Blasphemous (2019)

As a fan of Castlevania games, I really wanted to like Blasphemous. And first half of the game was quite enjoyable. I mean, the pixel art is beautiful, animations are great, bosses are big and interesting. But the further you progress, the more irrational the game becomes. If you're playing with a guide, then that shouldn't be a problem.
But if you're like me, and enjoying playing those games without a walkthrough by your side, then Blasphemous is more frustrating than fun.
Quite early in the game you'll see some tree branches that look like you could grapple to them, if you had a grappling hook. Later on, you'll meet a guy that's slowly turning into a tree. So it makes a lot of sense that the tree-guy will be the one that provides you with a mean to attach yourself to branches. But no, he provides you with an amulet that boosts your defences. And to interact with branches, you need to provide three items to a hairy egg. Which three items? First one is something related to a bride, third one is something related to a widow. So, what's the middle one?
Of course those are melted coins! Because what's between a widow and a bride? Melted coins! Totally rational, right? And that's only one example. Wait until you'll try to jump in the swamp. You'll have a lot of fun, I'm sure of it.
But wait, why am I even complaining about that? Aren't those items supposed just, you know, help you, but you could totally beat the game without them? Well, wait until you reach last pair of bosses. Good luck beating them with Pelican Effigy, which, you guessed right, hidden behind one of those branches. And there's absolutely no way of knowing that. Those are the same two bosses that have broken frames (hit you even it looks like she missed) or telegraph a deadly attack where you cannot see it.
That's not to mention that to get the best ending, you'll have to read through another set of irrational challenges. But at least those aren't broken, thank the Father and the Miracle.

Blasphemous update! I think I'm finally getting the hang of this game. I'm super impatient so all of these enemies that take parrying and dodging make me want to pull my hair out, but now I'm at a point where I just have to fight them if I don't want to constantly die. So, I made it through a few more bosses. Dude on the bridge was REAL hard. That took me a few dozen tries. Exhumed Archbishop went pretty quick, I finished the Redento quest, and am pretty much through Mother of Mothers. I have the Nail Uprooted in Dirt and that lightning spell, so I'm going to back track a third (fourth?) time and get all the Children of Midnight and everything else I missed so far. A bit over halfway and about 19 hours in.

Well, I hadn't made much progress in the last month, so I put this down for a while. I started up again this weekend and managed to actually make it through some new areas and beat two bosses. The boss fights are definitely more fun than a lot of the rest. I think my problem was right after the beginning, I went up into the Graveyard of the Peaks and the Lady of the Charred Visage area and I was NOT ready for that. So I went down to Mercy Dreams and wow, that was so much easier. It didn't make the harder parts any easier, but at least I had a big enough life meter and enough bile containers to make it further.