Bloodborne (Out now)

killed the blood-thirsty beast, and got the ptherumuermuerm chalice. I've started to explore a bit further on, rather than using the chalice. But also, last time I carked it, I got dragged off to the unknown village or whatever it is. So - two questions:

1. I know the chalice is used on a gravestone to make a dungeon (if you've not played Bloodborne, that sentence is nonsense); am I right in thinking that I need to make the first dungeon as part of the progression of the game?
   
2. Am I right in thinking that the Village is another "Awakening" point, so, now I've got to a lantern there, can I jump back to here via one of the gravestones in the Hunter's Dream?

I have fond memories of the Blood-Thirsty Beast as "the boss that made me understand Dark Souls." Oftentimes people would say, nah but its that feeling of immense satisfaction you get after felling a Dark Souls boss that makes it all worthwhile. For me I always felt empty. Even with the Chuckle Brothers, I was just relieved it was over* rather than celebrating some great feat of perseverance and self-improvement.

*i.e., I would have to repeat this process again against another big bad later

The Blood-Thirsty one changed all of that. I found a tempo - fast fast, attack, fast fast dodge, fast fast counter, fast fast flee, fast fast compose yourse--- fast fast no time- but a rhythm that pulsated ever more violently over time. The visceral snarls and screams of this insatiable, massive, lightning-fast creature, supported by a manic moveset, made it clear that the more I fought, the more I was just pissing this thing off. The battle brought the series to life for me. But not life as in the realism of the daily grind, life as in the vivid un-reality of dreams - that frantic, instinctual, pre-symbolic/pre-language reality.

Immersion in games is ethereal, like dreaming one's liable to be pulled from slumber's cocoon by anything from noise to hunger. But in the Blood-Thirsty Beast I discovered my match, my beat. A fragile hunter, pulse pounding, "physically" never more than mere inches from "death" but mentally closer to "life" than ever before. Nothing was pulling me away from my trance until the final chord had sounded.

It was that, edge of your seat, one small hunter against the world, naked without a shield and armour, stuff that all came together in that fight. I'd always found Dark Souls too plodding and methodical. It had a lot to appreciate artistically, but like Once upon a Time in the West or Citizen Kane the fascination for me remained a distant appreciation of form, not an infatuation. The constant danger, the speed, coupled with all that gothic lore, that's what separates Bloodborne from Dark Souls to me, and all of that became crystal clear in that Blood-Thirsty fight. Can't say that the rest of the game held me within the same tight grasp of revelation, but it still had me ready to play it, and only it, until the tale had concluded.

Vicar Amelia I found no less challenging, but she was a much more serene and thoughtful entity. I wasn't ever on the edge of my seat with her, and I didn't know what was going on in that cut scene either at the time.

Rom the Vacuous Spider, and then the moon went weird and there was a baby

Two umbilicial cords; I at least know I'm supposed to get 3.

To stop a beast thing from blood the moon happening. Once again, From Software: love playing the game; no idea why I'm playing it.