Bloodborne has some SERIOUS design issues!

Sounds like someone is getting pwned by the game

Not in my experience, I forgot the whole mechanic existed at the half way point. I thought it was confusing and dumb when it became a major part of the final boss. If you're losing, it's much better to retreat briefly and use a health vial. Trying to be overly aggressive isn't all that helpful.

I don't consider the parrying health regen to be the same thing. You're very likely to get hit anyway when you pull off a successful parry. It would be dumb if you didn't get your health back.

BB was a serious rush job everybody knew it already, some serious issues with some up and duwns, even the devs say they didn't able to test through fully ng+.

If you want to play a Dark Soul game , go either play DS 2 or wait for DS 3 .... Bloodborne is NOT Dark souls . Learn from Dark souls ? They did their own things and provided an AAA title , just like that , new IP that is. Give some kudos to them , its not like BloodBorne didnt deliver or something ...93 metacritic score with ZERO mixed/negative out of 74 total reviews means something.

That game gets away with a lot of things any major franchise wouldn't. Both relating to technical aspects and the game itself. Really highlights the bias among a lot of people.

Kinda true but at the same time what's good about this game is groundbreakingly good. One thing people may not know but there's an item called Empty Phantasmal Shell. Its like a spell that buffs your weapon and adds arcane damage. If you use it, you instantly lose 5+ fps. If you invade multiple people and they all use it, you're pretty much dueling under 15-20fps. Its kinda funny actually lmao. Dueling in 15fps only possible on Playstation 4 near you!

Well there is no perfect game, cause there is somebody that will always complain

Every souls game introduces new players to the basic mechanics. It's not the games fault that many people don't like to read. All the controls and stuff is in notes throughout the hub and first area. The more obscure stuff is meant to be hidden away and figured out by the community. It was done that way on purpose.

It's one of the only series besides say Monster hunter, to have old school "Recess talk".... where you would ask other gamers what certian things did or if they found that, etc.... That was common place back in the NES era... and the souls series brings that back. It's also a game that makes you think about the game even when you are not playing.

We are not in that era. This is the year 2015. These things you mentioned existed because of the lack of technology and not because it was brilliant in design. The NES era has some of the worst designed games in gaming history so falling back on that as if is some golden standard is asinine. I don't expect the game to reveal the hidden paths or the shortcuts but at the very least it should guide the player in some direction.

The entire game feels purpose free and when games don't give the player purpose then their is very little reason to play. Most of players that are turned off by the game's obtuse nature in the beginning. Why am I here? What am I doing? What am I doing this for? Without answers to this the frequent deaths and the aimless roaming becomes frustrating and most players would not get the opportunity to experience the rest of the game.

TC,

I'm am somewhat disappointed in this game as well, and I had very high hopes for it. I guess my mistake was also to think it was going to be a "Souls" game, but ended up being a different style (more DMC like IMO).

I dislike having to farm for vials, especially after experiencing a system such as the one in DS and DS2. You wiped at the boss, or on the way to it, so respawning at the location of their choice with the same amount of consumables I had when I wiped just begs me to ask "why?". Why, if all the mobs respawn too, and you still have to traverse the same treacherous path to the point were you died, so, there is very little sense to have to backtrack, farm consumables, to then come back for another attempt at the same path. There is still the penalty of having lost ALL of your souls/xp/echoes, lost the time spent to get to the boss, as its not like you spawn at its door, and the ire of having to go through a certain path of mobs that you really hated.

There was farming in the previous Souls games, no doubt about it. But the focus behind it was a different purpose. You could farm if you wanted to increase level, or buy resources to make your character or build better, not farm with the objective of gathering consumables for another attempt. Last I checked, this is not an MMO.

Regardless, the thing that I have found to be the most disappointing of all is variety. Lack of weapons speaks directly to a lack of build variety. Some say previous games had a bunch of useless weapons, and I disagree to an extent. If you had a specific build in mind that you wanted to try, there were a lot of weapons you could try to use, or even if you have a love for a specific one, there were ways to make it fit your playstyle, such as making it INT or FTH based etc. This is not present from what I've seen so far in BB. So, all I have is my main weapon and my gun? Really? No magic, no real presence of a ranged weapon, no shields, nothing. Just main weapon and a gun. This IS the biggest draw for me, technical limitations/loading screens aside. A couple of hours into any of the DS games and I already wanted to start a new build because of so many fun ideas I found along the way. I attempted to do that in BB and that was a terrible thing to attempt, since it quickly showed the lack it had in that aspect.

Someone mentioned that DS (and all its iterations) had the standard circle strafing tactic that somehow BB strays from. Really? How many different tactics do you really see? You could set up a riposte (which has a very VERY high risk if you fail - understandable), or you could just dash from and to the mob. What else? No effective way to kill it from range, or, not a whole lot of reward based on using a heavier weapon with a higher risk, but the reward of a higher stagger rate of your mob. I have been using the Saw Blade and the Saw Spear, and I haven't seen mobs suffer from stagger after even chaining attacks together, which pushes the strategy of 1-2hits, then dash away. Which is as linear a strategy as the circle strafing, with less weapons and combos! I guess they had a lot of hopes for the "Trick" weapon approach to the game.

The Souls games for me have been a fresh breath into gaming as a whole, I'm very sad to see what BB ended up being. Hopefully I have the time to beat it soon, as I'll likely trade/sell it for DS2:SotFS (which I have already played on PC for numerous hours, but haven't finished it and haven't played the DLC - so this helps me look at my PS4 as being worth something.)

@Buckhannah: No, those are not problems, those are things you don't like. The only problem is long loading times (and the long waits for summoning).

@Buckhannah: There's no padding if you're good enough to play the game without having to constantly grind.

Those are just things you don't like!

The only factual problems are the loading times and framerate drops. Personaly i would like the ability to jump/teleport between lamps, without the need to go to hunter's dream, and maybe a map.

It means the same as it does for any game.......fanboys can say "OMG LOOK AT TEH SCORES!!!!" They're opinions just like everyone here has one. I love the game, but it is a fuckin Souls clone and anybody denying this with all the similarities is a liar. Lastly, its 2015 the PS4 is so uber powerful then when are they going to make NPCs faces and mouths move when they talk?

@PAL360:

I take it that means you enjoy Farming for Silver Bullets and Blood Vials ?

Appeal to an authority fallacy..

Unseen Village and Nightmare of Mensis are indeed padding. The last few hours of the main quest is bad.

Game looks like a downgrade from ds1 to me, less options, monotonous scenery (as far as I've seen)... Shame, was really looking forward to it.

How are the secrets? Cryptic as usual? That's the part about these games that I most dislike, the secrets are hidden well enough that you would have trouble finding them out on your own offline (like having to roll through the entire game just to find all the illusory walls), while finding them through messages just takes all the fun out of it. DS1 great hollow/ash lake for example, never would I have thought there was an illusory wall there, it stopped being fun rolling everywhere by the time I got to blighttown, especially since I medium-rolled. Granted they're optional areas, but there could have been way more satisfying ways to discover them.

There's as many secrets as any other Souls game, it didn't got downgraded but illusionary walls are gone and unless you enjoyed spamming X near every wall that's a good change. By monotonous scenery, do you mean repetitive environment? Because that's not the case at all. Every single person who haven't played the game or isn't far enough says that but there's tons of different environment, its not 70% city as some i've heard complain even tho they were 1/4th in the game. If by less options you're talking about spells, weapons and builds then yes, there's way less. That is really bad for pvp longevity and having to use one weapon because there's literally no other Str or Skill (Skill is Dex from the other Souls games) weapon until waaaay later in the game is just poor design. People bash DkS2 but that god damn game gave you loads of variety in builds and weapons. Excluding long loading times and poor fps, weapon variety is the main thing that i dislike about Bloodborne. I will take 40+ different weapons over 15 that can transform any day of the year...

@DH1278: how is bloodborne like a DMC.....

If you want to play a Dark soul game , go either play DS2 or wait DS3. What cant you understand ? Bloodborne is NOT dark souls because of some similarities. If it was exactly the same as the Dark souls games why to bother and not call it Dark souls 3 ? Let me help you why ... Because its not a DS game , thats why.

As fanboys laughing over low scores and calling "PS4 has no games" all over Gamespot for a year now you mean or the ones that on Hype thread of the game voted for a 10 in purpose ( we all know why ) and then calling game bad ? We all know who they were. Yeah , i agree , everyone can have their opinion but either way 93 MC score with zero mixed/negative review out of 74 total is impressive , we like Bloodborne or not.

I like how everyone's go to response is "you just suck, lol." Pretty typical.

You'll stumble across most, if not all, optional areas if you actually take time to explore. In fact, you wont know whats optional unless you look it up online so yeah, take your time and follow every path.

As for the scenery. Its far, FAR from being monotonous IMO. More than any other Souls game, BB fully commits to a certain brand of horror 110%. I wont say which one as it would spoil too much, but believe me when I say its by far the most intricate and varied depiction of that style to be found in games since forever.

Thematic spoilers for those who dont give a shit.Bloodborne is a Fighting Fantasy roll-play-book inspired game that reveals itself to actually be squid balls deep into Lovecraftean cosmic horror halfway through. I still cant believe this fucking flavour of wierdness was actually pulled off with flying colors in a game. I'm ecstatic!!!

Never said it was a DS game. It is plain for anyone to see the standard formula was used. You wanna pretend its teh new gamez/all different feel free. I don't agree.

That's a bunch of hooey and applesauce.

@cainetao11: I'll agree with you, its essentially a souls game. The big difference is the cut a lot of the flexibility out of the games. They removed spells/ranged combat for the most part so players are forced to engage in close combat throughout most of the game. They also removed shields so when you're in close combat you can't just hold your shield up and wait, you have to be active and really pay attention. The guns/dodge both rely on timing for defense.

There's a fundamental difference to the way combat is approached... its still largely the same formula. Dark Souls wasn't Demon Souls but it still brought improvements on the formula. Bloodborne isn't Dark Souls or Demon Souls but it chose to use the inferior mechanics that were in Demon Souls over the improvements DarkSouls brought. And most of those choices only seem to compound the problem with loading times. This is of course talking about non combat choices.. like how the player interacts with the hub or is forced into farming if struggling...

Those areas are great. They blow Dark Souls' second half out of the water.

I don't like loading screens, therefore I suck at the game...

Only in system wars where the dumbest of the dumb surface. Brain dead cretins that crawl out of their holes to say something stupid.

Its valid considering many people beat the game already, devs made it more accessible like they intended, and Bloodborne is one of the easier Souls games.

Fanboy rant, like other PS4 games don't have lipsync. Amnesia didn't have either and it's a PC game LOL.

Durrr u just the casul Ned 2 git gud lololol. You kids need to learn not to make assumptions. Most of us critiquing it HAVE beaten it. Not hard to do, it's actually very short and light on content. Take out farming and loading, and I really do doubt I got much more than twenty hours.

I don't see how any one can defend things like being forced to go through two extremely long loading screens to refill something.. I haven't played the game my self, but I don't see how any one can be defending stupid shit like that if true..

Never said it hasnt similarities to DS titles but for some to cry that its not like DS or even worse calling it DS is where i disagree because its not. If you want a new DS you have to wait , Bloodborne is different even with the similarities.

@sSubZerOo: some lack priorities in life and have a desperate need to validate their existence. This is one way they do that.

@Lulu_Lulu:

''I take it that means you enjoy Farming for Silver Bullets and Blood Vials ?''

Yes, i like it. Its part of the experience, and a chance to revisit some environments again. Bloodborne is an unique game. Not supposed to please everyone.

@PAL360:

So it appeals to grinders and farmers ?...... and you ?

The irony is if we were talking about an MMO people would be ranting about it being a grind.

@sSubZerOo:

Would i? I love how people know my preferences better than me, in this place lol

you only need to grind the game if you want to make it stupid easy.

yes, the loeading times are bullshit, but it doesn't make the game itself any less great. it's cool to hate the general opinion, i get it hipsters.

@sSubZerOo:

Thats what I'm trying to wrap my head around........

I've always thought grinding was bad and nobody else disagreed.... but every time a souls game pops up all of sudden there are exceptions.

bro people "love" grinding they love leveling up and beating up monsters that were a pain before

they love the feeling of overcoming something over a period of time

not just walking an killing everything like in assassin creed or whatever

some people like a payoff u know like oh yeah i was weak before but now im winning an stuff

people like man thats called a good game making

back in the day we had dragon warrior and dragon qquest level up kill hard things or u died and u ran out of money repairing an stuff u had to work at it or u game overed

stuff was great back in everquest if u died u lost experience and like u had stare at a book to get back mana it was hardcore as crap that what gamers love an miss

we love dark souls we love bloodborne get used to it man its not going away we want this come back into all gaming

hahahahahahahah okay

Dark Souls' second half is better because I didn't spend my time running away from enemies and just wanting to finish those god awful sections. Respawning and buffed enemies + Frenzy sections lol just awful.

I wouldn't call them serious. I would call them annoying/a hindrance

Also summoning has always cost something in the souls games as @jg4xchamp- said

Champ, is it verified more insight=harder game?

People don't like grind. People like levelling up and in order to level up there is a grind. Great developers know how to make this process organic others don't and the grind ensues.

Yes, people love overcoming something over a period of time and this found in many games but somehow there is this false belief that its exclusive to From Software games.

No one is expecting to walk in an kill everything. Again the majority of gamers don't have this expectation so using this as some sort of argument is rather meaningless.

Thats why people play RPGs, nothing particularly new or unsual.

Back in the day most games were garbage. They were poorly design and had many broken mechanics. Fortunately game design has improved dramatically and most of these dumb mechanics are no longer present even in DS and Bloodborne. However, these games still have some areas that need improving and Bloodborne is showing that the developer is improving on the formula in some ways and digressing in others. This modern day nonsense of hardcore is nothing but youngling drool, it has a tendency to attract people who haven't accomplish much in life and games are their only source of accomplishment.

@ProtossX:

Thats very nice but what people love and like was never in question...... as I mentioned before I never encountered anyone who thought grinding was good game design.... yes some may have liked but nobody ever looked at any game and said "the game was fun but because I couldn't give it a perfect score because there's no grinding"

Remember in Gamespot's summary of reviews you'l never see grinding in the "pros" section..... its always a con. Its like a disease..... no matter how beneficial any disease maybe..... its always a con.

Despite the fact that genetic engineers recoded a virus to return vision to a blind dog.... which was pretty cool..... okay now I'm just rambling.....

@notorious1234na: To me, it reminds me more of the style of play of a DMC like game, where combat is faster paced and the way to approach mobs is quickly in-out. IMO, this doesn't work as it could've. In BB, your ability to dodge is also shared with the same pool as your ability to attack, which limits how much you can really do before you have to backoff and wait for your endurance pool to regenerate. In an attempt to not create an "OMG you scrub" I'm not expecting to be able and stand in front of a monster, give him an onslaught of hits and expect the mob not to fight back. But, since variety as a way to approach the game has been brought up, this creates a linearity because you have a very limited amount to really approach combat. Obviously DMC coupled the fast pace with combos that you could chain together to help save your own skin, there's not a whole lot of combos in BB, and even if they were, you couldn't theoretically pull them off because of your endurance and having to dodge out of combat when the inevitable, impossible to stagger regardless of how many hits you've given mob attack comes back.

Waahaha's comment of "There's a fundamental difference to the way combat is approached... its still largely the same formula. Dark Souls wasn't Demon Souls but it still brought improvements on the formula. Bloodborne isn't Dark Souls or Demon Souls but it chose to use the inferior mechanics that were in Demon Souls over the improvements DarkSouls brought. And most of those choices only seem to compound the problem with loading times. This is of course talking about non combat choices.. like how the player interacts with the hub or is forced into farming if struggling..." really nails it down.

Having to grind for resources, really is not THE end all be all, since it rarely takes a lot of time to pull of. But it's adding this to, other things, and the huge lack of diversity in combat, really makes this game inferior to others in the series. It's not a bad game, but I saw improvements in the formula of the series as another new iteration came along. Regardless of BB not having "Souls" in its name, it was what almost everyone expected it to be, and when it comes down to the mechanics of the game, and what it offers, there no need for it to have "Souls" in its name, it's from one of its founders/creators, who's well aware of the things that were improved upon and brought a more seamless experience overall. You still get your butt handed to you in previous DS games, with bonfires refilling your HP, with an arsenal of weapons, with estus flasks, so on and so forth. These were all just tools to your disposal to attempt to tackle a world that wasn't going to have it. There's an immense lack of tools in BB.

A lot of the things mentioned are technical problems, not design issues. The only design choices that I disagree with in Bloodborne are the use of blood vials instead of an estus like mechanic, and we should be allowed to level up at lanterns.

I still prefer Dark Souls to Bloodborne and I can't wait for Dark Souls 3. I like how it's more RPG focused with more build, weapon, armor, and item variety, the estus flask system was perfect, and I really enjoyed the sense of going on an epic adventure that it gave me.

Bloodborne still deserves praise for easily surpassing Souls in terms of gameplay, level design, and atmosphere.

@Pedro:

I hope the term "Hardcore" dwindles down...... its so outdated and if I had to be honest its kind of ridiculous..... which is a shame because it use to be a cool word..... I don't like how its being used now.

I'm pretty sure he's not your "bro." I don't think anyone here likes you all that much, frankly. Perhaps if you learned some fucking grammar, that might help.

@clone01:

His grammar is better then mine if you can believe it..... seriously.... you should see the mistakes I make..... luckily there are many many people here who go the extra mile to understand whats being written....

As for people who like him..... well not alot of people like me and honestly..... its not bad at all.....being liked is overated. ;) or atleast that what the voices keep telling me.