I've never played a game where the theme and gameplay complement each other so well, the world you explore in bloodborne is so dreary yet beautiful it sucks you in to this Victorian/cthulu mythos aesthetic where every detail in the world is both creepy and intriguing leaving you speculating without needing to know the answer because at face value its just really cool. The gameplay ties in with the Victorian beast hunter theme as it evolves the combat in dark souls into faster paced fights, it rewards you for being risking and parrying with your gun with many bosses being parryble and also rewards you for landing more combo hits which restore your lost health meaning you are both always on the offensive while timing your dodges well. This game scraps the shield and has much more forgiving invincibility frames with dodging making the fights more fluid while making them more tense as dodging the fast and aggressive bosses becomes incredibly fun. From my experience the role playing aspect is narrowed with less creative builds as dark souls but the exploration and boss battles exceed the quality of the dark souls franchise. The feeling of shooting an aggressive boss at point blank range stunning them then to rip their guts out with your bare hand is unparalleled. A fantastic action game rpg with beautiful graphics and challenging but fair gameplay.

The definitive metal gear experience for me, this game refined the gameplay of 1 and 2 adding mechanics that feel as though they were necessary from the beginning such as the excellent cqc system and the first person aiming from mgs2. Mgs3 is a great addition to the mgs plot and its internal story has the cheesy metal gear solid plot formula with a few twists and a more down to earth and sentimental message than metal gear solid 2. It's setting is stellar and it's main theme godlike definitely worth a play. Other than a few areas that feel tedious and controls that aren't quite perfect this game is a fantastic stealth game and ahead of its time on the ps2.

This game is a unique and confusing game to review, a game that can be perceived as purposefully bad and a comment on society and where its heading it was incredibly thought provoking, however forcing someone to play an entire game for this message to reveal itself is too much to expect when the game plays like this, it's frustrating because it's paramount to the plot of the franchise and had the skeleton of a good sequel to mgs1 but this game is definitely the low point of the franchise, people can argue its brilliance but its a pain to play and the epilogue feels pretentious after playing a padded boring game. That being said there's some fun to be had from the normal metal gear wacky characters plot and 4th wall shattering moments.