Novice’s Walkthrough of Bloodborne: Mindset and controls
These guide/walkthroughs will be basically most of what a beginner would need to know about Bloodborne and how to overcome most of what will be thrown at you in this game.
I have played this game for about a year now, having Platinumed the base game and am planning to get the DLC and 100% that also.
Let’s start out with several questions:
Is this game as hard as I’ve heard it was?
Will this game make me rage quit before I’ve even beaten the first mandatory boss?
Will I quit because I can’t make it past the first area?
The answer for most new-comers to this game will likely be yes, but fear not my comrades, almost everyone who has played this game will have multiple walls they must overcome, whether it be a boss, an area, or some other thing, ALL of them can be conquered through blood, sweat, tears, rage, and frustration. Believe me, I know, I have had quite a few times where I had to stop playing the game for a while because I couldn’t get past a boss fight. But I have never truly given up. And that, I suppose, is one of the most important things a person can have while playing a game like this, an unbreakable will. Allow yourself to rage at a boss, allow yourself to throw a controller at the wall not really, allow yourself to be bent over, but never let this game break you. With patience, determination, and memorization, nothing in this game will stand in your way.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get into the game’s controls. There are notes in the main hub of this game that tell the controls of this game and stuff you may not know, but I have actually never seen them during my first playthrough of this game, leading me to a bit of frustration of me not knowing how to do visceral attacks and other useful things. Here are the basic controls:
L2: off-hand attack (usually a gun)
Directional input+O: roll, quickstep when locked on
Directional input+R3: look around
Directional Input+L3: move around
Directional Input+L3+O: move around quicker
L3: switch action (not really useful)
Up Dpad: sacrifice health for bullets, really useful for some builds
Down Dpad: switch item on the quick slot
Left Dpad: Switch off-hand item
Right Dpad: Switch right-hand weapon
Triangle: use blood vials
Square: use consumable item in quickslot
Now there are a few mechanics that will be incredibly useful to know that may not be entirely obvious at first:
Rally: When an enemy attacks you, you will be given a chance to recover some of your lost health via attacking them back. Different weapons give different amounts of rally.
Visceral Attacks: An essential technique that should be mastered by any player of this game. There are two main ways to open up an enemy for a visceral attack, interrupting one of their attacks by using your off handgun or by performing a charged attack behind them. When you have successfully staggered that enemy, move in front of them (behind if you staggered them via charged attack to their back), input R1 and enjoy free damage, rally, temporary invincibility, and a neat little animation. Some of the larger bosses in this game require you to damage their head if you want to perform a visceral attack. Not all enemies can have a visceral attack performed on them.
Gestures and Personal Effects: This is more of a quality of life feature more than anything. Press the left side of the touchpad to access gestures. Gestures are acquired as you play through the game. Press the right side of the touchpad to access Personal Effects. Use this for consumables/usable items that are not really important, but still have their uses (i.e. pebbles and monocular).
All of this information should be good enough for any new-comer to start off their journey in Bloodborne. Remember, never let yourself be broken by what may appear difficult.