It’s essential to preface this with a note that I’m certainly no Soulsborne master. In fact,Bloodbornewas the very first FromSoftware game I ever actually owned, and my first hours with it weren’t exactly a joy-filled romp.
I spent longer than I care to remember eating pitchfork, sword, gun, every weapon the early Yharnamites wield. I was also crushed by the Executioner’s ax around a dozen times, when I foolishly attempted to fight them with precious little idea what I was doing.
My dodges just weren’t quick enough, my flailing attempts to parry terribly timed.I couldn’t manage crowds at all, and so the wandering groups in Central Yharnam just tore through me when I inevitably aggroed a whole extended family’s worth of them at once.
When I could focus on a single foe at a time, I thought that I fared rather better, which is why I surprised myself by defeating the Cleric Beast first time. It was just that the journey to it, the first area of the game and the ‘tutorial level’ if you will, felt like an absolute gauntlet of death and shame.
I could have dropped the game right there,and anybody who’d watched my faltering performance up to that point would have surely understood.
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“We Are … Made Men By The Blood”
Sometimes, though, sheer stubbornness wins out over common sense, and I’m so very glad that it did. Innumerable playthroughs later, Bloodborne is among my very favorite games of all time and I know it quite intimately.
Father Gascoigne was my turning point, really.I took a few days’ break after becoming roadblocked by him, then committed to leveling up and approaching battles with engagement of the gray matter.
My well-meaning partner had bought me Bloodborne as a gift, knowing that an enormous horror fan like myself would appreciate its dark, twisted world. They were absolutely right, and for that reason, I was committed to finishing it.
With Gascoigne slain, things really began to click for me. Farming Blood Echoes, I started to focus my build properly around my weapon’s level scaling, boosting my health and Stamina, and keeping my Blood Vials topped up.
I’m not sure I was overleveledper se, but in taking the time to nab as many Blood Stone Shards (and variants thereof) as I could in the area I was in, I felt at least on par with the challenges I met. In this way,I wasn’t really roadblocked by anyother challenging bosses, taking my time with them as far as Bloodborne’s first-paced combat allowed.
The game became not a fearful challenge to finally overcome, but a weird, wonderful, and distinctly dark experience to savor. I wouldn’t be so bold as to say I got good, but I got good enough, and that made it fun.It just got better as I went on.
I rode that wave all the way to Gehrman, the First Hunter, who (as expected) thoroughly put me in my place a time or two before I won and the credits rolled. I then did something that very few games make me want to do: Immediately get started on a second playthrough.
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Ten years and twice as many playthroughs later…
I wouldn’t have struggled nearly so much the first time around if I hadn’t eschewed all guides and outside help, but that was how I stubbornly wanted to finish the game.Now that I had, I set about making Yharnam my horrible, bloody, increasingly Lovecraftian playground.
Pebbles plinked off the backs of the heads of Central Yharnam enemies, as I broke the groups apart and dispatched them strategically. I consulted everything I could. I took advantage of every damage type and elemental weakness. I grabbed every consumable, using them at the optimal moment rather than hoarding them uselessly.
Most importantly, I took the time to appreciate the hideously beautiful environments and the snippets of lore they offered, really soaking in the atmosphere the second time around.At some point along the way, I really fell in love with Bloodborne.
A decade after its release, I’ve played through the game onvarious new game plus cycleslots of times. I even feel confident enough toexperiment with a range of weaponsand builds.
There’s always something to learn, and I still make the silliest slip-ups against bosses and mobs alike.The thing is, though, Yharnam is now my favorite setting in any game ever,and toying with foes that once seemed unassailable shows me how far I’ve come in this world.It’s almost endlessly replayable for me.
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