Hearing what you said about Blooborne is so heartbreaking. My favorite game of all-time but I totally understand the complaint about 30 fps. Performance issues are huge blemish on what is an otherwise masterful game. A PC port on modern console remaster would cause that game to blow up even more.
I put Bloodborne at a similar level but for a different reason. I can't stand blood vials being consumables and I found the map layout to have way too many bosses that are dead ends. In a game like Elden Ring that sort of thing is a given and works fine because most of the content is optional, but for an enclosed, labyrinthine game like Bloodborne with as terrifying of an atmosphere and enemy design as it has, the idea of backtracking is just an absolute nightmare. I remember beating the Cleric Beast the first time and spending easily 5 minutes trying to figure out how to get through the door at the end of the bridge, because why would the very first boss of the game be a dead end? Took me forever to realize that I actually had to just go back through the level and find a different path, which filled me with dread and anxiety because it felt like I actually hadn't made any progress. Then it happened again with Blood-starved Beast, and again with the Witch of Hemwick and again with Amygdala (Cainhurst was fine because it really felt like an optional area). The absolute worst offender, though, is Vicar Amelia. I know FromSoft games are cryptic, but jesus christ, the fact that you're supposed to figure that after watching that cutscene it now gives you the option to use the line they say in the cutscene as the password for the random door on the other side of the map is just...I don't even have words to describe how unintuitive that is. Again, for a game like Elden Ring that kind of thing is fine because it's open world, traversal is free and easy, so backtracking, warping around, talking to NPCs to see new dialogue, checking old places, it's all very effortless. Not so in Bloodborne, so even though it's a similar mechanic, the contexts could not be any more different, and it makes it an absolutely unenjoyable task in Bloodborne's case. So yeah, I love it for all the same reasons as everyone else, but on a blind playthrough, there were just too many things that made me want to quit the game (and I did for several months actually because of this) and it really went beyond the mere sense of "oh nice it's a horror game haha sweet, very enjoyable ambiance" and went instead straight to "this is giving me real life anxiety and I need to stop playing for a week." You could say that means it's more immersive, and you might be right, but goddamn if that doesn't make it less fun to play as well. As such, I really can't say it's my favorite or even in my top 4.
As someone who thinks Bloodborne is a very strong contender for one of the greatest games of all time (even if it isn't my favorite game from Fromsoft lol), I actually really respect Mew2King's inability to get into it. I very much appreciate that he's very honest and to the point with his distaste for it. They're very basic but understandable things to not enjoy, and I very much appreciate that he doesn't add this pseudo-intellectual psycho-analysis type bullshit to describe why he's smarter than other people or the game for not liking it as much as others do. Just very "I don't like this. Not for me." It's to the point. It's understandable. There's nothing wrong with me hearing that, perfectly unpretentious criticism in every way imaginable. That shit's a godsend in online discourse and I don't think ANYONE is gonna think I'm underselling it when I say that.
Not seen this yet as I can't watch atm, but my tier list is S tier: Bloodborne, elden ring, dark souls 1, sekiro A tier: dark souls 3, demon souls B tier: dark souls 2
Based tier list. I thought ER might take DS1 out of my ‘favorite souls game of all time’ slot while I was still in the honeymoon phase, but with 500+ hours in ER I’ve had enough , I beat ER DLC and then started a new DS1 run again (Ive got like 3000+ hours with DS1 since 2012) and nothing compares to DS1 level design and the freedom it allows, its so easy to make a new character and do a fresh playthrough .. if you get the master key you can go almost anywhere in the game from the first few minutes of the game once you get past the tutorial area, I will not continue to replay ER for years to come because its an open world game and way too much fluff which was amazing for a first time experience but sucks for replay ability. Dark Souls 1 is a kind of pseudo open world where it has tight level design (except Izalith) and I can do a different playthrough pathing every single time I play it with 0 fluff (besides Izalith). With the master key I skipped the Taurus demon went straight to Sif, then Blighttown, back up to Sens Fortress, and to the Painted World in under 2 hours. I can go almost anywhere in the game just by doing this out of order its awesome. Dark souls 2, 3, bloodborne, and even Sekiro don’t allow how that much freedom, they are linear.. though at least Sekiro has a boss rush mode. Sekiro is a better game combat wise, but I like the dungeon crawling and RPG aspect of Souls games, if I want insanely intricate combat ill play Ninja Gaiden or DMC, so thats why Ive played them since 2012 so Dark Souls 1 will remain my favorite.
Sekiro and Elden ring Then ds3 and bloodborne That’s my top 4 and it’s just 2 chunks of 2 each. I think ds1 and 2 feel a bit too dated for me mechanically so they’re one tier below those.
The whole time I played DS2 I was thinking "when does this game get good?" and before I knew it I was at the end of the game lol. Pretty much all the areas and bosses are boring AF. BTW it gets good in the 2 non-snow DLCs lol.
