Bloodborne Review

With all this Elden Ring commotion, there will always be that one guy who scoffs at the whole "Shadow of the Erdtree is Peak" discussion and says something like, "They don't know about Bloodborne." For one, they don't know about it for good reason because it came out almost a decade ago, and second, it's stuck on a godforsaken last-gen console! I'm that one guy, though. I'll never shut up about Bloodborne. Bloodborne is peak. The way it changed up the whole approach to Souls games and the fact that it was done by FromSoftware themselves is astounding.

If you are wondering why a review of a decade-old game is being uploaded now, it's because I insisted that I needed a proper outlet to yap about this game. My friends are already tired of hearing about it.

Developed by FromSoftware following the release of the controversial Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne came out in 2015, and it threw the original Souls formula out the window. FromSoftware redefined it with a more offensive approach to combat. Even the storytelling is a little bit different this time around. The setting, too, is strongly influenced by Lovecraftian Eldritch Horror. I think this is one of FromSoftware's best representations of level design also, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

Bloodborne is set in Yharnam, where people come from far and wide because there happens to be a miracle drug here that can cure any illness, but it involves a blood transfusion and the signing of a contract. Oh, how important this is. As the name of the game is Bloodborne, you may have already guessed that this game revolves around blood.

You take this transfusion, sign the contract, witness a nightmare, and you are set off into the world of Bloodborne. You see some scribbled notes written by yourself that say, "Find the old blood… Transcend the hunt". That's all you have known for a good long time, and yeah, there is no long cutscene at the start that gives you context about the world. That is for you to discover by yourself.

In classic FromSoftware fashion, the first fight is scripted, and you are expected to die since you do not start with a weapon. However, there is a way to beat the werewolf you come across if you know what you are doing. Anyway, once you die for the first time, you awaken in The Hunter's Dream. A beautiful fenced-up garden that is seemingly floating in a white void where there are several dark pillars and the Hunter's Workshop in the middle of it all. This is your hub world. You get your upgrades, the ability to teleport to previously visited areas, and some crucial lore dialogue from some NPCs, too.

For now, everything's shut off. You can run around and read tutorial notes and then pick from five weapons: a right-hand weapon from an Axe, the Saw Cleaver, a Threaded Cane, and a left-hand weapon from the Blunderbuss and the Hunter's Pistol. For your first playthrough, I would recommend going for the Saw Cleaver and Hunter's Pistol, as that is on the cover of Bloodborne, and if you're based, Threaded Cane is a strong option, too.

Once you have picked your weapon of choice, you must face the werewolf that took you down, and then you are off to the races. You'll come across some English folk that say things like "It's all your fault" or "Away! Away!" and all but one or two NPCs you come across will either ridicule you or pity you for you are out on the night of the hunt. Okay, some beasts, trolls, and dogs here and there; basic stuff.

One thing that you will notice as soon as you begin to fight things is that you don't seem to have any defensive options. It's a melee weapon on your right and a gun on your left. This is one of the reasons why Bloodborne is one of the best "gateway" games to Souls-likes. One of the common traps new players fall into when playing, say, Dark Souls Remastered is that they'll rely on their shields too much and adopt a playstyle where they poke enemies with their spear with their shield up. It certainly happened to me. I can tell you that that is no fun, and it is one of the biggest reasons people drop games of this genre.

Now, for the combat mechanics, Bloodborne is much more fast-paced than its predecessors. Enemies just attack fast, and they take away huge chunks of your health, and that applies to you, too. You are sort of an agile glass cannon. When you lock onto an enemy by pressing R3, your dodge, which was previously a roll, becomes a quickstep, which is extremely handy once you have figured out the i-frames.

Your armor options are also very light and stylish. Which armor you pick has no effect on your weight or movement speed, so it's largely an aesthetic choice. When you take damage, your health will go down, but you will have a sort of temporary bar that fills back up when you hit enemies back. As long as they bleed from your attacks, you will gain your health back.

This mechanic rewards a more forward and aggressive approach to combat. All this ties perfectly into the lore, wherein Gherman, your mentor and one of the first hunters, pioneered the offensive approach to beast hunting when they began growing in numbers. Oh, and your gun? You can parry with it. Just before you get hit by enemies, you can shoot your gun with R2 to cause them to fall so you can riposte them. Make sure you are locked onto them, though, or you may miss your shot.

You can also finish this game by only using guns. You start with 20 Blood Vials, which are your healing items, and 20 Quicksilver Bullets. You can press Up on your D-Pad to sacrifice some of your health in exchange for five extra bullets, so in a way, your Blood Vials are also your bullet reservoir. If you're good, you won't get hit, and you'll also have more bullets to work with. This isn't a must, though, as traditionally, the gun is usually just used to parry, and it's totally fine to leave it at level 1 and focus on your melee weapon.

The weapons in Bloodborne go for a quality-over-quantity approach, with only 42 options to offer, but each of them has its unique twist. Each weapon has the usual light and heavy attacks, jump attacks, charged attacks, etc., and one unique trick. You see, these hunter's weapons are called trick weapons, and when you press L1, they transform, which significantly alters the move set.

For example, the Saw Cleaver, which is in the cover of Bloodborne, changes to a longer-ranged melee weapon, and the Threaded Cane turns into a sort of Castlevania-like whip so you can feel like Alucard when playing this game. Also, these moves combo into each other fluidly.

If you do an attack and then transform your weapon, you will do a unique transformation attack that does extra damage, and you can keep comboing from there. Discovering combos is one of the most fun parts of Bloodborne. The way you play your weapon at the end of the game may look completely different from how you played it at the start.

There are plenty of ideas here, and you can use any weapon you like from start to finish, as nearly all of them are well-designed. There is the Chikage, whose tricked form empowers the weapon with your blood, so you do more damage, but you constantly lose some health as you use it. There's a Boomhammer that literally explodes when you ignite it and do a charged attack, and there's even Simon's Bowblade, which turns into a bow in its transformed state.

And that's only to name a few. The replay value of this game is very high because of how different your experience can be depending on what weapon you choose to go with. My favorite weapon is the Rakuyo, which has a move set that practically has your character dancing while doing some insane damage.

I could go on about the weapons for hours, but what do you use them against? For your first encounter, there are two possible bosses you may run into: The Cleric Beast or Father Gascoigne. Both are excellent bosses to start with because they teach you some crucial aspects about Bloodborne.

Gascoigne shows you how a real hunter fights by making you his target, and the Cleric Beast is your first "beast" boss. If you play Bloodborne right, you may discover that repeatedly attacking one limb causes it to stagger and gives you a large window to unleash some serious damage.

During each boss fight, and in certain areas, you will hear your ears will be blessed by grandiose orchestral music. The bosses and music are so well choreographed that you may think the music is dynamic. When facing the Blood Starved Beast, hearing an asymmetric tune as it approaches you menacingly has got to be one of the scariest moments I have ever experienced in gaming.

When you trigger the subsequent phase of a boss, the music intensifies. I think the boss music of Cleric Beast is iconic at this point. If you've been consuming gaming content for a while now, you may find it familiar. The music can range from making your skin crawl to giving you goosebumps or both, depending on the situation. Overall, I think it's flawless. FromSoftware has never missed their music, and Bloodborne is no exception.

The visuals in Bloodborne are thematically perfect. The architecture, roads, people, and clothing represent the Victorian era, which is done very well. The architecture is inspired by Prague, by the way. I found myself, in my many playthroughs of Bloodborne, to sometimes just stop and admire the visuals as they still hold up.

The level design is also top-notch. Each area has a shortcut to the bosses, so they loop around. I found myself dumbfounded whenever my aimless running around led me to a certain door or elevator that took me right back to the start. All the events take place in one night, and time progresses each time you beat a main boss.

The looping level design and the passing of time go hand in hand in presenting you with the same beautiful areas in different lighting and whatnot. You can also see some level of verticality here, meaning you may notice an area you will explore at a later stage of the game at the start or vice versa if you are keen, and it sort of shows the origin of the sort of verticality that we can see with FromSoftware's latest work: Shadow of the Erdtree.

The enemy designs should not be overlooked, either. Everything about Bloodborne relates to blood, and FromSoftware did not hold back in representing how visceral and gory it can get, especially in the latter half of the game, where things get more disgusting and much more interesting.

The visuals do show their age, though. It's a shame Bloodborne hasn't gotten a remaster or remake. You can certainly see the aliasing, and certain parts of the game lag quite a bit. This is a heavily contested issue, but I think being locked to 30fps certainly takes away from the experience. Higher resolution textures, better framerates, and perhaps some raytracing implementation would make Bloodborne rival many AAA titles put out in 2024.

There is a mix of beast bosses and human-like bosses with varying moves and certain things that make them unique and challenging in their ways. There are only a couple of gimmick bosses, and only one of them is bothersome. Overall, there are about 22 bosses in Bloodborne, including the DLC, and almost all of them are fun to do. Here are the 10 Greatest Bosses in Bloodborne.

Speaking of the DLC in Bloodborne, I think it is a must-have. The base game is excellent, but the lore can be confusing to understand without watching, say, VaatiVidya explain it on YouTube. The DLC adds plenty of new, fun, and powerful weapons, including a version of the classic Moonlight Sword, and it has the most fun boss fights, period.

It also has some of the best OSTs in the game, and the final boss used to be the hardest in FromSoftware's history until Sekiro came out. The story of the DLC is much easier to follow, and it sort of serves as context to the main story of Bloodborne. Most of the weapons I mentioned before are also from the DLC, as I think Bloodborne should be experienced with the DLC as it is everything good about Bloodborne, but MORE.

Bloodborne isn't perfect, though. It has a roguelike mode called the Chalice Dungeons and it's the weakest part of the game. You still can finish the game while ignoring them, but you'll miss out on some sweet blood gems, which are used to enhance your weapons in the workshop. Luckily, if you have PS+, you can play custom dungeons that make farming a whole lot easier. There is an area, Forbidden Woods, that is not fun at all to explore.

It's a maze, and the boss at the end of it is essentially 3 Mobs who end up being normal enemies later in the game. I always find myself rushing through this area just to get it over with. The last flaw in Bloodborne is a boss related to the main story: Micolash. It's a gimmick fight that can take 10-15 minutes to beat, and none of it is ever fun. Your best bet is to cheese him with Poison Darts.

Despite its flaws, I think Bloodborne is a masterpiece even in 2024. The fast-paced, deep combat mechanics, varied weapons, brutal lore, and majestic orchestral music make it such a fine package. Bloodborne should not be overlooked because of its age. As far as FromSoftware's titles go, I think this is their finest work, and it goes hand in hand with Elden Ring as one of the best introductions to the Souls genre. Bloodborne is a masterpiece, and you should go play it right now.