I needed a change of pace after only playing Lords of the Fallen for a few weeks now. I decided to dig into my library of games I bought and never played. That's where I found Blasphemous. I bought this on a sale a good while back but never got around to playing it. Now is the time.
What is Blasphemous?
Blasphemous is a classic metroidvania game that has souls-like elements tied into it. You navigate a mazelike interconnected world while battling the enemies you find along your way. Combat is simple and requires both precision and patience to master. There's also deep lore inspired from the catholic church and Spanish culture. It's a very good mix.
The game is a 2D side-scroller which shouldn't be a surprise for a metroidvania game. Can you even make a metroidvania as a 3D game? I don't know. They use pixelart to create all the visuals of the game and that is where the game truly shines. It's up and beyond in terms of art direction.
Two hours of frustrating fun
For this first session I spent roughly two hours with the game. I had a lot of fun with it even if it was very frustrating. Both combat and general movement through the levels require a lot of precision in a way that I'm not used to. I've barely played any 2D games in the last 10 years so I need to grow into this a little bit. I am more than willing to learn.
It's hard to say how long I progressed through the game in these two hours but I did manage to take down two bosses and get through a few zones. The bosses were very enjoyable even though they were very simple. They were fun to figure out and fun to fight once you learned their movesets. I was a bit frustrated with the bosses as well as it's not easy to tell which attacks can be dodged and which can't. It requires a lot of trial and error.
I did however massively enjoy exploring the world. The whole game looks fantastic and they've been very clever with their level design. So many areas interconnect and loop back on one another. It's giving off that Dark Souls 1 vibe for sure.
I still have a long way to go in this game and if you want to you can follow my journey on Twitch or YouTube. Here's the VOD of my first stream of Blasphemous. I might edit it down to more digestible content in the future:
https://youtube.com/live/bfngi0P3hSA?feature=share
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.