Having never played through the entirety of any games in the Dark Souls series, I was excited that they were shaking up things a bit with Bloodborne. Focusing more on action than patience, the game suited me almost immediately and never let go. Bloodborne fires on all cylinders with intense gameplay, just the right amount of story and gorgeous visuals. The Dark Souls style of trial and error is immensely satisfying when you manage to get through a tough spot and kept me playing long past when I should have on several occasions.
It’s easy to feel, in some games, that the special abilities you unlock throughout begin to overpower you to the point where you’re not really getting any better at the game. Bloodborne, while it does have a progression, manages to subvert this by being so punishing that being lazy at any point can still get you killed very quickly. Thus, you do end up getting better at the game and it’s easy to tel, you’ve done so. This progression makes going back in for additional play-throughs tons and fun. It has been the game most talked about at my water-cooler at work and I’ve likely spent the most time with it as well. It has even managed to get me excited to play Dark Souls 3 when it comes out next year, so I’ve been playing the older games in the series. Bloodborne has been my favorite game this year and, while closer than I expected, it certainly deserves the number 1 spot on my top 10 games for the year. See you next year!
