So how does no bullets make the game more challenging?

Well first of all, the obvious is obvious. You can't do visceral attacks. This makes hunter battles a lot harder (and I mean A LOT harder), but you would be surprised how many enemies you normally wouldn't worry about with visceral attacks around. From the brick smashers to the executioner's to hunter enemies to bosses, this mechanic makes a lot of things easier once you know how to use it and not having access extends some fights past the comfortable point.

In addition, I keep running into some harder enemies where I can't use the gun to finish them off? It doesn't seem like much, especially when you aren't using bone marrow ash, but dangerous enemies end up on slivers of health a lot due to various reasons, and not being able to shoot djura's ally for the kill is quite annoying.

Finally.... guns make the boss fights in central yharnum just plain easier. That's the main reason you can get visceral attacks on the cleric beast (although it seems my R2 can smash its face open with the axe), and it's the main reason you are normally able to punish some of Gascoigne's attacks.


Speaking of, death 4 was to Djura, and I'm about to challenge the Blood Starved Beast. I feel like they purposely made Djura an insanely strong enemy just to force you to try to run past and ignore him.


^^ The other limitations of the run I am not so worried about? I'm running the standard VIT/STR/SKL build which runs all the imporant things you can get. Stamina still isn't worth much with only a small investment, meaning you have to be willing to marathon it to 18, 27, 35, and 40 to see a ton of benefit. Which is........ crappy. Very very crappy compared to what you can do by putting those points into survivability and damage. One extra attack vs 18 more damage per.... and don't get me start on how much an extra 250 health is worth.

And um.... bloodtinge and arcane are still obvious crap vs the other build.

So I find Dragon Age Inquisition fun, but it has incurred the following infractions while I have been playing:

- character creator has gotten harder; it was perfect in 2; right now my character didn't even end up like I wanted
- characters look ugly as sin compared to 2 and maybe even 1
- the controls for the menus come from the realm of "is my controller on"
- there are large parts of the game and menu system I didn't get any information on in the tutorial, which up till right now has me slighly concerned
- random stupidly important lore littered about in highly odd locations
- most of ... well anything is behind LOTS of talking

No, I didn't touch the DLC stuff at all.

You should. Post O&S that is probably the best part of the game.

A Review of BloodBorne: Part 1 of 3

This first part will be my overall impressions of the game good or bad WITHOUT spoilers if at all possible. Part 2 will be similar but with spoilers, and part 3 will focus on the chalice dungeons.

Enemies:

Bloodborne's enemies are very dangerous, and there are a lot of unique creatures here that I found extremely memorable. While I will go into more detail on a case by case basis in part 2, there are two things that really stand out here.

1) Every enemy is justifiably unique AND they are all memorable.

While I will end up saying a very large number of nasty things about each and everyone one of them, the enemies here all stand out. That is a point in the game's favor. From the kidnappers to the scourge beasts to yes, even the bloodsuckers and the pigs, some of these enemies will be iconic to souls fans for years to come and they did a really good job with the design.

2) There is too much blatant reuse of resources here.

Every enemy in the first area is constantly reused with minor buffs and/or reskins throughout the game. While the game does a good job with its combat, you can only see the same enemies so many times before you start to think the developers got a little bit lazy. While EVERY enemy in Central Yharnum appears 3 or 4 times throughout the game, the most blatant offender are of course the dogs. Off the top of my head, 4 areas with bosses (the game has 17 bosses outside of chalice dungeons right now so that is saying something) don't have dogs in them. And when they do repeatedly show up, they don't really receive anything other than a minor health buff and in a couple of cases a minor texture change. It's like the developers liked how the dogs affected combat, but they didn't want to bother trying to come up with other enemies to serve the same purpose. <- This is the same for every other enemy in Central Yharnum. Need a fat guy? Small buff to a brick guy or executioner and we are golden. Need ranged harass? Put some gun guys there. It's not like that will ever get old or predictable. Want to hide something in tall grass or behind boxes? WELL CROWS IT IS. While it's exciting to see the evolution of the pigs, those didn't need to be in 4 areas either, and I'm almost certain that the basic yharnumites didn't need to make 4 or 5 appearances. It's just........ it gets a little old you know?

The bigger problem here is that I have a problem coming up with another area that does this so blatantly..... because a lot of areas are these enemies plus some unique ones. It's like they decided they wanted a baseline enemy for a few specific purposes and then didn't want to improve on that aside from minor buffs. The end result is that we get to Yahargul 3/4 into the game and the first area is ........ yharnumites, gun guys, brick guys, and dogs. Are you not entertained? Steal the cast from central yharnum and throw in some bell ladies to make it slightly more interesting. That should make for a cool new area. *sigh* This is also the entrance to hemwick, the first half of the forbidden woods, and the first part of the cathedral ward. I understand that these enemies work well together, but I don't want to walk into a new area and go "oh look, I guess I will see some new enemies halfway into the level".

The most notable example other than Central Yharnum and its copies is a later area, called the Upper Cathedral Ward, that only has 1 unique enemy to its name (and not really one of note) while having 5 or 6 we've seen earlier with, you guessed it, buffs.


Um...... actually the most notable example of this is the freaking FIRST BOSS. There are 4 versions of this boss in the main game, and at least 5 more bosses like it (if not more) over in the non-random chalice dungeons. And while they all have a few unique attacks, it's basically like saying that the Demon Firesage and Stray Demon aren't reskins of the Asylum Demon. It don't fly, and it gets kind of disappointing to work really hard and show up to a boss arena only to have to deal with the 2nd Darkbeast Paarl fight.


Weapons:
On the one hand, this game has really really really cool weapons. The first major criticimsm here though is that there is not enough of them. It only has 15 melee weapons and 7 or 8 guns, making everyone the samy. This is not helped by the fact that certain weapons just feel outright outdclassed by other ones, such as the kirkhammer vs ludwig's holy blade, the hunter pistol vs the evelynn, and the saw spear vs the rifle spear and saw cleaver. When you combine this with certain funneling problems caused by the game's stats, you only really end up with 3 or 4 viable builds that all play and feel the samish.

My definition of a strength or a skill weapon is a weapon where you receive more benefit from getting that stat to 50 then you do from getting both stats to 25. This means skill weapons are the threaded cane, the burial blade, the chikage, and the reiterpallasch; while strength weapons are the blade of mercy, kirkhammer, tonitrus, and logarius wheel. The other 7 weapons are all what I consider "quality weapons", meaning they benefit most from a quality build where str and skill are raised equally to 25 before either stat passes it (although one can still have stronger scaling). One of my major problems with this game is that I feel skill weapons suck on your first playthrough. The threaded cane and reiterpallasch are...... just bad? They can't put out as much damage as other weapons if you went with STR or an equal mix, and they don't really have a unique role like the hunter axe does to offset this. This means they are just purely outclassed by other weapons. The burial blade can't be used until New Game Plus (or at least until you've beaten Gehrman), and the Chikage isn't really a skill weapon per se so much as the only right handed bloodtinge weapon. If you are using the skill mode vs the bloodtinge mode, your damage isn't as good anyways.

My final criticism here is that, as I've said many times before, I don't like that the game only lets you upgrade 2 weapons before gating upgrade materials so hard you ...... well you literally can't upgrade more than 2 weapons. So every playthrough you are forced to pick 2 and that's all you get until NG+. ... This forces even less variety on the player, because no one is going to upgrade a threaded cane when a ludwig's is easily available.

Lore and Areas:
I liked the lore of the game and thought they did a really good job. I also thought that almost every area was really well done and unique. That being said, little "don't question it" moments kept coming up throughout the game, and there are a few things I particularly didn't like that I will have to mention in part 2 of this guide. I can't do more here because of spoiler-potential.

Stats:
One of my biggest criticisms of this game is that I feel VIT is too important? You can easily raise VIT to 30 before even touching anything else and have no problems with the game. HECK, you can raise VIT to 50 before touching anything else and the weapon upgrade and gem systems will keep your damage output high enough that you won't have too many problems. Stamina, on the other hand, is only useful if you are willing to invest in it 4 or 5 levels at a time (more like 7 or 8 but....), and bloodtinge doesn't really increase the damage of your guns enough to justify the stat points when (outside of a chikage build) guns are mainly just there to provide visceral procs and last hits on slivers of health. The worst offender of all is Arcane. Between only having 9 spells, 8 of those spells sucking really badly, elemental weapons being hit or miss, and the most useful part of the Arcane stat being it's luck bonus...... the stat is just awful to invest anything in. You can safely invest in just strength, skill, and vitality and ...... that's like the top build. By far. Which means that the Ludwig's Holy Blade just ends up being the best weapon in the game at higher levels by default. Ignoring the other reasons it was a contender before this. And ignoring the fact that it's probably the best arcane weapon too......

Gems:
Um....... so you can put up to 3 gems in your weapon. The problem is that the vast vast vast majority of gems you will find throughout the game are utter and complete crap you will never use or even consider using. It feels like a system where they spam you hoping you'll make bad decisions, when in reality the best use for weapons is just to go for raw damage and not much else. The elemental gems are too reliant on arcane to be a lot of use, and the rest of the gems are too specific to be of enough general use (i.e. damage against beasts up but other damage down). Or just plain bad (looking at you poison gems).

Runes:
....... Most of these are also bad? Ignoring for a second that I think they wait way too late to give you access to these (they give you a bunch beforehand), the vast majority of runes you pick up won't see much use because flat health, flat stamina, flat resistances, flat damage reduction, flat discovery up, and flat echoes up are all so superior to the other options you don't really consider things like more bullet capacity over them.

The worst offender here is the 3 covenant runes. You have +12 health per blood vial heal, health regen ... until you reach 12.5% health and then it stops, and 10% stamina regen. Which one is best? Of course it's the third one. It's not even a contest so much as an open question as to why the other two exist.

Armor:
There is a lot of cool armor in this game, but the vast majority of it is useless.

Off the top of my head, I used Yharnum hunter and hunter sets for the majority of the game. Both are easily available in the first 30 minutes, and aside from VERY SPECIFIC boss encounters they are just soooooo much better than all the other options it is kind of depressing. The other options are basically graveguard's for frenzy, henryk's for bolt, church for arcane, and charred for fire resistance. Yharnum Hunter isn't the best poison armor, but it's physical defense is so much better than the best that it suits any poison areas better. And..... that's it. I use like 6 armor sets out of the entire game, because there isn't really a point past that other than taste in fashion. Even then, I use 3 of those 6 for only 1 or 2 bosses, meaning I use the first set of armor I ever get (aside from the default you spawn with) for 90% of the game. Kind of crappy getting the best armor sets that early isn't it?

Omg. I was going to right the 2nd part of the review, but I forgot to do some stuff and want to do everything beforehand . So instead, I'm just going to write what the next post will be about, which is getting everything from the following list:

- Burial Blade
- Chikage
- Rosmarinus
- Choir Bell
- Blood Rock
- Messenger's Gift
- Moon Rune 3
- Eye Rune 1
- Clockwise Metamorphosis 2
- Clawmark 1 and 2
- Oedon Writhe 1
- Arcane Lake 1
- Fading Lake 1
- Clear Deep Sea 2
- Stunning Deep Sea 2
- Great Deep Sea 2
- Formless Oedon 3
- Graveguard Hood
- Defeat Ebrietas

This means we will be revisiting:
- Nightmare Frontier
- Nightmare of Mensis
- Central Yharnum
- Oedon Chapel
- Yahargul (Palemoon)
- Forbidden Woods


Let me begin by saying that I am severely annoyed at the fact that I am missing ONE piece of one attire set in the whole game that isn't available in the store. And I know the general vacinity of where the **** thing is too. It just so happens that the Forbidden Woods is a giant *** maze and I happened to miss 3 items (one of which can't be retrieved after the moon turns red). On a later trip tonight, I found the Cannon but still couldn't find the mask. Thus, we are off to find that first thing when I turn the game back on .

There are some runes you can get from going back to Gilbert's location in the pale moon and killing the remaining npc's in Oedon Chapel. Worth considering once you've exhausted all quest lines.

And um..... I have not fully explored the last 3 areas of the game? Yahargul (palemoon) has a very annoying second part, where I basically didn't do the entire thing because I got all the important items (or so I thought) but not killing the hunter trio means I missed out on a single rune. Nightmare of Mensis.... I have not messed with the Brain of Mensis yet? I think this is probably my 2nd least favorite area? And it's all because Mother Brain up there prevents you from doing any exploration before you go kill it. The Blood Rock (I don't think I got it actually after checking?) and the choir bell are locked behind parts of this area.

As for the Nightmare Frontier........ I missed like 80% of the stuff in the nightmare frontier. That is my least favorite area and a **** hole. Almost every rune I don't have I don't have because it's somewhere in this area and I just don't like it. Ditto with the messenger's gift tool.

As for the other stuff, I basically have to beat Gehrman and Ebrietas and then buy some things from the store? It turns out you can get the Burial Blade on NG if going for the 3rd ending, while the other two weapons I am missing are just stupidly expensive bloodtinge and arcane items I'm going to have to go farm souls for .

So what is the best armor in bloodborne? Well, the answer is that it depends on what you are doing, but it's recommended you wear a complete set.

For most of the game, your best set for when you want physical defense will be the hunter attire. This attire sports good physical defense without sacrificing too much of anything else. Because of this, it's really good to get from the sewers in central yharnum as soon as possible.

For poison defense early on, you want the central yharnum set from the shop? It's not as good poison defense wise for old yharnum as gascoigne's set is, but at this point in the game you really want the better physical defense for slightly lower poison defense. Later in the game, it's recommended you just go straight up physical defense and use runes from the forbidden woods to make up the difference. So basically runes in nightmares but yharnum hunter set in Old Yharnum and Forbidden Woods.

For bolt defense, the best bar none is henryk's, which you can buy from the insight shop after defeating him during Eileen's quest line. The catch here is that you will really only find this useful for the Darkbeast Paarl fight?

For arcane defense, one would technically recommend the choir garb but that's available so late in the game as to not be recommendable (does have the best arcane defense though). Instead one would have to recommend the church garb, which can be found in the Cathedral Ward and Forbidden Woods. This is the next best thing and the best thing you'll have for most of the game. Realistically however, you won't really face anything that is magic only so this TENDS to suck? The exception is the Martyr Logarius fight, where it's recommended you assemble some clown armor from different sets, where these church sets can be useful for some components.

For Frenzy Resistance, wear the Graveguard's from Forbidden Woods and equip the frenzy resist ring from the Forbidden Woods.

For fire defense, early on you want to wear the charred hunter garb. Later on you just want to replace this with the bone ash set. Speaking of.........


For PVP, one should hands down always wear the bone ash set. It has an excellent combination of physical, fire, and bolt defense to the point where it can almost rival any other armor set in the game for those stats. The huge downside to this is that it doesn't have any realistic arcane and blood defense, but those effects are much harder to deal damage with in pvp reguardless so it's not like you have to plan for them as much as physical attacks, bolt paper, fire paper / molotovs, etc. You can purchase the Bone Ash Set from the Insight Shop after defeating layer 2 of the second chalice dungeon.

I've decided to change my review approach and just do one big review once I have the game's platinum trophy. So in the meantime, here are my impressions of the chalice dungeons:

1) The following loot items are important to get from the set base chalices that are for everybody:

HinterTomb Chalice - Central Pthumeru Chalice
Workshop Haze Extractor - Lower Pthumeru Chalice
Beast Claw - Ailing Loran Chalice

You are just inspired to explore aren't you? Like, that makes you feel the need to get through each and every single one of them to go get all that loot? Fight some bosses, do some other things, etc. I mean we get..... a new weapon and access to more chalice dungeons. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy.

For the standard, set, base chalices there is no other unique loot worth venturing down here for anywhere in the levels. Everything you want comes from the bosses. Defeating the 2nd to last boss in each chalice unlocks you that chalice's root chalice, allowing you do go online and actually do something with it for once, while defeating the last boss of that chalice lets you unlock the next one in its chain.

But wait, there is more.

2) Bosses

If you do these 10 preset chalices in the recommended order, you will fight the following bosses in the following order.

Undead Giant (Twin Curved Blades)
Merciless Watcher x 2, Watcher Chieftain x 1
Watchdog of the Old Lords
Beast Possessed Soul
Keeper of the Old Lords
Pthumerian Descendant
Maneater Boar
Undead Giant (Hatchet and Cannon)
where Jack currently is
Blood Starved Beast
Merciless Watcher x 2, Watcher Chieftain x 1
Undead Giant (Club and Hook)
Rom, the Vacuous Spider
Bloodletting Beast
Brainsucker
Forgotten Madman and Madman's Escort
Pthumerian Elder
Beast-Possessed Soul
Blood-Starved Beast
Abhorrent Beast
Keeper of the Old Lords
Watchdog of the Old Lords
Amygdala
Loran Silver Beast
Abhorrent Beast
Loran Darkbeast
Brainsucker
Celestial Emissary
Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos
Pthumerian Descendant
Bloodletting Beast (Parasite)
Yharnum, Pthumerian Queen

I've done you a favor and bolded the ones you are going to be excited to fight for the fight itself.

The real reason to slog (and yes it is a slog) through these dungeons is a three-step process:

1) Get all trophies and enough ritual materials to beat all 10 chalices. Make sure to get the three actual reward items mentioned above. And make sure to get the two armor sets you will unlock (especially the bone ash set) from the insight shop after beating the first keeper and the madman.

2) Use these chalices to get every root chalice from a boss and/or shop inside of these dungeons.

3) Go to the root chalices and get ACTUAL LOOT.



From my impressions so far, they put A LOT of work into these dungeons, but most of it early on feels completely wasted. I'm playing through these dungeons and I feel that I'm just slogging through over a dozen hours worth of tedium to get to the actual good part that is...... not required for the main game at all. There is nothing in these dungeons you absolutely need to do the main game. Yes, the root chalices give you a lot of the tier 2 and tier 3 runes and a lot of the better gems. But you don't need those. The same way you don't need the new armor sets or the beast claw weapon to have fun with the main game. Thus the content has to be judged based on how fun it is in itself. And....... there are problems.

For example, now that I've told you all of this how do you feel about slogging through the poison muck in the Hintertomb Chalice to fight an undead giant for a few minor items. What about exploring that sidepath to get a few minor ritual materials you can probably find or buy somewhere else. Does that sound fun? The sheer amount of risk deviating from the main path entails vs the reward you can get from it is downright awful. It's the plague babies from Demon's Souls all over again. Want to venture through the plague swamp to get a bunch of items you won't use or ever really need? Let's go explore some side paths in the preset chalice dungeons. 80% of them have nothing of value. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy.

And what are you slogging through this stuff to fight? Have you seen that boss list? The sheer amount of reskins here vs actual new bosses (and let's be clear that when over half of the new bosses are just another cleric beast variant I use the word "actual new bosses" very loosely) is staggering.

All of this is really sad. Because there are a couple fights here that ARE really really really good. It just...... they put them farther down then it's necessarily fun to get to? And yes, when exploring some of the root chalices it gets a lot better (since doing so for some of the lower ones I can definitely attest to this) but again the journey to get there is kind of meh.

Farming Blood Vials and Souls in the Late Game


To do this, first you will need all 3 moon runes so you can equip them. They give you +10%, +20%, and +30% blood echoes respectively.

Tier 1 can be found near the Hypogean Gaol lamp, where the two kidnappers are. Later in the game this is where the 3 hunters are, but you MIGHT have to go here early on to get it? But since you can easily get this lamp and then make a mad dash, this should not be a problem.

Tier 2 can be found by going down the spiral staircase instead of up in the Micolash boss fight. This is where 2 ladies will be firing crossbows on you on your way up. It is guarded by more crossbow ladies and a cleaver woman or two.

Tier 3 can be found by using the make contact gesture on the brain after cutting it down in the Nightmare of Mensis. The gesture can be found by exiting the top floor of the upper cathedral ward building, and the brain can be cut down by jumping off the elevator early when you find an elevator to your right after getting to the mergo's loft: Middle lamp post Micolash fight. You can then fight your way past Winter Lantern's to the lever. Going down after that, you drop down across a pit from another lantern and the choir bell chest, which you can use some narrow beams to get to if you want. And outside, you can drop down to your right after getting the items to get the only blood rock in the game. Further dropping down (not in the bottomless pit, use the exit on the outside of the circle), you'll come out where the rosmarinus hunter was. Entering into the level further, you'll find a new elevator in the bottomless pit area where you fought your first cleaver woman (I think), and you can go down to the pit and walk directly away from the elevator to find the brain. It's now harmless, and using the gesture before attacking it will (after holding the gesture for 30 seconds) reward you with your rune . Then...... well then you get to kill it for a ritual material.

^^ Since this is needed anyways for both a +10 weapon and to access the material needed to access the 5th pthumeru chalice (pthumeru ithyll), it's worth doing even if you arne't going to farm blood echoes.


ANYWAYS, once you have all 3 runes equipped, start at the mergo's loft middle chalice. Go outside and kill the dogs. Then go up and kill the 3 shadows of yharnum, making sure to kill the two before they get into the range of the third so you don't have to deal with fireballs while fighting the sword guys. After this, you can backstab and visceral the pig up ahead. Then RUN past the other other two pigs and past the four shadows of yharnum. Done right, this will make the two pigs fight the four shadows, and you can go back and clean up the stragglers for the rest of your echoes. Then go back and to the right down the side path (where a creeping madness can be found for some chunks if you haven't been before) to kill two more shadows of yharnum for their echoes.

At this point, you should have a little more than 85K echoes from the run. That..... is enough to level up at least once until well past level 100, and it's enough to make buying anything in the shop simple. At this point you can use a hunter's mark to do it again, or you can do what I recommend and go back to the dream via the boss lamp (assuming you've killed the boss) to level up and possibly buy some other items if you want to farm. It is also notable that this route will cause the enemies to drop 6-10 blood vials per run easy, so if you can do it well then you'll farm vials at the same time.

I recommend going back after each run because this route is as dangerous as **** and you can lose a lot of echoes very fast.

Without moon runes, this run gives you a payout in the upper 40's or lower 50's. Still respectable but not anywhere near as good or fast.

Some More Trophy Statistics Now That I KNOW which is which

Mandatory Bosses:
Father Gascoigne - 67.7%
Amelia - 53.4%
Shadows of Yharnum - 46.8%
Rom, the Vacuous Spider - 43.7%
The One Reborn - 38.1%
Micolash, Host of the Nightmare - 33.6%
Mergo's Wet Nurse - 31.8%

I find this kind of interesting. About 2/3 of people beat Gascoigne, and about 1/3 of people beat Mergo's Wet Nurse. Thus almost as many people give up at Central Yharnum then the entire rest of the game combined.

Optional Bosses:
Cleric Beast - 72%
Blood-Starved Beast - 57.8%
The Witches of Hemwick - 51.1%
Darkbeast Paarl - 40.6%
Amygdala - 32.7%
Martyr Logarius - 31.3%
Celestial Emissary - 27.6%
Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos - 23.3%

Now the first 2 are interesting, because most people will be forced to fight them. So it's kind of like people who don't fight them are either not looking very hard OR gave up at the game there? Do 1/4 of people quit bloodborne before beating the first boss? Well... yeah. Cleric beast has higher percentage rate than Gascoigne so of course yes.

The next set of bosses are all not as important but still somewhat indicative of how the game's design worked? Hemwick loses to Amelia, which means that at least 2% of people either didn't bother to go there, didn't find her, or gave up?

Paarl is..... easy to miss? Yet it still beats the One Reborn by a bit. This, I think, is indacative of the three hunters and just general level design funneling people who have gotten this far towards Darkbeast Paarl in the later level. Early on he loses out to everything, and he doesn't beat anyone until we get to the One Reborn.

Amygdala I do not understand, because it loses to the Nightmare of Mensis by like a point. <- Basically I think that people ran through the game at this point trying to find the path forwards and never bothered to explore the lecture building at all?

Martyr Logarius, Celestial Emissary, and especially Ebrietas I chalk down completely to them being easy to miss.


All Hunter's Tools - 13%
All Weapons - 8%
High Quality Gem - 11.6%
Tier 3 Rune - 41.5%

^^ This is the completionist group I think? Getting all weapons is really hard and requires going to the chalice dungeons. All tools is a lot easier and can be done in the main game.

The rune is something uniquely stupid and I think they didn't think that trophy through when they made the crappy one you can get prior to doing the Cathedral Ward still count.



Gain access to the following:

Cainhurst - 36%
Choir Buidling Upper Cathedral Ward - 29.4%
Source of the Dream - 38.8%
Nightmare Lecture Building - 43.4%

The lecture building basically got this trophy because it's the only required area without a boss? The other 3 got these trophies because they are extremely hard to find optional areas that a lot of people will miss. The percentage being indicative of how many people managed to find them, although you think the choir building would have done the best since people normally want to know what is behind a locked door.


Surrender to Gehrman Ending - 17.2%
Gehrman Defeated Ending - 17%
Hidden Ending - 11.6%

Obviously people who beat the game once wanted to know about the other ending? The hidden Ending also is obviously a lot more missable.


And the creme de la creme:

Yharnum, Pthumerian Queen Defeated - 6.1%

This and all weapons are the rarest trophies, and you can bet your *** it's because they are from chalice dungeons. The Beast Claws weapon requires the player to explore a depth 3 dungeon and find a relatively easy to miss chest, while this boss is found at the end of a depth 5 chalice and at a minimum the 5th chalice you are going to clear (although it's recommended to do it last). It's also noteworthy that one of the ones tied for 3rd place is also chalice dungeon exclusive.

Which..... is sad. Because the vast vast majority of the Chalice Dungeon bosses are complete 100% phone-ins, and this one wasn't. Even the uniquer beast bosses are reskins of the Cleric Beast and the thing the beggar in the forbidden woods will turn into if you attack him there (btw spoiler/warning there).


Platinum - 5.1%

Um....... why is this not 6.1%?

Who does the vast majority of the above crap and doesn't want to get the platinum at that point? In fact, who sees they are missing only one or two hidden trophies and doesn't google it? 1% of people do that, and it mystifies me how someone can get to the bottom of the chalice dungeons, get all the weaopns, and beat every boss but not get the platinum.

18 Most Memorable Enemies In Bloodborne

This post took me forever, so please leave a like if you enjoyed it. There are 40+ enemies in Bloodborne. Here are the top 18 I am going to remember for a long time.

18) Gun Guys
This enemy doesn't get a picture. Because it's not the enemy that is memorable. It's the **** fact that you are going to be dealing with these and their variants fo the entire game and they are going to snipe you over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And you'll have to deal with it. No ranged enemy in any of the souls series games has been more annoying than this one, even the blowdart snipers since you could skip them, so this one gets a special place in my heart and just barely squeaks onto my list (the last 3 are honorable mentions tbh).








17) Ghosts of Cainhurst

They start out as invisible, and initially even when attacking you these enemies seem harmless. But wait until you meet the headless versions. ..... These enemies make the list because of how you initially meet them, how you know they are there before you can see them, and because I have a soft spot for any ghostlike entity in this game.







16) Students

These guys. The first time I saw one, it immediately became my favorite enemy. I mean...... in the Nightmare Lecture Hall I sing the Ghostbusters Theme Song. That's just how that is. Oh and when the first one fell on me. Classic. The reason these guys made it onto the list though? The Lecture Theater. Any room where you walk in, look around, and start to barricade the door as a way to deal with it because you just can't cope is a good room. This is probably the best one of those in the game, and it makes the enemy memorable. Not many enemies get their own entire area.








15) Garden of Eyes

Well first of all, props to looking freaky as all hell. But this enemy is most memorable because it is the player's primary introduction to the frenzy mechanic, and it does this by surprising the player every time they think they are safe in Byrgenworth. You will learn fear as you are walking through this area, because while all enemies with grabs are dangerous, this one is particularly nasty if you get caught two times in a row. It also has probably the coolest particle effect I have ever seen when one of them is walking around with your blood echoes.







14) Lost Children of Antiquity

You are going to notice that a lot of enemies on this list are on there because they surprised the hell out of me even when I kind of knew the general vacinity of their trap, especially when those enemies grabbed you. I think every enemy so far but 18) was introduced to me by it grabbing me and my ensuing death? Quite the memorable moments. The lost children of antiquity in Cainhurst Castle are the vampires of bloodborne, complete with a grabbing attack that almost one shots you as they suck your blood. They also like to blend into the environment and jump out as you walk by, unaware that that statue isn't really a gargoyle but a vampiric beast that hungers for your blood.







13) Beast Patients

A few enemies make this list because of the lore, and this is one of them. The way they react to your torch is completely unique and memorable, and the area early on dedicated to these guys is mechanically unique in every way. It's also one of the better lore areas in the game, complete with Djura (curse his gatling gun) trying to protect these little buggers from your blade. Oh and did I mention they are poisonous? They can poison you, and they are the game's introduction to this mechanic.







12) Nightmare Apostles

The image speaks for itself. This is how you are introduced to this enemy, and it's one of the freakiest encounters in a game where you've already seen pictures of some of the enemies in this game. Maybe Jack just doesn't like giant spiders 10 times the size of his avatar?







11) Church Servants

I find these guys memorable because they are the only enemies in the game that respond difficulty wise to your insight level, gaining extra eyes, ranged magic, and buffed movesets when you hit a certain number. Also..... they are just a cool enemy design, with the scythe church servant in the upper cathedral ward sealing the deal.








10) Celestial Emissarries


Not exactly the most common enemy, but these are UNIQUE and memorable because of it. Furthermore, they are probably the most well developed enemies lorewise, form Iosefka's Clinic to the Forbidden Woods to the Upper Cathedral Ward.









9) Shadows of Yharnum

An exact middle of the game boss, this is one of the more unique and fun boss battles this game has to offer. But when it becomes a common enemy in the last area of the game? All hell breaks loose, and some of my most memorable combat brawls involve 2 pigs, 4 shadows of yharnum, and a 3 way melee to the death.








8) Snake Parasite

You are introduced to this enemy when that guy you started hitting hunches over and sprouts a half dozen snakes from where his head used to be. What ensues is the first in a long line of some of the most difficult encounters in the game, because you've reached the snake area and this is the iconic enemy for it. One of the hardest to melee enemies in the game, this enemy's spot on this list is sealed by the horrifying animation you experience when it grabs you. Oh. And the fact that it seems to be able to talk to, use as scouts, and summon the smaller snake bundles. Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?








7) Scourge Beasts

The werewolf to our game, this is the first enemy you will ever encounter and probably the first thing to ever kill you. If that's not memorable enough, the two on the bridge in Central Yharnum is probably one of the hardest encounters in the game. Then you get to Old Yharnum, which is loaded with them. Oh and Yahargul, where they've turned skeletal. But this enemy's spot on the list is sealed by the glowing blue-eyed variants in the Upper Cathedral Ward. A set of 3 crashing a chandelier into the ground, or the one that bursts through the window when you least expected it? Both encounters will scare the **** out of the unsuspecting and make this one of the most memorable enemies in the game.








6) Dogs and Crows
Doesn't deserve a picture. I refuse to give these guys a picture. They make the list because Bloodborne will be forever known as the game where 75% of the areas had dogs and crows in them. Sure, they be reskins, but their movesets don't change and I will remember their sound effects until the day I forget most of what I know about this game.









5) Winter Lanterns

Classified as the most dangeorus enemy in the game, this makes the list due to a combination of its haunting musical voice and the fact that these can one shot you like no other enemy due to the sheer amounts of frenzy they can inflict by just looking at you. ... No seriously they damage you by looking at you. It could only be more dangerous if a single look petrified you, and even then.....









4) Bell Ringers

Inducing panic like no other, these enemies are solely responsible for every single time you invaded and some of the areas they spawn like Yahargul are just miserably solely because of these women. To top it off? They make you miserable in one of the boss fights. Never saw a bell woman that didn't make me ignore everything else to go defeat it.








3) Bloodsucker
You can take our blood echoes, but please don't take our insight. Believe it or not, I could not find a picture that meets my standards here.









2) Kidnappers

Kills you to send you to a new area? Or downright hardest enemy for the first half of the game hands down no questions? Either way, very memorable.









1) Pigs

Because it deserves the top spot and I don't need to justify it. If you play the game this is obvious.

So my first impression of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin Edition.....

I feel like they are just trying to make the game arbitrarily harder at this point in time. I also think that Heidi's Tower of Flame was someone's pet project and they were secretly pissed that a lot of people chose to go to that area first in the original version. The entire area just screams "Stay away we exist solely to crush the hopes and dreams of people bad at this game". Heidi Knights are scattered around the area, which is quite alarming in itself, but they are FORCING THE PLAYER TO FIGHT THEM in order to get a lot of the loot in the area. Oh.... and did I mention the dragon? Yeah there's a dragon sitting in the distance. Don't worry, I haven't managed to get over there yet but I am stubborn enough to keep trying until something works. Of course this means I haven't killed the dragonrider boss yet, because apparently all the heidi knights that haven't killed me yet need to get a hit or two in at some point and thus will start walking around after he dies (btw I've died like 30 times already because I can't dodge chime big knights for **** and I keep challenging the heidi knights because I'm stupid). Anywho, it's a fun fun fun bunch of fun area with lots of changes.

The other big changes I've noticed....... hmmm well there's a fragrant branch of yore person blocking the third tutorial area. <- Screams lazy as **** how they did this, especially since when I googled it they didn't bother to move the tutorial stone or do anything with the tutorial enemies in there.

There's also a Heidi Knight sitting directly on top of the Ring of Binding chest because they know people need that and wanted to be evil.

jack will you ever get bored of dark souls

One does not simply get tired of playing souls games. I don't always play non-souls games, but when I do, I do it between dark souls session.


Realistically, I'm tired of the first 2 and a combined 300 or so hours of play from now I'll be bored with the latest two. I'm already getting about halfway there with bloodborneIn addition, I'm playing Dragon Age Inquisition, Far Cry 4, The Last of Us, and Evolve intermittently in between the current two I'm switching between.

But then again...... Bloodborne dlc and Dark Souls III are coming out in the next year and a half so......

You should rename this thread.

"Jack plays assorted Souls titles"

A) I use it for other things.

B) Luna uses it I think?

C) I'm not dedicated enough to the souls series for that to happen unless by some miracle fromsoft decided to grant me permission to put their games on Youtube.

D) Sarcasm.

I've only noticed mjack talk about Souls games extensively for the last few months, I think. At least, when I started keeping up with this thread he was doing all sorts of games. Mostly games I either wasn't interested in or couldn't get (like PSVita games), but still.

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So, I started playing The Last Federation today, and it has a LOT more depth to it than I was expecting. I don't really know how to properly play the game outside of the combat sections yet, and so far it's let me be surefire overpowered for the combat. (Note: I've only played like 3-4 hours so far.)

So i'm back to bloodborne after beating FOTLG and Heidi's in Dark Souls II: SOTFS. Got 2/3 of the way through the 4th chalice dungeon and have been farming the nightmare of mensis. Also finally beat Ebrietas (hint: Shoot it in the head with the cannon after getting it down for a visceral).

Another complaint about bloodborne's stats: End game you can't take more than 1 hit. Like... that's it. Everything 1 combo kills you if you sit there and take it, starting at upper Nightmare of Mensis and Depth 3 chalices. I have 50 VIT and no way to get any tankier, and everything just stunlocks me to death if I'm not careful. I feel like there's a wee bit of artificial difficulty going on here .


Trophies I am Missing:

3 Endings - Obvious
Yharnum, Pthumerian Queen - obvious
Acquire all Hunter's Weapons - missing the one from the chalice dungeons and the one from Gehrman
Blood Gem Master - I haven't gotten to depth 4 yet

And that's it? I've basically got to do the chalice dungeons (although I can tell from depth 3 that it's already a pain and WILL get worse) and beat the game 3 times.

Bought Devil May Cry.... I've gotten to the opening credits.

What the **** is this? That just made Heaven's Lost Property look a bit tame.