When I first heard about Blasphemous being a pixel art cross between Metroidvania and Dark Souls I wasn't sure how to feel. After sinking multiple hours into the title and completing the story I must say this is one of the best indie games I've played of late. I also like that it's Dark Souls-ish but not in that crappy FromSoft way where its like 50 ogres in a 5x5 room and any given enemy can 2 piece you. Combat is fair, but does certainly punish you for messing up. Exploration is great. All the little hidden knick-knacks and easter eggs are fun to collect. I like that even collectibles have a function if you want to solve later game puzzles. I give it 8/10 and it.... kicks ass!
I've played about 20 hours now, and I've experienced the odd glitch or bug here and there. For the most part its been relatively smooth. Combat has janked out on occasion and I've crashed to desktop maybe twice. Despite all the hiccups I'm really enjoying the game. Some of the characters have a little bit of cardboard for a personality, but others feel really fleshed out. The gunplay is fun, and having actual stealth options is mindblowing. I remember Deus Ex advertising you could play it 1000 ways, but run and gun was the only viable way because if you chose stealth there were bosses that would just end you 'cause you needed X upgrade from the combat tree/gun tree etc. I haven't experienced any of that with Cyberpunk and so far have been able to sneak around and merc most enemies during almost every mission. Compared to Witcher 3's early days there doesn't seem to be nearly as many immersion or gamebreaking bugs. Also with how long CDPR supported Witcher 3 with DLC and patches I'm confident this game will be even better in the future. I don't see the point crying about a "rushed game" when the same people were crying about it being an "infinitely delayed game" and were ready to stalk and murder CDPR employees... and are still threatening them now because "Well you released it too early and its a broken mess!" In the end the game is enjoyable and I feel $60 was a fair pricepoint for the hours of enjoyment I've gotten already, and will continue to experience as the game gets patched, and DLC is inevitably added.
