The Verdict of Bloodborne by EDGE Magazine (plus a free PS4 theme!)

Bloodborne, From Software’s upcoming PlayStation 4 game, is currently featured in EDGE magazine’s latest issue. The magazine details some impressions they have of the game after a 40-hr playthrough.

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The said issue is coming out this week, but thanks to gaming forum NeoGAF, we can now learn what these impressions are. As to summarize:

• Playthrough did not involve Chalice Dungeon or multiplayer – they also did not complete the game in 40 hours.
• “Bloodborne is Hidetaka Miyazaki’s brutal riposte to the section of his playerbase that thinks it has seen it all before.”
• Merchant sells a clip-on lantern (hello Demon’s Souls augite)
• “Yharnam spends the game in the grip of a perpetual night…that can only be brought to an end by the player finding and finishing off the source of the scourge of beasts.” (this could be referring short term like…defeat a major boss, get some daytime, or overall, I guess)
• Description on the first shield they found: Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity.
• Some enemies in the game can use spells
• Confirmed Bloodtinge stat governs bullet damage
• Transforming strikes and their follow-up attacks give you a way of reaching enemies that in other Souls games might be out of reach because they were pushed back by your earlier attacks – they say stamina management is a more diverse process in Bloodborne than in the earlier games
• Bloodstone shards = titanite, coldblood = portable souls, most common items are blood vials (healing) and quicksilver bullets, but stocks can grow low later in the game
• Surplus items are automatically sent to a storage box, and if you die your items are replenished from the box automatically
• They say your starting stats are dictated by the trick weapon you choose (which runs counter to the origins shown in the character creator…)
• Enemies only drop upgrade mats and items
• Very few chests, almost all have something good inside
• Clothes found in the world or from a merchant whose catalog expands when you defeat bosses
• Only found 6 or so weapons and 6 or so guns in 40 hours
• Bloodgems are an upgrade item that allows you to change the attributes of a weapon, ex. increasing physical attack power, adding poison damage, or increasing scaling – all the weapons in the game are customizable with bloodgems
• Did not beat the game but they feel like it is less replayable than its predecessors (this does not count the Chalice Dungeon or multiplayer components)
• You can keep up to 5 dungeon configurations in your Chalice Dungeon stock
• Lantern checkpoints are not “overabundant” like the bonfires of Dark Souls II, you open shortcuts rather than getting new bonfires (ala Demon’s Souls)
• “Discrete areas flow together to create a believable world” – separating the hub from the main gameworld allows the world itself to be more coherent, interconnectivity is present and very complex throughout the game – they compare it directly to Dark Souls’ “falling apart” in the second half and say that unlike Dark Souls, Bloodborne maintains its dense, interconnected world design through the other game. They say several areas rival Firelink Shrine in terms of interconnectivity.
• They say in Souls you are frequently scared of dying, but in Bloodborne you are also scared of what is coming to kill you – “There is a moment in Dark Souls that we will never forget: down in the Depths, picking up an item from a corpse and a slime dropping onto our head. We spent the rest of the level panning the camera endlessly for unseen threats, no longer scared of dying, but of moving. Imagine a whole game of that.” – For this reason they think taking the replayability factor to CD makes more sense.
• Torch may be very important for newcomers/first playthroughs
• There is a new mechanic they are not allowed to discuss
• “If you thought From Software was going soft, Hidetaka Miyazaki is about to put you brutally back in your place. And if you’ve been watching this generation from the sidelines, unmoved by the remasters and rush jobs while you wait for the first true essential to arrive, now’s the time. As if there was ever any doubt, Miyazaki and his team have done it all over again.”

Based on EDGE’s verdict, it seems like Miyazaki’s got a lot in store for both new and old players, so those who have played Demon’s Souls seem to be in for a treat.

http://i.imgur.com/SohrscF.jpg

Bloodborne will be available in your local retail stores on March 24, 2015 and to commemorate the release, Sony is giving away a free Bloodborne PlayStation 4 theme. Just simply redeem this code via the PlayStation Store: J4ND-DJNH-K3C7. NOTE: THIS CODE IS FOR US PLAYSTATION ACCOUNTS ONLY.