Bloodborne? More like Bloodboil. This game is the stuff of nightmares, in more ways than one.

Thanks to some genius marketing, Marmite has become a single-word description for something people either love or hate with no middle ground for mild opinions.

Bloodborne is a Marmite game and I hate it.

Critics have universally lavished praised on this action role-player, with its average score on Metacritic being 92 and the very lowest review score I’ve seen being 8/10. Comments about it being visionary and a masterpiece have been widely used.

There has also been a lot of player love out there for Bloodborne, especially from fans of Japanese director Hidetaka Miyazaki’s previous work on the Souls franchise which this game shares a lot of similarities with.

The monster-slaying hack ‘n’ slash adventure has divided opinion though, and there is a large section of gamers who just don’t like it. I’m afraid to say, I’m in this second camp.

Your Local Guardian:

It’s not for the want of trying. I’ve played this game every day since receiving it last week, and have sunk more hours into it so far than I gave The Order 1886 and Battlefield Hardline in their entirety. With a burning desire to delve as deeply as possible into the dark and disturbing city of Yharnam, I’ve tried my damndest to get through the early stages but have hardly been able to make any progress.

As many other exasperated players have pointed out, Bloodborne is bloody hard. Every little mistake during the brutal combat is punished severely by vicious unforgiving enemies, and death can happen very quickly. My character has died, and then died again – and again and again and again and again and again and so on.

While I’ve struggled to cope with this punishing difficulty level which kicks in right from the get-go, this isn’t actually my main gripe with the game.

My chief problem is the forced repetition, which becomes tedious after a while and then starts to feel downright cruel and sadistic.

What happens whenever you die is you respawn at the last checkpoint and the area is repopulated with any enemies you killed. The problem is the checkpoints are a long way apart. So when your character dies as frequently as mine has, you have to replay the same part of the game over and over again, killing the same enemies over and over again.

Your Local Guardian:

After battling back through several minutes of tough action that you’ve already beaten, desperately trying not to make any errors and lose your progress again, you might finally return to the part where you met your end the last time. You’ll try and remember what you did last time, then try something slightly different in the combat – maybe it will work, but most likely it won’t and you’ll be sent right back to where you started, with the maddening prospect of having to repeat everything yet again.

I don't mind a game being challenging. In fact, I want a game to test me and make me think. I don't want to breeze past waves of weak enemies and complete a game in just a few hours. So I'm not objecting to Bloodborne's toughness, I just think the business of making defeated players redo previously completed but still demanding work is mean.

What rubs even more salt into the wound is the 30-40-second loading time for each occasion you die and are sent back to do another restart.

Your Local Guardian:

I expect there to be some consequence when I die in a game. I'm fine with losing a little bit of progress or having rewards I've accumulated taken away, because it feels wrong when failure has no repercussions. The consequences of dying in Bloodborne are harsh in the extreme, however. The only thing worse and even more annoying would be having to begin the whole game over again.

If you want to make an ultra hard game, From Software, that's fine. And if you want to make a game that has players walking a long-distance tightrope with no safety net between checkpoints, that's ok too. I just think the combination of the two elements together is horrendous and means your game is no fun to play.

Your Local Guardian:

Every single death I've suffered in Bloodborne has been entirely my own fault. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the gameplay. The fights are fair, the controls are responsive, the whole thing runs very smoothly. I accept my shortcomings, and want to overcome them. I'm not rubbish at this game on purpose. I feel, though, that I'm not given a fair opportunity to improve thanks to spending about 99 per cent of the limited time I can give the game replaying parts I've already mastered in order to get close enough for another crack at the parts that have bested me. If I had more chances to beat the trickier enemies maybe I'd develop the skills to get through the game and then there wouldn't be the need for all the infuriating repetition.

My choices for breaking this cycle of despair are either to stick with it and hope I can eventually get better at playing or to walk away from it and find something more enjoyable. The latter option is much more appealing because as much as I don’t want to be a wimp and give up I don't think I can keep poking myself in the eye with a sharp pencil.

Your Local Guardian:

After all this negativity, it's going to seem a little weird for me to say I do think Bloodborne has many fine qualities.

First and foremost, it's a beautiful game, in a haunting and unsettling way. Right away, Yharnam is visually arresting and doesn't let go.

The look of the plague-ridden city coupled with the game's soundtrack perfectly put your on edge and make you feel uneasy.

Bloodborne is a work of art, of that there can be no doubt. Some hugely impressive creativity has gone into creating everything, from the Victorian/Gothic surroundings and architecture to the mutated citizens and terrifying monsters that inhabit the city's streets.

Your Local Guardian:

You explore the labyrinthine Yharnam ultimately to find the medical remedy your hunter character travelled there to obtain but also to unlock its many other mysteries. Clearly it's somewhere with many secrets and surprises lurking within.

Along the way bloody, heart-pounding, intense conflict is unavoidable. Obviously I've got a serious problem with what failure in combat means, but the combat itself doesn't disappoint. A couple of evasive moves are available but not much else to defend yourself with, so players are encouraged to be aggressive and proactive using their firearm to stun enemies and their bladed weapon to inflict major damage. It leads to the combat being constantly fast-paced and visceral, as well as hard-hitting and gory.

Not that it's been any great help to me, but one interesting touch in combat is the ability to regain some lost health by immediately striking back at an attacker.

Your Local Guardian:

Despite admiring the game for its various achievements, I have to stay in the Bloodborne hate camp for the reasons I outlined earlier.

I realise I've been harsh on Bloodborne, harsher than I wanted to be, but I've tried to give an honest assessment of it based on my experience having given it what I consider to be a fair crack at winning my affection.

Clearly there are a lot of people who love the game - people with the skills, or at least the patience and perseverance, needed to tame it.

Maybe you'll be one of them. If you've previously played and enjoyed one of the Demon's/Dark Souls games, the chances of you liking this one are high.

Maybe I’ve been playing it wrong, maybe I’m the wrong type of player for Bloodborne. Whatever the reason, it’s just not my cup of tea and I don’t see it becoming my cup of tea no matter how long I stick with it.

My spare time is precious and when I play a game I expect it to provide a service to me. I expect it to provide escapism, empowerment and above all else entertainment.

Bloodborne has unfortunately felt more like a chore. I shouldn’t have to work so hard to find pleasure, and progress, in a game.

Bloodborne doesn’t see its role as providing a service. Instead, it has a sneering kind of play me, don’t play me, I don’t care if you have any fun kind of attitude.

I want a game to appreciate me as a player and respect my time, not one that sticks its middle finger up and calls me a loser.

There are many other games within easy reach which are so much more rewarding and enjoyable to play.

I’m really reluctant to award a score in Bloodborne’s case but also feel obliged to do so.

Based solely on my time with it, I can only award it 4 out of 10. Most points off for the checkpoint system but also for the painfully long loading times and for just being a thoroughly unfriendly game.

If I was lucky enough to be one of those players who ‘gets’ Bloodborne’s appeal and finds pleasure rather than frustration in repetition I would raise my score up to 8 out of 10.

Out now exclusively for PS4