I respect From Software for having the balls to make a difficult game these days.

Funny thing is, not only have I never played a Souls game, I generally don't even play Hard mode on regular games, as usually I'm more an 'I wanna see the story' kind of guy. So I was pretty nervous about dropping money on this game, as I had no idea whether I would hit the sort of solid wall of frustration the article's writer hit. But I REALLY wanted to immerse myself in the world the game presented, so I decided to take the chance.

First few hours were a nightmare. x_x I was tense, twitching, and although I didn't die SUPER often, (maybe ten times before reaching the Cleric Boss,) that was largely due to the fact that I inched along the level and would gain JUST ENOUGH echoes to buy a new piece of equipment/item before returning to the Hunter's Dream. Even fighting just two villagers felt insurmountable.

But then it was like I broke through some sort of mental barrier. Muscle memory kicked in, and I began dodging far more effectively, learning to separate crowds of villagers to take them apart piece by piece so that even the 'Oh Hell No' bonfire lynch mob of them became perfectly manageable. Purchased the Hunter armor, which helped my damage resistances a little, and although the big ogre-like enemies and the pair of werewolves still gave me trouble (over half of my ten deaths being to them,) I was getting through the city much

Which culminated in the sheer satisfaction of taking out the Cleric Boss on my very first try. =D With that encounter finished, I was able to begin leveling up my stats, and my progression just soared after that. Took out the second boss, Father Whatshisface, on the second try, that jackass hunter with the gatling gun in one try, and more recently conquered the Blood Starved Beast after four tries. (his poison attacks made me sad. ._. )

Anyway, on the subject of the article, I can understand some elements of his frustration, particularly if the boss did glitch out for him, HOWEVER his bit about doing the same fifteen minute stretch of city suggests he never found the shortcut through the house to reach it. Infinitely easier to reach that spot via that route, you can skip the werewolves entirely, possibly even just run past the crowd and ogre. Same with the second boss; down the elevator, across the bridge, run past the handful of enemies, boom, you're there. And same with the blood thirsty beast; hop off the ledges, down the building, in the winding staircase tower, down to the bottom, past one or two werewolves, boom! Five minutes tops, likely less.

The map IS well designed for cutting down on travel time, you just need to actually take the time and risk of exploring.

I remember Singstar ABBA getting a low score at IGN, because the reviewer only knew Dancing Queen, lol.

I think I'll have to rephrase. The IGN guy probably doesn't know that you don't necessarily have to kill the same enemies every single time unless you are focused on levelling up with some farming. For instance I simply kept getting to the Vicar Amelia boss using shortcut.

PS: Secondly when you are focused on buying something worth 10K+ blood echoes, you don't even care whether it's a chore or challenge. That's what keeps me obsessed as well.

gee you really can't criticise a souls game on the internet can you... some of the things he pointed out are correct. The estus system was far better, I'm getting really fed up with trying to do bosses and having to take time out to grind vials tediously. There are plenty of things in the games put in there just to increase the difficulty that are extremely annoying. He's entitled to his opinion

12 hours??? to beat first boss?? WTF LOL

His experienceece echoes mine, though I've only managed to put in a few hours thus far and haven't managed to reach the first boss yet. I'm not a patient sort, dislike it when games don't explain the basics, and outright hate antagonistic or obtuse design. I also have a tendency to want to save all the monies and do things perfect in one shot. Starting with no gear and a few instruction manual fragments just pissed me off. After that. I kept bashing my head against a wall for a bit there, usually dying to mobs or the big axe guy while trying to explore. The game never mentioned when the house in the dream had opened up or why. Is this actually an RPG? If so, I'm not gaining XP or otherwise leveling up. My weapons getting worse and worse, and I don't know where to repair it. How is everyone else getting anywhere in this mess? Have I devolved into a filthy casual and need to just leave the hobby entirely?

My second sit-down with the game went better, and I now feel as if I have a foothold in the game and can progress. Finding out basic shit like "repair weapons here" via the internet is frustrating, and having to unlock fundamental aspects of the game like leveling up (or apparently the dream house) seems like pure dickhead design choices. I am enjoying the gameplay and atmosphere / setting, though. My takeaway thus far is, Bloodborne is cool and challenging enough that the initial gauntlet will only limit its audience unnecessarily.

it's a game that brutally punishes piss poor exploration, yet massively rewards good exploration and thinking, the first thing you should do in the souls games in any new area is examine and explore every nook and crany, and I'm assuming that if you got you're weapon in the dreamworld bit then you should have explored and found the bottomless box, the alter and the crafting bench and whatnot, otherwise you're just playing stupidly, when you're playing a game renown for not telling you shit and you don't explore things to find out stuff. It's not bad game design, it's fantastic game design.

Articles like this just make me think that gaming has pussied out far far too much, to the point where people need everything explained to them in babies terms, the souls games aren't hard games, in fact I'd say for the most part they're fairly easy, as you can get ridiculously op shit in them, it's just the games are like a super strict headmaster, he will give you the world if you're good and not making mistakes, but you're going  to be harshly punished if you do make a mistake. Also, whilst I've not picked up the game yet, from what I've seen it looks no where near as punishing as Demons' or Dark 1.

Actually, whilst I did get my gear from the dream, the house with the bottomless box, workbech, etc. had closed doors. I explored the dream completely before exiting, too; that's why I didn't bother looking back at the house upon returning later, as there was no prompt or "You hear a door unlock in the distance" sort of message, I was just hitting the bath and jumping back onto the streets, and only happened to notice the door was open one time while practicing / screwing around. If that is considered playing stupidly...

So if you've seen a locked church/house/whatever in the hub world, you don't think that maybe if you do something it might unlock? so perhaps beat the first boss and go back and check? Yeah that's stupid play.