I spent a short half an hour back on the streets of Yharnam, once again in comic-book form.
I really liked the first Bloodborne comic and thought it'd be a nice treat if in the horror month I were to continue the story a little bit; there are 2 more installments out right now, after all.
Strangely enough, or no actually, not really; Bloodborne The Healing Thirst does not pick up where the first volume ended, leaving the Nameless Hunter and his really quite creepy charge to fend for themselves, and instead we are transported to the time when Yharnam was on the cusp of becoming overrun by the curse of the Old Blood. This is that story, albeit very much on a ground level.
We follow two unlikely allies as they team up to try and find the source of the terrible plague that has started to turn men into beasts, and to stop it if they can.
What's rather new for the setting is that we get to see some of the daily lives of Yharnam's citizens in the days before everything went to hell. We get to see the moment when the city topples from relative normalcy into madness through the eyes of Alfredius and Clement, the first of whom is a scientist dedicating himself to analyzing the bacteria found in the plague victims and who concocts potions to combat it, and who harbours a dark secret, and the other is a priest of the Healing Church, and who starts out as a devout follower of the church's teachings but who over the course of his and Alfredius' investigation gradually begins to suspect that the Church might be doing more harm than good.
There's a neat progression to both characters' philosophies and outlook, and there is even a very clear moment where the reader realizes that the two men's functions have switched places, and that the man of science has become the man of faith, and vice versa.
Unlike the first Bloodborne comic this one isn't all that action packed, and is instead more of a character piece, concerned with the pathos of the two men as they try and keep up with a situation that is rapidly spiraling out of control. Also unlike in the first Bloodborne comic, there's a lot to read, with occasionally a page or two filled with introspection, accompanied with a panel or two where one or the other of the two men are hunched over their writings, gloomily mulling it all over.
I thought this was a daring touch, even a little experimental, as there generally isn't much information to be found either in the game or the first comic, where spoken dialogue or reading material were kept to an absolute bare minimum and where the player or reader was forced to deduce the story from the surroundings, rather than having anything spelled out.
It isn't like one can find massive revelations in here though. All writing serves instead to build up the characters of the two men, their relationships with the people around them, and the reasoning behind their choices and actions.
If there is one negative about the comic then it is that it ended a little quickly, if not exactly abruptly. The fall of Yharnam was always going to be inevitable, of course, and here isn't the main point of interest. But, although the two characters' final fates are perfectly in character and well built up I would have appreciated a little more time spent on Alfredius' final pages, a little bit more time spent watching the city deteriorate around him, before his final resolution.
But, as the comic before it, Bloodborne the Healing Church is an actual worthy addition to the universe. Ales Kot is genuinely very good at writing these things, and I really hope that there'll be more to come. Piotr Kowalski has also returned from the first one for the art duties and is again pretty good. I loved the opening panel which tied this installment neatly to the first volume, where one can see the same scenes in both volumes' first piece of art but with a clear point in time to establish when the story takes place.
As a fan of Bloodborne I loved it. If you're new to the setting, or haven't played the game: Well, do you like the Gothic genre? Do you like violence and bloodshed, and men fighting werewolves and things from beyond the stars with cruel-looking melee weapons? Do you like being submerged in a sense of doom and terror, and are you not afraid to be completely lost and disoriented in a setting that will not spell out a damn thing for you?
If the answers to those questions all spell out yes, and I do mean ALL, then do yourself a kindness in this greatest and most terrible of all months and embark on a journey into the universe of Bloodborne, you won't regret it.
Oh, and in the game you'll probably die a whole hell of a lot, so you probably have to be pretty patient. But trust me, it is worth it.
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