Bloodborne PSX

[henke]

Someone spent 13 months making this Bloodborne Demake, and it's pretty dang cool.



DOWNLOAD: https://b0tster.itch.io/bbpsx

I just spent an hour or two with it and I gotta say it's very impressive how true this stays to its vision of how Bloodborne would've played if it had been released on the original Playstation. It goes beyond visuals, the controls are also constrained to those of a Playstation gamepad, that means no thumbsticks! I only got introduced to gamepads with the XBox, so I found this a bit unweidly, switched to keyboard controls instead, and yeah, it plays exactly like a mid-90's DOS port of a PSX game would. Reminds me a lot of Nightmare Creatures. Gameplaywise it does make some tweaks to the Bloodborne formula, but they all feel period-appropriate, like splitting the world into smaller pieces, with loadscreens inbetween.

Apparently it also only goes up to the Father Gascoigne fight, but that's still a few good hours of gameplay there, and for free too!

[Twist]

I've only played about an hour, much of which I spent sloppily fumbling about. But yeah, it's really impressive.

I haven't played Bloodborne yet, so I can't compare it directly, but even on its own this seems like a great game... and it looks and feels so wonderfully atmospheric.

I know it goes against the spirit of it, but I think I might love it if someone modded modern controls into it. I have no experience or nostalgia for that control system, so to me it just feels deliberately janky. I say "think" because some of the level design and all of the camera handling (the way scenes are framed, presented) seems oriented around the control scheme, so modern controls might be too much of a compromise for its overall aesthetic and feel.

This thing is more polished and professional than many games I've happily paid for. Mighty impressive work for one person.

[henke]

Yeah, I ended up playing a bunch of it tonight. Think I've explored most of Yarnham now, gotta fight the Cleric Beast next to progress.

The fighting isn't quite as tight as in the original. There's some jankiness with some character animations. Also after you kill an enemy it doesn't auto-target the next one, which is a bit wonky.

But yeah, overall this is impressive as hell. There's something about demakes like this that make you feel like you're peeking into another dimension. Like what if someone had actually made this game back in the mid-90's? It would've been HUGE!

[Twist]

There's something about demakes like this that make you feel like you're peeking into another dimension. Like what if someone had actually made this game back in the mid-90's? It would've been HUGE!

That's a really cool way of thinking about it. Then you can try to project how different gaming would be today in that dimension if this had been the influence that... I don't know, among console games maybe Final Fantasy 7 or Ocarina of Time? had been around that time in our dimension.

[henke]

Cleric Beast slain, and I got my ass whupped by Father Gascoigne once already. Found a Basement Key and went to check that out. Holy hell, was this area even in the original Bloodborne? The lab/library with all the head-swapped animal experiements? If so I think I totally missed it first time around. I've max out my threaded cane and explored pretty much everything I can now I think. Will try to wrap this up tomorrow.

[Malleus]

Holy hell, was this area even in the original Bloodborne? The lab/library with all the head-swapped animal experiements?

There were head-swapped animals in BB, but there are new ones in the PSX version, and that area is new too IIRC.

[Helegad]

Bloodborne for PlayStation but it's not actually on PlayStation? What a cop-out! LOL! All the dev-kits and documentation have been out there for decades. Come on.

[henke]

Actually making it for PS1 would be more expensive, harder, and make the final product more inaccessible for gamers, so, um, no thanks.

[henke]

Finally beat Father Gascoigne, the game goes off-script after that, which is fun. And also I think a bit too challenging for me, I've made it to Gilbert, buuuut I think I'll stop here.

Overall tho, this was great! Highly recommended for Bloodborne/Souls fans, especially if you've got some nostalgia for 90's gaming.

[henke]

Heyyyyy Noclip did an interview with the creator of BloodbornePSX!