Blasphemous

So yes, I played the heck out of Hollow Knight. The comparisons are unavoidable. And you know what? Having played the heck out of Hollow Knight, and waiting patiently for the sequel, I've let go of Hollow Knight so I can focus on the sheer fun that Blasphemous actually is for me so far. I do actually think the combat feels a little rough. It's not always as visceral as satisfying as I expected it to be. But I'm also having moments in the game where I'll clear out a pretty difficult frame of enemies and found that I had to get pretty creative doing it and then I'm like, "That....felt pretty good." Some of my favorite moments so far have been like in a lot of game where you're worried if you're going too deep too fast (hehe) and wondering if you should revisit a certain area later. But last night after after playing four hours straight, I was seriously rewarded for my perseverance. I do have some concerns that for how fast I'm moving through the game, my character progression doesn't feel or look that interesting. The ways you level up are pretty basic and I've yet to see THAT many ways you can get creative with dispatching an enemy. But I've also not much sense to far into the game I really am. There are all kinds of things I can nitpick. I actually wish the death animations for monsters were a bit slower. It's a little hard sometimes to tell what I'm looking at when some monsters are getting killed. I think of the original Fallout when you get a gory ending on an enemy and you just take out a chunk of their ribcage and they're standing their screaming and slowly falling to the ground. Also their sprite would remain and I wish the dead sprites in this game would remain as well instead of melting or burning away. So yeah, in many ways, I find the game very simple. And combat is gradually starting to feel better the more I play. I want to say more but I'm running out of room. What I know is, last night I played four hours straight and had lots of fun.

"4,5 Meals out of 5! - IGN" Pixel-perfect 2D MetroSoulVania. Tech-wise there are no ugly pseudo-HD blurry scalers with fake scanlines, everything is nice and crisp on your common resolutions. Responsive control-wise with re-definable keys/buttons on both gamepad and kb on my setup: Forced exclusive fullscreen as any unity3d game (command line argument: -window-mode exclusive) + same in game options, 60fps cap in the gpu driver + rad antilag. Unfortunately there's no mouse support. In general I dislike the "souls-like" tagging, however it fits like a glove here. Similar case as Salt&Sanctuary, this pretty much is GameKitchen's own take on 2D-Souls. And what a take it is! You can expect meticulously crafted interconnected world with verticality, TONS of secrets esp. if you stray from beaten path, shortcuts, breakable walls, collectibles, side-quests, back-lore on every damn item, wicked design everywhere you look: all soaked deep in this grim medieval fantasy based on European folk (most notably Spanish). Very little to no handholding (with on/off gameplay tips). Combat and approach here is slower than in Hollow Knight, it's more focused on staying CoolCalmCollected, avoiding button mashing that just gets you killed. There are upgrades to your hp, flasks, "mana", sword: e.g. combos and their finishers (dealing more damage than first 2 basic hits), dash attack, drop attack, charged slash, each giving you more options to deal with enemies. There's magic system where your "mana" charges up as you hit/execute enemies, or you can sacrifice your own HP to generate some in time of need. Rosary & beads you find are stat/property-changing bonuses for you to tweak the character and gameplay your way. tl;dr: 100% recommended - the audiovisual art alone is worth the admission fee! Pros: Everything! Except... Cons: No mouse support whatsoever for menu-ing / inventory. Voice acting can be inconsistent at times. Some actors are very good, while some are more or less mediocre.

As someone who played and finished Hollow Knight (all endings), Dark Souls and many other well-known difficult games, let me tell you a few things about this one. I will start with the good. It looks and sounds amazing. Seriously, the artists and musicians who worked on this have done an incredible job. Music specifically reminds of the Diablo 2 soundtrack, which is amazing. Now sadly, the gameplay. Imagine playing Hollow Knight, but your dash almost 3 second cooldown, the Knight takes a second to swing his nail after you press the button (confirmed design decision by the developers) and most of your defensive methods are situation at best. Game, is a metroidvania, wearing the cloak of Dark Souls. The problem is that you do not really get stronger in this game like you do in DS or HK or basically any good metroidvania. Even three hours in, you still mostly smack enemies with your sword and deal less and less damage as you explore (or enemies get generally more HP). You have two defensive methods. Parrying, which so far only works on certain attacks, and dashing. Your dash SOMETIMES gives you the ability to dash through enemies without taking damage... except when it does not. There is no rhyme or reason to when it works and when it does not. Level design is specifically made in such a way that you will die to encounters a couple of times not cause they are difficult, but cause they are horribly cheap. We are talking Wheel Skeleton area from Dark Souls but in every area of the game so far. Bosses look impressive but the very first boss is a joke and the very second boss is a bullet hell monster which makes your magic worthless, has so much HP that your swing removes about a pixel of his healthbar, makes all of your defensive capabilities null and void... and has undodgeable abilities. Generally, I do not recommend this game. Buy Hollow Knight for a similar price, much better experience and devs that actually care about your opinion and wanna make a good game.

Nice little metroidvania. Its decently challanging but gets much easier when the combat clicks. Nice artsyle, though it can often feel 'edgy' for the sake of it. Interesting story as well, though it is hidden in the souls style of games. Can recommend. The version is up to date so it has all the DLC, no worries

Great metroidvania, balanced mechanics and very well done pixel art. But there is a problem with GOG Galaxy saves resulting in lost progress and overwritten save slots, making the whole experience frustrating. Until this is fixed, the game can be unplayable.