I am a giant Dark Souls fan, so for me BloodBourne was the most interesting title being shown at EGX this year. Forget the rest, BloodBourne will easily be the game I spent the most amount of time on in the coming year. With that said, I kind of knew what to expect going in because I had seen a lot of press releases and game footage beforehand and it largely resembles the gameplay of the Souls series transplanted into a new locale.
It means a lot to me that my first experience with Bloodbourne has been a positive one, then, and I can happily report that it feels right which is the unquantifiable element to the Dark/Demon Souls combat that has pulled me in from the word go. That being said, demoing a game like Bloodbourne “until you die” does mean that the first attempt I had on the game was not a particularly long one. I managed to get to the boss at the end of the level in my second attempt and hopefully I may even be able to beat that boss if I have time to go in for a third… Or fourth…
A few things jumped out at me about Bloodbourne and I think it would take a while of talking to really establish what I noticed was different but some of the more interesting observations were quite subtle changes to the formula. An example of this is the way that the enemies seemed to pick up on my presence, which is to say that in a lot of situations they really didn’t. There were more opportunities to effectively avoid confrontation in the demo than I expected there to be, with generic nasty men patrolling past me while I looked on and allowing me to pass without having to game the system.
Stealth was a part of previous titles, of course, but it was never made clear when or how you could sneak past enemies. Engagement was always the focus and the demo of Bloodbourne makes it clear that you don’t have to do so. Patrols of “bad guys” move down the old gothic streets and pass you if you pause to observe their progress. Whether or not they can be summoned back to you to make further engagements more difficult is something I didn’t discover but I would hope has at least been considered.
Risk/reward has always been a part of the Souls DNA but there were a couple of moments in the game that really showed that off in a clear and intuitive way like above. I contemplated whether it was worth engaging with some targets, another notable one being a large ogre like man hammering away at a door, completely oblivious to my passing. The options were clear and so was the intent; if the entire game plays like the demo it will be a return to form from From Software.
Now repeat that five times with an apple in your mouth.
Joe: I’ve never really gotten into Dark Souls as a result of the difficulty level but the demo shown at EGX did not seem to have the same problem. The controls were fairly intuitive and the challenge wasn’t unreasonable. My demo ended when I had to manage a large group of enemies while someone shot down at me from above.