Bloodborne: An immersively thick cut above its gaming rivals

It's bloody and it's marvellous - even when you're dead

A ghoul's paradise

During the tutorial scenes, friendly mini ghouls pop out of the floor with scrolls giving helpful hints and tips. But now it’s time to choose my weapons offered to me by mini monstrosities. I start with the axe, which had an impressively long reach and does more damage.

Choose your weapons – click for a larger image

However, after several deaths, I choose the saw cleaver, which was faster. Although it does less damage, at opportune moments it flips out to twice the size like a cut throat razor paired with the shotgun and quicksilver bullets – these weapons seem to make me a nice all-rounder in combat.

One of the most eerie residents of Hunter's Dream is a Victorian Doll. When I gain insight from my first boss battle, she comes alive. Insight points are a new addition to this game and are earned by killing bosses. They are essential to use the Beckoning Bell, again, given to me after my first boss fight in Hunter’s Dream. This bell summons other players to my game world to help me defeat any particularly stubborn monstrosity.

"All right, doll?"

It’s the night of the hunt and the sickeningly red blood moonlight bathes the cobbled streets in an eerie glow as I make my way through the city. Bloodborne has a much darker macabre aesthetic than previous From Software Inc. games. The architecture is obviously modelled on the impressive Gothic steeples of the Church of Our Lady before Tyn in Prague Town Square.

Packs of scarecrow-like long men attack me with pitch forks and enemy animals have a greasy sickly sheen, slug-like crows slither the floor. Enemies work a little differently from those I’m used to, in Bloodborne they have much more varied attacks and ebb and flow through the streets in packs. I was so nervous from my time playing Dark Souls that I didn’t want to engage en masse but often found taking on multiple targets was the way forward.

Gothic architecture

In Dark Souls, I could hide when things got bad but now dogs jump from cover and kill me as I’m investigating before I even make it to my first save point. This ensures I’m crying with fear and frustration early on and constantly hoping for the glittering glow of a respawn lamp, which are very few and far between.