Let's talk: Bloodborne

So today I thought I'd take a moment to look at what my favourite game, Bloodborne, actually is.

First of all, we'll discuss the setting and story. Bloodborne takes place in a Gothic Victorian city called Yharnam.

The city looks absolutely gorgeous, and I often find myself stopping to just look around at how pretty and grand everything looks. Yharnam, however, suffers a terrible curse as tonight is the night of "the hunt."

The Hunt, is a night where beasts emerge and Hunters must, well, hunt them. You play as a Hunter, tasked with ending the beastly scourge; and that is all I'm going to tell you incase you haven't played it.

Now, the next part of Bloodborne I'd like to discuss is the combat. Bloodborne, if you didn't know, is made by the creators of the Dark Souls franchise, and plays somewhat similarly, minus a few big changes. The first change is the removal of shields. This may sound small, but it isn't at all. Shields are replaced with guns that are used to stun enemies, but not kill. Guns are used to shoot enemies while they attack you, and if timed right, you leave them open to a critical attack.

The next big change to gameplay is the pacing. Dark Souls is designed to be slower, more thoughtful, while Bloodborne cranks up the speed and throws you against mobs of enemies time and time again. You must learn to dodge, attack and use your surroundings to break up groups of enemies. Another feature to Bloodborne is the "rallying" function.

When you take damage, an orange bar shows how much health you lost. However, it is possible to get that health back. To do so, you must deal damage to an enemy, and your health will slowly fill back up, but it doesn't last forever, so attack fast. This is just one of the many things in the game that encourages faster gameplay and punishes slower players trapped in the Dark Souls mindset.

Now, it should go with out saying that Bloodborne is hard; at first. Unlike most games, Bloodborne lends from Dark Souls' way of doing things by subtly teaching you how to play and leaving you to remember what you learn. The game is challenging at first, but through trial and error you will get better. Like the Souls franchise, Bloodborne is about overcoming your challenges and learning from mistakes. It isn't an easy game, not at all, but it's fair, and well worth the challenge, because underneath all the deaths and sometimes questionable hit boxes, is a truly amazing game.

If RPG games are your thing, or Horror, or challenging games, and you have a PS4; pick up Bloodborne and give it a shot, you won't regret it.

That's all I want to go into now to avoid spoiling the game. If you haven't already, check the game out, and if you have, what do you think of it? Let me know below.