These characters are laced with fascinating symbolism that is worth breaking down and their lines are written and voiced expertly. I was delighted by how well the developers were able to take what made the NPC questlines of Dark Souls so interesting and make their own spins on it. I highly recommend doing that first playthrough as a 100% run as many of those benefits do carry over into that second, tougher run and the Penitent One needs all the help he can get. The actual space of the game’s world littered with crumbling churches, wind-battered mountains, and ghastly libraries is rich with both game content and world-building elements. It wasn’t until finishing the game the first time that I opened up a guide and realized that there was much more to this world than I had realized.Īnother word that I keep dwelling on in relation to Blasphemous is density. Everything else was a surprise to me and this planted a seed of curiosity that just would not stop growing. Even though I knew of Blasphemous and the reception it has gotten, I didn’t know hardly anything about the game aside from a few scenes and a couple of boss designs. While the combat is engaging with an emphasis on clever dodging and reactions, I actually found the game’s world to be what kept me playing. Learning this at the outset forces players into that mindset, much like the best examples of the Soulsborne genre. Every enemy in the game hits hard until later on when one has items that specifically increase defense. Yet, it perfectly sets up the depravity of the next several hours and tells the player that one has to be mindful of enemy movements and patterns in order to survive. Seeing this opening sequence of events for the first time is shocking, to say the least. The Penitent One may be able to bring an end to that pain but must first go through humiliations, suffering, and facing the guilt that weighs so heavily on the people of this place. He then finds a tall being clothed in a roughly hewn rope that tells the story of The Miracle and how it brought guilt, repentance, mourning, and every pain of the soul to life as physical manifestations hellbent on bringing more agony to the people of Cvstodia. Following a short tutorial section, the Penitent One faces down an ogre-like creature, and upon felling it slices its side, fills his helmet with its blood, and places that helmet on his shoulders. Players don the pointed helmet of the Penitent One, awakening at the start of the game in a mountain of corpses that are all wearing the same helmet. What results is a 2D action game set in a delightfully dangerous world where a mistake, or a series of mistakes, can cost one their life. Much of the lore of Blasphemous is given to the player in cryptic dialogue as well as dense descriptions of the game’s numerous items. Inspired prose aside, Blasphemous from The Game Kitchen and published by Team17 Digital is an action game with light Metroidvania elements mixed with Dark Souls both in a mechanic sense and the game’s story is delivered. These images created a lasting visual identity for the Divine Comedy and I feel like Blasphemous is a modern, smaller fantasy spin on those ideas. In many ways, the art of Blasphemous reminds me of the Dante’s Inferno etchings created by Gustave Doré in the mid-1800s. This is the guilt I bear.īlasphemous is violence pushed to the point of beauty in a way that reflects the famous, yet grim artworks that adorned many of the greatest literary pieces and decorated the marbled walls of spectacular churches. However, I am just at the cusp of a second, much more difficult playthrough and I fear that I have not the strength to successfully overcome the Amanecidas and their leader Laudes. I have since finished the main quest, getting both endings and getting a great deal of the items and fishing most of the side quests. Those monstrous designs always stuck in my mind like a thorn buried deep in the flesh but surprisingly I hadn’t played Blasphemous until now, shortly after the free DLC and update The Stir of Dawn was added to the game. The grotesque forms of twisted monsters and the perversion of Spanish Catholicism, seemingly drafting a world of dark fantasy from a wealth of historical evil delighted thousands enough to back the game through crowdsource funding. When the first trailer for Blasphemous dropped it felt like an electric shot rang throughout the indie gaming scene.
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