Bloodborne recently celebrated its 10th Anniversary, and one of my Twitch stream teams, The Firekeepers, organized a raid train from March 21st to March 24th to join in the festivities. Over 50 streamers gathered in 2-hour time blocks to participate in activities related to Bloodborne. We had a mix of people doing first playthroughs all the way to people attempting hitless, no level, and alternate controller challenge runs. For my time slot, I ended up revisiting Bloodborne to tackle the Old Hunter DLC finally, and I reminisced on how this game made me fall in love with the Souls genre.
Let’s travel back in time a little bit to the pandemic. Unfortunately, my employer laid off my entire team, leaving me with a lot of free time. While people were learning to make bread, play an instrument, or pick up a new language, I browsed a list of the toughest games of all time and started to tackle them. I had played most of the games like Contra, Super Meat Boy, God Hand, and Ninja Gaiden when they were first released, but I had never gotten around to checking out Bloodborne. I grabbed a used copy from a local game store and decided to dive in.
Gothic Horrors FTW
I love the whole dark gothic and horror aesthetic, so from the initial cut scene, the setting of Yharnam instantly drew me in. I felt as confused as the hunter you play as because the lore and story weren’t immediately spelled out. I’d get bits and pieces from the loading screens, and I’d also have to take the time to read up on the item and weapon descriptions. I tried to avoid any guides or walkthroughs unless necessary, so my first couple of hours were especially rough. It took me back to the difficulty of some of my favorite NES and SNES games (I’m looking at you, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and that sewer level), and that’s what hooked me.
(In Game) Death Would Not Stop Me
I probably died like 300 times before reaching the Cleric Beast. I had since learned the term in the Souls community is the wall – a boss that’s not necessarily difficult but designed to teach you the game mechanics. You could argue that Father Gascoigne or Vicar Amelia is the wall bosses for Bloodborne, but since this was my first time with a Souls game, the very first boss had me stuck. When I finally defeated the Cleric Beast, I started to understand why the genre is so beloved – I was hit with a rush of dopamine and ran around my apartment celebrating.
Pandemic time is funky, but I’m pretty sure my schedule broke down into applying for jobs and grinding through Bloodborne. The Chalice Dungeon bosses nearly caused me to break a controller, and I’m generally a very chill guy. Finally, after probably a thousand deaths, I got the Platinum trophy. I am one of the most average gamers, so I felt I had truly accomplished something great. I could easily do a follow-up post to cover my favorite bosses.
Behold My Platinum
When Kai Cenat streamed Bloodborne, I was hoping it would generate enough hype to convince FromSoftware to consider a remake or even a 60 FPS patch. It was also a bummer that there wasn’t a huge announcement for the 10th anniversary. That said, revisiting Bloodborne for the raid train made me realize the game still holds up. The 30 FPS was a little scuffed in spots, but it didn’t feel like a dated game at all. I’d since played through other Souls games like Lies of P and Elden Ring, so the Old Hunter DLC went by relatively quickly.
If you haven’t had a chance or you were thinking about it, I encourage you to give Bloodborne a try. It’s the reason I’m a Soulsborne streamer. At the risk of sounding pretentious, Bloodborne even taught me so much about patience and perseverance. I consider it a masterpiece and one of my favorite games of all time.
Leave a Reply