Blasphemous Review

Your Penitence is over.

There are certain games that you pick at one sale or another and just leave hanging around on your hard-drive, like a time bomb that will one day go off in spectacular fashion and vaporise all your prospective free-time in the blast. Once upon time that game was Hollow Knight, much more recently is was Blasphemous, and someday soon it'll be Bloodstained. For some reason I can't stop collecting these beloved 2D metroidvanias and slipping madly in love with them for week long sprints at a time. It's like a whirlwind romance, only inherently more lonely. But what does a guy like me need with company when he has the Grievous Miracle standing behind him every step of the way, filling his life with purpose and his heart with dutiful sorrow. As such, it's only fair I spread the good word of the miracle unto you through my review of the game itself: Blasphemous.

Born from a Kickstarter success story, rare of it's kind, Blasphemous is the work of a Spanish studio called The Game Kitchen and the publishing rights of Team 17. As such what we're looking at here is another on of those indie gems that comes inexpensively but packs enough high quality gameplay, visual art, music and free DLC content that it's honestly a steal at any price. I'm not going to wait until the verdict to tell you right now, this is a game worth the time of anyone who likes your 2D platformer Metroidvania's like Shovel Knight, and your 2D Souls-likes such as Hollow Knight and Salt and Sanctuary. In itself the game actually strikes a mostly neat balance between the two subgenres, leaning this way or that depending on the particular snippet of content you're enjoying at that moment.  Probably equalling someone's definition of the best of both worlds.

So what does Blasphemous bring new to this world of games? Well, much like the title implies, Blasphemous is what you get when you take the obligatory renaissance-Catholicism sections from your Dark Souls game and stretch it to cover the entire premise. All that precepts and pulpits and self-flagellation fuelled repentance has been bottled up and brewed into an appropriately esoteric tale about curses and blessings. Although mostly curses. Grossly disfiguring, body-horror worthy, curses. All laid upon the Miracle fearing people of Cvstodia by some unknowable, undefinable power known as the Grievous Miracle. A force with will to manifest guilt physically upon people in garish, sometimes ironic, mutations. All of this is bought to life in a delightfully atypical flat 2D art style that looks somewhat reminiscent of old-school flash work from Newgrounds, only sporting incredible detailing in it's face. It is unique in look and narrative.

In play, Blasphemous shapes up like your by-the-book Metroidvania with your sprawling world of disparate themed biomes separated by wide winding treks fraught with enemies and yet surprisingly interconnected once you start unlocking shortcuts. Where this game slightly differs is that barriers to progression are not formed from special abilities that you need in order to cross roadblocks- yes there are collectibles that can only be achieved with certain equipped Relic abilities, but your core route across Cvstodia is bared by doors and locks for the majority of the game, which makes this level design more in line with the way Souls-likes line up their progression. That being said, the art of 2D sidescrolling action where you wield a basic set of moves for your guilty blade 'Mea Culpa' and some bonus abilities tagged on-top, is pure Metroid at it's heart.

Exploration is the key loop here, as you uncover secret routes across the land, over it's icy peaks and under it's buried depths, all to uncover the twisted souls that reside there because yes, there are bosses to slay. (Though not so many as I would have guessed.) Movement and combat feels weighty and fun, with nigh-on everything that should be, being thrown around by the force of your swings, and the bite of their attacks being enough to make you pay attention. Although I didn't find the vanilla game to be particularly difficult to the point of dreading travelling, which is part of what makes exploring this Baroque oil-painting of a world so inviting. That and the plethora of collectibles, false walls and floors, and smattering of side quests that keep the Penitent One busy.

 

Cvstodia is a wonder of a location, absolutely dripping with sorrowful sculpted rock faces and weeping holy edifices across it's entire land. The spirit of holy guilt buzzes across this world, garnished with Roman spires and gaudy crimson cathedrals; all placed in areas coined with delightfully zealous names like 'Mother of Mothers', 'Deambulatory of His Holiness' and 'Knot of the Three Words'. These locations are given significance through lore, ascribed in the traditional Dark Souls coined fashion of item description stories which contextualise events with locations, as well as distinct visual themes that ensure each area has its own core colours as well as its own tile set so that you can immediately tell where you are without having to rely on the map or memorising platform alignments. Some areas even boast unique hazards, such as the unendingly annoying turbulent winds in 'The Graveyard of the Peaks' or the patrolling docile librarian ghosts in 'The Library of the Negated Words' who become deadly if you step on the piles of books that litter the floors. This world is brimming with character and though the doctrinal verbiage of these naming conventions makes their names melt into a conglomeration on a road sign, their visual distinction makes up the difference in spades.

Dotted across this land, and poised as the key steps of the main narrative, are a collection of visually bizarre and decently ghastly bosses. In design there seemed to have been a dominate theme of piteous and grotesque deformity which makes some of these bosses hard to look at, rather than genuinely intimating and deadly looking foes. Heck, one of them is a baby flanked by a viper with a man's face on one end for some reason, and another is literally the exhumed corpse of an archbishop held up and jostled around by the hands of his, presumably giant, congregation. These guys may haunt your nightmares, but not for the reasons that Ornstien and Smough might. Unfortunately, for the vanilla spread of bosses I found their interesting designs to be their greatest asset, because in gameplay many of these fights are somewhat uninspired. A lot of them use attack patterns you've be very familiar with if you've played literally any popular Metroidvania in the past twenty years, with one of the first three bosses pretty much hosting a powered down version of Radiance's moveset. (The true final boss of Hollow Knight.) 

Now there are some standouts in the crowd, mostly the fights against the enemies who were humanoid in scale tended to be more creative with the abilities you had to fend against, and the final boss has some decently interesting mechanics- well, mechanic- going on. But there was a lack of surprising and punishing challenge to the base boss lineup, which is a big part of the experience to be lacking on for someone like me. I think a big part of that comes from the way this game was chiefly inspired by Metroidvania's rather than Souls-likes; which has fights built more for their flashy spectacle than teeth grinding, sweaty pitted, challenge. I have no problem with that per se, but it just seems to conceptually clash with the dark gothic world of Blasphemous. This game feels like it should be an unforgiving Souls-like, but 'Salt and Sanctuary' has given me more moments of heated perspiration and that game looks like the lost Thing Thing sequel!

I keep bringing up 'Souls-like' when I talk about this game, and compare the ways in which it leans into that genre and the directions in which it pulls back, and that's for a couple of reasons. One: because I really love Souls-likes and think more games should play like them, and Two: because there are some clear borrowed mechanics here. When you die, a shard of your 'Guilt' is left behind in an Effigy that blocks off some of your Fervour (Mana) until you retrieve it in person. Now this isn't so punishing, because you keep your Tears of Atonement, (Souls) but your Guilt also doesn't expire with time or number. Die multiple times and you'll have multiple effigies to redeem, and soon you'll be totally incapable of casting Prayers, (Spells) which is really only a mild inconvenience because they aren't exactly game changing unless you're in a particularly challenging boss fight, (of which the base game has two) but no one wants to wonder about not at full strength, I guess.

One point of praise I would be remiss not to mention would be the length, both of the individual areas in the game and the whole adventure. It's lean, impressively so. Substantial enough to be fulfilling but slight enough not to drag into a prolonged campaign. I played this game for the first time about a week ago and I'm currently nearing the mid-point on my third playthrough, no joke. This game is pretty much the epitome of knowing how not to overstay your welcome, to the point where I almost felt a bit cheated for having such a vibrant world teased to me and feeling like I only saw the cliffnotes of it. Certainly there's more to the Blasphemous universe for us to see at some point, and I'm eager to experience it.

You may have picked up on some very careful phrasing that I've used throughout this blog, namely how I've consistently said 'the base game' and 'vanilla' when talking about how the game's bosses are handled and the Metroidvania soul of this game. This is because I am of the belief that the DLC represent a seismic change in the direction of this game. The very first DLC added a new game plus mode called True Torment which toughened every enemy up and added punishing ascendency challenges for the brave to take on. DLC two added pinpoint precision platforming races that push the limited movement suite of this game to, and past, it's limits. (Also, it's a crossover with Bloodstained. Miriam actually looks better in this art style, in my opinion) And DLC 3 added an entire new storyline to the game with a brand new, truer, ending. Oh, and DLC 1 and 3 add the best bosses in the game handsdown.

Everything I said about the bosses before goes out of the window. These designs looks badass and intimidating, these movesets are dynamic and creative, and these duels are tough and unforgiving. It's almost as though the game isn't trying to be an exploration-focused Metroidvania with these DLC's but a trial-focused Souls-like. Which is my theory for this game. The team launched their project with Metroid and Shovel Knight to mind and slowly fell in love with Dark Souls and Bloodbourne and started wanted to add some of that into this series. And I think the results are raging; these DLC bosses absolutely slap. And whatsmore; every single piece of DLC is 100% free with the game. How can you rightly argue with that?

Now that I'm on the otherside of two playthroughs, there is another gripe I've had with the game, and it's actually tied to the narrative. Spurred by such an evocative title, 'Blasphemous' boasts a Souls-style underlying narrative that- I'm be honest, totally evades me, even in hindsight. Sure, I understand the acts that happen, but I can't figure out why they happen. The best Souls games, and even Souls-likes, mostly have their story contextualised after the events themselves, with players being able to reliably connect the dots on playthrough 2. I haven't yet done that with Blasphemous, specifically because I can't really find any point at which the game justifies its title.

The Penitent One, sworn to silence, enters a world of devout worshiper's to the cruel and monstrous Miracle which weaponize their guilt to torture them with it, and so the path to being 'Blasphemous' seems pretty clear cut, doesn't it? And yet instead the game immerses you in a journey where the hand of the Miracle is just a part of life that you exist around, never questioning and never really confronting it in any serious fashion. I'm not saying that's a story beat which is necessary or anything, but when you make a promise on the box I sort of expect you to follow through. (The final boss even dies with the Latin message 'Summa Blasphemia', Tragic Blasphemy, and I can't understand why.) The final storybeat follows a renewal, cycle narrative, plot point- pretty much the standard for a Souls-like; but in Dark Souls there was a purpose to restarting the fire, rebirth and repetition were core aspects of the series' themes and the choice of whether or not to continue the flame was of tantamount importance to that story, even if the choice was ultimately futile. I don't think the same is true for Blasphemous, which makes it's original two endings fall a little short in my eyes. They more shape up to endings that they drummed up because that's how games like these end, rather than because it's what this particularly unique narrative demanded.

And yet I'm saying things like 'base game' again because, as I implied earlier; the final DLC adds a totally unique storyline with a new, now canon, ending. Should you devote yourself to the narrow margins to complete this thing, (Key points of contention are making sure not to kill the mid-boss and penultimate boss) you'll be treated to a narrative that actually justifies both the title and the many roadblock faithful on the path who seem convinced you're on a traitorous traipse. Bolstered by two excellent new bosses and a couple cool remastered bosses, this finale feels so much more fitting for the world we've been introduced to and apparently goes to set-up the now announced sequel, which is something we're going to have to wait to see because otherwise this ending really does seem to wrap up the overall narrative far more nicely than the base game ever did.

However, I have to be honest and say that personally I still prefer Hollow Knight, which I consider to be the king of this style of 2D Souls-like. I think there was a special something about the alien, yet familiar world, of hegemonic insects locked in a classical paradoxical struggle between stifling order and chaotic void. A sweetness to the various side characters who you actually came to know, rather than spent the whole time pitting for the horrendous manifested guilt they seem to gladly adopt. A rush of excitement from the dozens of bad-ass and creative bosses who's intricate movesets turns every duel into a choregraphed dance of answer and response, rather than a mad-dash of 'hope this RNG works out for me this run' like a few of the Blasphemous bosses suffer from. And finally I prefer the music of Hollow Knight, not that Blasphemous' is bad- it just fails to stand-out at any key point with those one or two tracks that I can't get out of head. There's no 'Gwyn Lord of Cinder' or 'Nightmare King Grimm' track to make the heart weep or set the blood pumping. 

In Summary, Blasphemous is a gorgeous and memorable Metroid/Soulslike that introduces a stunningly realised theocratic world and fills it with all sorts of interesting secrets, twisted lore bits and grossly deformed enemies. Although I did find the base game lacking in the setpiece boss fights and certain lacklustre story beats, the free DLCs that are patched into the package picks up the baton and runs with it, in this regard. Those who see the torturous world of Cvstodia and go in expecting that pain to translate into bitter trials will be sorely disappointed, but those wanting to engulf themselves in a brilliantly written renaissance-catholic hellscape will find more than they could have ever dreamed of in this game. Caught between what this game does so well and what I feel it desperately is trying to be with it's three DLCs, I find it hard to land on a grade for this title that I find fair. But if I'm hard pressed, and insisting that I account for the full package here, rather than splitting it into 'Vanilla' vs 'DLC'; I'd end up going with a solid B Grade. Great in execution but wanting in vision. Still, an absolute recommendation to Metroidvania fans out there, even if I know Souls lovers will be a bit deflated by the ease of the product. (Unless you're one of those game's journalists constantly badgering FromSoftware to completely rebalance their games and remake all the meticulously crafted fair bosses in order to make a mode specifically tailored just to them. Then I suppose this is your game.) The Game Kitchen were just on the verge of getting the vision they wanted out of Blasphemous when they wrapped up development on 'Wounds of Eventide', and I just know that Blasphemous 2, due 2023, is going to learn from it's predecessor's shortcomings and be something incredible. I can't wait to champion it just as much as Hollow Knight come then!