Finishing off Blasphemous

For this, the ultimate Blasphemy

Yeah, I know that I literally only just played through Blasphemous and recorded by doing so in this blog here reviewing the title, but I hadn't quite pulled my weight exactly to the extent I initially intended to. To be clear, when I first got around to playing Blasphemous, the sequel had just been announced and the 'Wounds of Eventide' free update had come into the game, providing a secret alternate true ending that would set up the events of that fresh-off-the-presses follow-up. (Much more exciting than a teaser trailer, if you ask me) I knew this, however I still played the first Blasphemous as though I didn't, picking the routes I wanted to go in the moment and learning the ins and outs of the game as a new player would; all because I did not want to go about bothering myself with walkthroughs or guides for that virginal run. After that initial playthrough I went back into the game to try out the new game plus mode, and ended up sticking around for a whole second playthrough thanks to how lean and accommodating the game is in length. No 20 hour sessions here, just a sensible length and plenty of replay value. So I decided: Might as well go for that special true ending in order to wrap up my time with this whole package properly! But there was a confusion.

Much as you might have guessed if you read by the lines of my review, I fell for the mistake of acquiring the story hook to start the DLC, which requires the player to go their way off the beaten path before the mid-point of the narrative or else lose the opportunity altogether, and not realising that single hook did not, in itself, guarantee my path into the 'Wounds of the Eventide' DLC content for the rest of the game. I went and beat every boss in the base game, sans the final guy, before going and taking on the much harder set-up bosses for the Wounds, only to realise I had erred and in actually I was supposed to abstain from killing the penultimate boss of the base game before slaying the new Wounds bosses. Don't you just love hidden clauses that screw you out of your earned end? So I gave up, purposely took the bad ending to see what it looked like and then just looked up the ending that I missed. Upset but at peace. Mostly. Okay not even nearly at peace.

I imagined maybe revisiting Blasphemous on the eve before the sequel came out, but that didn't sit right by me. I was in the prime of the fandom right now, dammit! If ever I was ready to do another playthrough, it was in that present moment. So after maybe 36 hours of fooling myself into thinking I'd moved on, I started on playthrough 3. If nothing else this should tell you what I think about the game's ability to keep me hooked on the line, that I stuck around for three complete playthroughs! Whatsmore, I went out of my way to do everything I could for the last playthrough, which meant forcing myself through the miserable challenge of the 'Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night' crossover platforming levels. Good lord, Blasphemous was not meant to be a speedy platformer! Easily the hardest challenge in the game was trying to reliably pull off that damnable lamp-jump move before realising the cheat-sheet tactic of tapping the dash button during the swing. (And even then the physics were nonsensical enough to be infuriating.)

But what sort of greater enlightenment has my third and final jaunt against the horrors of The Grevious Miracle elucidated upon me? What sort of supreme peace have I achieved now that I've finally experienced that most secret of endings and am now, without having to look it up on Youtube, fully ready for whatever horrific thing this universe has up its sleeve next? Well for one, much to my complaints in the review, I can finally say that the game Blasphemous has the player character actually committing a blasphemy! I mean sure, I know that even in the base game the splash text would announce 'Summa Blasphema' upon beating 'His Holiness Escribar', but I didn't really buy that. Afterall, in the lore it was The Miracle itself that resurrected The Penitent One, set them on the path to confront Escribar and even went the distance of rewarding them by letting them take the place of the Twisted One. That hardly sounds blasphemous to me! No, only in the True Ending do you look beyond into The Dream and confront the forces beyond The Miracle itself.

Beyond even that, there are the DLC battles in general which I think mark the best, and toughest, content that Blasphemous has to offer; even in a repeat play. Stair of Dawn bought the Amanecida, which is conceptually similar to the classic final boss of the Souls franchise, the 'Soul of Cinder.' The Amanecida are 5 boss fights all wielding a different weapon and slightly different attack style, before one final boss that conjoins all those weapons and tactics into a single body that switches between each attack style in an epic confrontation that sends the two of you climbing high into the sky, dodging arrows, ducking spears and parrying swords. (I have a special kind of love for fights that have evolving boss arenas) Of course given the nature of Blasphemous, the final Amanecida, Laudes, does not switch weapons at will like the Soul of Cinder did, and instead does so at specific junctions of health, but it's still a great summary of everything you had learned so far being smashed together into one extended multi-tiered bout. What more could you ask for?

Then there are the two bosses of the 'Wounds of Eventide' that are just on a whole other level than what the base game had going on. I actually stumbled upon Isidora completely by accident on my first playthrough, and found myself utterly overwhelmed by her ferocious attacks matched with the sheer number of tracking flame projectiles she uttered out in her second phase. It was entirely distinct from the level of 'relatively easy going' challenge that even the toughest in Cvstodia had up their sleeves. Trying it again on New Game Plus when she had even more health was certainly a challenge, one of learning to equip and rely on the Prayers, which I had, admittedly, been sort of ignoring up until then. And learning to modify my pace based on where she was in her attack cycle. Much of the DLC bosses teach patience followed by punishment, which is the same formula that Dark Souls bosses so often fall back on. There is something satisfying about sneaking in that one perfect hit after a chain of perfect dodges and deflections, isn't there?

Sierpes, on the otherhand, was a totally different speed to Isidora. Less unrelentingly fast and more of a brutal slog fest of memorising patterns and chipping away at that large health pool. That serpentine foe controls the entire stage and pretty much dictates exactly where you need to stand at every individual moment, so that the entire fight becomes a back and forth of matching his actions with the perfect reaction. I certainly would say that Isidora is more difficult, but having two bosses that play so differently from one another is a really strong philosophy for shaking up the spread of the game's bosses, which I appreciate. Plus Sierpes really bought the spectacle to it's fight. Rising higher and higher with the switch in phases until you're wrapped up into the clouds above a crushed pirate ship, similar to the Laudes duel. I enjoyed them all.

And then, of course, are the extra final fights tacked onto the base game through the 'Wounds of Eventide' unique quest chain. Both are addendum final stages upon the last two bosses and both add a considerable extra layer of danger. Cristanta actually has a very important role in the background of the lore in this game as revealed in the prequel comic, and having her boss fight not be a throw-away affair like it was in the vanilla game is a good way of honing in on that fact. Although I was a little disappointed at how the ultimate final fight, against the last boss, is something it is literally impossible to lose. At the final point of damage your companion will swoop in and save you, bringing you to the beginning of that fight but restoring all your health. It's an odd anti-climax of a last fight, but then I guess given where you are it doesn't make sense to be able to die from a lore point. In the end I have to say that Blasphemous absolutely contains the sort of kick to warrant a repeat playthrough or two and not just in order to understand the intentionally esoteric narrative. I think the greatest boon this game has going for it is it's length, which makes experiencing everything again so much easier to swallow than it is for other Souls-likes of the age. Now with that decidedly behind me, I can rest my Miracle slaying hand until Blasphemous 2; and by-The-Miracle am I curious how exactly the 2001 space baby is going to evolve this narrative in the future.