Dallas' 4 Eva
Superstar
*Disclaimer* This will be a LONG rant but it has to be to get my point across so if you don't like reading back out now. Aint tryna see no TLDR posts, you've been warned. 
So Bloodborne as a game is not a bad game. The combat is good it works great, the setting is fire as hell, good enemy variation, it has the great level design that started with Dark Souls 1, and the game doesn't overstay it's welcome. It's a 9/10 game.
But as a Souls-Like game it is fukking TRASH, and I am sick and fukking tired of every single new spin off/clone of the genre trying to channel Bloodborne and not the masterpiece of the genre that is Dark Souls 3, the one game that should have ruled them all. People suck Bloodbornes dikk like it isn't the most easily accessible and casual game From Soft has made since they created this genre(Elden Ring is the second most casual and accessible game, I'll get to that later cause I know I'll get flamed for that.). I would argue at it's core mechanics Bloodborne is a whole different genre of game and should not even count as a Souls game.
I started playing this series back in '09 when I randomly picked up Demon's Souls for my PS3. The game was notorious for not explaining shyt and basically throwing you in there and forcing you to figure it out or as it became known later aka 'Git Gud'. I hated this game at first because not only did it not explain shyt, but it was punishing with it's difficulty. Even the regular enemies would wash the fukk out of you, it was the first RPG I think that made you actually feel 'human' or 'regular' since probably Morrowind on the original Xbox. I will quit a game if it gets boring or repetitive, I REFUSE to quit a game because it is too hard that is bytch made. I stuck with it and after more deaths than I could count one day I picked it up and played it and something clicked. I just GOT IT and proceeded to run through the rest of the game over the course of the weekend. Demon's Souls is the first Souls like and while it laid the ground work it's formula was improved by leaps and bounds with the release of Dark Souls and even though I loved it, Dark Souls made Demon's Souls feel completely obsolete.
Now here comes Dark Souls. What can I say but I love this game to my core. It had a Metroidvania like feel to it in 3D. The level design was superb, with tons of meaningful back tracking and unlocking shortcuts to make traversal easier. It perfected the feeling of making a build(Str Build, Dex build, Magic Build, quality build, etc.), with each build feeling completely unique in playstyle and how you approach the game from the others. It had challenging bosses, and despite being one big connected world would put a huge road block in front of you aka a hard ass boss fight and either you beat it or your stuck, but you can't progress until you git gud and beat that bosses ass. It was rightfully critically acclaimed, because while it was tough it was fair it never felt cheap.
I actually like Dark Souls 2, but to keep this from being too long winded we will skip to Bloodborne. So after Demon's Souls and Dark Souls to mostly universally loved games, and then the love it or hate it Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne comes out in 2015 made by FromSoft so you know it is going to get compared to the Souls games. This game TAKES OFF in popularity, it is highly praised by everyone for it's fast paced combat and awesome setting and art style. So I pick up Bloodborne for the first time and while I initially liked it a lot, after a while I just realized something was off with this game. I beat the Cleric beast on the first try, I'm a vet of the Souls series by this time so I knew the first boss is cake, the second boss is usually a big difficulty spike(either from a boss strength standpoint or a mechanical mastery standpoint).
So as I'm playing this game I notice Bloodborne puts a HUGE emphasis on parrying your opponent, I would actually argue the game is literally designed with dodge, dodge, dodge, parry in mind. They took the tactical part of the combat out by allowing you to get your health back by being aggressive and enemies stagger quite easily. Bloodborne feels more like an action game than an action RPG. The thing is the Souls games had parrying as well, it was mainly effective if you were a dex build, if you were a strength build you were far too slow and your shield was not designed to parry efficiently it's designed to block, if you were a magic build you aren't letting anything get close enough to you to need a shield like that if you know what you are doing. The more I played this game I noticed 3 key things.
1. Bloodborne forces you to play one way: like a Dark Souls dex build. Even a 'stength' or arcane build plays like a dex build. The game is basically forcing you to dodge all the time or if you really understand the game you realize you can parry ANY enemy in this game because that is what it WANTS you to do. How is this different from a Souls games, every boss in Dark Souls can be beaten multiple ways there is no 'preferred' way to play and the game doesn't force any particular playstyle on you. Your character is what you make it, you play it how you want to play. Some builds are very effective at certain things, but they are all VIABLE and they all feel UNIQUE. Bloodborne does not feel unique across builds after a while they all feel the same no matter how you play. Strength weapons still feel really fukking fast and floaty compared to a Strength build in Dark Souls. Magic HAHAHAHAHA this gets me to my next point.
2. They WATERED DOWN what made the Souls games, Souls games because they took out so much. In their attempt to essentially force an action game on you Bloodborne took out 1. Poise 2. Equipment load 3. There is no magic. 4. There is basically one build. 5. While the level design is fantastic from an artistic standpoint, it is a completely linear experience almost. Unlike Dark Souls where once you are out of the tutorial area there are like 3 ways you can go(one will always be easier than the others, but you can proceed down the harder paths first) Bloodborne is kinda designed for you to go and move in one direction from area to area it is a much more streamlined experience 6. Enemies stagger very easily in this game. 7. Absolutely no blocking at all which you would think would make the game harder, but in reality...
3. This game puts a HUGE EMPHASIS on parrying. Like such a huge emphasis once you figure out how to parry effectively, which is not hard because the parry windows in this game are RIDICULOUSLY long compared to other games in the series, the difficulty becomes a fukking joke. I figured out the parry timing right before I got to Father Gasciogne. He is a difficulty spike due to mechanics, not because he is actually hard. Father Gascoigne is only hard if you have not grasped what the game basically wants and is kind of going to force you to do... PARRY. Every enemy in this game from the lowliest of low to the Orphan of Kos can be parried if you shoot them right at the apex of the swing of their heavily telegraphed attacks. Then you riposte them in the chest and do massive fukking damage to them. Gascoigne can be beaten pitifully easily if you just parry him... and it isn't even that hard to do. If he does use an attack that can't be parried guess what, just dodge(the only other gameplay mechanic the game really gives you) back out of range wait until he is done and jump back in there and smash his ass. Pretty much every enemy and boss is like this. So many people struggled with Gascoigne at first, when the only bosses I had to try more than once on were Vicar Amelia and Lawrence and Gehrmain(he took me two tries) because they felt slightly more like Souls bosses and Orphan of Kos because his parry window is much closer to the parry window of a Souls boss so he takes more getting used to.
Bloodborne released to such high praise and at first I liked it, more people were getting into the series which in my mind at first I thought would be a great thing. More people means more resources pumped into future games... at least I thought. A LOT of people were first exposed to From Soft games with Bloodborne, the problem is anyone who is a Souls original like me understands Bloodborne is NOT the game you want to start with because it is WATERED down. Going from Bloodborne to Dark Souls is like going from varsity football to the NFL, can it be done yes but it is going to be very hard; which is why most players go to college first because it prepares you for what is coming. Most Bloodborne players struggle at first to grasp that your equipment will literally make parrying or dodging completely ineffective if your loadout isn't right. They don't understand a greatsword in Dark Souls actually swings and feels like a greatsword, Ludwigs Holy Blade brought to Dark Souls would be considered a one handed sword how fast it swings in it's 2H form. Dark Souls has magic, also you have to actually manage your stamina and MP. You can't just wear any armor in this game and think your gonna move like a ninja. You don't get health back from attacking. Certain enemy styles will be harder for your build to beat than others, but they can be beaten. Bloodborne has ONE fukkING BUILD so after a while almost every enemy can be approached the exact same way. Some enemies in Dark Souls cannot be parried and if you dodge all the time you can beat them but it will take a long time because dodging will take you out of range and you have to close the gap again. Sometimes it is a better idea to BLOCK in Dark Souls because you don't have to get back into range. Also the parry windows in Dark Souls are MUCH SHORTER than Bloodborne. You can't just dodge forever in Dark Souls because eventually you will go into the negative on stamina and get a penalty to your stamina regen. You can't hold down the block button because your stamina will come back slow as fukk. You can't spam magic because you have a limited amount of MP and MP recovery itema. Dark Souls is less forgiving at just about everything. Dark Souls from the combat, to the gear, to the resource management, the bosses even the level design just has A LOT MORE going on than Bloodborne. It is hard to go from Bloodborne to Dark Souls, it is easy to go from Dark Souls to Bloodborne because of how many game mechanics they stripped from it.
Dark Souls 3 came out and they perfected everything Dark Souls 1 and 2 was doing while adding some QoL improvements from Bloodborne, really just one in particular they sped the gameplay up. Dark Souls 3, while not as fast as the action game that is Bloodborne, is still considerably faster than Dark Souls 1 and 2, but it keeps the gameplay mechanics of a true Souls game and the challenge. Dark Souls 3 is the perfect combination of all of the good all the previous games did without watering anything down. It has the toughest bosses, the best level design, it captures the atmosphere of what it wants to do the best, best enemy variation, the most balanced gameplay, the best DLC, best co-op and PVP system, it's just flat out better at EVERYTHING even Elden Ring in many ways. Dark Souls 3 is the true FromSoft masterpiece, not Bloodborne or Elden Ring, Dark Souls 3 is the one game to rule them all, one game to bind them, one game to bring them all in, and in the darkness bind them.
I make this rant because I bought this game called Thymesia which I heard was a 'Souls-Like', and for $20 why not if I don't like it I only spent $20 I'll take that risk. So I start playing it, and all I think of when I play this game is 'This is a Bloodborne clone, not a Souls-Like.' It isn't even a bad game, it's actually fun but it isn't a Souls-Like so as I play it I'm not fully satisfied because I want Dark Souls. I keep hearing about Steel Rising and Lies of P, two other 'souls-like' games and watching gameplay video of these games these are Bloodborne clones, not Souls games. I'm sorry Bloodborne is Dark Souls for casuals, shyt is an action game with LIGHT RPG elements; Dark Souls is an RPG with action elements to it. They are completely different games and I am tired of people confusing the two of them.
In short Bloodborne is a great action game. It is not a good RPG and it is a terrible Souls game. I know Bloodborne has some fukking fanatic Stanleys, but honestly I am prepared to die on this fukking hill, yes I choose violence because I am tired of hearing a game is a Souls like when it plays way more like CASUAL ASS(yeah I fukking said it) Bloodborne than an actual Souls game like Dark Souls 3. Thymesia is not a souls like. Steel Rising and Lies of P are not Souls likes. They are Bloodborne clones. Hell Nioh has more in common with Dark Souls than Bloodborne does.
I'm saying this because I want a true Souls-Like game. Bloodborne and it's clones are not it. Elden Ring has more in common with Dark Souls than Bloodborne, but how the game is designed it is missing certain things that made Dark Souls well... Dark Souls. This isn't saying Bloodborne and Elden Ring are bad games, like I said Bloodborne is a 9/10 and Elden Ring is a 9.5/10(Dark Souls 3 is a 9.5/10 in my book) They are fantastic games, but as a Souls game(as far as feeling like a Souls game) Bloodborne gets a 3/10 and Elden Ring gets a 6/10. This needs to be done so we get a true Souls like experience again not these off brand spin offs.
So Bloodborne as a game is not a bad game. The combat is good it works great, the setting is fire as hell, good enemy variation, it has the great level design that started with Dark Souls 1, and the game doesn't overstay it's welcome. It's a 9/10 game.
But as a Souls-Like game it is fukking TRASH, and I am sick and fukking tired of every single new spin off/clone of the genre trying to channel Bloodborne and not the masterpiece of the genre that is Dark Souls 3, the one game that should have ruled them all. People suck Bloodbornes dikk like it isn't the most easily accessible and casual game From Soft has made since they created this genre(Elden Ring is the second most casual and accessible game, I'll get to that later cause I know I'll get flamed for that.). I would argue at it's core mechanics Bloodborne is a whole different genre of game and should not even count as a Souls game.
I started playing this series back in '09 when I randomly picked up Demon's Souls for my PS3. The game was notorious for not explaining shyt and basically throwing you in there and forcing you to figure it out or as it became known later aka 'Git Gud'. I hated this game at first because not only did it not explain shyt, but it was punishing with it's difficulty. Even the regular enemies would wash the fukk out of you, it was the first RPG I think that made you actually feel 'human' or 'regular' since probably Morrowind on the original Xbox. I will quit a game if it gets boring or repetitive, I REFUSE to quit a game because it is too hard that is bytch made. I stuck with it and after more deaths than I could count one day I picked it up and played it and something clicked. I just GOT IT and proceeded to run through the rest of the game over the course of the weekend. Demon's Souls is the first Souls like and while it laid the ground work it's formula was improved by leaps and bounds with the release of Dark Souls and even though I loved it, Dark Souls made Demon's Souls feel completely obsolete.
Now here comes Dark Souls. What can I say but I love this game to my core. It had a Metroidvania like feel to it in 3D. The level design was superb, with tons of meaningful back tracking and unlocking shortcuts to make traversal easier. It perfected the feeling of making a build(Str Build, Dex build, Magic Build, quality build, etc.), with each build feeling completely unique in playstyle and how you approach the game from the others. It had challenging bosses, and despite being one big connected world would put a huge road block in front of you aka a hard ass boss fight and either you beat it or your stuck, but you can't progress until you git gud and beat that bosses ass. It was rightfully critically acclaimed, because while it was tough it was fair it never felt cheap.
I actually like Dark Souls 2, but to keep this from being too long winded we will skip to Bloodborne. So after Demon's Souls and Dark Souls to mostly universally loved games, and then the love it or hate it Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne comes out in 2015 made by FromSoft so you know it is going to get compared to the Souls games. This game TAKES OFF in popularity, it is highly praised by everyone for it's fast paced combat and awesome setting and art style. So I pick up Bloodborne for the first time and while I initially liked it a lot, after a while I just realized something was off with this game. I beat the Cleric beast on the first try, I'm a vet of the Souls series by this time so I knew the first boss is cake, the second boss is usually a big difficulty spike(either from a boss strength standpoint or a mechanical mastery standpoint).
So as I'm playing this game I notice Bloodborne puts a HUGE emphasis on parrying your opponent, I would actually argue the game is literally designed with dodge, dodge, dodge, parry in mind. They took the tactical part of the combat out by allowing you to get your health back by being aggressive and enemies stagger quite easily. Bloodborne feels more like an action game than an action RPG. The thing is the Souls games had parrying as well, it was mainly effective if you were a dex build, if you were a strength build you were far too slow and your shield was not designed to parry efficiently it's designed to block, if you were a magic build you aren't letting anything get close enough to you to need a shield like that if you know what you are doing. The more I played this game I noticed 3 key things.
1. Bloodborne forces you to play one way: like a Dark Souls dex build. Even a 'stength' or arcane build plays like a dex build. The game is basically forcing you to dodge all the time or if you really understand the game you realize you can parry ANY enemy in this game because that is what it WANTS you to do. How is this different from a Souls games, every boss in Dark Souls can be beaten multiple ways there is no 'preferred' way to play and the game doesn't force any particular playstyle on you. Your character is what you make it, you play it how you want to play. Some builds are very effective at certain things, but they are all VIABLE and they all feel UNIQUE. Bloodborne does not feel unique across builds after a while they all feel the same no matter how you play. Strength weapons still feel really fukking fast and floaty compared to a Strength build in Dark Souls. Magic HAHAHAHAHA this gets me to my next point.
2. They WATERED DOWN what made the Souls games, Souls games because they took out so much. In their attempt to essentially force an action game on you Bloodborne took out 1. Poise 2. Equipment load 3. There is no magic. 4. There is basically one build. 5. While the level design is fantastic from an artistic standpoint, it is a completely linear experience almost. Unlike Dark Souls where once you are out of the tutorial area there are like 3 ways you can go(one will always be easier than the others, but you can proceed down the harder paths first) Bloodborne is kinda designed for you to go and move in one direction from area to area it is a much more streamlined experience 6. Enemies stagger very easily in this game. 7. Absolutely no blocking at all which you would think would make the game harder, but in reality...
3. This game puts a HUGE EMPHASIS on parrying. Like such a huge emphasis once you figure out how to parry effectively, which is not hard because the parry windows in this game are RIDICULOUSLY long compared to other games in the series, the difficulty becomes a fukking joke. I figured out the parry timing right before I got to Father Gasciogne. He is a difficulty spike due to mechanics, not because he is actually hard. Father Gascoigne is only hard if you have not grasped what the game basically wants and is kind of going to force you to do... PARRY. Every enemy in this game from the lowliest of low to the Orphan of Kos can be parried if you shoot them right at the apex of the swing of their heavily telegraphed attacks. Then you riposte them in the chest and do massive fukking damage to them. Gascoigne can be beaten pitifully easily if you just parry him... and it isn't even that hard to do. If he does use an attack that can't be parried guess what, just dodge(the only other gameplay mechanic the game really gives you) back out of range wait until he is done and jump back in there and smash his ass. Pretty much every enemy and boss is like this. So many people struggled with Gascoigne at first, when the only bosses I had to try more than once on were Vicar Amelia and Lawrence and Gehrmain(he took me two tries) because they felt slightly more like Souls bosses and Orphan of Kos because his parry window is much closer to the parry window of a Souls boss so he takes more getting used to.
Bloodborne released to such high praise and at first I liked it, more people were getting into the series which in my mind at first I thought would be a great thing. More people means more resources pumped into future games... at least I thought. A LOT of people were first exposed to From Soft games with Bloodborne, the problem is anyone who is a Souls original like me understands Bloodborne is NOT the game you want to start with because it is WATERED down. Going from Bloodborne to Dark Souls is like going from varsity football to the NFL, can it be done yes but it is going to be very hard; which is why most players go to college first because it prepares you for what is coming. Most Bloodborne players struggle at first to grasp that your equipment will literally make parrying or dodging completely ineffective if your loadout isn't right. They don't understand a greatsword in Dark Souls actually swings and feels like a greatsword, Ludwigs Holy Blade brought to Dark Souls would be considered a one handed sword how fast it swings in it's 2H form. Dark Souls has magic, also you have to actually manage your stamina and MP. You can't just wear any armor in this game and think your gonna move like a ninja. You don't get health back from attacking. Certain enemy styles will be harder for your build to beat than others, but they can be beaten. Bloodborne has ONE fukkING BUILD so after a while almost every enemy can be approached the exact same way. Some enemies in Dark Souls cannot be parried and if you dodge all the time you can beat them but it will take a long time because dodging will take you out of range and you have to close the gap again. Sometimes it is a better idea to BLOCK in Dark Souls because you don't have to get back into range. Also the parry windows in Dark Souls are MUCH SHORTER than Bloodborne. You can't just dodge forever in Dark Souls because eventually you will go into the negative on stamina and get a penalty to your stamina regen. You can't hold down the block button because your stamina will come back slow as fukk. You can't spam magic because you have a limited amount of MP and MP recovery itema. Dark Souls is less forgiving at just about everything. Dark Souls from the combat, to the gear, to the resource management, the bosses even the level design just has A LOT MORE going on than Bloodborne. It is hard to go from Bloodborne to Dark Souls, it is easy to go from Dark Souls to Bloodborne because of how many game mechanics they stripped from it.
Dark Souls 3 came out and they perfected everything Dark Souls 1 and 2 was doing while adding some QoL improvements from Bloodborne, really just one in particular they sped the gameplay up. Dark Souls 3, while not as fast as the action game that is Bloodborne, is still considerably faster than Dark Souls 1 and 2, but it keeps the gameplay mechanics of a true Souls game and the challenge. Dark Souls 3 is the perfect combination of all of the good all the previous games did without watering anything down. It has the toughest bosses, the best level design, it captures the atmosphere of what it wants to do the best, best enemy variation, the most balanced gameplay, the best DLC, best co-op and PVP system, it's just flat out better at EVERYTHING even Elden Ring in many ways. Dark Souls 3 is the true FromSoft masterpiece, not Bloodborne or Elden Ring, Dark Souls 3 is the one game to rule them all, one game to bind them, one game to bring them all in, and in the darkness bind them.
I make this rant because I bought this game called Thymesia which I heard was a 'Souls-Like', and for $20 why not if I don't like it I only spent $20 I'll take that risk. So I start playing it, and all I think of when I play this game is 'This is a Bloodborne clone, not a Souls-Like.' It isn't even a bad game, it's actually fun but it isn't a Souls-Like so as I play it I'm not fully satisfied because I want Dark Souls. I keep hearing about Steel Rising and Lies of P, two other 'souls-like' games and watching gameplay video of these games these are Bloodborne clones, not Souls games. I'm sorry Bloodborne is Dark Souls for casuals, shyt is an action game with LIGHT RPG elements; Dark Souls is an RPG with action elements to it. They are completely different games and I am tired of people confusing the two of them.
In short Bloodborne is a great action game. It is not a good RPG and it is a terrible Souls game. I know Bloodborne has some fukking fanatic Stanleys, but honestly I am prepared to die on this fukking hill, yes I choose violence because I am tired of hearing a game is a Souls like when it plays way more like CASUAL ASS(yeah I fukking said it) Bloodborne than an actual Souls game like Dark Souls 3. Thymesia is not a souls like. Steel Rising and Lies of P are not Souls likes. They are Bloodborne clones. Hell Nioh has more in common with Dark Souls than Bloodborne does.
I'm saying this because I want a true Souls-Like game. Bloodborne and it's clones are not it. Elden Ring has more in common with Dark Souls than Bloodborne, but how the game is designed it is missing certain things that made Dark Souls well... Dark Souls. This isn't saying Bloodborne and Elden Ring are bad games, like I said Bloodborne is a 9/10 and Elden Ring is a 9.5/10(Dark Souls 3 is a 9.5/10 in my book) They are fantastic games, but as a Souls game(as far as feeling like a Souls game) Bloodborne gets a 3/10 and Elden Ring gets a 6/10. This needs to be done so we get a true Souls like experience again not these off brand spin offs.
