Bloodborne

[HandsomeDead]

I got distracted by arcane items for a bit so my stats are a little more spread than ideal

 

 

Vitality? Who needs it, just don't get hit bro   😊😅  

 

I got the DLC.  Gonna work on that next.

[shinymcshine]

Here's how I look, just going into the DLC area (photo rather than screenshot, hence poor colour):

[shinymcshine]

Well, the DLC certainly wants you to fight on the front foot !!!

[one-armed dwarf]

There is irrc a blood vial farming point early in the DLC between a lantern and the first boss. Kinda like they knew, yeah you're gonna die a lot and we get it, this system sucks, so here you go.

[shinymcshine]

Yes, I was quite surprised just how many blood vials I picked up around there. I made some decent progress in the area.

 

I didn't go into the main cathedral, having cleared the stairs, but looped back through a cave/tunnel and did a bunch of exploration around there - including getting another hunter badge, chatting to an NPC, and unlocking a door back to the lantern - before falling victim to a big mortar launcher and their axe welding mate, after going down a ladder into a bloody lake area.

 

Seems pretty good so far.

 

Only thing is - how the heck are you suppose to work out how to access the DLC without looking it up online - it was a bit obscure to say the least !

[shinymcshine]

As promising as the DLV looks, it feels like it's time for me to move on.

 

So I went back to Hunters Dream and took down the old guy, so just the Moon Beast to go.

[shinymcshine]

Now it's trying to lure me back to the DLC by allowing be back into Hunter's Dream, before trying (again) to kill the Moon beast.

 

Damn, do I stay or do I go.....

[one-armed dwarf]

If you don't at least see the phase transition for the first boss of the DLC you will make me cry

[shinymcshine]

Just saw online that I can find the Whirligig Saw from the first DLC area (which should go well with my STR build), so I'm going for that at least (so will likely stay for a boss or two).

 

TBH I got a bit cheesed off with the part where:

Spoiler

You follow the bloody river, kill a few flea bugs, then enter a cave that has a hunter and a minigun, who just never seems to stop shooting, grrrrrr.

 

But I've been and got the Eye Pendant and killed the hunter for the Firing Hammer Badge, so I should at least finish this DLC area.

 

[shinymcshine]

So I'm sucked back in and sticking with the DLC - took down the first boss too - that was fun !?!?

 

Anyway got my Whirligig Sword now to +10, spent 60 Insight on a Blood Rock to get the final level, and went back and helped a couple of people kill the Cainhurst boss.

 

Now opened up a new lamp in the DLC in "The Research Hall".

[one-armed dwarf]

Some secret lore, if it's of interest

 

Spoiler

You can talk to Ludwig's head while wearing the healing church set to get secret dialogue 

 

 

Mah dude just wants some comforting words, who could tell him the truth here 😢

 

[shinymcshine]

That's pretty cool - I talked & got the first part of dialogue, but didn't change kit, so missed the second, and just stabbed him and got the pick up.

 

The NPC guy turns up there later too.

[shinymcshine]

Livings Failures - might as well be called, Living With Failure - as I consistently get them down to around 1/3 of their health left before routinely dying 🤕

 

Meanwhile I've been collecting brain fluid and now, from a further unlocked area, have Laurence's Skull....

[shinymcshine]

I went back to Hunters Dream and decided to have another go at the Moon Presence, and this time took it down pretty easily with the Whirligig Sword.

 

So credits are rolling, but WTF was that ending all about ....?

Spoiler

The Doll picks up a 'slug', says "Are you cold?" and the credits roll..... 

 

Really, is that it !?!?

 

I'm all onboard with From being a bit obscure, but didn't feel like much of 'reward' for the super special ending - unless that's locked in NG+ ?

 

Okay just noticed the description on the Trophy gives a bit more explanation:

Spoiler

Childhood's Beginning: You became an infant Great One, lifting humanity into its next childhood.

 

[one-armed dwarf]

The ending is basically all the interactions with the moon presence before and after the fight

 

Spoiler

It's supposed to absorb you into the hunter's dream and have you replace Gehrman, but you ate those cords and are becoming a higher lifeform yourself and cant be contained. Slug is stage 0 of that

 

[shinymcshine]

I went then into NG+ with 230k blood echos, but can't level up as (IIRC you need to beat Gascoigne before the doll becomes available?).

 

So I just bought 200+ Blood Vials rather than risk losing them all.

 

Had fun running through the early parts then hit that 'wtf, this game is horrible...' part that sapped my enthusiasm on my first couple of attempts - the whole scenary & camera issues with the Cleric Beast - getting killed when you're stuck on things you can't see really sucks.

 

Fortunately, there's only a few boss fights where this is problematic, and glad I finally pushed on through to actually finish the game this time around.

 

As for NG+....... well who knows ...

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Tbh, I never bother with NG+ in these. I tried it with Elden Ring, but I find the difficulty scaling completely out of whack (too easy in the beginning, but you still have a lot to catch up on to attempt later game stuff)

 

With bloodborne in particular due to its lack of respec option I just ended up doing multiple builds NG-regular as some of the weapons are too cool, the more gimmicky they are the more fun to use.

 

Also lots of lore stuff settles in on replays, rather than initial playthroughs. spoilers

 

Spoiler

The TL;DR of the story is that Byrgenwyrth discovered aliens in a tomb basically, and harvested their blood for creating miracle cures. But the blood turned everyone into beasts, and the healing church which was supposed to be about saving people from their illnesses went about killing the people they were 'saving, and burning down their homes, then also transforming themselves cause they were addicted to the blood (Ludwidg, Laurence). Some people chose the path of insight and lined their brains with eyeballs to make direct communication with the Eldritch gods, but also ended up meeting their own unique sort of bad end.

 

iirc, the themes of 'dreams' and 'nightmares' play more into the insight angle. The early half of the game is more about beasthood. Dreams and nightmares are 'real' in Bloodborne, a valid plane of existence

 

There's a whole lot more I think and the research hall in the DLC is one of the bigger exposes into the lore in the game from what I recall. The stuff after it then is a pretty interesting story, but more about giving an answer to one unanswered question from the main game

 

Spoiler

Namely, who or what the fuck is 'Kos', or 'Kosm'. They tell you at the end

 

massive spoilers for games that aren't called bloodborne, eg elden ring souls etc

 

Spoiler

Given the popularity of 'Great Ones' in all these games, from Demon's Souls onto all the other ones, it's a popular theory that all the games exist in a shared universe with cosmic entities seeking to control different lands.

 

I'm not particularly sure how Dark souls plays into that, but Demon's and elden ring definitely have it

 

[shinymcshine]

What felt odd - and maybe this is just poor recollection since it's been a while since I played the Souls games - was that I picked up / bought the Kirkhammer quite early in the Bloodborne, and it was still my weapon of choice at the end.

 

Okay, I spec'd as a STR build, but predominantly used it as a sword, and whilst I improved it considerably with the Gems, and to +10, I didn't pick up anything else that seemed any better - whereas I felt in the Souls games you tended to pick up better weapons, at times, as you progressed ?!?!?

[one-armed dwarf]

In BB it's normal enough to just use one or two weapons in a playthrough. But the weapons themselves can be so different to give another playthrough a completely different flavour

 

A particular favorite for me is the Chikage, a bloodtinge scaling sword. You lose health over time to activate its higher damage mode. Up to this point I think I was using rifle spear, which has some really unique properties for poking enemies out and an awesome secondary for blasting people with. Tho generally a lower tier sort of weapon

 

Spoiler

 

 

Chikage is cool as it sorta forces you to use guns a bit (which will scale with BT) cause of the damage over time, but I'm not very good at using it here. But the animation where you flick the sword to get the blood off and go into low damage mode is slick as hell

 

But even in Souls every single weapon is viable, you can beat the game with a +10 claymore. Even the shitty broken sword you start off with can be upgraded into Artorias' sword. It's always been the sort of way with these games, but Bloodborne makes it more apparent where they can have unique playstyles (mostly, saw cleaver and saw spear kinda overlap, as does kirkhammer and ludwigs sword in some aspects)

[shinymcshine]

Suppose this is the thing, based on my experience - you don't always need to have an optimal build with all the best equipment to beat these games - neither are they necessarily crushingly difficulty (aside from the occasional spike) a bit of tenacity and patience will usually see you though.

 

There were a few areas where I just ran/rolled to progress - and this seemed to serve a purpose - getting passed the Frenzy inducing creatures towards the end stages was just one example (in particular in the 'secret' area towards getting the Choir Bell).