Blasphemous 2

Voice actors are much better and it suits the catholic horror vibe well.

The firdt game was absolutely fantastic, the pixel art, the gory gloom of a dark catholic mythology, challenging as hell, but very entertaining, a trrue masterpice. So, how does the second game holds up? Well, not so good, allow me to elaborate: The lore of the first game revolves around the cathiolic dogma that suffering elevates the human to divinity and therefore punishment is a blessing, so all teh enemies are twisted visages oof human deformed by their sins, in this one, not so much Body horror is still p´resent, but not as much as in the first game enemies are challenging, but overall I feel like the game is less challenging this time around, even tho they got rid of the flashing indicator for parrying. bosses don't feel as hard as before, they will still kick your ass if you don't pay attention, but the learning curve is more forgiving. Maybe is because now you have mopre tools at your disposal to dish out damage The cutsenes are now regular drawings, this was a huge disappointment, the grotesque pixel art was more fitting. This entry definetively feels more "gamey", the first one welcomes you with a boss battle and after a grueling experience you are rewarded with a cutscene of you receiving a baptism in blood, absolutely awesome. Here? you get to choose your starting weapon and have a dummy to test it out. hunting for quest and upgarde items are also easier to get. Also, you no longer lose all your currency if you die twice in a row. NPCs feel more like game chaarcters, even tho they use flourished language they are very reiterative about it, like "I need some icecream, remember that icecream I need, bring me the iceream and I'll give you a reward". Don't get me wrong, this game is not bad, is still fun to play, but compared to the first game is so... tame.

I was having a great time playing this game until fighting a boss about 16 hours in. killing the boss right before it killed me caused the game to glitch. upon reloading, the boss was no longer available to fight, but I did not receive a drop required to continue with the story. this is apparently a known issue that has gone without a solution for over a year across several patches, and there is no solution beyond starting a new save

I love the first Blasphemous. It's hard but never feels unfair and is doable with patience. Lets start with the good points. The sequel introduces some nice new mechanics like the double jump to make the game more user friendly. This makes the game more forgiving. The settings are interesting and probably a little more imaginative than the first. The Severed Tower is fab. I love being able to choose the weapons. The pixel art is still gorgeous. Now, the not so good points... The bosses, I comparison to the first, just aren't than interesting. Minus a few exceptions, they're all small humanoid types and not a patch on bosses like Our Lady of the Charred Visage. There's far too many parts of the game where you're boxed in a small space with enemies; these parts just aren't fun. There's also a massive difficulty spike with the penultimate boss where it feels impossible to beat him.

Maps are now more interesting and combat is much much more dynamic. Environment art is on another level, even though B1 already looked fantastic. Would love to see more challenging bosses and platforming in the DLCs (they are coming, right?).