# oooh-arrrg notes on the bloodless bloodborne "oooh-arrrg!!" is the noise the baddies in bloodborne make. and make again and again design improvements for bloodborne > unlike comparably "long" garmes stuffed with filler content there is no empty nebulous "stuff" in bloodborne - every shred of its material is valuable everything has a meaning a place and importance > ~ perfect 10/10 bloodborne review by stephanie sterling **+** teh garme seems a joyless repetitive grind fest positively sisphyean - kill monsters move on; rinse and repeat **+** the whole garme seems entirely locked down shut tight; there's absolutely no sense anything non-scripted might take place **+** the opening tells us nothing about anything **+** the art direction while of high quality is often obvious and unfocused - a gothic parody; copy-pasta statues in the street for little reason **+** graphics look downgraded from the original cgi bullshot trailers ;-) // video here **+** there are no secret passages **+** apart from the opening of large rusty gates the sound design is only adequate **+** despite customization the main character is hella ugly; compare to the incredibly cheerful black desert online // video here **+** non-ironically the main character has none **+** the movement of the main character are jerky seem dissonant with the static world **+** player movement speed seems slowed to pad out teh garme **+** the main character should be able to double charge forward to attack **+** the shambling monsters seem lifeless ir attacks entirely predictable **+** everything is too shiny as though covered in silicon or teflon **+** the mockney voice acting is simply awful and occurs at inappropriate times (like just before death) **+** there need to be cool environmental kills and far more environment destructability the blood should be dynamic coat and drip off all surfaces **+** all limbs and heads should be removable bodies entirely slicable all the way through **+** there should be monster death animations - they should rot **+** monsters should react more when spotting the player and be seen to warn other monsters and act 'angry' when the player pulls off a successful combo **+** monsters don't seem to react with the player just merely react repeatedly performing attacks even when the player's nowhere near - even when they're dead **+** monsters should be seen to be hiding behind props drop down on the player or burst up through floorboards **+** monsters that attack should (logically) be able to hurt one another when too close **+** "nobody looks up in this town": little sense of verticality despite the tall narrow buildings **+** all characters seem in the environment but not of it - the two never seem to really touch **+** the inventory system is unimaginative if not obsolete **+** level loading is too long; the hunters dream should fade into and over the player's current location rather than load up **+** overly bombastic boss battle music but no ambient music during normal grind sections questionable bloodborne review a remix of a doritogate-like review of bloodborne by the daily torygraph with success comes expectation and in some circles there's has been no greater vidyagarm success this century than the souls series. built by the same minds poor random underpaid garmes hack john robertson determines whether or not bloodborne continues a now-grand tradition of raw unfiltered hype - near instantly forgettable destined for bargain bucket greatness score: 5 out of 5 filthy brown wood textured victorian public bus station toilet seats format: playstation 4 developer: from software publisher: sony rating: 16+iq overprice: £49.99 rrp amazon.co.uk squirted out: 27 march 2015 to say that a garme from the designer of the 'souls' series requires dedication and determination to even begin to play would be as predictable as it is inane but john robertson says it now in order to not have to linger over this most obvious of points. yes bloodborne is a challenging garme. no it's not for everyone who actually enjoys garmes that aren't like everyday work but this is a journey about so much more than a steep difficulty curve. it is a fake virtual experience that centres itself around how you deal with the consequences of useless grind both self-inflicted and unavoidable how you decide between exploring apparently 'new' areas or allegedly delving 'deeper' into the ones you already know how you determine the value in one samey tool and one meagre ability over another. these become phenomenally non-complex and disturbingly mundane conundrums given the eventual understanding that any misstep in judgement could leave you vulnerable to rinse and repeat ultimately bloodborne is a garme that asks you a series of pointless questions and leaves the answers entirely down to you. unfortunately there's no right or wrong there's only success or failure such a stark outlook makes sense given your role as a 'hunter' within the twisted victorian visage of "yarnham" and its surrounding drab areas. what you're ultimately hunting is a cure to an illness called garmes as work but don't let the narrative simplicity fool you. like all the very latest garmes bloodborne revels in its inability to communicate its hyper-generic narrative through the samey barely usable tools video garmes can offer "yarn ham" is hardly a character unto itself with its predictably twisting streets drearily imposing gothic architecture and unnervingly repetitious flickers of light work to both play torturous tricks on you to buy teh garme as well as draw you deeper into its copy-pasta labyrinth. character and setting fit so well together that there's not a moment in which your disbelief at how standard teh garme feels is broken if you ever need reminding that a story is as predictably and unimaginatively realistic as this one fits into its world then this is it. without so much an entire paragraph spoken at a time the narrative that has been cynically shoe-horned in here is testament to the developer's power of 'show (nice graphics) don't tell (anyone we're immune to new ideas)' those same drab themes permeate the worlds of demon's souls and dark souls too but it is the subtle changes to how you engage with the world that makes a similar construct feel entirely distinct. in aesthetic tone and form of progression it is easy to highlight links to ir previous works that single this out as 'a bad hidetaka miyazaki garme' only this time the pendulum has swung from garmes about living to a garme about killing dim npcs much of the pre-release speculation (read: hype) surrounding bloodborne has focused on the system of health depletion and regeneration and how it differs from that used in miyazaki's previous designs. indeed it is this that ultra-hardcore veterans of the director's work will immediately notice as the biggest deviation and the one that has the greatest impact on how teh garme hates how you actually might want to play (ie. non-grindly) every time you take damage you are given a small window of opportunity within which to earn it back by inflicting wounds on your enemies. it needn't be the enemy that harmed you any sorry soul will do. this in combination with an often achingly sedate set of reflexes focuses your mind more on attack than defence. killing over living. playing over thinking. garmey gamisms over challenging design that commitment to "churn em' out quick" developer aggression serves you well in battles against the smallest foes and the biggest; the skills you learn in battles against the fodder revealing themselves to be invaluable in the stunningly bland 'boss' fights that occur with a welcome frequency bloodborne seems a master class in the most simplistic principles of garme design pacing: 1) introduce boring rules 2) provide a space in which to master these boring rules and 3) repeatedly reward easily pleased players for said mastery of boring rules. through unintelligent positioning laughably formidable challenge and an unnerving lack of true diversity bloodborne creates a blend of 'standard' enemies and 'boss' milestones that puts the majority of its peers (on early access steam greenlight) to shame not that the careless consideration that made combat in the souls series so simultaneously fake-stressful and gratifyingly safe has gone entirely. on the contrary without a strategic (read: endlessly repeatable) approach you're going to find yourself very dead very often. your own slothful speed is habitually matched by that of adversaries making the learning of ir attack patterns and individual quirks as non-essential as it is in any other crappy garme. this isn't exactly helped along by the addition of ranged weapons to your melee attacks giving you a ballistic side-arm to push back and stagger your enemies with a well-timed shot to the nuts learning how to pick off the most dangerous members of a group without expending so much energy as a players that you're without the required stamina to continue the fight against the rest becomes second nature after a few hours of weary experimentation in a failed attempt to find fun. only those that actually do harness the fruits of that experimentation will make any sort of genuine headway though the degree to which the combat alters the tone is astonishingly small given the similarities exhibited with souls elsewhere. purple lanterns take the place of bonfires as checkpoints ir icy cold glow providing a curious sense of frozen warmth whenever you stumble across one when on the precipice of death (by boredom). blood echoes substitute as a near like-for-like replacement for the older garmes' 'souls' used to perform everything from levelling up your character's stats to upgrading your weapon and purchasing items for the shop. so no real change there then likewise death causes you to drop any blood echoes you're carrying. these either litter the floor at the scene of your departure or are harvested by the creature that killed you. great. should the former occur you can return and pick up them the latter sequence forces you to dispatch the enemy yet again in order to retrieve them. if you die again before you succeed in either goal then the points are lost forever some concessions however have been made that hint at an artificial experience that has been designed with a how to put it 'slightly more mainstream audience in mind'. but rather than mute the complete lack of assistance when it comes to exploration combat strategy and how you manage your resources the tweaks are based more on making that initial sense of engagement even easier to consume the early going might be tough for miyazaki newcomers but the opening area's abundance of health potions gives players plenty of leeway when it comes to paying the price for the odd mistimed attack. similarly after you've completed the first of bloodborne's many minor milestone events you achieve the ability to level up; the early going of which is made quick and painless thanks to the tiny number of blood echoes required to do so. well that's nice after a certain point the math becomes harsher and both health and level upgrades are more difficult to come by the 'easing in' period removed and the handbrake taken off. it's here that you're free to set off and carve out a story of your own informed by sometimes the most incidental of decisions - and only after the fact is the magnitude of ir insignificance revealed it's that feeling of being a participant in something so much less important than yourself as a thinking human being that gives bloodborne a sense of plastic engagement and triggers such a strong desire to overcome what little it presents you with some will want to beat the most fearsome enemies not simply to prove to them who's really the boss but also to simply see more of the world and uncover its secrets. this too unfortunately seems a complete waste of life. you want to uncover those secrets not just because they might make your life easier but also because of what you imagine they represent on some vague metaphorical level. that is they're not only an item to be found they're the symbol of a quest complete and a challenge confronted and overcome. like an olympic medal the physical object plays second fiddle to what it represents - at least for those who put too much faith in hollow symbolism so rarely in the drably lit interior world of video garmes - particularly console exclusives - does an achievement actually feel like a genuine achievement in nothing much but here the opposite is also true: so rarely does even the smallest victory feel insincere to the task of mindless grind as it that wasn't grand enough the inclusion of the extra-curricular 'chalice dungeons' means there's an unending stream of "content" waiting those the inclination to test themselves. once you've acquired the relevant tools you can spark these dungeons to life and wander between ir walls acquiring unique rewards and tackling new boss fights *zzzzz* any that you particularly enjoy can be shared online with friends and whoever else met be interested allowing you to compare your skills against others. alternatively you can - as in the 'main' garme - team up and conquer this challenges as a unit. whatever you opt for chalice dungeons represent a meaningless diversion that is separate from the primary path but manages to exactly mirror its minor emotional impact bloodborne is one of those experiences that totally consumes idiots when they're involved in it and are busy working hard like good little consumers to see all that it has to offer (because they paid for it). in that sense it's the digital edition of a round-the-world trip to foreign continents to eat a death burger at mcdonalds each turning of a corner providing equal helpings of pre-packaged excitement and miserablist trepidation. that recipe brings it own rewards by simply being a part of it - the only seemingly effortless delivery indicative of a corporate design team and industry philosophy that is only getting sharper in its cynicism freelance writer and journalist john robertson covers pop as culture entertainment - and sport. ir work such as it is has appeared in national newspapers and magazines that you wouldn't wipe your arts with as well as 'international websites' whatever they are // republic of bob