Bloodborne Boss Rundown, Part 1

PREY SLAUGHTERED 

    To go along with my week 1 diary post, here's a boss breakdown of the first two bosses I fought. Enjoy!

CLERIC BEAST:

    As I've mentioned, I really stumbled onto the first boss (although there seems to be some dissensions in the Giant Bomb forums I love to so frequent. Some people found and killed Father Gascoigne ("Papa G" as he is lovingly called) and continued on without even knowing the Cleric Beast exists). I found him by wandering around, lost. I came upon an area that I SWEAR I had already visited, but as I was walking on this bridge, bam! A boss! It was an exciting, exhilarating moment. My first Bloodborne boss! And he looks great too. He's a very large beast (sort of like a werewolf-looking character) with his rib bones exposed. He's got some fur on his head and on his arm. He also has some gnarled antlers (they are larger and more exquisite than just horns). His left arm is gigantic and covered in long hair, and his right arm is small and skinny. He mainly gets around on his back legs and his big arm. Overall he is interesting to look at, and he moves great.

Boy, that left arm is MUCH bigger than the right (*wink wink*)

 One thing I did with my Dark Souls II boss posts, and one thing I'm NOT doing here, are recording my stats. I'm not counting the amount of deaths, or the rated difficulty, or even just a general rating. I didn't even think of it (partly because I didn't die to Cleric Beast). At the very outset (a year plus ago), I wanted to do the ratings and death counts on ALL bosses through ALL games I played. I then realized that this system wouldn't work with every game. Like for that dumb Billy and Mandy game I played on the GBA a while back. All three bosses would get difficulty ratings of probably 3 or lower, between 0-2 deaths each, and it would just be trivial and boring. So, I'm not going to do that for any of these bosses. I can certainly give a rough estimate of deaths if it's an astronomically small or large number.

    This guy is fairly easy, but man does he have a lot of health! But, I'm getting ahead of myself. His attacks really consist of just jumping around the narrow bridge and swiping/pounding with his hands. If you are too close to him, he can pick you up and deplete about half your health just like that. His arm attacks are slow and telegraphed, so they are pretty easy to dodge. He can leap high into the air, out of frame, and come crashing down. It's tough to keep track of him when he does this, and if he lands on you, you'd better have full health. He almost killed me, at full health, with this attack. He will also stop and gather energy (or so it looks). He glows red from his exposed chest, but I honestly don't know what this does. Maybe it buffs him? Strengthens his attacks? Not sure.

    My strategy was a pretty easy one: I locked on to him, dodged his arm strikes, and just got a few of my own strikes in after he had attacked. I was surprised (actually, shocked might be a better word) when my first attack on him did very little damage. I'm talking maybe 40 points. Thinking back to the original Dark Souls for a moment (because I was playing it before Bloodborne came out, to get that Platinum), the first boss, Taurus Demon, could be taken down with maybe a dozen swings? Something like that. Each hit would do significant damage. After a dozen hits on the Cleric Beast, he had...dozens more still. I don't know if this is me being weak, the boss having a large pool of HP, or some combo of the two. Another strategy I've seen online is to use Molotov Cocktails (and any Oil Urns if you have them). Fire seems to be good against him.

    This write up is a little bit short, but this boss isn't terribly nuanced or difficult. I think he looks awesome, and he's a pretty good first boss (if indeed he is the first boss). He's not as easy as the aforementioned Taurus Demon, or The Last Giant from DSII, so he doesn't quite ease players into the game as much. Cleric Beast is much more aggressive than those two bosses mentioned above. Still, for a Souls veteran, probably not too tough. I'm curious as to how people who are completely new to the Souls games (I have a friend who hasn't played a second of the first three Souls games, but bought Bloodborne) found this boss.

More of a close up of his exposed ribs

    It feels good to be writing about Souls games (sorry, *Souls-like* games. I know it isn't "officially" a Souls game. Just much easier to mention it along with them), and bosses, again.


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FATHER GASCOIGNE: 

What lies beyond?

    Boy, Bloodborne didn't waste time with rage-inducing bosses. Oh, what, the beginning of the game is too easy for you, tough guy? Well, what about a boss battle that has no business being as hard as it is for so early in the game?

    As I mentioned in my diary post, I stumbled onto this boss by accident. Although, isn't that really how you happen upon ALL the bosses? You explore, then you find an area that has a boss. Anyway, you walk into a graveyard, and you are greeted with a short cut scene of the good (read: bad) Father talking. I honestly don't remember a single damn word he said. I was too worried at the proposition I'd have to fight him. For a fleeting moment, I thought he might be a friendly, if not crass, fiendly NPC. NOPER!

    After the short scene, he rushes at you. Now, he isn't as dazzling as the Cleric Beast. He's essentially just another Hunter. He has a top hat and some normal Hunter Garb. He has a Hunter's Axe (hey, like me!) and a Hunter's Blunderbuss (hey, also like me!). And boy, does he enjoy using them. He has all the standard attacks you would associate with the Axe. I believe he has the same move set as you, although he has an uppercut attack which I don't think I have (unless I'm oblivious. If that's the case, where the hell is my uppercut dammit!). He can, and will, transform his Axe to the longer version. I thought he switched back and forth between the two forms, but he apparently does not. He starts with the normal Axe, and after he's taken enough damage, he elongates the Axe, and uses that for the "remainder of the battle" (more on that in a sec). Oh, and he LOVES using his Blunderbuss. It's quite aggravating, actually. He's very fast with it. He'll swing through a combo then immediately shoot the gun. He's overall very aggressive and does not give you much breathing room.

Not much to look at

    While he might not give you breathing room, the graveyard you fight him in does. You see, it's littered with tombstones and trees. Some of the tombstones are cluttered together, and they work great to put some distance between you and him (so you can heal and whatnot). I've read people online comparing him to Flamelurker or Smelter Demon in, I guess, both his aggressiveness and his difficulty. I'd say that's fairly accurate, although at the end of the day, Father G is probably the easiest of them.

    Before I delve into my strategy, there's one more thing I need to talk about. I teased it above, but this battle has three phases. First one is his normal Axe; second one is the long Axe; third is his beast form. Yup, once you get him down to about a quarter health left (give or take a little bit), he transforms into a large monster. I actually thought at first he was a werewolf, but I'm pretty sure he isn't. He's a tall, grotesque, beastly form of his human self. Maybe it has characteristics akin to werewolves, but he doesn't appear to be one himself. I'm starting to get a sense that werewolves are the base that the monsters are built off of. With either their looks or their mythology. Father G's beast form is absolutely brutal. You thought he was aggressive and frenzied before? Ha. He just does. Not. Give. Up. When he's the beast. He just advances and attacks. Advances and attacks. Advances. Attacks. Uck. I believe all he has for attacks at this point are claw swipes, and maybe a jumping attack as well? I don't know, because I was never alive for very long once he turned.

I've been debating making some sort of "beast mode" joke. Eh, seems to easy

    Before I get to my strategy, I'll tell you all how most of the battles before I finally beat him went. I think they get split up into three categories:

1.     I would run into the arena, make a small mistake, and get killed before ever hitting Father G
2.     I would run in, fight him well, but still die before his beast form
3.     I would run, fight, and get DEMOLISHED by his beast form.

    That's basically it. Every attempt (minus the final one, obviously) went one of those three ways. I found that, once locked on, I could dodge him relatively well. I also found, early on, that he is pretty easy to stun (or parry. Whatever it's really called). Once he's stunned (you know, down on one knee for a split second), you can do a visceral attack which does 300+ damage. I realized that this was probably the best way to go about it. However, I also tried another strategy would could probably work (some hardcore pricks might call it "cheesing", but you know what? Fuck them. That's another blog post for another day. though). I used my long Axe and stood on the other side of a cluster of tombstones. From here, the heavy attack goes through the tombstones and hits him. It doesn't do huge damage, maybe 80, but it's relatively safe. Even if you try the heavy charge attack, where he spins around twice (Father G does this one ALL THE TIME), you can hit him through the tombstones. The second hit of this will always knock him down too. This is hardly a foolproof strategy, but it works.

    Finally, before I get to how I beat him, I have read two other strategies online. One says just chuck Molotov Cocktails at him. The other is use the Music Box item (which I didn't get so I don't even know where it is). Apparently, it can only be used once per battle, but it stuns him for a few seconds.

    Okay, what did I do to beat him? A combo of everything. On my first attempt this morning, I walked through the Nightmare Fog and just parried/riposted him like it was my day job. You can parry (stun. Shit, which word should I use?) his beast form as well, and I did this on my first attempt. I had the bastard to one hit left, but I was also close to death, and eh, he just wanted it more. On my winning attempt, I parried in the beginning, but I also attacked from across the tombstones. Once he turned beast, I hit him with one Molotov Cocktail, and I parried him to death after that. It was a great feeling to kill this shithead.

  

I saw this a lot. Look at that! Not much health left

  
    I didn't play much after I killed him. You get a key that opens up the next area, plus a fairly small amount of Blood Echoes (almost wrote souls). This guy, like Cleric Beast, seems to have a RIDICULOUS amount of health. That is an annoying trend so far. Obviously it's far too early for any definitives, but Father G has been the toughest single fight in the game so far. Much harder than the Cleric Beast. What will the future of the game hold? We shall see, we shall see! Thanks for reading and check back soon for another installment.