The bit about fights being designed to be completed at about the same pace you chug vials, given your weapon deals enough damage (which is always the case unless you gimp yourself, I assume), feels very true.
But doesn't the mechanic you talk about corroborate the idea that the game is designed with relentless assault in mind ? Ie. you're the wolf hunting the wolf kind of vibe ?
As you mention it yourself, Bloodborne is the only one specifically designed that way. It's fair to assume this is a deliberate decision rather than some artefact.side effect of its own systems.
Thematically I can see why it would make sense this way, but from a gameplay perspective I'd argue it does indeed encourage the exact opposite for people who actually know how it functions. The game clearly wants you to play fast and offensively, that is why they made shields a gimmick off-hand only useful for a select few encounters instead of a prominent tool like in Dark Souls. It punishes players twice as much for attempting to do what the game wants them to do, than it does punish players for standing still and taking a bitch slap to the face. The punishment for a failed roll in every other Souls game is taking the damage because... you failed the roll, which then results in having to find space and time to be able to recover from that damage before you can make a safe attempt at getting an attack at the boss again. Thanks to 2x instability damage in BB, it pretty much just removes this entire part of the equation, you either dodged the attack perfectly or more often than not you died instantly - unless you know that you can just survive by not even trying to dodge at all and just trading hits with the rally system, which makes the game easy mode.
It is quite obvious why they haven't done instability damage like this ever again since Bloodborne (and it's not because "Bloodborne is le only aggressive game in the series", I would argue DS3 and Elden Ring take up that mantle very well if you don't use spells or summons), it is not balanced around the players' health pool or the intended level or vitality of the player encountering a boss, it is hard to balance boss damage output for it and it incentivizes the wrong styles of gameplay.
I actually figured out I was taking 2x damage whenever I missed a roll fairly quickly because I have replayed
every Souls game in the time since Elden Ring came out, before playing the first three King's Field games, Shadow Tower and finally ending up on Bloodborne a month ago. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring are all very fresh in my mind upon coming into Bloodborne, so this mechanical difference was immediately noticeable. This recent amassing of Souls data in my brain is also why it is my opinion that I don't think the game really stands out all that much in a post DS3/Elden Ring world, it should be understood that I don't have any nostalgia for Bloodborne, nor do I have any Playstation paperweight buyer's remorse, because my brother handled that aspect of the ability to play Bloodborne for me. When compared to DeS/DS1/DS2 Bloodborne is certainly unique, and it probably would have stayed that way if FromSoft just suddenly stopped developing Souls games, but why would they do that when they can continue to iterate on a formula that works for players and for their wallets?
Also I don't think anybody claims this game, or any, is flawless, really.
I would argue that a certain someone began shitting his diapers and having a tantrum the second I gave my take that the game is an 8/10 as good as the others and that it was somehow haram to not blindly rate it an 11/10, this has now devolved into saying I never played the game to begin with or saying that I got filtered by some midgame boss, because I dared to stray from the mainstream (fanboy) opinion of everything to do with Bloodborne.
I don't think difficulty by itself, or the question of its legitimate integration in the game (by opposition to what some consider artificial difficulty or whatever), warrants the game's quality to any degree.
The only thing I really ask from these games is to resist us a bit, and I have yet to play a FS game which doesn't.
Absolutely agree.
I don't take FS games as certificates of my gamer status.
Unfortunately there are people who inhabit sites like these that do, hence the immediate questioning of my
gamer credentials (at the same time as apparently not bothering to read my post to even have any idea of what my take is) the moment I dared to criticize some of Bloodborne's systems.
PS: I also don't think one needs to beat a game to have insight on it. You don't even need to play most of it when you're arguing about systems and game mechanics. And SharkClub post shows it, since he raises a good point.
Memes and
extreme copium from others aside I have obviously beaten the game (including all Story Chalice dungeons and Queen Yharnam) and the only reason I'm even posting in this thread is because I beat it for the first time literally like a week and a half ago, I wouldn't be hanging around in a thread for a game in a genre I like from a developer I adore if I hadn't experienced it first without spoilers. I didn't plan some big conspiracy to come raid the Bloodborne thread while daring to criticize the game and upset fanboys or some shit.
I was posting in the King's Field thread about my experiences with King's Field 1, 2, 3 and Shadow Tower and even said in there that I have the chance to play Bloodborne soon by borrowing a PS5, and that's what I did.
I really do like to discuss stuff related to these games in detail when I get the chance, I am also interested in how the mechanics function and have been since I first played Dark Souls 2 back when it came out. Unfortunately Bloodborne is the golden goose of sonybros everywhere so even if I call the game great and an 8/10, any perceived slight against it morphs into me calling it a 2/10 game on par with Rogue Warrior or something, even on the fucking Codex of all places.
