The Miracle giveth and the Miracle taketh away, and as Blasphemous becomes a much better gaming experience, its worldbuilding, story and art become a bit more generic and safe.
Good things first, gameplay-wise, it's one of the best modern metroidvanias I've played.
The combat is diverse with three distinct weapon styles that you often have to switch between to get the best results - some enemies are vulnerable to the swift dodge and parry style of the daggers, some need the wide sweeping arc of the Veredicto, and you often will have to fight a mix of them in quick succession.
It's fun to experiment with the best approaches for the bosses as well, and the game makes it easy, as you just switch between different ability presets and have no penalty for committing to the build. I've relied on Veredicto for most of the game, but for the penultimate boss the daggers and the build that favors high guilt build-up came extremely handy.
The boss battles were challenging, but exactly on the right level - rewarding to study and beat, but not exhausting to the point of losing all the will to continue. Many of the enemies can be treated like mini-bosses as well - requiring you to react to their moveset rather just plowing through them with abandon.
The platforming is excellent as well, something I never expected from Blasphemous. The platforming challenges in the first game were grueling and not fun at all - the special speedrun portions were a particular nightmare. In the sequel, the platforming sections are always dynamic, smart, and don't outstay their welcome - the idea to utilize all the weapons in platforming, and sometimes requiring you to switch between all three mid-jump, is genius.
But flawed as the first part's gameplay was, the aesthetics and the worldbuilding were unique and impeccable. Something that the sequel, unfortunately, doesn't hold up.
In the first game, every enemy, boss, and NPC was a little self-contained body horror nightmare. They were all going through some kind of torture, mutilation, or mutation - an animated Hieronymus Bosch painting coming to kick your ass. There are some great designs in the sequel as well, but overall the concentration of horror is much lower. A lot of the enemies are just generic dark fantasy monsters, and the aesthetics of the bosses were a particular disappointment - it feels like more than half are just sword dudes in pointy hats.
The worldbuilding was much less unique and exciting this time around as well. It doesn't feel like the sequel added much to the Lovecraftian horror that is the Miracle or found any other fun ways to show macabre perversions of Catholicism. The idea behind Blasphemous' world is so cool and the first game did so much with it, while the sequel plays like more of a generic dark fantasy world.
Nevertheless, it was a ton of fun to play, and a lot of the worldbuilding perfection of the first game seeped into this one.
Good things first, gameplay-wise, it's one of the best modern metroidvanias I've played.
The combat is diverse with three distinct weapon styles that you often have to switch between to get the best results - some enemies are vulnerable to the swift dodge and parry style of the daggers, some need the wide sweeping arc of the Veredicto, and you often will have to fight a mix of them in quick succession.
It's fun to experiment with the best approaches for the bosses as well, and the game makes it easy, as you just switch between different ability presets and have no penalty for committing to the build. I've relied on Veredicto for most of the game, but for the penultimate boss the daggers and the build that favors high guilt build-up came extremely handy.
The boss battles were challenging, but exactly on the right level - rewarding to study and beat, but not exhausting to the point of losing all the will to continue. Many of the enemies can be treated like mini-bosses as well - requiring you to react to their moveset rather just plowing through them with abandon.
The platforming is excellent as well, something I never expected from Blasphemous. The platforming challenges in the first game were grueling and not fun at all - the special speedrun portions were a particular nightmare. In the sequel, the platforming sections are always dynamic, smart, and don't outstay their welcome - the idea to utilize all the weapons in platforming, and sometimes requiring you to switch between all three mid-jump, is genius.
But flawed as the first part's gameplay was, the aesthetics and the worldbuilding were unique and impeccable. Something that the sequel, unfortunately, doesn't hold up.
In the first game, every enemy, boss, and NPC was a little self-contained body horror nightmare. They were all going through some kind of torture, mutilation, or mutation - an animated Hieronymus Bosch painting coming to kick your ass. There are some great designs in the sequel as well, but overall the concentration of horror is much lower. A lot of the enemies are just generic dark fantasy monsters, and the aesthetics of the bosses were a particular disappointment - it feels like more than half are just sword dudes in pointy hats.
The worldbuilding was much less unique and exciting this time around as well. It doesn't feel like the sequel added much to the Lovecraftian horror that is the Miracle or found any other fun ways to show macabre perversions of Catholicism. The idea behind Blasphemous' world is so cool and the first game did so much with it, while the sequel plays like more of a generic dark fantasy world.
Nevertheless, it was a ton of fun to play, and a lot of the worldbuilding perfection of the first game seeped into this one.