Earlier today Kotaku US’s Kirk Hamilton wrote about the ‘Three Bloodborne Enemies Who Are Just The Worst‘ — a look at those regular enemies who always somehow manage to hit you, beat you down and break your spirit. It was a cool list, but it got me thinking: what about the Bloodborne enemies who seem really nice?
Because I’ve always had this weird experience with Souls games — an experience I’m now having with Bloodborne — if a certain enemy type tends to drop helpful items, or a lot of souls/blood echoes, I start to think of them as helpful, reliable friends. Like old acquaintances, you know where they’re gonna be. You know they’ll help you out with a couple of Blood Vials. Thanks for the help guys, same time next week?
These can be enemies that once terrified you. But now their patterns are so predictable, so easily understood that killing them becomes pure routine. You don’t even think of it as an act of violence, it’s more like some weird dance. He’s the barista dude in that coffee place you go to in the morning; the nice girl at the sandwich place you go to for lunch. It’s a transaction. I’ll come here, you’ll walk towards me really slowly. I’ll slam this blunt instrument into your testicles, and you’ll hand over the goods.
“Hey! It’s you! How you doing?”
[stab]
“Hey good to see you again, got any Blood Vials?”
[garrot]
“Yeah I think I’ve got a couple wrapped up in my intestines, lemme check…”
[backstab]
“Oh HERE THEY ARE!”
[gets fisted to death]
“Thanks for coming!”
The Big Friendly Pig Who Just Wants To Play
This guy. This is the guy. He looks big and scary, but he just wants to play, don’t ya fella!
[rubs belly]
Seriously, the big massive pig things in Bloodborne. They seem so lovely. As soon as they see you they just charge towards you enthusiastically like a pet dog. A pet dog with the ability to belly splash you and accidentally brutally murder you in one single charge. But honestly? I don’t think these little guys actually want to do you any harm. When they run towards me snorting all excitedly, there’s only one conclusion to draw: they just want to play. It’s not their fault they weigh 800kgs.
These pigs are the goddamn best. Killing them gives you a stupid amount of Blood Echoes relative to how difficult they actually are to fight, plus they tend to drop a tonne of Blood Vials. As long as you circle properly, you’re never in any real threat of dying and the benefits of approaching them far, far outweigh the risks.
And they’re so lovely. Hello Mr Pig! It’s me again! In another universe there is a game where I’m riding on top of this pig, and we’re solving problems together. We’re buddies, best buddies even. Sorta like a post-apocalyptic version of Charlotte’s Web.
If you take pleasure in fisting these guys, you are a sociopath.
The Slow Ogre Guys In Yharnman That Wants To High Five You
I liken these guys to Sloth in The Goonies. When you first meet him you are fucking terrified. These guys will mess up your shit. They hit hard and, if you don’t know what you’re doing, they kill you in a couple of hits. Brutal. This is sort of like that scene when Chunk first meets Sloth and tries to feed him a Baby Ruth.
But this doesn’t last long. Soon enough you’ll learn that these guys are slow. Like super slow. Slow enough that I actually learned how to parry by fighting them. They’re that predictable in their movements. Slow enough that you can fire up a charge attack without fear.
Eventually you learn to love them and their habit of consistently dropping two Blood Vials. Aw, for me? Really? You shouldn’t have.
At this point, I love these guys so much I want to invite them round for dinner.
“You’re gonna come and live with me now. Cause I love you.”
The Little Lizard Things That Drop Blood Shards/Chunks
All jokes aside, almost everything in Bloodborne is hostile. Almost everything wants you fucking dead, and quickly. But every now and then you see these little guys: the ladybugs of Bloodborne. They see you coming and they scurry, almost inviting you to chase them.
TAG! YOU’RE IT!
They don’t want to eat you. They don’t want to lodge the sharp-end of an axe into your mouth-hole. They don’t want any trouble mister.
But what do we do? We chase them. We run after them full-pelt. And when we catch up to them we slam the R1 button in a desperate, hungry frenzy so we can kill them for their sweet loot before they disappear into another — safer — dimension. No other creature in Bloodborne reminds me of this more: we live in a dog-eat-dog world where the strong feast on the weak. You have my goddamn Blood Shards and I will drag them out of your goddamn entrails if I have to.
Really, we’re terrible people. Those poor little lady bugs. They didn’t ask for this.
Comments
20 responses to “Three Bloodborne Enemies Who Actually Seem Really Nice”
The pigs for sure. easy enemy to kill and drops an obscene amount of echoes (especially in mergos loft) along with 4 blood vials. Thanks pig, cya soon! *uses bold hunters mark*
I always feel sorry for that one ogre dude banging on the doors near the start. It always feels like he just wants to join the bonfire but the other kids locked him outside because he was different.
I’m positive you did the same cautious approach to those large doors from the other side of him when you first got to that area, yes? I was expecting something huge to burst through.
Yeah, I fully expected the doors to bust open and something come in and wreck up the place. When that didn’t happen I tried to open the doors, expecting something to maul me. Then I found out how to get through the area and went “Awww. Poor guy.”, and killed him.
Exactly what I did
The first time I saw the pig in the Central Yarnham sewer tunnel, I was curious and allowed it to walk forward a bit so I could make out what it was. Once identified as a HUGE pig, I thought “screw this” and attempted to climb the ladder next the tunnel. The pig charged at that point, and promptly glitched through the wall and hit me multiple times, killing me.
He is not my friend.
I also had a pig glitch through a narrow entrance to the Hypogean Gaol, which caused him to accelerate to a blinding speed, giving me no chance to dodge. Hilarious, but I took great pleasure in recovering my echoes from his corpse. Damn his piggy eyes!
I saw a video of that glitch, or at least something similar in the same area. Guy was standing on an elevated area and the pig charged below him and glitched his way up real fast and killed him. Them piggies man…
There are many enemies who can attack though walls, which is usually not an issue except for
the huge spider in the nightmare of mensis. Dude got me from about 5 metres behind a wall.Yeah I know, I often take advantage of it myself (charged R2 with the axe is great for cheesing). This was different though, he glitched into a solid structure, no body remaining in the sewer tunnel, and his head stuck out and hurt me. My guy just kept climbing oh so slowly but was dead in less than 2 seconds.
Damn. You can fast climb by holding O if that ever happens again (hopefully not!)
I was fast climbing :-S
I am a sociopath.
What about those wierd lurking growling guys with the tentacles coming out of their face? All they wanna do is cuddle…maybe make out for a bit. What’s so wrong with that?
I enjoy the bagmen that lurk in the Cathedral Ward and Hypogean Gaol. Don’t get me wrong: at first I was terrified of them and hated them and their insanely powerful and sometimes quick attacks (those kicks and leaps are the worst) but after I killed one or two I found you can quite quickly farm them for echoes and twin blood stone shards, plus there is a piggy right outside the Hypogean Gaol lantern area after you fight two bagmen. You can get about 6K echoes in about three minutes.
That’s the beauty of Bloodborne and the other souls games.
Creatures that freaked you out for hours in the beginning end up being breezed through and only used for farming. The terror you get when you first set out on your adventure.
Am I the only idiot to jump down that big pit just after piggy in the sewer and kill myself? What a fool…
I threw a coin down to test how deep it was… then decided to jump anyway!
Well there’s a use for those coins. I just kept hoarding them, not using them my entire playthrough.
Fair to say the lizard things. All they do is try escape our greedy clutches. The pig on the other hand… one ate a little girl. Come on lol.
Mark, some of your finest writing. This is why I come here.