Bloodborne Diary, Part 4

Co-op & Lovecraft

4-3-15

    I subsequently did a lot this night, and really didn't do much at all. Firstly, I didn't continue where I thought I might last I played. I started by warping to the Hemwick Charnel Lane Lantern. I knew, from a bit of reading/discussion about the game that there were witch bosses at the end of this area. Overall this area was pretty small and only took a few minutes to get through. I believe it's considered optional, which is my guess as to why it's so small.
    At the end of the area there is a boss fight against the Hemwick Witches. It's a bit of a long battle, but it's very easy. One of the easiest so far, as a matter of fact. And for killing the Witches, you get a workshop tool that allows you to use Runes! I've had one for awhile now, not being able to use it. It only increases the BE I get but it's still cool.
    Not content to just whoop one boss, I decided I wanted to take down that fire dog boss at the bottom of the first Chalice Dungeon I created (where I teased I would start at the end of last week's post). Also, in talking with a friend from Instagram (who's just as obsessed with Bloodborne/Souls games as I am, and who may or may not make a little cameo in this week's post), he told me beating that boss would net me the Chalice to create the next Dungeon. So, Layer 3 I went.
    As with ALL the boss battles in the Chalice Dungeons so far, the run from Lantern to boss is SUPER SHORT. Thank goodness for small miracles huh? I entered his boss room, used a bolt paper (imbues weapon with lightning. Lightning is blue in this game, instead of bright yellow), and was ready to get to work.
    This boss is called the Watchdog of the Old Lords, and he's a large dog-like creature who's body is on fire. He mainly uses fire based attacks for his offense (duh)! I had tried him maybe 5-6 times before during the previous week. He seemed tough, but really doable. I beat him tonight on my first try. It was a great battle. Even though most of these boss battles in this game haven't been super hard so far, they have mostly all been enjoyable. Dashing around, barely escaping damage, only to dish out damage of your own, is exhilarating. I'm definitely liking this aggressive, offense-oriented play style. Kind of a bummer that the game kind of funnels you this way, and there doesn't seem to be many viable other builds (I'm sure people will invariably create new ones. Even if they aren't particularly good. They'll be challenging), but I don't even mind that. I wasn't a huge fan of using different builds in the other games anyway.
    After I conquered the Watchdog, it was time to figure out where to go next. After a little searching, I found a path that lead right to an area that I have heard was no fun. That area of course was the Forbidden Woods.
    This is about the time where my progress stops for the night. You see, I was texting with that same friend I mentioned earlier, Joseph, and we decided it was time to team up and do some co-op together. Since Bloodborne has a password system that let's you find people to play with, we figured it would be easy. After I leveled myself up to 42, set a password, and got the the Lantern in Forbidden Woods, we tried to hook up. But alas, it didn't work. We messed around with a few things, but in the end we didn't join up. I'm fairly certain now that I was too far off of his level. I was 42 and he was 58. I went to sleep shortly after this. 

4-4-15

    Made my way through the Forbidden Woods. It's a gigantic, open, confusing area that really is not much fun to go through. As you could probably guess, it's a wooded area. It looks pretty decent, if not awfully drab and same-y (a slight problem this game has suffered from so far since beginning in the streets of Yharnam). Still, it's nice to get a new type of environment. It does contain LOTS of Runes (I went from having one to having five) and it also is host to some really Bizarre (and snake-centric) enemies, like...

The guy that has tons of snakes burst out of his neck

One of those enemies that makes you say, "...what the fuck?"

 The giant ball of writhing snakes

Pretty shocking when you first see it

...and whatever the hell this is?

Mushroom-alien man?

    [author's note: it's annoying that sometimes the "screenshot captured" image is captured by the screenshot, as seen in the above picture and the snake-head picture]
    After fighting through this area for a long time, I opened two separate shortcuts that easily connect back to the Lantern. I leveled myself up to 48 (should be in co-op range now!), upgraded my blunderbuss to +6, and optimized my blood gems for my +6 Axe (as you upgrade weapons, more slots for Blood gems become available. I currently have three). After spending close to two hours in the Woods I found the boss, a trio of black-robed figures called the Shadows of Yharnam. I died but the fight seems pretty easy. Next time I play I should be able to take them out without a problem.

Hmm, you think there's gonna be a boss here?

    Once I died I shut the game off for the day. Like I said, next time I play I'm gonna kill those guys, maybe get some co-op in, and probably mess around in some more Chalice Dungeons.

4-6-15 (morning)

    As I predicted, I started with the Shadows battle. I beat these guys, although it took me a little longer then I had anticipated. I think it took four tries. Pretty interesting battle (check their dedicated post for more details). After this I arrived in a small town called Byrgenwerth. This is another small area. It's a town with a college at the heart. It's got the aesthetics of the early parts is Yharnam (old buildings and streets), but it's also got some of that Forbidden Woods flair (lots of dirty trees and earth). There are these annoying insect-humanoid enemies that jump on you and fill up your frenzy meter. Two of these frenzy attacks will give you frenzy (does frenzy just take off a large amount of health? Are there any other effects? Also, when you get inflicted with frenzy, you'd BETTER have 95% of your health at least, because it does CRAZY damage). After exploring the Woods-area and the village-area, I went into the college. I read four or five different notes warning of a Hunter inside. Oh great.
    The college looks great. It's full of old tables, chairs, and books. Lots of books. Seath would love it. There's a large spiral staircase in the middle. I went up this, and I found that damn Hunter.
    Amazingly he (she?) doesn't have a gun. Instead he has I believe the threaded cane. Also, he uses magic! He will shoot snakes (??) out if his arm. They extend and come back. He can shoot out some white fog directly in front of him. Finally, he has a soul mass like attack, where he'll conjure up six or seven bright lights above his head. They will then come at you.
    I just ended up cheesing him at the bottom of the stairs. Wait until he comes down and he starts following you around the stairs. You can back off, hit him (I used the two-handed Axe with the combo of an R2 attack followed by an R1 attack) then run around the stairs a bit. When he follows and comes back into view, just hit him again. He doesn't try any magic like this. Just tries to melee you. It's cheap, but fuck the Hunters. They're just as cheap
    Once I killed him, I explored the small college some more. Found a key that opens a nearby door. The door leads out to an open patio-like area. There's a man in a wheelchair here (not one of those enemies). He doesn't say anything. After I explored here, I was stumped. I searched around the town again. I searched the college again. Then I figured I'd go back out on that veranda kind of thing that I unlocked with that key. Why would it be behind a locked door if it wasn't important?
    Going by both the notes on the ground and my own Souls intuition, I walked to the obvious jutted out ledge and looked over. Nothing but water. I was gonna jump. Even if I died, I figured it didn't matter. The Lamp was a five second jog back
    Turns out I DIDN'T die, and I fell through the water and landed in an absolutely stunning area called Moonside Lake. It's a white void with water as far as the eye can see (hmm, what's that large creature off in the distance?). Like the anti-Abyss from Dark Souls. Reminded me of Ash Lake, also from DS. Ash Lake was better and more shocking to first find, but damn this came really close.

My favorite area of the game so far. Is that a large moss-covered rock?

    There isn't much to do here as far as exploring. I saw tons of red specters (note on those: the first day the game came out, very few of the red specters worked. Now they work 9/10 times!) and that should have been a tip off. I ran over to the large... thing that's quietly minding it's own business a ways off. I thought it might have been a normal enemy, or maybe even an NPC (far fetched but certainly not out of the question). Nope, once you attack him, a name and health bar show up on the bottom of the screen. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Rom, the Vacuous Spider. He's one of the strangest (and toughest) bosses in the game so far.
    Once you hit him a few times, he calls down a veritable rainstorm of spiders from the sky (?). And these bastards hit HARD. One shot kills are a real possibility here. Also, both Rom and the small spiders have rock hard faces. They have to be attacked from the side or back. But I'll go over all that stuff in the boss post!
    I tried a few times, didn't beat him, and shut it off to go back to sleep (waking up early in the morning to play video games is not as easy as it was when I was in middle/high school. Every day up at 5am without a damn care in the world, so I could play video games for a few hours before school. Clearly much has changed).

4-6-15 (night)

     I picked up last night, logically enough, right where I left off that morning, which was at the Rom boss battle. I attempted it another three-or-four more times before calling in reinforcements. So far I haven’t summoned anyone in the game, and I’ve solo’d all the bosses. But I wanted some co-op fun, so Joseph and I met up, in our respective games, at the college right near the boss gate, and I used my Beckoning Bell, and he his Small Resonant Bell, and with the help of a password, wouldn’t you know it? We actually got connected and I summoned him into my game! It was glorious. I’ve never had a problem with past Souls games not letting you team up with friends (or at least, not letting you do it so overtly). While I don’t think it’s entirely necessary, and it’s still fairly obfuscated, it’s great fun anyway. He entered my game, I walked through the Nightmare Fog, got assaulted by one of those ridiculous bug enemies, then took that leap of faith into the gorgeous Moonside Lake. Joesph followed. We saw Rom in the distance. Well, let me put what happened next in his own words (copied verbatim from a text message):

    "Rom the Vacuous Spider lay ahead of me, thirsty for blood, but this time I had a cooperator to help even the playing fiel-   oh wait, he's dead. Murdered by literally the FIRST enemy he came into contact with"

 This made me laugh out loud when I read it on my phone. You see, my unfortunate co-op buddy got killed by those ridiculously overpowered little spiders. "Oh boy," I thought to myself then. "Time to really nut up for this boss with his buffed stats" (as in past Souls games, it appears that the bosses get stronger if you’ve summoned help). Despite this minor setback however, this was the attempt that I actually beat him! Was happy to get that boss out of the way. One of the tougher ones so far.

The unstoppable duo!

    Not content for one minute of co-op, we decided to team up again and REALLY kick some ass. Turns out, once you kill Rom, you’re treated to a strange cut scene that shows the moon turning a blood-red color. You are transported to a room in the Cathedral Ward. Remember when I had said last week there was a large staircase that had three paths? One went to Amelia, one went to the Hemwick Witches, and one ended in a room I thought might be a boss room? I don’t think I went over that room much in my earlier post, so I’ll do it now. It isn’t a boss room. It’s a large circular room with a closed door on one side. Before killing Rom, if you get too close to that door, you see this buildup of strange blue mist, and if you stand in it too long, you get transported up in the air, and then you die. I found it incredibly odd at the time. Well, turns it, there’s a reason behind that. Once you kill Rom (or even if your Insight is high enough. Not totally sure on that one yet), and you reawaken in this room, and you’ll notice a huge Lovercraftian sort of monster just chilling on the ceiling. 

A little tough to tell because of the camera angle, but this thing is HUGE

    Turns out he was invisible before, but he’s the one that kills you. Before turning him visible, if he kills you, you can sort of glimpse a transparent image of something. I can’t tell you all how unbelievable I find this. I love the Cthulu/Lovecraft inspired monsters a lot (in another life I’d love to be a writer with the imagination and surreal, monstrous properties that he possessed. You know, without the rampant racism, of course). This game is constantly changing, seemingly after every defeated boss. It’s an absolute wonder to behold, and I can’t imagine what I’ve already missed. Hopefully I’ll pick it up in subsequent playthroughs.

    At any rate, if you go through the now-open door in this room, you’ll find yourself back in the Unseen Village. However, it’s an entirely different area than the one the bag-guy brings you to if he kills you. This area is yet another large Victorian-looking city with streets, lights, and buildings. Even so, it looks and feels different then the Yharnam or Byrgenwerth areas. Of course, this is in large part to more of those huge monsters sitting and clinging to buildings. Some will try to grab you (like the one in that Cathedral Ward room) if you get to close. One in particular shoots a large laser beam (I saw someone on the Giant Bomb forums compare this guy to the various fire-breathing dragon's that protect certain bridges in all the previous Souls games. This is pretty accurate) at a large set of stairs that you have to dodge.
    Joseph and I went through this area and we were generally taking care of business. At the beginning, we were even invaded. This was my first invasion in Bloodborne. And this bastard stayed on some stairs underneath one of those giant monsters that will try to grab you if you stay near it. So that, coupled with a huge hoard of enemies (that kept coming back to life!), made this particular encounter very frustrating. I ended up getting killed by some enemies. Luckily Joseph avenged my death!
    After this dumb situation, we continued on. Turns out there are certain enemies that bring other enemies back to life. You have to find and kill them to stop the enemies from respawning.
    I'll try to wrap this up soon, as this is easily my longest diary post yet. Joseph and I went through some more of this area until we eventually reached the Lamp that you can find if you get abducted by the bag man earlier in the game. Doesn't seem like it's working now though. I didn't know where to go, and after both of us were killed again, I decided to call it a night. We did find a key that I'm not sure what to do with, so that should be my assignment for next time. Our co-oping was a lot of fun, and we'll be doing it again in the future. 

4-8-15 & 4-9-15

    Very short session both of these mornings. And I didn't do much. I purposely kept it this way. I searched for another Chalice Dungeon. This time I chose one that had a five skeleton rating. I have no idea what the rating is in reference to. Could it be loot? I spent my entire first 45 minute play session  on the eighth going through the first two Layers of it, and I found four-or-five treasure chests per Layer. The rating  certainly isn't in reference to difficulty, because this Dungeon was easy. Finally, the boss of the first Layer were the Watchers again, like in the second Layer of that first Dungeon. They were pathetically easy (lots of blunderbuss parrying and visceral attacks). I'm not doing boss posts for these guys. Second Layer boss was yet another Maneater Boar. Also stupidly easy. I shut it off after killing this boss. 

    My second short morning session saw the conclusion of this random Dungeon I searched for. I found some more loot (including enough materials to finally make the Central Pthumeru Dungeon. Also, I found a weapon! It's the uncanny version of the saw spear). I fought another spectacularly easy boss in the third Layer of the random one, called Beast-possessed Soul (basically a lanky werewolf with some fire magic). I'll do a write up of him, but it'll be in next week's post. This week's boss post is already super long. After I defeated the boss, I returned to Hunter's Dream, leveled up to 54, and created that Central Pthumeru Dungeon. A splitting headache made me shut the game off earlier than I wanted to.   

    When I play again, I'll probably start the Central Pthumeru Dungeon, then try to figure out where to go back in the Unseen Village. Who knows, I could get some co-op in too! Thanks for reading this bloated beast, and sorry it's kind of late. Fell behind a bit and I've had a tough time catching up.