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[Imperfected]

I think ENB hinted that the Tonitrus had some hidden(?) bonus arcane scaling on one of its attacks as well.

He probably just means the "charge-up" feature that gives it 7 seconds or so of increased damage. The stats shown in the equip screen don't take it into account, and it's a major contribution to the damage of the weapon.

I don't think any of the actual attacks have very large multipliers, since it has such a limited moveset, but I could be wrong. Damage multipliers on moves is definitely something the community's sleeping on, as it's a major factor in how good a weapon actually is versus how good it is on paper.

 

[Stone Ocean]

Love the focus on interesting choices, and quality versus quantity. Each weapon feels worth trying, instead of being a different name and Ruskin for your collection.

It feels a lot closer to Monster Hunter, in that you are picking and learning a move set versus picking stats (though stats can be customized and changed via blood gems, so it's all good).

Re: complaining about arcane, I figured the whole point is that elemental damage is already effective against specific enemy types, so you consider your stat in relation to the elemental bonus you are getting. The move sets are way too balanced for that to be an oversight.

Also this is a good point. None of the weapons feels like a direct upgrade to one another. With upgrades and the right build, anything can feel super strong.

 

[Maximus.]

I do enjoy options, but I find in many games today, when there is a lot of weapon variety, most of them are just useless. Bloodborne has made each weapon have a unique feel and makes it easier to alternate between choices.

 

[Steel]

Love the focus on interesting choices, and quality versus quantity. Each weapon feels worth trying, instead of being a different name and Ruskin for your collection.

Well you do have things like the Saw Cleaver and Saw Spear and kirkhammer and Ludwig's which have fundamentally the same swingset on their base weapons.

I prefer the weapon itemization and quantity in Souls. Don't really care for the transforming weapons aspect. That should be saved for end game, amazing weapons that are hard to get.

Hell, souls already had the transforming weapons mechanic with two-handing and prime stancing changing up movesets altogether.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

I prefer the weapon itemization and quantity in Souls. Don't really care for the transforming weapons aspect. That should be saved for end game, amazing weapons that are hard to get.

 

[loaf of bread]

People should stop ruthlessly paralleling every aspect of the Bloodborne with the Souls series. Half the reason they called Bloodborne and not Beast Souls or something was probably to allow it to take more liberties with the formula and avoid these comparisons.

Its fine that they made a more focused version of the build/weapon system and decided on making each weapon truly unique.

If you look at it and think "Theres not enough weapon variety in this game" then thats a fine complaint, but you shouldn't look at it as "There isn't as much variety as in Souls, therefore its bad"

 

[SliceSabre]

While Dark Souls has more weapon variety I've still found Bloodborne's weapons so much more satisfying to use.

 

[140.85]

Bloodborne is just way more focused than Souls.

Fewer but better weapons.
Shorter play time but fewer bad areas,
Less build variety but arguably better gameplay (very debatable i'm sure).

And so on.

Huh? I'd say it's as long as DS/Demon's.

 

[Draft]

Trick weapons are cool but there is a lot of overlap between them in turns of move sets and "feel." What the series lost in weapon variety was not compensated for by the expanded movesets of trick weapons.

 

[Lingitiz]

Huh? I'd say it's as long as DS/Demon's.

It took me about 25 whereas DS1 was 50 for me. I also found the game to be the easiest in the series and I was only ever really stuck on Vicar Amelia and Ebrietas - who is optional.

 

[Jawbreaker]

I prefer the weapon set in Bloodborne, honestly. There's more "uniqueness" and each weapon seems to be viable in its own way. Throughout the game, I was always interested in trying out every weapon and changing up my play style along with them. It really helps that you can switch the weapon "mode" on the fly and combine different attack sets. In the "Souls" games, there were a lot of repeat weapons and rather useless ones with identical moves that merely cluttered my inventory and I never cared about.

Huh? I'd say it's as long as DS/Demon's.

It varies per person like the other games. I took around 60 hours to complete Bloodborne and I missed a couple of optional areas/bosses. I also only did a few chalice dungeons on my first playthrough, so those can easily inflate your playtime if you do it the first time through as well.

 

[NastyBook]

I think the last weapon I was maining in Dark Souls was a Katana, and it was pretty dope. On DeS, it was a Scimitar, also dope. In BB, I've wreaked havoc with the Saw Clever, Kirkhammer, Totritus, and LHB. Just got the Blades of Mercy up to +6, and I love how fast they are. I've just been having more fun with the weapons in BB than I have in previous Souls games.

You haven't lived until you've smashed a Sackboy right into the ground with a well timed R2 Kirkhammer smash.

 

[Stone Ocean]

Trick weapons are cool but there is a lot of overlap between them in turns of move sets and "feel." What the series lost in weapon variety was not compensated for by the expanded movesets of trick weapons.

The only weapons that overlap are the saws and the shortswords from the Kirkhammer and Ludwig's

 

[Sword Of Doom]

Not to mention if you're gonna tie their usage to bullets then give people ways to increase bullet count without having to rely on runes

That's my main issue with the game. An MP bar would have been better. I guess you could use blood bullets but that means using vials. It would be nice if there was a rune that gradually gave you bullets. It's just a strange system.

 

[SRTtoZ]

BB had better weapons in general. I mean, I just played through DS2:SOTFS again and I beat it with the mace +10 and the Giant Club +10. While they did a great job throughout the game, they were very boring to use. Every weapon I try out in BB is really cool and really fun to use, although you need to have the right stats for it. In my first play through I used the Kirkhammer as a main, and in my second play through I'm using the Blades of Mercy. I prefer this over DS1/2 weapons even if they have less variety overall. Less is more

 

[Sephzilla]

You haven't lived until you've smashed a Sackboy right into the ground with a well timed R2 Kirkhammer smash.

The Kirhammer might have dethroned the Dragon Bone Smasher as my favorite ridiculous huge weapon in the Souls series. Walking around with a suitcase sized hammer on my back never gets old.

 

[Auctopus]

I was apprehensive about the lack of weapons but now I prefer it. Quality over quantity.

Would've liked maybe a few boss soul weapons.

 

[140.85]

It took me about 25 whereas DS1 was 50 for me. I also found the game to be the easiest in the series and I was only ever really stuck on Vicar Amelia and Ebrietas - who is optional.

Play time varies quite a bit from player to player and is very subjective. I'm not gonna speculate as to why your Dark run took longer. I'm saying that the actual structure of the game is as big as the previous games. I would say it's even larger than Demon's.

 

[AngryMoth]

Bloodborne could use more weapons but when you think about it pretty much every weapon class from the past games is represented. It's just there isn't like 5 reskins with different stats/movesets, which I don't necessarily mind. And every weapon is viable and has a good amount of depth. So I think while is a problem, it's one that is being overstated by some. It would be good if more of them were available early instead of been hidden away in optional areas and side quests

 

[RandomSeed]

The weapons are great, but I do miss the various types of magic.

 

[burgerdog]

Huh? I'd say it's as long as DS/Demon's.

If you do a blind play through and take your time, for sure. It took me 45 or 50 hours to beat, making sure I found every possible treasure and zone in the game. If you were reading a guide, then yeah, 25 hours tops for a first play through, but where's the fun in that.

 

[loaf of bread]

Huh? I'd say it's as long as DS/Demon's.

Yeah, I beat Demons for the first time yesterday in like half the time it took me for BB.

 

[Stone Ocean]

BB might feel short because most of the content is optional.

 

[TheXbox]

I didn't play much of the Souls games but the lack of weapon variety in BB is definitely bumming me out. I'm still using the cane twelve hours in, I haven't found anything else. None of the weapons in the shop scale with where I've put most of my points, either.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

It took me about 25 whereas DS1 was 50 for me. I also found the game to be the easiest in the series and I was only ever really stuck on Vicar Amelia and Ebrietas - who is optional.

Play time definitely varies. Lots of areas in the game are optional and some are pretty well hidden. Plus there's the story chalice dungeons with unique bosses I found to be a lot more difficult than the main game

 

[SweetJohnnyCage]

I think there is more weapon variety in Bloodborne than it originally lets on. You won't pick up 50 copies of a broken short sword, or a rapier or a broad axe, but what you can actually do with the various weapons is much more broad. And the actual full list of weapons is fairly long. I don't want to post a list since that's spoiler territory, but it's much more than the 3 you can choose from at the beginning.

100% agreed with this. There's maybe 5-10 viable weapons in any Souls game, aside from the gimmicky stuff (looking at you, double Claw people).

 

[Draft]

The only weapons that overlap are the saws and the shortswords from the Kirkhammer and Ludwig's

I think that even the very different weapons often feel similar in practice. Spamming R1 w/ the saw cleaver feels a lot like spamming R1 with the Threaded Cane. I don't want to make it sound like I'm discounting the huge difference between those two weapons when transformed, but a lot of the 1h weapons feel very similar in their "short" forms.

Compared to Dark Souls, which has 5x the weapons, and a bunch of crazy ways to modify those weapons, and a bunch of weapons that just cast spells, and weapons that are created from boss drops, and I think it's clear Bloodborne has a fraction of the weaponry content from the Souls games.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

Everybody wants more of something so that's natural.

What I will say is that the trick weapons in Bloodborne, like climbing in dragon's dogma and the style switching of DMC, are one of those gaming features that I cannot go back from.

 

[Rhaknar]

this isnt even in dispute is it? even if you count each transformable weapon as 2, it still pales in comparison to the souls games. its a weird choice / direction to go in, but it is what it is

 

[-MD-]

Definitely. By the time I found interesting weapons I already too far invested in my starter.

Too invested how? I've been upgrading 3 different trick weapons together throughout my entire playthrough and swap between them whenever I want.

 

[Guevara]

So disappointing that enemies never drop weapons. How cool would it be to at least try a pitchfork? Or the short bladed weapons the witches use? Or the fucking rake thing?

Anyway, as soon as I found Ludwig's I stayed with it the rest of the game. Mostly because nothing better came along.

 

[Late Flag]

I finished my first run through the game a few days ago and absolutely loved it. That said, the weapon/build options are pretty poor compared the Souls games. It's not just that there are fewer weapons. It's also that so many of them are locked away until late in the game so it's a little pointless even to bother building for them. I'd love to try a scythe build, for example, but I'm not going to design my character for a weapon that I can't use until NG+. (I know the BOM scales the same way, but the move-sets are totally different).

 

[Gsnap]

I think that even the very different weapons often feel similar in practice. Spamming R1 w/ the saw cleaver feels a lot like spamming R1 with the Threaded Cane. I don't want to make it sound like I'm discounting the huge difference between those two weapons when transformed, but a lot of the 1h weapons feel very similar in their "short" forms.

Compared to Dark Souls, which has 5x the weapons, and a bunch of crazy ways to modify those weapons, and a bunch of weapons that just cast spells, and weapons that are created from boss drops, and I think it's clear Bloodborne has a fraction of the weaponry content from the Souls games.

Perhaps, but I don't feel like the 5x of weapons in the other games adds much to the actual variety.

You say spamming R1 in bloodborne feels similar for most weapons, well it's the same in Dark Souls. At least for me.

But you know, if you're just spamming R1 then you're doing it wrong anyway. Being able to switch mid-combo in Bloodborne makes up for any R1 similarities their may be.

And besides, that's kind of just the way it's going to be. There's only so much you can do to make things feel different. You're either going horizontally or vertically or thrusting. Within those, you can add some variety, but it's not always going to be drastic no matter how many weapons you do or don't have.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

this isnt even in dispute is it? even if you count each transformable weapon as 2, it still pales in comparison to the souls games. its a weird choice / direction to go in, but it is what it is

I do agree with you but I also understand that it's a different game. It's more action and less RPG relative to the souls games

 

[ShogunX]

Whilst the transformation weapons in Bloodborne are cool I do find the weapon choice as a whole to be disappointing when compared to the other Souls games. For BB I had the same weapon throughout the game (Axe) with no reason to change and the exact same tactic worked against almost every enemy in the game (Double hand, R2).

For DS1 I used - Drake Sword, Queelag’s Fury Sword, Uchigatana (with various effects), Black Knight Great Axe, Washing Pole......, Estoc and probably a few others here and there. A friend rolled with the Greatsword Of Artorias and another with the Great Club. So in that regard I do find the options in BB a little lacklustre.

This of course also carried over to PvP where I met a large variety of people using different weapons and a lot of fights had to be approached very differently. I still remember trying to gank an invader 3v1 and he pulled of a triple riposte (not at the same time) with Priscilla's dagger and pretty much bled us all out. I've only been invaded about 12-15 times in BB but I've just poise abused everybody so far with the same tactic mentioned above and won every fight.

 

[Lernaean]

Weapon variety in BB is great. It's the fact that there is only one single choice if you want to deal some serious damage that hurt the game.
There should be at least 4 weapons that are equally powerful and promote different builds so endgame would be more interesting.

 

[CambriaRising]

I'll gladly take the 15 unique weapons in BB over reskinned short swords and whatnot.

 

[Kieli]

Huh? I'd say it's as long as DS/Demon's.

Absolutely not. I'm at the end of the game with 23 hours clocked.

There's not much more for me to discover (based on what I've read).

DS took me 83 hours (first-run + DLC) whereas Demon's took me 43 hours.

 

[Hugstable]

I'll gladly take the 15 unique weapons in BB over reskinned short swords and whatnot.

Souls games are much more than reskinned shortswords, let alone the fact that many of them each have their own movesets and what not.

Huh? I'd say it's as long as DS/Demon's.

A little bit shorter than Demons, but way shorter than Dark 1 for sure. If you think Bloodborne is longer or near the same, you need to go back and replay Dark Souls.

Absolutely not. I'm at the end of the game with 23 hours clocked.

There's not much more for me to discover (based on what I've read).

DS took me 83 hours (first-run + DLC) whereas Demon's took me 43 hours.

83 hours seems way overly long though for DS1, game is about 45-60 hours long with DLC unless you get majorly lost or stuck

 

[pablito]

I usually rock one weapon type per character in Souls games, so how they handled weapons in Bloodborne was fine for me. I think that the lack of

Spoiler

magic

and no real

Spoiler

beast form

highlights the lower weapon count in BB. If there were as many offensive options in BB I don't think the weapon count would have been a big deal.

Though I'm not done with the game. If I am wrong, please correct me.

 

[KZObsessed]

In terms of a playthrough I actually had a lot more variety in Bloodborne's combat than in a playthrough of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. With those games I usually just stuck to one weapon when I found one that worked well, Crescent Falchion in Demon's Souls or the Lightning Spear in Dark Souls (elemental weapons were way unbalanced in Dark Souls). In fact I think I stuck with the Fire Longsword for ages in Dark Souls 2 but I honestly can't rember if I used anything after that. Says a lot about Dark Souls 2 I think.

Whereas in Bloodborne I switched between quite a few weapons. Started with the Hunter Axe but also used the Saw Spear which I found in the sewers, then switched to the Ludwig Holy Blade. Didn't like it at first due to less reach compared to the Hunter Axe but as I leveled it up and it did more damage I switched and found the one handed version is amazing as is the L2 attack. Stunlock ftw. I've since found the Tonitrus and leveled it up to be my secondary weapon for the free lightning buff. I just bought the Blades of Mercy and planning on turning it into a rapid poison weapon as apparently it's amazing and I'll be going through NG+ with the Burial Blade. I'm also planning on leveling my arcane stat so I can start using the magic as I've found them all now. Magic weapon buff will be very useful. And this is not even including the guns of which I've switched from Blunderbuss to pretty much just the Cannon. Then switched to the Evelyn + Cannon and am planning on trying out the Ludwig Holy Rifle. So Bloodborne may not have as many different builds as the other games but I found there's actually a lot more variety in one playthrough thanks to all the amazing weapons.

 

[sappyday]

I've seen so many posts in the OT where one person will say "Hunter's Axe is pretty much the only weapon you need" or "Once you get Tonitrus you pretty much unlock easy mode" or "Why would you need anything else besides the Cane?" or "Ludwig's Holy Blade is OP they need to nerf it."


Every weapon is different enough. I've never used anything but my blunderbuss but I saw someone use the Rosimorus and took down a giant in like 5 seconds.

 

[dellingr]

As an action game the weapon variety is fantastic. But as an RPG it's lacking. I missed the feeling of actually having to work for a weapon by making the right build, deciding with upgrade path to take, learning where to get the weapon, the materials etc.

It feels like you can easily obtain and use whichever weapon you want pretty early on regardless of your build. It pretty much kills replayability. Then again Bloodborne never claimed to be a souls game did it?

 

[140.85]

Absolutely not. I'm at the end of the game with 23 hours clocked.

There's not much more for me to discover (based on what I've read).

DS took me 83 hours (first-run + DLC) whereas Demon's took me 43 hours.

Again, that's you're subjective play time. If you compare the objective story path+bosses excluding optional stuff, the games are quite comparable.

 

[joecanada]

Ultimately it's the best playing action game in the series but definitely the worst rpg by far.

if rpg means 30 of the same weapon but of different colors and slightly different stats ala Diablo, I'm very happy with BB.

sorting through massive piles of junk is the worst part of rpg's.

 

[JediLink]

Good: The weapons
Bad: Less interesting loot, blood chunks being ridiculously rare

Overall it's okay.

 

[Sullichin]

I love Bloodborne but I'm playing the DS2 re-release now and really enjoying the absolutely massive amount of options available to build my character. On the other hand the trick weapon move sets look way more fluid than the power stance animations. They went for quality over having small variations on weapons but I miss the variety.

if rpg means 30 of the same weapon but of different colors and slightly different stats ala Diablo, I'm very happy with BB.

sorting through massive piles of junk is the worst part of rpg's.

It also means that enemies can drop their armor sets, or a rare weapon that might be useful to you.

 

[Sephzilla]

I wouldn't be surprised if we get a patch that bumps up the frequency of blood stones or makes the blood rocks purchasable. Dark Souls 1 had a similar update that made more of the materials available.

 

[HeelPower]

I can't think of a single non-souls ARPG that is as varied as BloodBorne.

Witcher ,Mass Effect,Kingdom hearts,Dragon Age ? You're basically stuck with three styles at most throughout these games.

 

[Rurunaki]

As an action game the weapon variety is fantastic. But as an RPG it's lacking. I missed the feeling of actually having to work for a weapon by making the right build, deciding with upgrade path to take, learning where to get the weapon, the materials etc.

It feels like you can easily obtain and use whichever weapon you want pretty early on regardless of your build. It pretty much kills replayability. Then again Bloodborne never claimed to be a souls game did it?

It was in line with the reveal. They omitted saying that it is a "Souls" game. Also with the accordance with how they focused on the "fighting", it is indeed less RPG-ish. Switching from Dark Souls to Bloodborne and vice versa, the difference can be felt in combat. BB flows much better than DS. DS is more punishing in terms of general mobs, but BB imo has better variety in boss fights. DS has a wide range of build whilst BB is streamlined to being a melee build with little variances here and there.


In terms of weapons, I like the idea of crafting weapons from Boss Souls. BB almost has the same mechanic in terms of "badges" earned from some foes. Replayability DS has BB beat, but this is pending as we don't know how they'll handle the DLCs and Chalice Dungeons from this point on.

Is it fair to compare both? To a certain degree yes, but the difference is there to be felt that BB can stand on it's own outside being pegged as a "Souls" game. Hell, this could've been the Castlevania 3D SotN we've been waiting for.