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Derpy Review #105: Bloodborne (Spoilers, obviously)

(Part 1 of review)

Micro: Its Blood-Goddamn-Borne, you guys already can guess that we given the game a platinum rank.

Shekra: Blood.....borne....~

Micro: Yes, Bloodborne, we finally reach this game, the one that I'm pretty sure most of you guys were most anticipating, and I mean that almost literally given that this Bloodborne we're talking about people, the game that got the most votes on our poll months back if you don't count Elden Ring, the game that is one of the Soulsborne games that has been talk to the high mountains and back, with many people praising the game to the moon and beyond.

Shekra: Bloodborne~

Micro: Its to the point that can we honestly say that is there anything we can add to the conversation? The honest answer is probably big fat f$%k no, but we're going to anyways because we love this game dammit.

Shekra: Bloodborne~

Micro: And when I say this has been praised before, I kind of mean it as Bloodborne has to be probably the biggest game be love by a lot of people, more than Dark Souls has been talk to death as well. Which is amazing given we're talk about a game that is so far forever lock to a three dollar magical box that Sony refuses to let this game get at least be properly ported to PS5 without it just being the original PS4 version. And lord knows so many people have been begging for a PC port of the game, and let's be honest, its mostly for the stupid "60 frame rate" crap I don't care much for, I do still want to see this game be ported to PC just to see the horrifying amount of Mods people will shove into the game. Hell, people has been begging a PC port so hard, a fan went out of their way to make such a thing a while back, graphics might look very ancient to anyone growing up to games made last week, but damn it if this is not the best version on PC so far. Joking aside about the Demake, seriously give it a shot, its rather amazing how putting the game in a PS1 style works rather well for the game even if the game manages to only get about the first two hours of the game, its great to talk about this game. I could describe in a paragraph amount or two of how much me and Shekra love this game, but if you've been following this account since practically the beginning, than its no mystery. We both love this game that we reference this game several times, hell, I still remember me saying last year for anticipation for Elden Ring that we were platinuming this game, mostly because we had to painfully wait for the game to finish downloading all the updates and whatnot. And to finally talk about this game, well, obviously at least one of us is "extremely" excited to talk about it to say the least.

Shekra: Blood....borne~

Micro: Don't mind Shekra, folks, she got very blood drunk by the time we beaten Vicar Amelia that there was no stopping her at that point from acting like a little preschooler being told she can have as much candy as she wants.

Shekra: Bloodborne~

Micro: Speaking of, hey, Bloody Queen, you're going to be sober enough to even make it to the story segment?

Shekra: Blood......borne~

Micro: Uh, she'll be fine.... hopefully. With that said, let's go ahead and start cracking this skull open. That's right, no big rant for five minutes of something like the development, or our history with the game since we kind of did it already, that if you want a pure in depth video that goes into Bloodborne in the best way possible, I highly recommend this video that will give you the best idea of what Bloodborne is all about far better than we can ever hope to. We're excited to finally talk about this game, so let's get this show on the road. So come with us as go through a very biased, nonsensical and bats$%t insanity review look of that is Bloodborne.

Shekra: ....Blood...borne~ Spoilers.... blood.... ugh....

Story and character:

Micro: Our story begins in some clinic and a creepy old man making us sign a contract as we play as Derpina Bloodborne, some foreigner that came to the land of Yharnam. Why Yharnam exactly? Because this place is home of not only the most cathedrals slam into one street alone in a city full of hundreds of cathedrals, but because its home of the magical goop that is blood that is able to cure practically all illness. Only problem for us is that by signing the contract, we agreed to be a hunter, and just in time to as tonight is going to be a night of hunt. So what are we hunting exactly? Trying to hunt for a exit to get the f$%k out of Britain, all while dealing monster, werewolfs, and the worst enemy this series ever have, British people, its the game's way to make you not feel sorry of slaughtering everything in your way.

Shekra: Why is this the most accurate story description you made of these games so far? ... And you stole that last joke from Max0r.

Micro: Yes I did, and I'm not apologizing.

Shekra: Ignoring what Micro said for a decent part, we are in fact playing as a hunter and the role of the hunter is to kill beast. However, things will not be easy as you got so many things to worry about, werewolves running around, giants and orges sulking around, many hideous monsters and birds ready to bash your skull in. And if that wasn't enough, you also got citizens partaking the hunt as well, but these people have clearly gone mad as they all try to kill you with only few sane people locking themselves away in their homes, and even then it doesn't sound like they either feel safe or going to stay sane for long.

Micro: Not to worry, the game throws you immediately into the thick of thing where you fight your first enemy, an already badly damage werewolf that's missing half its health. This will be eas- and I'm already dead. Great start.

Shekra: You suck at these tutorial areas. That said, whether you die or manage to find a particular looking lamp and interact with it, you'll find yourself warped away to someplace call the Hunter's Dream, a rather beautiful location and probably one of the best home base area in the whole series, if not the best then. And its here we meet two important people, one being Gehrman, a wheelbound hunter that is the host of this realm and is the one that pretty much gives you the idea of what you need to do to get out of this mess as he let's use the workshop to get the job done. That being that if we want to get out of this nightmare, we need to kill beast and hunt down something call paleblood, or whatever has it and whatever paleblood is to begin with.

Micro: And then we get the second important character, the Doll, literally just call the Doll as that is exactly what she is, a eight foot tall amazon size waifu. She will talk to you, mention some things here and there such as about the creepy yet morbidly adorable little messengers you'll see on the ground at times, and more importantly will help level you up. And Gehrman said we can also have sex with her if we want...... well, if she's willingly gives the constant, I'm not passing the chance up to go William Afton on her and-

Shekra: Micro!

Micro: Fine. I'll just stick with the supplementary lore video of the easily best girl in the whole series, I will fight you on that in the comment section, folks.

Shekra: What about Ranni?~

Micro: .......... You know I just realized that the top two waifus in this series seems to be living talking dolls somehow.

Shekra: Answer my question, simpy.

Micro: You may also notice that we haven't touch the lore for this game. Oh, that's for a good reason, and that being that this game will hide the dark truth of what's hiding in the shadow of Yharnam until you finally uncover that little truth yourself, to which there is no coming back from the madness. As such, we'll hold up on the lore stuff till the ending like we did with Dark Souls 2, as the lore of this world is insane to say the least.

Shekra: Not only that but its also because Bloodborne is probably the most cryptic out of all the games when it comes to uncovering the lore of the world. Bloodborne likes to hide the lore with more visual and context clues than item description that you're going to have to put more effort to hunt down the lore in this game than the other games in the series.

Micro: And lord knows you're not getting any of that at the intro cutscene as its you getting out of bed and being shoved right out into the fire to deal with almost everything that even has a pulse that will and can kill you with very little story importance unless you really know where to looks. Just be careful where you might venture out at whatever corner you turn into as there might be a high chance you might bump into something that feels and look so out of place compare to everything else you had to deal with, maybe looking up you might see things that you immediately just missed right in front of you. Or in the more likely event, you bump into NPC and I must said, outside of Elden Ring, Bloodborne has my favorite characters to talk to in this series, even if a good chunk of everyone has very little to say, you will remember these guys for one reason or another. Examples being the skeptical man who you could easily screw up and get him kill if you don't know what his deal is, along with how he loves to almost lie of what he say to you when it comes to tips when in fact what he say is the opposite of what he's telling. You got this old salt of a grandma that is a treat to talk to, Adella and Arianna that are helpful in some ways, all of these guys you can talk to if you take them to Cathedral Ward Chapel where its run by this black sludge of a creature that looks like the kind of creature to not even want to leave your in laws with, but is actually the friendliest person in the whole game. And then you got my more personal favorite characters in this game, Eileen the crow and Alfred, these two I like the most as not only there interesting to talk to learn some things about the hunters, but they also have some of the best side quests in the series. In fact, this game honestly has some of the best side quest in the series that once you do them, they're aren't leaving your memory. Hell, all I got to do is bring up the side quest involving the little girl and anyone that has played this game will immediately know who I'm talking about with that gut punch of a side quest.

Shekra: Thanks, Micro, I needed a reason to feel awful.

Micro: You're welcome.

Shekra: Yes, this game easily has some of best character memorable characters you will find the Soulsborne series, provided you bump into them in the first place. Some of these guys are going to be tricky to find your first playthrough that I wouldn't be surprise if you try to play this game and not know where to find everyone that can go to the Oedon Chapel, because you have to talk to them behind a window that the only hint that someone can be talk to there is if a lantern is on. You be surprise how easy it is to miss stuff in this game, it taken Micro and I like two playthroughs on our own to find the suspicious beggar in the forbidden woods, only to get a humble reality check from the guy when we try to deal with him personally given what we already know of the guy prior. I do love the characters you can talk to in this game, as well as this game has easily the best quotes in the whole Soulsborne series, you will never forget what characters like Gehrman, Eileen, or this one boss, Father Gascoigne will say to you. But with that said, the thing I can't wait to talk about more is the lore, Bloodborne has hands down one of the best lore in the whole series, and I'm doing whatever I can to hold back to talk about Yharnam, Gehrman, and so much. With that said, back to the plot of the game, as Micro said it, the plot kind of starts very bare right at the beginning, as the main idea is to hunt down beast and kill anything that wants you dead as the night goes on. Before you know it, your adventure will take you to the Forbidden Woods and things start getting very weird the deeper you go in this area, giant balls of snake, serpents coming out of people's head that I'm sure is a reference to Resident Evil 4, and if you make one weird turn in the end, you bump into creatures that honestly feel so out of place in this game about monsters and werewolves that you have to wonder what's going on with these blue alien looking monsters. All of this is a massive build up to what the game is preparing you for as you get to the other side and find the abandon building that is know as Byrgenwerth University.

Micro: More like Byrgenwerth community storehouse with how small this place is, but that said, this place is flat out weird creepy, you got giant flyhead eyeball man running around, a woman that is ready to hentia you and is a b$%ch to kill, and if that wasn't bad enough, there is this enemy that look so alien that you have to wonder what's going on, especially when you deal with the worst type of enemies in the game, enemies that can still one of your currency permanently, thanks pricks. Worst part of those particular enemies is that you can bump into one or two of them very early in Cathedral Ward, a small sign to show that there is always something hiding in the corner and you have no idea what. That said, we reach the balcony of the place, tell this old fart that has no significant to the world you can trust me on that to tell him to eat s$%t and take a item from him, and with nothing to do, throw ourselves into the lake, and deal with-

Shekra: Potato Spider!~

Micro: Would you believe me if I tell you Rom is one of Shekra's favorite bosses in this series.

Shekra: Shut up, she's cute and funny looking.

Micro: If there is anything that will tell something is so wrong with this world, its defiantly going to be Rom just by the way she looks already, but the moment you beat this boss is where the game decides to unveil the dark truth of this game and the start of your journey into madness as we go from Van Helsing horror to HP Lovecraft of horror.

Shekra: If you thought this point is coming out of nowhere, you weren't paying attention to some of the subtle clues the game has hidden in plain sight so far. Better buckle your breeches people, because Bloodborne at this point is going to be a insane ride, people going insane, horrible monsters and abominations are out in about, eyes and madness plaguing the rest of the journey, and most obvious of all, eldritch monster can now be seen clinging on buildings, like giant spider like Cthulu monsters call Amygdala just looking at streets. If you know where to bump into things, you can actually fight one Amygdala as soon after you beat Vicar Amelia and go to a certain spot in Yharnam, where you can grab by a invisible force that is actually a Amygdala itself and be taken to the Nightmare Frontier, a weird hellish landscape of misshapen landmass that looks like everything is struggling to hold together with glue, you can even see ship mass deep in the fog if you know where to look.

Micro: If you reach this point of Bloodborne your first time, there's no going back now, you are going to want to know the truth as to why this eldritch monsters exist, why we enter HP Lovecraft's wet fever dream, and how the hell everything gone this bad. But before we even begin to talk about that, let's talk about the other half of what people remembers the most of the game.

Gameplay:

Micro: If you thought the first two Dark Souls games were too slow to play or thought Sekiro was too fast with its sword combat, I have good news in that this game is a fusion of the two in the best way possible in that its extremely fast and brutal at the same time. That's right, if you're playing Bloodborne, you're playing Dark Souls on crack level of speed and meth level of aggression.

Shekra: And its soooooooo satisfying that I don't know where to begin with the combat alone. Bloodborne is easily one of the fastest pace games in the whole series with the only one beating it in speed is arguably Sekiro, combat is fast pace, enemies are also face pace in wanting to kill you and in gangs as well, but that is where the weapons come in. Bloodborne has the least amount of weapons in the whole series, not including Sekiro, where every other game may have hundreds, Bloodborne has about 26 melee weapons, and yet, the weapons are one of the best thing in this game. The weapons are so fun to use, and so satisfying to master that you can beat the game with just the beginning weapons alone if you really want. Weapons might at first not look that special, except for the fact we got weapons that are canes that serves as swords, saw cleavers that shreds enemies, axes and stone slabs that bashes enemies to the ground, and um, oh yeah, Bloodborne's weapons are anything but basics as they are trick weapons. What makes tricks weapons so special? Oh nothing except that they can all transform in combat to something else that makes the weapons act like something else. Now we have where that can I mentioned comes a whip, spears and swords can become guns, that stone slab I mentioned becomes a giant hammer, or even a club that becomes something so stupid that I can't help but love of how broken it can be and that is the whirligig saw. So many tools to use and to master, there is too much to go into detail of what each weapon can do that I want to say it, but these weapons are excellent to use in combat especially with groups. You know how most Soulsborne games aren't great with group bosses that you most of the time need to get small pockets or even one to get away to kill them? Bloodborne throws that idea out the window as your a hunter, which means everyone and everything will be fearing you and your arsenal, weapons destroying groups, the boom hammer demolishing enemies with fiery slam. There are so many ways to use the weapons as long you have the states, regular attacks, heavy attacks, lounging thrust, transforming the weapon to use the second form of it and seeing everything you can do, even transforming weapons in mid combo on a enemy can damage the enemy, such as using ol' reliable that is the saw cleaver as it can switch from its base form to a extended form and even switch back on the fly. And that's not to mention how well dodging works in this game as the invincibility frame in this game is rather forgiving if you know how to time it, dodge rolling through attacks, dodge stepping when enemies swing just so you can swing back and repeat, and attacking enemies can not feel so much more satisfying than this game as enemies can react differently when you attack them. Giant enemies stumble if you hit their legs hard enough, beast wince in pain if you smack their limbs around, and plenty more if you also use consumable items like molotav cocktails, throwing knives. Try popping a beast pellet and using a lightning paper and watch of how much you can melt enemies and bosses along with a upgraded weapon. Even dying has a interesting mechanic where if you remember in previous Souls games where if you die you can run to the location to get your souls back. Well, Bloodborne has something similar as well, but sometimes if you die to a specifc enemy or location, now you have to hunt that enemy and kill them to get the blood back, something I do like a lot as it plays with the fact you are a hunter after all. But then you got one of the more satisfying mechanics in the game when you parry an enemy.

Micro: Parrying in this game is drastically different from other games in that you aren't parrying with a shield, sword or even your fist, but instead, you're using the good old second amendment to shoot enemies to parry them. Unfortunately, we playing the version of the second amendment where other places in the world that doesn't know how a gun works in that taking damage from a bullet is a suggestion, we really are killing in London if we have to resort to a knife to get the job done and go Jack the Ripper. That's fine, cause you're not using a gun to kill enemies, you're using it to stun the enemies. Yes, that's right, in probably the stupidest or smartest way possible, you are using a gun to stun the enemies, but stunning is not as simple as it sounds as in order to stun the enemy, you have to be somewhat patient and pay attention to the enemy's attack. From what I can tell, not all enemies will be stun with a gun, annoyingly, but for the ones that will, simply wait till the enemy is about to swing their attack, but remember that you need to time the aim as well since firing at the enemy takes a a second at most, but as soon as you know where to shoot at the enemy in their attacks, you will stun them and can do a visceral attack.

Shekra: Which is one of the more satisfying attacks to use in the game as you can run up to the enemy and plunge your fist right into their chest and do so much damage to them. And this follows by one of the best mechanics that is only in this game and I wish was brought to the other games, that being the rally mechanic where if you take damage, you won't lose health permanently immediately that you need to drink a potion, as if you are quick, you can run at the enemy and attack the enemy and steal health back as long the little orange bar on your health doesn't vanish away. I love this mechanic so much as it promotes a very aggressive combat in this game, and it works so well with how combat works in that if you master the weapon you favor, understand how tolls and dodging works, you may never need to rely on the rally mechanic. If Sekiro was a dance with swords against enemies, Bloodborne is you waltz dancing around the enemy and brutally slaughtering everyone that is in your way, to the point that you may not even need to go back to the Hunter's Dream to refill up, to the point that you can find yourself cover with so much blood that the moonlight will even reflect on you, especially when you do a visceral attack on a enemy that is just juicy with large amount of blood.

Micro: You will love the parry mechanic once you understand that you will feel like a one man hunter thrown into the city that the townsfolk monster have to run from, and you don't even need the gun to stun the enemy to do the visceral attacks, as you can also do a long winded heavy attack on the enemy's backside to make them fall. Try it, it fun, such as doing it the human enemy's backside and ripping their organ out like Mortal Combat, plunging your fist into a werewolf's spin, thrusting your fist into a ogre's kidney, or probably the most iconic visceral in all of the game, thrusting your fist into a pig's asshole.

Shekra: I have two questions about that. One, Miyazaki, why? Second question, Micro, WHY!?

Micro: Because I can, and all the enemies in this game shall receive the harshes of fisting from me. None shall escape me murderous fisting wrath. Come here, shark man.

Shekra: Ugh, you guys think I'm the one that everyone should be worry of.

Micro: I'm sorry, who here was the one that was going to a blood starve murderous rampage to the point every enemy prefer to take their chance with me? Seriously, I think the spaghetti monsters were grateful only one of them was a boss while the rest were just hazard obstacles else I think they would've run away from you as well.

Shekra: Um, moving on, while the weapons are excellent on their own, you can still make them better as you can upgrade them to higher states, along with installing what is call blood gems into the weapons, which each blood gem has different properties that can either increase the weapon's base states or maybe add something else such as do elemental damage of either fire or lightning, maybe poison. Probably ignore the elemental bonus cause they seem to make the weapon worse if it isn't from a fire or lightning paper for whatever reason. You can even install passive buffs to your character with runes, such better healing amount, more money (blood), resistance, and much more. That said, to find these things, along with plenty of weapons and items, you need to go out in the city of Yharnem. And everyone, Yharnam has got to be easily one of my favorite areas to explore, there is so much to discover from the gothic Victorian labyrinth design. The many streets, corners, and alleyways to stumble around, wide space and buildings that might have something of value to grab, areas with NPCs to talk to, the amount of detail that is put in every square inch of Yharnam is ridiculous that I love it, the design of the roads, buildings, the churches, everything is so detail that I'm surprise the PS5 or PS4 didn't exploded from everything, Bloodborne is easily one of the most detail games out of all of the Soulsborne games.

Micro: To the point I have to ask, developers, are you ok, do you need medical assistance?

Shekra: Given they are lock in the same room with Miyazaki, the answer is no. But back to what I was gushing about, I love the world of Bloodborne with just Yharnam only. Other games tend to through you in a world or city long past its prime and in a state of ruin, Bloodborne on the other hand is throwing you directly in the middle of the city going up in flames, from the piles of station wagons, fancy coffins, cages, and even bodies filling the streets, people hiding in their homes preying for the night of the hunt to end and going mad in the mean time, its dreary nightmare you're adventuring through and I love every second of it, and that includes when you enter the weird and warp world of the Nightmare realms. Some people might not like these areas, but I love these areas as I enjoy the nightmarish hellscape these areas looks, from the monster roaming around the corner, enemies and landmarks that makes you want to take a shower with how much your skin will crawl, such as the Winter Lanterns, an enemy that I both love and hate. I love the way the Winter Lanterns looks, their design of a nightmarish monster with eyes resting on top of a body that looks similar to the doll, their creepy singing, however, I also hate these enemies as they love to spam the worst status effect that being frenzy that you need to pop a sedative else you're losing a lot of health, except you still need to kill the Winter Lantern and even if you do, the frenzy meter is still building.

Micro: Probably one of the few bulls$%t things in this game to deal with, and I do mean few. Bloodborne rarely has moment that you will scream at the TV when something incredibly stupid happens, and most of the bulls$%t moments happens in very optional areas, or in this one moment in the Forbidden Woods where a woman will try to stab you in the butt to fall off a cliff, or was that Hemwik Charnel Lane? You'll know what I mean if you try to run past enemies, and those who do know what I mean, you know the spot I'm talking about. That said, given what we said and everything the game gives you, does this make Bloodborne a bit easier to play, you might be wondering. The answer is a big f$%k no, this game is hard, arguably the hardest game in the whole series, hell, I've seen ranking list where people say that Bloodborne is the hardest game in the series, even more than Sekiro, and I can't really argue with that. What makes Sekiro hard like we try mentioning in the review is that you need to master the parrying mechanic in that game. What makes Bloodborne hard is literally everything else in the game in that you have to have skills to play the game. For starters, Bloodborne will let you have twenty blood vials on you, however, these are consumable items and the only way to get more blood vial, along with silver bullets to use the guns, is to either find them in the world, buy them from the messengers, or farm them from enemies. Farming for blood vials and silver bullets isn't bad as you may think, there are locations that will give you plenty of vials and bullets from killing enemies, as well as areas that will let you collect currency for both level and items, that being blood, at a fast rate if you know where to look. Still, that does mean Bloodborne demands you master the combat of this game, almost immediately to be honest as enemies are aggressive and fast and want you dead, probably more than most enemies in other Soulsorne series, and you can't even rely on a shield to cover your ass this time. No seriously, there is only one shield in the whole game, two technically if you really want to be pretentious about it, and its the worst thing in the whole game as it sucks as a shield, so in other words, better git gud with the game else you're going to git fuk nonstop. And no, armor will not be helping you that much in this game, because there is no armor, only clothes that will give you the sickest of drips you will ever see in a FromSoft game. I don't know if FashionSoul started in Bloodborne, but it sure as hell help pioneer it. On the bright side of clothes not being that helpful, you don't have to worry about equipment load at all in this game. Besides that, the game is difficult on its own with very little bulls$%t most of the time, you don't even need to worry about platforming for the most part as the more platform areas is for very optional areas, still a major pain in the ass to get through though, f$%k secret workshop.

Shekra: The game is defiantly difficult, but honestly, that's just one of the things I still love about the game as it really wants you to master the combats and your skills to get through the game, and I still can't get over the level layout of this game as a lot of it feels rather more connected than you would think. Cathedral Ward may start off as short area, but you'll be surprise of how much of it connects to other locations, such as Old Yharnam with burned ruins and beast plaguing the area after it suffer from a beast scourge a while ago, Upper Cathedral housing horrors of experiments that wasn't meant to be uncover, Hemwik Charnel Lane in one direction, the Unseen Village in another with all the eldritch horrors hiding, and the Forbidden Forest in another direction.

Micro: The latter of which has to be my least favorite area in the whole game. Its easily the longest area of the whole game and it sure as hell feels like it as you have so much wood to traverse to that its easy to get lost, so many enemies around the corner and hiding some traps, giant snake balls that are annoying, and only like one shortcut that is only good for half of the area, but at the very least this area has the secret entrance to the start of the game where you can enter Iosefka's clinic and find out in horror that Among Us took over the place and she has been turning everyone she can that you sent her to the Blue Man Group. In fact, that is something Bloodborne also does a lot in this game, hide secrets, and I do mean this game hides secrets a lot from you. If you don't know about where to find certain areas or what to do exactly with specific characters, good f$%king luck cause you might've just doom one side quest to end early before getting the better reward or get f$%k over from one of the secret locations of this game. This is a FromSoft game were talking about peoople, get use to to it. One example being the Nightmare Frontier where to get into this secret location, you need to find Patches first if you want to get into the area very early, which by the way, Patches, what the f$%k happen to you? But if you want one of the more secret location, Castle Cainhurst is prove Miyazaki hates players as to get to the Bram Stoker's Castlevania, you need to get a letter from Iosefka's Clinic and go to Hemwik Charnel Lane at a very specific spot to summon a horse, just don't die before getting on the horse else you're f$%k from entering the Castle ever again and need to do a new game to try again. I should know that last one, cause guess what happened on my first playthrough, f$%king dogs.

Shekra: I say its still worth going cause this place is one of my favorite locations, I think its clear I pretty much love a lot of locations in this game. Dracula's Castle might be needing some more enemies or stuff in it, but I can't but love the area with it being the most supernatural location involving ghost, fleemonster and home of vampires, and is the boss of Prince Philip that you need to kill to get his crown and meet the queen of the place if you want some other stuff or complete a side quest. If it isn't obvious enough, we love this game a lot, its combat, its level design, and if you look online, obviously we aren't the only one given there are some people who will go out of their way to claim Bloodborne is FromSoft and Miyazaki's masterpiece. And there is still a lot we haven't talk about, such as the minor inclusion of another currency that also serves as a mechanic as well call insight. If you look where you have your total blood total, you'll see a eye icon and a certain amount you collect, this is call insight.

Micro: Insight has a interesting mechanic where the more you collect, the more somethings in the world changes, playing with the HP Lovecraft Eldritch horror element of the game as the more knowledge you gain, the more horror of the truth you will see. Unfortunately, that mechanic really only is use a few times, such as it can make a certain boss a joke if you have zero insight at the start of the fight, but other then that, the only real mechanical difference is that you can see some things in the world sooner than you should, such as the Amygdala clinging on to building. But insight is still pretty useful in that it can help you also buy items from another messenger shop in the Hunter's Dream. And getting insight is easy honestly, you get them from basically just walking around and killing some enemies, or even using specific items, you can get insight from killing bosses or encountering them, or even just walking around and discovering something creepy or weird, such as talking to a skeleton behind a wall that you didn't know was alive or seeing Susie naked in the shower.

Shekra: Oh, God and Christ, why did you had to show me that, Micro?!

Micro: Because I don't want to suffer that torture alone.

Susie: As if you didn't like the view!~

Shekra: F$%k off, Susie, I told you stay out of this review!

Micro: There is supposed to be another mechanic with the insight such as it can make some fights with some enemies a nightmare the more insight you gain, but joke on the eldritch horrors you will encounter in this game, I'm too stupid to be affected.

Shekra: Yeah, I can see why you're Susie's favorite proxy to send on others.

Micro: With that said, given what we said and how much we love, and Shekra gushing the game a lot more in this review to take over it, is the game perfect? Are you stupid for asking that f$%king ret$%ded question? The answer is yes, cause there is no such thing as a perfect game. I have some locations that I don't like too much, there even locations in the game that I wish was longer, serious, Byrgenwerth University, with how important it is to the lore, should at least be as big as Cainhurst castle instead of a cottage at the end of a lake, there are several enemies that aren't fun to fight at all and suck still even by themselves, Winter Lantern for example. However, all of those are honestly more nitpick complain I guess you can say we may have as we really love the game that there are very few things we don't like, and the things we don't like is honestly still nitpicky at worse and genuine at best. There really is only two things we don't like and if you look up reviews of this game or play it yourself, you already know what they might be, the load time and fast travel system. I still remember when the load time in the game was God awful at first launch, taking like minutes before you can go out and prey you don't die as soon as you try to take on a hunter, and you will die, you will die a lot, most likely from other hunters, and thankfully the load time are significantly better now, but even on the PS5, the load time takes a while. And as for the fast travel system, I really want to know who's bright idea was it to change it to where you have to go to the Hunter's Dream and then pick the right tombstone to fast travel to the location you want to go instead of just fast traveling with any lantern you light up like you would with bonfires. I don't mind visiting the Hunter's Dream to level up with the Doll or manage my equipment, but the way the fast travel system works really can waste a lot of time than it really needed to.

Shekra: This really makes the game beg for a remaster or port version to newer consoles, and of course, Sony or FromSoft isn't doing anything about it. I really would like this game to get a slight remaster as the one nitpick I have is that the frame rate can suck with this game at times, I still remember the PS4 screaming to run this game without chugging in the most harshes of fights and the PS5 barely pulls it off. Saying this now, I wouldn't mind if Blue Point takes another crack of remaking another Souls game and that being this one given how well they did the Demon's Souls game. I just ask they take a bit more liberty with the mechanical side of thing in this game and that being better frame rate and rework the fast travel system so playing the game flows a lot better. Or maybe just port the game to PC, I would like to see the game on PC just to see what the fans can do to the game.

Micro: Or don't, I like seeing the PC snobs b$%ch about they have to emulate the game instead of having it like they have it better when really games sent to PC tend to be treated as third place in the optimization department. Insulting PC lovers aside, I still would like to see a PC port as well, mostly to see the insane mods the fans would shove into the game. Placing my bets now, one of the first character mod will be to swap the Doll or Lady Maria with 2B from the Neir games.

Shekra: I would like to see if a remaster version of Bloodborne might change things up with another feature we have yet to talk about, and that being the Chalice Dungeons.

Micro: Oh, right, this f$%king thing. Yeah, I didn't know when exactly to talk about the Chalice Dungeons given that it also has a bit of lore significant as well as has a "interesting" mechanic. Let's get this out of the way, Shekra loves the Chalice Dungeon, I on the other hand really don't like the Chalice Dungeons. The idea of this place is great on paper, but there's a bit of a good reason as to why From hasn't exactly brought the idea back again, unless you want to count the hundreds of miniature dungeons in Elden Ring in that case there you go. First off, to get the Chalice Dungeon in the first place, you need to beat a specific boss, that being the Blood Starve Beast, once you do, you can activate the Chalice Dungeon in the Hunter's Dream.

Shekra: You will either hate the Chalice Dungeons or love them, as what Chalice Dungeons are optional dungeon areas where you can travel around and fight harder versions of enemies and some of the hardest bosses in the game, to which this is one of the best locations in the game to not only get a lot of blood to collect but also some of the best blood gem to farm or find so you can optimize your weapons to even greater level.

Micro: Except here is one of the major problem of the Chalice Dungeon, it is so f$%king boring, every single dungeon looks exactly the same, with the only difference with each type of dungeon is that some dungeons can have specific status effect on you that you have to deal with, such as having half of your health, the whole dungeon being darker than a rat's ass, poison, magic user, and the fact the Chalice Dungeon is home of the majority of bulls$%t you got to deal with as there are enemies that are even harder than some of the hardest bosses in the game and that's for the bulls$%t reason that they hit way too hard to the point one hit from these enemies might as well be instant death, Watchdog. If that wasn't enough, you're dealing with the same types of enemies while doing the same thing in each dungeon, finding level, kill boss, repeat two to three times, all while dealing with joke enemies, like a naked fat man rolling around like Sonic the fat boi. Remember that brain sucker, he's a boss now, remember Rom, she's a boss again, remember that pig you fisted in Mergo's Pig Fisting Route, its a boss, and there's like no difference other than it hits harder. The only thing I do enjoy about the the Chalice dungoens is the fact its the only thing that doesn't scale with new game plus and you can visit it immediately if you want to at the start of a new game, the only problem is that means the dungeons are harder than Vendrick's left nut sack by default. The Chalice Dungeon is something we barely touch for this review mostly because we sworn to not touch this feature again after we platinum the game, the only reason we came to this godforsaken area is because there is one specific boss we hate to hunt down after going through many dungeons just to kill her, and its because of what you have to go through to get to the Yharnam Queen is why we didn't bother to do the Chalice Dungeon.

Shekra: The Chalice Dungeon isn't as bad as Micro is making it sound as it can still be extremely rewarding. That said, that isn't why I love the Chalice Dungeon. Why I love of the Chalice Dungeon is what is one of the features that is with this optional area. What we talk about of the Chalice Dungeon is just the share dungeon, which just mean fix areas that you and everyone will being going through which means the pain you will be suffering through will be mandatory and guaranteed, but then you get what is the multiplayer version of dungeon, where from forbidden witchcraft magic fans manages to save and edit dungeons and share them to the internet, to which, these fans manage to edit dungeons to have some of the best material to find, best blood to drink from, and most interesting of all, manage to insert cut content bosses that were never meant to be in the final game the developers forgot to delete.

Micro: And this is something I wish I knew about when platinuming the game cause the first time we tried this game, we didn't bother to look up the whole sharing dungeons from other player thing and just dealt with the mandatory pain train of the default dungeons, or the random dungeons if you're stupid like me to try the root dungeons, please, for the love of God, don't do the dungeons, its almost not worth the headache. That said, I will only grace you all of only one dungeon that is more than worth doing and is so easy to do in that you just need to type the name when looking up dungeon names at the dungeon creation menu. Of this madness, the dungeon I bestow to you all of its great name is the Cum dungeon, yes, you heard me, the Cum dungeon is its name you will cherish this knowledge I given you as the Cum dungeon give a default 83,000 blood simply just walking five steps ahead and waiting ten seconds as a boss is just yeeting itself to death off screen, and you can increase the amount by putting the runes that let's you have more money, more money, and more money as they stack. And yes, by the second we were able to unlock the Chalice Dungeon, we did in fact abuse the Cum dungeon, because dammit I wanted to, that and it made it significantly easier to try out all the trick weapons we could gather. If you want to visit the Cum dungeon, look up the code yourself, its that easy and I'm too lazy to type the whole name.

Shekra: Good Christ. Ignoring that name, there is still so much hidden in the game, little details I would love to say, from dialogues you can hear from characters and enemies, the hidden secrets, so many secrets to find that I would love to say some more than what we already have, but I think its best that you play this game for yourself as there is so much fun in discovering what this game has to offer on your own. We haven't even talked about the DLC, the only DLC in the game, and one you are require by law to play before beating the final boss, I will find you and make you. The only thing stopping me is that I'm waiting to talk about the lore first as the DLC is home of some of the best bosses in the whole game and is home of the best weapons in the game, such as the Rakuyo. I love this thing, its easily my favorite weapon to use, and I usually prefer scythe weapons, but the Rakuyo is greet as a single and dual sword and is the best skill state weapon.

Micro: If only getting the thing wasn't a massive b$%ch and decker to get, f$%king shark man.

Shekra: Next time, learn to use the shaman bone blade item more, dummy.

Micro: Or I can just use the cheese strat that I wished I looked up instead of fighting the shark man the old fashion way. That said, I my favorite weapon has to be the whirligig saw, this thing is just brutal and ridiculous and I love it, especially when the saw part can stun enemies and bosses very quickly. Next time I play this game, I want to try this thing out more.

Shekra: Not before I try the Holy Moonlight Sword, this is thing is a beaut to try out. Again, I would love to go more in detail of every single trick weapons in this game as they all look so much fun to try out, but we only got so much time to bonk and stab enemies. So what better way than to try them all out on the bosses.

(End of part 1)

Description

Derpy Review #105: Bloodborne (Spoilers, obviously)

(Part 1 of review)

Micro: Its Blood-Goddamn-Borne, you guys already can guess that we given the game a platinum rank.

Shekra: Blood.....borne....~

Micro: Yes, Bloodborne, we finally reach this game, the one that I'm pretty sure most of you guys were most anticipating, and I mean that almost literally given that this Bloodborne we're talking about people, the game that got the most votes on our poll months back if you don't count Elden Ring, the game that is one of the Soulsborne games that has been talk to the high mountains and back, with many people praising the game to the moon and beyond.

Shekra: Bloodborne~

Micro: Its to the point that can we honestly say that is there anything we can add to the conversation? The honest answer is probably big fat f$%k no, but we're going to anyways because we love this game dammit.

Shekra: Bloodborne~

Micro: And when I say this has been praised before, I kind of mean it as Bloodborne has to be probably the biggest game be love by a lot of people, more than Dark Souls has been talk to death as well. Which is amazing given we're talk about a game that is so far forever lock to a three dollar magical box that Sony refuses to let this game get at least be properly ported to PS5 without it just being the original PS4 version. And lord knows so many people have been begging for a PC port of the game, and let's be honest, its mostly for the stupid "60 frame rate" crap I don't care much for, I do still want to see this game be ported to PC just to see the horrifying amount of Mods people will shove into the game. Hell, people has been begging a PC port so hard, a fan went out of their way to make such a thing a while back, graphics might look very ancient to anyone growing up to games made last week, but damn it if this is not the best version on PC so far. Joking aside about the Demake, seriously give it a shot, its rather amazing how putting the game in a PS1 style works rather well for the game even if the game manages to only get about the first two hours of the game, its great to talk about this game. I could describe in a paragraph amount or two of how much me and Shekra love this game, but if you've been following this account since practically the beginning, than its no mystery. We both love this game that we reference this game several times, hell, I still remember me saying last year for anticipation for Elden Ring that we were platinuming this game, mostly because we had to painfully wait for the game to finish downloading all the updates and whatnot. And to finally talk about this game, well, obviously at least one of us is "extremely" excited to talk about it to say the least.

Shekra: Blood....borne~

Micro: Don't mind Shekra, folks, she got very blood drunk by the time we beaten Vicar Amelia that there was no stopping her at that point from acting like a little preschooler being told she can have as much candy as she wants.

Shekra: Bloodborne~

Micro: Speaking of, hey, Bloody Queen, you're going to be sober enough to even make it to the story segment?

Shekra: Blood......borne~

Micro: Uh, she'll be fine.... hopefully. With that said, let's go ahead and start cracking this skull open. That's right, no big rant for five minutes of something like the development, or our history with the game since we kind of did it already, that if you want a pure in depth video that goes into Bloodborne in the best way possible, I highly recommend this video that will give you the best idea of what Bloodborne is all about far better than we can ever hope to. We're excited to finally talk about this game, so let's get this show on the road. So come with us as go through a very biased, nonsensical and bats$%t insanity review look of that is Bloodborne.

Shekra: ....Blood...borne~ Spoilers.... blood.... ugh....

Story and character:

Micro: Our story begins in some clinic and a creepy old man making us sign a contract as we play as Derpina Bloodborne, some foreigner that came to the land of Yharnam. Why Yharnam exactly? Because this place is home of not only the most cathedrals slam into one street alone in a city full of hundreds of cathedrals, but because its home of the magical goop that is blood that is able to cure practically all illness. Only problem for us is that by signing the contract, we agreed to be a hunter, and just in time to as tonight is going to be a night of hunt. So what are we hunting exactly? Trying to hunt for a exit to get the f$%k out of Britain, all while dealing monster, werewolfs, and the worst enemy this series ever have, British people, its the game's way to make you not feel sorry of slaughtering everything in your way.

Shekra: Why is this the most accurate story description you made of these games so far? ... And you stole that last joke from Max0r.

Micro: Yes I did, and I'm not apologizing.

Shekra: Ignoring what Micro said for a decent part, we are in fact playing as a hunter and the role of the hunter is to kill beast. However, things will not be easy as you got so many things to worry about, werewolves running around, giants and orges sulking around, many hideous monsters and birds ready to bash your skull in. And if that wasn't enough, you also got citizens partaking the hunt as well, but these people have clearly gone mad as they all try to kill you with only few sane people locking themselves away in their homes, and even then it doesn't sound like they either feel safe or going to stay sane for long.

Micro: Not to worry, the game throws you immediately into the thick of thing where you fight your first enemy, an already badly damage werewolf that's missing half its health. This will be eas- and I'm already dead. Great start.

Shekra: You suck at these tutorial areas. That said, whether you die or manage to find a particular looking lamp and interact with it, you'll find yourself warped away to someplace call the Hunter's Dream, a rather beautiful location and probably one of the best home base area in the whole series, if not the best then. And its here we meet two important people, one being Gehrman, a wheelbound hunter that is the host of this realm and is the one that pretty much gives you the idea of what you need to do to get out of this mess as he let's use the workshop to get the job done. That being that if we want to get out of this nightmare, we need to kill beast and hunt down something call paleblood, or whatever has it and whatever paleblood is to begin with.

Micro: And then we get the second important character, the Doll, literally just call the Doll as that is exactly what she is, a eight foot tall amazon size waifu. She will talk to you, mention some things here and there such as about the creepy yet morbidly adorable little messengers you'll see on the ground at times, and more importantly will help level you up. And Gehrman said we can also have sex with her if we want...... well, if she's willingly gives the constant, I'm not passing the chance up to go William Afton on her and-

Shekra: Micro!

Micro: Fine. I'll just stick with the supplementary lore video of the easily best girl in the whole series, I will fight you on that in the comment section, folks.

Shekra: What about Ranni?~

Micro: .......... You know I just realized that the top two waifus in this series seems to be living talking dolls somehow.

Shekra: Answer my question, simpy.

Micro: You may also notice that we haven't touch the lore for this game. Oh, that's for a good reason, and that being that this game will hide the dark truth of what's hiding in the shadow of Yharnam until you finally uncover that little truth yourself, to which there is no coming back from the madness. As such, we'll hold up on the lore stuff till the ending like we did with Dark Souls 2, as the lore of this world is insane to say the least.

Shekra: Not only that but its also because Bloodborne is probably the most cryptic out of all the games when it comes to uncovering the lore of the world. Bloodborne likes to hide the lore with more visual and context clues than item description that you're going to have to put more effort to hunt down the lore in this game than the other games in the series.

Micro: And lord knows you're not getting any of that at the intro cutscene as its you getting out of bed and being shoved right out into the fire to deal with almost everything that even has a pulse that will and can kill you with very little story importance unless you really know where to looks. Just be careful where you might venture out at whatever corner you turn into as there might be a high chance you might bump into something that feels and look so out of place compare to everything else you had to deal with, maybe looking up you might see things that you immediately just missed right in front of you. Or in the more likely event, you bump into NPC and I must said, outside of Elden Ring, Bloodborne has my favorite characters to talk to in this series, even if a good chunk of everyone has very little to say, you will remember these guys for one reason or another. Examples being the skeptical man who you could easily screw up and get him kill if you don't know what his deal is, along with how he loves to almost lie of what he say to you when it comes to tips when in fact what he say is the opposite of what he's telling. You got this old salt of a grandma that is a treat to talk to, Adella and Arianna that are helpful in some ways, all of these guys you can talk to if you take them to Cathedral Ward Chapel where its run by this black sludge of a creature that looks like the kind of creature to not even want to leave your in laws with, but is actually the friendliest person in the whole game. And then you got my more personal favorite characters in this game, Eileen the crow and Alfred, these two I like the most as not only there interesting to talk to learn some things about the hunters, but they also have some of the best side quests in the series. In fact, this game honestly has some of the best side quest in the series that once you do them, they're aren't leaving your memory. Hell, all I got to do is bring up the side quest involving the little girl and anyone that has played this game will immediately know who I'm talking about with that gut punch of a side quest.

Shekra: Thanks, Micro, I needed a reason to feel awful.

Micro: You're welcome.

Shekra: Yes, this game easily has some of best character memorable characters you will find the Soulsborne series, provided you bump into them in the first place. Some of these guys are going to be tricky to find your first playthrough that I wouldn't be surprise if you try to play this game and not know where to find everyone that can go to the Oedon Chapel, because you have to talk to them behind a window that the only hint that someone can be talk to there is if a lantern is on. You be surprise how easy it is to miss stuff in this game, it taken Micro and I like two playthroughs on our own to find the suspicious beggar in the forbidden woods, only to get a humble reality check from the guy when we try to deal with him personally given what we already know of the guy prior. I do love the characters you can talk to in this game, as well as this game has easily the best quotes in the whole Soulsborne series, you will never forget what characters like Gehrman, Eileen, or this one boss, Father Gascoigne will say to you. But with that said, the thing I can't wait to talk about more is the lore, Bloodborne has hands down one of the best lore in the whole series, and I'm doing whatever I can to hold back to talk about Yharnam, Gehrman, and so much. With that said, back to the plot of the game, as Micro said it, the plot kind of starts very bare right at the beginning, as the main idea is to hunt down beast and kill anything that wants you dead as the night goes on. Before you know it, your adventure will take you to the Forbidden Woods and things start getting very weird the deeper you go in this area, giant balls of snake, serpents coming out of people's head that I'm sure is a reference to Resident Evil 4, and if you make one weird turn in the end, you bump into creatures that honestly feel so out of place in this game about monsters and werewolves that you have to wonder what's going on with these blue alien looking monsters. All of this is a massive build up to what the game is preparing you for as you get to the other side and find the abandon building that is know as Byrgenwerth University.

Micro: More like Byrgenwerth community storehouse with how small this place is, but that said, this place is flat out weird creepy, you got giant flyhead eyeball man running around, a woman that is ready to hentia you and is a b$%ch to kill, and if that wasn't bad enough, there is this enemy that look so alien that you have to wonder what's going on, especially when you deal with the worst type of enemies in the game, enemies that can still one of your currency permanently, thanks pricks. Worst part of those particular enemies is that you can bump into one or two of them very early in Cathedral Ward, a small sign to show that there is always something hiding in the corner and you have no idea what. That said, we reach the balcony of the place, tell this old fart that has no significant to the world you can trust me on that to tell him to eat s$%t and take a item from him, and with nothing to do, throw ourselves into the lake, and deal with-

Shekra: Potato Spider!~

Micro: Would you believe me if I tell you Rom is one of Shekra's favorite bosses in this series.

Shekra: Shut up, she's cute and funny looking.

Micro: If there is anything that will tell something is so wrong with this world, its defiantly going to be Rom just by the way she looks already, but the moment you beat this boss is where the game decides to unveil the dark truth of this game and the start of your journey into madness as we go from Van Helsing horror to HP Lovecraft of horror.

Shekra: If you thought this point is coming out of nowhere, you weren't paying attention to some of the subtle clues the game has hidden in plain sight so far. Better buckle your breeches people, because Bloodborne at this point is going to be a insane ride, people going insane, horrible monsters and abominations are out in about, eyes and madness plaguing the rest of the journey, and most obvious of all, eldritch monster can now be seen clinging on buildings, like giant spider like Cthulu monsters call Amygdala just looking at streets. If you know where to bump into things, you can actually fight one Amygdala as soon after you beat Vicar Amelia and go to a certain spot in Yharnam, where you can grab by a invisible force that is actually a Amygdala itself and be taken to the Nightmare Frontier, a weird hellish landscape of misshapen landmass that looks like everything is struggling to hold together with glue, you can even see ship mass deep in the fog if you know where to look.

Micro: If you reach this point of Bloodborne your first time, there's no going back now, you are going to want to know the truth as to why this eldritch monsters exist, why we enter HP Lovecraft's wet fever dream, and how the hell everything gone this bad. But before we even begin to talk about that, let's talk about the other half of what people remembers the most of the game.

Gameplay:

Micro: If you thought the first two Dark Souls games were too slow to play or thought Sekiro was too fast with its sword combat, I have good news in that this game is a fusion of the two in the best way possible in that its extremely fast and brutal at the same time. That's right, if you're playing Bloodborne, you're playing Dark Souls on crack level of speed and meth level of aggression.

Shekra: And its soooooooo satisfying that I don't know where to begin with the combat alone. Bloodborne is easily one of the fastest pace games in the whole series with the only one beating it in speed is arguably Sekiro, combat is fast pace, enemies are also face pace in wanting to kill you and in gangs as well, but that is where the weapons come in. Bloodborne has the least amount of weapons in the whole series, not including Sekiro, where every other game may have hundreds, Bloodborne has about 26 melee weapons, and yet, the weapons are one of the best thing in this game. The weapons are so fun to use, and so satisfying to master that you can beat the game with just the beginning weapons alone if you really want. Weapons might at first not look that special, except for the fact we got weapons that are canes that serves as swords, saw cleavers that shreds enemies, axes and stone slabs that bashes enemies to the ground, and um, oh yeah, Bloodborne's weapons are anything but basics as they are trick weapons. What makes tricks weapons so special? Oh nothing except that they can all transform in combat to something else that makes the weapons act like something else. Now we have where that can I mentioned comes a whip, spears and swords can become guns, that stone slab I mentioned becomes a giant hammer, or even a club that becomes something so stupid that I can't help but love of how broken it can be and that is the whirligig saw. So many tools to use and to master, there is too much to go into detail of what each weapon can do that I want to say it, but these weapons are excellent to use in combat especially with groups. You know how most Soulsborne games aren't great with group bosses that you most of the time need to get small pockets or even one to get away to kill them? Bloodborne throws that idea out the window as your a hunter, which means everyone and everything will be fearing you and your arsenal, weapons destroying groups, the boom hammer demolishing enemies with fiery slam. There are so many ways to use the weapons as long you have the states, regular attacks, heavy attacks, lounging thrust, transforming the weapon to use the second form of it and seeing everything you can do, even transforming weapons in mid combo on a enemy can damage the enemy, such as using ol' reliable that is the saw cleaver as it can switch from its base form to a extended form and even switch back on the fly. And that's not to mention how well dodging works in this game as the invincibility frame in this game is rather forgiving if you know how to time it, dodge rolling through attacks, dodge stepping when enemies swing just so you can swing back and repeat, and attacking enemies can not feel so much more satisfying than this game as enemies can react differently when you attack them. Giant enemies stumble if you hit their legs hard enough, beast wince in pain if you smack their limbs around, and plenty more if you also use consumable items like molotav cocktails, throwing knives. Try popping a beast pellet and using a lightning paper and watch of how much you can melt enemies and bosses along with a upgraded weapon. Even dying has a interesting mechanic where if you remember in previous Souls games where if you die you can run to the location to get your souls back. Well, Bloodborne has something similar as well, but sometimes if you die to a specifc enemy or location, now you have to hunt that enemy and kill them to get the blood back, something I do like a lot as it plays with the fact you are a hunter after all. But then you got one of the more satisfying mechanics in the game when you parry an enemy.

Micro: Parrying in this game is drastically different from other games in that you aren't parrying with a shield, sword or even your fist, but instead, you're using the good old second amendment to shoot enemies to parry them. Unfortunately, we playing the version of the second amendment where other places in the world that doesn't know how a gun works in that taking damage from a bullet is a suggestion, we really are killing in London if we have to resort to a knife to get the job done and go Jack the Ripper. That's fine, cause you're not using a gun to kill enemies, you're using it to stun the enemies. Yes, that's right, in probably the stupidest or smartest way possible, you are using a gun to stun the enemies, but stunning is not as simple as it sounds as in order to stun the enemy, you have to be somewhat patient and pay attention to the enemy's attack. From what I can tell, not all enemies will be stun with a gun, annoyingly, but for the ones that will, simply wait till the enemy is about to swing their attack, but remember that you need to time the aim as well since firing at the enemy takes a a second at most, but as soon as you know where to shoot at the enemy in their attacks, you will stun them and can do a visceral attack.

Shekra: Which is one of the more satisfying attacks to use in the game as you can run up to the enemy and plunge your fist right into their chest and do so much damage to them. And this follows by one of the best mechanics that is only in this game and I wish was brought to the other games, that being the rally mechanic where if you take damage, you won't lose health permanently immediately that you need to drink a potion, as if you are quick, you can run at the enemy and attack the enemy and steal health back as long the little orange bar on your health doesn't vanish away. I love this mechanic so much as it promotes a very aggressive combat in this game, and it works so well with how combat works in that if you master the weapon you favor, understand how tolls and dodging works, you may never need to rely on the rally mechanic. If Sekiro was a dance with swords against enemies, Bloodborne is you waltz dancing around the enemy and brutally slaughtering everyone that is in your way, to the point that you may not even need to go back to the Hunter's Dream to refill up, to the point that you can find yourself cover with so much blood that the moonlight will even reflect on you, especially when you do a visceral attack on a enemy that is just juicy with large amount of blood.

Micro: You will love the parry mechanic once you understand that you will feel like a one man hunter thrown into the city that the townsfolk monster have to run from, and you don't even need the gun to stun the enemy to do the visceral attacks, as you can also do a long winded heavy attack on the enemy's backside to make them fall. Try it, it fun, such as doing it the human enemy's backside and ripping their organ out like Mortal Combat, plunging your fist into a werewolf's spin, thrusting your fist into a ogre's kidney, or probably the most iconic visceral in all of the game, thrusting your fist into a pig's asshole.

Shekra: I have two questions about that. One, Miyazaki, why? Second question, Micro, WHY!?

Micro: Because I can, and all the enemies in this game shall receive the harshes of fisting from me. None shall escape me murderous fisting wrath. Come here, shark man.

Shekra: Ugh, you guys think I'm the one that everyone should be worry of.

Micro: I'm sorry, who here was the one that was going to a blood starve murderous rampage to the point every enemy prefer to take their chance with me? Seriously, I think the spaghetti monsters were grateful only one of them was a boss while the rest were just hazard obstacles else I think they would've run away from you as well.

Shekra: Um, moving on, while the weapons are excellent on their own, you can still make them better as you can upgrade them to higher states, along with installing what is call blood gems into the weapons, which each blood gem has different properties that can either increase the weapon's base states or maybe add something else such as do elemental damage of either fire or lightning, maybe poison. Probably ignore the elemental bonus cause they seem to make the weapon worse if it isn't from a fire or lightning paper for whatever reason. You can even install passive buffs to your character with runes, such better healing amount, more money (blood), resistance, and much more. That said, to find these things, along with plenty of weapons and items, you need to go out in the city of Yharnem. And everyone, Yharnam has got to be easily one of my favorite areas to explore, there is so much to discover from the gothic Victorian labyrinth design. The many streets, corners, and alleyways to stumble around, wide space and buildings that might have something of value to grab, areas with NPCs to talk to, the amount of detail that is put in every square inch of Yharnam is ridiculous that I love it, the design of the roads, buildings, the churches, everything is so detail that I'm surprise the PS5 or PS4 didn't exploded from everything, Bloodborne is easily one of the most detail games out of all of the Soulsborne games.

Micro: To the point I have to ask, developers, are you ok, do you need medical assistance?

Shekra: Given they are lock in the same room with Miyazaki, the answer is no. But back to what I was gushing about, I love the world of Bloodborne with just Yharnam only. Other games tend to through you in a world or city long past its prime and in a state of ruin, Bloodborne on the other hand is throwing you directly in the middle of the city going up in flames, from the piles of station wagons, fancy coffins, cages, and even bodies filling the streets, people hiding in their homes preying for the night of the hunt to end and going mad in the mean time, its dreary nightmare you're adventuring through and I love every second of it, and that includes when you enter the weird and warp world of the Nightmare realms. Some people might not like these areas, but I love these areas as I enjoy the nightmarish hellscape these areas looks, from the monster roaming around the corner, enemies and landmarks that makes you want to take a shower with how much your skin will crawl, such as the Winter Lanterns, an enemy that I both love and hate. I love the way the Winter Lanterns looks, their design of a nightmarish monster with eyes resting on top of a body that looks similar to the doll, their creepy singing, however, I also hate these enemies as they love to spam the worst status effect that being frenzy that you need to pop a sedative else you're losing a lot of health, except you still need to kill the Winter Lantern and even if you do, the frenzy meter is still building.

Micro: Probably one of the few bulls$%t things in this game to deal with, and I do mean few. Bloodborne rarely has moment that you will scream at the TV when something incredibly stupid happens, and most of the bulls$%t moments happens in very optional areas, or in this one moment in the Forbidden Woods where a woman will try to stab you in the butt to fall off a cliff, or was that Hemwik Charnel Lane? You'll know what I mean if you try to run past enemies, and those who do know what I mean, you know the spot I'm talking about. That said, given what we said and everything the game gives you, does this make Bloodborne a bit easier to play, you might be wondering. The answer is a big f$%k no, this game is hard, arguably the hardest game in the whole series, hell, I've seen ranking list where people say that Bloodborne is the hardest game in the series, even more than Sekiro, and I can't really argue with that. What makes Sekiro hard like we try mentioning in the review is that you need to master the parrying mechanic in that game. What makes Bloodborne hard is literally everything else in the game in that you have to have skills to play the game. For starters, Bloodborne will let you have twenty blood vials on you, however, these are consumable items and the only way to get more blood vial, along with silver bullets to use the guns, is to either find them in the world, buy them from the messengers, or farm them from enemies. Farming for blood vials and silver bullets isn't bad as you may think, there are locations that will give you plenty of vials and bullets from killing enemies, as well as areas that will let you collect currency for both level and items, that being blood, at a fast rate if you know where to look. Still, that does mean Bloodborne demands you master the combat of this game, almost immediately to be honest as enemies are aggressive and fast and want you dead, probably more than most enemies in other Soulsorne series, and you can't even rely on a shield to cover your ass this time. No seriously, there is only one shield in the whole game, two technically if you really want to be pretentious about it, and its the worst thing in the whole game as it sucks as a shield, so in other words, better git gud with the game else you're going to git fuk nonstop. And no, armor will not be helping you that much in this game, because there is no armor, only clothes that will give you the sickest of drips you will ever see in a FromSoft game. I don't know if FashionSoul started in Bloodborne, but it sure as hell help pioneer it. On the bright side of clothes not being that helpful, you don't have to worry about equipment load at all in this game. Besides that, the game is difficult on its own with very little bulls$%t most of the time, you don't even need to worry about platforming for the most part as the more platform areas is for very optional areas, still a major pain in the ass to get through though, f$%k secret workshop.

Shekra: The game is defiantly difficult, but honestly, that's just one of the things I still love about the game as it really wants you to master the combats and your skills to get through the game, and I still can't get over the level layout of this game as a lot of it feels rather more connected than you would think. Cathedral Ward may start off as short area, but you'll be surprise of how much of it connects to other locations, such as Old Yharnam with burned ruins and beast plaguing the area after it suffer from a beast scourge a while ago, Upper Cathedral housing horrors of experiments that wasn't meant to be uncover, Hemwik Charnel Lane in one direction, the Unseen Village in another with all the eldritch horrors hiding, and the Forbidden Forest in another direction.

Micro: The latter of which has to be my least favorite area in the whole game. Its easily the longest area of the whole game and it sure as hell feels like it as you have so much wood to traverse to that its easy to get lost, so many enemies around the corner and hiding some traps, giant snake balls that are annoying, and only like one shortcut that is only good for half of the area, but at the very least this area has the secret entrance to the start of the game where you can enter Iosefka's clinic and find out in horror that Among Us took over the place and she has been turning everyone she can that you sent her to the Blue Man Group. In fact, that is something Bloodborne also does a lot in this game, hide secrets, and I do mean this game hides secrets a lot from you. If you don't know about where to find certain areas or what to do exactly with specific characters, good f$%king luck cause you might've just doom one side quest to end early before getting the better reward or get f$%k over from one of the secret locations of this game. This is a FromSoft game were talking about peoople, get use to to it. One example being the Nightmare Frontier where to get into this secret location, you need to find Patches first if you want to get into the area very early, which by the way, Patches, what the f$%k happen to you? But if you want one of the more secret location, Castle Cainhurst is prove Miyazaki hates players as to get to the Bram Stoker's Castlevania, you need to get a letter from Iosefka's Clinic and go to Hemwik Charnel Lane at a very specific spot to summon a horse, just don't die before getting on the horse else you're f$%k from entering the Castle ever again and need to do a new game to try again. I should know that last one, cause guess what happened on my first playthrough, f$%king dogs.

Shekra: I say its still worth going cause this place is one of my favorite locations, I think its clear I pretty much love a lot of locations in this game. Dracula's Castle might be needing some more enemies or stuff in it, but I can't but love the area with it being the most supernatural location involving ghost, fleemonster and home of vampires, and is the boss of Prince Philip that you need to kill to get his crown and meet the queen of the place if you want some other stuff or complete a side quest. If it isn't obvious enough, we love this game a lot, its combat, its level design, and if you look online, obviously we aren't the only one given there are some people who will go out of their way to claim Bloodborne is FromSoft and Miyazaki's masterpiece. And there is still a lot we haven't talk about, such as the minor inclusion of another currency that also serves as a mechanic as well call insight. If you look where you have your total blood total, you'll see a eye icon and a certain amount you collect, this is call insight.

Micro: Insight has a interesting mechanic where the more you collect, the more somethings in the world changes, playing with the HP Lovecraft Eldritch horror element of the game as the more knowledge you gain, the more horror of the truth you will see. Unfortunately, that mechanic really only is use a few times, such as it can make a certain boss a joke if you have zero insight at the start of the fight, but other then that, the only real mechanical difference is that you can see some things in the world sooner than you should, such as the Amygdala clinging on to building. But insight is still pretty useful in that it can help you also buy items from another messenger shop in the Hunter's Dream. And getting insight is easy honestly, you get them from basically just walking around and killing some enemies, or even using specific items, you can get insight from killing bosses or encountering them, or even just walking around and discovering something creepy or weird, such as talking to a skeleton behind a wall that you didn't know was alive or seeing Susie naked in the shower.

Shekra: Oh, God and Christ, why did you had to show me that, Micro?!

Micro: Because I don't want to suffer that torture alone.

Susie: As if you didn't like the view!~

Shekra: F$%k off, Susie, I told you stay out of this review!

Micro: There is supposed to be another mechanic with the insight such as it can make some fights with some enemies a nightmare the more insight you gain, but joke on the eldritch horrors you will encounter in this game, I'm too stupid to be affected.

Shekra: Yeah, I can see why you're Susie's favorite proxy to send on others.

Micro: With that said, given what we said and how much we love, and Shekra gushing the game a lot more in this review to take over it, is the game perfect? Are you stupid for asking that f$%king ret$%ded question? The answer is yes, cause there is no such thing as a perfect game. I have some locations that I don't like too much, there even locations in the game that I wish was longer, serious, Byrgenwerth University, with how important it is to the lore, should at least be as big as Cainhurst castle instead of a cottage at the end of a lake, there are several enemies that aren't fun to fight at all and suck still even by themselves, Winter Lantern for example. However, all of those are honestly more nitpick complain I guess you can say we may have as we really love the game that there are very few things we don't like, and the things we don't like is honestly still nitpicky at worse and genuine at best. There really is only two things we don't like and if you look up reviews of this game or play it yourself, you already know what they might be, the load time and fast travel system. I still remember when the load time in the game was God awful at first launch, taking like minutes before you can go out and prey you don't die as soon as you try to take on a hunter, and you will die, you will die a lot, most likely from other hunters, and thankfully the load time are significantly better now, but even on the PS5, the load time takes a while. And as for the fast travel system, I really want to know who's bright idea was it to change it to where you have to go to the Hunter's Dream and then pick the right tombstone to fast travel to the location you want to go instead of just fast traveling with any lantern you light up like you would with bonfires. I don't mind visiting the Hunter's Dream to level up with the Doll or manage my equipment, but the way the fast travel system works really can waste a lot of time than it really needed to.

Shekra: This really makes the game beg for a remaster or port version to newer consoles, and of course, Sony or FromSoft isn't doing anything about it. I really would like this game to get a slight remaster as the one nitpick I have is that the frame rate can suck with this game at times, I still remember the PS4 screaming to run this game without chugging in the most harshes of fights and the PS5 barely pulls it off. Saying this now, I wouldn't mind if Blue Point takes another crack of remaking another Souls game and that being this one given how well they did the Demon's Souls game. I just ask they take a bit more liberty with the mechanical side of thing in this game and that being better frame rate and rework the fast travel system so playing the game flows a lot better. Or maybe just port the game to PC, I would like to see the game on PC just to see what the fans can do to the game.

Micro: Or don't, I like seeing the PC snobs b$%ch about they have to emulate the game instead of having it like they have it better when really games sent to PC tend to be treated as third place in the optimization department. Insulting PC lovers aside, I still would like to see a PC port as well, mostly to see the insane mods the fans would shove into the game. Placing my bets now, one of the first character mod will be to swap the Doll or Lady Maria with 2B from the Neir games.

Shekra: I would like to see if a remaster version of Bloodborne might change things up with another feature we have yet to talk about, and that being the Chalice Dungeons.

Micro: Oh, right, this f$%king thing. Yeah, I didn't know when exactly to talk about the Chalice Dungeons given that it also has a bit of lore significant as well as has a "interesting" mechanic. Let's get this out of the way, Shekra loves the Chalice Dungeon, I on the other hand really don't like the Chalice Dungeons. The idea of this place is great on paper, but there's a bit of a good reason as to why From hasn't exactly brought the idea back again, unless you want to count the hundreds of miniature dungeons in Elden Ring in that case there you go. First off, to get the Chalice Dungeon in the first place, you need to beat a specific boss, that being the Blood Starve Beast, once you do, you can activate the Chalice Dungeon in the Hunter's Dream.

Shekra: You will either hate the Chalice Dungeons or love them, as what Chalice Dungeons are optional dungeon areas where you can travel around and fight harder versions of enemies and some of the hardest bosses in the game, to which this is one of the best locations in the game to not only get a lot of blood to collect but also some of the best blood gem to farm or find so you can optimize your weapons to even greater level.

Micro: Except here is one of the major problem of the Chalice Dungeon, it is so f$%king boring, every single dungeon looks exactly the same, with the only difference with each type of dungeon is that some dungeons can have specific status effect on you that you have to deal with, such as having half of your health, the whole dungeon being darker than a rat's ass, poison, magic user, and the fact the Chalice Dungeon is home of the majority of bulls$%t you got to deal with as there are enemies that are even harder than some of the hardest bosses in the game and that's for the bulls$%t reason that they hit way too hard to the point one hit from these enemies might as well be instant death, Watchdog. If that wasn't enough, you're dealing with the same types of enemies while doing the same thing in each dungeon, finding level, kill boss, repeat two to three times, all while dealing with joke enemies, like a naked fat man rolling around like Sonic the fat boi. Remember that brain sucker, he's a boss now, remember Rom, she's a boss again, remember that pig you fisted in Mergo's Pig Fisting Route, its a boss, and there's like no difference other than it hits harder. The only thing I do enjoy about the the Chalice dungoens is the fact its the only thing that doesn't scale with new game plus and you can visit it immediately if you want to at the start of a new game, the only problem is that means the dungeons are harder than Vendrick's left nut sack by default. The Chalice Dungeon is something we barely touch for this review mostly because we sworn to not touch this feature again after we platinum the game, the only reason we came to this godforsaken area is because there is one specific boss we hate to hunt down after going through many dungeons just to kill her, and its because of what you have to go through to get to the Yharnam Queen is why we didn't bother to do the Chalice Dungeon.

Shekra: The Chalice Dungeon isn't as bad as Micro is making it sound as it can still be extremely rewarding. That said, that isn't why I love the Chalice Dungeon. Why I love of the Chalice Dungeon is what is one of the features that is with this optional area. What we talk about of the Chalice Dungeon is just the share dungeon, which just mean fix areas that you and everyone will being going through which means the pain you will be suffering through will be mandatory and guaranteed, but then you get what is the multiplayer version of dungeon, where from forbidden witchcraft magic fans manages to save and edit dungeons and share them to the internet, to which, these fans manage to edit dungeons to have some of the best material to find, best blood to drink from, and most interesting of all, manage to insert cut content bosses that were never meant to be in the final game the developers forgot to delete.

Micro: And this is something I wish I knew about when platinuming the game cause the first time we tried this game, we didn't bother to look up the whole sharing dungeons from other player thing and just dealt with the mandatory pain train of the default dungeons, or the random dungeons if you're stupid like me to try the root dungeons, please, for the love of God, don't do the dungeons, its almost not worth the headache. That said, I will only grace you all of only one dungeon that is more than worth doing and is so easy to do in that you just need to type the name when looking up dungeon names at the dungeon creation menu. Of this madness, the dungeon I bestow to you all of its great name is the Cum dungeon, yes, you heard me, the Cum dungeon is its name you will cherish this knowledge I given you as the Cum dungeon give a default 83,000 blood simply just walking five steps ahead and waiting ten seconds as a boss is just yeeting itself to death off screen, and you can increase the amount by putting the runes that let's you have more money, more money, and more money as they stack. And yes, by the second we were able to unlock the Chalice Dungeon, we did in fact abuse the Cum dungeon, because dammit I wanted to, that and it made it significantly easier to try out all the trick weapons we could gather. If you want to visit the Cum dungeon, look up the code yourself, its that easy and I'm too lazy to type the whole name.

Shekra: Good Christ. Ignoring that name, there is still so much hidden in the game, little details I would love to say, from dialogues you can hear from characters and enemies, the hidden secrets, so many secrets to find that I would love to say some more than what we already have, but I think its best that you play this game for yourself as there is so much fun in discovering what this game has to offer on your own. We haven't even talked about the DLC, the only DLC in the game, and one you are require by law to play before beating the final boss, I will find you and make you. The only thing stopping me is that I'm waiting to talk about the lore first as the DLC is home of some of the best bosses in the whole game and is home of the best weapons in the game, such as the Rakuyo. I love this thing, its easily my favorite weapon to use, and I usually prefer scythe weapons, but the Rakuyo is greet as a single and dual sword and is the best skill state weapon.

Micro: If only getting the thing wasn't a massive b$%ch and decker to get, f$%king shark man.

Shekra: Next time, learn to use the shaman bone blade item more, dummy.

Micro: Or I can just use the cheese strat that I wished I looked up instead of fighting the shark man the old fashion way. That said, I my favorite weapon has to be the whirligig saw, this thing is just brutal and ridiculous and I love it, especially when the saw part can stun enemies and bosses very quickly. Next time I play this game, I want to try this thing out more.

Shekra: Not before I try the Holy Moonlight Sword, this is thing is a beaut to try out. Again, I would love to go more in detail of every single trick weapons in this game as they all look so much fun to try out, but we only got so much time to bonk and stab enemies. So what better way than to try them all out on the bosses.

(End of part 1)