Alas, no Firebutt episode this month as o want to release it end of May but today I wanted to reflect on having finished Bloodborne on PS4. As though Elden Ring hadn’t stretched my proverbial hole far enough, I went into this game — not only because it’s a FromSoft game but because of remembering when the release commercials happened back in 2015, it was THE GAME that made me desire a PS4. It was dark, visceral, bloody and brutal…and upon playing it, it loved to the hype of when I first saw it.
The game was most definitely tougher compared to Elden Ring. The story definitely oozes of HP Lovecraft and you’re in a world where people are trying to heal with blood and yet you have men turning into beasts, women turning into ravaging murderers, all because the blood they use to heal…is from the Great Old Ones, whom are Lovecraftian demonic entities!
Graphically, it surprisingly holds up like fine wine in 2023, even in the face of Dark Souls III from 2016 and Elden Ring in 2022. What I really enjoyed about Bloodborne was not only the atmosphere, architecture and design but also how, in retrospect, you see how many of those elements of the game got incorporated into Elden Ring — from bleed damage, Lady Maria being the blueprint for what would eventually be Malenia. Gehrman’s jump and Maria’s being an inspiration for Waterfowl Dance, Gehrman’s earth slash w/his scythe possibly an inspiration for Godfrey/Horah Loux’s earth stomp. You can even see how getting deeper in the world how some elements of Byrgenwerth laid the groundwork for the Eternal Cities, Yarnham for the Prison Town/Mt. Gelmir and even the man-serpents and creatures. Libraries and other places near Yaar Ghul being inspirational for Academy of Lucaria and even Deeproot Depths while Chalice Dungeons inspiration for Elden Ring’s Catacombs.
The way the game’s leveling structure and soft caps definitely gave you the need for greed to level up like a madman BUT acknowledging that at some points, some soft caps required you to either switch stats to boost moving forward OR…just as they say in the FromSoft community, “Git Gud!” I can definitely say that Elden Ring helped me prepare for the immolation this game put me through but also taught me to be more skillful because unlike Elden Ring, you can’t always farm summoning items and you definitely don’t have wild statuses to proc enemies, let alone summon spirit ashes or the ability to jump in the conventional sense. This game will, hands down, make you appreciate how far FromSoftware have come in giving us what we have in the world of Elden Ring.
