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REVIEW: BLOODBORNE (PS4)

30/3/2015

35 Comments

 
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So. Get this: thanks to not being professional games journalists for many years (arguably, we're still not) we're the guys who never played Dark Souls. Or Demon's Souls. Maybe we're ar-souls (do you see?). Or maybe we just read all the reviews, and heard our special friends going on and on and on about how good/punishing they were, and just went "Naaah... Not for us".

It was that famous difficulty level that really put us off; could we really be bothered to play the same moments again and again and again, learning enemy patterns and behaviour through repeated deaths? Ultimately: no. No we could not. 

Frankly, life is short. We'd much rather be galloping through the countryside on our prize-winning pony Spirit, who we rescued from a bog and trained and he became our most special friend and won Best In Show at the county fayre but then the evil Mr Hoegestratten tried to burn down the stables for insurance purposes and Spirit nearly died but then he escaped and helped us fetch water from the lake and we saved the stables and everyone was cheering and clapping and shouting "USA! USA! USA!" and Mr Hoegestratten came out to see what was happening and Spirit bit him in the throat and he died.

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POSITIVE VIBES
And yet here we are, reviewing Bloodborne - essentially, From Software's next-gen Dark Souls. 

Thus far, the reviews have been unanimously positive, hailing this the first great PS4 exclusive. Everybody seems keen to wrap their thighs around it. Everybody seems to think it's The Best Thing Since Diced Bread. 

Therefore, it's with some degree of trepidation that we must warn you: this review may stroke against the direction of your fur.

Indeed, chances are you've read a review of Bloodborne already. If you haven't, and you don't know what's going on, here's the quickest of summaries: you wake up in some quasi-Victorian city called Yhurtleham, or something. You're a monster hunter. It's a third-person fighting game with RPG undertones. Equip different weapons in each hand, and go clear the world of the monsters. Yadda-me-do.

That's the basic game. Yes, there's more to it than that - it's markedly deep and involved (the balletic combat is all lunges, dodging, and health-recovering counter attacks, and about timing and learning enemy routines), with a seemingly wilfully obtuse, drip-fed storyline. If you get desperate, you can activate lanterns, and move back and forth between the "real" world and a sort of Afterlife place, which will recover your health - but the monsters will respawn when you return.


Also, there's a neat approach to multiplayer, whereby you can summon other players to help with particularly stubborn boss battles. Note: they're all particularly stubborn boss battles.

ADMIRE ABLE NELSON
There is much to admire in Bloodborne; it really doesn't feel like anything else (except, presumably, Dark Souls - who knows?), and key to that is its difficulty level. 

It throws you into the thick of things from the off, and it just gets more difficult from there. You enter the game world... you die. You reenter. You die. Gradually, your scar tissue - built up over repeated plays of the same moments - grants you a sort of elastic memory from moment to moment. Gradually you make progress, gradually you become more powerful, and gradually you either fall in love with the game, or decide it isn't worth the effort, even if you did pay sixty quid for it.

See, we need to cut to the chase here, because it's chewing away at our windpipe like an aggrieved pony. Basically... ok... see... we don't think Bloodborne is perfect. In fact, we're not even sure if we'd go as far as to say we liked it.

First and foremost among its issues are the loading times. Frankly, when you're dealing with a game this punishing, where death happens all too often, you need to be able to get back into the game almost immediately (we know it doesn't have to throw quite so many graphical shapes, but think of the way Hotline Miami shoves you instantly back into the level you just exited). We're just not stubborn enough to appreciate repeated returns to that well of punishment (and - to be honest with you - wouldn't have done so if we didn't have a review to write). 

Apparently, there's a patch on the way that's going to reduce the load times - but it isn't here now, and given the nature of the gameplay, this should've been implemented for launch. Hell, it should've been integral to the development process, because it damn near broke the game for us.
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WELL WORTHS
We might've sworn less through Bloodborne's dull, flat loading screens had we thought it was worth going back for, but generally we sat through them with a sense of heaviness at what was awaiting on the other side.


There were times when we felt a slight buzz of that high everyone talks about with regard to Dark Souls - that sense of accomplishment when you finally succeed at one of the epic boss fights, on your 30th go. 

But, really, with hindsight, we're not sure whether it was a sense of accomplishment, or just relief that we'd conquered another chunk of the game that we'd no longer have to play through again and again and again and again and again.

SPEWKY
What's more, and we accept that this is purely personal taste, but we also hated the aesthetic of Bloodborne. Alright, hate's a strong word - we didn't like it. 

That's not the fault of the game as such: it's graphically very accomplished, and the scale of the visuals - which become increasingly demented as you progress - are evidently the result of a lot of hard work. We appreciated the way your progress was foreshadowed on the horizon. The animation was slick and - at times - spectacular. The atmosphere achieves what it set out to achieve, and then some.

But it's the design that we're not keen on; that sub-Victorian, Heavy Metal, occult-y, kind of "Whoooh! We're in a Cool Spooky World of the Dead" vibe. It might look great from a purely technical perspective, but it lacks originality from an artistic one. Which is weird when you consider that 90% of all video games are me-too military shoot 'em ups, and not set in a plague-ridden steampunk netherworld. For us, there's just nothing recognisable to hang onto - nothing to make us care about Yharrrnhuhrrm. And consequently, we didn't.

So, anyway, we're not trying to be iconoclasts. We get that plenty of gamers like this sort of thing, but this is one for the most hardcore of hardcore. It's personal taste at the end of the day: we don't like our games to be a chore, and if they are a chore or a grind we don't like them to make us wait 20 to 30 seconds between repeated blipverts of gameplay. The loading times were the main barrier to our enjoyment. If the forthcoming patch can reduce them down to five seconds or less, it would make a big difference to the playability of Bloodborne. 

At the minute, our personal taste is such that we weren't sufficiently intrigued by Yhurmurnhamam for it to nullify our irritation with the loading times, or - by consequence of that - our irritation with the difficulty level. Maybe we're just not sufficiently masochistic, but we'd struggle to ever describe Bloodborne as fun, and that's ultimately what we're looking for from our games.

SUMMARY: Our instinct about Dark Souls was right - not for us. It's a superbly well put-together game, but one for those into self-flagellation and Megadeth album covers.
SCORE: 7.724 pints of blood out of 10.17433
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
  • REVIEW: BATTLEFIELD HARDLINE (Various)
  • REVIEW: HOTLINE MIAMI 2 (Various)
  • REVIEW: ZOMBIE ARMY TRILOGY (PS4/Xbox One/PC)


35 Comments
kelvingreen link
30/3/2015 03:50:40 am

I haven't played it because I'm not a massive fan of <i>Dark Souls</i> and this seemed to be similar enough that I didn't want to spend money on it. Instead I've been watching it on that PS4 streaming thing, which is quite handy for getting a feel for what a game is like, as long as you don't end up watching one of the streams where the game is paused and you can hear some bloke in the background shouting in Russian before the ominous slam of a metal door.

Er...

Anyway, I didn't much like what I saw. Like you, I could appreciate how good it looked without liking the choices they made. It's all very grey and dull and just looking at the game sort of kills my interest in it.

WOZNIAK!

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GigerPunk link
30/3/2015 04:18:53 am

Same here. Dark Souls didn't interest me, for whatever reason, and neither does this. It all looks very slick and detailed but seems to have no soul, ironically enough.

As for difficulty levels high that force you to rinse and repeat the exact same sections over and over til you've learnt them by rote? No thanks, I've my C64 for that.

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Da5e
30/3/2015 04:23:05 am

'Retribution' is a much better Malevolent Creation record. Or The Fine Art of Murder, which has got the attractive and powerful Dave Culross on drums(he's bloody fast and hits hard, that'll do me).

I'm far more interested in arguing about death metal drummers than I am Bloodborne. I'd like From to make a good Armored Core game again...

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ted sallis
30/3/2015 04:36:34 am

played it for a few hours, it ground me down with the difficulty and the ssssslllooooooowwwww loading screens. Fans love it, i wanted to love it, Peter Serafinavitchavich, tweeted that he was playing the game with a massive erection, i wanted to play it with a massive erection.unfortunately this game leaves me as cold as a witches tit.

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Wicked Eric
30/3/2015 05:58:33 am

This review has gotten me almost as angry as your middling review of Virtual On for the Saturn.

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dan de la peche
30/3/2015 06:01:33 am

I must be a dissenting dissenter then, because I love it. The drip-feed of story, the constant sense that something's badly wrong, it works for me. I end up walking through new areas instead of running, due to fear of death. Most games you're virtually indestructible, this one even a low level chump can ruin you if your timing's off. Cthulhu Gaiden!

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Mr Biffo
30/3/2015 06:47:21 am

Unfortunately, I'm more likely the dissenter in this instance, Dan. You seem to be with the majority.

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dan de la peche
30/3/2015 08:35:38 am

That's why I'm a double dissenter. I've flipped back round the right way again.

Matt W
30/3/2015 06:07:34 am

I can't for the life of me understand why they wouldn't put an easy mode in it. Keep the stupidly hard version for the hardcore, but put in an easy version so that everybody else can play. There is no logical reason why you wouldn't do this.

Elitist fan boys who want to keep their games niche would hate it, but that's their tough luck!!!

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Old Red
30/3/2015 10:55:25 am

Whilst it may seem like a unreasonable thing to do, there can't be an easier setting due to the online interactions with other players. It would unbalance the game or split the community if players were on different modes. I guess there could be an easier offline mode, but you might as well watch a let's play video if you take away summoning and invasion. The online aspect of the games really is the core element of what makes them so special, if you mess about with an already small community of players it could be highly damaging to a very niche set of games.

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TheBigWahoonie
30/3/2015 07:09:01 am

You're all wrong. (trololololol)

On a serious note - it is a series that invites investigation over overt story telling and appeals to the nihilist in me, it is impeccably designed and immersing. But it certainly is not for everyone.

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Dr Kank
30/3/2015 07:34:05 am

Oh man, it's the Sonic 3 review all over again

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bobomb
30/3/2015 09:40:48 am

the souls games really aren't solely for the 'hardcore'. If anything, the less familiar you are with action game tropes, the easier time you'll have of it. It's a period of un-learning, as much as learning. The combat itself is absolutely NOT harder or more complicated than something like DMC3 or bayonetta - there's no combos or anything like that, it just requires you to be cautious and evade rather than play like most power fantasy games have trained you.

I can't do any of the usual 'hardcore' games because i feel like the rely on reaction times and controller dexterity that no amount of hours of play is going to give me, but i find the souls games much more achievable, and rewarding. i don't buy that there's much rote 'learning' to be done, either - after a while the combat just 'clicks' and you're able to react to most situations as they present themselves.

this meme about these games being 'hard' is perpetuated as much by the marketing as anything else, but i don't think it's the whole story.

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Mr Biffo
30/3/2015 09:47:45 am

I do sort of agree with you to a point. When that moment comes where the fluidity of the combat 'clicks' it definitely becomes a much more satisfying, and less frustrating, experience. And that's why the game had a relatively high score, compared to my whinging. But at the same time, I'm not sold that the steep learning curve is a good thing - for me, it feels like bad pacing, and the loading screens just kill that pacing dead. Lots of people seem to be forgiving it for a lot of things that just pissed me off, because it's a "pure" gaming experience. And then, really, it's an aesthetic issue that meant I didn't enjoy spending time in the world as much as I wanted - there's nothing wrong with the world, or how it looks, it's just not my cup of tea.

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bobomb
30/3/2015 10:04:17 am

i hate the loading and preferred the look of the sort of arthurian fantasy of DS1 and 2 so i can dig those complaints.

i suppose it's difficult for me to fully grasp the learning curve argument because i did all of that two games ago. this one shares a lot of the same concepts, just without shields, and a lot faster. the other games had a bit more of a tutorial section, whereas this one has an info dump on the floor of the hub area that more than a few people i've spoken to didn't even notice, but maybe that's a lesson in itself.

i'm just firmly of the opinion that anyone who can use a controller can get through to the end of these games, whereas there are plenty of games out there that require reaction times and dexterity that can't be learnt.

bobomb
30/3/2015 10:23:04 am

i can agree with the loading screens and the design (preferred the arthurian feel of DS1 and 2).

the learning curve - i can agree that it's steep but i feel if it wasn't it would take all that extra time before you get that 'souls-feeling' of beating a seemingly impossible challenge using your learnt skills, the early areas seem totally trivial now, but only because i understand how gun parrying works, and how to use my attacks effectively, rather than levelling up or anything like that.

i think my issue is the idea of it being a requirement to be a 'hardcore gamer', which i can agree with for games like fighting games (reaction times, memory), dota/wow (endless amounts of free time), shoot-em-ups (reaction time, dexterity), whereas i really believe the souls games can be mastered by anyone who can use a controller, otherwise i wouldn't have!

Old Red
30/3/2015 09:56:41 am

The thing that's really upsetting about this review is that you've got to play this game and I won't be able to play it for ages, if not years... maybe never *sheds a solitary tear*. It's the mystery that surrounds Miyazaki's games that I find so thrilling. Nothing beats that first playthough when you don't know what's coming next. What I think people misunderstand when they go into the souls games and I presume this, is the fun and challenge come from the mechanics. Playing sections over and over become irrelevant as each time you play it's different, like in a fighting game, especially with the multiplayer component. Can I have your copy please? Oh and your PS4 too? A big TV would help as well?

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Mr Biffo
30/3/2015 09:59:09 am

Ha! No. But I think you've hit the nail on the head in a lot of ways there: I've never been a massive beat 'em up fan either. All I can do, really, is review things as I find them, personally - I can't filter my opinions through what others like.

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Darcy
30/3/2015 10:04:41 am

Phew, I'm not the only one then. Huzzah! Or "Nissan", if my phone has anything to say about it.

I played Dark Souls for about five hours. Depending on work load, I can fit in maybe an hour or two, at most, of gaming a day. I did not enjoy spending a good chunk of my gaming week repeating the same old shit. The thought of dedicating a couple of months to it put me off completely.

And yeah, the "aesthetic" just reminds of heavy metal festivals, only with less overpriced chips and watered -down beer. Maybe they should just go all out and make the next one a recreation of "Ozzy" Osbourne's career.

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Nick the Gent link
30/3/2015 10:14:43 am

This is why Digi is the best reviewer out there - no, not just the review scores, but the willingness to call it as you see it.

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bobomb
30/3/2015 10:25:04 am

replies to replies seem to get eaten by the system? this commenting system is harder than bloodborne...

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dan de la peche
30/3/2015 02:09:14 pm

Yeah, replies to replies seem to be disappearing. So: Biffo, keep reviewing things like you are, it's good. I don't trust any reviewers any more anyway since I realised they were all humans like me with wildly differing opinions (I have never enjoyed a racing or football game in my 20+ years of gaming except Burnout and that doesn't count). I like reading words about games, it's interesting that people don't like Bloodborne for pretty much the same reasons I like it.

And I'm a dissenting dissenter because all the other opinions of the game on the comments were negative, so I was going full circle!

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Mr Biffo
30/3/2015 03:31:54 pm

Ack! Stupid Weebly - apologies for the missing comments, all. Not sure what's happening, or what I might've missed either. Next time... I'll use Wordpress.

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Superbeast 37
31/3/2015 07:25:57 am

This is becoming a big issue that I've seen a number of people mention.

Should you review the game from the perspective of the majority/average Gamer or for the target niche audience that like those titles and would most likely be considering a purchase?

To the majority Bloodborne is a 2/10 awful poorly designed game. For the target audience it is a 10/10.

Most sites reviewed it for the fans but aren't they supposed to be providing a general buyers guide service? I'm not saying they are btw, just asking.

I loved The Order and Life is Strange etc. Long cutscenes & QTE's are to me what punishing difficulty and few checkpoints are to Souls fans. Yet those games weren't reviewed to provide guidance to people like me that actually buy games in that genre but were reviewed to guide everyone - the masses who have no interest in the genre.

It seems that some reviews aren't useful because they simply criticise the genre mechanics itself as opposed to telling those that like the genre if it is worth buying.

On the other hand most Bloodborne reviews have inadvertently tricked thousands of people with majority tastes into wasting their money on an unplayable niche product.

E.g."first killer app on the system" is a shady statement given the limited niche appeal of the title. It may well be a killer app to the niche.

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bobomb
31/3/2015 07:37:10 am

criticism done from the P.O.V of some presumed everyman is not criticism. i've no idea why games journalism and the readership has so much of a difficulty with this. if you're going to write about something critically, the only P.O.V you have any way of quantifying is your own.

i don't mean to go in on you here, because i believe that a lot of game reviews are done from this perspective, knowingly or not. it's why we always get games reviews with very similar scores - because people are doing write-ups based on presumed truths about gaming, to try an placate the 'average gamer' (whoever that is).

i love tevis thompson's piece on this: http://tevisthompson.com/on-videogame-reviews/

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Superbeast 37
31/3/2015 08:58:41 am

It's different for a small one man site like Digi. It's one guy giving you his taste.

For the big boys they tend to give reviews to genre specialists. Ie those that like the genre.

E.g. The RPG guy reviews Dragon Age and CoD is reviewed by the shooter guy. Swap them around and the reviews become useless as a purchasing guide and readership falls.

A hobby site can give personal critique and crucially all the readers know the score. The large sites exist partly to entertain and partly to give consumer advice - almost like Which.

My issue is consistency as opposed to defending one method over another.

The Order reviews dispensed everyman advice such as purely subjective opinions about value for money. They criticised the game for long cutscenes that the everyman dislikes, which is pretty daft because people who buy interactive movies do so for......long cutscenes - its the entire point.

Meanwhile Bloodborne was not reviewed for the everyman and a lot of people feel they have been mislead and ripped off. Bloodborne was reviewed on the main sites by hard core Souls players. Funny how they cared about the everyman only getting 8 hours out of The Order but don't care about the everyman playing Bloodborne for an hour and giving up..... Of course the writing staff on these sites are not exactly diverse (irony given their recent political statements) so they seem to have specialists to review hardcore Gamer centric titles but few if any for other genres (especially emerging genres).

So some games get specialist focus critique whilst others get everyman critique.

I'm a hardcore interactive movie/narrative based game player. Had I reviewed The Order it would have had the same write up as Bloodborne - "10/10 first killer app on the system". Imagine the outcry! A lot of average guys are outraged over being mislead into buying Bloodborne too. Of course with Bloodborne it's not cool to hate it (as was the case with other titles) because there is an extremely malicious and toxic community that surrounds the game that shouts down and bullies away any critical opinions. The Souls titles live within an untouchable echo chamber.

These larger sites need to make their minds up. Are they reviewing for the everyman or not? Because at the moment some games are and some games aren't.

The result is some players like me receiving useless information and others in the case of Bloodborne feeling fully scammed.

Jabberwoc link
31/3/2015 07:27:22 am

Never mind all that. Where can I order series two of "Spirit the Wonder Pony" on VHS? It's for a friend...

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ted sallis
31/3/2015 02:56:12 pm

inhaling a hit of liquid gold poppers at the your dead screen he;lps immeshurbly

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skankmustard
1/4/2015 05:53:48 am

As someone who owned Dark Souls, pumped in about 20 hours, then hated myself for wasting my time on a game that gave me very little satisfaction, I'm so glad to read a review that agrees with my opinion on this series.

Fair enough I haven't played Bloodborne, BUT I DON'T WANT TO! That doesn't mean that I hate video games! Stop shouting at me Eurogamer! Gah!

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The Great Jim Dove
2/4/2015 03:11:19 am

Finally a legit review of this game. Like the other "souls" games this is just a game about memory as opposed to being a real difficult game (see ghouls n ghosts for that). The combat in these.souls games is about as clunky as you can get. Everything feels like a poor mans boss battle from zelda with the fun and gameplay taken out/dumbed down. The inflated rep this game has is due to the desperation of ps4 owners to validate their purchase in the console wars.

Both systems are underpowered donkeyshite. This is space year 2015. 1080p @ 60fps should be the fucking minimum.

Yes a I am mainly a pc gamer but i do collect consoles and have spent less but played more games

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Dan Keast
4/4/2015 05:17:29 am

Digitiser is fully, officially, back! A well reasoned completely contrary opinion.

I love Bloodborne a huge amount, I'm always waiting for the chance to get back to playing it, but I can't disagree with anything about your review.

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Euphemia
2/9/2015 11:35:20 am

Well, it did improve after that patch what shrunk the loading times a bit, but I agree with everything said - it was a murky and overly-repetitive grinding exercise, and didn't have the right pain/reward balance or finesse you get with the Souls games. Ajd it didn't look half as nice as Dark Souls 2 on the next gen systems. Reminded me, not to it's credit, of Nightmare Creatures.

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Frankie Biscuit
15/12/2015 11:07:15 pm

This is the best game of the year and this hastily patched together collection of sophomoric revelations and inane 'musings' barely constitutes a review. Good to have you back

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