yeah, i don't get it. there's a lot of sentiment that this is just as good - if not BETTER - than the fromsoft souls games, and i'm sorry but no. absolutely not. the entire thing is just a complete ripoff of souls/borne/sekiro, you got the parry, the rally, the posture, people-behind-windows, you got the step dodge, you got the victorian aesthetic, and it just continues to rip this shit off right until the credits roll, it's so insanely shameless that it becomes a bit ironic towards the end. everything that it does new (undodgeable attacks, death ergo, blade/handle, cube??, how it does weapon durability) just kind of serves either as a gimmick or as an annoyance, or both. this mishmash of various titles basically fucks the combat experience; it really feels like the game wants you to mostly be parrying things (red attacks, regenerating boss health, quick posture damage via parry, low amount of i-frames during dodges) but the window is so small that it often feels inconsistent. idk, maybe i'm just not that good or decided to parry too much, but it was more fun then watching a boss do a fifteen hit combo while i watched from across the map lol

speaking of bosses, holy shit is this game exhausting with them. basically every single boss after the midway point has two health bars, it's fucking lunacy. this should really only be a thing for like, THE most important fights in your game, and seeing the wanton use of it here kinda just goes to show how much the devs tried to take from prior games. just really exhausting boss design all around. that being said, they were pretty solid for what they were.

things i liked: generally the environmental and art was really great. no complaints there. sound design is good too, very responsive, and game feel in general is probably the closest that we've gotten to like, an actual fromsoft game, but there needs to be actual innovation in this genre, man! feels like, outside of sekiro, we've basically just gotten dark souls 3 in different flavors, and it's tiring. anyways yeah thumbs down on timothee chalamet bloodborne but it's surprisingly competent for a first effort. i would like to see them make a new game next time though