Great video overhaul ! But I don't get what's wrong with Ludwig 1st phase, I mean okay certain animation are hard to learn but non of them is real bullsht, even his attack where he fall in the player is simply avoidable by running in a straight line, I personnaly find his p2 harder to no hit than the p1 due to it's less amount of opening.

disliking simply for the "ds2 bad no cover" herd mentality. get a grip.

Tbh i take issue with the lock on bit, ive literally never fought laurence locked on outside of my first plathrough because all of his aoe spam bs requires your dodges to clear more distance. Id argue bloodborne is the game in the series that best exemplifies "you have to know when to use lock on".

3 hours of Dark Souls critique. Man i've been dragged back to 2018.

One of my favorite things about the atmosphere of Gehrman's fight is how you can hear his labored breathing in phase 1

Just completed my second playthrough of this game and was curious on what other people thought of it, thanks for the analysis. Some things I wanted to comment on: I’m glad someone else pointed out that not using lock-on is a poor experience other than Matthewmatosis. It gets used as an argument in favor of DS2’s enemy placement (“just kite the enemy mobs while not locked on”) often despite that game also having the worst movement of the series. Of the points you presented against its use, I think that the fact that manually aimed player attacks are easier to miss is the weakest. Its a skill that can be honed much easier than trying to shoot without lock-on and you can still miss while locked-on, after all, if you misjudge your distance from an enemy. You showed yourself using it in Rom’s fight to good effect. In the context of Shadows of Yharnam, not using lock-on does suck though. I often wonder if From intends unlocked play with the design of some of these bosses and their history in the Armored Core series, where you use claw-hand the controller a lot. O&S isn’t the best example of a multi-boss in my opinion. The concept of their fight works on paper, but in practice they tend to clump together often which will then only be broken by Ornstein’s janky charge move or their AI getting awkwardly stuck on pillars. Ornstein can shoot lightning through Smough too. I think a better example is the Demons from DS3 Ringed City- the demons compliment each other when their phases differ, and sometimes change the pace of the fight by taking the same phase, but never for long. There’s a better telegraph for ranged attacks if they go through one of the demons too since the explosion is delayed. You’re given a choice of which phase 2 you want to take as well, though the difference is not nearly as pronounced as O&S.

(note: maria refers to itself in third person) maria thinks different builds struggling with different bosses is actually a good thing because it adds more flavor and texture to different playthroughs

The Laurence fight could be made a lot better I think if the lava didn't stagger and instead of doing a chunk of damage, did slow damage over time. This would make standing in the lava dangerous but viable, forcing the player to weigh the risk of getting extra hits while taking a bit of damage in the process without being entirely neutered

1:44:47 kind of bullshit, I love the vid but some people including me just… looked around? I saw it and wanted to try and climb up, I didn’t look it up, didn’t see a message, if you don’t look around than that’s on you

I now know the line between a critique and whiney baby nit picks if very, very thin.

Haven’t watched other videos of yours, but this one which is the only one I had seen yet earned you a new subscriber. Love the style, of course the break down of my favorite game that is not Minecraft (I highly doubt anything can come close to even be compared to it) just one thing in particular I want to say, kinda a disagreement but more so a perspective: I play these games in a very different style than you and most people, which caused huge mounts of experience difference within boss encounters, beasts in particular. Instead of leaning in to the suggested extreme aggression method of Bloodborne or the mild aggression of the other from software games, my style goes like this: I stand in a fair distance from the boss and reacts to all its moves well finding absolute safe punishment windows. I’ll take Ebrietas for example, your most resented boss, for it’s calm and friendly attack pattern with well perceived aggression and weakness, it’s probably one of my top three bosses in the game, and I know there is the Orphan, Maria, Ludwig and Gahrman etc… Is the camera and the conundrum of a hit box and entity a problem? Positive! But her pace matches mine, every attack is perfectly timed and consistent with moderate pace, great punishments opportunities that aren’t overwhelming to me, which means it does not feels like cheating, for example the back stabs on the orphan, Maria; Ludwig super charge attack second phase(I don’t use parry by the way) etc. I sincerely suggest you to try and take the fight slow, observe your ‘prey’ if you wanna call it that, before planing an assault. I basically never experience camera or hit box problems besides sometimes where they force me under some camera hazard like f*cking shi*ty Paarl. I really believe this is more so a problem of how the game teaches you to approach a fight, if you approach Ebrietas in a heart of battle and me see monster, me kill monster👹 mind set, there will be big problems… and that said I will tell you the lows of my style: There is no where better to start my demise with the most hideous, most revolting, foul, pathetic dark beast f*cking Paarl! This d*ck sucker are designed to fury me, there is no reason to make this sh*t other than to f*ck with my playstyle! I tried to convey my pain through words, but there is no way to express it without making it seem as though nothing but a tantrum… chaotic and unorganized fights or tight spaces maybe some mechanics will always be my achilles heal. Actually I’m gonna end here, try my way out, very entertaining to watch and prideful.

wake up babe, a new Bloodborne analysis has dropped!

Best game ever

"every well regarded game in the series" so specifically no ds2 smh my head.....................

This analysis could've been interesting if it came out almost 10 years ago (when bb came out). Script is too dry, reads more like a guidebook with staggering lack of wit or even humour. People thank him for no preamble but every good script for a video has an intro to state ground for the main thesis. Jumping straight into basically describing a walkthrough with interesting-ish bits here and there doesn't allow for making any of it. If the game wasn't almost 10 years old and so thoroughly looked at by the soulsbourne community, then it'd be a nice watch

Oswald giving the player the option to have NPCs forgive them was a way to help players undo a mistake not made by them such as accidentally attacking a NPC while placing the controller down. I believe this was something mentioned in an interview and implemented due to play testers accidentally attacking an NPC when they had no intention to actually aggro an NPC. I myself have done the same next to Andre and aggro'd him since my weapon dealt too much damage for simply placing down the controller too hard while next to him so I can take a short break.

Oh boy, very pumped to dive into this one!

Another Brit releases a massive video about a From Software game...oh well see ya in 4 hours.

I hooked, in a different way. With the way you talk I feel I would get my ass kicked if I click off.

Bruh I’ve beat the game with my storage maxed out with bullets cuz the visceral attacks are unnecessary

This comment is to help the video in the algorithm.

Hey, what are some sources you used for this video?, You used pretty established vocabulary such as 'ludonarratives' ect that would imply you've really done your research and I'm currently undertaking a project like this for school so it would be helful. Thanks!

You just had to pass the 10min mark didn't you?

Must really love those elevators huh? Cant get enough of them elevators? Im just kidding.

I like summons, idc

and ds3

do ER i hate tgat game

greatest intro ever

Thank you for emphasizing the poor transition between Blood-Starved Beast in Old Yarnham and the door it opens in Cathedral Ward. This was a really discouraging experience my first time playing through the game and all of critiques matched my experience. It doesn't make sense that the door opens arbitrarily after defeating an enemy miles away and I didn't encounter the Gehrman dialogue. I very frustratedly asked my souls expert friend where to go next and he and a few other friends pointed me in the right direction but did so in a way that implied, "oh its simple, just go here... duh." At least DS3 has the decency to teleport you to Dancer of the Boreal Valley after defeating that other boss. This was such a poor execution of progression in an otherwise very well designed game.

i find it funny, that ppl are still trying to critic of a 2015 game with no updates for decades, It still the best of the From's Catalog beside sekiro, it still has it's issue just cuz is that old. and some how IT STILL BETTER FOR IT. but you know opinions and so on.

12:32 & 14:55 I would offer one counter if the argument is that this problem is exclusive to Bloodborne. In Demons and DS games, each weapon has a critical attack rating, which is higher for weapons like daggers and estoc/rapiers, (110-130 vs regular 100) some straight swords that are usually exclusively Dex weapons, at best a weapon like the sawspear that has decent scaling with both stats. In Bloodborne, Skill level is not the only factor that ups your visceral attack damage. You gain a small amount every time you go up one level in any stat, and at Blood Level 15 (until 60) there is a considerable jump every 15 levels. Skill does give your player another small jump per level, but its less than the overall change with leveling your character. So one could argue a Strength build using ripostes in DS with either their big bonk weapon or pulling out a dagger they dont scale as well with is pretty similar to a Strength build in Bloodborne having not leveled Skill but using any weapon they want and still getting pretty similar results. Mix a dozen Skill into any build and you buff the visceral attack only a bit more than continuing elsewhere. More bosses get visceral attack opportunities in this game than others is true, so perhaps that weighs the scale. It would be great if the game(s) valued Strength and Skill builds equally, but then youd be making Moonlight Sword and Chikage builds angry. 😅 Bloodborne gives all leveling (up to 60 hardcap) a small boost, with Skill slightly edging out the winner again. 🤷‍♀️ guess Dex is just better, after all... 🤓

A nitpick, but a QOL feature doesn't always have to serve making a mechanic more efficient or faster. Instead, I'd define it as making something more convenient and therefore feels good for the player. An example that counters your definition would be a popup screen when it comes to making important decisions in game such as being notified about permanent changes and have the popup screen default to the No option, which drastically reduces players making mistakes because of miss clicks. This is notable with Diablo 4 in particular since a lack of a QOL feature with regards to spending your Special Edition free season pass was highly criticized, as the UI design made it so that players were very likely to misuse it. Another example you also cited in the video are transmogs, where allowing players to transmog armor to match a certain style or item set, can help the player feel more attached and immersed to their character, even though it actually requires *more* steps in game to do so. The more efficient route of action would obviously be to just wear the items whose look you desire even if they grant suboptimal stats, such as is the case in Bloodborne/most Souls titles.

Why do you sound like you’re narrating this through gritted teeth?

why does he sound so angry in every sentence

I haven’t finished this video yet, but I’m very pleased to hear you acknowledge the increased focus on action and reduced presence of experiential elements and unique encounters regarding bosses. Matthewmatosis was the only other person I’ve heard really calling this out as a decision with some significant drawbacks. I think for him it actually largely ruined his interest in future Fromsoft titles. I’m especially interested to hear your thoughts on boss design regarding Elden Ring. I can’t shake the feeling that something really special is increasingly becoming lost in the chase for spectacle and more mechanically demanding bosses.

Hot take. Limiting heals to 20 is actually stupid. It does go with the survival horror aspect but it's just annoying otherwise.

Amazing video, it really is nice to see people talk about the problems of Bloodborne after so long of people just shutting down any notion that the game isn't perfect. Can't wait for your DS3 video, it's my favorite game and I can already see some of your problems with BB bleeding into DS3, keep up the good work!

This isn't a new critique. This has been covered better by other youtubers in depth. This is 4 hours of bitching from someone who found a new old game.

Another bloodborne critique video. Just what KZbin needs. No way I'm sitting through 4 more hours of this. Edit: great video. I agree with pretty much everything you said

Been waiting for months.. good..hunter.

Thank you, Jonathan Sims.

Another 2 hours + Bloodborne analysis??? I will be #Watching

3:03:00 You can actually just dodge the Nightmare Move. Idk how staggering works with it but if the nurse uses the move and you dodge the whole thing just doesn t happen lol.

From a game design perspective, I absolutely adore Gascoigne. FromSoft needed to make sure that, before you played the rest of the game, you understood parrying, backpedaling, quickstepping vs. rolling, changing strategies mid-fight, timing heals, so many mechanics, and they’re all put together in this intense juggling act that feels scary and overwhelming until it all clicks. Dodging into the tombstones is annoying… until you learn to roll around them instead of trying to quickstep. The spinning attacks are overwhelming… until you realize when the parry window for it starts. The phase change is terrifying… until you realize where your healing openings are. It all comes together and takes the fight from this insurmountable obstacle to an adrenaline-fueled battle to the death, and when you take your first victory against him, that’s when you know if you want to finish the game or not

Stat Check: After two days, this is now your 3rd most viewed video and you've gained about 200 subs. Good stuff!