14 DAY TRIAL // Bloodborne is a very difficult game, especially if you're not a veteran of From Software's other madness simulators, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2.
If you're a normal human being, the kind who doesn't like losing, there's a pretty good chance that you're going to get pretty irate while playing Bloodborne, due to its unforgiving and sometimes unfair nature.
In order to prevent From Software's games from becoming the most successful marketing force behind mass sales of new controllers to replace the ones you break in fits of anger, there are several things you should keep in mind while exploring Yharnam.
Always err on the side of caution
No matter how overpowered you are, if you manage to fumble an attack, you should immediately step up your game, retreat, heal, and get ready for the worst.
This is especially true when facing multiple enemies or stronger ones, particularly the kind that can string a combo together and kill you in what is essentially one shot, because the odds are usually stacked against you.
As you progress through the game, you'll often be tempted to try and breeze through groups of enemies, and you will even be able to once you start outleveling a certain area. This doesn't mean that you should treat that zone as trivial.
If you don't believe me, grab a piece of paper and mark down every stupid death that should not have occurred, and that you chalk up to unresponsive controls, luck, bad camera angles or an enemy pulling off a different move than the one it was supposed to.
You will be surprised at the results. Worst of all, those are all deaths that could have been easily avoided, and that factor into the next point.
Be aware of the real value of time
Bloodborne is a compelling experience, but it's not about having fun. You don't get any participation medals and you'll only feel stupid when trying to pull off daring attacks in high-risk / high-reward scenarios.
In fact, you should be aware of the fact that there are no such scenarios. The high-risk part is a constant throughout the game, and the rewards are the same, time being the only resource you lose, and paradoxically the only one you can afford to waste in order not to lose more of later on.
It's easy, really. You take a step back and get ready for whatever you're facing, you don't rush in. If this means wasting five seconds in order to bait out an attack from the enemy and guarantee victory, so be it.
In the end run, it translates into less time wasted and more consistency. If you teach yourself to stay focused, you will only lose five seconds, instead of ten minutes due to a stupid death.
You won't have to do everything all over again, and you won't risk losing your blood echoes for good and, therefore, even more time.
If it gets too hard, do some farming
Bloodborne isn't the kind of game where you go through an area once and that's it, you never visit it again because you're done. It doesn't have the same structure as other role-playing games you might have played.
Truth be told, it would be a pretty short game, were it not for those pesky enemies that keep getting in the way. But a core part of the experience is the huge progress you will make before getting to the end of the campaign.
And that progress also means that you should be doing farming runs in order to get blood echoes to level up, killing some of the same enemies over and over, until you get used to them and to the way you have to fight in order to be successful 100 percent of the time.
You will get farther and farther every time, and you will get better with each attempt, improving your odds when you decide to make the push into a new area. And at the end of the day, you will also have a large number of blood echoes to spend on leveling up.
Don't be afraid to experiment
Getting used to the game is a pretty long process, and you should be aware that getting familiar with each new enemy is a must. This means that, whenever you meet one, you should be cautious and let it use its full array of attacks, instead of rushing in.
This will greatly help you in the long run, especially if you can also try to see which of the monsters can be interrupted by your own attacks, and which of them can attack you faster than you can hit them. You should try out several weapons and approaches whenever you get a more controlled environment, like during farming runs, as this will help you better assess complicated situations later on.
Knowing whether you can take on a certain enemy composition in an enclosed area with a certain layout can prevent you from losing your blood echoes in a very difficult situation that makes it unlikely that you'll ever get them back.
The time you spend training and trying out new techniques and approaches will pay off during the tense situations when you're sitting on a huge pile of blood echoes, wondering whether to play it safe and go back and spend them or push forward.
Accept the fact that you will lose over and over again
The game is very demanding, and sometimes it's downright unfair, especially during the learning phase, and most of all during boss battles, not to mention when you run into glitches. Some of the animations aren't very clear and it takes a while to get the hang of a new encounter, and sometimes your character just rolls into the attack instead of away from it, as if to spite you.
There are times when a hit box won't register a hit or when you yourself will be hit by an attack that looks as if it shouldn't have. Other times you will hit the lock button, and instead of getting the enemy in your view, the camera will reset in the other direction, leaving you open to a potentially devastating attack.
During my playthrough, I found myself wondering why my character wasn't rolling faster, especially when it was its life on the line. Attack animations get you locked in place and unable to react, and you will get hit if you get greedy and try to land one more blow.
A lot of the enemies are scary and dangerous when you first run into them. After you kill them ten times in a row, they don't seem scary anymore, but they're still every bit as dangerous as the first time you met them.
Anger can only make you play worse
Getting angry is good when you're trying to hit something inanimate because it cools you down. Whenever you have to hit something that doesn't want to get hit and can retaliate, you're much better off tackling the situation with a cool head.
Biting a chunk out of your controller in frustration will not make a boss more lenient, and it won't make a beast's claws any less sharp. If you find yourself overly frustrated with a certain enemy or situation, try to do a couple of farm runs in a familiar area, in order to get back into the right rhythm.
Being calm and cautious is difficult, because it's tempting to spam R1 into groups of enemies and see them go up in flames. It is much more rewarding though, and will save you a lot of trouble, especially when venturing into uncharted territory.
Explore every nook and cranny
From Software has the nasty habit of hiding a ton of useful things, from the game's story to many items, in remote areas that you can only stumble upon by luck.
This means that you should thoroughly explore every area you venture through, as many of the items littered about in secluded alleyways or on building rooftops can often help you in your quest to overcome Yharnam's challenges.
What's more, exploring can sometimes uncover secret shortcuts that can drastically cut travel time between sections of the city, and sometimes you'll even stumble upon optional bosses that you could have otherwise waltzed right past without ever knowing they were there.
But most importantly, exploring the city reveals a ton of information regarding its lore and offers a more meaningful experience than just doing all the combat bits, as it provides a more satisfying feeling of context for your adventure, and a better understanding of why some things are the way you see them.
If you're interested to learn more about the game and the mysterious city of Yharnam, you can check out our Bloodborne review.
