Blasphemous stands as one of these games that I've only heard unilateral praise towards, with very little criticism, where people often call it a masterpiece. And it does look and sound the part: Blasphemous is gorgeous in it's grotesque visuals, with a phenomenal soundtrack to boot. I went into it expecting a metroidvania/soulslike experience in the likes of Hollow Knight or Salt & Sanctuary, but came out of it baffled by the constant lack of polish and poor understanding of what makes either genre fun. A metroidvania where progression/exploration feels this unrewarding is simply unacceptable, since from the beginning of the game all the way to the end your character feels like the same pushover who gets stunlocked to death by naked people with missing limbs. As the game goes on, more and more mechanics seem to break as obstacles and enemies glitch out constantly, which I would guess stems from a lack of proper playtesting. By the end of it I just wanted to get the game over with, until finding out that the end of the game is locked behind some obtuse fetch quest (just one more out of dozens that mostly don't matter). I'll probably finish it out of principle, but it feels honestly tempting to just watch someone else do it instead, which is something I usually am entirely against. Because at the end of the day, I find very little to compliment about this game beyond the presentation. Update: Finished it. My points still stand. Very disappointing, really.
