Whelp, who's ready for another soulslike? It always seems like whenever a video game with unique ideas becomes a mainstream success there are bound to be other developers who will try to copy it in some interesting way. Sometimes when so many developers try to replicate your game you soon realize you have created an entirely new genre. Take the original Doom for instance, it was the first ever first-person shooter to come into existence and any other game that followed the same formula was announced as a Doom clone. However, when several other first-person shooters with their own original ideas started to get released people began to realize that calling them Doom clones wasn’t the proper term. Specifically, the original Half-Life is what broke the mold for shooters and showed they were trying more than just replicate Doom. That’s when they came up with a new title for this genre, first-person shooters.
Similar events happened with Super Metroid, a side scrolling platformer with maze-like level design and progression where you get stronger by finding upgrades scattered throughout the open-ended world. When Castlevania: Symphony of The Night came out, which took inspiration from Super Metroid but twisted it in a way to incorporate RPG mechanics and combat outside of just running and gunning, people started noticing a trend. These two games followed a similar formula and other games like Mega Man Zero and Cave Story decided to follow a similar formula. Eventually they announced this new genre of games as metroidvanias.
FromSoftware probably didn’t know they would create a genre centered around their game design. Dark Souls was supposed to be another average action RPG, but what helped the game stand out was the game’s world building and steep learning curve. It proved that games could still be fun without having to remove the source of challenge from them and of course this gave developers the balls to make nut cracking experiences. They tried making games copying the formula of Dark Souls and this is what led to the rise of souslikes. I wonder why we haven’t come up with a better name yet? Personally I believe there are two types of soulslikes, both are separate catergories. The first category are the games that are truly trying to copy the Dark Souls experience: the Souls clones. Stuff like Ashen, Nioh, Lords of The Fallen, The Surge, Code Vein, and Remnant: From The Ashes. The second category is the one I like the most: the 2D soulslikes. Maybe the reason why I love this category the most is because it blends elements I like. Challenging combat with complexity, deep and compelling world building, open ended worlds to explore, and somehow they found a way to make it all work with a 2D space. It’s also because they stray closer to metroidvania roots than the action RPG roots that Dark Souls does which I personally enjoy more.
These 2D soulslikes include Dead Cells, Salt & Sanctuary, Death’s Gambit, and Hollow Knight which is one of my favorite games of all time. Today’s 2D soulslike is very special, because it handles a theme no other game would probably want to deal with. Violent catholic guilt within a guilty catholic world. Well, that’s very descriptive. I’m of course talking about Blasphemous, a 2D soulslike with metroidvania and soulslike design created by a small indie studio named The Game Kitchen. It started out as a Kickstarter and released as a full game in 2019. I saw Blasphemous back in 2019 and didn’t know what was holding me back. The game had a gorgeous pixel art style and looked fun to play, but the whole catholic guilt filled world kinda turned me down. Well I finally decided to play Blasphemous and after finishing it I can say it’s really f*cking good. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as Hollow Knight or Bloodborne, but it does what it needs to be a well designed soulslike. Today we’ll be talking about why I loved Blasphemous and why it deserves your attention. So sharpen that thorned sword of yours, clench that rosary tightly, and dice your way through a world of sin.
Story
If you thought Dark Souls was grim then wait until you see the story and world of Blasphemous. If Dark Souls was your strict college professor who didn’t want to see you pull out a phone during class, then Blasphemous was that one edgy kid you had in class who reestablished the rule he was edgy as f*cking hell. You know the one with dark eyeliner, dressed in all black, constantly looked depressed, listened to edgy music, and probably slit their wrist every night because they were that edgy. Wow, it's kinda extreme of me to describe Blasphemous like that especially with today’s climate, but we needed a joke in this review before we dove into how messed up the world is.
The game is set in the land of Cvstodia, a place where it’s citizens heavily center themselves around religious belief. The sins and guilt of the people have begun to manifest into grotesque monsters thanks to a curse placed onto the land known as The Miracle. It is a curse possibly sent by God and his angels to make the citizens repent for their sins and greed. Trying to counter the actions placed by The Miracle, the citizens constantly punish and torment themselves hoping that one day with enough repentance The Miracle will be lifted from Cvstodia. That all these demon-like monsters will go away and these apocalyptic actions like drought and disease will be lifted. A group of knights known as the Brotherhood of The Silent Sorrow tried fighting against the manifestations of sin and bringing order, but all of them were massacred since they were committing sins against The Miracle. Afterall, the eyes of heaven see all. They were entering a battle they were destined to die fighting in from the very beginning.
We play as The Penitent One, a silent warrior who is the last surviving member of the Brotherhood. They wake in a pit full of rotting corpses and after defeating a giant monster who guards the graveyard they find themself in the land of Cvstodia. They are told that they must find three locations across the world containing the Guardians of Visage and by slaying each one they’ll open the path to the highest peak in the land and rid Cvstodia of The Miracle. Once at the path they’ll have to fight their way through more powerful sinful creatures and gain the power to stop the one sending the Miracle onto the people. The Penitent One having nothing else to lose makes haste. Slashing his way through hordes of monsters, encountering tormented souls, and piecing together what happened long ago to make the Miracle be inflicted onto the people.
Gameplay
Blasphemous is a combination of your usual well designed metroidvania and your stereotypical hardcore soulslike. You explore the world collecting items, unlocking new upgrades, fighting bosses, growing stronger, and dying over and over again until you overcome what’s been preventing you from progressing this whole time. The world is very open. You’ll encounter several shortcuts leading back to previous areas and the game rewards you for exploring every nook and cranny. Several types of enemies will stand in your way and if you take too much damage you die and respawn at the last checkpoint you rested at. Luckily you have your lucky estus fla- I mean Bile Vessel which allows you to heal during fights and refills when you rest at checkpoints. You can be canceled out of a healing animation, so be careful when you try to heal.
That thorned sword you're carrying is your main method of defense and slaying the monsters in your way. Your sword starts off simple at first, you have a basic forward and upward slash, but later on you have the ability to upgrade it and unlock new abilities. There are several statues to find across the world and everytime time you find one you rank up and gain access to purchase new abilities. These include performing a charge attack right after a slide, a powered up downward thrust that plunges you towards the ground, and special combos that deal massive amounts of damage when performed in succession. However to unlock new abilities you need to acquire Tears of Atonement which is this game’s version of Souls and Blood Echoes. Everytime you kill an enemy you gain Tears of Atonement and these can be used to purchase new skills at certain statues scattered throughout the world or items from vendors. Finding more skill statues will unlock more powerful skills to unlock on the skill chart.
There are magical spells you can use to perform powerful ranged attacks, but they rely on your fervour meter. The fervour meter is basically the magic meter, it empties when you use spells and refills when striking enemies. Think of it like the Soul meter from Hollow Knight where you are encouraged to continue striking enemies to use powerful spells. Whenever you die you lose a fraction of your fervour meter. The more you die the more of your maximum fervour meter you lose and you have to backtrack to where you died to retrieve a misty phantom containing your fervour meter. You don’t lose Tears of Atonement when you die, but you lose a small fracture of the Fervour Meter which limits the amount of spells you can perform which I thought was a nice twist. Especially since the Tears required to buy certain abilities and items cost a lot.
The items you find throughout the world include bones, keys to gain access to new areas, and special rosary beads. Rosary Beads are equippable perk slots that can be equipped to give you special buffs or resistances to certain elements. The rosary beads you choose to equip can be really useful depending on the situation you are facing. Rather than be Ori’s perks which do little to change your build or playstyle, the perks in Blasphemous actually do something. They may make harder areas much easier to explore. To equip more Rosary Beads you have to unlock more space for your rosary.
To dodge enemy attacks you mainly have the slide, but to counter their attacks you have to deflect at the right time. Time it just right you can parry their attack, leaving them wide open for heavy damage. Sometimes if you weaken an enemy enough or strike them in the right way you can perform an execution attack. They don’t do much mechanically besides offer some invincibility time, but you get to witness a detailed gorey visceral kill that practically spwes blood everywhere. Each area has a boss that will test your skills, ability to comprehend their attack pattern, and endurance so it’s best to come prepared for the worst of scenarios. They will take numerous attempts to understand, but beating will nab you tons of tear and maybe a key move forward. Besides that there isn’t much else to talk about. There are NPC side quests that go along with your progress through the game and give you either Tears or perks, but they are easy to miss depending on what areas you go to first. How unholy! With your skills you should be able to fight whatever grotesque monsters that stand in your way.
Thoughts
Blasphemous is really good, it doesn't do anything new for either genres it follows but it is so well put together that you’ll have a delightful experience to play through from beginning to end. Blasphemous may be entirely made out of pixel graphics, but the environments are so gorgeous and beautifully animated that you begin to forget how disturbing the world really is. The roman architecture helps you feel more amazed while exploring the world, especially during those moments where you don’t know where to go and you’re just getting baffled by what you encounter next. That artstyle is just near perfection for me. There’s a lot of influence from ancient Spanish culture and The Game Kitchen did a lot of research when it came to making this game’s world.
The controls are tight and nothing feels slippery or stiff to control. The main character has pinpoint movement and when you press a button to perform an action he does it immediately. Combat is badass and has the sense of impact needed to make each blow satisfying. The platforming is challenging yet fair, so a majority of mistakes made in tricky environments are more on the player rather than the game. There is a ton of lore in this game and if it’s anything that makes a good soulslike it’s how it builds up it’s world by simply letting the player explore it and dive deeper if they want to. Using characters you talk to, locations with bizarre geometry, and even item descriptions to help give insight on where the player is and what happened before the main events.
The world design is great with areas that loop back into older ones giving off the feeling games like Hollow Knight or Bloodborne had. The soundtrack is pretty good at showing how unholy the world is, and when it rocks it’s an absolute f*cking banger. Both the bad and good endings wrap up the story in such ways that are really satisfying and make you wonder how your actions will affect future events and the world.
Blasphemous is great and may now be my second favorite metroidvania next to Hollow Knight, but there are a few problems I have with this game. Parrying takes a bit of time to get used to. It’s either too quick or too late. This is made even more frustrating when some of the late game bosses center heavily around parrying where you can’t even rely on direct interactions to beat them, but there is a perk that makes parrying much easier. It is better than Sekiro parrying though, because at least you can still dodge attacks with the amount of invincibility frames they give you while dodging. Once you do get used to parrying it is very satisfying. However, the second to last boss cannot be damaged unless you parry her, so that should really tell the boss fight department.
Some of the enemies deal more damage than they really should and can be very annoying depending on how the environment is laid out. This one library level has enemies who throw books, and the books knock you back really far and deal more damage than they should. Spells are kinda useless since they have shorter range than most projectile attacks in other games and fighting with your sword seems to be more effective as it’s quick and deals the most damage within a short period of time. Some of the bosses later on get very frustrated, especially the ones that summon pillars of light or fire right beneath you where if you get hit by one of them you get hit by all of them because they have knockback and it’s pretty hard to get back up due the getting up animation. That’s another thing for the boss department to handle.
It doesn’t take too long to use the Bile Vessel, but the number you have to use to get back to full health is a little frustrating. Near the end of the game you’ll have a huge health bar and using a single vessel will probably only fill a small fracture. This means you may need to pop multiple times to refill all your health which is frustrating during some of the more stressful battles later in the game. I hope in the upcoming DLC they promise to add in some sort of perk or system that allows you to improve the efficiency of the Bile Vessel. In a Souls game what makes healing special is learning when to use it and finding windows of opportunity, but what can be bad is knowing an item that was supposed to save your life didn’t do much to actually help at all. The true ending will take some time to figure out, because the way you get to it is never described or hinted to the player which may lead them to looking up a guide.
Overall, Blasphemous is an amazing game despite these flaws. I can highly recommend it to both soulslike fans and metroidvania fans alike. If I were to draw where the game gets most of its influences from it would be Castlevania rather than Dark Souls. The catholic influenced world and grotesque monsters highly remind me of that game, and choosing between Blasphemous and a previous game I reviewed on this site being Bloodstained: Ritual of The Night, I would choose Blasphemous for how rewarding and varied it is. One of the better examples of how to do 2D combat, great level variety, and a fun world to explore. In the end I give Blasphemous a 9/10 for excellence at best.
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