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Sure you can, repeat after me: MOBA

I agree that the conspiracy part of Deus Ex was the least subtle thing ever, I mean, just watch the intro. However, I thought it dealt with for example transhumanism much better (and yes, subtly) than HR which was expressly about transhumanism. They couldn't have made it more about that if they tried and that was part of the problem. Also, the writing in Deus Ex is all over the place in terms of quality, but I think there is some intelligent, thought provoking and prescient stuff in there. Anyway, I know it's just a trailer, but the narration did put me off.

I know I'm being a party pooper, but the writing in that trailer. Please... no. Am I old? Is this marketed at 14 year olds? I was younger than that when I played Deus Ex and I liked it because it partially went over my head and didn't pander. I hope it's still a cool systems driven game, but I wish it could be intelligent and subtle too. Not "this is our theme our game is about this isn't it thought provoking also it's a war so you can kill stuff".

I honestly think this is my favourite part of the game

I'll admit I was hoping Jensen wouldn't return.

Oh, well that's quite the hint. I missed that. edit: wait, are you talking about the place where you learn the gesture or the spot I mentioned?

Cool thing I just read about and would never have thought to do:

I also finished the game today (didn't do any Chalice Dungeons). I wasn't as into it by the end as I was in the early to mid-game which is too bad. The last proper area is one of the best in the game, but I think the combat was starting to get repetitive for me at that point. Maybe I overlevelled vitality or something because it just got really mashy and scrappy. I also ended up missing the deeper systems and more varied loot of the Souls games more than I thought I would. I miss it because it makes you think about how to tackle an area in a more interesting way. You spend way less time in menus in Bloodborne. On the surface that's a good thing, menus are boring, but that menu nagivation actually represents problem solving that you're doing. I'm not going to say Bloodborne is mindless but it's less of a thinking person's game. Now, for the bosses. If you ask me there's only one bad boss in the game (name starts with an "R"), and as far as bad bosses go it's not even that terrible. On the other hand I didn't think any of them were exceptional and the same goes for the accompanying music. A bit of a let down in that regard. As for the areas, the game has some fantastic ones and the one bad area is not even that bad all things considered. All the issues I had with Dark Souls II's level design are fixed here. Shortcuts everywhere, even though they do get a little predictable and I think that the ability to warp from the start once again diminishes the world somewhat and lets them get away with more dead ends. There are so many pretty areas, I think Hemwick Channel might be my personal favourite. A slightly more varied colour palette would've been nice though. Also: Finally I think the NPCs are bit of a letdown. There's not as many of them and there's not as much to them. I don't know why I'm so negative in this post, I loved the game believe it or not. Haven't decided if I'll do a base level run yet, seems like it'd be tougher than in the other games, and less interesting because you don't have that many options in terms of gear. edit: oh also, the reuse of certain enemy types is another small letdown. Enemy design is actually a highlight of the game, but some show up way too much.

Even though this game plays very well I think I might prefer the combat in Dark Souls. You basically don't have to manage your stamina in Bloodborne, you have to worry significantly less about your heal timing, if you get cornered you can spam dodges and usually be okay and because most enemies stagger in one hit the combat can get pretty button mashy at times. I think that means the game deemphasises your tactical decision making somewhat. When you die in Dark Souls it's probably because you made the wrong decision, not because you weren't dexterous enough to pull it off whereas in Bloodborne it's just as likely to be the latter.

I had more than 29 vit, probably closer to 35. Probably made a big difference.

I'm pretty sure I don't have that glitch and I mostly parried him. He did lots of magic attacks but I just focused on avoiding those. The last 10% of health took me half the fight though heh. He's really good at getting out of the way of your attacks and the sword storm thing I don't know what to do about. I could see why people would get stuck on him.

I didn't scrutinize that area, I just saw it as a shortcut. I'll have to go back and check it out again!

Regarding some "shortcuts" later in the game I got the Crow armor now, it looks pretty rad I have to say.

The side areas are good places to go if you're having trouble with those bosses.

I thought it was a bit funny that Chris said he had a harder time getting excited about Bloodborne because of its aesthetic but then said he doesn't care much about direct sequels that don't change much either. I actually feel just the same hehe. That said, Bloodborne won me over. It's a setting that I'd expect to hinder my enjoyment of a thing but here it's so well executed that I'm into it anyway. So far though it doesn't have the same melancholy as Dark Souls, it's more horror and despair. At the same time it's not afraid to be goofy in subtle ways, and to quote someone else it has monsters that aren't afraid to look stupid. In a good way.

Two more things regarding the health system: If I'm not wrong, your healing is percentage based so it basically scales with your VIT. As a consequence pumping VIT is overpowered in this game. In Dark Souls it mattered less, because in practice you tended to be limited by how much you could heal in a fight and having a bit more life didn't increase that. Also, I miss the limited healing when you're just exploring. I was able to go through the Forbidden Woods (a long area) without resting at a lamp once (save for one super early death). I think I was exploring that area for close to two hours. The thing is, as long as you're playing above a certain threshold and never using more pots than what drops you can keep going forever. The attrition of constantly having less and less healing is what made places like Sen's Fortress memorable. Even just choosing to chug an Estus was a major decision a lot of the time.

What level were you at when you did the Forbidden Woods? I'm there, level 55 atm and sitting on almost five level ups worth of souls, I don't want to overlevel too much.

I played both Dark Souls games with kb/m and I've seen comments saying that it's unplayable that way more times than I can count. Obviously I'm playing Bloodborne with a controller and having gotten used to it I don't see what the big fuss is about. I'd even go so far as to say I prefer kb/m. With a controller you get analog movement, which so far for me has had basically zero impact on my ability to play the game well. You also get to change targets with the right stick. This is the biggest difference, since you can actually point at targets and not just cycle through them horizontally. Now, the problem I have is that there are eight(!) buttons I can't press without letting go of the two most important inputs, which are the character and camera controls. Maybe you can do some weird grip and press those buttons with some finger other than your thumb but that seems awkward. This is a difference that actually matters when I play. I can't sprint and control the camera, if someone's sneaking up on me from behind I can't dodge away and turn the camera 180 degrees at the same time etc. Sure, you're locked on most of the time so it's not a huge deal, but it's something I noticed. The dpad is probably worse because if I want to change weapon or item during a boss fight I need to stand still for a moment. Finally, when you lose lock-on say when a boss does a leap attack or something, the precise camera control you get with a mouse really helps. It's a perfectly good way to play, it's just not dramatically better.

My impression of this is that calling it a remaster is being charitable. There's nothing even close to a stat rebalance.

The combination of moves on that thing (Ludwig's) is amazing on paper, but it has slightly less range than I'd want it to and for the windup it has. I prefer the axe in its extended mode. For a particular boss I also found its overhead running attack to be just the right thing, because what I needed to hit tended to be a bit off the ground. Regarding your spoiler

I was going to ask about frenzy. I just spent ages in an area that I don't think I was meant to go to yet (it was in the fourth gravestone and I was only 5 bosses in). When I thought I'd passed the worst of it I ran into this enemy with a super long range AoE Frenzy that was impossble for me to get past, killing the thing didn't even help. Eventually I figured out how to stealth past it but that can't be the only way. Almost beat the boss on my first go despite having to play one handed for two minutes, but the final phase of that fight was a lot harder. That area also had a nice evil callback to Dark Souls that cost me 25k echoes.

Yes and no. That is one option, but there's a more painless one that's also harder to find! That is amazing.

There's a way to not have to do that long run yes, and several ways to unlock that. You can actually get to the first boss without

Am I supposed to be able to use runes yet? Also, had a really cool fight against a hunter in a place I didn't expect it.