I actually managed to get platinum on it around a month and a half ago, finally. Very satisfying.

I definitely prefer it over the Dark Souls games. The lore is more interesting, the weapons are fun and unique, and the emphasis on dodging instead of blocking makes for much more intense gameplay.

darthnazgul wrote:The lore is more interesting, the weapons are fun and unique, and the emphasis on dodging instead of blocking makes for much more intense gameplay.

I completely understand why you'd prefer it but I'm not so sure about the bolded part. Everything else yes but I'm pretty familiar with both games' lore.

I think that as a singular game Bloodborne may be the most interesting lore-wise but volume and overall implications it's not that close really. Dark Souls lore occurs basically over the span of at least 3 games. It's incredibly deep, complex, and both emotionally and intellectually satisfying with a fantastic payoff in DS3 with the added expansions. But yeah Bloodborne takes the crown when it comes to comparing game vs game.

The thing is tho, is it even comparable really given the way the lore is treated in Bloodborne? I mean it is more streamlined, there's a lot more talky talky and stuff. Dark Souls is all about exploration. The lore itself is a game within a game. Most people say that the lore in Bloodborne is something that most players would understand through the first run. Dark Souls requires several runs and tens of hours of putting things together. And if you don't have the time then you'd better be subscribed to them Dark Souls Lore overlords otherwise you're fucked. Nothing beats the Dark Souls experience personally.

RIFA wrote:

darthnazgul wrote:The lore is more interesting, the weapons are fun and unique, and the emphasis on dodging instead of blocking makes for much more intense gameplay.

I completely understand why you'd prefer it but I'm not so sure about the bolded part. Everything else yes but I'm pretty familiar with both games' lore.

I think that as a singular game Bloodborne may be the most interesting lore-wise but volume and overall implications it's not that close really. Dark Souls lore occurs basically over the span of at least 3 games. It's incredibly deep, complex, and both emotionally and intellectually satisfying with a fantastic payoff in DS3 with the added expansions. But yeah Bloodborne takes the crown when it comes to comparing game vs game.

The thing is tho, is it even comparable really given the way the lore is treated in Bloodborne? I mean it is more streamlined, there's a lot more talky talky and stuff. Dark Souls is all about exploration. The lore itself is a game within a game. Most people say that the lore in Bloodborne is something that most players would understand through the first run. Dark Souls requires several runs and tens of hours of putting things together. And if you don't have the time then you'd better be subscribed to them Dark Souls Lore overlords otherwise you're fucked. Nothing beats the Dark Souls experience personally.

What I mean is that the lore feels more. . . centralised? Like every story detail has a purpose, while Dark Souls can sometimes feel like a bit of a checklist of fantasy tropes, with not much care given as to what purpose they serve in the grand scheme of things (this isn't the case for everything in Dark Souls lore, of course. It just feels this way with several aspects). In Bloodborne, the hunters play a role, the Yharnamites play a role, the Pthumerians play a role, etc. Every key player the game brings up is important. And it does all this (making everything important, centralising the themes and lore) brilliantly despite a huge reveal that turns everything about the world on its head. It blends the Stoker and Lovecraftian inspirations flawlessly.

While it is true that Bloodborne has but one installment to Dark Souls' three, I feel like Bloodborne accomplishes a bit more than what Dark Souls 1 did by itself, which is a more balanced comparison.

A lot of that does have to do with how played out some of the plot and setting elements are in Dark Souls, which is more the fault of the genre being overplayed than the game itself. Bloodborne's on the other hand is a much rarer breed of world, especially in AAA games. And it's just my cup of tea.

I like Bloodborne way more. At least I beat the damn thing. Twice actually. My copy of Dark Souls III has been collecting dust for nearly a year. It's awesome, but way too punishing and not interesting enough (story wise) for me to push through the punishment. Bloodborne I gladly took the beatings because I could not put the controller down simply because; STORY.

I am definitely going to play Dark Souls III after this, but I know for a fact that Bloodborne's lore will always be more interesting to me since it's so clearly The Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories by Lovercraft and it just might be the perfect way to actually feel like you're fighting against The Old Ones without the official copyright approval. None of the first person detective horror games will give me that (looking at you, upcoming Cthulhu game).

To make an MTG analogy - it's like Shadows over Innistrad/Eldritch Moon brought to life, sans my bae Liliana, and that's a matter of preference - do you like old school Poe/Lovercaft/Barker type of gothic horror or medieval, more fantasy based horror? Both have superb snippets of lore, mind you, it's just a matter of the setting you prefer more.

Anyway, I've heard From Software is abandoning the formula and doing Mayan/Aztec fighter (like, literally, martial arts fighter) instead? Just imagine the lore possibilities there.

darthnazgul wrote:What I mean is that the lore feels more. . . centralised?

Well it is because the lore doesn't occur over the span of 3 games. It's also a smaller story in terms of size like I said than Dark Souls. Even when you compare singular games. The scope and implications are higher in Dark Souls. Except there's less instant detail and gratification.

darthnazgul wrote:Like every story detail has a purpose, while Dark Souls can sometimes feel like a bit of a checklist of fantasy tropes, with not much care given as to what purpose they serve in the grand scheme of things. In Bloodborne, the hunters play a role, the Yharnamites play a role, the Pthumerians play a role, etc. Every key player the game brings up is important.

This is something I disagree with as everything in Dark Souls is extremely well interconnected and that is a direct result of the care that was given to each and every single plot point no matter how small it may seem to be. Everyone is a key player. The problem that I think you're having with Dark Souls lore is how vast it actually is. And because of that it may seem like it's decentralized and that not everything matters in the grand scheme of things. But like I said, given it's size and how well everything fits together I'd say it's even more impressive what it managed to achieved with it's lore.

darthnazgul wrote:While it is true that Bloodborne has but one installment to Dark Souls' three, I feel like Bloodborne accomplishes a bit more than what Dark Souls 1 did by itself, which is a more balanced comparison.

Like I said I think it's hard to compare. I think you're mixing a bit story with lore the way you're describing things because It accomplishes more when you think of traditional storytelling. However, when it comes to the mix of storytelling tropes and lore, Dark Souls accomplished way more as that's how it pretty much built it's legacy. I guarantee you that without the fantastic lore and ambiguous storytelling method from the first game, Dark Souls wouldn't be where it is right now. And you probably wouldn't even have Bloodborne today.

darthnazgul wrote:A lot of that does have to do with how played out some of the plot and setting elements are in Dark Souls, which is more the fault of the genre being overplayed than the game itself. Bloodborne's on the other hand is a much rarer breed of world, especially in AAA games.

It has always been the opposite tho. DS is seen as this rare breed that gave birth to these games and that Bloodborne is the more AAA-tuned title.

darthnazgul wrote:And it's just my cup of tea.

I totally agree with this. Don't get me wrong. I don't argue why you like Bloodborne more. I totally understand that because I see it's strengths in comparison to DS and it's bigger appeal. What I'm arguing tho is what you say directly about Dark Souls.

But I find this discussion to be actually proof that talking about DS with people that were never really into it or Bloodborne was their first DS-like experience is a very difficult thing because they don't quite see the scale of it, the implications, the legacy and the effect that DS games had over the industry. Because Bloodborne is the game that is easier to get into and digest and it's also the more entertaining game in terms of pure mechanics so it's very rare for a Bloodborne initiate to actually fully understand what Dark Souls is.

It's interesting because this is what gave birth to all these nonsensical fanboy wars between Bloodborne and Dark Souls purists. And I guess all franchises have that one game that has the ability to split the community simply because they appeal more to a different crowd. Call of Duty comes to mind. Even Half Life when you think about it. There's a lot of HL and HL2 purists which don't get a long at all. It's fascinating to me. But back to my point, Dark Souls is a lot of the things you say it isn't. So I think that saying it's not your cup of tea is the safer approach. Because while Bloodborne does do a couple of things better than Dark Souls and approaches certain elements in a more appealing way, when it comes to storytelling and lore... that's a tough argument to be had, especially when it's against Dark Souls.

The thing is tho, is it even comparable really given the way the lore is treated in Bloodborne? I mean it is more streamlined, there's a lot more talky talky and stuff. Dark Souls is all about exploration. The lore itself is a game within a game. Most people say that the lore in Bloodborne is something that most players would understand through the first run. Dark Souls requires several runs and tens of hours of putting things together. And if you don't have the time then you'd better be subscribed to them Dark Souls Lore overlords otherwise you're fucked. Nothing beats the Dark Souls experience personally.

Well I've recently started to think of DS as a test of will and BB as a test of sanity and I've started to much prefer the latter. Because it's more fully-blown RPG DS creates all this work for you, which is meaningful, but ultimately also distracts from its core meaning and is in the end the definition of mainstream considering "Hardcore" is no longer a niche after DS. Mostly though I'm becoming less and less impressed with how it explores existentialism through action. It's obsessed with it, even to the point of letting you to have to work so much to construct the plot, which is great in some ways and I've appreciated it, but I feel like Bloodborne is the "next-step"/evolution in the sense that it's less about "the perpetual journey" (like DS) and more about having just arrived at the horrifying realization about what the world really is. I think there's two ways to transcend a medium, one being to embrace it and the other to go against it and Bloodborne does a little bit of the latter. It engages me less as a player and more as a human being and in that sense it's a point of maturing for the studio, whereas the DS series are its violent but brilliant youth. And it reminds me of what David Foster Wallace says about honest irony in how BB kinda combines traditional and postmodern in a way that makes it feel like a return to what's important.

It has always been the opposite tho. DS is seen as this rare breed that gave birth to these games and that Bloodborne is the more AAA-tuned title.

You completely changed what he was saying there, he said Bloodborne's world is rare in terms of how more common medieval fantasy is compared to eldritch gothic horror, not necessarily the game overall.

Prince have you played it? Lemme check your trophies.

obv

prince0gotham wrote:obv

Marry me.

Or, alternatively, let's talk about blood-lore sometimes.