Bloodborne is one of The Great Compromised games. I could start a review of any of the three FromSoftware games I've completed thus far in this manner, but with Bloodborne specifically, it's in entirely new and frustrating ways. Every new mechanic, every changed detail, every brilliant visual flourish, is delightful on paper and thematically inspired, but completely irritating in practice when rendered as gameplay.

Let's start with the look. Bloodborne is an incredible visual achievement. The Gregorian horror aesthetic is completely its own, the enemy designs are singular, for the lowly goons probably the best I've seen thus far. Through the bosses, the 'man as beast' "symbolism" is rendered delightfully overt with a slew of beasties whose animalistic screams contrast with their frightfully considered movements. It's amazing to behold. Then you've got the actual environments, all dark blues and greys, expressionistic structures, dead ends, doors and notes with absurdly prosaic messages contained within. It's an untouchable horror atmosphere on every level and one of the most cohesive aesthetic achievements the form has ever seen.

These are not my troubles with this game. Instead, it's when they are rendered into the 'soulslike' gameplay formula. All of the big 'beast' boss fights in this game are far and away the least fun I've seen From design. We'll get to combat specifics later on, but the major problem the aesthetics bring is a loss of visual clarity. The absurdly dark colour palette makes everything blend through my eyes. This is already a problem in general play, especially in Yarnham where getting lost is just too easy due to the cluttered visuals. One could argue this is intentional, but I think this is proven untrue by the actual game multiple times, especially when this eases off as you enter the Forbidden Woods. What does persist, is the homunculus boss designs, which completely obscure enemy attack patterns in a good chunk of fights. Now there are good bosses despite this, but I'd say overall this is the weakest lineup I've played so far. The visual language torpedoed my enjoyment of a big chunk of these fights. I can't engage with a boss like Darkbeast Paarl because I straight up cannot see the 'tells' for its moves.

But I still beat it. In far too few tries for my liking, given that I feel that I know nothing about it. Bloodborne's combat system eludes me because it makes the fights far faster and easier, but ultimately much less satisfying. I'd first attest this to the slightly changed moveset and pace of combat. Now when locked in, you do a little dash thingy instead of rolling. I fucking hate this dash. It feels awful to me in comparison to rolling, and if I could have played this game not locked on like I did DS I would have. But because the pace was so fast, I simply had to live with it. I understand the idea, the lowered stamina requirement (but equivalent i-frames) allows you to push aggression in fights, which this game allegedly wants you to do. In practice, it just meant I had a roll that physically moved me less distance, therefore it couldn't be relied upon to dodge through attacks, so I'd often be dodging around them. Not the end of the world. The rally mechanic is another instance of the game allegedly pushing for an aggressive style, and this is when I start to get frustrated. Bosses play ridiculously passively, constantly jumping away from you after landing a single hit, as though the devs couldn't think of a way to prevent the rally mechanic from trivialising fights if they aren't an active goose chase the entire time. It (mostly) doesn't even work, between rally and blood vials I never felt as though I'd actually attained mastery over any of Bloodborne's fights the way I do other Fromsoft games, and I just didn't like the combat enough for any kind of self-imposed limitations to be satisfying, especially when 80% of my deaths were to arbitrary instakills that I simply could not sight read due to that visual language. I have never beaten so many bosses on exactly the second try in my life.

Oh yeah, blood vials. Another awful/excellent idea! Having them in such abundance seems pretty nice on paper. I appreciate the desire to leave combat uninterrupted by the need to heal, while not allowing you to completely outheal attacks by reducing their overall potency. I admit to slightly missing the added element of actually needing to find time to heal in fights as a skill, but it's no dealbreaker. 20 is just too many! It meant fights failed to maintain consistent tension (outside of some select highs that I adored). But you can't have none and some sycophant at FromSoft decided you'd have to grind for them. This was probably the worst decision made in this game's development and the biggest issue I have with it. If I am fighting one of the game's better bosses, which take a large chunk of tries (thinking the first of two optional final bosses), then I really shouldn't be distracted by the possibility of the worst sensation possible playing a FromSoft game. Having to pause attempts to grind flasks is the lowest point of this game, and it's a self-imposed problem that they'd already solved! I'm not going to pretend I know the exact quantity, but surely having some arbitrary number of vials (10-15?) reset at each lantern would solve the difficulty and grinding problem simultaneously. I'm no game dev, but if this game ever gets a PC port I'd love to play a mod of this, I guarantee it'd make the game far more satisfying, at least to me.

Another on my laundry list of things to change would be The Hunter's Dream. It's easily one of my favourite settings in the franchise, and certainly a better 'hub world' (especially thematically) than The Roundtable Hold. So it sure is a fucking bummer that it's representative of the other game-ruining issue with Bloodborne. Why, oh why, would you not just let me quickly interact with a lantern to heal? Or to level up? Or fast travel? Why make the player sit through TWO far-too-long loading screens? Every. Single. Time. And when the more linear level design leans so heavily on fast travel (more proof the devs do not want the "lost and aimless" experience for their game) you'll be seeing a lot of these loading screens. There are other performance issues as well, to the point that Bloodborne's framerate is perhaps its most famous feature, but it all compounds into actually playing it being far too clunky. Not in an endearing way either. I replayed the Taurus Demon fight (in an original release of DS) on my friend's Xbox 360 / dicked around in Limgrave for a few hours in the time around me playing this game, and I was struck by how much more fluid and smooth the movement of your character is in both of those games while retaining a light amount of jank that makes it feel distinct. Bloodborne is all jank all the time. The camera is a massive part of this, though the unforgivably small boss arenas don't help. Having your view stuck inside a goddamn wall for half an encounter, or even better having your character dodge in the wrong direction because the camera randomly spins around mid-fight, does not serve the experience for me.

Just to briefly remind you that I do not actively despise this game, let's talk about some of the good stuff. Putting aside the aimless beasties with arbitrary instakill moves (and Micolash, who is of the approximate level of fun that the goddamn Bed of Chaos is), there are some good fights here. The spoiler fight that I alluded to earlier is a peak for this dev team, probably my favourite final boss of the three I've encountered. In my playthrough, there was technically one after but I'll just pretend that one didn't happen. This is also, the closest thing I've seen so far to a consistent game from Miyazaki. There is no grand drop off, no moment where they clearly ran out of budget or interest, no neglected section. This is a consistent, detailed experience, and at the sudden emergence of the game's second half (never get sick of that trick), it legitimately elevates. I just didn't have a high enough baseline interest to truly appreciate it.

I assume that the above is what makes this THE FromSoft game for many. If you like what this has to offer, you get what you like for the whole experience. In a slightly less charitable way, I can also see the appeal of the combat. What I'm interpreting as clunky and unsatisfying, could easily be said to be 'messy' or 'loose' or 'forgiving.' Bloodborne isn't easy, I'm not pretending it is. But I never felt like I truly earned my victories here, and I had much less fun fighting through them than I have in other FromSoft games. It's such a shame that the best visual design this team ever touched is in service of gameplay I fundamentally don't enjoy.