Bloodborne, as is the case for many other people, was my first From Software game. I then went on to play and sincerely enjoy Dark Souls 3, but I had a lot more to say about Bloodborne in the end. It stayed with me for longer. There are many things I like about Bloodborne, but because I also had some criticisms, I decided to organize my thoughts into a series of compliment sandwiches. For those who don’t know, a compliment sandwich is a very corporate and sterile way of delivering criticism. You say something good about a work, then something that could have been better, then end on another good thing, so as not to hurt the feelings of the one being criticized. Enjoy.
- Compliment: It’s got a great name.
A lot of video games go for a cumbersome title of many words that barely have to do with the game thematically. Fake example, Foraged without Flame: Chrysanthemum’s Grace Z3: 4th Sonata. Or they go with the single syllable word that is so vague it only illustrates an abstract concept that the marketing team want you to feel when thinking of the game during its ad campaign. Fake example, Within, or Prophet. Bloodborne is two short simple words smooshed together to make a longer more interesting word. A threatening word. No good can come from something that is bloodborne, like a disease or illness. The trouble and chaos of the entire game starts with people of Yharnam getting too curious with blood. Short, menacing, informative, simple. Great title.
- Criticism: The threaded cane doesn’t have a true charge attack.
I know it’s a nitpick, but it is an odd inconsistency. Every weapon in the game, at least all the weapons available in the first half, have a “hold down R2” charged strong attack wherein your weapon glints just before impact to indicate that this strong attack can stun the enemy and render them vulnerable. These charge attacks are satisfying because they require the space and timing to pull off. And if you do pull it off, you are rewarded with a moment where the enemy is stunned, a moment you can take advantage of to heal, jump back for space or item use, or rush in for an even more damaging visceral grab. The threaded cane is my favorite weapon in Bloodborne, or at least it would be if it had this charge attack. Those who have used the weapon know that holding R2 does perform a strong attack, but no glimmer and satisfying moment of hesitation that makes the move feel so powerful and important. I want a bonafide glimmering charge attack for the threaded cane with as much style and speed as the kirkhammer has gravity and impact. The early suite of weapons feel incomplete to me because of this specific omission, especially since part of Bloodborne’s expert balance is in the fact that no weapon is decidedly better than any other, the mileage of each weapon will depend on the player wielding them. But the threaded cane feels objectively worse than its peers because it lacks an entire function. That’s too bad.
- Compliment: Trick weapons should be in every game with weapons.
Nothing fancy or complex to say here. It just feels good and adds value to each weapon. Whether it’s secondary fire, or trick weapons as they are called in Bloodborne, having more than one use for a tool in your arsenal deepens your game’s combat. Secondary function also makes exploration more fun because finding a new weapon not only unlocks a few new moves, but a new playstyle. It also serves the world of Bloodborne thematically, making you feel like your hunter really does have another trick up their sleeve in the snarling face of an impossible foe.
That was the first compliment sandwich. Here are some relevant screenshots from my playthrough to tide you over while I prepare the second one.
…(que soft jazz music)…
- Compliment: I like having two sources of light to carry around.
It’s a small thing, but having the active torch in your hand is always fun in a video game. In Bloodborne, the rooms and caverns you explore can be spooky, dark, and of course dangerous. Carrying a torch not only means you are ready to burn anything that crawls around the corner, but also bathes the room in a waxy warm glow just like it should in a gothic setting. But having a torch in hand means losing out on a far more lethal trick weapon that could have been in that hand, so Bloodborne gives you the option to fit a lantern onto your belt. I love this option. The lantern shows up on your character model and makes me feel more equipped, it also means sparing a hand for a real weapon while still getting enough light glowing around you to make equipping it worthwhile. Manipulating the lighting is one of my favorite abilities in video games, and for a game that is so uncompromising, this small option feels generous in the right way.
- Criticism: The arcane abilities never felt compelling.
The hunter weapons and armor fit thematically with what the game wants you to know about hunters: they are clever, brutal, speedy, and no frills. But the blood and arcane based equipment that unlocks for you over the course of the second half of the game feels less inspired, and certainly less useful. This is disappointing next to the kind of mythos the game is inferring about these weapons and abilities. The game wants you to believe that communion with the great ones bestows terrifying knowledge and unrivaled power, but in practice it’s just a bunch of lasers that shoot into the ground in front of you, for example. Granted, illustrating Lovecraft inspired powers is a challenge in any medium, but there are definitely arcane abilities that could have been as haunting as the hunter weapons are grizzly. Off the top of my head, I will contribute some ideas for arcane powers, so as not to look like a hypocrite.
The hunter could blow a small trumpet that thins the blood of enemies until it just starts leaking out of them damaging them and debuffing them. It could be cool and disturbing to blow the trumpet at a mob of villagers and watch them trail streams of blood as they hobble towards you, growing weaker with every step. Another ability could be a beam of moonlight that shoots down from the cosmos and burns the enemy in front of you, with an eerie and awful roar as flavor audio. Another could be a book that you find with knowledge in it so dangerous and horrifying that it blinds anyone mortal that even glances inside it. The hunter could flash this book open at an opponent and blind them, leaving them flailing wildly looking for you, potentially using more area of effect style swipes to balance the difficulty. A flashier move could come from a sack of eyeballs that you find at Byrgenwerth: crush an eyeball in your palm and a plot of tentacles (or some otherworldly appendages) burst from the ground and hold an enemy in place just long enough for a crack of lightning to strike them and stun those around them.
My point is that for all they are talked up to be, most of the arcane powers in Bloodborne are lukewarm and don’t add much to the fun, strategy, or lore.
- Compliment: The Brain of Mensis.
Finding the brain of Mensis is just good video gaming. What a treat. That’s all I need to say about that.
…(More soft jazz music plays while you refill your drink)…
- Compliment: Bloodborne can be a great podcast game.
I know it seems counter-intuitive to say about a game that so famously demands your attention. But there comes a time in every hunter’s playthrough where they must go out and farm for blood vials. Or maybe you have been fighting the same boss over and over. These times are great to sit back and put on your podcasts or music and chill out in Yharnam. Some people think this is sacrilegious and disrespectful to the game’s audio design and boss fight music. Me? I say play how you wanna play. And after you’ve have been through Cathedral Ward 20 times, you’re not missing anything by tuning out a little and farming with a podcast on. Now, when the boss has only a couple hits left,of course I pause whatever I’m listening to and pump up the game audio. I’m not an animal.
- Criticism: The world feels ruined, but not lived in.
This is a big one. And I’m not sure how you would “fix” this without making some major changes to the game. Despite the despair and danger, I actually like Yharnam. It’s a cozy gaslit city that was probably really nice before all the eldritch blood magic. But the post Hunt Yharnam is missing some things that would give me more affection to it, and make all the horrors you see even more tragic. Like some sort of writing, or imagery that peeks into what the townsfolk were up to before it was time to lock all the doors. What music did they listen to? Did they make jokes? Did they draw pictures or write in journals? It would have went a long way to make me love what this place used to be. Yharnam was a place before it became a video game level, and I wanted that to come through more. Some of this flavor is there, like with Gascoigne and his family, but it’s done away with pretty quickly and doesn’t saturate the rest of the game the way the apocalyptic set dressing does.
- Compliment: This game escalates in many ways.
Escalation is important in almost any artistic medium that asks for more than a moment of your time. Many movies, books, tv shows and video games that we call mediocre can be boiled down into one issue: no escalation. If the themes, characters, settings, music, and plot don’t change, then the piece of art is boring, the worst thing art can be. But it’s also not enough to just change. For example, many sprawling fantasy role playing games may change over time, but don’t escalate: repurposing the same enemies and environments with a new paint job is a common form of this.
Bloodborne starts off as a game with one set of themes and environments and enemies, and moves further and further away until by the end of the game, the places you are in, the creatures you are fighting, and the mysteries the game is unfolding are unrecognizable from the first act of the game. From the level design, to the visual motifs, enemies, weapons, and secrets, Bloodborne raises the stakes of its world. It raises them so well that by the end going back to the starting areas feels quaint, and gives you a feeling of nostalgia for a simpler times in Yharnam. And for a game that starts off by throwing you into a fistfight with a werewolf, that’s impressive.
Beware of spoilers past the first image in the slideshow below
