What???
Soulsborne (especially Bloodborne) bosses very typically consist of enemies who are relentlessly aggressive and will literally one-shot/combo you to death the first time you misjudge a dodge timing or attack window. You're telling me the first time you played bloodborne, you didn't get combo'd to death by Gascogoine because you didn't dodge a combo, or one-shot by Amelia because you didn't have enough health?
The difference with Souls/Borne games and this one is that in the former the game doesn't force you to retry a battle just because you happen to have the wrong build or equipment for the battle. The choices on how you will tackle a situation are almost infinite. You want to try melee no problem. You want to try magic no problem. You want to try items no problem. With very few exceptions in the series the game lets you find what is the optimal way during the fight itself with whatever you have at your disposal. And yes even during the first time you fight most bosses. The Father Gascoigne battle gave you many options on how to tackle it and that was the best part of the fight. I happen to be good at parries in Souls and Bloodborne so that was the method that i choose. But you could also fight him and beat him normally without even try to parry him once. And then there was also the option of the music box and molotov coctails.
In all Souls games if you don't rush like a fool mashing buttons and take the time and patience to observe the attack patterns of bosses most chances are you are going to beat them on first try. I really don't want to brag but i have beaten even bosses that are considered incredibly hard by the community (like Artorias,Lady Maria and Orphan of Kos) on my first try because i always like to observe their movements and react accordingly.
In the fight with Hell House i also did that and i avoided easily most of its attacks and i also understood what i had to do but the problem was that the game was punishing me due to having only one elemental with me so i had to wait an eternity until i could get the right opportunity to hit it and stagger it. And no the "you should have had the Access Materia equipped" still proves my point how the game forces you to have certain materia equipped at all times while giving you a very limited amount of equipment slots.
The original also gave you a limited amount of equipment slots but it never felt that you had to have all materia equiped that early in the game. It was only AFTER you left Midgar that you felt the need to have more elemental materia with you and by that time the game also gave you the option of either to find or to buy equipment with enough materia slots in order to experiment more. In that way the original was much more balanced than this Re-imagining.
Was it "BAD DESIGN" then when Blood-Starved Beast starts spewing poison everywhere and you have no Antidotes? Or you have to pass through a section of Winter Lanterns with no sedatives?
Again you only prove how much superior the design of Bloodborne is when compared to FFVIIR.
With Blood Starved beast you are exploring a level that is full of enemies that inflict poison on you and that is the game telling you that it will be most likely that the boss of the level will also inflict poison. And not only that but in the same level the game gives you a ton of antidotes (it even has some inside the boss room) so it was never a matter of having to start over again because the game "tricked" you into thinking that antidotes weren't necessary.
And your example does not compare with the Hell House situation because we're talking items (that in both games you ALWAYS have them equiped) and not specific spells. Same goes for the sedatives.
But again you don't need the antidotes in order to beat the Bloodstarved beast. Someone can beat it even without antidotes or fire paper just by playing regularly. Or you also have the option to parry it. Or if you want to play it more safe you can use Pungent Blood Coctails and destroy it.
Bottom line is Bloodborne gives you various options to tackle a situation on your first try while this game does not.
In fact, if you load your characters out in FF7R based on defense (cure, barrier, steadfast, parry, defense/MR) then you can beat pretty much every boss in the game through attrition. If anything, the Hellhouse fight encouraged me to equip a wider gauntlet of elemental spells for situations where i might get caught with my pants down.
I also had healing materia as well as defensive like barrier but like i said the slots are not enough to let you experiment too much if you always have to have all elemental materia with you just to be on the safe side and be cought with your pants down as you said. Especially is sections when you only control Cloud (like where i'm currently at) the choices are becoming even more limited and restricted.
That means I had to sacrifice other materia, yes, but the ability to CHOOSE my angle for battle is the heart of what makes RPG mechanics fun. How on earth is that "bad design" when you have multiple angles? Bloodborne is a JRPG that works the exact same way, only difference is that it doesn't have blocking and instead has I-frames so you technically don't NEED "defense" for anything.
But that is exactly the point. In that fight (and a few others before it) the game does not want you to choose how you tackle a boss fight. For example can you imagine entering the fight without having not even one elemental materia. Oh yeah that must have been a lot of fun!
you can not like the fight, but it's really annoying when people cite "BAD GAME DESIGN" for everything they don't agree with.
And you can also like the fight as much as you want but you cannot say to people that they are not allowed to have an opinion when you don't agree with them.
"just a matter of trial and error". That's a funny complaint coming from a dark souls lover.
See my post above.
Hmm, I didn't think it was clear to be honest. Maybe I missed something then.
Just equip all elemental materia before the fight and look at its windows in order to use the right elemental. Of course you would have no clue on whether to equip all elementals before the fight so don't worry it's just the game messing with you.