I enjoyed the first Devil May Cry, back in the day. It had some really cool and fresh ideas, and just the right amount of challenge. I think that formula has since been overused, though, and personally I kinda grew out of it. But it sounds like FROM Soft didn't entirely go down that route, and kept some of the game mechanics from the Souls series.

I'll watch some videos of the game myself, eventually, but since it's PS4 exclusive I'm mostly ignoring it for now. I'm much more excited for The Witcher 3. And I have plenty ( too many? ) other games in the meantime.

My friend is enjoying the more fast paced combat but he says the framerate problem is noticable. I'm waiting for my download to finish and i'll try it for one hour or two but i won't advance much since i won't be able to play for a week and who knows, when i return maybe the game has been patched.

Just in case (and i'm not sure if it still works) some US peeps with a ps4 are watching this thread, i have a beta key (again, US) for Planetside 2 that i think it still works, if you want it just let me know.

Do they? I thought the style of Bloodborne was quite different, from what I've seen so far. It actually makes me think of a modern day version of the old Nightmare Creatures series.


And that's the biggest problem right there: The supposed "hardcore difficulty" of the Souls games has been ridiculously overhyped, which lead to various negative side effects. It attracts a crowd of gamers who only want to play it for "bragging rights", for one thing. Only so they can later go online to complain how the game isn't hard at all, because of their 1337 skills. ( And then they go back to trolling on Call of Duty. )

It also creates a somewhat warped expectation, because, while the series is difficult, it's actually not that bad. Any "old-school" gamer will be able to give you a long list of games which were much harder to complete. ( Battletoads, anyone? )

And perhaps most of all, the series offers so much more than just a high difficulty level. As a fan of the series myself, I find it disappointing and kind of sad that people focus so much on this one aspect, when they talk about the Souls games. If people just want to play a challenging game, there's any number of other, potentially better options, but it's all the other minor and major elements combined which make the Souls series such a unique experience.


On this I agree. I still haven't seen for myself how well the combat and other new gameplay elements in Bloodborne work, but it was probably about time for them to try something new. As great as the Souls games are, the core gameplay formula has hardly changed from Demon's Souls to Dark Souls 2.

Here's my first impressions (may contain some gameplay spoilers).

So let's get this out of the way, the game is hard, some early videos show the game being easy (the main character took less damage and so) but no, it's easy to get killed if you're not paying attention/respecting the enemy. The first area will be easier since it will provide alot of supplies from the enemies, blood vials (to recover life), bullets and molotov cocktails, but then it returs to the usual hard as nails gameplay.

I had to restart the game two times, the first time i was getting to know the game so i didn't want to continue the progress, i was probably one hour in.
The second time i advanced much further and saw the first boss, die two times against him so i decided to grind a bit... but i was dumb (and the game is punishing) and decided to sell my main weapon. What's the problem you ask? There isn't any weapon on the store, none, nada, zero. For them to appear i need to defeat the first boss.... and i didn't had any weapon... Yeah....

So the third time i went in, grind it a bit to buy the new armour (you can't level up your character until you see the first boss) and killed the boss in my first try (i already knew the map well and the boss weakness). But still, the boss was really hard, i had to waste all my potions and one of my other items, i manage to beat him with really low life. The problem is that it's really hard to see the attacks pattern and decide when to attack...

Speaking of the combat, here's the thing, you don't have any shield so the "defensive" mechanic is that you need to parry the enemy attack with your gun, he will go down and you have a really short period to do massive damage on him (like a finisher move), it requires some practice since sometimes it doesn't work and i don't know if there's a right moment to do a parry (normally it's when he prepares to attack) or if it is kind of bugged (they promised a patch to fix some stuff, not sure if it's related).

Speaking of patch, the game really needs it since the performance is a bit terrible (i got used to it though), it has some kind of small stuttering, some frame drops and some weird visual effect (kind of blurry)... oh... and the 30~45 seconds for loadings, you know, when you die and want to get right back into the fight... here you wait.

Not gonna play much of it for now since i won't be able to play the game for a week, now im just gonna try to do some coop with a friend to see how that works and continue in the other week.

Sounds pretty fun, at least for people who liked the Souls games and don't mind the challenge. I didn't even know it also had online/MP features, but I guess it's not surprising, if it's some kind of Dark Souls successor.

Update on the coop:

It was easy to play with a friend (we had to set the same password and i had to grind/level up because he was lvl 32 and iwas 14 and there can only be a difference of 10 levels) but oh boy... The coop is gatbage thanks to the framerate. Remember Blighttown? Almost the same level of framerate making it almost unplayable and considering that the coop partner has less life during the coop you can see how that is problematic.

Really unbelievable that From Software gets a free pass with this kind of crap, "Dark Souls fans are use to it so it's ok". Sigh...

Wondering how many more Demon Souls clones From can make before reviewers start calling them out on it.

Yup, that's why I was dissapointed when discovering the video streams... I wish they would make a new episode of Otogi instead :(

Doubt someone will since they do something that the markets needs but no one else does it (or does it correctly, i'm looking at you Lords of the Fallen).
And i was discussing this with a friend yesterday, we don't need this dumb giant maps sandbox games with fetch quests, Demon/Dark Souls and Bloodborne have this... bigger maps where you can explore, it kind of feel like the old games where you didn't have corridors with cutscenes in each corner, the same can be said of the old Resident Evils, the map design was perfect...

Fixed that for you.

Indeed, why would reviewers call them out when all the Souls games have been excellent so far. Also Bloodborne is not a clone just because it has some similar game mechanics, it has a different Victorian horror influenced gothic setting and lore. The performance issues are certainly a concern but I am sure From will sort it out once they release the patch for it.

I would also much rather play games like this then the MMO influenced grinding in Dragon Age: Inquisition. The old Resident Evils definitely had great level game design and I hope the series returns to its proper roots in the next iteration, Resident Revelations 2 though not perfect is a step in the right direction.

I've finally watched some gameplay videos myself, and the game looks good. Surprisingly close to the Demon's Souls and Dark Souls formula, but with enough twists and additions to keep even series veterans on their toes.

The Victorian setting is a nice change from the Medieval Fantasy theme of the older games. Combat mechanics and pacing are slightly tweaked, but still familiar, and the game is still brutally challenging. Seems like good fun to me, overall. :D

And now I'm angry at Sony. First they didn't want to finance a sequel, after the original Demon's Souls, and now, after the success of the Dark Souls games, they changed their mind and threw some cash at From Soft to make sure Bloodborne stays Sony exclusive. Blegh.

Would be nice to see a PC release of the game, ideally DRM-free. I know, I know -- wishful thinking.

I've never seen Sony backing away from an exclusivity deal. Just imagine all that awesome crap we could get on PC, released in the generation of multi-platform titles alone - Uncharted, Last of Us, Bloodborne... Oh well.

Quite a shift eh? Maybe it'll get a PC release a couple of years down the line when they've gotten all they can out of it from an exclusive. A gamer can dream.

Right, I still haven't played The Last of Us either. I still have my PS3, but aside from the dated technology, I find PC gaming a lot more convenient as well. In other words, a PC "HD" release of the game would be awesome.

But as far as I know, we didn't even get older titles, such as Okami or Shadow of the Colossus. So whether or not there's any realistic chance for PC releases of ( former ) Sony exclusives, we probably shouldn't hold our breath...
It's kinda disgusting really. They couldn't see the rough gem they had in Demon's Souls, and now that the Souls series is a big commercial success, they're suddenly interested again and want their share of the cake. They really don't deserve this as an exclusive, imho. I wish From Soft would have had the balls to just tell them "No", and brought Bloodborne to PC and XBone as well, no matter how much money Sony was shoving in their faces.

But I guess in the end the PS4 is the biggest market for From, so one way or the other, it must have been a good deal for them. Meh.