Bloodborne

If any video game fits my definition of art, it'd probably be the PS4-exclusive "Bloodborne".

"Immersion"

I argued with someone recently that almost all popular video game criticism is based on vague, ambiguous terms such as "immersion" and "interactivity". "Immersion" is a nonsense word that means 1) the gamer is intensely into the game or 2) the game succeeds in creating some special bond between the gamer and the game, or 3) anything in-between. 1) is nonsense because you can be intensely focused on any activity; 2), this bond hasn't been proven scientifically, at all; 3) is just a convenient escape route for those who fail at arguing 1) and 2). "Interactivity" is the false belief that somehow a player playing a game and watching a story creates some unique level of viewership, when in reality, tada, you're just playing a game and watching a story separately. These things don't combine in any way, at the end of the day, no matter what you do, the story is the same on an intellectual and thematic level.

Art is an intellectual and philosophical thing - an art work demonstrates ideas by its existence, as much as a Jackson Pollack painting argues the relationship of spontaneity and disparateness as related to beauty. (But what is "beauty"? One can argue that the artist also argues what "beauty" is through their art work, in the same way that Oskar Kokoschka's "Self Portrait as a Warrior" does. On initial viewing, one sees an ugly man in pain, but after thorough investigation, after analyzing the striations in the clay and the use of color, Kokoschka is creating something vivid, colorful, and complex out of human pain.) The reason why video game critics resort to half-finished arguments is because there is nothing intellectual about video games - they are highly manufactured, highly processed things, to the extent that one can easily see the strings holding them up, as well as the thousands of hands puppeteering them. These are your "Last of Us"s and "Life is Strange"s.

A friend and I talk constantly about how any appeal to emotions, ideals, morality etc. looks pathetic unalloyed, unarmored. If the artist must argue for their artwork's existence, then the artwork is weak, plain and simple, it's just not expressive enough to do the arguing for itself. It also represents a compromise: because the artist is not convincing, they have to invoke Big and Great concepts like Love and Hate and War and Peace to get any kind of emotion from their audience.

That's one of the reasons why "Bloodborne" is great: it's pretty happy being itself and doesn't feel the need to pretend to greatness. And what it is, is pretty great.

How to critique video games

The great challenge for criticizing anything is finding the factors that make the thing relevant to people. For food, there's taste and presentation; for clothing, appearance and comfort. For visual art, myself not being a painter, sculpturist, fashion designer etc. I'd say immediacy and curiosity - the art should have an element that immediately captures the audience's eye, and the art should provoke a curiosity in the audience to explore it from various angles. For the storytelling arts, literature and film, I'd say meaning is the biggest factor - though I'm more into literature than film, what's important for a story is to demonstrate its premise to the audience and then progress the ideas from the premise until it reaches a conclusion, which on being understood by audience becomes meaning. It's no wonder almost all the classic writers have some interest or training in philosophy - sense and inference, empiricism and ideas, even the most sensuous of writers must know these things.

Because video games are so new - like, super new, there hasn't been anything like it since the beginning of mankind - we don't really know what factors make video games interesting. I'm still trying to figure it out myself; I find myself not paying attention to the video games I play, mostly just playing them to fill in time.

"Bloodborne" is the exception. (Well, one of them.) Having gotten all the trophies for the game and playing the game through four times, the Chalice Dungeons twice, I still need to focus for the most basic enemies. "Bloodborne" is this wonderful dance where time stands still and it's just you and the object of your hunt, waiting for it to attack first, responding, and then retaliating, all in a matter of seconds. The game is still so damn engaging that I'm planning another run in the future with the Hunter Axe and the Beast Claw, and I'm absolutely sure I'll get my ass kicked.

What I've found in the best of games, for me anyway, is that there is a bit of roleplaying going on - because you're so invested in the game, you find your way of thinking becomes influenced by the game. Perhaps this is what gamers mean by "immersion", though I find it's impossible to achieve this state of mind with many games, as those characters are doing superhuman things apart from you. Attacking and dodging in "Bloodborne" have a natural rhythm, and if you don't learn that rhythm you will get hit, staggered, and then combo'd to death. There are very little invincibility frames and no NPC or monster can attack quicker than you can react (except for that f#@king Abhorrent Beast) so the game is a matter of being decisive within the few seconds of contact you're given. You are a "hunter" - or "hoonter" - taking advantage of the biases in your prey's attack patterns while risking death at every point of contact. What's incredible is that that isn't a game strategy, that's a philosophy, it's a set of abstract ideas that guide people. There's a different conversation entirely about whether that philosophy translates to meaning in real life.

The Abhorrent Beast

Let's look at the example of the Abhorrent Beast. I love and hate this boss, because it taught me the importance of patience and finding out a boss's weaknesses, while still being just so damn hard to fight against.

You can optionally meet the Abhorrent Beast in the main playthrough in the Forbidden Woods, but if you're playing the Chalice Dungeons you will eventually meet him in the third layer of the Ailing Loran chalice, an area displaced out of time where beasts have completely taken over civilization and roam the wastes.

In the beginning the Abhorrent Beast has this hunting pattern: engage its prey in close range and then overpower them with staggering attacks. You can try to attack it with ranged weapons, but eventually you'll run out of ammunition; it also cannot be staggered and therefore parried. This doesn't seem bad until you realize the beast has amazing recovery between its attacks - it can transition from one attack to the next in a second or less, from my memory, and, again, it cannot be staggered but it is guaranteed to stagger you. I'd also read somewhere that it becomes very aggressive if you try to heal yourself, and it's definitely fast enough to reach you during the animation of consuming a blood vial.

For the reasons above, I prefer not to stay close to the Abhorrent Beast, but I've seen players take advantage of its biases. For example, it seems to prefer attacks from its left, so if you always strafe toward the right side of the beast you can avoid the window of its attack while counterattacking yourself. I think this requires great reflexes and timing though, so I don't try this approach.

I usually circle the ring the Beast and I fight in, walking backwards until the Beast gets frustrated and throws an attack. Depending on which attack it is, you can retaliate quickly: the left jab and the combo leading to a slam on the ground usually give you a few seconds to attack and dodge backwards. If the beast just slams the ground, then don't attack; I recall it recovers very quickly and can launch a series of fatal blows on you.

Around half of its health its fur becomes charged with electricity and it gains a few attacks, only one of which is important if you're taking the patient approach I mentioned above: a conical "shout" of electrified air that, likelier than not, is in range to hit you (it gains even more range in the last phase). If you see it retract both of its hands towards its body, sidestep left or right and continue looking for the advantageous attacks.

At its last phase, around the 25% mark I think, it becomes enraged and suffused with more electricity; it moves noticeably faster and has more recovery between attacks. It gains one attack that is a game-changer, which I took advantage of only in my last playthrough: impatient, it will leap towards you, hoping to knock you with the full weight of its body and taking you out. However, this is a mistake on its part! If you anticipate the attack, you only need to do a simple dodge; its recovery for this attack is bad compared to its other attacks, so you can attack once or twice before dodging away. This boss teaches you it really does not pay to rush things.

I've only ever beaten the boss with Ludwig's Holy Blade and the Chikage, and both have a good mix of reach, speed and damage. You want speed, so you're using the untransformed version of the holy blade; for the Chikage, I found the transformation attack - the main diet of DPS for the Chikage user - to be too slow against this beast, so if you want to use the transformed Chikage for its excellent damage you'll need to take the health cost for longer than you're used to.

I've never tried a faster, shorter weapon like the Blades of Mercy or Beast Claw for this boss, but I think the strategy does not change much except you'll have more opportunities to make contact with the beast.

I pretty much always use poison knives against this boss - the Abhorrent Beast is notable for having no resistance to poison - but be warned that this boss will take a long, long time to beat with just poison knives; it's better to have enough understanding to hit it up-front every once in a while.

As a note, this is a strategy only for the Ailing Loran chalice; you fight the Lower Loran Abhorrent Beast in a much smaller arena. I barely made it out of that fight with my life.

The Endless Night

It should be noted that's not the worst boss in "Bloodborne"; different bosses have gained notoriety for different reasons. The Headless Bloodletting Beast, the Defiled Amygdala, the Lower Pthumerian Giant are some of the toughest hunts in the game, but they each have a specific behavior that you can take advantage of while fighting them.

All this goes into the theme of "Bloodborne", which is the concept of an eternally punishing, despairing night. The struggle against this night, which is an individual struggle not shared with anyone else, eventually leads to madness, which itself leads to revelation, which is kinda like what this game is: after struggling with a boss for so long, its secrets become revealed to you and you can finally conquer it, only for the next challenge to present itself. (This also comes from the endless cycle by the New Game Plus.)

That cycle of struggle leading to revelation leading back to struggle is actually the basic Christian story - it has analogies to the struggles of the Prophet Elijah, the story of Christ, and the temptation of Saint Anthony, down to the detail of the hero being steeped in impenetrable night before being reconciled with God, and then finally accepting death, the long night. It's not that far from Buddhist myth-making too which also sees the Buddha struggling to attain ever-greater stages of enlightenment through pain, only to finally ascend to sainthood.

And if you think all this sounds like a bunch of BS and people think way too much on "Bloodborne" as it is, well, that's all fine. A distinguishing characteristic of art is that it's easy to leave as it is to enter. A truly great piece of art is so much itself that you know almost immediately whether you're really going to like it or not. The best part is that it stays itself for so long that you can return back to it at any time with a new perspective. That too fits in with "Bloodborne's" endless night.