So I finally decided to revisit Blasphemous after putting it down a few years ago and I think I'm glad I did. I say "think" because I feel kind of split on it.

I enjoyed the art style very much. It's a very brown and grey looking game, but I think it uses that to its advantage by juxtaposing those colors with the vivid red of blood, the green of sickness, and the purple of magic. It allows those less common colors to stand out and have a bit more visual punch when they're on screen, which is cool. This along with the awesome religion inspired aesthetic led to a number of very memorable moments, like the first time I met the Lady of the Six Sorrows, who has a fantastic design.

I found it especially impactful when I came across Socorro AKA The Lady of Perpetual Agony (Ladies don't seem to fair very well in this world, but nobody really does, to be fair). The portrayal of her self-inflicted punishment is shocking and grotesque, and really forced me to just kind of stop for a moment in her room to let what I was looking at sink in. It's one of many times in this game where the pixel graphics punch way above their weight.

I played through the game with the Spanish dub despite knowing very little of the language because I swear I heard someone recommend that at some point years ago. Whoever that was was spot on. The voice acting was great throughout. After listening to some clips with the English dub it was very clear to me it was not the superior choice.

The level design was okay. I found myself a bit frustrated with the way fast travel points were placed around the map and never unlocked the ability to travel to prie dieus, which I think I read exists somewhere in the game. I just felt like I was doing a ton of unnecessary trekking through areas I'd already cleared to get back to where I needed to be for a quest or collectible. There were a few cool "Aha!" moments when levels looped back on themselves to open a shortcut but it rarely felt all that satisfying for me for whatever reason. I also missed out on a very important relic, Blood Perpetuated in Sand, fairly early in the game and only discovered this near the end of it after wondering what the weird red glowing firefly spots were the entire playthrough. It's kind of my fault I guess, but it seemed easy to miss despite my thorough exploration, and I missed out on a lot of secrets as a result.

My main frustration with the game is the way it feels to maneuver the Penitent One around and fight enemies. I understand this game takes a bit more from the Castlevania side of metroidvanias than the Metroid side, and I was never able to enjoy the clunky movement I experienced when playing games from the former franchise. Much of that was passed down to Blasphemous, and I found myself wishing for more fluidity while piloting my screw-headed bud.

Dashes never felt satisfying like they do in Hollow Knight and it was never clear when I could dash through an enemy/attack or not. This was a massive annoyance in the second boss fight of the game, where it seems like I should be able to dash through him as he crouches before hitting me, but you just can't for whatever reason and end up taking a hit if you try to. I died once as a result and the game had the gall to show me a "tip" saying I can dash through enemies on the death screen. Pretty ironic.

Gonna rapid fire off some neat techniques that could have made the movement better here:

• If you can pogo off enemies, I never figured out how.
• I often wished I could aim my attacks diagonally ala Metroid.
• A double jump or some similar technique would have been a godsend in the late game when I was working on cleaning up collectibles I missed and still wanted.
• The dash could have had better augments via rosary beads. Faster recovery and long range is a good start but not enough.

Airborne combat felt incredibly underdeveloped, considering there's an entire line in the attack upgrade tree and multiple rosary beads dedicated to the plunging attack but it feels useless most of the time. This is because most enemies use horizontal attack patterns, so there's very little verticality to the combat save for when you approach from a high platform. When the vast majority of enemies can be summarized as "dashes at you from one side real fast" and "throws projectile in straight line at you" it becomes easy to see that there could have been some better enemy variation as well.

Bosses were fun though, if a little on the easy side vs what I was expecting. The game rarely feels easy, per-say, but not quite as hard as the aesthetic and themes seem to suggest. Again, the visual design of the bosses is S tier. So much creativity went into these and it pays off, making nearly every one a real spectacle to behold.

Sorry if a lot of this came off very negative. I'm just very passionate about platformers, hah. Overall I had a fun time. I've heard good things about the second game, but I'm not sure I wanna jump into that one unless I know the movement has been vastly improved.

Thanks for reading!

Been bouncing off Metroidvanias and “Souls-likes” hard recently, but this one is just what the doctor ordered. (NOTE: I played the updated 2020 version which apparently has some enhancements and new content over the original release.)

Action is definitely the heavy focus of this game. Combat to me felt excellent, not too complex and full of the timing-based dodge/parry stuff that I love. Normal enemies are very predictable and easy to dispatch, but when many of them are coming at you at once, things get tough and fun. Bosses are a lot of fun and offer a finely-tuned challenge, with some juuuust going down on my first attempt (I mean what feels better than that?) and others taking as many as 7-10 to learn the patterns and execute. They are absolutely the highlight of the game and each demands a slightly different style of play.

What really helped suck me into this game was the excellent pacing in general. Bosses were never more than a few seconds from the checkpoint. The main zones each felt concise and focused. Fast travel points always came up right when I was looking for one. Shortcuts were extremely plentiful. Valuable currency for upgrades/shops isn’t lost on death. Attack upgrades make early areas a breeze to retread when needed, and other upgrades and items mean there’s usually something new to grab while you’re there. The game wants to be a challenge, but besides a handful of annoying instant deaths, it never felt like it wanted to screw me over or waste my time repeating content. I always want to move along to the next thing, and it’s always right there with enough, but not too much guesswork.

The game has various upgrades and accessories to power up your character in different ways. I have to say some of it felt a little superfluous, but others like extra health flasks and elemental damage reduction accessories were excellent rewards for exploration. Side quests generally offered nice rewards, though I wasn’t inclined to explore every single corner of the map, so I did miss out on a few of the more cryptic or timing-based ones.

I wouldn’t say that the game is visually “stunning” (though some parts kinda are), but its art style, the many distinct environments, and the twisted Catholic-inspired imagery are definitely bold, unique, and attention-grabbing. It all fits the minimalist narrative well, with a focus on atmosphere, theme, and feeling more than any particularly detailed plot. Characters come and go often but are all strange enough to leave an impression. I’ll say the phrase I’ve been trying to avoid this whole time: it’s kinda like Dark Souls.

Overall, I think the game is excellent. It reminds me of several prior games, and it’s a step below them, but it stands up on its own as a memorable action-heavy experience.

Update: 6/23/23

Did a replay to prepare for Blasphemous II! It is just a unique incredible game. Some of my favorite artwork in any piece of media ever. Absolutely perfect artistic direction. Great level design, combat, and interesting lore. Some of the secrets are extremely well hidden, and basically impossible without a guide, but overall one of my favorite games.

———-

There’s so much I loved in this game. It has some of my favorite pixel art ive ever seen, with amazing execution and wild ideas. The progression of opening up the map is a blast. The game usually has a perfect amount of challenge.

The weaker points that make it not a perfect game - the backtracking is pretty horrible, with very few warp points. If you want to get 100% it will definitely get tedious as hell. Some of the challenges are just too much imo, only the most hardcore ppl will do everything. Also, the story is alright. I loved the atmosphere and worldbuilding a ton, but I honestly never had a clue who I was or what I was trying to do ultimately.

But yeah, I definitely would recommend to any metroidvania fan, it’s definitely in my top 5.

[Ending A, 98.52% completion]

No one is debating the merits of Blasphemous' art style - it is spectacular throughout, digging into its Catholic and Andalucían roots to unique effect. The story, threadbare as it is offered to you, is similarly compelling. Where the game struggles is in its progression of the Penitent One's capabilities and power in battle, which felt unevenly ladled into my 20hr+ playthrough.

I'm no stranger to combing wikis and Fextralife for scraps of information - as I have for every Soulsborne to date - but the secrets in Blasphemous felt so obfuscated that you would almost never stumble upon one by mistake. Entire traversal abilities are gated behind fake walls, fake floors, obscure trading missions. The most annoying of these is that the only functional fast travel system (the mirrors being extremely sparse) is hidden in the Church donation system, which gives no indication of how much you need to spend or even the rewards it will eventually offer. To put fast travel behind an invisible system in a game that demands this much backtracking just devalues players' time.

I hear there's a lot of quality-of-life improvements in Blasphemous II so I'm keen to give it a crack, but there's no chance of me jumping back in to my original save, even to clinch the tiny remaining shred of the map left to explore. It's simply too obtuse to bother. I'd already locked myself out of the canonical ending before I even knew it was a possibility.

Solid 3.5 on what could have been a perfect game, with a few tweaks that better valued time spent in game.

If you're a fan of either the souls series or the metroidvania genre then this will likely scratch an itch for you. Truth be told, it doesn't really do anything novel for either genre and in some ways being close to both can make this feel a bit disappointing. Only a bit. The art direction and Spanish-inspired-catholic music are great. That said, aside from the music and pixel art, this really isn't that exceptional when compared to other games in a similar genre. I think Hollow Knight is overall a superior experience, but this game is still worth your time if you're a fan of the genres.

Movement and combat is fast and mostly fluid. You will need to do a lot of backtracking and like with Hollow Knight there is a decent amount of non-linearity in how you can progress through the game. I did find progression in this game to be kind of lackluster though. Like with Hollow Knight, you have multiple forms of progression. You have traversal upgrades, you have weapon upgrades and you have trinket upgrades. Sword upgrades are interesting in this game. You have a skill tree that you can purchase as you find more sword shrines hidden throughout the world. Each shrine gives you a buff to your sword damage and unlocks new tiers of weapon skills. This isn't bad by any means, and in some ways is debatably more complex than Hollow Knight where you basically only upgrade the damage and size of your nail (sword if you prefer). You do learn actual moves, though none of these are complex. You also learn new spells, can increase your mana and health similar to other games in this genre.

I did find most magic to be lackluster, mostly due to its cost versus benefit. The cost felt pretty steep for the lackluster damage. The only spell I really liked and found useful was one that creates two orbs that spin around you. They block most projectiles and do damage to enemies they hit. This became the only spell I felt was useful and good. I also found most trinkets to be lackluster. Giving you passive buffs to defenses, health or damage. Only a few actually changed gameplay. Such as one that increased the dodge distance and another the lowered the cool down of dodge (both of which I always kept on). I do wish more of these trinkets felt impactful and changed how you played the game.

Traversal upgrades act differently than the typically due for the genre. You have 3 slots and so you may need to swap out these upgrades periodically. Also of note, calling these traversal is a bit of a misnomer. Some aren't for traversal. For example, one allows you to talk to the dead. That said most are so we'll stick with that.

I kept expecting to unlock a double jump, but it never came. Often times when an object looks just out of reach, you actually need to drop down from above using a later upgrade. The game is balanced around this, but it's good to be aware that a double jump never comes (at least that I found). There are more secrets you can access than you may expect otherwise.

I did find platforming to be pretty janky and at times frustrating. It can be very precise and sometimes the rules seem to change. Such as how all moving platforms and blood platforms will not allow you to ledge grab them. Making them more punishing and precise. I didn't love the platforming, but it wasn't bad either. The games bonfires are also fairly sparse compared to souls games. Not necessary a bad thing, but this does result in the gauntlets leading to bosses more time than not feeling like the bigger challenge. Especially with the longer and precise platforming challenges.

Boss fights didn't feel that challenging to me. They were still enjoyable spectacles mind you, but only a few bosses took me more than a few tries to beat. This probably won't be a turn off to most players (it wasn't for me either). Some enemies I found to be more frustrating than bosses. There are multiple narrow shafts you need to platform through, with bottomless pits and spike traps. They often will have flying enemies that shoot projectiles, where one hit will cause you to fall, likely to your death. Still enemies have a great art direction and there is a lot of variety to the roster which is a good thing. There are tons of secrets in this game, including secret bosses and quests. The game is explicitly designed to be played multiple times. In fact, entire questlines and endings are locked behind NG+. I personally don't love this. Each Souls game encourages multiple playthroughs through a combination of build variety and endings. But importantly, none of these alternatively are locked behind NG+. You are free to pursue all secrets and endings on a first playthrough which I personally prefer. NG+ in this game is interesting with you taking on an affix at the beginning. This affix will give you a combination of buffs and debuffs that change gameplay. Plus enemies have higher HP and deal more damage. I didn't feel inspired to play through the game again, but I did legit enjoy my time with it. Just a little disappointed there were whole questlines and bosses I couldn't do on a first playthrough.

Something else that rubbed me the wrong way is with progression. Critical progression can have a very obtuse means of progression. Getting a key in one area, going to a completely different area to get a key item then going to a third and final area to use said key item and all being required to beat the game... this happened a few times and to the credit of Souls games you typically have a clear idea of how to progress even if the game is layered in optional secrets. I, no shame, had to use a guide multiple times to figure out how to proceed. Whereas in a Souls game, which has tons of secrets, that is a rare problem. Given the 2-D perspective of the game, it can be really easy to miss a critical path due to the perspective. Wherein a 3-D space, it's easier for a designer to cleverly direct the player's gaze and direction through geographical landmarks. The game has a sense of geography with some critical locations acting as the background vista for some locations, but importantly you can only move left, right, up or down, which limits your sense of direction and disorients you, unlike a well made 3-D environment.

I also think the Souls game handles their obfuscated storytelling better than here, but it's not bad by any means.

That all said, I did enjoy this. It has flaws, doesn't really do anything novel for the genre, but it has a great art style, music and atmosphere.

Writing up a quick review now that I'm done. Just for reference, I got 100% in game in 36:34.

I didn't get the following trophies (spoilered just in case):
Bronze Medal (cross Bridge of 3 Calvaries in less than 3 hours)
Crossing Souls (have Cleofas kill himself in front of Redento)
Last Breath (get Viridiana's help until she dies)
Requiem Aeternam (beat all bosses w/o using any flasks)
The Penitent One (get all trophies)

I would consider going back and trying for the ones I missed, but I'm positive I would never be able to beat all the bosses without using flasks, so I don't see much of a point. Hell, I could barely beat some bosses using all of the flasks.

I give high marks for the soundtrack, graphics, atmosphere, and lore.

However, the following is why I only gave this a 3-star rating:

1. Story - Even after having beat it, I really have no idea what the point of the game was. Somewhere, I lost the plot. Who are the enemies, who are the protagonists, and why is anyone doing what they're doing? I understand all of this in very large generalities, but I have so many questions.
2. Hit detection - is freaking terrible, for both enemies, and the Penitent One. There were moments where I would watch my sword over and over again overlap an enemy above me and the hit would never register.
3. The backtracking - this one might be controversial. I understand how Metroidvanias work. But come on, I don't see any reason why they couldn't have added a couple more warp gates. Especially to skip over zones with...
4. Agonizing platforming - Pixel perfect jumps + death spikes + trying to get to a place I've already been + doing this like a dozen times = :(
5. A few small, confusing translation issues.
6. Crisanta's weird voice acting.
7. Why can't the relics be additive?

I think this is a good entry in the genre, that would be a great one with just a few of these QoL upgrades. The design and art of it all is great, but the gaming needs some improvements. I recommend it strongly for the former if you can get past the later.