Hello everyone. I recently finished Bloodborne and its DLC, The Old Hunters, for the first time and wish to talk about it.
Here's the quick summary on my thoughts:
-I really like the combat, aesthetic and vibes of the game. Level design was great.
-The highs of the game are great but the lows are quite low. Compared to something like DS3 which was more consistent.
-Not a fan of the healing and bullets being more typical consumables. It hurts the flow to take a break to go farm them. Same for Lamps teleporting you Hunter's Dream first.
I did 1 playthrough in a "normal" way where I played mostly blind and levelled up normally, then played the DLC. Then a second playthough for just the base game where I used Chalice Dungeons to level my character's Vitality, Strength and Endurance to 40 in the early game and played to the rest of the game.
Here's a tier list of bosses and how fun I felt they were:
S Tier (Bosses I absolutely loved and would 100% fight again if the game had a "re-fight bosses" Menu): Father Gasgoine, Germaine the First Hunter, Vicar Amelia, Cleric Beast, Fire Beast
A tier (Bosses I liked and would fight again): Orphan of Kos, Mergo's Wet Nurse
B Tier (Bosses I enjoyed but wouldn't be my first choices for a rematch): Ludwig, Darkbeast Paarl, Amygdala
C Tier (Bosses I enjoyed but I am no rush to ever rematch): Shadows of Yharnam (2nd playthrough), Blood Starved Beast.
D Tier (Bosses I kinda disliked either because the fight dragged or wasn't fun in some way): The One Reborn, Micolash (2nd Playthrough), Living Failures. Witches of Hemlock
F Tier (Bosses I hated and felt the game would be better with them removed): Shadows of Yharnam (1st playthrough), Micolash (1st Playthrough), Rom the Vacous Spider
N/A tier (Bosses I beat but can't judge fairly): Lady Maria
Now for the much longer review of my experience:
I started the game by creating my character. I gave him molten red skin, neon blue hair and green eyes, eyelashes, facial hair and glasses. I tried naming him "Admiral Wolverine LightingBolt" but it didn't seem to fit so I went with "Elden Lord". I woke up in this dilapidated hospital with blood everywhere and this giant wolf monster. So somehow still more welcoming than Arkham Asylum. On my first playthrough, this wolf thing turned my bones into his own personal chew toys. But on my second playthrough, I was on point, dodged all of his attacks and managed to beat the wolf. Proving that with enough skill, luck and persistence, violence can solve any problem.
On a side note, when I was doing my first playthrough, I staying at my cousins' place. My cousin is a huge Souls fan who casually does challenge runs of DS1-3, BB and ER for fun using different builds. He's even platinummed several Souls games! During this recent visit, I was affected by Laryngitis and couldn't speak whatsoever. To ease my suffering, he decided to let me play Bloodborne on his PS5.
What does this story have to do with Bloodborne? Nothing aside from the fact I felt represented in my mute characterđ.
After dealing with the wolf (or getting dealt with myself), I ended up in this weird pocket dimension called the Hunters' Dream that acts as the hub for the game that is completely separated from the rest of the game that you have to fast travel to and from. Here, I got my weapons (a saw cleaver and gun), learned I can level up by talking to a woman and can upgrade my weapons and equip gems once I find some resources in the world.
I am mixed on this implementation of the hub world. For one, you can't "rest" and lamps/bonfires. You can only fast travel when using them. This often lead to situations where I'd reach a lamp, light it, fast travel back to the Hunter's Dream since that was the only way to heal, then Fast Travel back to where I was. On PS5, this process is a bit annoying but I feel sorry for base PS4 bois that had to deal with the load timesđ. My heart goes out to you guys.
I imagine BB does this because you can fast travel from the start of the game. In Dark Souls 1, you unlocked Fast Travel around 50% or so into the game. So the game let you rest and level up at bonfires. I imagine that since you can fast travel in BB, it's more convenient to put levelling up, a shop and upgrades in the same hub now. Still, I feel Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring handled this better where you could still rest at bonfires (and level up in the case of ER) while everything else was at your base of operations. Made the experience flow more smoothly.
Speaking of flowing smoothly, the level design. While I can't deny DS1's interconnected first half was extremely cool, I did find it a bit rough when backtracking and exploring. BB (and also DS3) I feel are more fun since they are generally linear with individual levels having multiple paths and shortcuts. This keeps the pace up while still having a fair amount of exploration.
BB tweaks the mechanics of other Souls games. Something that hurts my soul is that you can't easily be a magic or shield boiđ˘. BB is a far more aggressive Souls game that wants you roleplay a Souls Player that isn't a casual. And as someone who only plays Magic or Shield bois, I had to learn a whole new world.
The first change is the concept of "Trick Weapons". Weapons that can swap between 2 modes when you press L1 (the former block button). Essentially giving you 2 weapons in one. One weapon I particularly liked was the Kirkhammer. Its "normal" mode was a regular sword that let you hold a gun in your off hand. But pressing L1 turns it into a comically oversized hammer you have to 2-hand and bonk enemies with. The game lets you carry 2 weapons at a time and has no weight limits.
When I typically play Souls games, I stick with 1 maybe 2 weapons my entire playthrough. I did DS1, 3 and ER with only a Claymore (which often meant I took hits when attacking). I find it a hassle to upgrade multiple weapons and maintain multiple loadouts. BB means I always have at least 2 weapons giving me more flexibility. I am a bit sad Trick Weapons never seemed to return in subsequent Souls games.
The second change is to parrying and riposting/visceral/critical attacks. In other Souls games, you have to parry with your shield. At least, I think that's how you do it. I am terrible at parrying. Aside from Gwen from DS1, I can't parry in Souls games to save my life.
BB changes it such that you can shoot enemies right before they attack you to parry them. This resulted in even someone like me able to rack up multiple parries, at a safe distance with multiple chances even if I miss. I am not complaining given how challenging this game is. The only downside is that it requires bullets which you can only carry a max of 20 of.
One change I am less happy with is riposting/visceral/critical/backstab attacks. In something like DS3 or Elden Ring, R2 hits from heavier weapons can eventually stagger enemies leaving them open to critical attacks. And some enemies can be backstabbed by shuffling between them and pressing R1. In BB, you need to do a charged R2 to hit an enemy's back and then press R1 to backstab them. I always found inconvenient to set that up on most enemies. Especially with my main weapon being the Hunter Axe.
The third change is to health and resources. You heal using blood vials and shoot using bullets and can carry a max of 20 of them but they only replenish based on how many you have stockpiled. Meaning whenever you run out of them, you gotta go farm them. During my first playthrough of the game, it really rubbed salt in the wound to spend what felt like hours losing to a boss, getting closer to victory, dying and then realizing I'd have to take a break to restock supplies. Made worse with how even the Hunter's Dream isn't immune to the effects of inflation and vials and bullets get more expensive the more you progress. Fortunately, in my second playthrough, my Chalice Dungeon Exploit meant I never had to worry about farming ever again.
In addition, Bloodborne has a mechanic called the Rally System. Inspired by the 2003 Hulk Game based on the Ang Lee Movie, whenever you take damage, you don't instantly lose that health. If you attack the enemy immediately after you take damage, you can restore your health. In theory, this means you can recover from any mistake if you are aggressive and skilled enough to take advantage of it. I like this system as it often resulted in me surviving fights a bit longer as I could often heal back some of the damage I took so I could stretch out my Blood Vials for longer. I wish this returned in subsequent Souls' games.
With all that backstory of the mechanics out of the way, I went on with the rest of the game. I am still not sure what's the story or lore of the game. All I knew going into this game was that one Tumblr meme that "Bloodborne is about escaping London".
I ran into some bosses. Cleric Beast was an absolute spectacle I loved fighting despite my deaths. Great fight. Father Gasgoine was also a blast. He seems to be designed to teach you how to parry since his first 2 phases are quite easy if you can nail those parries. I did struggle quite a bit as I had a 50% accuracy with my parries but I still enjoyed the fight. His boss run was rather tedious however.
Vicar Amelia, in my opinion, takes the cake for the "most epic beast like beast boss that was also a blast to fight". Her sounds and howls were chilling. Her movements were animistic but reasonable to dodge. It was quite the dance where I really felt like a hunter fighting this monstrosity where even though technically I was in the driver's seat, mistakes could instantly be fatal.
My one complaint are her hair? Bandages? They're so long and flowing that they could obscure what Amelia was doing. Add in that the camera also had a tough time keeping up with her (and later bosses) and some of my deaths did feel a bit cheap.
If I had to offer suggestions to improve this, games like Devil May Cry, God Hand and the early WWE games had a camera system that could "leave" the room rather than get stuck against a wall so you always had a full view of the action. In addition, whenever something came between the camera and the subject like a pillar or ropes, that object would become transparent. Letting the player know the object was there without having it block the view.
I imagine this probably wouldn't be a 100% fit for a game like BB that wants to have a more "realistic" feel to its environments. Not to mention the horror factor with stuff like enemies attacking you from behind gravestones and stuff. So if the game were to use this, it would probably be used sparingly such as in boss rooms and/or for objects like Amelia's bandages.
Next up was Blood Starved Beast. Getting to him was quite the adventure as it took me across a church with slime monsters, dilapidated ruins where I had to dodge gunfire, and a city full of werewolves. I needed some help from my cousin to find my way around which was embarrassing đ.
The boss fight itself wasâŚ..mixed. I didnât enjoy the runback even with the shortcut. Blood Starved Beast also felt difficult to visually parse. So I often got smacked and wasnât sure what was going on. And in his final phase, he secrets poison around him which I had no way to cure so I just had to tank it and hope I had enough heals to last.
Points for looking absolutely disgusting and monstrous. This boss nailed the aesthetic as it flails around like some sort of monster deprived of sustenance.
This is where the timeline diverges in this review. Because recall I played this game twice: once at my cousinâs place in a normal way. And once later after I learned the chalice dungeon exploit from him. I used that exploit to boost my Vitality, Endurance and Strength to 40 each. Iâll discuss how the game felt in both normal mode and âeasy modeâ.
But the next boss fight felt the same in both playthroughs, The Witch of Hemlock was, a D Tier fight I feel. The areas I explored before getting to the boss were more fun. I really liked the âMedieval village and surrounding fortifications overrun by hollowsâ aspect.
The Witchesâ gimmick was that they mostly donât fight you directly. They tend to remain invisible and summon enemies to fight you while they attempt to trap you with a spell that lets them attack you.
I remember during my second playthrough, my grandfather was watching me play and I got distracted so I got hit by the Witchesâ trap and subsequent attack. My grandfather asked me what was going on. I told him âI got distracted so the witch was now gouging my eyes outâ. He asked me âif the witch is removing your eyes, how can you see whatâs happening?â I responded with âMy charactersâ eyes are gone, mine arenâtâ.
Alright enough stalling and time to discuss the boss. I found it lacking because the fight felt more like it was dragging than I was fighting. It got repetitive running around looking for a witch, getting a few hits on them, then dodging away as the summoned enemies got closer and then repeating. The hardest part was finding the invisible witches and if I took too long, theyâd begin to heal/resurrect each other.
I wish there was a way to more easily see where the witches were or to more accurately predict their locations as it would speed things up.
The next boss however, made me wish for the Witches back.
Getting to the Shadows of Yharnam required going through this creepy and atmospheric forest/swamp (thankfully not poisonous) with snake and pig enemies. It was cool the first time but I came to loathe it because I had to traverse most of it for the runback. I wish there was a lamp closer to the boss.
The concept behind Shadows of Yharnam is so cool. You have these 3 Ringwraith looking dudes. One focused on melee, one focused on ranged pyromancies, and one kinda a mix in this graveyard. As you whittle them down, they power up and get new moves to keep you on your toes.
One notable feature of the arena is the large tombstone you can use as cover and to separate the 3 bois. And this is something Iâve felt is an underrated aspect of Soulsâ combat. I remember playing God of War 2018 and more recently [game I can't mention due the rules] and even if the combat mechanics in these games are more complex than Souls, the arenas often felt same-y. That it doesnât matter where you are fighting enemies because the environment never plays a role.
Soulsâ games may have âsimplerâ mechanics (a lot of my fights had me only using O and R1), but they often had the environment play a role. Whether that was using pillars or obstacles to separate enemies, or using stairs/elevation to get enemies to miss their attacks. I feel it makes Soulsâ fights feel more memorable and tactical in many places.
Unfortunately, Shadows of Yharnam made it difficult to appreciate the positives. It was a frustrating boss fight because I found it really easy to get swarmed and/or sucker punched by a stray fast tentacle or sneak attack. These attacks did so much damage and it was so easy to get overwhelmed that a single mistake often resulted in my death. Add in the long runback and I really felt my soul being tested.
Most of my attempts were me running around the arena and trying to use the big tombstone hoping the shadows separated enough for me to get a few hits in. I spent more time running than fighting đ. How I wished I had a shield or even the sun ring from Dark Souls 3 or the Blessed Dew Talisman from Elden Ring as the fights went on long enough and I was so defensive that they genuinely would have been useful.
I'd rate this boss an F tier because it soured my experience that much. It took several hours of attempts but I finally won somehow. I grabbed my phone and made Siri say âWoooo Finallyâ. My cousin told me âShadows and one other boss are the low points of Bloodborne. If you can beat those, then you can beat anything this game throws at youâ. That didnât exactly boost my confidence but I decided to preserve. I was in too deep to quit. Besides, the only other game he had on his PS5 at the time was Fallout 4 and I wanted to wait for the next gen patch to release first.
Funnily, in my second playthrough, I found the Shadows actually somewhat fun. My inflated stats compensated for the issues I had in the fight. Having more stamina meant I could attack and dodge more which gave me more opportunities to weave in for attacks. Having more health meant I could play more aggressively and tank a few of their shenanigans. And having more strength meant the fight was much faster paced. Even though I died a few times, I had fun. This fight went from F tier on my 1st run to c tier on my second.
Next up, I travelled through this forest and mansion. I saw messages from other players that said stuff like âFear Womanâ and âWoman aheadâ. They were referring to a human hunter NPC that was harder than actual bosses. She could fire ranged attacks that tore through my health. I only bothered killing her on my second play through since I had the stats to tank a few of her attacks.
The next boss was Rom the Vacuous Spider. Which looked more like a tick. Româs kids looked more like spiders than him? Regardless, if I was judging Rom on aesthetics alone, heâd easily be S tier. Dude looks absolutely creepy and disgusting. The arena is absolutely dreamlike. Itâs good stuff.
The fight itself howeverâŚâŚ
Rom is surrounded by her baby spiders that take reduced damage from frontal attacks. You either have to get behind them or bait out their jumping attack and attack their backs when they whiff. The spidersâ jumping attack is a 1 shot on you if it lands on your back. And in later phases, Rom will teleport around, spawn more spiders and summon meteors that can 1 shot you.
I did not enjoy this fight. Even summoning an NPC didnât do much because the summon would spend too long fighting the baby spiders upfront. I found the best strategy, even on my 2nd play through was to be patient and slowly whittle each of the babies all while watching out for Româs later phase attacks. This fight really drags and getting hit with a stray meteor is really demoralizing.
I actually took a break from Bloodbourne to play some Fallout 4. I found out Bethesda finally added mods to the PS5 version. I downloaded one that gave me infinite resources and decided to build the perfect settlement. Only to find I am terrible at building. I realized I have no choice but to return to Bloodborne to seek revenge on Rom for crushing my lifelong dreams of being an architect đ¤.
It took countless attempts, but I finally beat Rom. My cousin congratulated me and told me âBro, the worst is over. Nothing gets that bad in BB ever againâ. The game then played a cutscene of the blood moon from Zelda Breath of the Wild then teleported me to a university where the students melted into slimes. Honestly, I can relate. The same happened to me during my undergrad.
After finding student robes so I could roleplay the most unironically fun part of my life, I took a portal which dropped me in a poison swamp with enemies that could inflict frenzy/madness. However, after Rom and Shadows, I considered it a step up so I canât complain. I found a shortcut and the boss Amygdala.
This boss was massive, could shoot lasers, and took reduced damage to its feet. The goal was to avoid its attacks and aim for its arms and head. And honestly, this was great. My biggest complaints were his acid attacks and the camera but aside from that, the boss was fun. His attacks were reasonably telegraphed and it was reasonable to punish him. I eventually got to the point where I didnât even need to dodge his ground slam. I could just position myself and do a charged R2 to both avoid the attack and smack him upon landing. Even the run back was fine. Iâm happy.đ
I was lost and my cousin guided me to the Unseen Village (which he earlier had me find by getting captured so I could grind some levels). After navigating through it, my cousin directed me to the side where I ran into a doggo with electric powers. Darkbeast Paarl was fun even if I had a hard time parsing what was going on. I was sorta just running on instinct and it was somehow working. So this is the power of ultra instinct? Although my cousin kept calling me a scrub because I kept summoning for the fight. But hey, in the immortal words of Dominic âFamilyâ Toretto: âit doesnât matter if win by an inch or by cheesing, winning is winningâ.
After a run past some eldrich abominations I canât describe, I ran into a new boss: The One Reborn. And once again, S tier for design. The massive amalgamation of body parts looks absolutely grotesque. But the actual fight could have been better.
I get heâs supposed to be a flailing mess of bodies, but that often resulted it being painful to get a read on his attacks as well getting smacked by a stray limb. Every attempt also required me to climb some stairs to kill the mages shooting spells at me. Altogether, Iâd rank him in D tier. Itâs not as bad as Rom but not something Iâd say I had fun with.
Next was this really cool castle that I could traverse and unlock elevators as shortcuts. They were a bit annoying to keep reusing but after some of the other runbacks in this game, Iâm not complaining. The boss here was Micolash, Host of Nightmares. I remember after my first attempt, I used Siri to speak âget back here shocker you canât escape from me, Iâll chase you to the ends of the earthâ to my cousin who didnât get the reference.
In my first playthrough, I hated Micolashâs boss fight. It was long and if I messed up once, I could be one shot by his magic attacks. And restarts really dragged. But on my second playthrough I enjoyed it a lot more. I had enough health so a few mistakes didnât immediately cost me the attempt. Though I did still die a few times. Which honestly is the most embarrassing thing Iâve ever done and should justify legally banning me from Souls games.
Micolash is more of a âset pieceâ boss rather than a straight up fight. His 1st phase involves chasing him into a room where he summons puppets to fight you. Micolash himself is something of a trick pony where he only has 1 magic attack that is kinda easy to see coming, bait, and punish. The catch is that if that attack ever hits you, it does a crazy amount of damage. So for me, it became a balancing act of learning the intricacies of my axe's combo so I could get as many hits as I could in safely before dodging/sidestepping away because I knew he'd do his magic attack and then repeat. It became a nice if stressful rhythm.
His next phases involve more running before finally being locked in a room with him where he can't run no more. He gets a few more magic attacks. In particular, this one where he shoots multiple tracking projectiles that do a crazy amount of damage and was responsible for many of my deathsđ. Apparently, you can hit him to stagger him out of it but I chose to play it safe whenever he went for it and instead punished his tentacle attacks.
I will complement the creativity and spectacle of the fight. In particular, the dialogue. My favourite line from Micolash was "so can a loc come up in your crib?" to which I made my character respond with "Man, F!%k you, I'll see you at the dream" to which Micolash replied with "Hunter don't hate me because I am beautiful hunter. Maybe if you got rid of that ol yee yee ass hat, you'd get some witches on your d!%k. Or better yet, Maybe Maria will call your cathedral ass if she ever stop f!%king with that vicar or nightmare she f!%king with: Hunteeeeeer". I still don't get the lore significance of that. I should check out a Vaati video on the game someday.
After killing Micolash, this opened up bridges where after making my past giant pigs and shadows of Yharnam getting copy pasted like this is an Elden Ring cave, I make my way past a white woman and up some elevators where I fight the first A tier boss in the quite a while: Mergo's Wet Nurse. The Runback was a bit long but not too painful. But more importantly, the boss was fun. As this sort of multi-armed quad blade wielding graceful creature, The Nurse was as ruthless as she was sharp. Her attacks and combos felt deliberate but also so fun to dodge. I smiled every time I managed to i-frame through her twirl and spread attacks. This is the kind of bosses I love.
My only complaint is her shadow phase where the screen goes dark and she summons a shadow clone to sucker punch you. I found no easy way to predict or dodge her attacks so I often resorted to running around to end the clock before returning back to a regular fight. I do like how my axe could sometimes knock her out of her shadow form in some cases.
After killing the Nurse and learning my character is passionately pro-choice, I was teleported back to the Hunter's Dream. I walked and talk to Germaine and my cousin told me to choose a very specific set of dialogue options. This triggered the final boss: Germaine the First Hunter. It felt cool to bring the game full circle. The first (roadblock) boss was Papa Guacomole the Hunter. And the Final Boss is the ultimate Hunter. He used a more impressive version of a hunter's moveset and equipment. Including being able to shoot and parry me for a riposte.
It felt like a precursor to the Soul of Cinder bossfight from Dark Souls 3 and I am here for it. Unfortunately, I got my ass kicked a lot. My poor hunter never learned to respect his elders and was getting mercilessly bullied by Germaine for that. This went on for quite a while until I rubbed my 2 remaining brain cells together.
I went to the Gem workshop in the dream, looked through my options and saw a gem that restores health on successful Viscerals, one that gives extra vials and one that increases my max health. I felt like Sun Tzu. Is this what actually good Souls' players feel they make actually decent builds? I took my new build for a test run against Germaine.......and ultimately got absolutely clowned on. It took a lot of attempts for me to learn which of his attacks are parryable, when to parry them, when to play defensively and when to go in for regular attacks. Using Up to turn my health into bullets and getting a Visceral meant I could keep parrying for way longer. I did burn through all my vials and bullets before I got the W. It really felt like a proper duel where I put everything I had into it.
I got thrown into NG+. I do prefer DS3 and onwards' approach of making NG+ a choice rather than instantly throwing you into it so I can go wrap up some other content.
Regardless, I took a break from the game. Within the next few months, I recovered and got my voice back, played Bloodborne on my own PS5 and used a Chalice Dungeon Exploit my cousin taught me. Then when I visited him again, he told me he got the Bloodborne Old Hunters DLC and invited me to play it. But since my save profile was on NG+ and I didn't want to restart entirely to build my character, I decided to play through the DLC on NG+ (despite warnings from my cousin). I made it to Vicar Amelia and my cousin did something to trigger the DLC and threw me into a new area and handed me the controller.
I explored this area that looked like the Cathedral Ward albeit with more snow. I explored all the way to Vicar Amelia's room where I fought a fire version of Cleric Beast (Really cool fight btw. I loved how he crawled after he took a lot of damage). After more traversal, I ended up travelling through these rivers of skeletons and blood and my cousin directed me to lamp. Then I ran into the boss Ludwig.
Ludwig is such a great boss. I love how he has the opposite progression of other bosses where he starts out as this wild horse monster and in phase 2, becomes a giant swordshorse using the Moonlight Greatsword. His attacks felt fun to dodge and figure out. Easy A tier.
No joke, this boss took me 5 hours of attempts to beat. But unlike before, I felt oddly at peace. My mentality had shifted and I was somehow enjoying the small incremental improvements I was making. I believe it was the environment. I spent the time chatting with my cousin (we talked about how the Final Fantasy 7 remake was actually a multiverse time travel story rather than a straight up remake. My cousin hated that but I felt it was cool. We talked about how games were getting much larger because storage was much cheaper and companies have no discs to hold them back), and listening to podcasts (RIP to Comicstorian) and watching anime on my iPad as I played (Funnily, I was playing better since I wasn't panicking as much and just going with the flow. I did die once when I was watching Dr. Stone and realized Ryusi was reinventing capitalism so maybe Tskasa was right this whole timeđ¤).
I also had a sense of like "I can beat this guy using my current setup and skills. It is only a matter of time". Which wasn't the case for bosses like Maliketh and Malenia. Like, when I fought those bosses, I straight up knew "I could be max level and still stand no chance of beating them with my current skills". I think it's because while Ludwig hits like a 20ft tall horse monster on crack, there was a rhythm to the fight. That soon, I could recognize the tells of his attacks even with my distractions.
Over the hours, I could feel my progress. Before I would die a few minutes in. Soon, I managed to reach phase 2 on an inconsistent basis where I'd die instantly. It was his charge attack that usually got me in. But soon, I got a much better sense of when to dodge and strafe him so I could get consistent damage opportunities.
Finally, I could get to phase 2 somewhat consistently, only to die quickly since for the life of me, I couldn't dodge his sword swings for some reason. I'd always dodge into his attacks with a delay? Took a long time to somehow unlearn this bad habit before I finally got him. And to my surprise, his severed head would remain after being killed and chat with you.
After enough horsing around, I proceeded on. I came across this door where a guy asked me if I heard a bell? I said yes and he called me a scrub and stopped talking to me. I continued and came to these "bedrooms"? I think. There were these 2 Invader like NPCs that ambushed me. Of these were a melee user and the other a ranged. And honestly, they felt impossible to beat. I ran past them after a few attempts, interacted with a table which turned into an elevator. This took me to an area that looked like the moving staircases from Hogwarts except dark, grimy and more dangerous.
Navigating that took me to a fog wall with the best named bosses I've ever fought. These blue alien looking things called "The Living Failures". S tier name, design and music. In terms of gameplay, they're.....probably D tier. Their gimmick is that some of the blue aliens are melee bois and some are ranged bois. You have to alternate between which ones you tackle. And occasionally, they can summon a near fatal meteor storm that you can somewhat block with the giant tree in the center of the stage.
This boss wasn't hard just.....kinda tedious. Most of my attempts were me strafing around, using the same trick I used to beat Germaine to parry and heal and whittle them down in a war of attrition. It did take a me a few hours which was embarrassing, but it wasn't terrible.
I remember a comment on the Bloodborne wiki by user "winged_spear_enjoyer:
"Calling this boss "literally me": boring, overused, unfunny, not even true (you are an amazing person who deserves to be loved)Calling this boss "the four kings on meth": fresh, new, funny, actually true"
While this is hilarious, I do have to ask if the Living Failures are meant to work somewhat similar to the 4 kings? That boss was more of a DPS check that penalized being slow. Whereas Living Failures, even once they get their numbers up, are still beatable in a slow war of attrition. Maybe I am missing something.
These guys may have been a failure in life but not in death. As their death puts a lamp right next to the next boss Lady Maria. My cousin warned me to take a break as this boss is considered one of the hardest bosses in Souls and one that would be impossible for me to even chip away at without parrying. I felt insulted and responded with "You underestimate my power".
I beat Lady Maria on my 2nd attempt without parrying.
My cousin was stunned. It turns out, I had the perfect tool to beat her. My Hunter Axe's Charged R2. The way it works is that it swings twice with hyper armour. The first hit does ok damage and can stagger sometimes but the second hit knocks enemies down. This was the perfect combo as I could eat Maria's damage during the first swing and recover a good chunk of the damage through the Rally System, then knock her to the ground with the second hit that would completely heal the damage and interrupt her attacks.
Maria didn't have any attacks that I could recall that could stagger me out of my charged R2. Nor was she aggressive enough to prevent the charge on a consistent basis. As such, I didn't have to learn any of her attacks or tricks. Occasionally I might have had to bait out a few attacks and I did make a few mistakes that burned through a fair amount of my vials. But overall, I finally got to be the boss for once. So remember kids, if you ever want to flex on women, just channel your inner Beyblade.
The next part of the DLC took me across this fishing village I ran past because of the abundance of enemies. Then past these spooky caves while I was being pursued by another in-game invader NPC harder than actual bosses. Before I reached a small beach. This 7ft tall newborn "got born" and proceeded to kick my ass.
My cousin informed me this was Orphan of Kos. The "Hardest boss in any Souls game before Malenia" and I could see why. Phase 1 wasn't too bad. It took me a few hours but I found the safest and most consistent strat was to dodge into his placenta for his charging attacks, get a few hits in and then flee. The i-frames seemed unusually generous for some reason.
Phase 2 is whack and I'm still not sure how I won. He becomes so much more aggressive that the only times I could do damage to him was during his ground slams. Every other attack was way too risky. I also could never dodge his "placenta bomb" attacks and just had to eat the damage and heal manually. I suppose I just got lucky with his jumps and lighting attacks I could roll through.
When I won, I slumped back in my seat and took a breath as my earbuds played "Style" by Taylor Swift (Her best song and I will die on this hillđ¤!) My cousin told me I did it. I beat Bloodborne and its DLC. I handed him back the controller and simply said: "Bro. Check out this one post on the wiki about Orphan:
wolf7288when my wife gave birth to our first child, I had a ptsd flashback to this boss. I instinctively dodge rolled through the table knocking my wife into the floor. I picked up the IV machine (my trick weapon of choice) and drained my entire stamina bar on the newly birthed orphan. unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I could not I-frame the police officers' taser and I'm now serving a life sentence. truly the Dark Souls of child births. My child did not make it. Nightmare Slain :3
Anonymous 03 Jun 2023 15:47Hold up if you're the dad and you kill it it was never an orphanAnonymous 14 Jun 2023 19:16he's an orphan because clearly the father disowned the child the instant he saw itAnonymous 04 Jul 2023 10:15Ahahaha this was by far the funniest thing I've read on any of these wikis. Cheers for the laughs!MatinArtorias 07 Jul 2024 12:15This is canon event"
Thank you reading this post. I hope you have a good day and we get Bloodborne remastered and Bloodbourne Kart one day.
