On the Rally system: the length of time you have to regain health is different for each enemy or even which attack the enemy uses; and the amount of health regained per hit is different for every weapon. In classic fromsoft fashion, this is never explained.
I do wonder if you will eventually cover DS2 and Demon's Souls, as both games have notable impact on Dark Souls 3's gameplay and even level design. Irithyll Dungeon is a rendition of 3-1 from Demon's, the upgrade system is taken directly from Dark Souls 2, the FP system returns from Demon's Souls, and moments like Siegward helping you fight Yhorm or the final runback to the Princes are direct references to moments and storylines from Demon's Souls, such as Biorr of the Twin Fangs helping with Penetrator, (you also have to free both of them from a prison cell earlier in the level, and both of them fight with you out of a sense of duty to the boss, with the Storm Ruler being directly lifted from Demon's Souls) the Morion Blade, Karla the Witch being a clear reference to Yuria the Witch while another character shares that name, both teaching darker arts to the player, etc. Not to mention, if this is going to be an analysis of the series in whole with Elden Ring being the notable conclusion of the series, Dark Souls 2 most notably shows major influence over Elden Ring, to the point of Elden Ring being widely considered the game Dark Souls II could have been given more development time and a better development cycle, with the co-director of Elden Ring being the main director of 2, Yui Tanimura, who saved 2 from near cancellation. Miyazaki has also noted that he believes Dark Souls 2 to be of utmost importance when it comes to the development of these games, even regarding it as a major success and pivotal point for the franchise.
There is something I would add to your discussion of The Nightmare Frontier. I played this game as a 1st time Souls player, never opening my online gate to invasions. I wanted to play it SP only. In the Nightmare Frontier, you can be invaded by other, experienced players who are Immune to the Frenzy beam and who the enemies ignore... regardless of your gate settings, so long as you're online. So you, as a new player, have to deal with getting ganked by FromSoft fanboys while you're trying to dodge what's essentially an Insta-kill AND the Spider mini-boss. I didn't need a reason to hate Souls players, but the Nightmare Frontier sure gave me one. I had to completely go offline to clear it
Dude I love listening to your Dark Souls 1 video when I’m laying down at night to go to sleep. This is gonna be my new night time relaxation listen. Thanks for this one my dude, you’re the man 🫡👌
Literally discovered the Dark Souls critique you did about 4 days ago, and was disappointed when I saw how new the series was and we only had one video so far. I’m getting in on the ground level, which is rare! Didn’t expect to see this so soon after I watched that one. This is a nice surprise!
I think there’s an argument to be made that there isn’t enough farming in the game; or rather that farming isn’t integrated well enough into core gameplay. One of first things Gehrman says to you is to go out and kill some beasts, yet hunting for resources to make yourself more powerful is never really incentivized. The only time the player normally “farms” is as a punishment I.e a boring grind to restock your consumables. Runes and blood gems can be wildly powerful, yet acquiring them is relegated to side content, with the strongest being in chalice dungeons. The dungeons are already a great source of excess vials; if they were better integrated into the main story “grinding” for vials/echoes/whatever would be viewed a lot less painfully, since it would be something the player already does to grow.
As usual, an incredible video! I only wish the shields were touched on, but then you'd have to talk about all the weapons. Taught me a bit I didn't know after these 8 years playing it, like how that one door opens after beating Blood-Starved Beast. Seems like the main path through the game was very bizarrely put together, DLC too. Also the fact that you can get much better runes in the dungeons. Might do that next time. You've laid out these ideas and critiques clearly, concisely, and very well. May your views be many and your Holidays be Merry, and may there be a DS3 stream at 3K! ("Or something" -White Mask Varre)
Thank you so much. I wanted to do a bit with shields and talk about the Hbomberguy video in the process. Instead I decided to skip over shields as it's a pretty useless topic and the Hbomb video was much better suited for the supercut of him saying "Play the game wrong" because it's such a stupid statement.
@@Lycan072 That reminds me. I thought the humor worked very well. I think all the jokes landed, if not with an out loud laugh then intellectually (with my brain).
str builds have weaker visceral attacks because str weapons are stronger in general. Game is much easier with starter Axe, you don't even have to parry or backstab.
I think that may be true if you look at raw damage numbers, but that isn't the case when looking at everything regarding weapons. The saw spear is the best weapon in the game. It has a great moveset, fast attacks, serrated bonus, and scales off of skill.
@@SiyamthandaQwabe-or7erare you talking about DS2? Or DS2 SotFS? I only played the former and enjoyed it well enough, but I heard SotFS made enemy ganking worse. I will say, DS2 has elements of online play that I really wish were in other souls games (small white soapstone was genius) and I loved that Elden ring brought back powerstance from DS2
@@Scowleasy every second of worthless video essayist preamble reduces my life expectancy. I wouldn't do that to my audience. You guys deserve better lmao
So funny enough +scaling gems can affect your visceral damage, but from a critique perspective this unfortunately 1. This is never explained anywhere and 2. +scaling gems are so unbalanced that heavy (+str) gems are pretty much always better.
LMAO. Unfortunately DS2 SOTFS also has 8 directional snap points when moving too. This is even further exacerbated by sprinting. I know this is a meme but, in all seriousness, DS2 has even worse movement than DS1. Bloodborne was the first smooth game in terms of movement.
Seeing as the camera is still terrible and the dodgeroll is worse than the quicksteps and parrying still requires lock on. No i don't think kbm would solve much. The only thing that'd solve would be easier aiming for attacks.
I really want to write a full proper response to some of your points since I feel there is room for meaningful conversation about some aspects of the game (namely the Camera in the base game) as the fixes may not be as simple as anyone wants. However, I want to offer one small correction to the Chalice Dungeons themselves. Modded Dungeons, if made public (which you can do when you create the dungeon) means they actually become part of the randomly generated dungeon pool since the game does allow for your game to pull in publically available dungeons before attempting to randomly generate them. I haven't run into the legendary cummmfpk chalice but I have run into two specific modded dungeons: the unfinished OG Moon Presence fight and a bizarre Phumera chalice dungeon with the Iz chalice tile set that was much much MUCH harder than should've been accessible when you first get the dang thing. In a way, that makes the Chalice Dungeons much worse since such Modded dungeons can introduce large issues into a player's experiences
I disagree with your assessment of ludwigs first phase, the attack where he jumps into the air and crashes back down can be avoided very easily by sprinting in one direction, no roll required, and that goes for both versions of the attack, I can see how it would be frustrating to deal with if you don't know that, but if you do know, it becomes one of his best punish windows, as for the "hit box spam attacks" I won't deny that he does have attacks like that, but those are only a problem when you bombard him with blind aggression, I know bloodborne promotes aggression, but remember, "whoever fights monsters, should see to it, that in the process, HE does not become a monster" I also think maria and orphan deserve a bit more criticism, but that may stem from my lack of understanding and experience with those 2 The critique of roms aggression seems a bit odd to me? I think that depends on which form of logic you wanna use And as for why the shadows or yharnam are at the end of the game, the reason is in their name (bars) they aren't the shadows of yharnam the place, they're the shadows of QUEEN yharnam, her shadows meaning her guards, they're protecting the way to queen yharnam as well as her child mergo, just thought I'd give context to that ^_^ Overall really good video, it's refreshing to see someone speak about positives AND negatives in regard to bloodborne, im looking forward to seeing what you make in the future, happy new year O/ oh also you can trivialize Laurences second phase by sticking to his smaller arm, doing so makes it where you only have to worry about 2 attacks, still a shit boss tho lol
To be a bit more clear on Ludwig, I know that the most effective way to evade the ceiling attack is to run. I'm pretty sure there's footage of me doing so that plays in the video. The issue I have with this is that it is unintuitive. Souls combat only works so far as the player knows what's going on. Because of the camera and lock-on, a player cannot know what Ludwig is doing when he's on the ceiling. The only way to learn is to die or get hit and memorize the timing. Intuition vs rote memorisation, intuitive attacks to dodge is (generally) always the better design.
Don't think I have ever disagreed more than with your thoughts than I do on your thoughts about the Shadows of Yharnam fight. And thus I feel the desire to express my disagreements on this topic specifically, and only this topic within the video (even if I might disagree with other things said within the critique). I'm a parry guy. Being able to stop the flow of a fight and trivialize the boss by gaining a great understanding of their timings is my shit. It's why Lady Maria is my favorite fight in the game, it's not a flaw of the fight for me, it's the fun part. That being said, I have never ever parried the Shadows of Yharnam. Nor intuitively felt that I should. Despite that dissonance, it is so easily, in my opinion, the best gank fight in any Fromsoftware game that I have played (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne). And that is because I had to figure out the fight. It was the one fight in the game where I need to switch from my basic combat strategy when fighting to win. My initial strategy on my first playthrough was to take out the ranged pyro one first (I always take out ranged targets in every game I ever play because they're always annoying to deal with), but when I did, I quickly became overwhelmed from the enhanced melee of both remianing Shadows. it lead to me realizing the more optimal strategy would be to take out the melee guy first to better control the distribution of pressure at specific ranges was a level of strategizing that I almost never have to use in these types of games to win, and that's really cool. Their movesets might not compliment each other mechanically like O&S, but they DO complement each other. Each Shadow fighting at different ranges with a different set of attacks. One Long with projectiles, one mid with melee and projectiles, the other close range with melee only DOES make them complementary. It's not just throwing in X amount of the same enemy to artificially increase the difficulty. Removing a Shadow would dynamically change how one approaches the battle entirely. And the reason why this works so well is the arena, large open space with the large gravestone is perfect. It's the "use the pillars" strategy from the O&S fight but actually just works completely. It doesn't rely on waiting until the AI just decide to separate from one another because each Shadow inherently move at different speeds andy fights at different ranges. They're always spacing themselves out to allow you the path to attack them. From your gameplay, you don't seem to be consistently using your environment effectively to create that space. The long-ranged Shadow essentially becomes a non-factor when using the gravestone to negate his projectiles, the mid-ranged Shadow has to stop to use his flamethrower attack, which allows the close ranged Shadow to separate from him allowing you to take him on one on one very easily. And the Shadows are a breeze one-on-one. --- I would like it if Fromsoft fixed their camera and lock-on issues already, but I disagree with your consensus. Knowing when to use the lock on and when to not use it in an fight IS a skill in and of itself. Your rebuttal assumes that using the mechanic is a binary switch. That you either use it in a fight or you don't. It's not. It's a spectrum of circumstances; 'locking off' is a mechanic as well and can be used as often as required. It's not "just don't use it", it's "know when to use it to benefit you and when to not use it to benefit you within a single encounter". Locking on is very useful at times in the Shadows of Yharnam fight, I do so when I am attacking the Shadows so I don't miss my attacks, when I want the quick step instead of the roll, and I would use it to parry them if I decided to do that in this fight. 'At times' being the pivotal words. Yeah, hyper-focusing on a single target in a multi-enemy encounter has moments where its detrimental---but that's the whole point of a multi-person enemy encounter. Positioning and spacing are the elements of combat that are prioritizied with these types of encounters. Learning the balance of at what times to control the camera yourself and at what points you should give the game the control of the camera to best maximize your efficiency in your positioning and spacing just a part of the trial and error process---the fundamental core of the gameplay loop---it's the skill that is being tested. And I think the Shadows of Yharnam test that skill better than any other fight in this game.
I'm inclined to do Hollow Knight once I play it and Lords of the Fallen would be interesting too. I kinda wanna do a whole non-fromsoft Souls-like video or series at some point because I have a lot to say on the matter.
You made some valid points on parrying in regards to bosses but I always saw it as playing into the themes of the hunter. You are a hunter, and hunters typically only go after prey(which are usually weaker than themselves, whether in terms of skill or strength), so being able to trivialize enemies by being more skilled than them and parrying them always made perfect sense to me, and if you don’t parry them, being stronger than them is still being a hunter because from the start you were stronger and that’s why you won(if you assume that canonically the hunter beat them first try)
To me it’s like that lore video where they mention how the victory message says “prey slaughtered” because you were never actually at a disadvantage or the one being hunted
I also said I'd be covering the well regarded games. That rules DS2 out. I also said from DS1 onwards. That rules DeS out. DeS may be retuned to after Elden Ring. And I may cover DS2 as a 50K sub goal. But for the purposes of this analysis series, neither of those games need be discussed. These videos from DS1 - DS3 are all setups for the eventual Elden Ring critique.
@@Lycan072 Dark Souls 2 might be the worst Fromsoftware souls game. But it's still a really good game overall. Way better then most other souls likes from other studios.
wow, 4 and a half minutes of chalices, most of it misinformation about their place and how the system works not to mention the slander of them being lower quality and not being part of the core bloodborne experience chalices are absolutely meant to be played off and on in between areas on a first playthrough, you can go into the first right after blood-starved beast then soon get to depth 2 as well, it is just that chalices support a player who actually does want to play the game in different ways so it is the perfect place to play with different weapons and to get stuff to upgrade more, you even get a whole new weapon in loran which gets a literal new moveset from the dlc making it in a way 4 weapons in 1 seeing that you only showed footage of the first layer of the first pthumeru chalice, i assume you havent even seen or beat all 10 preset chalices, since how could you not talk about at the least yharnam (the boss, saying it just to be sure there is no misunderstanding, since i am not sure you even know of the boss) so, you at least did know that there are preset chalices, but you have no idea how root chalices work, first of all you DO NOT need online to play root chalices, you only need online to enter a glyph and to make the root chalice you make have a glyph for others there are 2300 root chalices, depth 1-3 roots have 100 variants, and depth 4-5 have 200, but that does not mean you can only make 2300 distinct chalices, it means that is how many bases there are when you put down a root chalice, it chooses 1 base out of the respective pool, then makes sure you have at least 1 unique item (rare loot, lost or uncanny weapon, rune) but that unique item is once again based on the repsective root chalice on what it can be (not anything can be anywhere) and then, there are more variables that get applied, which does effect enemy layouts, what enemies are in at all, the side room layout, the chance for a 4th layer (20% chance except depth1 which cant have layer 4), chance for poison stuff, chance for shop (patches shop included, if questline is completed) AND THEN you can apply manual changes with the additional rites, with the fetid offering making some enemies stronger with a buff (but more echoes), the rotted offering making it so there are additional select enemy spawns, and the curse having your hp cut in half but in return making it so you find cursed gems way more often (and of course there is a special rite that gets its own chalice variants, the sinister, allowing for invasions even if you are alone by making the bell ringers for online spawn, but even offline there are differences) so to say that chalices are anything but the core bloodborne experience, could only be said if someone thinks they know what bloodborne is, but meanwhile even if you only count the preset chalices (10) then that is the 50% of a first playthrough
All this info (which i know by the way. I have played through them all) does not counter any of my criticisms. The game is not balanced for a player who runs them frequently throughout a playthrough and online is still required to make the exact chalice from the seed. And I also praised them for being a decent method for players to use to lower the difficulty of the main game.
@@Lycan072 so if you did go through all of the preset ones (not "all of them"), then it is simply a bloodborne love difference, which is what it is and also i did try to counter anything, but to simply express how much i like them and how much i do think they are exactly what is needed for a balanced playthrough but of course, YOU need to make it balanced, YOU need to want it to be how you like it, dont be surprised that enemies die fast if you upgrade past +6 and only dump into 2 stats bloodborne is the game that you can get an ending with without seeing 95% of the game (this includes weapons, hunter tools, areas and the raw extraordenary amount of experience that you can feel by playing with great care)
@4blasphemy exactly. We're in agreement there. The issue I have in general regarding the chalice dungeons and balance is that a new player going in blind cannot know that they're ruining their own experience by overlevelling unintentionally in chalice dungeons. It's not the worst issue. I just think it should have been more clearly communicated. Glad we've come to a middle ground tho :)
@@Lycan072 yes, the thing that is pretty true that bloodborne is also the game where it is the most useful to get guidance in terms of new player confusion, like it can allow for that 95% to be not missed (but also, i feel you dont get overleveled from chalices at all, its the other way around, you get overleveled for the chalices by not playing them and they are not connected to the new game+ so they dont scale like that) so i think the best way to play bloodborne for a new player is to have someone there who knows everything to an extent that is very close to truly everything but obviously not backseat but rather information so mechanical confusion and in general context for what and how stuff is (i consider myself that, and i have already helped a few people play through the game like this and it was good for every person involved)
4:07:00 (i did not watch the video, i just skipped to a random point but i have thoughts, so sorry if you address anything that i mention here) I think a major reason that bloodborne lore is so ambiguous in comparison to the other games is that the character you play as has no idea what’s going on. They wake up without any clue as to why they’re where they are and are immediately told to start killing things. I think it was very intentional that on your first playthrough you are not supposed to know what your motivations are because the hunter itself does not know what their motivations are. This also generally contributes to the theme of hunters who continue to hunt despite not knowing why. It’s the reason a lot of bosses don’t even aggro onto you immediately, but most people will attack them anyway because that’s how the game/lack of motivation has conditioned you to play(rom, ebrietas, bsb for example) It’s definitely a matter of personal taste but i think having npcs give lore would be a lot less fitting to bloodborne’s story than dark souls’s. In dark souls you are supposed to feel like history has already played out, and you are simply learning about what has already happened. In bloodborne you are supposed to feel like you are uncovering current events that have been hidden from the rest of the world. That’s part of the reason the only npc that actively gives lore information tells you fuck-all, because if the game had a bunch of characters that were extremely knowledgeable about the events you are uncovering, it would take away that feeling of discovery. Learning about the cosmic aspects of the game within the game universe is also tied to ascension, which is why the only npc that might know about rom or the mensis ritual is an old man that can’t even talk. I think the lore notes are the best way of getting this across because they give lore in SMALL fragments that just couldn’t be pulled off with long NPC monologues. In general i think on the first playthrough you are supposed to get the mindless, violent hunter experience, and on subsequent playthroughs you are supposed to get the investigative mensis student experience. So yah definitely a matter of personal taste but i think the methods they used to get across the lore were very intentional and the best fit for the story being told.
Have you ever considered a Hollow Knight critique? I'm a huge fan of long form critiques and retrospectives, and it never hurts my feelings to see Hollow Knight content. If you've never played it, highly recommend.
Every time I try to allot time to play Hollow Knight. Things end up making the playthrough come to a close. I really wanna play through it fully at some point. When I do, I'll probably make a video on it.
@Lycan072 well I hope you get the chance. Aside from the fantastic combat, the game always gives me the genuine urge to explore unlike almost any other game. Even after completing it quite a few times haha But why I think it'd make for an excellent critique is the story and lore. There is a ton going on beneath the surface much like the Souls series.
I think ds2, all things consitered, is a really good game. I really quite enjoyed your ds1 critique and it pains me that you didnt decide to review ds2. Even though decisions made during development carried over to bloodborne
Playing it on PC with ShadPS4 for the first and it is fun. The locked on and hit detection and enemies ability to just clip hits thru walls is straight bullshit but still fun.
Thanks for the no preamble.
On a 4+ hour video... yeah thanks a lot! I used to have shit to do.
he says that, but after a minute he gives a statement explaining and validating the following video…
ya know, like a preamble.
@@ShupperDupper better than a 20 minute explanation of the game, i know what bloodborne is.
On the Rally system: the length of time you have to regain health is different for each enemy or even which attack the enemy uses; and the amount of health regained per hit is different for every weapon. In classic fromsoft fashion, this is never explained.
I do wonder if you will eventually cover DS2 and Demon's Souls, as both games have notable impact on Dark Souls 3's gameplay and even level design. Irithyll Dungeon is a rendition of 3-1 from Demon's, the upgrade system is taken directly from Dark Souls 2, the FP system returns from Demon's Souls, and moments like Siegward helping you fight Yhorm or the final runback to the Princes are direct references to moments and storylines from Demon's Souls, such as Biorr of the Twin Fangs helping with Penetrator, (you also have to free both of them from a prison cell earlier in the level, and both of them fight with you out of a sense of duty to the boss, with the Storm Ruler being directly lifted from Demon's Souls) the Morion Blade, Karla the Witch being a clear reference to Yuria the Witch while another character shares that name, both teaching darker arts to the player, etc. Not to mention, if this is going to be an analysis of the series in whole with Elden Ring being the notable conclusion of the series, Dark Souls 2 most notably shows major influence over Elden Ring, to the point of Elden Ring being widely considered the game Dark Souls II could have been given more development time and a better development cycle, with the co-director of Elden Ring being the main director of 2, Yui Tanimura, who saved 2 from near cancellation. Miyazaki has also noted that he believes Dark Souls 2 to be of utmost importance when it comes to the development of these games, even regarding it as a major success and pivotal point for the franchise.
I've been waiting desperately for this video since I saw the first one
Glad to deliver.
WERE SO BACK
There is something I would add to your discussion of The Nightmare Frontier.
I played this game as a 1st time Souls player, never opening my online gate to invasions. I wanted to play it SP only.
In the Nightmare Frontier, you can be invaded by other, experienced players who are Immune to the Frenzy beam and who the enemies ignore... regardless of your gate settings, so long as you're online. So you, as a new player, have to deal with getting ganked by FromSoft fanboys while you're trying to dodge what's essentially an Insta-kill AND the Spider mini-boss.
I didn't need a reason to hate Souls players, but the Nightmare Frontier sure gave me one. I had to completely go offline to clear it
Dude I love listening to your Dark Souls 1 video when I’m laying down at night to go to sleep.
This is gonna be my new night time relaxation listen.
Thanks for this one my dude, you’re the man 🫡👌
Literally discovered the Dark Souls critique you did about 4 days ago, and was disappointed when I saw how new the series was and we only had one video so far. I’m getting in on the ground level, which is rare! Didn’t expect to see this so soon after I watched that one. This is a nice surprise!
Hopefully the DS3 video won't take toooo long to come out.
I think there’s an argument to be made that there isn’t enough farming in the game; or rather that farming isn’t integrated well enough into core gameplay.
One of first things Gehrman says to you is to go out and kill some beasts, yet hunting for resources to make yourself more powerful is never really incentivized. The only time the player normally “farms” is as a punishment I.e a boring grind to restock your consumables.
Runes and blood gems can be wildly powerful, yet acquiring them is relegated to side content, with the strongest being in chalice dungeons. The dungeons are already a great source of excess vials; if they were better integrated into the main story “grinding” for vials/echoes/whatever would be viewed a lot less painfully, since it would be something the player already does to grow.
As usual, an incredible video! I only wish the shields were touched on, but then you'd have to talk about all the weapons.
Taught me a bit I didn't know after these 8 years playing it, like how that one door opens after beating Blood-Starved Beast. Seems like the main path through the game was very bizarrely put together, DLC too. Also the fact that you can get much better runes in the dungeons. Might do that next time.
You've laid out these ideas and critiques clearly, concisely, and very well. May your views be many and your Holidays be Merry, and may there be a DS3 stream at 3K! ("Or something" -White Mask Varre)
Thank you so much. I wanted to do a bit with shields and talk about the Hbomberguy video in the process. Instead I decided to skip over shields as it's a pretty useless topic and the Hbomb video was much better suited for the supercut of him saying "Play the game wrong" because it's such a stupid statement.
@@Lycan072 That reminds me. I thought the humor worked very well. I think all the jokes landed, if not with an out loud laugh then intellectually (with my brain).
str builds have weaker visceral attacks because str weapons are stronger in general. Game is much easier with starter Axe, you don't even have to parry or backstab.
Heavy gems will cause your viscerals to scale off of strength, narrowing that advantage skill builds have
I think that may be true if you look at raw damage numbers, but that isn't the case when looking at everything regarding weapons. The saw spear is the best weapon in the game. It has a great moveset, fast attacks, serrated bonus, and scales off of skill.
Just finished the dark souls 1 video then this dropped. Crazy timing
Fantastic timing then!
4 hour long video of my all time favorite game?!
Don't mind if I do!
My body is ready 😊
Stat Check: After one day, this is now your 5th most viewed video and you've gained about 100 subs. Congrats!
Playing Bloodborne on emulator as I'm listening to this. We've arrived, baby!
Im a simple man, i see a multi hour game critique or retrospective and i watch.
Peak vid now guys 50k subs now ds 2 was a masterpiece that needs another retrospective
I'm unsure if you'd want me to cover ds2. You know that I dislike the game, right? Lmao
@@Lycan072 idc pls do its peak plssssss plssss😭😭
@@SiyamthandaQwabe-or7erare you talking about DS2? Or DS2 SotFS? I only played the former and enjoyed it well enough, but I heard SotFS made enemy ganking worse.
I will say, DS2 has elements of online play that I really wish were in other souls games (small white soapstone was genius) and I loved that Elden ring brought back powerstance from DS2
Upload the preamble as a separate video to be funny
Now that's a GREAT April fools video idea. I may just steal that.
@ just realize you skip the preamble in your other videos too lol, which makes it even funnier
@@Scowleasy every second of worthless video essayist preamble reduces my life expectancy. I wouldn't do that to my audience. You guys deserve better lmao
My goat is back reviewing soulsborne
One of my favorite games of all time, let's go!
4 hour Bloodborne video posted 25 mins ago?? Just called out of work
Just started Bloodborne thinking that it would be your next covered game, can't wait to finish it so I can watch this whole ass vid!
So funny enough +scaling gems can affect your visceral damage, but from a critique perspective this unfortunately 1. This is never explained anywhere and 2. +scaling gems are so unbalanced that heavy (+str) gems are pretty much always better.
oh yes 4 hour bloodborne reviewn
Oh wow, four hours. Did you have to post this thirty minutes from midnight haha?
4 hrs !? Uploaded 1 day ago !? I’m too early man. I’ll wait for the timestamps guy.
0:24 Um ACTUALLY dark souls 2 also had omni-directional rolling which came out before bloodborne.
LMAO. Unfortunately DS2 SOTFS also has 8 directional snap points when moving too. This is even further exacerbated by sprinting. I know this is a meme but, in all seriousness, DS2 has even worse movement than DS1. Bloodborne was the first smooth game in terms of movement.
@@Lycan072 it does!? That's why I kept dying trying to line up my character for jumps 😭I thought it was just me thinking that DS2 movement felt off.
Yep. It's one of the many reasons why I hate DS2 😂
Question: if you play with the keyboard and mouse, would you have lower problems with the lock on?
Seeing as the camera is still terrible and the dodgeroll is worse than the quicksteps and parrying still requires lock on. No i don't think kbm would solve much. The only thing that'd solve would be easier aiming for attacks.
I really want to write a full proper response to some of your points since I feel there is room for meaningful conversation about some aspects of the game (namely the Camera in the base game) as the fixes may not be as simple as anyone wants. However, I want to offer one small correction to the Chalice Dungeons themselves.
Modded Dungeons, if made public (which you can do when you create the dungeon) means they actually become part of the randomly generated dungeon pool since the game does allow for your game to pull in publically available dungeons before attempting to randomly generate them.
I haven't run into the legendary cummmfpk chalice but I have run into two specific modded dungeons: the unfinished OG Moon Presence fight and a bizarre Phumera chalice dungeon with the Iz chalice tile set that was much much MUCH harder than should've been accessible when you first get the dang thing.
In a way, that makes the Chalice Dungeons much worse since such Modded dungeons can introduce large issues into a player's experiences
No preamble... but what about postamble
Welp know I know what I'm gonna do with my free time till the end of the year :)
I'm glad that I decided to post it before the new year. We all need something to keep us busy till the 31st :D
I disagree with your assessment of ludwigs first phase, the attack where he jumps into the air and crashes back down can be avoided very easily by sprinting in one direction, no roll required, and that goes for both versions of the attack, I can see how it would be frustrating to deal with if you don't know that, but if you do know, it becomes one of his best punish windows, as for the "hit box spam attacks" I won't deny that he does have attacks like that, but those are only a problem when you bombard him with blind aggression, I know bloodborne promotes aggression, but remember, "whoever fights monsters, should see to it, that in the process, HE does not become a monster"
I also think maria and orphan deserve a bit more criticism, but that may stem from my lack of understanding and experience with those 2
The critique of roms aggression seems a bit odd to me? I think that depends on which form of logic you wanna use
And as for why the shadows or yharnam are at the end of the game, the reason is in their name (bars) they aren't the shadows of yharnam the place, they're the shadows of QUEEN yharnam, her shadows meaning her guards, they're protecting the way to queen yharnam as well as her child mergo, just thought I'd give context to that ^_^
Overall really good video, it's refreshing to see someone speak about positives AND negatives in regard to bloodborne, im looking forward to seeing what you make in the future, happy new year O/
oh also you can trivialize Laurences second phase by sticking to his smaller arm, doing so makes it where you only have to worry about 2 attacks, still a shit boss tho lol
To be a bit more clear on Ludwig, I know that the most effective way to evade the ceiling attack is to run. I'm pretty sure there's footage of me doing so that plays in the video. The issue I have with this is that it is unintuitive. Souls combat only works so far as the player knows what's going on. Because of the camera and lock-on, a player cannot know what Ludwig is doing when he's on the ceiling. The only way to learn is to die or get hit and memorize the timing. Intuition vs rote memorisation, intuitive attacks to dodge is (generally) always the better design.
Don't think I have ever disagreed more than with your thoughts than I do on your thoughts about the Shadows of Yharnam fight. And thus I feel the desire to express my disagreements on this topic specifically, and only this topic within the video (even if I might disagree with other things said within the critique).
I'm a parry guy. Being able to stop the flow of a fight and trivialize the boss by gaining a great understanding of their timings is my shit. It's why Lady Maria is my favorite fight in the game, it's not a flaw of the fight for me, it's the fun part.
That being said, I have never ever parried the Shadows of Yharnam. Nor intuitively felt that I should.
Despite that dissonance, it is so easily, in my opinion, the best gank fight in any Fromsoftware game that I have played (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne). And that is because I had to figure out the fight. It was the one fight in the game where I need to switch from my basic combat strategy when fighting to win.
My initial strategy on my first playthrough was to take out the ranged pyro one first (I always take out ranged targets in every game I ever play because they're always annoying to deal with), but when I did, I quickly became overwhelmed from the enhanced melee of both remianing Shadows. it lead to me realizing the more optimal strategy would be to take out the melee guy first to better control the distribution of pressure at specific ranges was a level of strategizing that I almost never have to use in these types of games to win, and that's really cool.
Their movesets might not compliment each other mechanically like O&S, but they DO complement each other. Each Shadow fighting at different ranges with a different set of attacks. One Long with projectiles, one mid with melee and projectiles, the other close range with melee only DOES make them complementary. It's not just throwing in X amount of the same enemy to artificially increase the difficulty. Removing a Shadow would dynamically change how one approaches the battle entirely.
And the reason why this works so well is the arena, large open space with the large gravestone is perfect. It's the "use the pillars" strategy from the O&S fight but actually just works completely. It doesn't rely on waiting until the AI just decide to separate from one another because each Shadow inherently move at different speeds andy fights at different ranges. They're always spacing themselves out to allow you the path to attack them.
From your gameplay, you don't seem to be consistently using your environment effectively to create that space.
The long-ranged Shadow essentially becomes a non-factor when using the gravestone to negate his projectiles, the mid-ranged Shadow has to stop to use his flamethrower attack, which allows the close ranged Shadow to separate from him allowing you to take him on one on one very easily. And the Shadows are a breeze one-on-one.
---
I would like it if Fromsoft fixed their camera and lock-on issues already, but I disagree with your consensus. Knowing when to use the lock on and when to not use it in an fight IS a skill in and of itself.
Your rebuttal assumes that using the mechanic is a binary switch. That you either use it in a fight or you don't. It's not. It's a spectrum of circumstances; 'locking off' is a mechanic as well and can be used as often as required.
It's not "just don't use it", it's "know when to use it to benefit you and when to not use it to benefit you within a single encounter".
Locking on is very useful at times in the Shadows of Yharnam fight, I do so when I am attacking the Shadows so I don't miss my attacks, when I want the quick step instead of the roll, and I would use it to parry them if I decided to do that in this fight. 'At times' being the pivotal words. Yeah, hyper-focusing on a single target in a multi-enemy encounter has moments where its detrimental---but that's the whole point of a multi-person enemy encounter. Positioning and spacing are the elements of combat that are prioritizied with these types of encounters.
Learning the balance of at what times to control the camera yourself and at what points you should give the game the control of the camera to best maximize your efficiency in your positioning and spacing just a part of the trial and error process---the fundamental core of the gameplay loop---it's the skill that is being tested. And I think the Shadows of Yharnam test that skill better than any other fight in this game.
I'm really lycan your critiques...
lmao. Nice
thank you!!
Will you do non fromsoftware games like the Jedi series and Lords of the fallen?
I'm inclined to do Hollow Knight once I play it and Lords of the Fallen would be interesting too. I kinda wanna do a whole non-fromsoft Souls-like video or series at some point because I have a lot to say on the matter.
@@Lycan072lies of P is my vote.
@@ScowleasyI second lies of p
Such a great game
You made some valid points on parrying in regards to bosses but I always saw it as playing into the themes of the hunter. You are a hunter, and hunters typically only go after prey(which are usually weaker than themselves, whether in terms of skill or strength), so being able to trivialize enemies by being more skilled than them and parrying them always made perfect sense to me, and if you don’t parry them, being stronger than them is still being a hunter because from the start you were stronger and that’s why you won(if you assume that canonically the hunter beat them first try)
To me it’s like that lore video where they mention how the victory message says “prey slaughtered” because you were never actually at a disadvantage or the one being hunted
Is it weird that I find the cleric beast to be much harder than Gascoigne? I dunno why, but I find it harder than some mid game fights
Take a shot every time he says "fantastic".
1.9k subscribers? wtf?
I am very surprised
Not a fan of Bloodborne or interested in BB content but just came here to say that I enjoyed your ds1 vid and hope ds2 is next.
nice video
OH MY GOD..ITS EVERYWHERE
I guess I'm the only one that really enjoys laurance fight 💀😂
I’m so tired of people making preambles like it’s a university paper where they explain their methods
my 4 hour autism fuel❤ love it
You said you will cover the games chronologically but you skip over Dark Souls 2 and Demon Souls?
I also said I'd be covering the well regarded games. That rules DS2 out. I also said from DS1 onwards. That rules DeS out. DeS may be retuned to after Elden Ring. And I may cover DS2 as a 50K sub goal. But for the purposes of this analysis series, neither of those games need be discussed.
These videos from DS1 - DS3 are all setups for the eventual Elden Ring critique.
@@Lycan072 Dark Souls 2 might be the worst Fromsoftware souls game. But it's still a really good game overall. Way better then most other souls likes from other studios.
I will never forgive Joseph Anderson for the damage he’s done.
Nor will I. Although, we probably have different reasons.
@ I mean you’re a product of it lol
Can't see how. I've watched about 10 minutes of his content in total.
❤Dark souls 2???❤😢
WOO BLOODBORNE but aww no Dark 2?
10 MINUTE GANG!!!
wow, 4 and a half minutes of chalices, most of it misinformation about their place and how the system works not to mention the slander of them being lower quality and not being part of the core bloodborne experience
chalices are absolutely meant to be played off and on in between areas on a first playthrough, you can go into the first right after blood-starved beast then soon get to depth 2 as well, it is just that chalices support a player who actually does want to play the game in different ways so it is the perfect place to play with different weapons and to get stuff to upgrade more, you even get a whole new weapon in loran which gets a literal new moveset from the dlc making it in a way 4 weapons in 1
seeing that you only showed footage of the first layer of the first pthumeru chalice, i assume you havent even seen or beat all 10 preset chalices, since how could you not talk about at the least yharnam (the boss, saying it just to be sure there is no misunderstanding, since i am not sure you even know of the boss)
so, you at least did know that there are preset chalices, but you have no idea how root chalices work, first of all you DO NOT need online to play root chalices, you only need online to enter a glyph and to make the root chalice you make have a glyph for others
there are 2300 root chalices, depth 1-3 roots have 100 variants, and depth 4-5 have 200, but that does not mean you can only make 2300 distinct chalices, it means that is how many bases there are
when you put down a root chalice, it chooses 1 base out of the respective pool, then makes sure you have at least 1 unique item (rare loot, lost or uncanny weapon, rune) but that unique item is once again based on the repsective root chalice on what it can be (not anything can be anywhere)
and then, there are more variables that get applied, which does effect enemy layouts, what enemies are in at all, the side room layout, the chance for a 4th layer (20% chance except depth1 which cant have layer 4), chance for poison stuff, chance for shop (patches shop included, if questline is completed)
AND THEN you can apply manual changes with the additional rites, with the fetid offering making some enemies stronger with a buff (but more echoes), the rotted offering making it so there are additional select enemy spawns, and the curse having your hp cut in half but in return making it so you find cursed gems way more often (and of course there is a special rite that gets its own chalice variants, the sinister, allowing for invasions even if you are alone by making the bell ringers for online spawn, but even offline there are differences)
so to say that chalices are anything but the core bloodborne experience, could only be said if someone thinks they know what bloodborne is, but meanwhile even if you only count the preset chalices (10) then that is the 50% of a first playthrough
All this info (which i know by the way. I have played through them all) does not counter any of my criticisms. The game is not balanced for a player who runs them frequently throughout a playthrough and online is still required to make the exact chalice from the seed. And I also praised them for being a decent method for players to use to lower the difficulty of the main game.
@@Lycan072 so if you did go through all of the preset ones (not "all of them"), then it is simply a bloodborne love difference, which is what it is
and also i did try to counter anything, but to simply express how much i like them and how much i do think they are exactly what is needed for a balanced playthrough
but of course, YOU need to make it balanced, YOU need to want it to be how you like it, dont be surprised that enemies die fast if you upgrade past +6 and only dump into 2 stats
bloodborne is the game that you can get an ending with without seeing 95% of the game (this includes weapons, hunter tools, areas and the raw extraordenary amount of experience that you can feel by playing with great care)
@4blasphemy exactly. We're in agreement there. The issue I have in general regarding the chalice dungeons and balance is that a new player going in blind cannot know that they're ruining their own experience by overlevelling unintentionally in chalice dungeons. It's not the worst issue. I just think it should have been more clearly communicated. Glad we've come to a middle ground tho :)
@@Lycan072 yes, the thing that is pretty true that bloodborne is also the game where it is the most useful to get guidance in terms of new player confusion, like it can allow for that 95% to be not missed
(but also, i feel you dont get overleveled from chalices at all, its the other way around, you get overleveled for the chalices by not playing them and they are not connected to the new game+ so they dont scale like that)
so i think the best way to play bloodborne for a new player is to have someone there who knows everything to an extent that is very close to truly everything but obviously not backseat but rather information so mechanical confusion and in general context for what and how stuff is (i consider myself that, and i have already helped a few people play through the game like this and it was good for every person involved)
4:07:00 (i did not watch the video, i just skipped to a random point but i have thoughts, so sorry if you address anything that i mention here)
I think a major reason that bloodborne lore is so ambiguous in comparison to the other games is that the character you play as has no idea what’s going on. They wake up without any clue as to why they’re where they are and are immediately told to start killing things. I think it was very intentional that on your first playthrough you are not supposed to know what your motivations are because the hunter itself does not know what their motivations are. This also generally contributes to the theme of hunters who continue to hunt despite not knowing why. It’s the reason a lot of bosses don’t even aggro onto you immediately, but most people will attack them anyway because that’s how the game/lack of motivation has conditioned you to play(rom, ebrietas, bsb for example)
It’s definitely a matter of personal taste but i think having npcs give lore would be a lot less fitting to bloodborne’s story than dark souls’s. In dark souls you are supposed to feel like history has already played out, and you are simply learning about what has already happened. In bloodborne you are supposed to feel like you are uncovering current events that have been hidden from the rest of the world. That’s part of the reason the only npc that actively gives lore information tells you fuck-all, because if the game had a bunch of characters that were extremely knowledgeable about the events you are uncovering, it would take away that feeling of discovery. Learning about the cosmic aspects of the game within the game universe is also tied to ascension, which is why the only npc that might know about rom or the mensis ritual is an old man that can’t even talk. I think the lore notes are the best way of getting this across because they give lore in SMALL fragments that just couldn’t be pulled off with long NPC monologues. In general i think on the first playthrough you are supposed to get the mindless, violent hunter experience, and on subsequent playthroughs you are supposed to get the investigative mensis student experience.
So yah definitely a matter of personal taste but i think the methods they used to get across the lore were very intentional and the best fit for the story being told.
I am going to have soooooooo many thoughts on this video when i actually watch it lmfao
Let's gooooooo
shame on you!! now i need to replay it again lol
👏👏👏
Have you ever considered a Hollow Knight critique? I'm a huge fan of long form critiques and retrospectives, and it never hurts my feelings to see Hollow Knight content. If you've never played it, highly recommend.
Every time I try to allot time to play Hollow Knight. Things end up making the playthrough come to a close. I really wanna play through it fully at some point. When I do, I'll probably make a video on it.
@Lycan072 well I hope you get the chance. Aside from the fantastic combat, the game always gives me the genuine urge to explore unlike almost any other game. Even after completing it quite a few times haha But why I think it'd make for an excellent critique is the story and lore. There is a ton going on beneath the surface much like the Souls series.
WOOOOOOOOOOOO
❤
No dark souls 2 :(
I think ds2, all things consitered, is a really good game. I really quite enjoyed your ds1 critique and it pains me that you didnt decide to review ds2. Even though decisions made during development carried over to bloodborne
Playing it on PC with ShadPS4 for the first and it is fun. The locked on and hit detection and enemies ability to just clip hits thru walls is straight bullshit but still fun.
I'm a simple man. I see a 4 hour video about Bloodborne, I watch.
Waiter waiter!
Get gud bud. 😅 don't start with BB if your new to souls-likes.
Brainrot comment
@A.D.I.D.A.S-916 yours as well