So a few weeks ago I got Bloodborne having never played any of the games in the souls series (which is made by the same creator) I thought I'd complete this in a few days and review it.

But oh boy I was wrong this game is brutally hard and I'm far away from beating it right now, fortunately after Rage quitting several times I have picked up some things which is what I intend on sharing in this thread since hopefully they should at least make the start of your Blooborne adventure a lot less... Rage-y.

So yeah here's an assortment of stuff to help you on your journey in bloodborne!


Tip #1 When encountering your first enemy, die.

Once you encounter the first enemy in the game, the wolf creature you'll have no weapons so just go ahead and die because then you'll be transported to the hunter's dream where you'll be able to pick your weapons... Don't try to be super macho man like me and try to kill it with your fists... Just don't.

So once you do get there, you'll be able to pick your weapons so here I've included a brief overview of each weapon and additional advice from me regarding them to help make your choice easier:

Main Weapons:

1. Threaded Cane

My preferred weapon. Which is basically a cane (I call it the pimp cane :3) which in it's normal form is used to stab the enemy which is typically useful for thougher enemies. It also has an alternative form by pressing l1 that transforms it into a chain whip, which is useful for common mobs like the towns folk. I think this is generally good for skill stat based characters and is generally the fastest weapon but that at the same time packs the least punch.

2. Saw Cleaver

Generally the most balanced out of the weapons having decent speed but also decent force. It has two forms, a shorter version that's quicker but obviously can't reach as far, and a longer but slower version for more reach, each useful for different situations. If you despite my explanation can't pick a weapon I'd probably suggest this one, if only because it's probably the most versatile and balanced out of the three.

3. Hunter's Axe

This axe packs the biggest punch out of the three weapons but is also slow. It has two forms a one handed form that is still powerful but slow and a two handed form which packs a huge punch but also makes it so you can't wield a gun in your other hand and is of course very slow. If you don't mind taking it slowly and tactically and don't plan on using your gun as much this might be a good choice.

Secondary Weapons (Gun)

1. Blunderbuss

This kind of words like a shotgun it it shoots a powerful shot but it has very short range, and is slower in succession. It's generally a good weapon along with the cane for example to get enemies away from you, and to counter enemies.

2. Pistol

The Pistol is the slightly faster (as in fires faster in sucession not faster intial shot) and is better for picking off enemies one by one from afar, when using it. Generally I'd say it may be the better if you don't know what to go with.

General Gun advice: Keep in mind that guns in this game are generally used more for their utility than for pure damage dealing, you'll see what I mean as we further into this guide.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Keep in mind you can get all the other weapons and more later if you do change your mind so keep in mind it's mostly for the initial stages, that said getting a good feel for your preferred weapon from the get go is good.


Tip #2: Explore

Yes, going off and dying in this game is risky but often times you'll be able to find useful things when exploring. One good example of this is just in the beginning where you can find corpses to loot for blood vials to restore health and bullets for your gun, always keep an eye out for these kinds of things and if able, try to explore every nook and crany of an area. It will often pay off. Not just in loot either but finding shortcuts and other things to make navigating the world easier as well.

Tip #3: Farm mobs for blood echoes

A way to get blood echoes especially if you happen to die and lose them all or start with the waste of skin origin (if you're macho like me >.>) is to kill weaker mobs with your prefered weapon, running back to a lantern and into the hunter's dream and back so they respawn and repeat.

Important Note: DO NOT DIE. If you die you will still lose all your blood echoes (though they can be recovered from the mobs, it's better to be safe) so make sure to stay alert and preferably farm long sessions rather than short ones so you can get whatever you want and/or need after being done farming and not risk losing it further in the game, since you lose blood echoes but not items.

Tip #4 Take it slowly

Walk slowly often. Enemies can often lurk behind corners waiting to ambush you, and an easy way to solve this is just walking slowly as they'll usually jump out a little bit before then giving you more than enough time to react and rip them a new one, trust me

Tip #5 Pebbles are nice

Pebbles are your friend. When you first acquire these you may wonder what they're for and how to use them, well never fear, Zlinqx is here! Well you can assign these as well as other items like molotov cocktails to your quick items by pressing start. To switch between them after that all you have to use is the down button on the dpad and you press square to use them.

Now when you first get the pebbles you may think they're useless throwing them does a pathetic amount of damage but what these are useful for are situations like the one to come. You see by throwing them at the mobs they'll come chasing you, meaning you can pick off larger crowds of enemies one by one by throwing pebbles at them while staying out of sight. So very handy for weakning crowds or getting read of particular problem enemies :3 Keep in mind the regular pistol can fill a similar role to pebbles.

Tip #6: Be aggressive to an extent

I descided to talk about these at the same time since they're both very central combat mechanics.

So now you'll want to try to avoid getting hit of course but in the event that you do you'll need to learn the regain system. Basically after getting hit there's a short period of time where you can hit the enemy back and regain health, hit it back enough and you can even get all of it back, and you're more or less going to need to do this instead of relying on blood vials all the time, hence the game encourages you to be aggressive in your playstyle. Keep in mind you can also use your gun for this.

Now lets talk massive damage, let's talk visceral attacks. Something that can make quick work of a lot of enemies even tougher ones are these. Basically just before an enemy hits you, shooting it can cause it to drop to it's knees, you'll know if you succeed because you hear a low chime sound and then you can press r1 to cause massive damage and get a pretty awesome animation in the process. This will be very useful for bigger mobs later in the game. There's also another way to trigger it if you can manage sneaking up on an enemy from behind and hitting it with a charged attack, either way make sure to learn them.


Tip #7: Defeat the Axe guy

Now after you get a little bit into the game you'll soon walk past a small corner with a seemingly slow enemy wielding an axe, you could just completely ignore him but in my opinion you should keep trying to defeat him. You will probably die a few times, but he makes for good training to learn close range duelling with enemies. Just don't forget to dodge because he can jump one hell of a distance...

Tip #8: Not everything needs to die

The game doesn't punish you for not killing all enemies. In fact often times it may be easier to just try to slink by unnoticed. So if you're having trouble killing mobs in a certain section doing so is definietly an option.

Tip #9: Upgrading your weapon is very important

Once you unlock upgrades to spend you're blood echoes on you could of course use this to upgrade yourself instead, but just boosting your stats on it's own is often times not worth it. So it's better to find out what weapon best suits you and start upgrading it to be the ultimate monster slayer :3

Tip #10: Mind your insight

Insight is a stat in the game that it purposely kind of doesn't explain. But you tend to gain primarily for defeating bosses. Something that you should probably know is that once you get to 15 insight (that is carrying 15 insight on you), it will make some enemies harder and develop new tactics, this will stop if you go below 15 insight again, just a good thing to know of so you wont be confused if enemies start behaving differently and are suddenly harder

Tip #11: Ragequit

While these tips should be of use, you are still going to die A LOT. So you may as well accept that from the get go, you will probably end up ragequitting but then you'll end up coming back for more trying to beat that damn Cleric Be-

I mean uh yeah, you wont always succeed but that's okay so take a break from the game and keep trying later, with enough perserverance you will succeed.

This game is really... really difficult its stupid hard, so I'm happy that you made this, I imagine it will help a lot of people.

Anyway what was your favourite boss?

imamonster : I could probably update this now that I've platinumed the game with some late game tricks but I'd need to refresh my memory since I haven't played it since doing so. As for bosses I liked the more challenging ones. The weird thing with the game is that some bosses like the witch of hemwick is incredibly easy while some are really challenging (mostly the latter ). Kind of hard for me to pick just one favorite, a lot of them are pretty cool because they have an interesting back story.

Spoilers

In terms of gamplay it would probably be Ebrietas though, it was the most challenging boss for me, even more challenging than the final boss. I ended up using the beckoning bell the first time through because I kept dying to her and after doing that it still took several tries with me dying right after striking the final blow to her (luckily it counted). There's a sort of build up too because it's probably the most easy to miss boss and you have to beat the celestial emissary, another boss to get to it. The story of her being a great one who actually cooperated and seemed to have symparthy for humans is pretty interesting. Not to mention just how messed up it looks... I mean uh...



Yeah... I don't even know what that is.

Now in terms of backstory it would probably be Father Gascoigne. It is simply just a pretty sad story, the sickness having eaten away at his mind until he eventually goes on a rampage and kills his wife and abandons his two daughters. One of the daughters die trying to get some place safe after you recommend one, and the other turn into a monster which is even more depressing. What's ironic is that most people who rush through the game never actually find out much about him and likely just get confused at his opening cutscene which ties into all of it.

The story of the game is kind of like a puzzle which I found to be part of the fun, you get small pieces of information which you then kind of have to piece together and everything suddenly starts to make sense. Even if you ignore it the other aspects of the game alone would still be enough to keep a person entertained.