Impressions on Bloodborne
2025 March 11
I have finally got my hands on Bloodborne. It was part of my diminishing, and these days diminutive, list of games I was truly hyped for. These days, such a game is a rarity for me. Turns out, getting your hopes high for an unreleased game just stokes the flames of disappointment that will burn you when the big budget title you're eager for turns out to be just a shallow attempt at your wallet. And don't forget about the deluxe digital premium preorder edition that gives you a special 'middle finger' gesture you can use in game, so you can flaunt your money spending skills when you get your victory royale in the multiplayer. Irony aside, I suppose feeling excitement for a fun time proves that I still have humanity left in me, albeit tempered by the insight of witnessing the games industry's recent trends and hypes.
Emotions are what compelled me to start writing this. It's been a while since a game caused adrenaline-induced hand shakes. The cause: defeating Ludwig on my first attempt. It was a combination of the brilliant visual design of the boss, the music and being absolutely locked the fuck in. Full name 'Ludwig the Accursed', he presents himself as someone deeply afflicted by the scourge that the player character is supposed to help stop. He is a twisted and grotesque combination between a horse and a man, but not the centaur type where you cut the horse and the human in two and them stitch the different halves together again. In here, it's more like someone had a human in one palm, a horse in the other, and then put his hands together quickly. He has multiple limbs, two heads and a mane across his back. And he screams a lot too.
I love all the screaming sound effects that are used in Bloodborne. From people in the process of losing their minds due to the scourge, to those whose mind is long gone and their bodies deformed, there is a lot of screaming going on. It makes sense thematically, too. The whole world around you is dying and you are slowly losing your faculties. It's only natural to scream. It comes naturally, too. It transcends any cultural or temporal barrier. You can hear the agony, the pain in the screams. Everyone knows what a scream means. Screaming is GOOD.
The mechanics employed to facilitate the action side of this game work brilliantly together to invoke a sense of speed and fluidity. There's rally, which offers you a window of a few seconds after getting hit in which you can hit the enemy back to recover a portion of your lost health. There's the gun in your left hand, which can be either used as a ranged weapon, or, if timed properly, as a way to stagger enemies and leave them vulnerable to a visceral attacks which deals big damage. If you run out of bullets, you can sacrifice some of your health to gain five of them. This triggers the rally mechanic, tying it all together neatly. Well, the fact that rally pushed me to mindlessly attack the enemy back, often to my detriment, is a tale for another time. It did not diminish my appreciation for it any less.
The themes of this game, beyond the impressive visual horror elements, touch a lot on femininity and motherhood. There are way more female friendly characters than males. Some women you meet throughout the game offer you a vial of their own blood, which can be seen as relating to period blood. There are umbilical cords which grant you in-game insight, a sort of currency, when consumed. There's a mysterious woman in white, bandaged around her midriff, with a trail of blood starting from her stomach and pooling next to her dress. She is staring wistfully towards the arena where you are implied to perform infanticide, possibly on her own offspring, in order to stop the spread of the scourge. Yet she does not stop you, as the child was forced upon her, or rather, into her, by the gods of the world. There's another woman, a prostitute by trade, who ends up birthing an otherworldly being. This is a part I'm still working on fully understanding myself, because Bloodborne and other games from this series move the story and world building to the side, leaving you to hack and slash away without fully understanding why exactly you're swinging or even who you're swinging at.
I suppose the only questionable design decision I couldn't wrap my head around was how powerful the starting saw cleaver is. Despite a sizeable arsenal of cool and dangerous weapons, you can very well see yourself through the entire game with the very first weapon you receive. I can see a few reasons for why this is. One, is it among the fastest weapons in the game, and it has a good amount of damage per hit. Two, a lot of enemies in this game get staggered for a short bit once you hit them. Since the saw cleaver can swiftly dish out many hits in a row, you will end up chain stunning many enemies into a hasty death. Sure, there are enemies that make this a bit more difficult by being resilient to staggers from a simple light attack of the saw cleaver. However, the cleaver is still fast, allowing you to move in, attack once, and retreat. From this, I see a game design challenge arising: when would be the right time in a game to give the player the best weapon? If you do it in the beginning, like Bloodborne, that dis-incentivizes the player to use other weapons for the entire playthrough. Should it be early, but well hidden? That could work, rewarding curious explorers or knowledgeable veterans with an easy time. It would still devalues the preceding weapons, though. Maybe it would seem intuitive to hide it around the halfway point of the game, then, wouldn't it? In this case, why not near the end? It would make even more sense to follow the enemy power progression, so you can always be sure that the player will have an appropriate tool to deal with challenges. But then, as a player, that means I would have to give up weapons as often as I find a new one, even if I really like one that I have. I don't think there's a single solution to this challenge. It depends on what what kind of player someone is, and perhaps the best thing the designer can do is offer as many choices as possible, to allow players to settle into their favorites.
Conclusion? I conclude I like Bloodborne a lot.
