Sony

Version 1.0.0

Within every establishment, the craving for human knowledge runs amuck, within religion, the kabbalah is the tree of power and knowledge, and we know that the consumption of fruit upon this tree plunges humanity into sin. However, when does the craving for knowledge lead to the goal of insight with diseases being infected in the most visceral regions of the human body? This is the theme of Bloodborne. A game that was the brainchild of Hidetaka Miyazaki, after the mediocre continuation of his other series, Dark Souls. To understand the greatness and validity of this game, we must understand the visual fidelity and visceral nature of the combat.

So the combat is quite different from the Souls formula with the implementation of two different mechanics. The rally mechanic is when you take damage, it will leave a light red bar and can regain it by dealing damage. The other is the visceral mechanic which will let you do a repost after dealing a certain amount of damage to the enemy or their key body parts. Both of these mechanics are huge cruxes to why one of the fundamentals of Bloodborne is incursive play styles. Overall though, aside from a few new animations, there aren’t a whole lot of changes between DS1 and Bloodborne.

Newer player  Diligent Mulberry believes that between feel and mechanics, this game is superior to other games, “When I think of the combat in Soulsborne BB feels the best. The attacks feel weightier and more forceful.” They continue by stating, “ [I’m] not sure if it’s the animation, the speed of combat, or something else but BB just has a combat system that feels visceral and forceful compared to the other games.”

The visuals overall aren’t horrible, I wish that they explored more lighting dynamics within the game, since white is the only lighting style they use aside from grey and dark browns. In my personal opinion, the implementation of more nocturnal palettes would have been a major improvement. Aside from that, both weapon and character design are huge factors with its masterful work within aesthetics and the implementation of Giger and Lovecraft exalt it in ways that show the validity of Miyazaki.

r/Bloodborne user Sanket Varia is convinced that the graphical and visual fidelity is somewhat flawed, “I mean the visuals are so overly detailed that there is literally no breathing space. It looks immaturely designed and so crowded [the game] makes eyes hurt. and then the graphics.”

 Predominantly, I think this game really does succeed in its ventures between the themes of religion, fertility, and knowledge. The fact that this world is truly a presentation of true human nature. The difficulty is your normal souls-borne formula, however, this game does a great job at creating aggressive bosses, and it leads me to want more human-like bosses compared to the two fights. This game is a great place to start and it lays a foundation for my favorite game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.