Is anyone else getting a whole mess of player-death specters in the freaking Hunter's Dream, of all places? With every single one of them running up the stairs in front of the house, willfully jumping off the top of it and braining themselves to death in the valley below?
edited 25th Mar '15 4:38:58 PM by LE0Night
Watching the boss fights and Idk I feel like Soulsborn is getting kind of stale aesthetically.
The art direction kind of feels tired at this point, something much horror genre aesthetic falls prey to in general.
People were saying DS 2 mainly because Miyazaki but i'm not seeing that much of an imporvement here especially considering it's a next gen game(that really should look a lot better but FS aren't great with graphics).
Bullshit. While I agree that some of the boss designs - specifically the quadrupedal beast bosses - are a wee bit samey, there is plenty of variety and novelty in the game overall. The only thing where the game notably lacks variety is the colour scheme, which is by and large dominated by grey and black.
edited 26th Mar '15 12:27:23 PM by TAPETRVE
Fear the cinnamon sugar swirl. By the Gods, fear it, Laurence.Libarian you not caring about the graphics is you. Seeing as quite a few people complained about the series' graphical aesthetic before and is considered an overall weakness, with BB continuing that trend it's fair to call the game out or at least take issue on it.
The color scheme is pretty much the first thing I noticed and kind of takes away my appreciation for the design of a lot of enemies. Thing is though while the bosses are animated nice and actually speak now lol I'm seeing a lot of overdesigned ones to where with the drab color schemes makes them come off as incoherent blobs of limbs, flowing hair(Otogi vibes with this although it felt a bit better for those games) and growls that lose personality as a result. The concept art probably makes them look a lot better but in game too much can result in less, which I sort of felt watching some of these bosses(the one reborn being a big one and the big wolf thingie with the white hair that resembles the cleric beast a bit). The camera doesn't help either and From needs to get their lock-on system straightened out.
But really I feel like the whole souls aesthetic has been doing is simply getting stale. It's starting to give me Tim Burton effect in that the games' rigid adherence to this particular style is making it sort of mesh together in a way that makes it harder to appreciate the individual charm in each one.
- DLC I would not mind this being the last souls game honestly and FS working on a different series. Or Otogi 3 aka the action game we deserve.
So how is the game? I've never played a Souls game before, so what should I expect?
All I know is that while it is considered a great game, it isn't for everyone.
Actually, it's only one shield, and it's more of a Joke Item (and not the lethal kind) than anything. Firearms are pretty much mandatory. I have seen people playing the game without using guns, but to play truly efficiently, you ought to learn and master the parry mechanic.
Fear the cinnamon sugar swirl. By the Gods, fear it, Laurence.It's a bit easier than in Souls, because you obviously don't need to wait for an enemy's attack to connect, so you can stagger them from several feet afar, interrupting their onslaught for a second even when you're not timing perfectly. At least in theory, because most enemies make up for your technical advantage by attacking way more aggressively and unpredictably.
edited 26th Mar '15 4:03:13 PM by TAPETRVE
Fear the cinnamon sugar swirl. By the Gods, fear it, Laurence.Okay, having just spent my first couple of hours with the game, I'm in this thread to some extent now.
Either my Souls skills are rusty or this game is way harder than the others, because I didn't even come close to beating the first boss. And then I died to mobs. Twice. On the second occasion, I was able to retrieve my Blood Echoes, at which point I retreated to the Dream to get that better armour and upgrade my weapon, so hopefully things will be a tiny bit less troublesome next time.
I confess to being somewhat frustrated right now, because there are a lot of enemies between me and the boss, and I really thought I'd find another lantern at some point. On the other hand, there are at least three branching paths I have seen that I have not explored, so maybe I should check those out instead.
Maybe there's a shortcut.
Please.
Oh, and a change that I welcome so far is the limited quantities of consumable items you can carry, and any you pick up over the limit are just discarded and can't be collected later. It really discourages just hoarding them, and makes you want to find ways to use them.
That said, if I'd known I was going to die this much, I might have been less liberal with the pebbles and Molotovs.
edited 26th Mar '15 5:06:11 PM by artfulscruff
Pretty sure there's a shortcut to the boss fight if you run past the first group of enemies about to go on the hunt and hug the wall. You should find a bunch of wooden coffins/crates. Break those and drop down and you can make your way to a gate next to the lantern close to the Cleric Beast fight.
And with regards to the whole "aesthetic" debate, the game feels different from the Souls games on a very basic level. The Souls games were fantasy. Very dark and post-apocalyptic fantasy, but still recognizably influenced by the same D&D tropes of wizards, clerics, knights, dragons, etc. as most fantasy games are.
Bloodbourne draws significantly more from things like Gothic Horror, H.P.Lovecraft, and Hammer Horror films then it does from "traditional" fantasy. Game-play wise it's still very much a Souls game, but aesthetically it's got more in common with Resident Evil or Castlevania then it does with something like Elder Scrolls.
The environmental consistency also works out really well. It gives the game it's own identity and allows it a lot more creative liberty with it's singular concept rather then bouncing away from one environment to the next. The change of pace is refreshing.
I think I know where you mean. There were signs mentioning a side path and I found where to drop down, I just didn't do it. I had some ideas about where it connected though, when I thought about it later. I think it's on the top of my list next time I play.
PS - Those crow enemies are simultaneously creepy and disgusting and awesome.
PPS - I'm still really early in the game, of course, but I'm getting a whiff of Villain Protagonist. I was gonna ask if anyone else thought the same, but it's potentially spoilery since I think all of you are further on than me, so I dunno if I want to talk about that :P
For the record, any pickups that exceed your carry limit are being stored in your inventory chest in the Hunter's Dream. Up to 99 of each item, to be precise. So that stuff isn't lost at all, you can easily restock your supply; it just costs you a somewhat lengthy (because loading times) detour.
edited 26th Mar '15 6:48:31 PM by TAPETRVE
Fear the cinnamon sugar swirl. By the Gods, fear it, Laurence.

The load times are the #1 thing they are working on a fix for. Expect it later this week after the huge PS 4 Patch 2.50 tomorrow.