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This review contains spoilers
This is a case of a game with amazing presentation that is actually deeply flawed when you look just a bit deeper.
First of all - the art-direction, cutscenes, enemy and area designs, sound design, music and voice overs (English and ESPECIALLY Spanish) are absolutely flawless. I don't think there could've been any improvements in those departments. Seriously, this is probably one of the most visually and sonically complete games.
But then you spend a couple of hours in the game and a lot of issues on the gameplay side start to arise. This game just feels really frustrating to play. You get one-shot killed if you fall on the spikes. You get one-shot killed if you fall through the holes in levels. You get fucked up by the clunky enemy hitboxes, weird and sometimes buggy attack patterns. A lot of the times the camera is placed specifically in such a way that you don't see a set of spikes, fall down and die.
Most of the common enemies are a complete joke and don't offer anything interesting in terms of gameplay or challenge. Which is overall brought down by the quality of their attack patterns too - they don't enforce the player to act in a certain way, all of them are really basic.
There is a lot of jankiness in how Blasphemous plays. I cannot fathom why they locked the fast travel between "bonfires" (that was actually added after release in a free DLC) behind a 20k "souls" donation to the church. The teleports that can be found through exploration really don't save the situation. This wouldn't really be that much of an issue if the backtracking in this game didn't feel boring and meaningless.. but that isn't the case (for me).
The combat actually manages to feel relatively great - especially when you unlock more abilities and get a sense of what your character can really do. It doesn't really leave much to player's choice though, as the only meaningful items used in builds are Mea Culpa hearts and SOME of the Rosary Beads. Relics are just excuses for this game being a metroidvania. In my opinion, good metroidvanias incorporate an ability that the player constantly uses in a way to unlock new areas, not just add items that aren't used for anything but that purpose.
Still, sometimes the combat just clicks and feels really good. Attack animations and finishers play a huge role in that - as i said, Blasphemous is basically perfect in the art department. What really saves it from being boring are prayers - this games version of magic. Some of them feel really good to use, especially on bosses. Combining a full combo, a blood throw and a high-damage prayer feels really satisfying.
In terms of exploration Blasphemous doesn't offer anything out of the ordinary, but still manages to make wandering through the map interesting - until you need to backtrack to the same area for a couple of times. There are a lot of collectibles to find - bones, which are basically just lore dumps that unlock a very challenging endgame boss once you've collected enough; quest and upgrade items; beads; new prayers etc. All that is good, BUT.. there are, sadly, platforming challenges in the game, and that only detracts from the overall enjoyment. With how janky and buggy it sometimes is, the platforming is really just not something that should've been a part of this game (I've heard this is massively improved in the sequel).
I can praise the game's bosses - basically all of them are really memorable - both due to the designs and the fights themselves. Although, they rarely offer any challenge. Most of them really just fall apart if you can fully execute your combos, as the damage output get really crazy. Sometimes the fights are more on the side of a light bullet hell, and those fights are really awkward. Requiring the player to dodge so many projectiles with a movement system this clumsy is really not the way to go.
The world of this game is really immersive, full-fledged and beautiful, some of the areas are just stunningly amazing - the combination of the art, soundtrack and sound design results in some of the best 2D scenery I've ever seen.
Overall, I strongly recommend Blasphemous to anyone who appreciates good art direction in games. But you really need to be prepared to go through all the junk when you go deeper and deeper. If you expect a masterful metroidvania game, I'm not sure if this is what you should play.
First of all - the art-direction, cutscenes, enemy and area designs, sound design, music and voice overs (English and ESPECIALLY Spanish) are absolutely flawless. I don't think there could've been any improvements in those departments. Seriously, this is probably one of the most visually and sonically complete games.
But then you spend a couple of hours in the game and a lot of issues on the gameplay side start to arise. This game just feels really frustrating to play. You get one-shot killed if you fall on the spikes. You get one-shot killed if you fall through the holes in levels. You get fucked up by the clunky enemy hitboxes, weird and sometimes buggy attack patterns. A lot of the times the camera is placed specifically in such a way that you don't see a set of spikes, fall down and die.
Most of the common enemies are a complete joke and don't offer anything interesting in terms of gameplay or challenge. Which is overall brought down by the quality of their attack patterns too - they don't enforce the player to act in a certain way, all of them are really basic.
There is a lot of jankiness in how Blasphemous plays. I cannot fathom why they locked the fast travel between "bonfires" (that was actually added after release in a free DLC) behind a 20k "souls" donation to the church. The teleports that can be found through exploration really don't save the situation. This wouldn't really be that much of an issue if the backtracking in this game didn't feel boring and meaningless.. but that isn't the case (for me).
The combat actually manages to feel relatively great - especially when you unlock more abilities and get a sense of what your character can really do. It doesn't really leave much to player's choice though, as the only meaningful items used in builds are Mea Culpa hearts and SOME of the Rosary Beads. Relics are just excuses for this game being a metroidvania. In my opinion, good metroidvanias incorporate an ability that the player constantly uses in a way to unlock new areas, not just add items that aren't used for anything but that purpose.
Still, sometimes the combat just clicks and feels really good. Attack animations and finishers play a huge role in that - as i said, Blasphemous is basically perfect in the art department. What really saves it from being boring are prayers - this games version of magic. Some of them feel really good to use, especially on bosses. Combining a full combo, a blood throw and a high-damage prayer feels really satisfying.
In terms of exploration Blasphemous doesn't offer anything out of the ordinary, but still manages to make wandering through the map interesting - until you need to backtrack to the same area for a couple of times. There are a lot of collectibles to find - bones, which are basically just lore dumps that unlock a very challenging endgame boss once you've collected enough; quest and upgrade items; beads; new prayers etc. All that is good, BUT.. there are, sadly, platforming challenges in the game, and that only detracts from the overall enjoyment. With how janky and buggy it sometimes is, the platforming is really just not something that should've been a part of this game (I've heard this is massively improved in the sequel).
I can praise the game's bosses - basically all of them are really memorable - both due to the designs and the fights themselves. Although, they rarely offer any challenge. Most of them really just fall apart if you can fully execute your combos, as the damage output get really crazy. Sometimes the fights are more on the side of a light bullet hell, and those fights are really awkward. Requiring the player to dodge so many projectiles with a movement system this clumsy is really not the way to go.
The world of this game is really immersive, full-fledged and beautiful, some of the areas are just stunningly amazing - the combination of the art, soundtrack and sound design results in some of the best 2D scenery I've ever seen.
Overall, I strongly recommend Blasphemous to anyone who appreciates good art direction in games. But you really need to be prepared to go through all the junk when you go deeper and deeper. If you expect a masterful metroidvania game, I'm not sure if this is what you should play.
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