Why is everyone crazy and trying to kill me? Why am I seeing aliens? What's going on?
>people who pretend that bloodborne lore makes coherent sense and that it isn't a load of fanfiction cobbled together by youtube celebreties and wikipedia autists
>>330503463
because its a video game.
inb4 souls-lore fag tries to explain the story.
Everyone has the blood of Aliens in them. That's what the healing blood is.
It also drives people mad.
Bloodshed, and being soaked in Blood, drives this madness.
You're seeing Aliens because there are aliens.
In more long-winded terms, people discovered Old Blood in these tombs, but that Old Blood was a medium through with the Formless being Oedon can exert control. It literally makes people into beasts.
The Church was using this blood to heal people, but then they realized it caused Beasts to exist.
So, to cover things up, the Church founded the Hunters and had them slay beasts, claiming that it was just a disease or scourge of monsters.
You show up in Yharnam to get cured, but once you are ministered blood, you are drawn into a Nightmare reality called the Hunter's Dream. Whenever you die in the real world, you instead just awaken in the Hunter's Dream. In this way, you are 'trapped' in the Night of the Hunt, forever fighting beasts and ayyliens.
Your goal is to find the 'Paleblood' and transcend the hunt.
>>330503463
because gameplay
Shitposters all over the board.
>>330503748
Except that it does make sense and is incredibly simple and spelled out for you in the fucking game.
>>330504061
>Someone asks why something is happening in a game
>You get your panties in a bunch because the game in question has a nebulous story that is intentionally vague enough to let individual players develop their own 'canon'.
The whole fucking point of Miyazaki's games is that you get to co-opt the 'canon' experience. Dude said it in an interview. He wanted to recreate the experience he had in his childhood, where he read fantasy books in other languages.
>>330504346
you'll be one of them...sooner or later...
>>330503463
It's all just a dream OP
>>330504391
>is incredibly simple and spelled out for you in the fucking game.
>the game in question has a nebulous story that is intentionally vague enough to let individual players develop their own 'canon'.
make up your mind, kek
>>330504092
Wow, that ACTUALLY interests me.
Never actually heard a story like this before.
>>330504346
> Ah the sweet (You's) they sing to me, it's enough to make a man sick.
>>330504391
you're not meant to actually think about it though
lol at you
>>330504092
I wish this were more thoroughly conveyed in the game.
As it stands you're just administered blood and you get a tutorial on what hunters do because now you're a hunter for reasons.
I find BB to be lacking in a lot of the cohesiveness, focus and direction that DeS and DaS excelled at.
>>330504614
The basics are spelled out, you dumb cunt.
It's undeniable that you are an outside to Yharnam, you arrive for Blood Ministration, then you fight beasts, then you fight ayyliens, then you get one of the three endings.
All the shit that isn't spelled out for you is up to player interpretation, but basic shit like, "WHY ARE THERE MONSTERS, ANON?" is answered in the game.
>>330505026
What I like about the Soulsborne games is that I almost find the story to be akin to solving a scene of a horrible crime. You kind of pop in after all the horrible shit went down and have to figure out what the fuck happened.
It's really interesting and fun in that sense in my opinion. It really gives a story-telling experience that can only really be done through a video game.
>>330505026
That's part of the point, though. Gherman doesn't want you to discover why you're hunting--he literally tells you not to think about it too much.
He also literally tells you where to go throughout the game. It has just as much, if not more, direction than the previous Souls games, excluding, perhaps, Demons' Souls.
The various characters tell you enough, even if you ignore all the various notes left for you and the item descriptions.
But, yes, you're supposed to feel overwhelmed and as if you don't understand everything/feel lost/feel trapped in the Hunt.
>>330504656
If you play any of the other RPG games made by FromSoft, they all just follow the same sort of design principles and attempt to repurpose the same characters, theme, and basic plot points.
>>330505421
I like the "puzzle story" idea too, but with BB it actively harms the experience of playing the game, in my opinion anyway.
You're just told to hunt beasts. Well, OK. You can stumble upon Cleric Beast, which is a dead end. Great.
Gascoigne (read: not a beast at first glance) is the way to move forward, but the map is so twisted and stacked that it's easily to get lost and how would you know to go that way for progress?
It gets worse when the game opens up. How am I supposed to know Vicar Amelia is the next story boss? You could fight Blood-starved Beast, or get taken to Yahar'gul, and several other directions even though Amelia is just outside Oeden Chapel.
Progress feels like it happens on accident. You have a goal, but no idea how to go about it.
>>330505818
Yeah I've played them all but I've never cared about the lore.
>>330506204
I think that Bloodborne handles its lore and atmosphere the best out of all of their games, to be honest.
Shit like "A woman who stabs herself with two Katanas to put her blood on them and then they catch fire" looks like the cringiest, edgiest shit on paper, but due to the atmosphere of the game it is amazing.
>>330504092
What about all of the other weird realities in the game?
>>330506092
>How are you supposed to know how to go there to progress?
Exploring? I'm sorry it's not hand-holding corridor simulators, anon. When all of the shortcuts funnel you closer and closer to the boss, you figure that shit out.
Alfred tells you to go to the Church, where you face Vicar Amelia. Gherman tells you to ascend Oedon Chapel, which can be interpreted as "Go up to that Church Chapel."
You can't be taken to Yahar'gul until after you defeat Blood-Starved or Rom.
Yahar'gul is a dead-end that wraps back around to Lower Yharnam anyway at that point of the game.
Gherman literally tells you to go seek a Chalice in lower Yharnam, which is where the Bloodstarved Beast is.
It seems like you didn't talk to your guiding NPCs or care to explore.
If you progression feels like an accident, that's on you. I always felt like I was fighting an uphill battle towards the next boss or event, all in hopes to discover more about this world, the dream, and eventually discover the Paleblood and transcend the Dream.
But, you know, I read the notes and talked to the NPCs. I could see how someone who reads nothing and doesn't pay attention could get lost in a game that isn't all corridors to the next part with constant reminders of where to go.
>>330503463
Either play the game & read the item descriptions, and piece together the story & your interpretation for yourself, or buy both guidebooks and read them.
Alternatively, read this:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JL5acskAT_2t062HILImBkV8eXAwaqOj611mSjK-vZ8
>>330507365
Every Great One yearns to have a child.
All of the 'Nightmare' realities are borne of that desire.
The Hunter's Dream happened because Laurence, the first Vicar of the Healing Church, beckoned the Moon Presence. The Hunter's Dream exists solely for the Moon Presence to try to bear another child, and, ultimately, if you get the Childhood's Beginning ending, it worked.
The Nightmare of Mensis was borne of Mensis' attempts to transcend humanity by bearing a child of a Great One. The School of Mensis realized they could enter this dream reality and spend as much time as they wanted there studying the ayyliens, but they all basically rotted and died in real life because they spent so much time in the Nightmare world.
The Nightmare Frontier seems to be tied to Amygdala and Formless Oedon. When Yharnam had Oedon's child, or attempted to, this Nightmare Reality was likely crafted then.
You can figure all this out by reading the descriptions of the One Third Umbilical Chords, playing the DLC, and noting that whenever you defeat Mergo's Wet Nurse, Orphan of Kos' black shadow, and The Moon Presence, it displays the words "NIGHTMARE SLAIN" instead of "PREY SLAUGHTERED."
It seems as though the Hunter's Dream is where your actual body might end up, with you 'dreaming' yourself into the physical world. That's why death isn't permanent, but you have to re-do content. I will admit, though, this particular interpretation is a bit of my own head-canon, so take that as you will.
>>330508378
>The Nightmare of Mensis was borne of Mensis' attempts to transcend humanity by bearing a child of a Great One
Not sure where you've drawn this conclusion from.
The School of Mensis attempted to contact the dead Great One Mergo, but contacting a dead Great One is apparently too much for the human mind to comprehend and resulted in the stillbirth of their brains.
It's unclear whether the Nightmare of Mensis existed before or after the Mensis Ritual, but they weren't trying to bear a child of a Great One, they were trying to contact one.
It is possible that the ritual resulted in th creation of the Brain of Mensis, but that's very ambiguous.
>>330507547
>Alfred tells you to go to the Church, where you face Vicar Amelia. Gherman tells you to ascend Oedon Chapel, which can be interpreted as "Go up to that Church Chapel."
The difference, to compare to DaS again, is that "up" means a lot of shit here. I can't just look up and suddenly see the church. The skyline looks the same and it's hard to pick out an individual building, much less understand the means to get there.
Whereas in DaS your route, or at least basic direction, is generally clear.
The clues given to you are somehow even more vague than DaS's "there are two bells, one above and one below."
If the world was designed with the clarity and openness of DaS, you wouldn't even really need clues because naturally playing will take you there and you won't even feel lost doing it.
As it is, Yarnham looks the same everywhere. There are landmarks, but the routes between them blend together so trying to map your route mentally is a pain. This gets worse after Amelia, when night falls and the dark palette becomes even darker and your path forward is a winding forest.
The maps themselves are the real difficulty in progression. I'm not even that far and I can't count how many times I just missed a door or a pathway because the palette makes everything look the same.
>>330508915
Ah, I thought that Mergo's Wet Nurse and the Crib were all indications that there was a child borne there. Yes, the 'audience' with Mergo resulted in the stillbirth of Mergo and Mesis' minds, but I always saw the Nightmare borne of the birth of a Great One's child, and that the Mensis Ritual was both the original ritual and yet another one that could be performed.
>>330507041
I'll have to agree with you on that one, anon.
>>330509009
...not really? They tell you to go to the Church.
You literally walk right outside of the Oedon Chapel and you can see Church guys walking down the steps towards you--from the Church.
I've played this game on my own and I've watched two other friends of mine, one with no experience in the franchise, do blind playthroughs. While they missed some things, they also had no issue finding all of the core bosses and completing the game.
>Yharnam looks the same everywhere
Oh, okay, if you have this level of perception, then I'm not really surprised.
The only area I can really recall getting turned around in were the Forbidden Woods.
>>330509174
Mergo is very clearly the child of Queen Yharnam of Pthumeru, which means it's highly unlikely that the Mensis Ritual is responsible for Mergo's conception.
Especially when you consider that it's Mergo's umbilical cord that allows Mensis to make contact to begin with.
>>330509573
I didn't know so much that Mergo was Yharnam's child, or that Yharnam's consciousness simply wanted similar rituals from happening again.
But yeah, I can definitely see your interpretation, and I agree with that.
>>330505698
Completely agree, I love these games for the very same reason. You get thrown into a world where everything major has already occurred and you're just left in the aftermath.
Most hunters are gone, only a few are left. The towns on it's last legs. nothing remains but a few remnants of the old world and everything's a crumbling mess, but despite that, you're the one who succeeds where so many others have failed, long after they've all perished. There's something oddly romantic about it.
>>330509492
>you can see Church guys walking down the steps towards you--from the Church
Those white-faced guys? Am I supposed to recognize them as people related to the Church? How would I know, other than their proximity to the Church (while they appear in other areas, and you're assuming that the player exits from the right one of three doorways from the Chapel in order to make that connection.)
>I watched two other friends of mine
In the interest of honesty, you didn't help them?
>Oh, okay, if you have this level of perception, then I'm not really surprised.
But it does all look the same. The architecture makes all the buildings look very similar, the pallete being as dull and monochromatic as it is doesn't help at all.
I only know my way around Central Yarnham and Cathedral Ward because of how many times I've tread the same routes looking for the path forward (or dying and having to go back). Compared to DeS and DaS, wherein I never had trouble navigating and I doubt anyone did (except Blighttown, which has similar traits to Yarnham aesthetically).
>>330509492
Am I the only one who thinks Forbidden Woods isn't a complete mess?
On my first playthrough, all I did was divide the areas up in my head, explored those areas, then moved on to a new "section".I didn't think making a diagram would look as convoluted as it did, but here it is.
On my second playthrough, I had the entire area thoroughly memorized.
I don't think it's as bad as everyone makes it out to be, it doesn't matter much if things look the same, all you have to do is walk around the perimeter until and make mental notes of structures/enemies to keep track of where you are.
It baffles me that people think it's a badly designed area, when I think it's one of the best. It feels like a real forest with a ton of focus on exploring.I do hate the fucking snakes though.
