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Let me just preface this with a quick, but essential note. I'm actually rather good at video games. Ok, so I'm not cresting to the top of the Resogun leaders boards or lording it over anyone with less than a 10 rank in Hearthstone. But I can parry the smoke out of Gwyn Lord of Cinder and can carry a Guild Wars 2 dungeon run when the mood strikes.
But Bloodborne seems to have done something to me. After polishing off the game for our review, and finally, shakily, putting the controller down, I naturally jumped straight back into some other titles that had been placed on the back burner for the duration of my time in Yharnam. At the top of that heap was a second playthrough of Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin.
Somehow I was utterly bossing it, attempting fighting manoeuvres I wouldn't have dreamed of trying out before. Enemies seemed to move so slowly, compared to their Bloodborne-ian brethren. I was charging through Heide's Tower taking on the resident knights and those big hairy bleeders two or three at a time. And beating them. Did my time playing Bloodborne do this?
A couple of days later I found myself giving DmC another whirl, just to test this theory. I leapt into Turbo mode, wherein the speed of the game is notched up by 20%. Somehow I was suddenly capable of Zen-like fighting transcendence. I could read audio cues from foes that seemed to have not been there before.
I can only deduce that it was Bloodborne that did this to me. I'm thinking it's the learning curve, thrusting me past Father Gascoigne, who's all about the timed stagger attacks, and the Cleric Beast, training you to get in there, rewarding you with success for getting up in its grill rather than backing off.
I'm still rubbish at Mortal Kombat X, mind. Besides that, though, have I evolved into some form of super gamer? Or is this phenomenon wider spread? Have you lot felt better at games since dipping into From Software's Lovecraftian actioner?
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