I have spoken with quite a lot of people about this game, mainly with other Souls' fan's. It seems people have radically different opinions about this game and its difficult to explain why that happens exactly.

Me personally I am a diehard Dark Souls fan, I loved both 1 and 2 despite both of their flaws, I also played the remaster of Dks2 and loved it as well. I've sunk so many hundreds of hours into both of the games, I completed a no death + no bonfire run in Dks2 SotFS a while ago and it is probably the most excited I have ever been whilst playing any game ever. I also cannot wait for Dark Souls 3.

So naturally I was stupidly hyped for Bloodborne, I couldn't get it on release because I didn't have a PS4 so I avoided any spoilers and waited. I got them both a tiny bit over a month ago now.

Unfortunately I have found it to be the most disappointing of the 3 for a variety of reasons. It has some pro's over the previous games but they are nowhere near enough to outweigh the con's.

The pro's are superior graphics, interesting weapons, rapid paced combat (which is a style I enjoy), fantastic level design and I can't think of any others at the moment, which means that anything else I considered a pro over the previous games is so insignificant it doesn't make any real difference.

The con's are a much bigger list. Despite the weapons being interesting there is only 15-ish of them (melee I mean), there isn't a real magic system so you can't be a caster, you have to grind blood vials and QS bullets (perhaps the worst mechanic in any Souls game), the game felt short, chalice dungeons are terribly boring, the lack of weapons and spells means replay value is minimal.

The con's list isn't over yet. The bosses were remarkably boring design-wise. No boss truly stood out as an epic encounter to me, not like O+S, Artorias, Raime, Sir Alonne and more did. Some of them looked cool visually but that's about it.

The bosses were also very easy for me. Rom took 5 tries but he was a gimmicky boss and therefore annoying to fight. Every other boss in the game took 1-3 tries with the vast majority only taking 1 single try despite me going in blind. Gascoine, Blood Starved Beast, Darkbeast Paarl, Shadow of Yharnam, One Reborn, Witch of Hemwick, Celestial Emissary, Ebrietas, Nick Cage, Wet Nurse, Moon Presence. Those bosses are the ones I remember beating in 1 single try, like I said the rest either took 2 or 3. There was no real strategy to them, no learning to be done. It was just dash out the way when they start to flail around at you, smack them in the backside when they stop flailing, because dashing is so fast and healing was so quick it never felt like I was being punished for making a mistake or for not learning the bosses patterns. I remember the Fume Knight as a brilliant example of how important learning patterns was in Dks 1 + 2 and how many bosses made it very difficult to heal if you fucked up. I play these games for the challenge but Bloodborne never once presented me with any good ones and therefore I never got the strong feeling of accomplishment that I adore so much from Dks1 + 2.

Combine all the con's and you end up with a game that I have no desire to play through again. I was starting to get bored of it before I even beat my first NG run. After I beat it I tried a new character with a new build and tried an NG+ run but I barely got anywhere with both of them before I put the game down and haven't returned to it since, that's about 3 weeks ago now. With Dks1 + 2 they have so much replay value, I will still play them both again in the future, but Bloodborne just has none for me.

Obviously everything I said is opinion, I know for a fact some people disagree with basically everything I've said but this is how the game was for me. I wish it wasn't this way but sadly it is. I'm going to wait impatiently for Dark Souls 3 now, I expect it to be better than Bloodborne already based on the small amounts of information from the leak.