LET'S TALK BLOODBORNE

author=Pyramid_Head
I reckon Gherman knew Maria, and loved her dearly, but couldn't approach her (As he needs to keep the Hunter's Dream going until someone else who could bear the mantle came along) and so created the doll in her image so that at least if anything he could keep a small part of her near him at all times.

The lore of Bloodborne is so rich I could discuss it for hours on end.

Talking about the lore is a large part of what this thread's for! Don't hold back!

I just bought her armor set and learned two surprising details. The first one is that Lady Maria deeply admired Gehrman. So if Gehrman created the Doll in Maria's image instead of actually, you know, taking her with him, I imagine the two of them had some sort of falling out. Maybe Maria couldn't take being a Hunter anymore and opted for a way out, similar to the ending where you leave the Hunter's Dream?

The second one is pretty scary, and perhaps offering an explanation of the parting: Lady Maria is a distant relative of Annalise, Queen of the Vilebloods.

Woah.

Found Maria's weapon. That was freakin tough! I eventually gave up and just struck the dude with a Shaman's Bone Blade to even the odds. So her weapon gives some more interesting details. The snippet about her loathing blood techniques is in direct contrast with her use of said techniques during the fight. Did she get an imitation weapon when she died? Since I found it in the well, she definitely used a different weapon for the fight despite looking the same.

I wonder what the last snippet means, "She cast it off when she could stomach it no longer?"

Either way, this is a sweet weapon, and I'm gonna start practicing with it and Simon's Bow Blade, as all my other weapons have some other scaling like Arcane, and that isn't good when facing Arcane resistant enemies.

I saw a couple of Winter Lantern enemies near the place where I got the Rakuyo, so I tested that interpretation. While I couldn't look at it straight without being hit by Frenzy, running away with my back to it still triggered the effect. Plus, there's the Brain of Mensis that hits you with Frenzy before you ever get a chance to view it. Interesting interpretation, though.

And yeah. The Hypogean Gael freaked the everloving crap out of me the first time through. I never expected something different to happen to me if I got killed, and to be transported to such an area was icing on the cake.

I love how it turns into a horror game around halfway through. It's especially effective because the enemies are both creepy and exceedingly dangerous.

Finally, here's this:

Beat the DLC finally, then powered through Celestial Emissary, Ebrietas, Mergo's Wet Nurse, The First Hunter, and the Moon Presence in an hour. It's amazing how much more prepared I was this time than I was the last two times I did it!

Gotta say, I wasn't a big fan of the Orphan of Kos fight. I couldn't really get a read on any of his attacks consistently because they're ridiculously fast and require specific directions to dodge. Which wouldn't be a problem, but when I fought him, even his weakest attacks took about 3/4 of my health. I ended up power leveling up to 108 just to get that boost in defense because it was getting too much to handle, but even then the issue of his insane aggression still stood. Eventually, I just stayed away from him and baited out attacks I could parry with a gun. I'm not sure if that is a legit tactic or not, but I felt dirty when I managed to kill him, since gun baiting/visceral attacks shouldn't be the only way to beat bosses. If his attacks did just a little less damage, or if his A.I wasn't so freaking aggressive, I might not have been so frustrated.

Yeah, yeah, I know. "Git gud." But that battle just felt more trial and error than legit tough to me. I didn't get that feeling from any other boss in the DLC or even the base game. Bleh.

10/10 DLC otherwise though. Would go back and get shit pushed in again.

author=Pyramid_Head
It wasn't a case of 'git gud', the Orphan of Kos was hard. If you dodged to his left side, then most of his attacks skipped you, but he is a very fast, violent, and semi unpredictable boss. only way I could beat him was through summoning. So I understand your pain.

Lucky you. I play offline, so I don't get the chance to summon players for help. As far as I knew, there was no NPCs to help for the boss.

Of course the DLC asks more questions than it answers, so Kos, or Kosm has been introduced but by no means established. Is Kos the first Great One the people of Yharnham came across? Was it Kos' blood that started the beast scourge? Did anyone get their ass handed to them by the hunters in the first area of the Hunters Nightmare as many times as I did?

Yeah, I'm not sure who Kos is, but I don't think it ever arrived on the planet, if the Orphan's starting position of staring at the sky is any indication. Either Kos is a Great One that never came back to earth, or it's an entirely different planet. Or perhaps, taking the DLC's ending dialogue into account, Kos lives at the bottom of the ocean? Maybe the Orphan was the one at the bottom of the ocean? Hm...

As for the blood that started the beast scourge, I think it was the Bloodletting Beast from the Chalice Dungeons. Apparently there was a translation issue and the Japanese name of the monster can be read as "Host of the Beast Blood." That tells me that this monster is where the blood came from, and somehow that blood made its way to Yharnam. Great Ones are just Kin, right? So seeing as Kin and Beasts are two very separate creature types.

Also, what's with the new dialogue from the Doll upon beating Orphan? There's definitely a link between Orphan and Gehrman, but what? Hm...

I have to admit though. As good as the DLC is, minus one point for reusing the Cleric Beast model for Laurence. Not aesthetically, but thematically, it's supposed to be that those higher up in the Healing Church become the most vicious and twisted of beasts. Vicar Ameila turned into a hideous beast. Ludwig... well speaks for itself, but Laurence? Who left Byrgenwerth to founded the Healing Church turned into a Cleric Beast? It just didn't sit well with me.

It was Laurence's fault that the beast scourge occurred, right? He was the one that disregarded Willem's warning of "Fear the Old Blood" and started the practice of blood ministration, leading to the discovery of the beastly result of mixing old blood and human blood. So in that sense, it's a little understandable why Laurence takes the form of a Cleric Beast.

And there's the million dollar question. What's more important: Lore consistency or game design?

Well, model reuse isn't exactly new to From. The Asylum Demon in Dark Souls, Najka and the Smelter Demon in DSII (along with all the other bosses stolen from DSI, though it wasn't exactly their A team behind that game anyway), and now the Cleric Beast in Bloodborne.

You're right, though, in that it's no excuse. ESPECIALLY since they made bosses unique to Chalice Dungeons, showing that they had both the time and the talent to pull it off. I guess I'm just trying to say I wasn't as surprised/annoyed as everyone else was.

No one cared about Smelter? How come? And man, I need to get back into Demon's Souls. Not sure why I stopped the first time...

Also, use the Shaman Bone Blade on the Celestial Emissary for maximum lulz.

Totally true about DS2. This makes me pretty excited for DS3, since Miyazaki is at the helm once again. I think the one thing DS2 did right was the super refined mechanics. Unfortunately, that was also one of the biggest immersion-breakers, since DS2 felt so much like a VIDEO GAME instead of an actual adventure.

Of course, now that I played Bloodborne, I'm thinking differently. Bloodborne has the (seriously, no pun intended) "soul" of a souls game, whereas DS2 did not. So seeing some previews of the new mechanics in DS3 knowing that Miyazaki was at the helm again, I'm hoping this will be From's swan song for the Soul Series.

Yeah, I only used the Shaman Bone Blades for Celestial Emissary and now those two man sharks in the DLC. Since the Emissary doesn't pursue you until the second phase, you can lead the mobs away from him, then tag him with the Bone Blade, stand back, and laugh maniacally.