Swifter, Not Safer: Bloodborne trades Dark Souls' creep for speed
Bloodborne bummed me right out when it was announced back in June. Gothic action RPG from From Software, Japan's premiere purveyors of supremely weird, deeply punishing action games? Should be awesome. Unlike many of the converted, though, I've never cottoned to the Dark Souls games that Bloodborne is a spiritual successor to.
Dark Souls' ethos is one I deeply respect. A game that thrusts you into a mysterious place that reveals its history through strange visuals, vicious combat, and patient explorations, the spirit of the series is deeply appealing. Feeling how that game plays, though, was an enormous turn off. The awkward, chunky pace of blocking, slowly attacking, meticulously dodging, then dying repeatedly only to try again just rubbed me wrong.
Bloodborne's promise of improved access to the series seemed like a pyrrhic victory. The emphasis on fast action rather than patient blocking and enemy study seemed great, but wouldn't that dilute the series' stern soul? Apparently not. Bloodborne is a much swifter game than Dark Souls, but it's no less dangerous. Death is still waiting behind the corners of From Software's latest dank world, but how you move around that doom is potentially more inviting to the unconverted that never quite got Dark Souls.
Sitting down with Bloodborne at a Sony hosted event in New York, I chose the Twinblade class of hunter available for the mid-game stage available to demo. Four types of hunter were on hand, including a bruiser heavy, a more stable sword-wielding fighter, and a mix of the two, but the Twinblade and his short, curved daggers seemed the best bet. The agility class would hopefully mitigate the cumbersome, Dark Souls-ian pace I was expecting to encounter. My worry was unfounded, though. The hunter moved through Bloodborne's debris-littered streets at brisk pace, and tumbled around like an acrobat by lightly tapping the circle button to dodge. Slashing quickly with his daggers by tapping the right shoulder button, cuing a charged up strike by holding the right trigger, the hunter felt totally different from what I expected watching video of Bloodborne.
A mysterious illness has racked this fictional Victorian city, turning its citizens into violent, top hat-rocking ghouls and warping the animals into bloated freaks; think Resident Evil by way of Charles Dickens. As the hunter, you're looking for a cure to the plague. In this level at least, your path though the streets is narrow. Cramped by piles of caskets, overturned carriages and other garbage, Bloodborne's setting is definitively grimy, but also beautiful. The crow feather-covered cloak the hunter wears billows in the night breeze, and it's hard not to feel confident marching through the cramped streets thanks to his mobility and cool gear.
Even running into plague-ridden citizens helps boost up that sense of brash exploration. Enemies popped from around stairwells and alleyways like living traps just as they do in the Souls games, but cutting them down takes just a few slashes with your daggers. If some lurking tough shoots you with a rifle, your health disappears quickly, but healing potions cropped up regularly, either littered in the environment or dropped by the freaky bearded aggressors.
Lulled into a false sense of security, I strode through town like an idiot, growing less and less cautious as I went, convinced that the newfound speed of the game meant I was safe from Dark Souls-style cruelty. Not so. After trundling through an open square and avoiding a gathering of those evil city folk, I strolled into a smaller walled-in area with a fountain in the middle. Wandering to the side to try and find any hidden goodies, half my life bar disappeared when a giant, bulbous baby crow flopped out of the shadows. Squawking like a wet bag of car horns, two more bounced out, awkwardly coming after me but still surprisingly quick. My hunter had molotov cocktails on hand, but tossing them accurately proved a lot harder than dodging out of the way.
I managed to kill the birds and even a larger, hulking human wielding a hunk of rock who decided to join the fray after I dodged too close to his corner of the fountain area. All my potions and molotovs were used up, but I was still alive. The fight was frantic, but it also felt like something that could be adapted to on the fly, very unlike the Dark Souls feeling of guaranteed failure before you'd return with a better plan. Never secure, but also never about to be kicked backwards in your progress.
Then I walked up a staircase and was bitten to death by a dog with patchy fur that was also the size of a snowmobile.
When I asked Sony's rep how far I'd made it into the stage, I was told I'd acquitted myself well, making it about three-quarters of the way to the boss. The boss remained elusive, sitting on the other side of those giant, angry dogs. Bloodborne itself, though, is now more tangible. That Dark Souls spirit remains, making From Software's first PlayStation 4 game an equally demanding exercise, but the feel is distinct. Swifter? Definitely. But not safer.
[Images: Sony]
