Bloodborne The Old Hunters Review

From Software has practically made it a tradition at this point to release quality downloadable content for their Souls series games. Even Dark Souls II, occasionally panned by long-time fans of the first game, is generally considered much-improved with the addition of its DLC trilogy. And of course, Artorias of the Abyss is considered one of From's crowning achievements.

With Bloodborne, the first Souls-like game by From, the trend of downloadable excellency continues with The Old Hunters.

Nov 30, 2015  If you don't keep up with Bloodborne and the obtuse route to its DLC (something of a Souls tradition) I beg a few moments of your time so I can lay it out. So: The Old Hunters. The hunt continues in Bloodborne as From Software releases its latest expansion, The Old Hunters. For gamers who felt the hunt was short-lived, the new.

The player is thrust into the Hunter's Nightmare, a hellish prison made to entrap Yharnam's old hunters, who partook in the slaying of beasts until they grew drunk on their blood.

So begins The Old Hunters DLC.

In Review: New Items

This might be a strange thing to rate most DLCs by, but new items are undoubtedly a core factor in The Old Hunters. New equipment has always been one of the highlights in the Souls series, and where it was exciting to get a quirky weapon like the Dragon Bone Fist in the Dark Souls II DLC, it's even more exciting in Bloodborne. New weapons mean new move sets and play styles that can change how you play through the entire game. Battalion wars 2 on pc.

The DLC offers players who can conquer its challenges a number of exciting items and abilities, some of which come as a total surprise.

New spells, new trick weapons, new guns, and..new forms? Yes, the most exciting part of The Old Hunters is that we get the long-awaited beast mode that was originally rumored to be a part of the base game.

While it's a little unscrupulous of From to put something that clearly should have been there from the start into the DLC, it was well worth the wait. Being able to go berserk on your enemies, online and offline, is a satisfying experience; one that fits perfectly not only within the gameplay, but the narrative itself. Nidhogg download.

But we didn't just get one form.

This strange cauliflower monster is actually a 'kin' form that the player can take. Again, this fits amazingly into the Bloodborne narrative. Most of your enemies are trying to become weird alien things throughout the game, and it's great to give the player the same opportunity.

Among other favorites, the Moonlight Greatsword, an iconic weapon of every Souls game, returns in spectacular fashion. I actually felt a touch of disappointment when I received the blade, since my first run through the DLC was on my bloodtinge character, who simply couldn't wield it efficiently.

Fortunately, From clearly wants to give every kind of character build some new goodies to play with in The Old Hunters. There are eleven trick weapons for you to find in the Hunter's Nightmare; an impressive assortment, considering the base game offers only fifteen.

The DLC offers a wide selection of weapons. Among the many new options available, there's a blade that can transform into a bow, a pair of fleshy tentacles you can use as deadly whips, and a mace that can grow in size if you feed it your own blood. If you enjoyed playing Bloodborne for the variety of weapons, you'll be overjoyed by the equipment that The Old Hunters has to offer.

More importantly, by putting all of the weapons in such an enclosed area as the DLC, From is making it so that your future characters won't have to suffer without their new favorite weapons for long. Once you feel like your new character is ready, you can simply enter the DLC, clear to where your weapon is, and optimize your character towards it.

Of course, what would new weapons be without new places to demonstrate their power? While one of the core assets of the DLC is clearly the small arsenal you're being given, that says nothing of the love that went into the content that houses these items.

In Review: The Areas

One of the first things you might think after clearing The Old Hunters is that the areas you just cleared are relatively small. You'd be right. But I'd also be willing to wager that if you backtracked to those zones, there'd be more than a few things you missed - or places you couldn't access before that can now be unlocked with a key.

The Old Hunters offers zones that are rewarding for their varied aesthetics and the treasures they hold. I've already touched on items, but how those items are distributed throughout the few zones of The Old Hunters is immensely satisfying.

The DLC isn't interested in giving you the content you paid for on a silver platter. It wants you to explore and earn every last bit, same as in the base game. You may miss a great deal on your first run through the Hunter's Nightmare. There's a hidden boss, a few easy-to-miss side quests, and hidden areas that require you to return after you've progressed further into the DLC.

The Old Hunters can be a linear romp if you want it to be, but it rewards attention to detail, and offers players who want more than a series of challenging boss encounters something else to do with their time.

And that is saying nothing of the areas themselves: they're beautiful, and often grotesquely fascinating. Each zone is ultimately short, but the variety is refreshing. Moving from a place reminiscent to the Cathedral Ward in the base game to increasingly twisted environments helps intensify the feeling that you're really trapped in the Hunter's Nightmare.

Wherever you go, there will be quirky NPCs, mysteries, and chilling atmosphere that plays upon Bloodborne's morbid art direction.

In Review: The Bosses

The cornerstone of Bloodborne, much like Dark Souls, is the amount of love put into the bosses you'll encounter - for the most part.

There are five bosses in The Old Hunters, and two of them are lackluster. This is completely forgivable, however, because one of those fights is totally optional, and the other is a callback to the Celestial Emissary of the base game, in that it's a very minor boss before a legitimate boss fight.

Ludwig, the Holy Blade is the first boss encounter of The Old Hunters, and it is a home-run in both design and concept. Starting him off as a generic beast makes the fight seem rather run-of-the-mill, until the two-headed horseman regains a trace of his sanity and becomes a sort of monstrous paladin.

The dark majesty of this character serves as the perfect prelude to the rest of the downloadable content.

Lady Maria, pictured at the start of this section, is the second real boss. Her aggressive, practically Devil May Cry styled moves are reminiscent of the fight against her mentor, Gehrman, who was easily one of the most iconic and satisfying fights in the entire base game.

Of course, Gehrman didn't call up tornadoes of burning blood.

Maria is a satisfying callback to an aggressive and enjoyable endboss, but she has enough twists and tricks to make her into a unique fight that will force many players to up their game in a trial by fire.

The final boss is a nightmare - figuratively and literally: The Orphan of Kos, who is, perhaps, one of the most challenging fights in the Bloodborne series. He might not look like much, but given his position within the game's narrative, that's forgivable, especially considering his exceptionally strange entrance and his moveset. Not many enemies throw a fleshy yo-yo at you. The Orphan is an aggressive challenge and fitting conclusion to the downloadable content.

The core trio of bosses within The Old Hunters are all wildly aggressive and welcome, challenging additions to the already solid roster the base game had to offer.

In conclusion..

What Bloodborne's DLC lacks in length, it makes up for in style. The atmosphere is top-notch, the three main boss fights are extremely solid, and the new items will give the game a substantial life extension when it comes to replay value and online play.

It's a shame that there are no future plans for Bloodborne DLC, because The Old Hunters delivers in almost every way imaginable.

9/10

The hunt continues in Bloodborne as From Software releases its latest expansion, The Old Hunters. For gamers who felt the hunt was short-lived, the new expansion adds new places to explore and creatures to hunt. With the Old Hunters expansion, fans can look forward to tough new enemies, new places to explore, additional weapons, and even a couple of unique bosses. While all this sounds good on paper, did From Software maintain the experience fans love or is it more forgiving than previous entries? Fortunately, The Old Hunters is not just challenging like the base game, it might be even more so this time through.

Similar to the original game, The Old Hunters has a cryptic, yet somewhat vague story. The game will immediately put you in a new location called “The Hunter’s Nightmare” after meeting certain requirements from the original game. Newcomers will have to wait until they’ve progressed far enough to unlock the content. Once you access the new expansion, you’re on your quest to uncover the dark secrets of the Old Hunters of Yhrnam. Don’t expect the story to be laid out to you because you will uncover its darkest secret through new NPCs that you meet while the searching the dark corners of Yhrnam.

Difficulty-wise, I find The Old Hunters to be much harder than the original game. At level 98, I expected to play through the expansion very fast but boy, I was wrong. Just reaching the first boss of the expansion, it took me no less than 4 hours. Not only were the enemies unforgiving and dealt a lot of damage, it was like being level 98 wasn’t enough to breeze through the story. Unlike past enemies’ monotonous movements, the new enemies in The Old Hunters have a more diverse pattern of attacks to watch out for. If there’s one enemy that I found especially difficult, it was the Old Hunter that could shoot you while cracking their whip.

As for the bosses, you can expect them to be quite big and pack a punch. In my playthrough, I find them to be really difficult at first and hits very hard. Their movement of attacks are quite random making it difficult to plan your next course of attack. Expect some frustration, though don’t give up hope either. Odds are you’ll eventually overcome your problems and take them out. Compared to the base game, The Old Hunters expansion offers serious boost in difficulty especially in bosses. I’ve never get so pissed in a game like this one in The Old Hunters expansion.

With a much increased difficulty, there are new weapons to compensate for it. For those who looking for deadly new weapons to kill enemies or hunters, you’re in luck as The Old Hunters has several. The new weapon range from the Moonlight sword to Ludwig, a hammer that you can light on fire and use it as a explosive, to a spinning sawblade that packs a massive damage to enemies when it hits. While the new weapons are cool to use and somewhat stylish when executed in battle, I ended up using Ludwig’s Sword due to it’s impressive stats. If there’s one new weapon that I love in using, that would be the sawblade.

When it comes to the new areas, they are designed very well and have a very detailed environments. The expansion managed to stay consistent to the world introduced in the original game. New enemies look much tougher, especially the Old Huntesr that will be hunting you down from start to finish. The weird designs of monsters are still there, and if there’s one thing that I love about the art, it would be the bosses. While new enemies have a unique looks, I find the bosses to look rather appealing and scary.

As for its co-op, the release of the new expansion released an update where you can now seek a help of a NPC character in-game. Through the Old Hunting Bell that you get in the Hunter’s Dream, you can summon a preset NPC to help you out in battle. The bell works like a Beckoning Bell where it uses an Insight for every use, though in Old Hunter’s Bell, you can do it in offline mode. I find the new feature to be very useful especially in my play through since I rarely found someone to play with me since it’s a pre-release title and all. There’s that red aura near at every boss fight that you can use the Old Hunting Bell on. The good thing is, even with the NPC summoned helper you got, you can also summon a friend online to make a team of three.

Verdict

For fans of Bloodborne wishing for a far greater challenge should look no further in The Old Hunters’ expansion. The DLC itself is an improved, if not a harder version of Bloodborne where tougher enemies and bosses await. That sense of rage-quitting will be intensified with the expansion but the sense of achievement when you took that one hard boss is even greater in this expansion. If you think Bloodborne is somewhat easier and somewhat lacking, the expansion will fill that void.

[Editor’s Note: Bloodborne The Old Hunters DLC was reviewed on the PS4 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]