Dice Goblin

I want to talk about Bloodborne.

I’ve already been talking about Bloodborne mostly on BlueSky, and to most people in my social circle in real life over the past couple of weeks. But I want to talk about Bloodborne here as well. Not because I’m some great essayist, but just for posterity.

Bona Fides

I played Dark Souls 1 on PC when it came out for that platform and got stuck in Anor Londo. I played Dark Souls 2 on PC and think I got stuck at some Dragon Peak or something.

I devoured Dark Souls 3 during COVID, but never finished the DLC. I had great fun in Sekiro (up until the Owl). And then came Elden Ring, and I of course, I became obsessed, but currently my character is still frozen in place, waiting for me to return to finally beat the final boss of the DLC.

I suppose I mention this just to establish my credentials, not that I necessarily feel the need to, and maybe to also contextualize the game design that I tend to do. After all, my first real game release is named after actions so often done in From Software games.

And then there’s Bloodborne. I bought it in what must have been 2017, and it was the first game I got with my PlayStation 4. This was before I was playing Dark Souls 3 and really biting into a From Software game properly, and I remember getting stuck somewhere around the Blood-Starved Beast.

The game didn’t really click. The things it asked of me felt alien, and I also somehow remember the frame rate really struggling with these big flailing beasts at times.

I did consider giving Bloodborne a try again last year, maybe for Halloween, but my PlayStation 4 has long since been moved to a storage box somewhere in my house, and I didn’t feel like digging it up. The lore and atmosphere, however, also always left an impression on me. I am, not surprisingly, an avid consumer of very long video essays on video games I’ve never played, so I am quite familiar with the lore, or at least I thought I was.

The Call of the Blood

All of that would have meant that I would never really play Bloodborne. I was excited about the potential of a PC release, but that never happened – until it sort of did. A recent TikTok about the progress being made on emulation and running games natively on your PC caught my eye. Before I knew it, I had Bloodborne running at a slick 60 frames per second on my PC.

And there I was, back in Yharnam. I didn’t set out with any lofty goals, mostly just to give the game a try. I think it was around the cleric beast that I already noticed a bit of a difference. Everything seemed to click more, and I think this is in large part thanks to the increased frame rate.

I was having fun, and everything was going smoothly. I did keep a tab open to sometimes look up tips for where to go next, but beyond that, I was having the time of my life.

The flow of the game just seemed to work now. I felt that my skill and stats were generally in sync with what the game was expecting at any given point. This was put to the test when I faced the Blood-Starved Beast, which I wasn’t able to defeat in my previous run. Lo and behold, I didn’t have too many issues.

Eyes Yet To Open

I started playing Bloodborne at an interesting point in my life. I’m about to move to a new city, and I’ve lived in my current house for almost 8 years. As I progressed in the game, sitting between piles of stuff yet to pack and towers of already packed boxes, I figured it’d be fun to try and finish this game now before my move. I got Bloodborne before I moved to this house, and I didn’t touch the game for the whole duration of it. For some reason, the idea of picking a From Software-shaped challenge at a time when I would be under a bit more stress than normal felt fitting.

From Software games tend to have themes of letting go and moving on. These are themes I’ve always resonated with quite a bit: the acceptance that change is eternal. It may have been more thematically suiting to play Dark Souls 3 again, but beggars can’t be choosers.

We still have themes to pick from. Transformation, stepping into the unknown. How new perspectives can change your view on the world. And my progress was still going smoothly, as my home slowly started to degrade back into ‘just a building’.

Okay, A Little Bit About TTRPGs

Playing Bloodborne, of course, also inspired me to make a Bloodborne-inspired hack, because, of course, it did. Blood, Dodge, Rally became both what I consider to be a top-tier pun and a pretty nifty hack of Cairn/Block, Dodge, Parry combat.

The Wall

I beat the final boss of the base game and quickly exited to the main menu before I would defeat the final final boss. I then decided to give the DLC a try before I’d be forced into New Game+.

From Software DLCs tend to be pretty caliente in terms of difficulty, but still, I was progressing smoothly and having a good time. All of that until I reached the Orphan of Kos.

Oh boy. The Orphan of Kos.

In my first couple of tries, I actually came very close by focusing purely on parrying, but after that, I lost my groove, and the attempts piled up. 5, 10, 20.

Meanwhile, on the moving houses front, there were a couple of last-minute bumps on the road, but somehow it all came together. I would have stressful calls during the day with realtors and house-related issues, but then in the evening, I would go back to this challenge I picked. It was fair and telegraphed, and all I had to do was git gud.

It wasn’t fun all the time, of course. Especially during the tries where I would mess up and near-instantly get punished, the slow drain of resources also became annoying. That forced me to do farming routes just to get enough healing supplies and ammunition.

But then, somehow, it clicked, and I could feel the difference. I felt relatively in control. I could read the moves as they were coming, and I knew what was in my toolbox to either avoid or counter them. If I messed up, it was often due to making the wrong split-second decision, but I knew what to do next. I knew I could just walk under his big leap attack and then hit him with a good ol’ charged R2 + Visceral Attack right on the behind.

My Dear Nemesis

Me and that Orphan, we became dancers.

I don’t really remember having quite this experience in other From Software games. Sekiro also requires very precise inputs and has some absolutely amazing duels, but I think it’s the relative lack in combat expression that makes that experience feel a bit more narrow. Elden Ring, meanwhile, has to account for so many different playstyles. As a result, it’s rare to find a boss that really clicks with both the options available to you in your current build and the boss as an opponent.

With the Orphan, however, I feel like it clicked. That is almost the sour part. The moment I truly understood him and truly mastered it, I defeated him. I was jubilant, my hands were trembling, and my heart rate was high, but I recall right then and there almost being disappointed that the fight was over already. Practically speaking, I would not have enjoyed it if it lasted 5 minutes more or anything like that, but it was such a good foil. In a way, it was such a good distraction to focus on, and now he was gone.

The Waking World

So yeah, it’s a weird feeling. I enjoyed a couple of nights that I was really dedicated to this. I would give it a couple of tries, get slightly frustrated, close the game, and then, in half an hour, try again. And now I don’t have him to fight anymore. My cute little screeching baby bean 🙁

I don’t know what my point is with all this. Maybe there’s some line here: to fully understand something is to also understand what it means to you when it’s gone, and there’s cruelty in that. Or maybe that’s just being really pretentious. Then again, it’s a From Software game, so I guess I’m allowed a little leeway on that front.

For now, I think I’m done with Yharnam. I might play it again next year with Halloween. In my new home.