TL;DR

Blasphemous is a game with some amazing art in a decently realized world without the gameplay or consistency to back it up. Buy the art book & look at some videos, don"t waste the time on a playthrough, much less the minimum of 2 required to see all of its content. Blasphemous would be best described as tedious; It is never particularly hard, but it is constantly, relentlessly annoying.

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THE GOOD
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SOUND

I think this game’s sound design is decent, it is fairly consistent though more SFX could be implemented.

The music is dope. A lot of Spanish guitar, which is very in-line with the aesthetic & location. I would almost directly compare many of this game’s instrumentals to that of Diablo II, both in quality & general artistic direction. I think the production quality here was really great.


ART

There is some amazing art on display here. The sprite-work in this game is potentially the best I have seen & the attention to detail is nearly unmatched, along with some of the best character design you will ever lay your eyes upon. The way characters progress through the settings with you gives them a genuine place in the experience, making them feel more authentic to the world. It isn"t all great though as the level/world feels very disconnected & artificial in contrast to the fluid, lively characters you meet. Despite the amazingly detailed lore of this IP the actual settings presented feel underdeveloped. More on that later.


BOSSES

These were easily the best part of the actual game. Boss fights are fun, fair & feel challenging in later areas. For those who do play through, it is a nice bonus that upon completion a boss-rush mode is unlocked.

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THE BAD
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STANDARD ENEMIES

This game suffers from very poor combat balance. Enemies are too soft or spongey & they are almost always designed to be annoying. An example; one enemy attacks by teleporting in a general area around you to then fire 2 magic bolts. That would be fine except that they teleport away with every hit, initially taking 4. Most enemies are like this: from their screen placement, to their attack patterns, to their damage output, I felt that nearly none of my deaths in this game were due to anything besides this purposefully annoying design. For some this is not an issue, but I believe the game fails to find a balance between fun & frustration in a rewarding way. There is also the poor hitboxes. Many enemies in this game get a free hit from absurd range, which should be fine considering the parry & dodge, but many times the damage you take is due to a poorly mapped hurtbox in conjunction with their absurd hitbox. This is prevalent throughout as most enemies use attacks that take priority over the player"s. Disappointing lack of polish.

LEVEL DESIGN

This game has a constant desire to put the player through rooms which are a test of patience. Areas like the Cistern & the Convent are just designed to force you to wait. You will meticulously stand around as the same obstacles block your path several times over. This is not inherently a bad thing, most games of this style include obstacles like these & understand how their pacing can aid the experience of an area & force you to respect the level rather than initially blaze through it. Blasphemous, however, has a noticeable obsession with environmental threats you have to wait on. This becomes especially bad considering the backtracking, for a long time by foot, making the constant back-&-forth between these rooms that much more heinous.

The presentation of these areas greatly adds to the monotonous feel of this game. Nearly every screen relative to each respective area felt practically identical. Areas suffer from repetitive visuals with little to no background variation, next to no unique secrets & little variety in their layouts. This leaves many sections feeling like one room stretched over 20 screens, and consequently there is very little cohesion between the locales & how they connect. Areas like the Olive Trees feel artificial, which is contradictory to how the game wants to convey that the world is lived in, or at least authentic. For the effort put in the lore there is a serious lack of care shown in the setting & how it all connects. As for a positive, areas such as the Brotherhood & the Buried Churches have nice continuity between screens which help with the worldbuilding & bring things together. It is a shame that these areas are near entirely straight paths as they are some of the most engaging visually.

ABILITIES

Many of the Mea Culpa’s skill tree is practically useless. Even considering the times skills are useful they are almost never viable as animation cancels exist & out-DPS them. Some capstone abilities are useful for their AoEs, but these too are situational. The only abilities I found any practical use for were the lunge & the combo tree up to Ascending Edge.

Rosary Beads are the most prominent yet frivolous item. I found myself underwhelmed when getting them since they typically serve minimal or situational roles. Another annoyance is that to discern what difference they make I have to read through up to several sentences of lore to find their effect. This varies wildly from being exclusively what change is made to having paragraphs of lore with relevant information placed arbitrarily. This is made worse since each these items has a dedicated lore page to read where this optional information could have been.

Prayers are the most interesting additions to the player abilities, but suffer from a power imbalance. None of them are particularly useless, but some are undeniably superior. Mea Culpa Hearts also add an interesting gameplay element through tradeoffs, but they are mostly passive & only a select few truly impact play.

There is also the issue of this game’s Relics, tools for traversing or interacting with the world. You can swap them out at any point, so why not allow them to permanently be part of the abilities? Only one truly changes the exploration & even then it is obtained very late. It feels pointless, especially since NG+ players keep them.

GENERAL GAMEPLAY

The worst part of this game is the controls. Inputs buffer, which becomes problematic. Lantern/sword jumping is a mechanic some challenges demand, yet it is oftentimes hit-or-miss due to the inputs. There are even issues for things such as the lunge where the attack won"t execute. Many platforming sections also utilize walls which you mount by slashing them. This can be fine, yet the game has a constant desire to have you fight enemies near or while on walls. This causes a constant conflict between trying to register attacks or mounts. Other platforming issues include the game’s poor ladder grabs & areas with raised platforms where clearing jumps is unclear. Thankfully the most responsive element of this game is its parry.

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BRIEF COMPLAINTS
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- The death mechanic is not punishing enough to have impact on gameplay, the game even actively ridding the player of it in later progression
- Eventual fast travel makes issues with the map feel greater as it seems devs actively discourage traversal
- Secrets are lazy & feel nonsensical
- Map is lacking but passable
- Keyboard control options lack menu keys
- Quest design is sometimes aimless

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FINAL THOUGHTS
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Blasphemous is a game which is packed with intricate lore, some jaw-dropping art, & beautiful music all to be wasted on poor level design, fundamentally flawed gameplay & tedious design choices. It is not polished enough to be worth playing, & what is on offer has a severe conflict of interest between being an intricate artistic experience or a sub-standard game.

If you must, the best way to experience this game is through watching a playthrough by someone who knows it like the back of their hand as playing it is not worth the time. Just look at the art.
4/10