Topic: Advice on which soulsborne to start with?

I have recently became interested in trying out a soulsborne game, but am not sure which one would be best to start with. To give some background, the hardest games that I have completed are the NES Castlevania games. I already own Bloodborne and Nioh (because of PS Plus). What would you recommend I go with?

@batwing47 Ideally, the first Dark Souls is a good one to start with but seeing as you already have Bloodborne, I’d say play that first. It’ll be strange going from that to Dark Souls though, they’re a lot slower and more methodical.

I've heard Nioh is decent but I agree Bloodborne is a fine place to start, fantastic game. Will probably require a little bit of patience getting the hang of but well worth doing. If you've defeated the NES Castlevanias, I really can't see you struggling here.

@LieutenantFatman It’s mostly because Nioh has a completely different gameplay style despite having stylistic similarities. Bloodborne uses the same engine, controls and skills as the other Souls games so it’s a better starting point.

@nessisonett
Yes, that makes sense! I was tempted to give Nioh a try but only have so much time and the backlog is big enough already. Hard choices must be made, haha.

@LieutenantFatman I really enjoyed Nioh up until the postgame missions which are beyond insane. Imagine fighting Ornstein and Smough if they were both Gwyn in a tiny arena!

Thanks for all the feedback. I was leaning towards Nioh (because I heard that it had a more coherent story), but I will go with Bloodborne instead. BTW, thanks @LieutenantFatman for the vote of confidence. I have been putting off trying out the Soulsborne genre because it has always seemed intimidating.

@batwing47 Also as a relative Soulsborne novice myself, I think Bloodborne is a good first place to start. All of them are hard and require that you relearn how to do video game combat. “Hack -n- Slash” techniques will get you killed and you’ll never progress. At least Bloodborne rewards you for being more aggressive by letting you regain a little health if you can land an attack after being hit by an enemy. Dark Souls did seem slower and more methodical to me.
The “Bloodborne Tavern” thread here has a lot of good advice and discussion.
Some early advice given to me:
Try just running to the first boss and let it kill you. That will wake up the doll girl in your "base" so will be able to level up. That's the point where this game really starts. Until you encounter the first boss you can't really progress. So you just need to encounter the first boss - Cleric Beast, not beat it! and then killing all the guys in the early area gets some meaning. Until then everytime you die you lose everything.
Additionally, there are some shortcuts which will help you a lot. The first few hours I wanted to quit because I was fed up with doing all the same over and over again in the starting region just to be killed by some random guy or a wolf in the end, but after those shortcuts and some leveling, the game got much more interesting. Now Bloodborne is one of my favorite games on PS4.

@batwing47 I echo what @Th3solution says with the early game.

Bloodborne probably has the steepest learning curve and the majority of people I know who gave up on the game did so in the first hour. Once you can upgrade, that first area is a nice area to go farming for early upgrades.

Have fun!

I'm playing Nioh at the moment, and although It is a good game, it is no way a match for Bloodborne. Also Nioh may have too many systems that you have to get your head around if you are new to this type of game, and can be more confusing than any of the Soulsborne games.

@batwing47 And also, I forgot to mention that if you fancy having a stab at a Souls-like that is more approachable for newbies, you might try Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. You kinda need to be a Star Wars fan to get the full enjoyment, but it borrows several mechanics from the Soulsborne genre yet it has difficulty options. The FromSoft games are notorious for not having an Easy Mode to select, so if you are a novice it is pretty painful getting going. In Fallen Order you select your difficulty at the outset and it can be changed in-game at any time. It would be an opportunity to get your feet wet with the timed combat skills, the idea of difficult bosses, and the lantern/bonfire/meditation point upgrade mechanics. It’s a really fun game that I enjoyed quite a bit. I realize you already own Bloodborne and Nioh, but if you’ve any interest in eventually playing Fallen Order, it could be a good starting point also.
On that subject, The Surge is also a PS Plus title that you likely have in your library. They say it’s a Soulsborne genre too, but I have no experience with it. If the Sci-Fi setting appeals more than the horror, dark fantasy, or samurai settings then it’s another possibility. Reviews are mixed on it though, whereas Bloodborne is universally praised.

@batwing27 Both are fantastic games. Choosing depends on what you like.
Nioh is set during the waring clan period of 1600s Japan with mythical yokai (demons) involved. It has hundreds of options for gear and stat choices. Each enemy has a chance to drop random gear. The myriad of choices can be overwhelming and that's even before you get into blacksmithing and adjusting your stats on each gear piece. I thinks it's amazing, but a huge time sync.
Bloodborne is set in a Gothic medieval city with Cthulhu aspects. It has weapon choices and stats to play with, but much less than Nioh. The layout is less streamlined and has many unlockable shortcuts. It truly is a fantastic layout. Where Nioh's combat depends on your playstyle, Bloodborne leans to the dodging more often. Bloodborne story is more cryptic, but quite interesting, Nioh is straightforward, but interesting in Japanese mythical and historical lore.
Honestly you can't go wrong with either one.

I started with Bloodborne and absolutely loved it. I still need to play the other ones, but Bloodborne’s aggressive playstyle and the fact that it overwhelms you with less stat builds and weapons (all weapons are unique and upgradable, so no weapon is better, it’s just different) to for me make it the best starting point. I played a little DS2 before BB but got overwhelmed, sidetracked, and stopped playing it. BB kept me hooked even if the notoriously difficult beginning.

@Th3solution
Thanks for the tips. I haven't really researched Fallen Order (I am a casual consumer of Star Wars), but I will look into it. Also, thanks for pointing out the other discussion thread. I only recently got involved in the forums.

@Elodin
I am more attracted to the samurai idea (I think the historical aspect is great), but it seems to be the more complex of the two. I will give bloodborne a go and move onto Nioh if the genre appeals to me.

@batwing47 Ahh, I see all my soulsborne compatriots are coming out of the woodwork. I would recommend starting with Bloodborne, then moving on to Dark Souls 3, and then Dark Souls Remastered, that will acclimatize you to the way the games work and give you the full experience. I wasn't a fan of Dark Souls 2 ,so I've left that out of the equation.

@Draco_V_Ecliptic I disagree, once @batwing47 has played Bloodborne and if they have enjoyed the game it is best to play the Dark Souls games in order. DS3 has some story beats referring back to the first two games (mainly the first game), which would go over their head if they had not played the previous games.

@JohnnyShoulder That's a fair point, I just thought that the faster style would allow for an easier adjustment, going from Bloodborne to DS3 as they are both quite fast-paced, rather than a huge jump to the much slower style of DS1. Fair enough, though, I agree with you about the story beats.