Bloodborne (2015)

This was my first From Software souls/borne game and I was amazed at how fast it reeled me in. I can 100% see how some players might be very put off by Bloodborne and its Dark Souls counterparts but like many people have said before, overcoming the difficulty is insanely rewarding. The game is very very good at pacing and keeping it interesting. The level design, bosses and the score are insane. The weapons and their transformations are among some of the most inventive I've seen. Everything looks very masterfully created and handled with care. I was amazed at how quickly the game pulled me in and made me feel compelled to play. 2 months ago I had never played a Souls/borne game and now I feel like I could be a Bloodborne spokesperson. I have never played a game that made me all shaky and anxious during boss battles. During many of the later boss battles my heart was pounding for minutes after the boss fell and PREY SLAUGHTERED appeared on the screen. I found myself thinking of the game constantly and wanting to ditch all other responsibilities to sit down and play. Bloodborne is now easily in my top 5 games of all time.

I really am hoping for a Bloodborne 2 from the same team.

Bloodborne makes some changes to the Dark Souls gameplay which emphasize a style of play otherwise reserved for the more talented of Souls players.

You can play the Souls games with tons of different builds, mainly involving which attack methods you'll be using. One style focuses on timing a shield bash to parry the enemy, which I've never gotten around to mastering. Why? You can't easily practice them. The parry move in the Souls games requires you to be in melee range. In Bloodborne, you can do it at range. This lets you experiment and play around with timings with minimal risk, so you can actually get good while progressing normally (not having to dedicate separate time to practice it). Every(?) regular enemy can be parried, and many bosses can, too, so it's a worthwhile skill to learn.

Another not-so-fun element of the Souls games is resource (healing item) management. In Bloodborne, you have tons of healing (about 8 times your base health) and enemies will frequently drop more of them - I think they give them out at roughly the rate they think you'll use them, so if you're doing well you'll stay topped off. I never ran out of them during my playthroughs. They also give you another way to regain lost health. After you get hit, you can quickly attack the enemy and get a part or even all of your lost health back. So after being hit, you get two options: run away and heal, or stay in and get your health back. It's a nice way to remove the attrition that often comes up when traversing the map.

I think Dark Souls 3's a better game, but Bloodborne is different enough that it plays differently, much more aggressive than the others due to the above reasons.