[SearchOfSub]

Is Bloodborne fun to play? I bought the game like months ago and haven't really got around to playing it. Too busy playing COD AW.

 

[orangekiwii]

It's not unfun. It's not as difficult as people make it out to be and it's quite satisfying when you beat a boss when you only have a sliver of health.  Unfortunately, the game is almost entirely grey and thus dreary so it's not exactly pleasant to look at and the moment to gameplay, while entertaining, is marred by exceptionally poor camera control, terrible hitboxes, and you being super overpowered. The amount of stamina you have is absolutely disproportionate compared to dark souls leaving you able to run around like a headless chicken. The immediately unlocked weapon variety leads to a stunning lack of progression (at least in feel) and disincentivizes exploring.
 
It's stlll good and is probably worth your time but I liked dark sousl 2 more than bloodborne (so far) which is a heretical opinion in gamer circles.

 

[SearchOfSub]

It's not unfun. It's not as difficult as people make it out to be and it's quite satisfying when you beat a boss when you only have a sliver of health.  Unfortunately, the game is almost entirely grey and thus dreary so it's not exactly pleasant to look at and the moment to gameplay, while entertaining, is marred by exceptionally poor camera control, terrible hitboxes, and you being super overpowered. The amount of stamina you have is absolutely disproportionate compared to dark souls leaving you able to run around like a headless chicken. The immediately unlocked weapon variety leads to a stunning lack of progression (at least in feel) and disincentivizes exploring.

It's stlll good and is probably worth your time but I liked dark sousl 2 more than bloodborne (so far) which is a heretical opinion in gamer circles.

Dark souls 3 coming out soon!

 

[AAJoe]

I can't wait for DS3 I put exactly (according to Steam) 100 hours into DS2 vanilla. Great-club all the way baby!

 

[FlyingFungus]

I enjoyed Dark Souls 1 and 2, but just could not enjoy Bloodborne. I'll give it another chance but I had a hard time enjoying it.

 

[435090]

Agreed. 1 and 2 were fun and somehow Bloodborne just lost the magic for me. 

 

[AAJoe]

Despite the launch day bugs with DS3, I've really been enjoying it.
 
I had to rage quit of course last night... just died one too many times. Ugh. Actually writing a review of the game now, summary is basically if you liked DS1 & 2, 3 will meet your expectations.
 
-Joe

 

[SearchOfSub]

Despite the launch day bugs with DS3, I've really been enjoying it.

I had to rage quit of course last night... just died one too many times. Ugh. Actually writing a review of the game now, summary is basically if you liked DS1 & 2, 3 will meet your expectations.

-Joe

Hahaha LOL. Picking mine up this weekend. Can't wait to play it. Please do post your review of the game here or on a DS3 thread - I'll enjoy reading it! How are the graphics btw?

 

[AAJoe]

Graphics are great, but a lot of people (myself included) run into brief stuttering problems. So far its only caused 1 death, which luckily for me was literally one room from a bonfire, but it is a bit annoying. Hopefully they'll get that fixed pretty soon. Otherwise the graphics look sharp and the game is stable for me.
 
I'm not supposed to post links to our site (since I work with ModMic) - but here's a repost of what I wrote.
 
“I threw my controller under the backdrop of a string of profanity that peeled paint off the wall.”

If a game that makes you do that sounds fun to you, read on. If not, Dark Souls is not going to be your game. The Dark Souls franchise prides itself on being HARD, and I love it. Before we dive too far into what #3 has to offer, I want to touch on what a hard game means.

This is me. I'm a pale-white assassin with a katana. Badass, right?​

See, our resident MOBA fiend, James, will tell you that Dark Souls is hard just to be hard. I disagree wholeheartedly. If you take a game like Impossible Mario, then I would agree. It’s hard just for the sake of being hard. When you die in Impossible Mario it is likely simply because something you never could have predicted happened, and the only way to progress is to memorize all these unpredictable things and make one step forward with each death.

Dark Souls, on the otherhand, punishes you for making mistakes. Enemies telecast what they’re going to do, it’s almost always pretty clear, but the decision on how you should react and then actually PRESSING the damn button at the right moment… that’s where you fail. And when you fail (and you WILL fail), you fail because you dodged the wrong way, at the wrong time, or didn’t dodge at all. You fail because you didn’t watch your stamina meter, and yes, sometimes, you die because you haven’t yet learned the patterns. Most of the time, however, your death is all on your personal inability to get it right.

This is a boss. An easy one. My katana still seem badass to you? Didn't think so.​

Dark Souls 3 is pretty close to Dark Souls 2 so far. I’ve only put about 5 hours in, but suffice to say the mechanics are more or less the same. Dark Souls revolves around three simple skills:

1. Timing your defense
2. Timing your attack
3. Learning the patterns/locations of enemies

Each enemy has a variety of attacks at its disposal. It telegraphs what it’s about to do a split second before it makes a move, and it’s your job as the player to decide in that split second the best action. Defense actions include things like backstepping, rolling, parrying, blocking, simply walking away, and the ever popular RUNNING away. Taking damage is severe, even a one-hit kill enemy will take about ¼ of your health off you. Every mistake you make costs you, not a death by inches, but a death by feet.

Similar to each enemy's attack, you too must time your attacks appropriately. Stick around smashing your sword/mace/dagger/club/fists/spells into your enemy for too long and they’ll recover and clobber you. A skilled player can even interrupt enemies between their swings with a well timed attack, turning their offense into defense.

Finally, there’s a skill to Dark Souls in simply staying alive when you explore new areas or encounter new bosses. Running around and dodging until you understand how they attack, how they move, and where their openings are is an essential skill.

So, how does Dark Souls 3 stack up? So far so good. There appears to be a lot more exploration paths to take than in 2, which lets you wander around the creepy world and see all the crap that is wrong with your afterlife. Oh yeah, you’re dead, that’s part of the story, which is incredibly confusing and I don’t want to get too far into it… but you’re dead and the afterlife sucks even more than your life apparently did.. But what can you do? It’s not like you can die again… well… not exactly.

Combat is about the same as in 2, but there are far more enemies that use “player” style abilities. I was incredibly surprised to find, in the first area, an enemy that parried my attack and did a finishing move. Swinging wildly? Apparently not a good idea!

There's a fair amount of playing dress-up. I knew I'd never look as cool as the boss, so Pajamurai anyone? ​

As I am only 5 hours in I can’t say much for the mid-end game, but the intro has been a sufficient reminder of why I love a game that makes me physically angry. My dogs, however, hate Dark Souls. With every death, every string of profanity, and every loud bang produced by the stomping of my extremities on various surfaces around me sends them into a frenzy of either attempting to protect me or running for their lives.

My verdict on first impression:

9/10 for masochistic humans.

-1/10 for dogs.

 

[kova4a]

There are way more annoying enemies than the dogs lol. I've finished a bit over half of the game and so far it is solid. I did run into the bonfire bug, so I'm avoiding shields and shinier armor and weapons but overall the game runs fluid and I don't have stuttering issues

 

[AAJoe]

  There are way more annoying enemies than the dogs lol. I've finished a bit over half of the game and so far it is solid. I did run into the bonfire bug, so I'm avoiding shields and shinier armor and weapons but overall the game runs fluid and I don't have stuttering issues

Haha it was -1/10 for MY personal dogs. In game dogs are cake! Though I like that they get a little harder later on
 
-Joe

 

[Nycalex]

i found bloodborne to be quite fun and challenging. never finished it tho, i can only play 1-2 hours a day, so dying over and over, analizing monsters moves and bosses moves is impossible for me. i did managed to beat Rom the spider. stopped after, maybe i should revisit if i ever get enough free time.
 
never played the dark souls franchise before, i was too deep into MOBAS.
 
I tried dark souls 3, and boy this is 10x harder than bloodborne. in the first 2 locations alone i died 5 times. memorizing all of the monsters animations = not fun. maybe if i was still in college i would have enjoyed this challenge.

 

[AAJoe]

The only advice I have is once you're out of the first area and into the Temple you can place summon stones to summon someone to help you fight a boss. If you're not interested in the solo challenge, its a good way to have a lot of fun.
 
For some reason the devs of Darksouls think "not labeling what things do clearly" is part of the adventure. That part I never understood.
 
-Joe

 

[tdockweiler]

I'm liking this game a lot more lately. I beat the first boss on the 2nd try and the Blood Starved Beast (3rd boss) on the first try somehow.
I cheated on Father Gascoigne though, but should not have done this.
 
I spent my time on leveling up and keeping my weapon upgraded. It seems to help a lot. My armor though is probably outdated and a set I found in the first sewer.
 
I was pretty terrible at first, but now i'm getting a lot better. It takes a few tries to finish each level. At no point have I thought each level was too hard (yet).
Old Yharnam had the perfect level of difficulty. I died a couple of times in the room with about 6-8 different enemies because I "aggroed" them all at once.
 
I do think this game is actually harder than Dark Souls 1. Dark Souls 1 probably has harder bosses, but this games levels have given me more trouble.
 
Dark Souls 3 felt harder than both and I only got to the 2nd level!
 
Anyway, right now i'm on my way to Hemwick Charnel Lane. I'm really not looking forward to visiting Yahar'Gul Unseen Village. It looks like it's probably going to be the toughest required level yet.
 
BTW it's hard to believe people call this game easy!

 

[hylas512]

My experience with the series was 2 hours of Demons Souls and then rage quitting for 5 years. Then I played Dark Souls 3 for about a month sporadically whenever I was at my friend's house. It was slow, methodical, and difficult. Then I played many hours of Demons Souls (it was slow going, that game is hard). Then I got Bloodborne and played it for a week straight murdering everything and defeating most bosses on the 1st or 2nd try. However after not playing the game for a couple months, I haven't been able to "get back into the groove", so now I get killed by random enemies and can't progress. The things we do for fun.