As one can see, most people either find it amazing or rubbish.
The game is quite good as long as you know what to expect. It's not Devil May Cry. It's demanding in every aspect.
Let's analyze briefly the positives and negatives. I will start with the positives.
The graphics and atmosphere are incredible. Victorian architecture throughout the game, amazing scenery and effects, and a heavy atmosphere.
Combat. The strong point of Soulsborne games is the combat, and Bloodborne excels in this aspect. Here, I must emphasize that we are not talking about hack and slash where you just kill everything you find. In Bloodborne, even the simplest enemy can kill you in 3 hits regardless of your level. The difference between level 1 and level 540 is small, which makes the game difficult throughout, even in new game +++ and so on. What this difficulty system achieves is that the player has to pay attention to every battle and learn to defend properly. Learn the enemies, learn the dodge, learn the parry timing, and you will enjoy many hours of relatively fair fights.
Music. Bloodborne has fantastic music and sound effects. From orchestras to chants that reach their peak during boss fights, to crackling fires, underground waters, flowing air currents, everything contributes to an exceptional musical composition.
Story. Although I consider it both positive and negative, here I will write about the positives. Soulsborne games have a Lovecraftian style. The player doesn't learn the plot through cutscenes (although there are a few scattered throughout the game), but mainly through items and some dialogues with NPCs. If someone wants to understand the plot, they will have to read every item description and exhaust the dialogues with NPCs. Someone who lacks the appetite/time will not understand anything at all.
Now let's move on to the negatives.
I will start with the "opposite" of good graphics, performance. Unfortunately, the performance (fps) is not good. Depending on the area and the characters, it can drop dramatically. In some gang enemies, you will notice a significant drop in fps. Even worse, in boss fights when the boss is large in size and has details like hair/fire, etc. There will be moments when it feels like a slideshow and the character moves slowly. Another technical drawback is the camera. Like the fps in certain boss fights with large enemies, the camera doesn't work properly. Unfortunately, it has a limited range, and many times you can only see parts of the boss. Also, when you get stuck against a wall, there is no transparency, so the camera remains stationary and you see the character too closely.
The above, combined with the mediocre locking on, make some bosses harder than they actually are, and there will be many camera/fps deaths. Be prepared.
Next issue is leveling up. Although it seems nice in theory to be able to finish the game with both level 4 and level 540 purely based on skill, in reality, leveling up becomes almost useless. The difference between level 4 and level 540 is essentially 1 hit. I understand that this is how you make a game difficult from start to finish, but on the other hand, it also loses the essence of the leveling system. Practically, after the first run (I did a total of 4), I did speedruns for the rest and just made minimal changes in dialogues because even though enemies scale, it doesn't matter to level up once you learn dodge/moveset of enemies/parry well.
In the pointless level up, the equipment also falls short. Unfortunately, the clothes have purely cosmetic use despite having statistics. Even some with specific defense against electricity offer such a small buff that it is negligible. For example, where you would receive 800 damage while having 1000 life, with a good set of clothes, you may reduce the damage to 750. So, it doesn't matter because no matter what you do, you will die on the second hit.
In the same pattern, the weapon fortification/level up is also more useful.
The same goes for the items. Very few are actually useful, and most are extremely time-specific, and even then, not necessarily. So, they are simply there to fill in the RPG elements, like the level up and equipment.
Plot. While the idea of scattering the plot in item descriptions and NPCs seems excellent, in practice, it is bad. Unfortunately, Yamazaki has very vague descriptions in each item/dialogue, resulting in not a single person on the planet who didn't search on Google/YouTube to learn various things about the plot. It is unlikely that you will understand certain elements on your own, which are often subjective as well. The descriptions should have used simpler language. The plot, after watching 2-3 hours of videos, is quite simplistic and it annoys you that such a simplistic plot was intentionally made difficult.
There are other positives/negatives, but I have written many types (at least the most basic ones) and I don't want to bore you.
To summarize, the game is heavy and difficult, requiring patience and treating each enemy seriously. If you understand this, you will enjoy it and have a sense of achievement when defeating bosses. The atmosphere and battles are fantastic. With a few tweaks in the technical aspect and storytelling, it could be a game for 9/10. As it is, it's a 7/10.
Also, unfortunately, these games give a false sense of accomplishment/pride/masterrace to their fans. They are just games.
Thank you for your time
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