. His cage helmet looks interesting at least. Thankfully this isn’t the final Boss for the level, we are about half way done. There are some more elevators to activate and hidden path you find by jumping off of one. I figure this out by noticing that the other cage elevator closes its door when you got on. But this one is broken. There's a window that you can jump through that leads to a long secret path. The game uses its elevators to hide quite a few secrets like this now that if you think about it. There are more of the frenzy tumor heads here. You deal with them just like you did before. Part way along this route you will find the lever. When you pull it you will see a short movie with some huge fleshy thing falling into a pit. I’m pretty sure this is what was causing the big damage light earlier on. And I think it’s a mistake that you don’t get a chance to see it up-close before getting to this lever. Since I didn’t even know what this was or what happened after I did this. It’s possible that maybe I miss something somewhere or maybe I was meant to go somewhere else before pulling this lever, but, I don’t know. Either way, if you continue on, you could find a blood rock which is this game’s Titanite Slabs. It’s the only one I found in the main progression path of the game and it's a great award for finding this area. It links back to the Micolash Boss hallways. So, it's best to teleport back to the dream, upgrade your weapon to the final version, and then teleport back to the lamp to continue on. Some enemy types are reused in this area. Mostly the animals which are just as twisted as everything else. Crows have the heads of dogs, dogs have the heads of crows. The giant pigs have too many eyes. There are cool little alterations that I really like. The Shadow of Yharnam Bosses are also regular enemies here although they appear to be nerfed. They don’t get their special snake powers or at least not any that I noticed. You see the ghost of Yharnam again here, the one that appeared after you killed Rom. She is looking up toward the Boss room A baby has been crying in this area for a while now. After opening an elevator shortcut to the lamp you can reach the top of the tower when a empty baby carriage is just waiting. The Boss here, Mergo’s Wet Nurse, sort of looks like a demonized version of the crow from Dark Souls. Or it might just be that her armor looks feathery. This fight is visually interesting. She has many arms that can attack very quickly. She reminds me of the last Boss of Reapers of Souls in Diablo III. There is a lot of forward arm flailing but it feels, to me, at least more structured and understandable than many of the beast Bosses. This might just be because it's easier to fit all of the enemy on the screen though. The most dangerous part of this fight is the smoke phase where many versions of her spawn and attack you from different angles. Now I think this fight is almost amazing. Almost. I think her attacks are pretty good and trying to stay behind her for some safe hits could have been a fun struggle. It’s a little on the easy side but then this chaotic phase could help that. Unfortunately, you can just run around and avoid all the attacks until it's over. If the fight had stayed in this phase until you do a certain amount of damage to the Boss, then I think it would be a lot more interesting and challenging. It's a missed opportunity to have a great Boss to act as the climax from otherwise a good area. As an aside here, it always takes forever for the game to acknowledge that I killed her. The first time I got here I thought it was leading to another phase or another Boss. Does anyone know if this is a bug or if it’s intentional because she is meant to be a big Boss near the end of the game. So, that’s it for all the parts necessary to complete Bloodborne. For the final Boss we have to return to the Hunter's Dream. Before that, let’s visit the Orphanage, the last secret area. There is one and a half Bosses waiting for us there. You have to return to the Cathedral Ward for this part. It should be noted that if you saved a few people, then there are some possible events that can happen here throughout the game. There is a prostitute that can give birth to an alien baby. You can see a lot more of them in the next area. You have to climb back up the tower where we found the weapon badge for Ludiwg's Blade. There are two phases of this place. It uses the standard shortcut system in Bloodborne by showing you a locked gate that you can open later to get back to the lamp. There are also some locked doors that open inside to bypass enemies. Aside from the crawling-alien-things, there are no new enemies here. There are a lot of brain suckers and werewolves, which I find interesting, because they are both enemies that are initially very challenging but are easier when you mastered their attack patterns. I think this is the area where I finally got all the timing stamp properly. There are a lot of narrow corridor here to help you with that to learn how to dodge through the suckers' spell, and to bait the werewolves' attacks and then keep them staggered. It's a small, simple, but challenging area, that ends in an open courtyard full of flowers. Celestial Emissary is the "boss" here. And I say "boss" like that because this is just a bunch of the mushroom aliens in a big room. It's like the Rat Pack in Dark Souls 2. Now I mostly positive about this encounter, because I don't think it's an actual boss. I think it's misdirection. There is nothing interesting about this fight, and it's lazily put together. This is here in my opinion because you're used to having a boss at the end of each level. You can teleport away thinking that you cleared it, and left wondering why a fairly tough level ended with a such easy boss. There is more to this place and it requires mixed experimentation. You need to smash a window next to the lamp to continue on. That another boss in this area is the only thing in the game that was spoiled for me. So I looked around the courtyard and found this window after that. Other people might not be so lucky, and I don't think this is a good secret. This may come across as incredibly nit-picky, and I apologize for that, that the Soulsborne Series is always inconsistent about things that you can break like this. It comes across as totally arbitrary. Why can you break this window, no others? It's weird, and a minor flaw, and I have no intention of harping(?) on about it. Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos is the true boss of this area. Visually, she's up there as one of my favorite bosses ever, not just in the series, all games. She is beautiful and repulsive at the same time, angelic and demonic. She is also a decent fight and the second on the list after Martyr Logarius. She suffers a bit from being vulnerable to stick in close and spamming attacks. But if you stay at range, her moveset is varied enough to be interesting. I found her charge to be much easier to dodge if you break the lock and roll instead of quick steps. And I like that you need to use more of your tools to properly fight. Same with running from her laser spikes or timing quick steps. But like Amygdala, she's more challenging in the Chalice Dungeon. Her blood spit is particularly nasty, since it will max out your Frenzy bar if it clips you, resulting at least one Blood Vial gone. It wasn't until I fought her again there that notice her charge can have some hitbox issues. This might be because the tentacles behind her, that moved depending on what stage she is in the charge Either way this isn't something that should be in the game in my opinion, if you legitimately react properly and dodge in time, it shouldn't be able to hit you. There shouldn't be any unavoidable attacks like this. You get another Chalice for beating this fight. And with that, I think, we're done. Only 2 bosses are left which have no levels attach to them. Bloodborne ends where it starts, in the dream. The workshop here is on fire now, and I don't know why. You can also see that this sky changes in a different way than the phases of the night back in Yharnam. Gehrman is waiting for you in a few nearby which makes for a great looking battle arena. There are two fights here, and both of them are optional. Gehrman offers to kill you, since the hunting is now over, and says you will wake up back in the real world, and can continue with your life. You can refuse and fight him instead. Afterwards, if some certain conditions are met, A beast will descends from the moon and then attack you. This means that there are three endings here depending on what you choose and whether you acquire three items while you play. Specifically, three Thirds of Umbilical Cord. I don't think it's worth going into detail how to acquire these, since they don't require much. And, honestly, in terms of gameplay, they are not really worth it. If you are into the story then they might be, but that's not what this video is supposed to be about. Gehrman is a hunter battle like Gascoigne, and, exactly like Gascoigne, he is highly vulnerable to parrying. ×1 ×2 ×3 ×4 ×5 ×6 (executed) Dodging is slightly harder. Especially since he has moves that seems blink in and out of reality to hit you. I personally don't find this fight that enjoyable or interesting, but I have gone through some of the DLC before I fought him, So I've already seen what I consider to be the superior hunter boss half way through in there. What I do have to say about Gehrman, however, relates to the rest of the game. See, the problem with this fight is the implication that it has outside of it. By that I mean, both Gehrman and the DLC hunter boss, are far, far more fair, than so many of the other hunter encounters you have through out the rest of the game. The guy in Old Yharnam, the trio in Unseen Village, or even the one in the manner before Rom. There also one I didn't mention in the end of Eileen the Crow's quest line, who you fight in Amelia's cathedral, who is so ridiculous compared to Gehrman, that you have to wonder if it was even playtested, or why their positions weren't switched in the game that he isn't the last boss. I don't understand why the game is like this. And keep in mind, I'm not necessarily saying that these fights should be easier. They should be a little more fair, but I also accept Gehrman becoming more diffcult so it make sense. And a lot the other bosses, too. But even saying that, the way these non-boss NPC hunters move and parry, make them feel more like sloppy-slapping contest rather than thoughtful tense battle. It's possible that I'm in the minority here, and I'm willing to be proven wrong. It's a point that I'm not sure about. I can't say the same about the boss quality in this game, which can be summed up neatly by Moon Presence after Gehrmen. In summary, it's another flaring beast. She has two other moves that don't mean much. She blocks your healing, and can strip your health away, but you just keep on hitting her, that's all there is. You can once again argue that this is just a lore boss, or, something to fit the theme, rather than a challenging encounter. But the game relies on this concept too much. We looked at 17 bosses in this video. Outside of DLC and Chalice Dungeons, that's all of them. From our list here, we can move them into broader categories, rampage beasts, humanoids with phases, non-applicable, and other. These groups aren't fundamentally bad. But I think it shows how reliant the game is on one specific type. Especially since I can argue you can remove three of these from being considered as boss at all. This is the weakest part of the game, and it's disheartening to me, because the bosses are the thing I look forward to the most in the series. Having said that, if we review the level in the similar way then we see that, aside from wanting variety early on, that the thing missing the most is just more of them. And I firmly believe it that if the worst thing you could say about something is that, I wish there was more of it, then it could be used as a twisted complement. I really don't want to end this video on a negative note, because I love this game. The more I wrote the script, the more I realize that it is my favorite out of all of the Soulsborne game, despite these shortcomings. And that means it's one of my favorite games EVER. This video didn't talk much about the combat system, since that was the topic of the previous video. And I can't emphasis how enjoyable it is, and how much Chalice Dungeons added to the experience. It may be seen as unfair to not include them in the evaluation done in this video, but I get the impression that many players have made the similar divide in how the view the game, since much of the Chalice content is randomly generated. In any case, I hope that at least someone out there enjoy this critique and commentary, since it's different than the usual type of things that I do. It's closest to the first series of videos that I did on Dark Souls 1, which I know not everyone liked. Hopefully there was enough here to make it interesting, and, if not, maybe it's a fair summary for those who never have a chance to play the game themselves. The next and final video will be on those Chalice Dungeons and the Old Hunters DLC. It should be more comparable to the first video in length. Thanks so much for watching. As usual, I need put my patreon and subscribe button in order to continue making these videos. I try to put out three every month, and if there is something you like, there are links on the screen. Thanks for putting up with the same message at the end of every video. The amount of time they take means I have to put up these things a little bit. I hope you all enjoying Dark Souls 3.I'll see you in the next one.

Channel: Joseph Anderson

Views: 992,179

Rating: 4.7683759 out of 5

Keywords: bloodborne, dark souls, dark souls 2, dark souls 3, soulsborne, souls series, from software, ps4, playstation 4, video game critique, video game analysis

Id: 5nAxydkwxko

Length: 80min 0sec (4800 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 26 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I dug this guys descriptions of some of the dark souls games. I'll probably check this out even if his voice is a bit monotone.

Aside: Do you think the reason there are so many more popular streamers with British accents is because Americans find them easier to listen to for extended periods of time?

[u/itaveL]

Love how he mentioned Lost Izalith still as poor level design. The bastard child of all Soulsborne games.

[u/out_of_the_void]

Really enjoy this breakdown. BB was my first soulsborne game and through that lens I think the game is very well-designed early on. There's enough building complexity and introducing new concepts while not getting out of hand. Like he said Cleric and Gascoigne are the two basic boss types and aren't incredibly difficult so good to learn from but I think Blood-Starved Beast was the true test of "do you get this game" and serving as a gatekeeper. You needed to use items (antidote), understand hitboxes/attack patterns far more as opposed to dodge then wail away, swap gear/weapon type, and learn through trial and error which side was better to dodge into/away from.

I definitely agree with his assessment of frenzy with there being too much in game that's "under the hood" and not explained well. You can use sedative akin to how antidote works for posion but he didn't mention this as he was complaining about an enemy that almost requires you to use sedative. This also works for resistances/weakness. There's never any tooltip or hidden note that explains beasts hate fire, kin are weak to bolt, or arcane is best for dungeon crawling. It's all stuff that is very useful but you won't learn 'til the end of your first playthrough or until later runs.

[u/Te4RHyP3]

by far my favourite "youtube person talking about games" these days

watching his video on The Witness helped ease my mind after how horrible that game made me feel

if anyone's interested, Joe's putting out new videos at a pretty consistent rate and a lot of what he talks about balances objectivity with subjectivity very well

[u/thatdudeinthecottonr]

He mentions a bug at 21:50 minutes, about being randomly grabbed and flung into the air /killed.

That's not really a bug: spoiler

This was just one of those traps setup to get the player to remain vigilant when picking up stray bits of loot, whilst also doing some foreshadowing as to what the player will encounter in the future.

Edit: Evidently he was trolling when he said that, welp.

[u/Dawknight]

• Edit : A bit of a misinformation when he mentions the "bug" with the "ball of light" around 21:50 mins.... that's not a bug at all... his character is just lacking insight to see the creature picking him up.. it's also how you access the DLC... It's interesting though, to see that from the perspective of someone playing the game blind that he would think it's a bug. About this point; apparently he knew it wasn't a bug and he lied to troll the commenters.

• Edit : I wanna point out that at 9:30 mins he mentions grab attacks that are..."almost impossible to avoid" ... I'm not sure what he means by this, I find them very easy to dodge... to a point where the enemy that he is using to demonstrate the grab is doing an animation that I had never seen before.

• Edit3 : Well... I have to disagree with him on a lot of things... :/ At 17 mins he mentions that being agressive towards the early bosses is the way to go, and that carefull planning will get you killed... I find this ridiculous, I can easilly beat the Cleric Beast of Gascoine without getting hit a single time, there are tricks and you can learn their patterns just like any other souls game...

• Edit4 : At 25:25 mins.... The old hunter being the hardest fight in the game even including the DLC...? oh boy... I just can't... I just can't agree with that... Specially since you can just run up the ladder and push him down the tower if you don't want to fight him normally... not only that, he is an optionnal fight. I know he mentions it, but you're meant to come back to him from another side and talk to him instead.... Just like dark souls : It's teaching you that maybe you should avoid fighting him at that stage.

• Edit5 : Around 55 mins i'm a bit pissed that he fails to mention that most of the "big bosses" can be parried, you can use your gun to shoot most of them on the head.

He also mentions frenzy and says the only thing you can do is get out fast and heal and heal again... He fails to mention that having Insight reduces your frenzy resistance, the more insight, the lower the resistance. The idea is that "Frenzy is the result of the Hunter being forced to process information incomprehensible to humans".

Oh and he also didn't mention the fact that the old lady should have given you quite A LOT of sedatives... to cure Frenzy.

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Edited last line out of respect.

[u/LongDistanceEjcltr]

A bit of off-topic, but the DS1 footage around 2:30 made me remeber how nice the metallic surfaces looked in DS1 (maybe it's modded PC footage though). I find this area lacking in both DS2 and DS3 (and Bloodborne; based on what I've seen in the videos) - the shields, weapons and armors just don't have that almost photo-realistic shine, it's sharp, but the glare is not overdone and you can see some scratches and imperfections. Not sure if it's FXAA that kills it in the recent Souls games or sometihing else, but I do miss it. That shield on her back looks amazing, especially for a 360/PS3 gen game.

[u/teerre]

I never thought about it, but the path to Logarius is actually ridiculous. Indeed why would he have his throne in the roof? That was a good laugh

[u/ThreeStarUniform]

I would kill for a Matthewmatosis critique of Bloodborne. I've tried watching a few souls commentary/critique videos and none of them stack up to his.