Oh boy, GAF will hunt me down for this but here I go.
Let me start out by saying this is my first Souls game, I haven't played any other game in the series and I was excited to try this one out. First the good parts. I found the voice acting, music, character designs and atmosphere to be really good. It really manages to be scary quite often, dare I say it is scarier than a lot of horror games. Graphics is on the weaker side but it does the job. There are a couple amazing boss fights that puts you on the edge of your seat like Father Gascoigne (especially if you don't use the music box), Vicar Amelia and BloodStarved Beast.
But on the other hand there are a lot of things I disliked. As game progresses it gets way easier and bosses doesn't offer different mechanics/challenges (Except Martyr Logarius). Amygdala, Ebrietas, Paarl are just really similar to each other meanwhile bosses like Celestial Emissary, Micolash and Witch of Hemwick are a snoozefest. Then there is farming for blood vials. This gets better by the end of the game because you don't use them as much. However especially at the beginning it's a chore to run out of blood and vials due to difficult fights. It makes you fight with same enemies over and over again to gather enough vials to move on with your main adventure. This kinda kills the pace for me.
One other thing I didn't like was by passing all the mobs to just get to the boss. There are bosses you will die a couple times and naturally you will want to fight again. Just to get to the boss you will often need to run past enemies that are on the way. You don't want to fight them because you will either lose HP or lose a lot of time because quite often they are harder to deal with than the boss itself. This sprinting part really adds nothing to the game other than frustration and time wasting. In most RPGs after failing a boss fight it takes you back as well but the monsters on the way aren't such a pain to deal with so it's alright to just have a few fights again. Bloodborne often punishes you for taking these fights, because after these fights there is a big chance they will not drop any vials.
I think the thing I'm most disappointed is the ending though. I haven't checked any guides before Gehrman so I wasn't aware it was point of no return. Then I chose to submit my life...
Right after the cinematic I was like fuck. I just missed the boss fight and it puts me all the way to the beginning. There is really no way to go back to this part other than spending hours to beat the game once again, are you kidding me? Take Zelda for example,
I get it, different games and genre but messing up once basically loses you 20-30 hours of gameplay time. Did anyone really think this was a good idea?
Edit: Well obviously nobody bothered to read my second post so here it is:
Okay, I've read your replies in the thread and I feel like I should clarify a couple points some of you making.
"Your English isn't good/Dude you submit your life, what did you expect?"
I knew what it meant but I thought about the possibility of waking up from the dream and fighting the real boss. Worst case scenario I thought I'd get a "You Died" screen to try again. Never did I think it would put me all the way to the beginning. Game gave me the middle finger for spending hours for a single fuck up. If you are fine with it that's fine, but I don't like it in the slightest.
"You don't farm for vials, you can just buy them"
Yes, I am aware of that and this isn't the case after a while. But like I mentioned especially at the beginning there are boss fights you lose quite a few times. At least that was the case for me as I was still learning the mechanics. When you keep dying to a boss, you lose your blood and run out of vials. After that you want to farm for blood/vials but in the same time you also want to level because you are not strong enough. You are using the same pool of resource for leveling and buying vials so it will not be enough for a while. You summon in a certain point of the map, clear the relatively easy monsters and repeat the process a couple times. This for me killed the excitement and pace of the game at certain times.
"Git gud"
I already got good. That's what I'm saying, game stops being challenging as it progress. The second half of the game I killed most of the bosses on my second or third try because most of the moves are really similar to each other. I killed Micolash and Wet Nurse on the first try without any issues. I wasn't overleveled either as I was around 60 when I arrived at Gehrman.
"Game is great/You are wrong"
I mean it's good but I wouldn't call it the game of the generation as some people call here.
Let me start out by saying this is my first Souls game, I haven't played any other game in the series and I was excited to try this one out. First the good parts. I found the voice acting, music, character designs and atmosphere to be really good. It really manages to be scary quite often, dare I say it is scarier than a lot of horror games. Graphics is on the weaker side but it does the job. There are a couple amazing boss fights that puts you on the edge of your seat like Father Gascoigne (especially if you don't use the music box), Vicar Amelia and BloodStarved Beast.
But on the other hand there are a lot of things I disliked. As game progresses it gets way easier and bosses doesn't offer different mechanics/challenges (Except Martyr Logarius). Amygdala, Ebrietas, Paarl are just really similar to each other meanwhile bosses like Celestial Emissary, Micolash and Witch of Hemwick are a snoozefest. Then there is farming for blood vials. This gets better by the end of the game because you don't use them as much. However especially at the beginning it's a chore to run out of blood and vials due to difficult fights. It makes you fight with same enemies over and over again to gather enough vials to move on with your main adventure. This kinda kills the pace for me.
One other thing I didn't like was by passing all the mobs to just get to the boss. There are bosses you will die a couple times and naturally you will want to fight again. Just to get to the boss you will often need to run past enemies that are on the way. You don't want to fight them because you will either lose HP or lose a lot of time because quite often they are harder to deal with than the boss itself. This sprinting part really adds nothing to the game other than frustration and time wasting. In most RPGs after failing a boss fight it takes you back as well but the monsters on the way aren't such a pain to deal with so it's alright to just have a few fights again. Bloodborne often punishes you for taking these fights, because after these fights there is a big chance they will not drop any vials.
I think the thing I'm most disappointed is the ending though. I haven't checked any guides before Gehrman so I wasn't aware it was point of no return. Then I chose to submit my life...
Right after the cinematic I was like fuck. I just missed the boss fight and it puts me all the way to the beginning. There is really no way to go back to this part other than spending hours to beat the game once again, are you kidding me? Take Zelda for example,
if you miss a memory and finish the game you get to see the bad ending but it doesn't put you right at the beginning, it gives you another chance to collect the memories to get the true ending.
Edit: Well obviously nobody bothered to read my second post so here it is:
Okay, I've read your replies in the thread and I feel like I should clarify a couple points some of you making.
"Your English isn't good/Dude you submit your life, what did you expect?"
I knew what it meant but I thought about the possibility of waking up from the dream and fighting the real boss. Worst case scenario I thought I'd get a "You Died" screen to try again. Never did I think it would put me all the way to the beginning. Game gave me the middle finger for spending hours for a single fuck up. If you are fine with it that's fine, but I don't like it in the slightest.
"You don't farm for vials, you can just buy them"
Yes, I am aware of that and this isn't the case after a while. But like I mentioned especially at the beginning there are boss fights you lose quite a few times. At least that was the case for me as I was still learning the mechanics. When you keep dying to a boss, you lose your blood and run out of vials. After that you want to farm for blood/vials but in the same time you also want to level because you are not strong enough. You are using the same pool of resource for leveling and buying vials so it will not be enough for a while. You summon in a certain point of the map, clear the relatively easy monsters and repeat the process a couple times. This for me killed the excitement and pace of the game at certain times.
"Git gud"
I already got good. That's what I'm saying, game stops being challenging as it progress. The second half of the game I killed most of the bosses on my second or third try because most of the moves are really similar to each other. I killed Micolash and Wet Nurse on the first try without any issues. I wasn't overleveled either as I was around 60 when I arrived at Gehrman.
"Game is great/You are wrong"
I mean it's good but I wouldn't call it the game of the generation as some people call here.
I still respect your opinion though.