Bloodborne Review – Halloween Horror Extravaganza

Today we review Bloodborne in our final installment for this year’s Halloween Horror Extravaganza where we look at horrid decapitations, nigh unkillable monsters, and horrific monstrosities within movies, books, and games. Bloodborne is a member of the SoulsBorne series of games produced by FromSoft which also includes Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls.

This is a spiritual cousin to the Souls games. It has many of the same game play mechanics and a similarly dark and depressing world. Its difficulty is extreme for those entering for the first time. But for those of us who know how to play, they are quite fair and exceedingly fun. It’s one of my favorite games and it’s the finale to this Halloween Horror Extravaganza. 

The Souls games are in the category of “fun difficult,” where you deal a lot of damage to your enemies but they deal a lot back. It’s you or them. One of you is going to die very quickly. That doesn’t include some of the bosses who tank a lot of your hits and manage to destroy you utterly until you’re a crying mess on the floor and- eh-hem. Sorry about that.

Bloodborne

Bloodborne takes heavy inspiration from gothic horror. But it takes even more from Cosmic horror, the domain of H.P. Lovecraft. The gods of this world are not the loving kind. They are the apathetic or malevolent kind. Ones who demand human sacrifice and twist their followers into all manners of indescribable horrors. 

Werewolves are not the only kinds of monsters you will find in Yharnam. There are creatures from other planes as well. Bloodborne’s versions of vampires, ghosts, and even aliens. 

This is not like your classic RPG where you spend half the game talking to NPCs and roaming safe zones. 95% or more of your time is spent cutting, shooting, and burning your way through the corrupt crevices of this city. The combat is the driving force behind the entire experience. The game play is ferocious and fast-paced. The top left of your screen shows your health and stamina bars. Your eyes will be constantly monitoring those two gauges. You can only attack as long as your stamina bar isn’t empty. Once it’s depleted, you must wait for it to recover. It is a constantly replenishing resource but it means you must pace yourself. If you run into a crowd of beasts, swinging wildly, you’ll quickly be exhausted and defenseless. Most enemies will be able to kill you in two to four hits. Meaning you’ve got to learn how to dodge and parry attacks. If you don’t learn how to do those two things, you’ll be dying constantly. And I’m serious about that. You’ll be shredded to ribbons in every encounter if you don’t master the movement.

Every enemy has the potential to kill you in a few hits. You easily die and so do they. When you’re wounded, an orange highlight appears where you’ve lost health in the health bar. If you dash into an attack on an enemy, you can regain that lost health. It’s called Rally, and it makes the combat that more aggressive. That’s an addition only Bloodborne has that isn’t in the Dark Souls games. The game wants you to be as aggressive as your enemies. 

It’s taken me a long time to decide what I wanted to say about the game. There’s so much. I could have dedicated this entire month to nothing but Bloodborne. I could have simply made four posts as parts of my review. I did spend much of this month playing and re-examining the story and lore of this nightmare fueled frenzy.

Bloodborne’s Gothic city of Yharnam is a beautiful and disgusting metropolis on the verge of collapse. Filth and blood cling to the streets. Death is on every corner and the citizens of this cursed city have gone mad with their addiction to the Old Blood and their blind belief in a church which has no love for them.

The Storytelling

This is not like my other reviews because the method of storytelling is unlike that of a movie or book. FromSoft has made an incredible effort to make the world itself be the main storyteller. Environmental storytelling is critical to understanding the twisted lives of the damned inhabitants of Yharnam.

This October I scoured through the city streets, abandoned graveyards, underground ruins, and otherworldly nightmares of this masterpiece.

The architecture is key. Every statue is placed with meaning and writes its part of the story without any direct input. The usable items you find inside an environment all have descriptions. These are more than simple flavor text, like so many RPGs have. It’s the story. Yes you can interact with NPCs (Non Player Characters) and learn important details. But the real story comes through item descriptions. What the item says and why that item is in its place turn you into an investigator gathering evidence to what has come before you. Many items are picked off of corpses and often reference important characters or events throughout the hundred-year history since Yharnam began its descent into madness (100 years being the common speculation I’ve been able to gather. There’s no clear timeline on when everything happened as far as I know).

It’s very nuanced and players such as Epic Name Bro, VaatiVidya, Aegon of Astora, and RedGrave have put way more time into understanding the intricate world of Bloodborne than I have. That does not, however, mean I haven’t done my own research. Yes, talking about this game’s story as a research project is an apt description.

The world is the story. You, as the player, are a mere piece. You play a foreign agent who stumbles into a complex conspiracy of multiple factions all fighting for the corrupted soul of their city and the surrounding hamlets. 

This unconventional method used by FromSoft can lead many through the entire game without any idea what’s going on. Or you can uncover one of the best video game stories ever presented. Yes, I will go that far. It’s just as fantastic as any other masterpiece of gaming, Deus Ex, Mass Effect, Dragon Age Origins, or Nier Automata. These games are all fantastic but their story is presented differently. It isn’t easy to follow what’s happening here. I would be willing to bet that a large portion of people who’ve beaten Bloodborne have no idea what’s really going on inside its intricate lore. They have no idea what they’re missing.

You play an outsider, someone from a faraway land who came because he or she heard of something called “Paleblood.”

The Curse of Yharnam

You see, Yharnam is an isolationist city. They treat outsiders with distaste and mistrust. But one thing keeps people coming, no matter the danger… Yharnam has special blood. Magical blood. Through a technique called “Blood Ministration,” the Healing Church (the city’s official religion) has been able to heal ailments. Diseases that would otherwise cripple or kill are easily mended. People can even gain in strength and vigor. Not simply becoming healthy but gaining in ability through the use of Yharnam’s special blood.  

That is why you are there. For whatever reason the player decides, the player character has come seeking this magical healing medium. Unfortunately for the character, he or she has arrived on the Night of the Hunt. This is a night of religious purge where the citizens of the city roam the streets and slay the countless men and women who’ve fallen to The Scourge of the Beast. The Scourge is an extremely violent illness which transforms a person into a werewolf-like creature.

These hunts are sanctioned by the Healing Church and you find yourself in the middle of the most chaotic night Yharnam has. 

In the first cutscene of the game, you receive your first Blood Ministration, sending you down a rabbit hole of madness and fury. Once ministered, you find you are bound to the Hunter’s Dream, a place that is not of this world. It does not exist in this physical reality but it’s quite tactile. With your semi-imprisonment you find that you cannot die. As a Paleblood Hunter, you are doomed to linger in the Hunt until the cause of this hunt is ended. Every time you die, you simply reawaken at the most recent lamp you activated (Lamps being a conduit between the real world and the Dream). Your mind and soul are incapable of escape. Sounds complicated huh? Well that’s because it is.

This special blood can grant one the ability to become more than human. It’s the method through which we level up. Blood echoes, literal echoes of thoughts and feelings from those previously infused with that blood, can be utilized to enhance yourself. Your strength, speed, stamina, and even arcane knowledge can be augmented through the use of this magical blood. With enough of it, you’re untouched by things that could tear a human to pieces with ease. Your speed and stamina are enhanced greatly. Or you can understand arcane truths to a depth impossible for a human to even approach.

The Healing Church found this amazing substance in ancient ruins buried deep beneath the city, ancient catacombs of a lost civilization known as Pthumeru. The original hunters dived into these ruins and found many magical artifacts, including the special blood from creatures called the Great Ones. That’s right. Blood of the gods. The Church then began using it freely throughout Yharnam.

It was far too late when they discovered the side effects of its use. 

One who injects blood is not the imbiber but the imbibed. The blood drinks you. It is not a simple holy medium for magic but a parasitic substance which transforms its users into ravenous beasts. The blood is far more addictive than alcohol… and far more intoxicating. 

Almost all citizens of Yharnam, by the time you arrive to see the place, are transformed into mindless and bloodthirsty beasts. It is a disease of lycanthropy, everyone who is consumed by the blood is doomed to become a werewolf-like creature. But their transformation is permanent once it gets far enough and there is no cure but cleansing flame or a serrated edge.

This is the secret the Healing Church keeps from its citizens and a major revelation in the search for the twisted truths of Bloodborne’s world.

On the other side of things, we have Insight. Those with great Insight can see things that are usually hidden. They can see elements of the world otherwise unseen by those who’s eyes are still closed to the Eldritch truth. Objects and creatures that are normally invisible are revealed to those with high Insight. This tool can be seen in the count on the top right of the screen, below the blood echo count.

As with blood, this magical medium also has drawbacks. Eldritch Insight brings about insanity. And one with a large amount of Insight is particularly vulnerable to Frenzy, a status effect brought about by a few of Bloodborne’s more terrifying enemy types. This Frenzy grows quickly and then explodes through your body, nearly killing you once the effect is maximized. Your blood literally turns into jagged spikes as your mind melts with the truth before you.

Insight might just be more terrifying than blood. For it is stated several times… “eyes on the inside.” You have literal eyes inside your skull. Many enemies that fell to the Insight madness have skulls that are laced with many eyeballs. And several Church experiments show digging for something inside skulls. IN-SIGHT.

Byrgenwerth was the place of learning which led the expeditions into the Chalice Dungeons (Pthumeru was one of many found by the Healing Church). There was a schism inside the academic opinion. Master Willem, the leader of Byrgenwerth, had his scholars repeat an adage. “We are born by the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open… fear the old blood.” You see, he believed Insight was the only way to achieve enlightenment and communion with the cosmos.

Lawrence, another high-ranking scholar, believed the opposite. That the Elder Blood was the way to achieving expanded consciousness and, in effect, godhood.

As the astute among you may be able to tell, it isn’t an either/or. It is both. Insight prevents the beast curse from taking over. And strong blood keeps you grounded in your instincts and in reality enough that you don’t drift away on the cosmic tides opened to you by Insight.

This one-or-the-other approach led to the Byrgenwerth schism, which separated the laboratory from the city. Lawrence went on to found the Healing Church. Byrgenwerth was all but abandoned. The few who remained were consumed by their pursuit of Insight and went mad. Those who formed The Church… many fell to The Scourge of the Beast, including Lawrence himself. The Church went on to commit countless crimes against humanity in their research. The Choir, the leading body, along with the School of Mensis, founded an orphanage. They used the children in their experiments.

Early on in the career of the Church, while the first hunter, Gehrman, and his lieutenant, Maria, were still active, the Church came across an astonishing find. Mother Kos, a Great One of the sea. A fishing village either caught her in their nets or was used to catch her by The Church. The Church went on to kill Kos and essentially rape the village. This led to a curse being placed upon the Church Hunters. “May their children and their children’s children suffer nothing but misery.” It was one of the worst acts the Church committed.

There are many other things that happened in the 100 year history since the first Pthumerin labyrinth was discovered. Many insights were unlocked. Many horrible experiments took place. Many innocent lives were taken. I have only scratched the surface, but this review is already long enough.

I could tell you how dreams of the Great Ones are just as tangible as physical reality. They are essentially other planes of existence. Or how Cainhurst broke off from Byrgenwerth and essentially became the vampires of this world. Or how Ludwig, the first official hunter, went from a holy figure to a damned man who failed his life’s mission. But I will save those Insights for my further discussions of Bloodborne. This is only the beginning.

Arcane Arts

For this review, I replayed Bloodborne. I do this every Halloween because it has the perfect atmosphere. This time, I played an Arcane build. That means a mage, or user of the arcane arts, within this twisted world. He was thrust into a world he was not prepared for and his mind and body suffered greatly for it. 

Most say you can’t really do an arcane build in this game because magic is weak until you’re almost at the end. I have proven this wrong. One element of the magic system that most don’t seem to know makes an arcane build, even in the early game, really fun and overpowered. Elemental damage scales with your arcane stat. For the first half of the game you’re a pyromaniac using the Flamesprayer to engulf your enemies and throwing Molotov cocktails for massive explosions of damage. For the second half, you’re an Eldritch summoner who brings cosmic energies into this reality for bursts of damage which lay waste to most enemies.

All you need to do is focus on your arcane stat, and get the Flamesprayer as soon as you beat Father Gascoigne. You’ll get it from Gilbert, the man behind the window next to your first lamp. Burning the plagued streets with righteous fury is so much fun. It makes sense, in-context. Arcane is the domain of the gods. Cosmic knowledge breeds magic. Elemental magic is a part of that in this world. And what could better represent hard to control fury more than fire? Later-on you can find several arcane artifacts. Most of which came from the Chalice Dungeons, or were created by the Church. Once you have those, the true arcane suite opens up. You can partially summon Abandoned Ebrietas, a Great One, and slap enemies with a giant tentacle. Or create a small supernova and fire shimmering charges of arcane energy to obliterate multiple enemies.

This was my first Arcane playthrough and I think it was the most fun I’ve had. It is a bit overpowered for some sections. But I’ve already played “fair” before and this was a great change of pace. Blasting things apart from a distance with my arcane knowledge was a hell of a lot of fun.

Halloween Horror Extravaganza, Closing Curtain

Bloodborne is a one-of-a-kind experience. It is, without question, my favorite SoulsBorne game and easily within my top five favorite games of all time. I cannot with a clear conscience make this a one-and-done.

I’ve began the journal of Michael Hohenheim, my player character. From his perspective, I will be diving into the details and depths of the experience for my readers to enjoy. If you’ve never gone through the story of Bloodborne before and don’t feel like playing a really hard game, I can’t imagine a better way than through the eyes of an inquisitive player character uncovering the secrets of Yharnam as he goes through the blood-crusted streets, cursed cathedrals, decrepit castles, ancient underground ruins, and otherworldly nightmares of Bloodborne.

If you’ve played and examined the lore, what do you think of my analysis? Sure, I only touched on a few things, but I’d like your opinion. If you’ve never played before, do you want to now?