YMMV / Bloodborne

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Due to the ambiguous use of partner in Henryk's character entry and due to Father Gascoigne's younger daughter talking about a grandfather, people either interpret Henryk as Gascoigne's father-in-law or his lover.
  • The Moon Presence has rather ambiguous motivations, and can be considered as either the Big Good or Big Bad of the game depending on how benevolent you think its apparent mission of exterminating the Great Ones is.
  • The Narrow-minded man: If you send him to Iosefka's Clinic, he'll go to Oedon Chapel instead, where he'll accuse you of trying to mislead him. Nevertheless, he will offer some advice about the other inhabitants of the Chapel, warning the Hunter against the Chapel Samaritan and Arianna. Thing is, his advice is dead wrong, as both those characters are innocent. The question asked is if he is a deliberate Troll giving bad advice on purpose, or if he's legitimately trying to help, but too paranoid to think things through with what he knows and accordingly say anything trustworthy.
  • The Older Sister. Is she genuinely upset about her younger sister's death, or is she simply faking it? If you walk away from the window after giving her the bloodied ribbon, she starts giggling and gushing about how she can't wait to try it on. Has she simply gone mad from the blood moon and/or the revelation of her sister's death, or is she a neighbouring girl who snuck into the house in an attempt to steal the ribbon? Did she kill herself from grief or did the troll at the bottom of the ladder murder her? It doesn't help that the Young Yharnam girl never once mentions having a sister, but she does mention her parents and grandfather.
  • The Hunter's motivations for refusing Gehrman's offer to leave the dream is also subjected to this. Have they succumbed to madness? Do they want to free Gehrman from the dream, having overheard him talking about how much he hates it? Do they wish to confront the Moon Presence, either to hunt the Great Ones or to ascend themselves?
• Aluminium Christmas Trees: For the record, Siderite is an actual metal alloy that originates from meteorites. The descriptions of the two weapons that were made with this material were not wrong when they say it had 'fallen from the heavens'.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • For as impressive as Mergo's Wet Nurse is visually and aurally, her boss fight isn't quite the same: her attacks are slow and telegraphed, easily dodged and capitalized upon, with the only real issue being her colossal health pool. Even her Desperation Attack, in which she blankets the area in fog and summons a double, can be dealt with through constant dodging. Not helping matters is that getting the "Yharnam Sunrise" ending effectively makes her into possibly the Final Boss of the entire game.
  • The final boss of the Chalice Dungeons, Pthumerian Queen Yharnam, is ridiculously easy, especially since she comes on the heels of the second Bloodletting Beast and the Watchdog of the Old Lords, and her dungeon is preceded by the Defiled Chalice. The only thing to watch out for with her is the arcane binding maneuver, which is avoided by simply not attacking her excessively whenever you hear a baby cry.
  • After the frankly amazing and challenging boss that is Gehrman, The Moon Presence is rather easy in comparison. Most of its attacks have blind spots on its sides, and those that don't are very easily dodged. It's also pretty frail and doesn't deal a whole lot of damage for being the True Final Boss. Though this could be intentional, allowing the player to actually defeat it on the first try just after defeating that tough boss that is Gehrman, which most likely forced the player to consume their blood vials and put some mental strain.
• Awesome Bosses: It's a FromSoftware game. The fact that it has awesome bosses shouldn't come as a surprise:
  • Father Gascoigne. Difficult, yet so awesome. Gascoigne begins playing much like the player, dodging around with his Blunderbuss and Hunter's Axe. But, as you whittle away at his health, he slowly becomes more monstrous, until he transforms into a massive werewolf, capable of leaping across the arena and smashing apart previously unbreakable gravestones in his final form. And this is your first mandatory boss!
  • Though he's not considered a proper boss and fighting him is completely optional, the battle with Retired Hunter Djura is one of the game's cooler duels. After dodging his gatling gun throughout most of Old Yharnam, you fight him atop a precarious clock tower roof, preventing you from getting more than a few feet away from him as he relentlessly attacks you with a Pilebunker, of all things.
  • Darkbeast Paarl, the Optional Boss in the Hypogean Gaol area. It has an awesome design, essentially being a skeletal werewolf covered in electricity, and the theme that plays when you fight it is quite imposing. The fight itself is extremely difficult, due to Paarl being an extremely fast Lightning Bruiser, leaving almost no margin for error — especially if you fight it in the first half of the game, in which case you'll be very underleveled.
  • Micolash, Host of the Nightmare. A scholar gone completely mad due to exposure to the Great Ones, he spends his boss fight alternating between running away from you and shooting at you with incredibly powerful magic. Sure, his actual fight is pretty easy, but his nonsensical, yet infinitely quotable prayers throughout the fight more than makes up for the lack of difficulty.
  • Mergo's Wet Nurse is visually striking with a haunting yet sad theme, has a large pool of cool sword attacks, and can even duplicate herself temporarily.
  • The second possible Final Boss, Gehrman, the First Hunter. Imagine the fight against Father Gascoigne mentioned above — except he's faster, stronger, and doesn't even need a second form to kick your ass. You may be much stronger than you were in Gascoigne's fight, but it probably won't help you much.
  • The Old Hunters DLC has Ludwig the Accursed. He may be That One Boss, but the reveal of the Moonlight Great Sword and the accompanying music transitioning seamlessly makes it almost worth the pain. The boss gets bonus points for being a twofer - in the first stage, Ludwig, the Accursed is already one of the finest large beast battles From Soft have ever produced. But then the second stage begins and in a huge subversion of the "formerly-human boss slips further into bestial insanity" trope we've already seen several times, the sacred light of the Moonlight Great Sword restores the beast's sanity and Ludwig, the Holy Blade brings one of the greatest giant swordsman battles From Soft have ever made as well!
  • Lady Maria, the DLC's Climax Boss, who stands out with possibly the best Gascoigne-like duel in the entire game. The boss is fast, capable of Flash Step spam, employs two swords for swift hit and run tactics. Then the boss Turns Red, her blades start doing freaking Sword Beam attacks made of blood. Then she Turns Red again and the blood is now on fire. And that's not even getting into the amazing atmosphere, the predictably grand music, or the lore implications. It's a little bittersweet having to fight the Plain Doll's template, truth be told.
  • As difficult as the previous fights are, the DLC's Final Boss is an absolute killer, quite possibly the hardest fight From has designed: at the end of the Fishing Hamlet, you fight the Orphan of Kos on a rain-swept beach, right next to the corpse of Kos itself. It's one of the fastest Lightning Bruisers in the game, and easily the most aggressive, constantly slashing its huge weapon around you with few warnings and breaks. That's hard enough, but then it Turns Red and gains a speed upgrade, a damage boost, and a whole host of new attacks and effects. As the de facto True Final Boss of the Bloodborne experience, it's the ultimate test of your skills yet one that manages to be completely fair and free of frustration.
• Awesome Music: So many pieces, they have their own page.
• Base-Breaking Character: Micolash is a rather divisive character. Some enjoy his Large Ham personality and unconventional boss battle, while others think he's an annoying gimmick fight whose only difficulty comes from the fact that he's somewhat difficult to corner and can one-shot you with A Call Beyond.
• Breather Boss:
  • Djura the Hunter, found on top of a tower in Old Yharnam, can be knocked into a Bottomless Pit with just two or three shots of your gun. Even if you don't shoot him, Djura may just end up flinging himself off while avoiding your attacks. And if you think this will make you lose the important loot that he drops, if you just reload the map (either by quitting and reloading or exiting and reentering the area), the loot will spawn back at the top of the tower.
  • The Witch of Hemwick is generally considered to be the easiest boss in the game. The Mad Ones summoned by the Witch are not very dangerous as long as you keep your distance, which isn't hard, because they merely walk toward you instead of running. The only real danger with the Witch is if you don't manage to kill the second Witch in time, leading to the first Witch coming back to life with ranged magic attacks that bind you and make you a sitting duck for the Mad Ones to gang up on. And if you decided to empty your Insight to 0, the Mad Ones wouldn't even spawn, leaving the Witches as the only enemies.
  • The Celestial Emissary is competing with the Witch for the "Easiest Boss" category. The enemies it summons are not very fast and don't have much health, and if you have a long weapon with an attack that can sweep a large area, like the Hunter Axe's transformed L2 attack, you can get rid of whole groups of them in no time. The only really dangerous attack it has is its laser attack when its health gets low, but the boss doesn't have much health to begin with, so you can kill it before it even has a chance to use it.
  • Micolash, Host of the Nightmare is rather memorable to be sure, what with the crazy Mensis-member babbling at you while going with his magical attacks and fisticuffs, but all of those attacks are telegraphed and easily dodged or interrupted. His stage is also littered with Skeleton Puppets which deal decent damage when they hit, but they're somewhat slow, easily dodged, and are rather fragile, though the odd hit from them can add up if you get lost or can't find how to get to him. His only real claim to fame is A Call Beyond, which, to be fair, is friggin' devastating.
  • Despite the fact that she's a Great One and has a pretty large health pool, Amygdala ends up being one of the easier bosses. Her long windup animations give you ample time to react, and you can often get at least 2 good hits in on her whenever she lowers her weakspot, her head — and those hits are often treated as visceral attacks! All these factors make the fight more long than it is difficult. If you have the Cannon fully upgraded and you applied the Bone Marrow Ash onto it, a direct hit to the head would immediately knock her to the ground, leaving you to land a visceral attack.
  • The One Reborn is generally agreed to be one of the easiest bosses in the game (not that that's saying much...). His attacks have far reach and can deal a ton of damage, but they're fairly easy to dodge as long as you keep running and rolling as much as possible, and he has some very generous openings that allow the player to freely whale on him with impunity (especially if they kill the six Bell Maidens before going to work on him). But considering he's encountered right at the end of Yahar'ghul and right before the Nightmare of Mensis—widely considered to be the two hardest levels in the game—his boss fight is a welcome reprieve.
• Breather Level: The Lecture Building. It's very short and very easy, especially in comparison to the sheer hell that was Yahar'gul before it. You can just sprint right through if you want, but a little exploration can also get you some useful loot and a hint that you should be keeping an eye out for thirds of umbilical cord, which is essential for the True Ending.
• Broken Base:
  • The devs saying that the game will run at 30 FPS, claiming that's it's the best framerate for action games caused no shortage of arguments. Some people were indifferent to it, while others think it was an excuse to prioritize the graphics over making the game run smoothly. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that the game often drops below 30 fps during combat, which hurts the smoothness and responsiveness of the gameplay. This is somewhat mitigated by playing the game on PS5, which improves performance significantly, but the PS5 is notorious for being extremely difficult to obtain at MSRP and the game has never been patched to run at 60 FPS for PS5 users.
  • The online mechanics of the game are subject to a lot of scrutiny. The long wait times, the lack of people using their bells to either invade or co-op due to the aforementioned queue times, and the more convoluted invasion process in general have upset a lot of people who utilized the online a lot in past Souls games, while others say that it's not a big deal, especially now that many of the problems with it have been addressed through patches and the community themselves.
  • The small number of weapons and armor has been criticized by some; a large amount of people liked the large roster of available weapons in the Souls games thanks to the choice potential and varied builds. Others like the weapons being more distinct from each other for the most part and think that it's streamlined for the better, as well as people using a few weapons/armor sets anyway.
  • Some feel that the game's combat is little more than "R1 spamming" and dodging, while others would contend that it helps the theme of Bloodborne and also that with all Trick weapons, there's a lot of variety to go with beyond the basic R1 attack.
  • The Chalice Dungeons are pretty contentious, especially the Root Chalice Dungeons. Some view them as a nice side levels adding extra fun and challenges, while other see them as a somewhat grindey waste of time. The convoluted requirements for accessing them in the first place did not help matters.
  • Blood Vials and Quicksilver Bullets are quantifiable items to be looted, purchased, and stockpiled, instead of being replenished for free to a set number at checkpoints like the Estus Flask in Dark Souls. On the one hand, this means that players can replenish their pool of consumable items "on the go," loosening the tether of checkpoints and allowing newer players to be bolder, more confident, and aggressive in battle with less punishment, by refilling on Vials and Bullets as they use them. On the other, if the player hits a wall or a tough boss, they may use up all of their items and have to go grind for more, adding an extra layer of Padding to the game. The next two games From Software made in the genre, Dark Souls III and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, returned to the Estus system for health potions.
• Catharsis Factor: Par for the course for a Souls-like RPG: the game's unrelenting difficulty level might be frustrating at first, but it also makes it all the more satisfying once you get enough of a handle on the controls to gracefully dive, dodge, and roll your way around the hostile denizens of Yharnam, savagely slicing through anybody foolish enough to threaten you. And as intimidating as the bosses can be, figuring out their unique attack patterns eventually turns each boss battle into a graceful dance of death as you learn to run circles around foes who previously destroyed you in seconds. The first time you see the magic words "PREY SLAUGHTERED" appear on the screen after a particularly challenging boss fight, the feeling is absolutely euphoric.
• Common Knowledge: Popular perception is that Bloodborne is the "fast" Souls-like RPG with the most powerful dodging system and quickest enemies. While this is true compared to its immediate predecessors, its combat is relatively slow compared to many others which would come out soon after like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Code Vein. What Bloodborne truthfully is is one of if not the most aggressive Souls Like RPGs, with many of its gameplay mechanics encouraging an Attack! Attack! Attack! playstyle not found in other games.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Even with the more streamlined weapons this still occurs. Of note is Ludwig's Holy Blade, especially for those with strength builds. It has attacks that cover a good area and come out relatively quickly, it scales well with strength, skill, and arcane, and it can be acquired around only a third of the way into the game.
• Complete Monster: Micolash, Host of the Nightmare, is a former member of the Byrgenwerth scholars who leads the School of Mensis. Bent on ascending past humanity and being granted "Eyes" by the Great Ones, Micolash and the school have countless people abducted into the Unseen village of Yahar'ghul, experimented upon to make hideous undead abominations without humanity. Sacrificing his school to draw himself into the Nightmare of Mensis, Micolash also keeps a Great One captive and tortured in their experiments, being the one who contacted the Great Ones to call down the Blood Moon upon Yharnam and start the horrific scourge.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • Micolash is undoubtedly insane. He's also one of the most memorable characters in the game thanks to this, due to great lines and his howling, despite being a One-Scene Wonder and having possibly the most hated boss fight in the game.
  • Valtr, Master of the League, who ate the beast that killed his friends.
• Creepy Awesome: Like its predecessors, most of the whole game is very creepy yet awesome aesthetic. Darkbeast Paarl is a notable example.
  • The introductory cutscene for the One Reborn, in which the moon turns oily black before this deformed Eldritch Abomination seeps down from it like some unholy cosmic abortion. It's Nausea Fuel to the extreme while also being completely badass.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The Bloodlickers. They get bonus points for actually looking like spiders… or rather, pale, bloated human fleas with Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl heads. Most players will first encounter them in Cainhurst Castle and get wrecked by their erratic attacks and invulnerability to parries. What truly qualifies them for Demonic Spider status are the ones that appear in Chalice dungeons after an enemy is killed with a visceral attack. Imagine breezing happily back through a cleared room only to encounter one of these monstrosities slurping blood off the floor.
  • Chime Maidens themselves are very weak, but will continuously spawn monsters (which, incidentally, can include actual spiders) who will seek you out and attack you. This can be especially rough in the Chalice Dungeons, where their thralls seem to know exactly where you are at all times. You don't even have to be in the same room—they will find you eventually, and in some dungeons will even attack you as you're coming up on the floor's first lantern!
  • Snatchers are the first truly difficult enemy you'll encounter after you defeat the Blood-starved Beast; a few will appear in Cathedral Ward and will undoubtedly crush the living shit out of you and then take you to a high-level area full with even more Snatchers! These undead mobs with sacks over their shoulders have massive health and deal INSANE damage, they have many attack moves, and when under 75% health they will turn into god-damn martial artists and become a full on Lightning Bruiser. Don't let them fool you with their slow-walking act either, they can pounce you at anytime which causes MASSIVE damage and can also be linked into a combo.
  • The Winter Lanterns. Not only do they spam a grab attack that's difficult to avoid, hard to parry, and very damaging, but just being around them causes the Frenzy meter to rise. If they grab you, chances are you'll be killed by the Frenzy effect long before the lengthy animation is finished. They also cannot be snuck up on because they're covered with eyes. Killing them is often more trouble than it's worth. The only mercy is that they are only found in optional areas of the Nightmares.
  • Almost as hated as the Winter Lanterns are the Brainsuckers. What they are, essentially, is a Cthulhumanoid whose primary attack is to grab you and suck out some of your Insight with an enormous tentacle that bursts suddenly from their head, draining a ton of your health in the process. Once they have a hold of you, you can shorten the grab time slightly by mashing the shoulder buttons, but you will still take massive damage and won't get the Insight you lose back even if you kill them immediately afterwards. Making things worse is the hooded variants' ability to fire spells at you that restrain you and hold you in place while they run up to eat your head. These spells are very hard to dodge due to the speed at which the projectile moves, and they can spam them at an insane rate, meaning that even if you dodge one, the next is probably going to hit you unless you take cover immediately. And if all that doesn't make you hate them, then the disgusting gurgling sounds they make constantly when idle will.
  • Exclusively found in the Nightmare areas are the Giant Lost Children. On their own, they aren't too difficult, as their slow attacks can be dodged fairly easily. What makes them a pain in the ass is their boulder throw. It can take a decent chunk of your health if you're lucky or just outright kill you if you aren't, and there's usually more than one of them in each area they're found in.
  • The Shark Giants in the Fishing Hamlet area of the DLC are some of the toughest, most unfair enemies you will ever encounter in the game. They're quick, they hit like trucks, the delays in their attacks make them tricky to dodge, they have long combos, and their attacks have such massive reach and arcs they can still hit you even if you think you've dodged out of range. Apart from their normal swings, the Shark Giants also have a charge attack that can kill you instantly, and, more importantly, has even more range, allowing them to leap at you from one end of the arena and eat you. What truly makes them truly unfair is that all their attacks track you to a ridiculous degree. Just when you think you've sidestepped the attack, the Giant turns at the tail end of its swing to smash you into the dirt and kill you. For extra unfairness, they never appear alone, always with squads of other fishmen (meaning you have to slowly kite weaker individuals to pick them off), and, if you want to collect the Rakuyo – one of the best weapons in the game^note especially if you have a Skill-based build and usually don't use a gun, in which case its two-handed stance allows you to finally make full use of your arms with a swift weapon – you have to face two of them at once. None of the bosses are as unfair as the Shark Giants; at least you can survive the bosses' combos and dodge with practiced reflexes and observation. Fortunately, they have less health than bosses, the first one can be killed by blowing up the Exploding Barrels nearby, and the two guarding the Rakuyo can be made to fight each other with some Shaman Bone Blades.
  • The tentacle-faced Church Executioners from the DLC are also this. They have tons of health, can kill you in only a few hits, have long combos, and can buff their weapon up to not only add MORE range, but also a secondary hitbox after EVERY swing.
  • Really, it says a lot about this game's difficulty level that even Huntsmen (i.e. the most basic enemy type in the game) can qualify for this trope. When you first encounter them in Central Yharnam before you've had a chance to level up, most of them can kill you in one or two hits—and they become even more deadly when they attack you en masse, when one of them can easily kill you while you're fending off another (particularly if a rifle-wielding Huntsman takes aim at you from a distance while you're distracted by a group with melee weapons). While they become somewhat less threatening in the early stages once you get a chance to level up, the ones in the later stages level up to match the player's progress, meaning that many of them can still kill you in one or two blows. Most players learn early on that dodging and careful timing are absolutely essential for surviving this game, even when dealing with lowly Mooks.
• Difficulty Spike: Even for a Souls-like RPG, once you kill Rom, Yharnam and Yahar'gul get a lot more dangerous with the addition of Bell-Ringing Women buffing and reviving enemies, and new enemies throughout Yahar'gul. What follows Yahar'gul are the Nightmare Areas like the Frontier and the Nightmare of Mensis, which are both quite hard as well.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Plain Doll for being one of the nicest and most helpful characters in the games.
  • Provost Willem has the most famous lines in the game.
  • As of the release of The Old Hunters, Lady Maria has become this as well. Which makes sense, given that the Doll and Maria are sort of the same character. And, to a lesser extent, Ludwig and Simon.
  • Micolash and Valtr, for the reasons mentioned under Crazy Is Cool. Though Micolash is liked more for his Cloud Cuckoolander antics than for his boss fight, which is generally considered to be one of the worse fights in the game.
  • Gascoigne and his family seem to be this as well, especially his youngest daughter. Because of how awful players tend to feel for her death, it's not uncommon to find people on fan forums or other websites asking how they can save her. There is; it's to never speak to her in the first place. The moment she greets you, her fate from then on is sealed.
• Fandom Rivalry: A large chunk of Bloodborne fans were not happy when The Last of Us was revealed to be getting a remake (despite already having a remaster that was still playable on PS5) that is also coming to PC as well as Playstation 5 while Bloodborne is still a PS4 exclusive and hasn’t even received a 60FPS patch for PS5 users.
• Fanon:
  • Alfred being a former Paleblood Hunter like Eileen and Djura is a common interpretation of the character. This is because Alfred looks a bit young compared to many other Hunters, and it's implied that the Executioners went to Cainhurst many years before the start of the story given how old Logarius appears to be. This is somewhat implied by his title if summoned for the Blood Starved Beast, "Old Hunter Vileblood Hunter Alfred". The common guess is that Alfred was an Old Hunter who joined the Hunt, learned of the Vilebloods and the Executioners, and was so enthralled by their tale that he chose to leave the Hunters Dream to follow in their footsteps. The game itself doesn't really say this is for sure.
  • Many fans believe that Gascoigne's elder daughter is actually an imposter. There are a few reasons for this: his younger daughter notably doesn't mention having an older sister, one of her neighbors inexplicably vanishes at the same time her older sister shows up (leading some fans to conclude that they're actually the same person), and the older sister can be heard laughing madly shortly after bursting into tears upon learning of her sister's death (giving some people the impression that she was faking her grief). Given that part of the daughter's questline revolves around retrieving a jeweled red brooch for her, some fans theorize that her neighbor broke into her house to steal the brooch—which is (somewhat) bolstered by the fact that her "sister" can be heard giddily saying that she can't wait to try on her white ribbon after the player gives it to her.
  • Within the game proper, it's never explained what the Church Guardians actually are—but considering their pale skin, large proportions, and strangely alien features, they're pretty clearly not human. But since they're noticeably similar in appearance to Queen Yharnam, the most popular theory is that they're Pthumerians resurrected by the Healing Church. Considering the Healing Church is effectively descended from the scholarly academy founded to study the Pthumerian civilization, this is generally agreed to be a fairly plausible explanation.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Blood Souls, after the naming conventions of the previous games Hidetaka Miyazaki directed.
  • "The Bloody Crow of Painhurst" for the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, an infamously powerful mini-boss. Some also call him "Crowsteel", in reference to the parodical memetic fan character Coldsteel, because his gear is mismatched and his stats are insanely high, making him resemble a fanfiction OC who somehow wandered into the game.
  • "Castle Painhurts" for Cainhurst Castle, for being a gigantic difficulty spike if you sequence-break the game.
  • Beast Souls, similarly a mix of "Demon's Souls / Dark Souls" and the game's Working Title, Project Beast.
  • Bloodporn, because of how Shuhei Yoshida was misheard at the E3 press conference. That's ironically a pretty good way to describe the game, though.
  • Manus, for the Cleric Beast due to the similarities between the two.
  • One peek at the Cleric Beast's boss theme ^note composed by Michael Wandmacher is all it took for fans of the Souls series to declare the soundtrack as "Prepare to Loud Edition".
  • Buttborne, after Youtuber DaveControlLive noticed how using the Visceral Attack backstab on certain enemies makes it look like the player hunter is forcefully shoving his/her hand up their ass and then wrenching it out. Which, if done to the Maneating Hogs, yeah, you are.
  • The gigantic pig found in the Central Yharnam aqueducts was quickly nicknamed "Epic Name Bro" after the Youtuber of the same screen name, due to Shampoo, the plush pig he uses as his icon.
  • The Shadows of Yharnam are sometimes known as Gank Squad 2.0. Some also refer to the trio of hunters in the unseen village as such.
  • Papa Guacamole has been gaining some traction as a nickname for Father Gascoigne. "Gascan" or "Gascoin" also crop up fairly often.
  • Dark Souls in Dunwall, due to the similarities in their setting inspiration.
  • Micolash, Host of the Nightmare, is otherwise known as Micolash Cage, with added Visual Pun to his caged headpiece.
  • The Plain Doll is often referred to by players as either "My Waifu", or "Doll Waifu".
  • The Whirligig Saw is nicknamed "the pizza cutter".
  • Bone Marrow Ash is often just called " Bone Ash" or, more rarely, "Bone Arrow Mash"
  • Some fans like to refer to the game's VERY liberal uses of shortcuts in areas as Shortcut Porn.
  • Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen is occasionally referred as "Yharnam, Period Queen" because of where her sheer amount of blood is spewed from.
  • Thanks to the Super Best Friends Zaibatsu, the fanbase as taken to call the infamous challenge area in the Old Hunters DLC the "Party Cave".
  • Fashionborne will appear in pretty much every discussion of armor sets in the game, mostly because they are largely cosmetic and the added bonuses are almost useless on higher levels.
  • The Kidnapper enemies are often referred to as "Sackbros".
  • The Brain of Mensis is often called "Mother Brain".
  • The glitched Chalice Dungeon “ cummmfpk”, used for XP farming, is lovingly called “The Cum Chalice” or “The Cum Dungeon”.
  • Winter Lanterns are still sometimes called “Brain Trusts”, which was the name given to them by the fan wiki before the official name was known. A lot of people took to the Punny Name, especially because the hidden meaning of “Winter Lantern” relied on a reference to native Japanese plants that got Lost in Translation.
  • Huntsmen's Minions are near-universally known as "Brick Trolls" among fans for their troll-like appearance and habit of wielding large stone bricks as weapons. Many fans are surprised to learn that it isn't their official name.
  • Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos is affectionately (or not-so-affectionately...) known as "Pasta Face" or "Noodle Face" among many fans, due to the distinctive macaroni-like tubes protruding from her face.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Arianna and Adella. While Arianna has nothing bad to say about Adella, Adella hates Arianna, most likely out of jealousy for the Hunter's attention. Despite this, they do have some following.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Bloodborne is held in very high regard by H. P. Lovecraft fans, and sees a lot of crossover between the two fandoms, due to its extremely faithful send-up to his mythos, and being the rare video game and/or visual work that pulls off both the existential dread and unknowable nature of those works.
  • There is an extreme overlap between Bloodborne fans and fans of both Darkest Dungeon games due to their similar grotesque Gothic Horror style and Lovecraftian subject matter.
• Game-Breaker:
  • A Bone Ash enhanced Cannon (also known as the Bass Cannon) deals an obscene amount of damage against anyone in its range, but is otherwise inaccurate and inefficient. The problem comes when you combine it with the Reiterspallasch Trick Weapon to effectively parry and stun your opponent (just spamming R2 is enough) and follow up with a cannon blast while they're down. Using it for low level PvP? It would be a guaranteed One-Hit Kill.
  • A Rifle Spear that stacks Arcane damage bonus blood gems only require you to do one thing: spam the L2 button, no other moves involved. This is no longer the case after the 1.04 patch, which fixed the oversight.
  • Shaman Bone Blades, as A German Spy reveals, can wreck the PvE gameplay if you use them right. Being limited to a carry stock of 3 of them may be for the best.
  • The parry mechanic itself can allow skilled players to tear through most enemies and humanoid bosses (Gascoigne, Logarius, Gehrman, etc.) with ease. Some bosses (looking at you, Pthumerian Descendant) are usually taken out exclusively using parries/visceral attacks. The later chalice dungeons balance this by summoning particularly vicious monsters when an enemy is killed with a visceral attack.
  • With a high enough Bloodtinge stat, Simon's Bowblade can make a majority of the game trivially easy, letting you hang back at a safe range and pelt enemies and bosses with high-damage arrows without having to put yourself at much risk. The only limiter to this is how well you can manage your quicksilver bullets, and if someone were to combine it with the Runes that give bullets for Visceral Attacks, even this is mitigated and the weapon becomes almost completely self-sufficient.
  • The Kos Parasite, but for 2 completely different reasons; by itself, it seemingly does nothing except restrict you to the unarmed moveset. However, if you equip the Milkweed rune, what you get is a Kin-empowered Hunter with Combat Tentacles and a bizarre moveset that, while difficult to learn, is very hard to read in PvP and causes ungodly amounts of stagger in PvE. Not only that, but the weapon deals far more damage in this state than its stats would suggest. Second, remember how it can be wielded without that particular rune? Turns out that it also adds Arcane scaling to your fists, meaning in PvP you could waltz up to unsuspecting Hunters thinking they're up against a complete joke, only to get taken down in a few light punches that they didn't even bother to dodge.
  • Similar to the weapon mentioned above are the Blacksky Eye and Accursed Brew, also from the DLC. They scale incredibly well with Arcane and use only one or two Quicksilver Bullets, respectively. The Accursed Brew is worth mentioning because of its wide hitbox while the Blacksky Eye is easily spammable with its short casting time, almost non-existent cooldown, and fair range. It's entirely possible to cheese out some bosses, even the endgame, ones only using a combination of the two.
  • From a PvE standpoint, we have the Whirligig Saw; the thing's damage output is awe-inspiring. It's fully capable of crippling every limb a boss possesses in seconds, stun-locking them in various flinch animations. It's particularly devastating against beasts, as it does serrated damage and can be set on fire, a damage type most beasts are cripplingly weak to, for even more damage. Fittingly, it is the weapon of choice for Valtr, Master of the Co-op covenant The League. Did we mention that, if you're a bit gutsy and light on your feet, you can get it from the DLC area not long after defeating Amelia, who can potentially be the second boss you kill?
  • The Rakuyo, introduced in The Old Hunters, for PvP. The Rakuyo has far more complex combos than any other weapon, making it extremely difficult to predict. Combined with its fast attack speed, this allows it to chew through other Hunters with frightening ease. Bringing this thing into invasions or duels will generally get you lots of hate mail and/or mockery, as it's universally considered the most overpowered weapon in the game once mastered.
  • The Holy Moonlight Sword counts through three virtues. First, it has excellent scaling and damage in both strength and arcane. Secondly, it has a decent moveset, amazing switch attacks, good reach, and fine rally potential. Thirdly and most importantly is its transformed attack. Its L2 is bad enough — a slow wind-up for a massive thrust almost as good as a visceral attack for a pittance in bullets... but its charged R2 is where it shines; a massive windup for an attack... that shoots a sword beam. Seems lack-luster until you account for the fact that the main swing is still present, so with perfect positioning, it hits twice for absurd bouts of damage. More importantly, the attack is an A.I. Breaker, as most bosses will just slowly walk towards you if you use a Charged Attack with no chance of hitting anything... never remembering the Sword Beam part of the attack until it hits them in the face. Alone, none of these would make the Moonlight Greatsword particularly special, but together, they make it a cut above the rest.
  • In its transformed state, all of the Church Pick's attacks deal pure Thrust damage. Why is this a game breaker? Well, as this video puts it:
    Here, look at this list:
    these are all the enemies weak to thrust damage
    [Beat]
    ALL OF THEM
  • While it takes a little while to truly get good, as this video shows, a Gunslinger build can allow for massive damage at ranges where enemies can't even touch you.
  • There's a specific Chalice Dungeon accessed by a specific.....rather suggestive glyph, cummmfpk, that, after only a few runs (run to the next room, let the unseen enemy kill itself, use a Hunter's Mark to warp back to the lantern to respawn the mob, repeat), can get you enough Blood Echoes to soft cap several stats at once. Also counts as a Disc-One Nuke, since the earliest you can access it is after killing the Blood-Starved Beast, and beating the first two bosses of the chalice you get from it.
• Gateway Series: The game served as many people's first introduction to Souls-like RPGs, and it's credited with helping the subgenre (which had previously been seen as rather niche) gain mainstream popularity and recognition. As H Bomber Guy famously pointed out, much of the game's brilliance stems from the fact that its design tacitly encourages players to adopt a more fast-paced, frenetic, and aggressive playstyle—since armor and shields are effectively non-existent, and there's a sidearm solely dedicated to parrying enemy attacks. Many players found that this playstyle made the Dark Souls games considerably more fun in spite of their infamously brutal difficulty, resulting in the Souls games developing a much larger fanbase in the years after Bloodborne's release—which likely contributed to Elden Ring becoming a massive success.
• Genius Bonus:
  • As shown on the analysis page, the level progression in The Old Hunters closely mirrors Buddhist depictions of Hell.
• Goddamn Bats: FromSoftware must have a thing for making their dog enemies as annoying as possible. It only gets worse as the game goes on, as the dogs keep getting bigger and meaner. In the Chalice Dungeons, they start being relentless, accompanied by Keepers of the Old Lords, and breathe fire.
  • Townfolk Rifleman are dangerous at the start of the game, but often pose little threat on their own past the first area. There are, however, several areas where they keep appearing in numbers and While the riflemen themselves deal little damage, getting shot by them staggers the player momentarily, which can be a huge threat when surrounded by far more dangerous enemies. You might be focused on taking down one or multiple threatening foes only to get staggered by a rifleman on the other side of the area, leaving you open to get torn to shreds. An infamous example are the Riflemen found in the graveyard prior to Hemwick Charnel Lane. They are paired with the very agile, fast and aggressive, though fragile Hunting Dogs. Getting staggered by a Rifleman while the dogs are on you is almost always a death sentence.
  • There's also the infamous worms thanks to their screwed hitbox, fast attacks, surprisingly large damage, and of course -1 attacking in groups. In a late-game level, they SPAWN from defeated enemies!
• Goddamned Boss: Micolash can be especially irritating. Unless you know the layout of the arena, it's quite difficult to corral him into a dead end so you can actually fight him. Once you do, he's relatively easy in his first phase. In the second, his use of A Call Beyond can quickly send him into That One Boss territory, and not in a good way.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • The item duplication glitch returns yet again. Although some swear it was removed in the 1.02 patch, which fixed the missing Lunarium Key glitch.
  • Leaving the game running for long periods of time (somewhere in the 12 hour range) causes a memory leak that messes with the AI of the bosses in the game. The typical result forces them to use a single attack and nothing else, which completely trivializes every boss in the game if you're willing to leave your PS4 on for a long time. The 1.03 patch fixed this, along with the long load times and the performance drops.
  • The Souls brand ragdoll physics also return in full form, after Dark Souls II disabled it for the most part.
  • Remember how Bone Ash enchanted Cannons were the bane of low Blood Level PvP characters? Now imagine if they had an unlimited load of those silver bullets with the Rapid-Fire Cannon glitch, which requires a specific series of commands to execute. This would have been the predecessor to the infamous Off-Hand bow glitch in Dark Souls III had it been discovered years earlier, and can easily cheese the Orphan of Kos, widely regarded as one of the hardest boss fights in the game.
  • Taking Frenzy damage at the right time while returning to Hunter's Dream will trigger the animation before the warp but deal the damage after, which makes you randomly keel over and die on the loading screen.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Old Hunters introduces Ludwig as one of the bosses. If you know your animal-related Dark Souls memes, take a wild guess with what mutilated animal he resembles.
  • In Dark Souls III If you do (female) Anri of Astora's quest line, depending on your playthrough, it's possible for Yuria of Londor to order an assassin to kill her in Irithyll/Anor Londo, and you later find her body in the Darkmoon Tomb. She becomes your "bride" and you have to stab her corpse during your "wedding". Female Anri is voiced by Lucy Briggs-Owen, and Yuria is voiced by Pooky Quesnel, a.k.a. Adella and Arianna, respectively. Looks like Arianna finally got back at Adella.
• Ho Yay: Gascoigne and Henryk. 'Partners' is ambiguous, and once you've defeated the former, Henryk takes up residence at his deathplace.
• It Was His Sled: The biggest twist of the game, that there's a bunch of invisible, gigantic aliens pulling the strings, has long since become common knowledge thanks to the Play the Game, Skip the Story nature.
• Jerkass Woobie: The Old Woman becomes this after she loses her mind and starts thinking you're her grandchild.
• Memetic Badass:
  • No mercy for Wheelchairs. ^note The old men enemies in wheelchairs tend to catch new players off guard, and their stupidly powerful firearms can cause trouble for even experienced players. And of course, there's Gehrman, who is in a whole 'nother category to himself.
  • The Powder Kegs are slowly gaining momentum, considering they make the coolest trick weapons in the game. Including the Whirligig Saw and the Boom Hammer. By extension, this includes Valtr: master of The League (of hunters), so-called Beast Eater and wielder of the Whirligig Saw.
• Memetic Molester: A dark variation. Some players see Gehrman as a Dirty Old Man and believe that he not only raped the Plain Doll, but encourages the player to do the same. This is due to some alarming dialogue, his distant attitude to the Doll, and the heavily implied backstory of both the doll and himself, as well as the fact that he has a barely-persceptible book called "how to pick up fair maidens" in his study. Taken up to eleven in The Old Hunters DLC, long before the Doll was created, Gehrman has a curious mania towards Lady Maria, his apprentice of Cainhurst heritage. Being unable to cope with her loss, Gehrman created an exact replica of Lady Maria, and that is where the Doll came from. One may wonder what else Gehrman did.
  • On a lighter note, the fact that Gehrman has a book titled "How To Pick Up Fair Maidens" in his workshop (can be viewed by using the Monocular) pretty much cements his Dirty Old Man status.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Much like its predecessors, the "boss kill" sound effect. The splattering of a mighty foe's blood, the sudden swell of wind and noise, followed by complete silence. It reinforces the feeling of relief after killing a particularly difficult boss.
  • The WHA-SHING of a successful parry can make one's heart skip.
  • One wouldn't be blamed for finding joy in the sounds that many Trick Weapons makes whenever they convert.
  • Given that he is the leader of one of the evil and terrible factions in the story (and one of the most annoying bosses in the game), Micolash's defeat is heralded in with a satisfying Death Wail. Laser-Guided Karma at its finest, ladies and gentlemen!
• Narm:
  • Plants resembling Amygdala appear deep in the Forbidden Woods. However, since these are plants, they just look like gigantic peanuts.
  • The giant spiders in the Nightmare of Mensis, who look like oversized Halloween decorations when they're hanging from the ceiling.
  • Upon defeating Ludwig in the DLC, his severed head will remain alive and (if you're wearing any Church attire) tearfully ask you whether the Church's legacy turned out to be honorable. Tell him a brutally honest "no" and he will deliver a line to the effect of "Just as I feared... my detractors were right after all," and then start laughing/crying/nickering like a horse for what feels like a minute straight.
• Narm Charm: The Orphan of Kos' whiny screams. Out of context they sound like a toddler who dropped their lollipop, but considering you're fighting the fetus of a dead Old One which is sobbing and wailing partially in agony and partially out of grief for its mother, they become terrifying.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • The whole theme of disease mixed with the use of blood is utterly nauseating. Injecting yourself with blood is a gameplay mechanic which you will almost certainly use several hundred times before you finish the game, and you will not be acquiring it via sanitary means; you consume it directly from nightmarish creatures, who were formerly human, in the midst of a rampant plague zone. Anyone even remotely worried about infection or bloodborne taint will have trouble just making it through the first act.
  • Not to mention that your character can traverse various sewers and cesspools (all rendered in exquisitely grotesque detail) while waste, muck, and things better left unnamed cling to their clothing. Even better; if you roll away from an enemy after taking a hit, you are essentially submerging an open wound in the filth. If you didn't have some horrible disease before, you sure do now.
  • Then again, the player was given blood ministration at the beginning of the game, which is implied to cure or at least treat "mundane" diseases; perhaps it provides an immunity to them, as well. It might also mean you've become such a violation of nature yourself that bacteria and parasites can't feed off of you.
• Nightmare Retardant: The Milkweed Rune gives you a grotesque transformation, which is supposed to represent your character becoming more like those corrupted by the Great Ones. In practice, it makes you look like you have a giant piece of cauliflower for a head◊.
• Nintendo Hard: Compared to the slow, cautionary pace of Dark Souls, head-on combat is far more faster and much more aggressive than the Souls games. Though Blood Vials and game's Rally mechanic makes healing in the game much more easier, this is compensated by the enemies and bosses' attacks and AI being far more faster, aggressive, and damaging than their Souls counterparts. Especially with The Old Hunters expansion and the game's New Game Plus, the game significantly turns up its difficulty.
• One True Pairing: Despite the game involving absolutely no romance whatsoever, quite a number of fans pair up the Hunter with the Plain Doll, mostly due to the Doll's dialogue and her devotion to the Hunter as well as how the player can choose to (sort of) reciprocate her feelings by giving her the Small Hair Ornament.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • Late in the game, you'll see that Lesser Amygdala are scattered all over Yharnam, watching your every move, and they've been doing that from the very beginning, without you even being aware of it. Only after you defeat Rom, the Vacuous Spider do they finally become fully visible to you. And if you can get your Insight high enough, you'll see them even earlier. One is hanging out right outside the Oedon Chapel, where you have been sending people to as the last safe haven for the whole game.
  • Mergo's Wet Nurse. The game will not immediately acknowledge that you've defeated her after you've reduced her health to zero. It will continue running as if she were still alive. And considering that she has the ability to teleport all over the place and create a double, this lull in the action will likely leave you wondering just where or when she's going to strike, all the way until the "Nightmare Slain" message finally appears.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: Par for the course for a Souls-like RPG. Many players elect to treat the game's story as window-dressing for the gameplay, which received the bulk of its acclaim. It doesn't exactly help that the story is fleshed out in deliberately vague terms (mostly via item descriptions and optional NPC conversations), meaning that it takes quite a bit of effort to piece together anything about the plot beyond the most basic details. Many critics have suggested that this was (at least in part) a deliberate attempt to capture the spirit of the Cosmic Horror genre, where one of the core recurring themes is the idea that the human mind is incapable of fully grasping the truth about how the world truly works. Lampshaded by Honest Trailers in their video about the game:
  "Uncover the dark mystery of Yharnam, the Healing Church, and the Old Ones! Or don't—because most of the story is hidden in the item descriptions. And the good ending has you turn into a magic squid, so... it's probably pretty dumb."
• Player Punch:
  • The death of Gascoigne's younger daughter, and later, the suicide of her sister as a direct result.
  • You send the younger sister to the chapel, but she never arrives. The older sister asks you to find her, saying she was carrying a white ribbon. Later, you kill one of the giant pigs (its face covered in eyes} and find a bloody ribbon. You talk to the older sister through the window again and give her the ribbon. Later still, she doesn't answer at the window anymore... and you find her broken body at the bottom of a ladder, having jumped or fallen to her death.
  • Arianna being murdered by Adella, all because of the latter's demented jealousy.
  • Discovering Iosefka's Clinic and then finding out that all the people you thought you were saving by sending there have been subjected to horrific experiments by the Choir agent posing as Iosefka.
  • Returning to Gilbert's window at Central Yharnam during the Blood Moon. One of the first helpful NPCs that you talk to reveals that he's been afflicted by some incurable disease, but is content with the knowledge that he can die human. Returning to the window after the fight with Vicar Amelia will reveal that the man is still alive, but is suffering through immense pain, eventually reaching that point where he won't even converse with us anymore. Should you go back to that same window after beating Rom, you'll find a lone beast patient wandering around outside the now-shattered window of the sickly man's house, the iron bars bent outward with the full implication that he succumbed to beasthood... This poor man, who had been nothing but kind to us, who was satisfied with the knowledge of dying with his humanity intact, and he had that dignity taken away from him. It's especially hard for players who had grown fond of the character, and found a sense of security outside of his window - one of the first safe havens of the game outside of the Hunter's Dream. Harder yet when you return to that window after putting the poor beast out of it's misery, when his cough was quite audible before. But now, there's nothing but silence...
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • If anything in the game was consistently criticized, it was the load times, which can take anywhere from 30-45 seconds. Considering the nature of the game, you will be seeing the load screen a lot. Thankfully, From Software acknowledged the problem and made a patch that reduced the load times considerably.
  • Even the most adamant of fans of Bloodborne utterly hate Frenzy's mechanics. The concept is fine (going mad from being in the presence of the otherworldly or incomprehensible), but the mechanics of it are absurd. The higher your Insight, the lower your defense against Frenzy, and Frenzy continues to build up long after the source of the attack has either stopped or been killed. Winter Lanterns in the Nightmare Frontier and Nightmare of Mensis are the absolute worst about it, as merely being in their line of sight (note that their heads are enormous spheres covered in eyes) can inflict frenzy. Unless you're packing plenty of sedatives or have very good timing on a visceral attack, you're losing around 50-90% of your HP from bad timing.
  • Many players agree that the Chalice Dungeons provide some post-game challenges and help extend the game's playtime, even if the rooms are relatively same-y. But what makes them truly scrappy are the numerous Demonic Spiders (see above) littered throughout the dungeons that can easily overwhelm you, and many of the bosses 1) have buttloads of health, 2) are massive, 3) have greater reach and attack arcs because of their size, 4) deal so much damage they can kill you in one or two shots, even if you've maxed out your stats. This means that combat loses all nuance, as it becomes harder to dodge, much less survive enemy attacks, and fighting becomes more frustrating than fun.
• Self-Fanservice: While pretty much every game has this these days (Rule 34 explicitly states "no exceptions"), there's a particularly notable (and bizarre) case in Bloodborne. You'll never guess who the most frequently fan-sexualised female character in the game is after the Plain Doll. Lady Maria? No. Arianna? No. Iosefka? No. It's Vicar Amelia. And not in human form either, but in her giant horned dog-beast form. Even non-porn artists are fond of idealising◊ her◊.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Despite never meeting or even acknowledging each other's presence, some people ship Father Gascoigne with Djura.
  • Even though he's never seen in-person, and the fact that he's dying of an incurable illness, Gilbert/Hunter has a small following.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: It's very easy to just spend hours upon hours exploring the Chalice Dungeons while entirely ignoring the main game. Due to the increased number of blood echoes awarded by enemies in later Chalices, it's not uncommon for players to get sidetracked by the Chalice Dungeons and then come out completely overlevelled for even the hardest content in the main game.
• Spiritual Licensee:
  • To all of the Dark Souls games, from fans and reviewers alike. It takes the excellent combat of the Souls trilogy and reinvents it for a much more visceral experience.
  • The monster-based horror aesthetic, difficulty level and nonlinear world design have led many fans to deem it the 3D Castlevania game they always wanted.
  • Given its Cosmic Horror Story aesthetic, the game is essentially an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's works, with particular emphasis to the Dream Cycle.
  • To the French film Brotherhood of the Wolf, which uses themes and aesthetics that clearly inspired the production of Bloodborne on some level.
• Squick:
  • Any medical student/doctor who pays attention to the way the game describes blood ministration & the creation & use of blood vials will cringe at just how many things are wrong with it. First, the person violently injects the blood vial into their right leg. In real life, this would likely cause more blood loss than the vial would restore, not to mention that the blood vials are all likely contaminated, giving roots to all sorts of ...*ahem*... bloodborne diseases. There's also the fact that if the recipient's blood type doesn't match with the blood type in the vial, that person would be dead within minutes due to the body's immune response destroying the received blood.
  • The player character can heal themselves by being splattered in the blood of their enemies, and while this could make the above a bit less awful, since it's clearly working off the supernatural and not realistic medical laws, it also means you're absorbing blood from creatures you probably wouldn't even want to touch let alone drink from, like rotting corpses and diseased animals. On top of that, what some enemies bleed doesn't even appear to be real blood, with some like the Rotted Corpse bleeding a clear, viscous fluid that looks more like the same raw sewage they're crawling in.
  • Backstabbing the giant pig in the sewers looks... unclean, to say the least.
  • In the Old Hunters DLC, the last Brain Fluid you have to find to finish Saint Adeline's questline is found by killing her, which means she is effectively drinking her own brain fluid. Yikes.
• That One Achievement: For the most part, platinuming the game is surprisingly easy, since the trophies you need to unlock are all for killing all the bosses, retrieving all the Hunter weapons and tools, and completing all three endings. However, there's one trophy that will be a pain in the ass to get: Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen, a boss trophy you get for killing the Final Boss in the Pthumeru Ihyll Chalice Dungeon. Killing her isn't actually much of a problem (see Anti-Climax Boss). Rather, the difficulty comes from getting to her, since it means traversing all of the (increasingly challenging) Pthumerian Chalice Dungeons, including the ridiculously hard Defiled Chalice Dungeon, as well as beating two nasty bosses on the upper levels of Pthumeru Ihyll.
• That One Attack:
  • Martyr Logarius' dark magic spells are incredibly aggravating even for experienced dodgers (one large skull projectile clips through the scenery and towards you, for starters). You'd better pray that he goes after you with melee attacks.
  • Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos has a ton of these. Two charge attacks that are near impossible to dodge without great timing, a flurry of magic spells that deal a ton of damage, and two other attacks that inflict frenzy. There's a very good reason why she's one of the harder bosses in the game.
  • A Call Beyond, which is used by multiple NPCs. It's excessively difficult to dodge and it can one-shot you if you're unlucky. And Micolash in particular likes to spam it. There's a reason why the player base likes to name it "A Call Beyond Bullshit."
  • Rom, the Vacuous Spider for the most part is a pretty simple Flunky Boss. However, when you reduce its health enough, it starts spamming a very high damaging meteor attack. These meteors can home in on you as well. And Rom likes to do this move constantly.
  • Ludwig's jump attack. He pretty much leaves the screen for a few seconds, then comes crashing down on your location, dealing huge damage. Avoiding it requires either split-second dodging (sprinting doesn't work half the time) or careful maneuvering around the arena. And then in the above boss' second phase, he has two attacks that involve pointing his sword either up or down. Down isn't the subject here. Up is the real issue; he will use a much larger shockwave around him just to knock the Hunter over, then begin charging his sword. If you don't have him in either half of the corpse room or realize you can dodge behind him just before he strikes, you are going to eat a massive cone-shaped shockwave. It easily can cover half of the whole room and will most likely kill you before it ends.
  • The Undead Giant's leaping attack can be one of these if you have to go back and fight the one that appears as the first boss in the Pthumerian Chalice Dungeon. It likes to bring this attack out the instant you pass through the Nightmare Mists into its boss room before you're able to dodge, putting you at an immense disadvantage right out of the gate. If you're unlucky enough to face the version with chains protruding from its back, it may also one-shot you with a spinning attack that covers most of the arena.
  • Father Gascoigne's forward leap after he transforms into a beast is incredibly fast and hard to dodge, but what pushes it into That One Attack territory is that he is almost guaranteed to use it after he's knocked you down with another attack, killing the player instantly if they don't spam the roll button at the right time. Making matters worse is that he'll often use this technique several times in a row; first one to knock you down and the rest to finish you off. And to make matters even worse he is probably the first or second (depending on whether you fight the Cleric Beast first) boss you encounter so unless you've spent most of the game so far practicing dodging and stunning...good luck.
  • The Bloody Crow of Cainhurst's gun shots can deplete half your health and is made even worse if he parries you since his visceral attacks are a straight One-Hit Kill no matter how much you have in vitality, he will also use his gun constantly after strafing or rolling so be prepared to dodge instantly after he does to avoid that gun shot.
  • The Orphan of Kos's second phase is full of these, but arguably the worst is his lightning attack, which covers the majority of the arena and forces you to split your attention between dodging the Orphan's frenzied attacks and trying not to get hit by the lightning, both of which are damaging enough on their own and can kill you instantly when comboed together. His leaping attacks are also pretty infuriating, as he basically leaves the screen for a couple of seconds, and if you're unlucky he'll land right on top of you and do immense damage.
  • The Headless Bloodletting Beast's body slam attack, which he loves to do whenever you're underneath him. It's incredibly difficult to dodge because it basically turns his entire body and the area around it into one giant hitbox and, due to its short windup and the Event-Obscuring Camera resulting from the boss's enormous size, it's very difficult to see coming as well. This attack can easily take off more than half your health and he spams it with abandon whenever you dare get underneath him, and it's probably the main reason why this boss is so infamous among the player base.
• That One Boss: Now has its own Page.
• That One Level:
  • Yahar'gul, the Unseen Village. Unlike other stages, this one is swarming with Bell Maidens who continuously respawn enemies, sometimes right behind you (and you only get Echoes for killing them the first time). It's full of Lesser Amygdala that will try to snatch you as you run past or blast laser beams in your direction. And then there's the infamous "Gank Squad," a trio of NPC Hunters that will tear you to shreds without extremely careful baiting.
  • The Forbidden Woods. The enemies are a step up in trouble as they are more likely to keep attacking while being hit, they can inflict poison, and they start appearing in groups as you get further on. What makes this area a pain is that it's so massive, to the point where it's easy to get lost in. It doesn't help that the stretches between lanterns and short cuts are really long.
  • Upper Cathedral Ward. The orphanage is pretty much the only reason this area is hard, it is home to tougher Scourge Beasts AND Brainsuckers, the worst part is it's almost impossible to deal with one without alerting the others.
  • Nightmare Frontier. Big, easy to get lost, and has tough enemies such as Loran Silverbeast and rock throwing giants that are placed in difficult positions which are incredibly hard to get to. Not to mention the rocks they throw could one-shot you if you don't spend a lot in vitality; this area also introduces the Winter Lantern.
  • Nightmare of Mensis. As the final area of the game before 2 optional final bosses in Hunter's Dream, it is certainly tough. Upon venturing further, you'll immediately be induced with frenzy by the Brain of Mensis located far away in a tower, this makes navigating difficult since you'll have to put up with Loran Silverbeast constantly attacking you when you're busy trying to staying out of the Brain of Mensis' line of sight and hiding behind objects. This area is massive and littered with tough enemies such as Winter Lanterns, rock throwing giants, Hunters, and many more.
  • The Defiled Chalice Dungeon. Most of the dungeon wouldn't be bad, but it comes with an extra side effect of cutting your HP in half. The actual dungeon is hell enough, but then you get to the bosses, who can easily one-shot you or catch you in a combo that drains your entire health bar. And the final boss will literally rip her arms off and use them as trick weapons. Did we mention she's fifty feet tall and has six arms?
• That One Sidequest:
  • Eileen the Crow's questline. Not so much a factor of difficulty, as much as the fact that it's very easy to miss all the (extremely particular) requirements to trigger each event.
  • To get your hands on the Rakuyo weapon, you have to descend a ladder down into a well within the Fishing Hamlet and battle the two Giant Fishmen inside. One Giant Fishman by itself is stronger than most enemies, including some of the bosses, though thankfully the second one only joins in when the first is brought down to half health (and the first can be killed via the exploding barrels). Adding to this, one of the Fishmen sports a completely different moveset from the rest of them, meaning you have to learn the different timings for dodging or get thoroughly thrashed; if you want Rakuyo, you're earning it. That said, a popular method to deal with these two jerks is to hit the first one with a Shaman Bone Blade as it walks to where the second is clinging to the ceiling. Ideally, these two will begin mauling each other and will, at worst, leave each other severely low on health. Another way to get the Rakuyo can be found in the form of a passage just before the Final Boss of the DLC that leads to a raised platform where you can pepper the Fishmen with ranged attacks in relative safety. Of course, getting there means getting through the entire Fishing Hamlet first and then dealing with a pair of Winter Lanterns to actually get to the platform.
  • Getting rid of the Brain of Mensis in the Nightmare is a procession of instant death threats that have to be carefully navigated. One has to get past Micolash, and then jump into an open window from an elevator shortcut. It's very easy to just miss or bounce off the window and die from the fall. Then a bridge with four Winter Lanterns that will make your head explode if you mess up, a room full of spiders to get you while wounded, and then finally you can pull the lever to make that Brain fall from its perch.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The Choir as a whole is pretty interesting faction, basically running the Healing Church and their research is responsible for some of the more alien creatures you encounter in Yharnam. While they were mostly wiped out, a few of their followers remained such as Imposter Iosefka, Yurie the last Scholar and Choir Intelligence Damien. Sadly, 2/3 of these characters don't speak to you and the one that does doesn't actually share anything.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The DLC area, the Hunter's Nightmare, is stated to be a hellish dream space where Hunters spend eternity after becoming drunk on blood. While the DLC features several historical Hunters, Hunters that go insane during the main game like Gascoigne, Eileen, or Albert don't appear at all.
• Ugly Cute:
  • The Messengers are pretty hideous little things, but when they wear funny hats they end up becoming oddly cute. They're also described as being innocent, eager to please, and having a love of dress-up. They also do a funny little dance whenever the player positively rates one of their messages. It's hard not to like the freakish little ghouls. Even the doll is quite taken with the Messengers, describing them as "sweet."
  • Rom, the Vacuous Spider also dips into this a bit despite being a Great One. It's a stubby-looking pillbug monster that is a quite passive opponent compared to most other bosses in the game. Its offspring also fall into this, being man-sized baby spiders who attack by leaping into the air and landing clumsily on their faces.
  • The Keeper's Hunting Dogs found within the Chalice Dungeons. While they're harder to see in-game, the guide has a clear picture of them. They look like they could be entered in the World's Ugliest Dog Contest.
  • Vicar Amelia's transformation. A Mix-and-Match Critter with a long, wolf-like muzzle and antlers, long white hair, and eyes hidden behind wrappings, the end result looks more pitiable than horrific.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Mounted cannons can be found in a few places, but their utility is limited to firing them slowly at a single fixed point. Because they can't be aimed, you can't turn them against enemies, and they don't even pose much of a hazard since the enemies can't aim them either.
• The Woobie: A pretty large portion of the cast could count, but special mention goes to Gascoigne's daughter who you meet in Central Yharnam. Her father's turned into a beast, her mother is dead (possibly even at his hands), and she's stuck at home alone in a city full of bloodthirsty monsters. Making it worse, once you've talked to her for the first time it is absolutely impossible to save her from death.
• Wheelchair Woobie: Gehrman, once the first Hunter of Yharnam, a selfless person who can withstand a cosmic scale of horror, reduced to a crippled, wheelchair-bound old man trapped in a dream. He wished to be freed from the nightmare and begged his friends to put him out of his misery, but they couldn't. Once you've halted the source of the nightmare, he insists to offer you a Mercy Kill instead of begging you to kill him, wishing you to be freed. If you reject his offer, he demonstrates that having a missing leg is not a big handicap for him.
• Woobie Species:
  • Humanity itself is stuck in a three way tug-of-war between the ruthless Scourge of beasts plaguing the land, the well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous actions of the Great Ones, and their own dwindling sanity, a song and dance implied to have been going on for generations. Most of the people the player talks to aside from Gehrman and the Plain Doll are insane, afraid to leave their homes, or angry at the Hunters for failing to do their job. This is without getting into specific characters, like Ludwig, whose attempts to fend off the Plague ultimately made the situation worse before turning into a particularly vile beast himself, and the Chapel Samaritan, a lonely, blind man who just wants to create a safe haven for the unfortunate.
  • Astonishingly, even The Great Ones qualify for this. Most of them can barely understand humanity, and there are strong implications that several of them are actually quite benevolent. But in spite of the vast power they wield, all of their intentions and agendas either fail miserably or have disastrous consequences, and they are slowly being wiped out by humanity regardless of how they try to defend, avoid, or appease us. To top it off, they all want to create and nurture a child of their own, yet every last one of them is irrevocably sterile, and not even their vaunted powers can change that. This setting is so bleak that even the unspeakable terrors from beyond manage to be pitiable. (See the FRIDGE and TEARJERKER pages for more details.)
• Woolseyism: The Norwegian subtitles turn the Cleric Beast into a pun, calling it "Geistlig Beist". "Beist" just means beast, but "geistlig" means Of the Clergy, while also incorporating the German word for spirit or ghost, "Geist".

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