Off Streaming – BloodBorne

It’s Tuesday, and the absolute best type of Tuesday; on that delivers a highly anticipated release.  But sometimes the mainstream isn’t for everyone.  Is there something off-steam that might offer a similar experience at a lower price or on more systems?

Blood Born is a fantastic game that doesn’t just continue the traditions of From Software but somehow improves on them in every possible way.  It’s an absolute masterpiece, and one of the best next gen games we’ve been given so far.  But what if you don’t have a PS4?  What if you’re still working on Dark Souls 2 and don’t want something too similar?  Or maybe $60 is simply too rich.  Where can you get a BloodBorne (or From Software) like experience from something other than a From Software game?

Enclave

Developer: Starbreeze Studios

Publishers: TopWare Interactive, Vivendi Games, Conspiracy Entertainment

Platforms: Xbox, Microsoft Windows, Wii

Released: July 19, 2002

Availability and price:  Less than $1 on steam until March 30th, $5.99 on GOG.com

Like From Software games, Enclave is an extremely unforgiving and dark experience.  Although combat is more direct and less nuanced, a reaction based defense system which is far from optional will keep you on your toes. Absolutely brutal encounter design and enemy placement makes every decision counter as soon as you get past the first few levels, while failure comes at a heavy price.  The long, open levels have only a few deviously placed checkpoints, but Enclave ups it to 11 by setting a gold cost for each check point used.  If you’re not able to survive long enough and collected enough gold between deaths you might find yourself restarting a level even with all the checkpoints unlocked.

Game play is complex and satisfying.  Although the absence of controller support seems a bit odd on the PC the keyboard and mouse control set up works well enough, and controller support can be added with 3rd party software like Pinnacle Game Profiler.  Rather than build up a single character, you start each level by choosing a class to play and equipment to start with based on what you have unlocked and the gold you have collected throughout pervious levels.  This allows you to customize your load out to the task at hand or experiment with different play styles on the fly. There is a good mix of magic using, melee, and ranged classes to keep things interesting, and each feels just similar enough that you can play a single level as them without being lost, but different enough that the experience is fresh.

Where Enclave really shins is in how it takes you through a dark and morally ambiguous story from both sides.  You play as evil classes like lich or assassin in the dark campaign or your standard do-gooders like druid or Knight in the light campaign.  Both stories offer something completely different with only a few shared levels between them. Even these are mixed up and modified from one side to the other, with you starting at a different location and fighting to a different goal.  The maps and environments have aged nicely, although the visuals overall are obviously dated (with the cut scenes being particularly painful).  And although the bosses don’t hold a candle to what you see in Dark Souls or Bloodborne, they are nonetheless enjoyable and entertaining, and the occasional puzzle sequence to break the action is handed well.

All and all, Enclave certainly isn’t Bloodborne, but it offers a lot of the same things for less than a cup of coffee.  If you’re sitting at home today with nothing new to play, green with envy of your PS4 owning friends … you really can’t go wrong with this forgotten gem.