Blasphemous

Praise be to Blasphemous, for it’s an impressive game that has truly joined together the peanut-butter-and-chocolate-style union that is souls-likes and metroidvania games. While certain levels and enemies could benefit from a bit more polish, the end result is still a sinful delight filled with heavily-enjoyable combat, tons of areas to explore and secrets to uncover, and some jaw-dropping (if brutal) sights.

Blasphemous may be a case of style over substance, but that style still carries it a long way. It's very clear that a lot of time and effort went into making this game look and sound as good as possible. If you're craving a well-produced Soulslike or Metroidvania and you don't mind slower combat and a one-note narrative, then Blasphemous will give you an intense fix.

Nonetheless, after 20 hours with it, I still think the best reason to play Blasphemous is the art. The game's raucous personifications of sin and punishment are hardly subtle, but they are always enthusiastic: I don't doubt a scholar of Goya and Catholic ritual would find much to chew over, providing they're dexterous enough to breach the inner sanctums. Set against other descendants of Souls or Castlevania, Blasphemous never stumbles but does fade into the shadow a little. It isn't as fluid and balletic as Sundered, nor as haunting and vertiginous as Hollow Knight, nor as brash and jammed with equipment variables as Dead Cells. Rather than stretching you on the rack, it feels like an old rite faithfully performed.

An accomplished attempt to create a mix of Dark Souls and traditional Metroidvania, but its bizarre visual style ultimately overshadows its other virtues.

On that note, I can't get Blasphemous off my mind. I may never fully grasp the opaque story even with the inevitable community-led theories and explainers lending a hand, but that's okay. Even taken as a fanatical fever-dream, this game delivers. Some aspects aren't as fine-tuned or ambitious as they could've been, leading to unevenness, but there's so much for metroidvania fans to latch onto here.

A formulaic Metroidvania with satisfying combat and a thick mood in the air, Blasphemous uses its pixel art style and fixation on religious iconography to establish a powerful vision of a forsaken world.

Blasphemous is a great little 2D Souls-like which will definitely appeal to fans of dark and difficult games. It doesn’t have the polish of the likes of Dead Cells and is more linear than true Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight, but follows in the bloodied footsteps of titles like Death’s Gambit and Slain: Back From Hell. It isn’t a game for everyone but there is plenty here to get your teeth into with lots of secrets and some excellent and challenging boss encounters. All in all, it's bloody good fun.

A creepy and unsettling action-platformer, Blasphemous has an eery atmosphere, gorgeous pixel art, and intricate animations that never fail to impress. The combat can be satisfying, but relies too heavily on memorization, which makes backtracking through its non-linear world eventually turn stale. And while the visual variety at least keeps things looking fresh, superfluous and poorly implemented upgrade mechanics keep Blasphemous from having the amount of depth seen in many other games across the genre. It’s still an enjoyable Metroidvania, just not an all that memorable one.