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I will not lie - this game is hard. But it looks insanely cool! So you’ll probably rage quit in the first section.. but you’ll be thinking about it. “Undone by the blood”.. what did that old fart mean? Is this a vampire game? So ambiguous.. so cool. So you’ll come back to it a few days later, die repeatedly, then quit again. But then something will happen.. you will notice your strikes are timed better. You don’t REact, you PREact, and you feel locked into a rhythm of butchery that previously felt as elusive as the edge of the universe. And then you fall off a ledge. You try to sprint back to retrieve your blood echoes but you die again. You lose all your blood echoes. You contemplate the meaning of life and why you suck so bad. “This game sucks!” you furiously yell to the screen. You quit again. But then you come back... The first enemy encounter establishes the fact that you will die... a lot - but it also suggests that is perfectly acceptable. This game is TRYING to break your will, so don’t be too discouraged when it does as it is simply doing what it was designed to do. This game will break you down whenever you are too rash, nonchalant, or emotionally unhinged. But if you stay meticulous, adroit, and cool-headed, you will be rewarded. This game isn’t just fun and challenging- *it freaking makes you a better person*. Want to know why avid SoulsBorne players refer to their creator Miyazaki by name? Because they freaking credit this man with their personal development. Players are born by Bloodborne. Made men by Bloodborne. Undone by Bloodborne. Strap in motherlover, because you’re in for one of the best rides of your gaming career, and it’s “git gud” to the last drop. ;)

[Foreward: I am not a child. I am 28 years old. My mind is tainted by cynicism - my innocence long lost.. so take this with a grain of salt. I’m sure a kid would find this to be the greatest gaming experience of their waking life thus far.] This game was cool and fun. Glider? Dope. Shrines? Sick. Master Sword? Yezzir. Climbing? Lit. But it doesn’t hold a candle to Ocarina of Time or even Twilight Princess. I think it tried to be something that Elder Scrolls already did better: be a gigantic open world rpg game with quests. I hated how in the beginning of the game if you explored far enough you could find yourself in an area where the enemies were so strong they could one-shot you. I ended up putting it down for 2 weeks because it was so frustrating just figuring out what the heck to do and where the heck to go in order to make myself more powerful. You hear all this stuff about how freeing and awesome it is, but you end up exploring and just get punished if you don’t have any good armor. I hated how there was little incentive to pursue side-quests because they used up a lot of resources and at the end of it you would get a purple rupee or some stupid elixer. Game-changing items were few and far between, once you got the glider the game was pretty much a cakewalk; no incentive to search the nooks and crannies or immerse yourself in the environment. It was just find a high place, find the straightest path to the objective.. it really shrunk what could have been an amazing, detailed world for me. I HATED the durability system. No incentive to get awesome weapons, shields, or bows because you knew they would break. This gave an underlying dread to every combat experience. I ended up avoiding most enemies because why waste all those resources? I like games where you beat the guy, and get the thing. Your Guardian Axe++ breaks during a moblin raid and your reward is… a chest with a banana. Even the master sword itself is just pseudo-unbreakable. The feeling of payoff from getting pretty much anything in this game is almost zero. Also cell shading? What is this, 2003? And people actually enjoyed getting all 800 Korok seeds? So you can what… get more items that break in 5 hits? And lastly but definitely not least - how this game handled Hyrule Castle was just pitiful. I mean come on.. all you have to do is glide off the back ridge over the moat, climb the side of the thing as high as you can, then drop down to a point where you could find the inner sanctum, and you’re there assuming you have enough stamina-replenishing meals. I just walked right into it - that’s just lazy game design! Darkbeast Ganon was nothing, there is no need to go out of your way to complete side quests before the final battle. The ending was nothing. It was just an overall underwhelming experience for me. I like this game only because it is a zelda game, but I don’t believe it is the epic masterpiece of the decade that everyone says it is.