BloodBorne Review : Ab'SOUL'utely Amazing

With games of the likes of Dark Souls under its belt, Japanese developer From Software has already made a mark in the market for having developed some really good, but hard-to-beat games.

Its latest offering Bloodborne hopes to be no less. Being one of the most anticipated PS4 exclusives yet, does Bloodborne offer enough to further up the sales of the already very successful PS4? Let’s find out.

Bloodborne
Developer: From Developers
Platforms: PS4
PEGI Rating: 16+

There’s just something about the hard to beat Japanese offering that gamers universally love to hate, or hate to love. This game too, is no disappointment. Bloodborne is difficult to the level where even the most stubborn would be forced to check out a walk-through at some point or the other. Yes, Bloodborne is hard, in fact, it’s even harder to crack than Dark Souls (2). It’s so hard that I can readily classify it as one of the hardest games released on next gen consoles, if not the hardest game ever made. This infuriating level of toughness is not just due to hard boss battles or lack of ammunition, but due to the fact that every feature of the game is tweaked to make sure that the users don’t proceed without breaking into a sweat, literally.

The foes are all overpowered and almost mandatorily bigger than you in size, and you’ll find yourself spending hours fighting these creatures. While the selection of weapons are satisfying, the flimsy shields in the game are a mere joke and you will hardly find yourself using them. Instead, the game makes you more reliant on dodging and hitting, which can take quite some time to get used to. The game provides primary weapons, including swords and hammers and secondary weapons, including guns. However, you’d rather not get too used to the guns as ammunition is very scarce. Instead, you are forced to use them only to stun the enemy and squeeze out of tight spots.

To add on to the difficulty, the game provides almost no help in terms to telling you what to do or where to go and the shy narrative does nothing but leave you alone to wander through the humongous world.

But don’t get me wrong; this is no curse as the world is huge and absolutely worth exploring with its endless dungeons and never ending corridors. In case the world wasn’t already big enough, performing certain rituals unlocks additional chalice dungeons, packed with more corridors to explore and enemies to hunt. All this does cause some space between battles, but that does not spoil the campaign enough to prevent us from enjoying it.

To top it all off, the game brims with creepiness and everything around seems to have an eerie feel to it. The environment, indoors and outdoors, is dark . All the characters, human or not, are slimy and disgusting and even the meekest of hits is replied to by splashes of blood.

The character design is stupendous, and all creatures succeed in striking a note of fear, not just with their creepy visage or unnatural poses, but more with their inhumane cries. The graphics exploit the prowess of the PS4 and does not disappoint either.

Additionally, while the network features were never intended to be a selling point, they definitely complement the game in large ways and are especially useful in boss battles, which become so much easier when playing with someone else on your team.

VERDICT

Despite following almost the same concept as Dark Souls, Bloodborne proves itself to be completely different. It not only succeeds in being a brilliant action RPG, but also marks itself as one of the creepiest Japanese games to be released in recent memory. This is a definite must buy for anyone looking for an exhilarating action RPG and doesn’t mind dying at least a few hundred times in the quest to complete it.

Final score: 9.4/10

Pranav is a 17 year old whose passion is writing reviews and articles on technology and gaming. His gaming tag is Fleet Admiral. You can check out his tech vlog at: www.youtube.com/user/pran avnairtech or contact him at pranav.nair@apexmedia.co.om