Review #748: Blasphemous

 A sinful delight.

 I'll be the first to tell you that I absolutely hate the Souls series and how popular it got, but Blasphemous really is something else. Sparse savepoints that respawn every enemy and refill your limited health vials, an interconnected world, lore and story that can only be discovered by examining items, tough as nails.... it's all here, but in sacrilegious 2-D.

 You are the Penitent One, the last survivor of a coven that had taken a vow of silence, and he sets out to cleanse the curse of The Miracle that has befallen Cvstodia. This means taking a journey through a twisted take on religious concepts, taking down sinner and saint alike. It's pretty good. The graphics are grotesque and violent, making for a very grim environment, the art itself is very crude and rough, think later DOS games, which adds yet another layer of bleakness to the whole ordeal. The game is pretty much a Metroidvania, even more so than the Souls series themselves, since as you go through the game not only will you open up paths that connect different zones together, but you'll also earn Relics that allow you to cross obstacles that you couldn't before, such as making platforms made out of blood appear or making roots grow from designated places in order to reach higher ground. Beating the game unlocks alternate color palettes for our hero.

 The Penitent One can Slash, Jump, Dash/Dodge, Parry, cast Magic('Prayers') and cling onto wooden walls with his sword. As you play through the game you'll find dozens of items that'll boost your stats(Mostly different forms of defense), Prayers, empty vials, that can be made usable again on blood fountains, increasing the amount of health vials you can carry. There are also Health and Mana upgrades waiting to be found, not to mention the aforementioned Relics that will let you explore hidden areas and alternate routes. Defeating enemies grant you experience points that can be used to purchase new skills for your sword, the Mea Culpa.

 The game is tough, there's a fun mixture of tough enemies, tougher bosses and tight platforming challenges, mostly involving spikes that kill you on contact. At the beginning of the game you have a measly two health vials to rely upon, which can only be filled by finding a save point or an even rarer blood fountain. That said, dying in the game is a bit more motivating that in Souls game. Sure, you get a penalty on your maximum mana and you gain less experience points until you find the 'Guilt' you left on the place you died, but if you get back there and collect your guilt, you'll get a free health and mana restore, pushing you forward to deal with whatever challenge killed you last! This holds true for bosses, your Guilt acting as a free health restore, one that has no recovery frames unlike using a health vial. You could also pay with a few experience points at a Guilt Statue to have your guilt restored... but why would you, if getting the best ending involves destroying every Guilt Statue and using the Pure Bead to explore its remains?

 While it borrows a lot from the Souls games, I think this game is more akin to Castlevania, specifically Order of Ecclesia. It's tough but fair, but it still felt easier than Order of Ecclesia. Shanoa had a lot of Glyphs to play around with, but mastering the parry will get you everywhere in this game. There's a single difficulty spike midway through the game when you have to face a double boss, but the rest of the game is fairly consistent with the difficulty. Heck, I'd say that the double bosses were tougher than the final boss in the game! That said, the game is a blast, I loved exploring the desolate world of Cvstodia, and combat is fast and flashy making it fun to backtrack to previous areas in search of goodies I couldn't reach before.

 Despite how good the game is, it does have a few bugs and glitches here and there. Worst of all bein the dash cancel. It seems that getting hit during a specific frame of you dash will prevent you from dashing until you exit the screen. This was the worst glitch by far, and also the rare, I only found a single user complaining about it, and it only happened to me about 5-6 times.... during my attempts at the double bosses, seems those guys had a knack for hitting me at just the right frame, which is probably why I found that fight the hardest, since every single time I tried the fight I wound up not being able to dash. There's also a bug that makes part of the map reveal themselves, which is a bit annoying since an uncovered map helps you figure out which areas you couldn't reach before. A fun one, if you enter a menu while clinging to the edge of a platform, upon exiting the menus you'll be stuck on air. Just enter another menus and exit to fix it. Lastly, near the end of the game I came upon two seemingly endless loading screens that forced me to exit the game.

 As far as I'm concerned, Blasphemous hits all the right notes that makes for a great Metroidvania game. The game is large enough to keep you busy for about 10 hours without growing old, and slaying enemies feels snappy and satisfying so as not to get old. The gameplay itself is so much fun that dying doesn't become tedious either. All in all, it's a great game, and I can't wait for the free DLC. Konami might be done with the genre, but as long as games like Dead Cells and Blasphemous keep the torch alive there's nothing to worry about.
8.5 out of 10