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Bloodborne feels like an hardcore version of Dark Souls

The higher completion rate of the first 3 Darksouls3 bosses on ps 4 seems to indicate that Bloodborne is harder than at least Darksouls 3.
 
Bloodborne was the first souls game I played/finished, so it's the one that gave me the most trouble as well, even though it's not really that hard either once you get a hang of it.
After BB I've completed Dark Souls 3 and I'm currently playing through Dark Souls, both those games have been easier imo.
 
Overall I feel BB is easier. If you upgrade Ludwig's Blade and put some good gems in it, you can deal with most enemies quickly.

BB is at its hardest when you're just starting out. First area is pretty tough (even if you've played Souls before), and you're still getting used to the combat. I'd guess it takes some more getting used to if you're new to the series.
 
There are spells, shields and irrelevant as the dodging mechanic has been optimized to allow you to not get hit anyway, and you can stock up on healing potions by putting them in your hub area...not to the absurd level of Demons souls, but still doable.

Its not more hardcore, just different in that players have to readjust their styles if all they've played is Dark Souls in a particular way.

I always played a melee build in the Souls games before hand, so it was a bit easier for me to not worry about playing defensively in BB
 
Overall I feel BB is easier. If you upgrade Ludwig's Blade and put some good gems in it, you can deal with most enemies quickly.

BB is at its hardest when you're just starting out. First area is pretty tough (even if you've played Souls before), and you're still getting used to the combat. I'd guess it takes some more getting used to if you're new to the series.

I agree it fizzles out towards the end. Chalice dungeon and DLC though make it crazy af
 
I agree it fizzles out towards the end. Chalice dungeon and DLC though make it crazy af

Oh I forgot about the last Chalice Dungeons required for the trophy. That's the hardest challenge I did in any Souls game, by far. Fuck you, Watchdog of the Old Lords.
 

Granted...i went too far with the hyperbole =p

I did always think tho that magic was always kind of an afterthought or underdevelopped, as it doesn't really complement the rest of the souls design super well. Magic is mostly projectiles or a buff which is pretty boring. Pyromancy never truely works. Faith does but it's mostly utilitarian, or gets nerfed to all hell. And in Dark Souls 3, magic doesn't become useful until you really boost the int and/or faith stats to a really high level, which makes playing through the initial part kind of dull.

It has it's interests in pvp but pve spells are either too impractical to place or just trivialize everything, there's not much of a middle ground. I wish it was done better but souls never really sold me on it's magic aspect throughout all games. And BB was the same for arcane builds since most of the useful stuff you got super late game
 
Oh I forgot about the last Chalice Dungeons required for the trophy. That's the hardest challenge I did in any Souls game, by far. Fuck you, Watchdog of the Old Lords.

Don't forget the dungeon that cuts your HP in half, as someone who did a run with no points into HP, I died in one hit from any mob....
 
Bloodborne does force you to get more up close with your enemies but that's balanced by the fact that up close combat in Bloodborne is (in my opinion) easier to manage than any of the Dark Souls games. This is due to the health regaining system and the fact that it seems like stamina use is lower in Bloodborne.

I also found parrying easier in Bloodborne than Dark Souls but maybe that's just me.
 
I think Bloodborne has the easiest normal enemies by far up to that point, but the bosses are so aggressive that I could see someone who never played a Dex/parry build in any of the games having trouble.
 
Don't forget the dungeon that cuts your HP in half, as someone who did a run with no points into HP, I died in one hit from any mob....

That's the one I was talking about, one of the last chalice dungeons. The dungeon itself is doable, but the bosses... Yikes.
 
I didn't use a shield at all in DS3 and found it fairly comparable to BB difficulty-wise.

That's the full extent of my experience with Souls games, though.
 
I personally find BB to be the hardest(Maybe besides Dark1, but I haven't played that in a while), simply because where as soon as I beat a souls game for the first time, I feel like I've completely learned it and know almost every bosses movements and attacks. So as soon as I play another character, I just blast through the game. But with Bloodborne I still get stuck at a boss every so often, and I need to kill that boss multiple times in order to learn it. I just recently got the hang of killing Amelia, but I still get my shit wrecked by Bloodstarved on almost every playthrough.

I can also see people thinking it's the hardest simply because it was there first one. Or that when they played Dark1 or 2 or 3 they used a shield a lot and didn't account for dodge rolling and Invincibilty frames. I personally didn't even know invincibility frames existed until the Sif fight when someone told me.
 
....but pinwheel

Hey, if you go to the Catacombs directly out of the tutorial and fight him with starter class gear and no real levels, he's...

... well, he's still kind of a joke, but he at least gets to do at least one cycle of his abilities before he dies. Did you know he has abilities? (This is the biggest Easter Egg in Dark Souls.)
 
interesting to see so many divided opinions on which is easier. i thought BB was much harder than any souls game i played. but maybe because it was my first? could be.
 
I really love the title of this thread because it just makes me think as though it's just your average Bloodborne scrub enemy saying 'ardcaw' like a cockney.

On topic though, definitely not in any way a hardcore version of Dark Souls. If your character in Dark Souls could move with as much agility as they do in Bloodborne, you would have a point. As it is though, there's a lot more thought required in Dark Souls when it comes to combat.

A lot of Bloodborne bosses are dodge-left/right, attack butt, repeat. Dark Souls bosses aren't quite as simple as that.
 
It's the opposite way around. lol

Yeah, you don't have a shield, but the game was built with that in mind. You have so many compensations for that.
 
Well the game was balanced to be played without a shield. You'd probably find it way harder to play through any of the Souls games without a shield.
I will say I found the bosses in BB to be some of the hardest in all of the souls/borne games though.
 
I absolutely agree there sappyday. Demon's and BB have an oppresiveness/dread to their atmosphere that actually stresses me out a lot more than the Dark Souls games. I think it's partly due to the lighting(DS only had 1 or 2 areas that you couldn't fully see in), and partly due to more ambushes/jump horrors and the more grotesque monster art.
 
This is the best post yet. I think on this point alone BB is the most difficult souls game as dying in dark souls takes your souls but watching load screens in bloodborne eats your actual soul.

The load times in BB stopped being awful when they patched them. While not ideal, they're manageable.

They have nothing on, say, Witcher 3...now that's a real punishment.
 
Some of the near-end Chalice Dungeon bosses are fucking nuts in my opinion.

I think it was Bloodletting Beast that had some crazy boxing combo and severely crushed me everytime I tried to get cheap and attack it from behind. I couldn't even believe how tight I had to play the fucking fight to win.
 
It has the easiest base game, but the Old Hunters DLC ans dungeons makes Dark souls 1 and it's DLC looks like a casual tutorial

I have already beaten DS1's DLC at level 1, but still can't beat Ludwig at BL4 after a friggin month

honestly I don't think Old Hunter's difficulty will be topped.
 
I really love the title of this thread because it just makes me think as though it's just your average Bloodborne scrub enemy saying 'ardcaw' like a cockney.

On topic though, definitely not in any way a hardcore version of Dark Souls. If your character in Dark Souls could move with as much agility as they do in Bloodborne, you would have a point. As it is though, there's a lot more thought required in Dark Souls when it comes to combat.

A lot of Bloodborne bosses are dodge-left/right, attack butt, repeat. Dark Souls bosses aren't quite as simple as that.

What? This is literally what all enemy/boss encounters boil down to in the Souls series.
 
What? This is literally what all enemy/boss encounters boil down to in the Souls series.

Lol yeah. I have yet to encounter a boss in this series that isn't about dodge right/left and then mash R1 to win. unless he considers turtling behind shield is another strategy that other souls have and makes differences.
 
A lot of Bloodborne bosses are dodge-left/right, attack butt, repeat. Dark Souls bosses aren't quite as simple as that.
Can you enlighten me how all soulborne bosses aren't like that except for one boss in DS3 that was the most gimmicky boss in the entire soul universe?
 
Dark Souls 3 is easier just for the fact that they explained a bunch of the stats and their uses.

The actual gameplay is so similar that it's hard to argue which has harder gameplay. I found Dark Souls 3 infinitely easier than Bloodborne. I beat like five of the bosses on the first try and I only beat one on my first try in Bloodborne. I didn't even use the shield in DSIII. It just weighed me down.
 
Can you enlighten me how all soulborne bosses aren't like that except for one boss in DS3 that was the most gimmicky boss in the entire soul universe?

Even the gimmicky bosses are about dodge left and right and mash R1

targeting different spots is no different from targeting different enemies.
 
Wait which boss is the gimmick boss in DSIII?

Is it Wolnir? Or Treeman?

Edit: As for the topic, I agree with those who say your first Souls game is the hardest. I remember Demon's (especially Flamelurker) being incredibly difficult.
 
It has the easiest base game, but the Old Hunters DLC ans dungeons makes Dark souls 1 and it's DLC looks like a casual tutorial

I have already beaten DS1's DLC at level 1, but still can't beat Ludwig at BL4 after a friggin month

honestly I don't think Old Hunter's difficulty will be topped.

Ludwig is easily my favorite boss in the series. Absolutely amazing. <3

My true mentor, my guiding moonlight.
 
Eh, platinum'd both. DS3 felt a bit easier. Chalice Amygdala sucked and the freenzy in the later levels was more intense than whatever status effects we got in ds3.

Also weight management sucks in any game. Fashion souls for life lol
 
None of the Souls-series (including Bloodborne, including DLC for all them) games are terribly difficult. Most of them just require patience and repetition. Beating some bosses are puzzles (Demon's Souls in particular), but most bosses are just waiting for them to go into a recovery animation.

Scaling these games on difficulty is unrealistic anyway, since most play them for reasons entirely unrelated to the combat (the combat in all of them is also pretty average, to be honest).
 
Wait which boss is the gimmick boss in DSIII?

Is it Wolnir? Or Treeman?

Edit: As for the topic, I agree with those who say your first Souls game is the hardest. I remember Demon's (especially Flamelurker) being incredibly difficult.

dragoonn that you slam with your sword in the head
 
Wait which boss is the gimmick boss in DSIII?

Is it Wolnir? Or Treeman?

Edit: As for the topic, I agree with those who say your first Souls game is the hardest. I remember Demon's (especially Flamelurker) being incredibly difficult.

Ancient Wyvern, Yhorm the Giant.
 
Wait which boss is the gimmick boss in DSIII?

Is it Wolnir? Or Treeman?

Edit: As for the topic, I agree with those who say your first Souls game is the hardest. I remember Demon's (especially Flamelurker) being incredibly difficult.

Yhorm and Ancient Wyvern.
 
What's funny is that my (specialized over time) Souls playstyle is so similar to the base playstyle for all characters in Bloodborne that it felt like it was holding my hand in some ways. I never liked using a shield, etc. The Blood Vial healing in particular struck me as the least punishing healing mechanic in any of the games so far.

All that said, BB without a doubt has the toughest initial area of gameplay in any of the games (well, I still haven't played DSIII).
 
Wait which boss is the gimmick boss in DSIII?

Is it Wolnir? Or Treeman?

Edit: As for the topic, I agree with those who say your first Souls game is the hardest. I remember Demon's (especially Flamelurker) being incredibly difficult.



edit: I forgot about the wyverna nd giant lord, but even those can be beaten the same way if one have patience

and yes I agree. people overstate the difficult of their first souls game. I played DS1 before DS3 came out and one shot O&S easily. they used to be hard becauses DS1 was my first souls game, but now even Daughter of Cosmos in BB is harder for me

Ludwig is easily my favorite boss in the series. Absolutely amazing. <3

My true mentor, my guiding moonlight.

still gives me goosebumps

that second phase is unmatched.
 
edit: I forgot about the wyverna nd giant lord, but even those can be beaten the same way if one have patience

and yes I agree. people overstate the difficult of their first souls game. I played DS1 before DS3 came out and one shot O&S easily. they used to be hard becauses DS1 was my first souls game, but now even Daughter of Cosmos in BB is harder for me



still gives me goosebumps

that second phase is unmatched.

For me it went from goosebumps to anger after a couple deaths.
 
I agree with you OP. Bloodborne's DLC and some of the Chalice Dungeons really tested my limits but I finally managed to 100% Bloodborne and earn that platinum trophy. Quite an endurance test...

EDIT: Dark Souls 3 was easier overall in my opinion due to more possibilities... except for that one boss in the optional area (you know which one) which is surprisingly difficult.
 
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