BLOODBORNE given Feb '15 Euro/NA release date, deemed worthy of own thread by ilxor

shoutout to another enemy i hate, those big fireball shooting things, they look like silverfish/centipedes. gotta hand it to from, this game is pretty vile n disgusting

i thought the witches were covered in barnacles at first, which was weird and revolting enough, then i realised they were covered in eyes. eurgh

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-petite/devastatingly-challenging_b_7021582.html

lol at "bad santa jail"

lonnnnng piece at gamasutra on the design of bloodborne and the souls games:

Maybe because I've studied Demon's Souls with such care, I've gotten good at memorizing right angles. So I pumped my fist with ferocity when, in Bloodborne, I discovered the first shortcut: Journeying deeper into that first area, I stopped and said, "The lamp is around that corner." I went around the corner. I opened a gate. There was the lamp (the warp / spawn points in Bloodborne are lamps). It felt great. I felt such a ghostly pat on the back at this moment. No, the game isn't a villain trying to trick me — it's an old friend keeping me on my toes.

That's the word I'd use to describe these games: friendly. These games have uninviting atmospheres and their enemies can crush you: The game is comfortable showing its real face to its best friends. We're the game's best friends. Not two hours into my first experience with Demon's Souls, I knew I'd found a weird best friend that trusted and respected my opinion and my intuition: I was the only friend who could figure it out.

i really enjoyed it - ymmv depending on your tolerance for tim rogers' writing tho

cool, didn't know he was writing there, will check out.

but man. videoball is a great cautionary tale for why video game companies are so tight-lipped about projects until they're almost done. my hype for that game peaked like a year or two ago. (i'll still probably buy it, but damn)

i have my own cannon now, feelin pretty pleased with myself

darkbeast paarl down on my first attempt. classic nailbiting fight - i ended up finishing him off with a sliver of health of my own left and no more blood vials.

the choral music and general vibe of unspeakable eldritch horror in yahar'gul really give me the heebie-jeebies.

why has videoball been in development so long? it doesn't seem like it's that huge of a project yknow

I missed Paarl when I was in Santa jail and now I don't think I can fight him 😕

:(

I think he's in a challice dungeon at least.

you can just go back to the lamp in that area

The lamp's extinguished. I think that's a boss you have to take when you get carried away to jail. Not there when you revisit.

Also, I know it's considered best to go in as blind as possible, but if you want to get the full ending, get those umbilical cords. Not at end game yet myself, but worth googling that.

i just went back for paarl in late game. you just have to go to the chapel lamp instead

finished the game, did the full ending. i looked up the other 2 endings and liked those better so fyi don't feel obligated to get the "true" one

i think i'm about three-quarters of the way through? i managed to take down the shadow of yharnam and rom spaceknight the vacuous spider first time each but amygdala is proving a bit of a challenge. i've spent a lot of time stabbing him in the crotch with my holy sword though.

i love the way the game gets creepier and more unhinged as you work your way through.

finally got through Rom (having the Tonitrus helped a ton), and did Paarl on the first try (i think that's the first time that's happened so far, although the witches were pretty quick too).

i'm still on my millionth try for Logarius, although i helped someone else beat him so i know it can be done.

I've just switched on my PS4 Plus or whatever they call it. It's a different game with online access and MVP etc. I had been accruing a lot of insight both as a score and as Madman's Knowledge which I suppose I will now use up.

i just found out about the memory-leak issue and now i'm wondering if my relative success against bosses is less due to my hard-won l33t skillz than the fact my opponents might have been nerfed by me leaving my ps4 on standby between sessions over a few days :(

ouch. glad i will get to enjoy the loading times fix due to my slow progress.

i still haven't gotten past the first mob section

so this game is basically a cthulu-cronenberg nightmare about fertility, periods and childbirth huh

something like that.

so yeah, you CAN return to Paarl, thx for the tips guys. was a breeze at this level though, took him out first try no sweat.

i was all psyched up to take Castle Cainhurst the other night only to find out... i already cleared the whole area? apparently i fired BB up when i got home from the bar last friday and just plowed through it. totally forgot about it.

Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos is kicking my ass. she's killed me about a zillion times now. hardest boss for me thus far.

those blood-engorged flea-women in cainhurst are the most annoying enemies to me by far - never quite managed to learn to parry them like i have almost every other regular enemy

oh, man, totally. after dying to them several times, i decided to just hoof it through, grab the loot, and leave. i noticed one of them was more engorged than the others, wonder if she drops something special?

i dutifully killed 'em all and i don't think i got anything special so i probably should have just legged it too

you mean those insect things outside the castle or the ghost ladies?

the insects outside. tuff.

oh yeah that was the hardest part of the place by far, almost scared me off. i killed them all once to get the items then started running past. really like the level design in/on the castle.

yeah, the castle is pretty spectacular, especially since it's an entirely optional area iirc

haven't had much time on this and i am v far behind. one thing that occurred to me catching up with thread is that i have zero awareness of the online stuff. i just looked up how to summon/be summoned because i had no idea. i think i liked it a lot better with the soul signs so it was like a visual reminder of that part of the game.

agreed, and I preferred the Souls style of messages as well

i definitely miss the bogus player messages meant to send you to your death. don't think i've seen any of that in Bloodborne.

i think i've seen one or two by precarious ledges etc but yeah definitely less than in previous games. maybe bloodborne players are just less inclined towards hilarious trolling.

i've seen some of that ("take a step forward"), not a ton. agreed on the soul signs.

xp

i put one message by a ledge that legitimately pointed to a secret area that got a few FOUL ratings. w/ever dudes, your loss.

finally finished this. wasn't feeling it that much at the beginning but it really got hold of my imagination after a bit, even had a dream about being in the castle the other night haha. now to read up on all the areas/bosses i missed out on.

You guys, Daughter of the Cosmos... dozens of attempts, can't do it. Never struggled this much with a boss in these games. ANY video game. I'm gonna do everything else I can (which I think is just Nightmare of Mensis) and come back before I clear it. Might need to pack on another ten levels.

fuck a vacuous spider

i just found out about the memory-leak issue and now i'm wondering if my relative success against bosses is less due to my hard-won l33t skillz than the fact my opponents might have been nerfed by me leaving my ps4 on standby between sessions over a few days :(

― bizarro gazzara, Thursday, 16 April 2015 13:59 (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i rebooted the game yesterday and the enemies in the nightmare of mensis definitely seemed more aggressive than they were before, so i think i may indeed have unwittingly benefited from memory-leak nerfing. fuck :(

still managed to pwn the mensis hunter even without the advantage of accidentally-nerfed enemies tho

i reaaally liked the Upper Cathedral Ward (and i died once to Ebrietas and was like, nope, not coming back to that for quite awhile).

got through yahar'gul (again) too, i feel like i missed some things and took a weird route though. at one point i rang my beckoning bell to get some help with the three hunters by the broken lamp, but ended up doing them solo. then i got turned around with all of the shortcuts and warping and was surprised when i ended up at the boss...my bell was still ringing so i inadvertently got help on the One Reborn, which made it seem super easy.

also, after countless botched co-op attempts, i ended up beating Logarius solo, and it felt great. probably my most breathless boss fight along with Gascoigne.

the little Celestial Emissary aliens who run after you with arms outstretched are adorable.

those 3 hunters was one of the best parts of the game for me. i kited them all the way back to the lantern and they started pacing around outside the room. i was like "haha safe zone" until one of them said fuck this and ran in and fought me while the other watched, arena-of-death style

yeah i got the beast claw guy back to the bridge before the lamp and had him almost down, then the cane one comes flying in out of nowhere. very tense.

one of the hardest/most frustrating parts was the two cthulu-headed guys where you get the orphanage key. lost a bunch of insight to them and had to resort to using the cannon. still, walking around that place in the dark is super spooky.

the nightmare frontier is a crazy area, even after getting the shortcuts, beating the boss, and finding lots of random nooks & crannies i still don't have a great mental map of the place.

also i tried doing some invasions at the beginning and i'm still the worst at pvp. i get all nervous with a human opponent and do stupid things, so embarrassing.

this fuckin' game

On the other hand, I've won all the duels when people invade my world. Somehow there's a lot more pressure when you're the invader, it's very presumptuous. Guess I'm too Midwestern to be a vileblood.

loading times patched apparently: http://www.jp.playstation.com/op/bloodborne/news/2015/04/103.html

some beautiful maniac has written an absurdly detailed examination of the game's lore - definitely worth a read if you can spare the time. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k7ST7Ysc9I3s6zLXr-DOzWjoAtu6afOOCaU3ucCdBDk/mobilebasic