Blasphemous is one of the most focused artistic executions I have ever seen. What this team has achieved is really amazing, though it is unfortunately undercut by some awkward design and imperfect implementation.
Blasphemous is a world ripped directly out of the most horrifying of Christian mythology, with an intense amount of attention paid to sin, penitence, and eternal torment. This is a brutal world where everyone in it is suffering in some way, usually because they believe their suffering will bring them absolution from The Miracle, a godhead inflicting punishment and horror upon this world. I don't think I really understand anything about the story, but I loved going through it.
The art is amazingly well done, though a lot of it can be tough to look at. Blasphemous presents beautifully rendered scenes of intense, biblical torture in a way that isn't voyeuristic or crass, but vividly flesh out this world and the people within it. This specific flavor of religious fanaticism is a perfect choice for this game and the use of intense Medieval European style and Latin phrasing bring it all together.
One minor issue (that leads to the navigational problems below) is that item descriptions are often more thematic than useful, with misleading or unhelpful information preventing you from really understanding what some of the things you are collecting do or can be used for.
The sound, music and voice acting are very effective as well. The music is melodic and haunting, driven by organs and bells, complimented by extremely violent sound effects as you stab and slash your way through this world. The voice acting is very overwrought, which fits perfectly. Everyone in this world delivers information with the utmost gravitas and loquaciousness.
All of that aesthetic impressiveness is let down by the gameplay and structure, unfortunately.
This is a metroidvania, and does a competent job of it, but many of the side quests and things you unlock in the game give no information on how to achieve them or what to do. There are a ridiculous number of items with unintuitive Latin names that you have to take to a specific NPC who doesn't ask for them in order to complete quests or advance the plot. Characters move from area to area with vague or no direction on how to proceed or help them, with your only option to search the whole map continuously or look up a guide. I found it to be mostly tedious and unintuitive, even with a fairly well featured mapping system in place. The frustration is compounded by the presence of an initial fast travel option that is more annoying than useful and a more reliable one that is unlocked by an arbitrary quest that isn't signposted.
Combat is simple, with a single combo (extendible through upgrades) and a selectable magic spell you can use. It didn't really get boring, but I didn't feel like there was much here to master. The difficulty in boss fights comes from learning patterns, parrying, and getting attacks in when you can. Most of these are fun and feel good to learn, but a few just feel cheap or like they simply require Tiento to your Thorned Hairs (spell granting ten-ish seconds of invulnerability).
Unfortunately, the controls can be very awkward, with unnecessarily overloaded inputs, long animations, and windups on things that make everything besides your basic combo just feel unresponsive. The parry feels good when you land it but felt a bit too ambiguous for me to enjoy it much overall.
A couple of choices like instant death from spikes and pits and extreme knock back push things into frustrating territory more often than I liked. Additionally, I ran into quite a few input bugs. I would frequently get stuck in a state where I couldn't jump or use spells, making the game functionally impossible until death.
Blasphemous is an artistic tour-de-force that is unlike any other game I have played. It knows exactly what it wants to convey and how to convey it, but it unfortunately doesn't know how to make the gameplay live up to the standard set by its art and world design.
I liked it quite a bit and am glad I spent the time to play through it, despite how rough the mechanical execution and other design elements are.
Blasphemous is a world ripped directly out of the most horrifying of Christian mythology, with an intense amount of attention paid to sin, penitence, and eternal torment. This is a brutal world where everyone in it is suffering in some way, usually because they believe their suffering will bring them absolution from The Miracle, a godhead inflicting punishment and horror upon this world. I don't think I really understand anything about the story, but I loved going through it.
The art is amazingly well done, though a lot of it can be tough to look at. Blasphemous presents beautifully rendered scenes of intense, biblical torture in a way that isn't voyeuristic or crass, but vividly flesh out this world and the people within it. This specific flavor of religious fanaticism is a perfect choice for this game and the use of intense Medieval European style and Latin phrasing bring it all together.
One minor issue (that leads to the navigational problems below) is that item descriptions are often more thematic than useful, with misleading or unhelpful information preventing you from really understanding what some of the things you are collecting do or can be used for.
The sound, music and voice acting are very effective as well. The music is melodic and haunting, driven by organs and bells, complimented by extremely violent sound effects as you stab and slash your way through this world. The voice acting is very overwrought, which fits perfectly. Everyone in this world delivers information with the utmost gravitas and loquaciousness.
All of that aesthetic impressiveness is let down by the gameplay and structure, unfortunately.
This is a metroidvania, and does a competent job of it, but many of the side quests and things you unlock in the game give no information on how to achieve them or what to do. There are a ridiculous number of items with unintuitive Latin names that you have to take to a specific NPC who doesn't ask for them in order to complete quests or advance the plot. Characters move from area to area with vague or no direction on how to proceed or help them, with your only option to search the whole map continuously or look up a guide. I found it to be mostly tedious and unintuitive, even with a fairly well featured mapping system in place. The frustration is compounded by the presence of an initial fast travel option that is more annoying than useful and a more reliable one that is unlocked by an arbitrary quest that isn't signposted.
Combat is simple, with a single combo (extendible through upgrades) and a selectable magic spell you can use. It didn't really get boring, but I didn't feel like there was much here to master. The difficulty in boss fights comes from learning patterns, parrying, and getting attacks in when you can. Most of these are fun and feel good to learn, but a few just feel cheap or like they simply require Tiento to your Thorned Hairs (spell granting ten-ish seconds of invulnerability).
Unfortunately, the controls can be very awkward, with unnecessarily overloaded inputs, long animations, and windups on things that make everything besides your basic combo just feel unresponsive. The parry feels good when you land it but felt a bit too ambiguous for me to enjoy it much overall.
A couple of choices like instant death from spikes and pits and extreme knock back push things into frustrating territory more often than I liked. Additionally, I ran into quite a few input bugs. I would frequently get stuck in a state where I couldn't jump or use spells, making the game functionally impossible until death.
Blasphemous is an artistic tour-de-force that is unlike any other game I have played. It knows exactly what it wants to convey and how to convey it, but it unfortunately doesn't know how to make the gameplay live up to the standard set by its art and world design.
I liked it quite a bit and am glad I spent the time to play through it, despite how rough the mechanical execution and other design elements are.