The music box the girl gives you is supposed to stun him when he's frenzied? I'm hard-pressed to cite exactly how long though because I was too busy going OMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD to really estimate. Pops is a monster. And yeah, I don't see any ways out of Central Yharnam other than through him. Cathedral Ward opens up a whole bunch of options immediately after that fight, though (in addition to the zone itself being reasonably lengthy). Speaking of!
Today's progress: I am incapable of killing the Cathedral Ward boss. She deals way too much damage and I deal way too little; the one serious attempt I made, I ran out of healing after chipping through at best 40% of her healthbar. Fortunately, she doesn't appear to be blocking anything (other than like 40% of her own damn boss arena, god dodging is a bitch in there) so I was still free to explore other zones.
Old Yharnam is the longest straight run without a break that I've ever encountered in a From game, and I am indeed taking Shrine of Storms into consideration here. Two words that should never go together gatling sniper.. I wasn't exactly keeping careful track of time, but I feel like it could've been as much as an hour and a half to two hours to clear the place from top to bottom (granted, moving slowly with extreme caution because I don't know where everything is, but still, that's just one successful run there, not a death loop). Resource exhaustion was a definite thing by the time I found with tremendous relief the area's only significant shortcut (although I might've been better off if I hadn't wasted a ton of resources on a futile attempt to kill the badass hunter). There was a developer message at the end outright suggesting I summon someone for the boss, so I gave it a shot to see if there was an NPC helper about, but nothing happened. I'm actually not sure how you'd go about specifically summoning an NPC in this game or even knowing whether one was there, given there are no actual summon signs in Bloodborne. But anyway I could see the boss from outside its room and it didn't look like much from afar so I just walked in alone as usual and OMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD
So...so they're all going to be that terrifying? Okay. Okay, then. (Even the Pinwheel analogue was a little scary.)
I finally found a nice priestess outfit. I have a proper skirt now and I can curtsey. We're making progress. Actually, it almost seems like the outfit has altered the reactions of some NPCs? A couple people in houses and another priestess actively greeted me as though I was a member of the church (quite fearfully in the former case; hardly a surprise considering half the bosses I've encountered were clergy). Seems a bit much for coincidence that it only started happening once I switched to this outfit, but then I can't exactly reload and talk to them with another set on to check because autosave.
The crystal gecko analogue in Bloodborne is decidedly lacking the previously established quality of cuteness. Ewwww. Also I do not recommend trying to block bullets with this game's shield, or perhaps blocking anything at all with it.
I don't exactly know where I should be going right now. Old Yharnam's clear, Hemwick's clear, and neither seemed to link to other zones in any way I can presently access. I guess I will go back to Yahar'gul and attempt to evade porcine revenge. (I have not previously been successful at this.) By the way, Fenrir, whenever you get to the top of the Cathedral Ward and wander off to the right to explore the neighboring zone? If you see a tall gangly dude with a huge bloody sack (thankfully I don't mean this in the Shaded Woods hollows sense), let him kill you.
At this point I feel comfortable solidly recommending Bloodborne to anyone who's previously enjoyed a Souls game (I can't imagine coming into this without prior experience of From's shenanigans). It's exactly as tense as it needs to be and boss fights are nightmares made flesh. I'm not convinced there's enough cool equipment to warrant the kind of replay value I got out of DS1&2 (half a dozen bosses in and the number of weapons/armor sets I've found is each still in single digits), but the game is definitely impressive enough to warrant a once-through. I suppose the length of some zones and the distance between warp points and shortcuts might be offputting to some people? I haven't had much issue repeating stuff since I rarely die during exploration at this point, but we're miles away from the relative brevity and convenience of Dark Souls' zones here (and it doesn't matter how much they try to overhaul Dark Souls 2, it'll feel like a vacation after Bloodborne).
-Dodging occasionally does strange things to the camera when your enemy is exceptionally mobile. This is especially noticeable with barking crows and the Old Yharnam boss, who can move so fast that they fly right by you on a successful dodge and the camera spins in a rather disorienting manner to try and maintain lock-on. Not a huge problem, but a select few obnoxious enemies + Cid's easily confused sense of direction can equal bad times.
-You can't transfer directly from one warp point to another, you always have to warp back to HQ first and then transfer from HQ to your desired location. Especially given Bloodborne's load times, that is a distinct nuisance if your immediate business involves a lot of travel. Also, if you're trying to farm up a specific item, there's no resting at a bonfire to make enemies respawn--as above, you need to warp home and then warp back to make the enemies reappear. Since enemies appear not to ever drop actual equipment, there's less reason to farm anything in the first place, but still, bit of an unnecessary hassle when there is something non-storebought you want to stock up on.
I guess that's kind of it at this point? Everything else that initially bothered me stops being an issue once you've grown out of being an incapable starting-level character.
