I’m not what you would call a veteran of From Software’s games. I first played Dark Souls while livestreaming the entire endeavour, so I had a troupe of viewers offering me advice, and laughing at my literal pitfalls, as I crept through Lordran. I absorbed Dark Souls II in discrete chunks over a series of press preview events–a scenario too fractured to form a coherent picture of Drangleic. I feel as though Bloodborne is my first true Souls experience. I’m going in blind, and–as I’m playing before the multiplayer servers come online–there’s no one around to help me.
That sense of isolation dictated my playstyle in the previous games. Even with a Twitch audience, Dark Souls’ world was scary, and its combat pacing entirely foreign to me. My natural reaction was to equip myself with a sword and shield from the outset. After all, defence equals safety, right? I could hide behind my shield from any of the Undead Burg’s lumbering residents, and catch arrows and crossbow bolts in its wooden frame. I crept forward slowly, shield always raised, and tended to take two steps back every time a skeleton took a swing at me.
You can imagine how this would make for slow progress through the game. However, it gave me time to study my enemies, learn their attack patterns, and use the shield bash to parry their strikes and follow up with a riposte. I could parry almost every strike. What resulted was a playstyle wholly focused on being reactive, rather than making the first move.
Imagine my horror when I discovered there was no shield on offer in Bloodborne’s initial equipment choices. Imagine my double horror when I found out that the health regain system meant that survival encouraged aggressive action. In removing the sword and board, Bloodborne removed the only way I knew how to play the Souls games. From what I understand, it was a playstyle that was considered a somewhat amateur way to play, too. So, with threaded cane and blunderbuss equipped, I ventured into Yharnam with a timidness brought about by my assumed vulnerability.
In removing the sword and board, Bloodborne removed the only way I knew how to play the Souls games.
The first thing I needed to get past was my own fear. Dark Souls and its sequel have scary moments–such as the Capra Demon’s appearance in the former, or the pitch-black hallways of the latter–but I’ve never been particularly scared of its enemy designs. The fear in those games comes through the mechanics–it’s a fear of losing souls, and progress. That’s still present in Bloodborne, but the enemies themselves are far more monstrous. They scream at you with ungodly howls, and the beast-folks’ unnervingly detailed body hair accentuates every swipe of their sharp claws. Without a shield, my natural reaction is to run, but that’s the opposite of what Bloodborne wants. So I keep them at a safe distance by emptying my blunderbuss’ quicksilver bullets into them at fast as the weapon will reload.
The first time I stagger a half-man, half-wolf doing this is a turning point. He falls to his knees, and I follow up with a visceral attack that results in much literal viscera, along with massive damage. I have just learned that my gun is basically a shield with ammo. Dark Souls’ parry and riposte is there, just in a limited supply. In a way, the blunderbuss is actually safer than a shield–if you mis-time a shield bash in Dark Souls, you’re going to get hit by the enemy’s incoming attack. If you mis-time a stagger in Bloodborne by firing too early, you’re still going to interrupt the enemy. And here, the cost isn’t stamina, but readily-available quicksilver bullets. I imagine my character looking at her blunderbuss with a mixture of shock and awe upon this realisation.
Suddenly, Bloodborne’s enemies aren’t so scary. I’m no longer waiting for them to come to me, but I’m closing the ground–willingly, for a change–and baiting them into a strike. Those big ogres that try to squash you with a massive brick? Dead with one parry attack. Father Gascoigne? Straight to third form with a couple of parry attacks.
I’ve also learned to do something that I never thought I’d be capable of in the first two Souls games: run past everything. There’s a childish glee to be had upon realising that most of the game’s enemies aren’t all that quick on their feet. I figured out direct routes to the Cleric Beast and Vicar Amelia that don’t require me to make a single strike, or take a single hit. I’ve become more focused on identifying environmental constraints, such as available rolling space, than keeping an eye on my character’s stamina and health bars.
I feel now that I’m playing Bloodborne in the way that Souls veterans do. There’s a confidence and cockiness to my movements that I had never thought I’d be capable of exhibiting in these games. Central Yharnam is no longer a scary place crawling with crazed citizens; it’s where I go if I need to collect a few bullets and blood vials quickly. The scythe-wielding witches of the Frontier are just a roar of my blunderbuss away from no longer being an obstacle.
I begin to wonder if all this time my sword and shield build was weighing me down. It has taken multiple things to get to that realisation: the time to discover Bloodborne’s intricacies on my own, without a Twitch audience, without the constraints of a press event, and without walkthroughs to turn to. Most of all, it has taken a game that hasn’t just encouraged me to try a new play style, but required it. Bloodborne may just be the first From Software game that I truly click with. And you know what? I haven’t even used the wooden shield I found.
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