FINISHED IT!!!!!
I think I defeated all the optional bosses and visited all the optional locations, plus I got the "true" ending. Ended at lv 91 after 28 hours.
Keep in my mind, I only played a few chalice dungeons. Apparently they don't sacale with NG+ so I'll get to them starting now.
Overall I truly loved this one. Not only is it the best game of this gen, but much like Dark Souls it's one of the best game I've ever played. The combat, locations, art direction, lore and just a overall style are on different level than most games, at least IMO
I generally take my time with games, any other 30 hours game would take me at least a month but this was just so good I couldn't help but to dedicate it almost all my free time over this past week.
Compared to other souls games I found it to take both stept in the right and wrong direction.
The overall points I'd consider
-I love the combat in Dark Souls and somehow FROM managed to make a game with combat that I like even more. It mantains the same concepts of being skill based and "you kill enemies fast and they kill you fast" but ads a lot of speed and makes it feel more dynamic. You are constanly attacking and evading, plus enemies feel more aggressive.
- I LOVE the trick weapons and it will definitely be hard going back to the regular way. Weapon variety might be limited but each new one you get truly feels unique.
- The art direction is amazing and environments feel like they have a lot more detail now
- I'm not a fan of blood vial mechanic and I think an Estus Flask Equivalent would have been better. I think the main problem is that they drop at an uneven rate. I encountered a few areas where I just felt they simply didn't drop and it became annoying. No matter how careful you are you will get hit every now and then and if no one is dropping them you will run out of them sooner or later.
And it didn't even seem to be related to how far in the game you are. There are some late game areas where you get them frequently (and enemies aren't even that strong) and some mid game areas where they become really rare
- While I think weapons feel more unique here, I do agree with the people wanting a bit more build variety. Personally I didn't mind as there were plenty of weapons for melee fighters which is how I've allways played this games. But I can see how magic users or ranged fighters in Dark Souls might be a bit dissapointed.
But all in all I'd say it's still the superior experience. The Combat was much more enjoyable to me, the art direction more memorable, and while it's shorter it's also more consistent (the later half of Dark Souls had some areas that just didn't feel like they were as good as the rest of the game. I never felt that in Bloodborne)