I played this game during one of the hardest semesters of my life. My wife and I moved to a new apartment in the middle of it, I broke my foot, I was a staff member on a journal, I has 12 credit hours of classes, and I was working 30 hours/week in September, November, and December, but 40-50 hours/week in October. Somehow I played Bloodborne during that time and it stuck with me.

I got stuck on countless bosses, would sleep, do my homework, go to work, go to class, then come home and bang my head against the bosses. I would think about the lore, the location, the stories all day. The chalice dungeons haunted me, being put in a place so old that the gods couldn't even remember them. This is a perfect video game through and through.

The Souls gang at their peak. Will it ever be this good again? Who knows but I hope so.

The perfect cocktail of rewarding combat, intriguing opaque world building and squishy shit that makes your skin crawl.

Unparalleled in almost every regard.

Thinking back on this there is SO much I have left unexplored, and I have platinumed this game, watch my brother do a complete playthrough, completed two separate playthroughs myself, and have a suspended run that is on NG+3. Still haven't seriously explore about half of the weapons, still haven't done a true arcane build, still haven't done a true bloodtinge build, etc. In any other souls-esque build differences are only generically change how you approach PvE (DS1 & DS3 are great examples of this), mainly affecting DPS or optimal ranges, but in Bloodborne going with the Wheel or the Pizza Cutter or the Boom Hammer or the Stake Driver present entirely new ways of playing and breaking the game; entire bosses can change from easy-mode to hard-mode and vice-versa depending on the weapon build. Can't comment on the crazy-ass lore, but the cutscene direction and voice-acting is still in the upper echelons. Ah, Kos, or some say Kosm...