A Bloodborne Dilemma

Mephisto Mori/ December 11, 2014/ Video Games/ 0 comments

Anyone remember Nightmare Creatures? Bitchin’ game, wasn’t it?

I have a personal Playstation Hall of Fame and Nightmare Creatures is in it. This Hall of Fame doesn’t mean “the best” games. It’s a list of personally influential games. About a dozen or two that absolutely absorbed me for the tenure of the original Playstation. They influenced my writing and inspired villains in my weekend DnD session.

Some of the games are timeless classics to be played again and again, while others shall remain untouched on pedestals in my memory. Partially because playing the latter category would sully them – they’re bad games.

Nightmare Creatures sort of fits in the category of games not meant to be played again. But the play was secondary to what made that game so awesome. It was the world. An evil Victorian England haunted by Aleister Crowley, necromancy, and Frankensteinian abominations. A place where you’re Helsing and you walk around in a trench coat armed with pseudoscience magicked up guns killing those creatures.

You can imagine my excitement when I saw Bloodborne teasers early this year. The world looks absolutely amazing. The character design is exactly what I want for such a setting. From the chirurgeon masks to the alchemy flasks. It’s as though From Software heard my criticisms of their previous titles and built a secret weapon targeted specifically at me.

I am not a Dark Souls fan. The controls are purposely sluggish and lack the depth I’d like in a proper Hack n’ Slash. “But the game’s supposed to be hard.” Well there’s a difference between difficulty and bad controls. If you played a Mario game with a bug that kept him from jumping every 25 or so inputs, the game would certainly be harder. If you deliberately code the bug and call it gameplay, you’re a fucker. And that is precisely what Demons Souls and Dark Souls did.

That the franchise has garnered so much success still baffles me. It’s a phenomena I can only liken to Stockholm Syndrome. I like difficult games. I grew up playing difficult games. But I’ll not be held hostage by purposely narrow and sluggish controls passed off as innovation. Then there’s that ambiguous storytelling thing. The story of Dark Souls is so fucking detached from the gameplay, it might as well be a series of books you read on the side. Here’s Anti-Hero X as you Pilot him through Dark Fantasy World Number 1432-a. Oh and you’re Anti-Hero X is special, just like everyone else because this is an MMO of sorts.

And then Bloodborne happened. You’ve finally won, From Software. I will endure your vapid story and bad gameplay, and I really am anticipating the worst, just to inhabit your very interesting looking world. I don’t care that it’s a re-skin of Dark Souls that borders on expansion pack.

There are games with no story or bad stories carried by excellent gameplay. There are great stories to be a part of despite bad gameplay. Can a setting be good enough to carry a game?

It worked for Nightmare creatures nearly 20 years ago. Will Bloodborne’s setting be enough for me to get over my bias? I suppose we’ll find out.

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