There Will Be Bloodborne

Forbidden Forest area is shitty bullshit.

Once I powered through the endless snake piles, the game clicked with me in a way I didn't expect. I was motivated to see all the optional content and grew to love the thing.

@jeff: I'd actually recommend you pop a couple of madman's knowledge, get your insight up to 15+. You don't seem to be having much issue with the difficulty as is, so why not make it into more of a challenge?

Personally, I think that the more tricks the enemies have up their sleeves, the more fun it is to fight against them. Provides some variety if nothing else, might keep you from getting too accustomed to those bad habits you mentioned.

All that said, I'm still in complete disbelief that you're playing this game in any capacity. One time I don't mind being surprised, this was fun.

Since I'll probably never justify buying a PS4 for the exclusives, I might as well watch this. Go Jefffff!

It is no exaggeration to say these Souls Let's Plays (Vinny's, Brad's and now Jeff's) are literally one of the major reasons I pay for a premium membership.

Watching people play these particular games is way more entertaining to me than watching people play most games because of the deliberateness and the pacing. And because of how memorable and carefully chosen the enemy placement is, the actual areas let you relive the experiences vicariously in a way that is very rare.

Love. LOVE.

How did Jeff know how to get that lady to go back to the cathedral? I thought you had to put on some church clothes to make her talk to you. Maybe that's just what he happened to be wearing?

@shtinky: But Jeff enjoys the game...

Tell Jeff to smash that golden pendant for a gem.

Isn't it the church garb you need to wear? Those bag guys only start showing up after you beat the Blood Starved Beast, so he might have just encountered one right after that fight and still have been wearing the church set for the poison resistance.

I actually really liked the forbidden woods. I thought the mazeiness right after the witch fight gave this part of the game a cool fairy tale flavor.

Also, Jeff has mad beasthood.

Wow, level 45? That's insane. I was level 30 when I was going through this area. I just beat Rom at level 50. I guess I've been drastically underleveled, according to the internet. I can see how this game would be much easier at like 20 levels higher, though.

It's 100% true; go listen to the Bombcasts around the release of Demon's Souls and even Dark Souls 1.

This was great. I love that Jeff is playing a "souls" game now. Watching videos for these types of games is the best. You can equip your lantern without it using any hand slots.

Yeah, I forgot it's actually a legit set of armor you can wear for poison resist.

@brad@unastrike

Has someone already explained Beasthood in these comments? If so, I apologize.

Anyway, Beasthood is something that, normally, doesn't do anything. But, if you use the right weapon (Beast Claw), or use the right item (Beast Blood Pellet), a meter will appear on the screen when you attack. The higher you get that meter, the more damage you do, but it also increases the damage you take. The Beasthood stat affects how easily that meter fills. Also, the higher your Insight, the lower your Beasthood will be. I dunno if it's a 1:1 thing (like Frenzy Resistance), but there is a correlation.

That's all there is to it, at least based on what I read on the wiki a while ago.

Also, I'm glad you guys are continuing to have Bloodborne content on the site! It's one of my favorite games from the last few years, and I think it's a fun one to watch people play. Keep up the good work.

Seems like Jeff likes to grind out incremental levelups. Absolutely nothing wrong with it; just explains why he's so high (and kinda why he can afford to just mash R1 without much dodging)

I vividly remember playing Dark Souls while listening to the Bombcast back in 2011, the gist of what Ryan and Jeff thought about the series was basically "I don't understand how anyone can be into this, but alright!" Very passive aggressive and reductive, while Vinny was attempting to explain mechanics entirely in question format.

It's nice to see them step out of their comfort zone, even if only for the "zeitgeist" these games have built up over the years.

@mooseymcman: I thought I had read somewhere that as you fill up the Beasthood meter you also take more damage, is that incorrect? I probably read that the week of release when details on everything were still sketchy, so it's quite possible.

Nice! Keep it up, Jeff!

I apologize if it's mentioned in the video and may have missed it but... is Jeff enjoying it? I guess he absolutely doesn't hate it if he's still playing, but maybe he just wants to say he gave it a fair shot.

@uninvincible: Right! That is correct, it just slipped my mind. Beasthood's not something I really use in the game, so I didn't know all the details. I'll go edit my other comment to include that.

He seems to keep coming back to it, which is very rare with him, even with games he likes. He seemed to be very engaged and almost paranoid when speaking and playing the game throughout the entire video, so yeah, I think he definitely sees something in this game that makes him keep playing.

This was great but too short! I need this to be a regular feature. C'mon Jeff, do it! I wanna see you play more.

Aw man, I'm stuck in an area (trying to kill a boss) and don't know where else to go the boss area doesn't look like it will lead to a new area. I was hoping Jeff was further along so I could figure out where I'm supposed to go next.

I know you just want to access the leveling screen and anything in the way of that is an inconvenience, but Jeff just buttoned through the pre-amble in literally 3 seconds before complaining that "All of these dialogues take fucking forever by the way!"

I haven't played Bloodborne and don't particularly care to defend it, but that seemed like a completely insane complaint, but I guess those extra 3 seconds before you get to the leveling screen add up or something?

I can imagine it's annoying when all you want to do is look at how many souls you need to level, but I think it took him longer to complain about how long that stuff took than it actually took, I'm not seeing the big deal.

I think it's funny that Jeff is only getting into this game because it's faster and more mash-friendly. It's probably the easiest game in the series (aside from post-patch Dark Souls) and definitely the simplest by a wide margin.

I'm interested to see if, after finishing this, he goes on to DS2: SOTFS or even Demon's to see what a good Souls game is like, when they aren't stripped of everything that gives them depth.

Its really fun to listen to those podcasts now. Ryan seemed intrigued but admitted he would never try it. Jeff and Brad sounded like it would never happen, so I was really surprised when Brad played Demon Souls a while back. Like who would have thunk it

The Kirkhammer is shit. That is all.

I once thought so.

But it's so fucking good.

Couple things:

They have done day to night cycles in a souls game before. Dark Souls for example there are a couple areas where the time of day changes based on certain events. It's tied to the fiction. The whole game world, though, I don't recall having been on this cycle so that's partially true.

The internet does know what beasthood does. You can find the info here, but basically it increases damage and has a whole rigmarole to keeping it going. You never actually become a "beast" per say but there is an arcane item that is pretty cool when it comes to beasthood.

Arcane is not useless in this, but it is strange. There is no longer spells so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense why they call it that (as weapons that tend to use it aren't particularly what you normally think of when you speak of arcane in video games). All weapons require some amount of arcane (although it doesn't seem to be much) but mainly there are special trinkets that you need arcane for. The touchpad inventory area is good for those. You can't use most of these items without a somewhat significant amount of arcane (what I mean by that is 15 or higher). I wouldn't say these items are must use or anything, but they can still be useful if you want to use them. The problem is they come so much later in the game, and arcane is so cryptic in this game, you'll probably never use it because you'll have focused on everything else and it will become expensive. I guess they may be more useful in NG+ and what not because of this, but that's speculation.

I would have called arcane occult instead, but I would guess when they called it arcane that's basically what they meant.

It's 100% true.

@glok1132: Wow. I would say 72 is way overpowered for the forest. I beat the game at about 80 or so and I would say the forest is not quite half-way finished...

Not meaning to disrespect you or anything. I think its cool that the game can make such different experience for players.

Jeff has exactly the attitude towards death and losing blood echoes that everyone should have. Souls/Echoes come and go, and player skill matters so much more than levels.

There will be Blood...borne. I haven't watched yet, but if Jeff doesn't shout at least once at an enemy or boss after he kills it, "I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!" I'm going to be disappointed. Also please let this be a continuing premium feature.

This is a pretty great feature. It's cool to see Jeff enjoying (?) this game..something I didn't expect. And he's right that the whole "insane difficulty" associated with these games is seriously overblown. I found Demon's Souls challenging when I first played it, and there were genuinely tough moments (Flaming Berserker [without knowing about the exploit], Old King Allant, the two Maneaters), but there weren't too many points in the game where I said "Shit, this is too tough and I don't think I can beat it".

The only boss I can think of that has really pissed me off lately is Alexander the IV from Rogue Legacy. Fuck that guy.

@casty: He mentioned after UPF when he first played it he didnt like it. then people kept saying he did great and was good at it so he played it again. Last podcast he said the game was alright and yea hes still playing so thats a good sign.

@larrydavis: But this is a good souls game. And not much different in what Jeff keep arguing "Is just patience and know when to do stuff"

Im real glad jeff got bitten by the Souls Bug

Great stuff!

That's right, I remember Jeff commenting on Vinny poking around Demon's Souls that it's a dark path that eventually leads to Monster Hunter which was basically the end of all videogames. Now look where we are! Glorious!

@gaff: Nah, Brad still needs to eat at McDonalds and Dan needs to get a mortgage for that to go down

I wish this had been an Endurance Run.

It only took just under 6 years.

I'm so glad Jeff is finally getting into a souls game

He thinks it's 'alright'. If you're watching this series hoping he'll 'love' it by the end, prepare to be trolled.

man. I am so tired of these games. I guess its cool that other people are into them and that GB seems to love doing videos for them. but its just not for me.

Man, I was hoping we'd get to see Jeff face those asshole snake guys and possibly the Shadows. Oh well. I will say though that I can't take Jeff seriously when he says these games aren't hard as he waltzes through the forest with 7 insight. I had like 40 insight by this point in the game and those "pimps" are a lot more annoying when they are shooting magic shit at you.

Brad! Having high insight is a good thing! You get to see hidden, spooky stuff :O

Give me more blood!!

@ngen87: Clearly, Jason helping Brad with Monster Hunter.

Yeah, I totally think it's valid to focus on leveling over progression. I do find it interesting that he keeps talking about how easy the game is when he's deliberately keeping his insight down and leveling so quickly. I like the added attacks, it's a really cool lore idea and made that area significantly more engaging. I wish more enemies got added attacks outside of Cathedral Ward.

Premium Bloodborne content?! Whys it taken so long?!! Thank you GB!!