Venom

Finally the dlc.
The levels in the dlc are okay. The abyss looks cool and the enemy’s are decent. But compared to the base game the levels in the dlc are a bit better than some of the late game stuff but much worse than the early-mid game stuff.
Where the dlc shines is with the bosses. The dlc bosses are much closer to the style of bosses I have come to know from the other games. Where different moves require different responses and you can improve by properly learning the bosses. For the most part the dlc bosses are harder than anything base game. Except whilst the hard base game bosses are hard for bad reasons the dlc bosses are hard for good reasons. The sanctuary guardian is a cool introduction to this and is pretty unique as a boss. Artorias is just a relay good well made duel. Learning you can interrupt his buff had a nice risk reward balance to it. The process to actually fight kalameet is very cool and he is the coolest dragon fight I’ve played. Manus is in my option by far the hardest boss in the dlc. He has a lot of health, he does a lot of damage, he is very aggressive and lots of his moves have very different responses. He is the closest of the dlc bosses to being unfair but once you learn the tells you can be pretty safe. His most unfair attack being his ramapage (grab style) attack. This isn’t to bad as you can easily dodge most of the damage and either way it does deal to much and gives you room to heal after. 

Next up is the levels. 
Holy shit this was a step up in difficulty compared to Er and Bb. These levels where so much harder especially early game. This is complemented with some of the best level and world design in any game I have played. Both visually and mechanically the levels and world in this game is great. (At least for the good parts). Undead berg/Parish has an insane amount of interconnectivity. There are always new shortcuts to open up. Early on a lot of the difficulty comes from having tough enemy’s in tiny spaces. This was boring as a concept for difficulty but a lot of these encounters are optional challenges so it’s not to bad. When descending through the depth or into blightown the game is terrifying in a way that is captured In Er or Bb. It feels like a maze full of creatures that can easily end your run. Any progress on findings a bonfire or shortcut or just the boss comes along with a huge amount of relief. Sens fortress is an amazing level with all the traps and routes to do. The combination of the view of Anor londo is also realy cool. From this point the gameplay of the areas start to deteriorate. The visuals and variety remain amazing throughout the game but the looping back nature of the levels stops. With the exception of new londo which may be one of my favourite areas. 

Just finished an all boss run of Dark Souls remastered on PlayStation. This is my 3rd fromsoft game after er and bb. Overall it has been a fun game and I am looking forward to playing the next one in line ds2.

 
First of all the bosses. Compared to the later the games the bosses in the base game are very simple gameplay wise. Most of them can be done quite easily without ever having to learn specific attackers and dodges/punishes.
Despite this they where still a lot of fun because the fights are a lot more varied in the theme and design than later games. Almost all the boss look really cool and have an interesting gimmick.

My favourite of the bosses is the 4 kings. It is one of the coolest boss arenas I have ever played and the gameplay is relatively interesting. It can be difficult if you don’t play aggressively.
Quelag was another one I liked as the design was cool and it was a boss you had to learn some moves for. 

The hardest bosses in the game are Gargoyles which is a difficult early game dps check. The main problem with this boss is it’s a poorly balanced duo fight. The intended method seems to be to melt the first gargoyle. If this isn’t achieved then this is way to big a difficulty spike for the game. The attacks constantly overlap and you have the same zoning issues with the fire breath as you do in er and the poison breath. 
Next up is Nito, he is hard because you can get wrecked by his skeletons and the boss run is really long and really  hard to do without a lot of damage. Overall a great boss and probably my second favourite out of the lords. 
Fittingly Gwyn is also a very hard fight. Mainly because there is no good time to heal and he does a ton of damage. This fight is more interesting than a lot as learning his attacks is beneficial in knowing when to heal. Whilst punishing him is still very doable just on sight.
 
The hardest base game boss is by far Ornstein and Smough. This is a duo fight done horribly. I have seen a lot of complaints about the duo fights in later games that people where saying where terrible in comparison to this one. This fight is one of the worst examples of a multiple bosses fight I have played so far. There are 2 main ways you can play this fight. If you are playing passively that resorts to running around the arena keeping both bosses in front of you. You wait until Ornstein  lunges or dashes far enough for you to get a hit in. Then you hope smough isn’t charging and you repeat. This is extremely boring to play. You can often wait minutes in-between openings. Further more Ornstein dash is extremely glitchy and can get stuck on stuff for random amounts of time. This can be close to unavoidable due to its glitches. Smough can also make openings impossible by spamming his charge attack that is extremely tight to dodge if not impossible in some circumstances. The other method of play is aggressively. This is much less boring but it is incredibly unbalanced. You can never see what attacks Ornstein is doing through smough so you have to guess what he is doing. Not only that but your punish windows are still governed by rng and you can still be waiting large periods of time inbetween punish windows just now it’s increadibly intense. 
The only fun method I found of playing phase 1 of this fight was by attacking both enemy’s And playing aggressively. Playing like this is much harder than either other method but you don’t have to rely on rng to get punish windows. You can almost constantly be attacking. This makes the fight much harder and more enjoyable. Unfortunately when you kill 1 the other regains all there health so this is pointless to do. 
 
The final thing on the bosses in this game is that they are very rng based. Almost all the bosses can be trivialised with good rng on there moves. For gargoyles if the first doesn't start flying when the second arrives it’s extremely easy. If he does fly the fight is very hard. If OandS spam jumó attacks or separate they are easy. If they spam charge attacks they are impossible. If quelagg combos lava breath into aoes it is much harder. If she sticks to melee she is trivial. Lots of online discussion about this game seems to not realise this. To the point I think people don’t realise they didn’t just click with a bosses moves and that’s why they went from sucking to a completion. They just got bad rng then good rng. Rng determines the difficulty of almost all ds1 boss fights by a order of magnitude.
 
This was a bit of rant on the bosses but mechanically they aren’t offensive and they are very cool visually and conceptually. 

Dual wielding curved great swords. (Blood hound fang, Maga Wrym one)

Just killed malenia and so got the platinum. Overall my third favourite game of all time. The malenia grind was on the one hand fun but on the other hand long. 11 hours long. Mastering the moves was a lot of fun and seeing consistency improve was great. Plus a lot of satisfaction in the kill. 

Okay so I just beat the game.
 
From my last comment on this I have killed maliketh, Godfrey and the final fight. Maliketh and Godfrey were both amazing intense fights some of my favourites in the game.
 
The ending was a bit meh. It was difficult but just felt a bit tedious and sometimes dumb. After a couple hours on it I learned dualweilding actually had a use so added a curved great sword to my left hand. That made the fight a lot more fun but that could just be to the novelty of it. I think the final fight had a lot of potential and I think they probably should have split the phases and give each boss there own proper second phase and made them more difficult. I then think radagon would be a really cool fight and the Elden beast could be better and less annoying due to a quicker respawn time.
 
Overall one of my favourite games of all time (probably 3rd).  All I need for the platinum is malenia but that could take a long while from what I’ve heard. I’m going to do a second play-through at some point where I go for a strength faith build as opposed to dex strength (well I pretty much only used bloodhound fang for the whole playthrough) as some of the faith melee weapons look really cool. Also want to see if the early game is any easier now. 
matter that I want to go and play the earlier games. Probably starting with ds3 and bb. 

Dual wielding curved great swords. (Blood hound fang, Maga Wrym one)

Just killed malenia and so got the platinum. Overall my third favourite game of all time. The malenia grind was on the one hand fun but on the other hand long. 11 hours long. Mastering the moves was a lot of fun and seeing consistency improve was great. Plus a lot of satisfaction in the kill. 

Okay so I just beat the game.
 
From my last comment on this I have killed maliketh, Godfrey and the final fight. Maliketh and Godfrey were both amazing intense fights some of my favourites in the game.
 
The ending was a bit meh. It was difficult but just felt a bit tedious and sometimes dumb. After a couple hours on it I learned dualweilding actually had a use so added a curved great sword to my left hand. That made the fight a lot more fun but that could just be to the novelty of it. I think the final fight had a lot of potential and I think they probably should have split the phases and give each boss there own proper second phase and made them more difficult. I then think radagon would be a really cool fight and the Elden beast could be better and less annoying due to a quicker respawn time.
 
Overall one of my favourite games of all time (probably 3rd).  All I need for the platinum is malenia but that could take a long while from what I’ve heard. I’m going to do a second play-through at some point where I go for a strength faith build as opposed to dex strength (well I pretty much only used bloodhound fang for the whole playthrough) as some of the faith melee weapons look really cool. Also want to see if the early game is any easier now. 
matter that I want to go and play the earlier games. Probably starting with ds3 and bb. 

And finally the chalice dungeons. 
These where a mixed bag. Bloodbornes combat system is good enough for this kind of thing to work and it kind of dose. Up until the final 2 chalices. My main problem is the material system for these is one of the worst most unesseary systems in any game. Like if they want prerequisites they already use them they don’t need for you to have to farm materials to make the chalices in the first place.
 
The defiled chalice was okay for the start. The first boss was fine. The watchdog was annoying at first when he would do the charge attack but once you’ve learnt that tell and dodge for it. He was actually an okay fight. It was all about baiting attacks and conserving stamina. Which was very different to all the other bosses in the game. (Other than maybe ebritas, but you don’t have to fight her like that) then there was the amigdala. The room is way to small for a boss his size. He has a bunch of one shot attacks and you have to stay close when he dose them cause they are literally the only time he gets close enough to the ground to hit. Because only like half the attacks are punishable you can have minute long waits in-between hits on him. It makes the fight take forever. My kill on him took 12 minutes. His phase when he rips of his arms gives even less windows and it’s now to dangerous to go for the head so you have do settle for less damage on the arms which have a jank hit box. Overall the bosses in this dungeon probably took 15 attempts and they are harder than Ludwig/Maria but easier than orphan. But they are much worse fights than all 3. 
 
Now the final chalice dungeon. The final boss of this dungeon was a unique fight and much easier than like the previous 6 bosses in this quest. But it’s one of the more fun fights. The first boss of the dungeon would be much better in an arena without pillars every where. You characters gets and stuck. He attacks through the pillars your camera gets disconnected. His moves set was made for a open area and they stuck him in a tight hallway with giant pillars everywhere. The second boss is a huge beast in a tiny room. This is also quite a fun boss that’s ruined by it’s enclosure. This fight was very different to all the ones before as well cause you could never commit to a large attack.  My main annoyance with this chalice was loosing 2 red jelly (rare crafting material) when I went into new game plus for some unknown reason. 

Overall I like the concept of the the chalice dungeons but I think they should get bosses to match there arenas and maybe do the reduce health challenges  on boss that don’t spam one shot attacks. 

I do think that simply removing the materials required in making chalices would just make the wholes system 2x better.
 
Overall the platinum took 29 hours and was a lot of fun. But I would recommend against the chalice dungeons just for the sake of the platinum. If you want to do them I think they're fun. If you think you need to do them they are just annoying. I probably prefer eldenring just cause I like the harder bosses but there are definitely a lot of things bloodborne does better than eldenring (like level design and normal enemy’s) Plus the dlc is better than elden ring in quality. If the whole game was at dlc standard it would beat Elden ring by a mile. Despite that it was still an amazing game and anyone who hasn’t played it and like Elden ring should give it a go  (base game is free and dlc is like 15 pounds it’s amazing play it).
  

And finally the chalice dungeons. 
These where a mixed bag. Bloodbornes combat system is good enough for this kind of thing to work and it kind of dose. Up until the final 2 chalices. My main problem is the material system for these is one of the worst most unesseary systems in any game. Like if they want prerequisites they already use them they don’t need for you to have to farm materials to make the chalices in the first place.
 
The defiled chalice was okay for the start. The first boss was fine. The watchdog was annoying at first when he would do the charge attack but once you’ve learnt that tell and dodge for it. He was actually an okay fight. It was all about baiting attacks and conserving stamina. Which was very different to all the other bosses in the game. (Other than maybe ebritas, but you don’t have to fight her like that) then there was the amigdala. The room is way to small for a boss his size. He has a bunch of one shot attacks and you have to stay close when he dose them cause they are literally the only time he gets close enough to the ground to hit. Because only like half the attacks are punishable you can have minute long waits in-between hits on him. It makes the fight take forever. My kill on him took 12 minutes. His phase when he rips of his arms gives even less windows and it’s now to dangerous to go for the head so you have do settle for less damage on the arms which have a jank hit box. Overall the bosses in this dungeon probably took 15 attempts and they are harder than Ludwig/Maria but easier than orphan. But they are much worse fights than all 3. 
 
Now the final chalice dungeon. The final boss of this dungeon was a unique fight and much easier than like the previous 6 bosses in this quest. But it’s one of the more fun fights. The first boss of the dungeon would be much better in an arena without pillars every where. You characters gets and stuck. He attacks through the pillars your camera gets disconnected. His moves set was made for a open area and they stuck him in a tight hallway with giant pillars everywhere. The second boss is a huge beast in a tiny room. This is also quite a fun boss that’s ruined by it’s enclosure. This fight was very different to all the ones before as well cause you could never commit to a large attack.  My main annoyance with this chalice was loosing 2 red jelly (rare crafting material) when I went into new game plus for some unknown reason. 

Overall I like the concept of the the chalice dungeons but I think they should get bosses to match there arenas and maybe do the reduce health challenges  on boss that don’t spam one shot attacks. 

I do think that simply removing the materials required in making chalices would just make the wholes system 2x better.
 
Overall the platinum took 29 hours and was a lot of fun. But I would recommend against the chalice dungeons just for the sake of the platinum. If you want to do them I think they're fun. If you think you need to do them they are just annoying. I probably prefer eldenring just cause I like the harder bosses but there are definitely a lot of things bloodborne does better than eldenring (like level design and normal enemy’s) Plus the dlc is better than elden ring in quality. If the whole game was at dlc standard it would beat Elden ring by a mile. Despite that it was still an amazing game and anyone who hasn’t played it and like Elden ring should give it a go  (base game is free and dlc is like 15 pounds it’s amazing play it).
  

Now the dlc is where shit got even better.
 
The first level was hard. It would have been nicer if it was a newer area but it was still really cool having the distorted cathedral ward. Ludwig was a cool boss and a real step up from anything before him. At first I thought he was a bit unfair but after a couple of attempts his charges became easily dodge able and the fight more fun.
 
Then the next area was very cool full of short cuts and paths around the central staircase. It was a bit on the easier side but very unique so it’s good. The living failures is an okay encounter and provides a lamp near Maria so I don’t really mind. Maria is by far the best hunter fight in the game and she might be why I dislike gerhnam fight (as I did her first) her 3 phases building on each other was really cool and its much better than all the other mediocre-bad hunter fights in the game (gasconge is cool).
 
The fishing village was a very cool and unique area. And the orphan of kos is my 3rd favourite boss (mohg being 1 and malenia 2). He was by far the hardest boss (excluding chalice dungeons) and he was amazing. Most of the boss took 1-3 attempts and all of them took less than 10. Other than orphan who took just over an hour. I’ve heard he’s the second hardest boss in the series with first being malenia. Malenia took 11 hours and many other eldenring bosses taking 3+ so I do definitely think I’ve improved a bit. He’s one of the most aggressive bosses in the game. His opening cutscene is one of the best I’ve seen and he’s a lot of fun to fight. He’s the perfect boss for bloodborne combat style. You’ve got to stay close and be as aggressive as he is or you’ll always be in a losing position in the fight.
 
Lawerence was a much worse fight. His first phases are just high damage versions of early game bosses. So that pretty meh. Then his unique phase means you can never hit him and it takes forever. 

This looks like quite an old thread. But I have just platinum the game so thought I would post. 
Elden ring was my first fromsoft game and I’ve decided to go back through the others. Bloodborne is first up.
The changes in combat and healing where nice I i didn’t play eldenring with range or sheild anyway so I used a similar build with the trick axe. It was a fun weapon to use and very nice at clearing adds through out the levels.
 
Going through the base game was a lot of fun. I had a much easier time then with Elden ring. I think mainly because I’m better now then I was but the bosses are definitely easier in this game.
 
The levels in this game are much better than most of the levels in eldenring. Also there was a lot more variety in the combat in these levels. Yarnahm was a really cool starting area. Then the unseen city was one of the coolest looking areas of seen. The amigdalas you can know see on the side of everything was a really cool change. Then the late game areas where very different and that was also really cool. The forbidden woods was a great area and absolutely huge. Even though Eldenring was open world I found my self not knowing which new area to explore even more in this game. 
 
Early on I found the bosses to be a bit similar but that changed at the shadows of yarnham. After that a lot of the bosses where very different and varied. I really enjoyed the shadows fight and it’s probably my favourite group boss fight so far (beating out godskin duo so this may be a low bar). Killing Rom without killing all of his spiderlings was very cool even if it did tank the frame rate when there where 30+ spiders filling up the screen. (I did kill him the other way in the chalice dungeons and see of spiders is definitely the best method). Martyr logarius was one of the more difficult fights in the base game and also one of the best. Especially his second phase. The one reborn was a cool spectical. My favourite base game boss was mergos wet nurse because getting hits on her in the clone phase felt awesome. 
Overall I think this final boss beats out eldenrings but Gerhnam sythe phase felt a bit unfair. Then the moonpresence was also a badly designed fight. I had one death where I got my vials taken and then all my health but the boss was outside the areana so I couldn’t rally to get it back. Then I did anouther attempt where he stayed close and got destroyed easily. So yeah. The checkpoint in between was a nice touch that eldenring probably should have had.
 
 

Just killed malenia and so got the platinum. Overall my third favourite game of all time. The malenia grind was on the one hand fun but on the other hand long. 11 hours long. Mastering the moves was a lot of fun and seeing consistency improve was great. Plus a lot of satisfaction in the kill. 

I would love to do some low man raids at some point as well.
 

If anyone wants any goals to do with raids. For example, a completion, a seal, a weapon. Let me know in this post so we can keep track of who wants what. 
 
FG Raid Goals - Google Sheets
DOCS.GOOGLE.COM Sheet1 X,Ajay,TehBluebear ,GazzaGarrat,Jordie,Kempy DSC,Completion Red...      

If anyone wants any goals to do with raids. For example, a completion, a seal, a weapon. Let me know in this post so we can keep track of who wants what. 
 
FG Raid Goals - Google Sheets
DOCS.GOOGLE.COM Sheet1 X,Ajay,TehBluebear ,GazzaGarrat,Jordie,Kempy DSC,Completion Red...      

If anyone wants any goals to do with raids. For example, a completion, a seal, a weapon. Let me know in this post so we can keep track of who wants what. 
 
FG Raid Goals - Google Sheets
DOCS.GOOGLE.COM Sheet1 X,Ajay,TehBluebear ,GazzaGarrat,Jordie,Kempy DSC,Completion Red...      

We can do around 2

I’ve been running these raids over and over again recently so if you ever need another player I’m in.