I've only played for a couple of hours but I have to leave a review. I'm a big fan of the first game. Two flaws with Blasphemous were the poor balance of the power-ups, and some jankiness in the controls. I can't speak to the former yet, but the latter is very much improved. The delay after landing from a height and after dashing is greatly reduced, so the movement feels a lot smoother. This improvement is expanded for all the controls. One of my favourite parts about the first game and this one is simply how fun it feels to jump, grab ledges, climb, and attack. In this sequel it's even better. It's true there are no more pixel art cutscenes. My understanding was that the devs spent a disproportionate amount of time making those. So, now they are replaced with relatively cheap looking cartoons, the same as they were doing for the first game's final DLC. But I respect the decision, because the devs put out a good amount of DLC for the first game at a good pace, and this sequel has come pretty fast. So while the cutscenes aren't impressive, the in-game graphics/art are better than ever, as well as the gameplay, as already mentioned. The music is still excellent too. There's one strange thing I noticed, while playing with headphones certain sound effects of glass breaking produce an unpleasant grating sound like nails on a chalkboard. I didn't notice this through the speakers. I'm going to mention it on other platforms as well, since I believe the devs may be able to fix this somehow.
The only XCOM game I played was Enemy Unknown on PS3. Stirring Abyss is nearly the same level of quality in terms of design but it just doesn't have as much stuff. You have a party of 3-4, there isn't as much enemy variety, items, classes, upgrades, etc. I've been playing for 6 hours and I don't know how close to the end I am but it doesn't seem like a big game, of course I will replay it for the challenge. The default difficulty is Easy, and the game is still hard at first especially if you aren't familiar with tactics games. You are fighting eldritch abominations on the ocean floor, and it feels like it: maps are dark as heck, you have to manage your air supply, and the most basic enemies can be a nuisance if you don't pay attention. That said, at the point where I am now 6 hours into Easy mode, I feel very much in control of the campaign. The music isn't remarkable. There's an intense thumping track during combat. The rest of the time I barely notice it. One thing I don't like, is in your submarine screen between missions the ambient noise sounds like some kind of fuzzy droning sound. I thought my headphones were malfunctioning. Graphically though, I think it's an excellent game! It has its own sort of comic book style. Some of the models like for the units are 3D while the environments look more like drawings. It just looks cool. In terms of the story, I'm not crazy about Lovecraft so it's kind of whatever to me. I didn't get to the end yet anyways. It has all the stuff you'd expect from a Lovecraftian game. Like there's a sanity meter in addition to your HP, and you can get corrupted to gain powers or learn dark magic. It's good.
In terms of concept this seems generic. Pixel graphics sidescrollers are common. The setting is generic too, although the pixel art is very pretty, and the animations are nice and it does have its own little personality. But this is a very solid title that distinguishes itself above the rest because of its design and amount of content. First of all you get a choice of three classes that play different, as well as difficulty options. I chose the hardest difficulty, and this is important in my opinion because I feel it could be boring without the increased challenge. With the mage on hard difficulty, stuff kills you in like 2-5 hits, so I have to focus, and for bosses learn the pattern. Some of the bosses remind me of a Mega Man type of experience. The sensibility is very 4th gen, which is good. Actually, the game has metroidvania and soulslike elements. You have automatic checkpoints, and 'bonfires' where you can save, fast travel, or heal while resetting the area. You have a dodge button on a cooldown, and a stamina bar that's only for your block button. But there's more going on. You have RPG elements, with levels, quests (including bounties), equipment upgrades, a small skill tree - but there's more. You can find additional skills/spells in the world, and enemies can drop secondary weapons like bombs and throwable hammers which you can also upgrade using materials. On top of that there are five elements you can as you progress which you can seamlessly switch between with the analog to interact with the environment to reach new areas or that you have to manage when fighting certain enemies. So the game is surprisingly meaty. The first area, which seems like a tutorial dungeon, is actually a real dungeon that took me something like 4 hours to complete. Most games like this have 10-12 hours content, this one easily has upwards of twice that. Finally, the characters are cute and it tries to be charming, it is, but personally I ignored the story.
For a budget title that piggybacks off a better game. Fortunately they did a giveaway, so I had some fun with it. I like how it looks. The premise and the setting is cool. The audio is nowhere near as good as Darkest Dungeon. The narrator is more repetitive and cringe with fewer lines. There's a basic spell that makes him sing about "bony weather" that I must have heard more than everything else combined. I checked the game out since it was free, and I would have stopped playing after a couple of hours because of rogue-lite progression. The thing is, they must not have balanced the game very well because I began to steamroll on my first try around halfway through level 2. I'm in level 4 of 5 and I am not going to lose. My team is wraith, werewolf, skeleton, mummy. That's not normal for a rogue-lite, typically you die to lack of game knowledge and RNG. So that's going to be close to 15 hours for a playthrough which is as long as it could be without overstaying its welcome. One thing I like is the skill trees for you, Iratus the necromancer, and how you have a mana pool and spells so it feels like you're fighting alongside your minions. But there's not much else to say about it unfortunately. The overll design of the gameplay systems is shallow and not carefully balanced. It's a budget title. The best thing about it is the concept and how the monsters look.
If Eldest Souls was twice as long, with the same level of quality, I'd rate it as high as a 4.5/5. It took me around 10 hours to beat, but if you are a god gamer, it's possible to beat it in 2-5 hours on a blind playthrough. (Yes, I watched someone do it in 2. The red skill tree = gorilla mode). That said, it does have a NG+ mode where the bosses' mechanics are upgraded to provide a much greater challenge. I haven't made it far into this mode, but even the very first boss becomes quite an S.O.B. with how his moves and patterns change. The game indicates there is a NG+2, 3...and so forth, but I can't say if the boss mechanics continue to change with each subsequent NG+, whether the story/lore changes, or how high the NG+ system goes to. But is it good? The boss fights are varied and provide a satisfying challenge. I never felt frustrated enough to want to quit, and when I won my heart was pounding and I felt strong sense of reward. Mechanically, the game has some interesting features. Instead of healing potions, you have a lifesteal mechanic called Bloodthirst which is triggered when you land a charged up attack. While in Bloodthirst you heal based on the damage you deal, and you can also perform a heavy attack called Bloodburst which ends Bloodthirst. You then have three skill trees, which are roughly based around mobility, damage, and defence. You get a skill point to invest from every boss you kill, and although you can only use one tree at a time, you can respec your skill points freely at any time. Finally, for every boss you kill you get a shard which represents that boss's powers. This shard can be slotted into your basic mechanics (charge attack, bloodburst, dash), as an active skill, or into your skill tree's active skill. The story notably seems to borrow a couple motifs from Song of Ice and Fire, like The Wall. There are five endings based on key item and NPC interactions, but unfortunately appear to only provide different flavor text. Possibly rushed
The best thing about this game is that you are a bird. The overall audio/visual presentation is great. The story is strongly themed and well told, albeit the character dialogue is all throwaway, and the controls are smooth. I could give this 3-4 stars based on that, but it would be unfair, because as a game it's barely engaging enough to keep me interested. I got 91% completion at 10 hours, and I feel unsatisfied with the experience. The first couple hours of this game are an absolute snoozefest. It does get a little more interesting at the very end, which led to a feeling of time being wasted. If you don't like it after 2 hours, save your time and quit. The environments are lifeless. You could say they're supposed to be, because you're in the underworld/afterlife, but they're still lifeless. They have the aesthetic of a toy set where most of the pieces are missing. It feels like a beta version of a game. It reminds me of Zelda, but with modern (read: Souls) style "attack-attack-dodge" combat. The problem is there are no puzzles in this game. So it presents a strange feeling of being more childish than Zelda in every way (story, world, puzzles, upgrades) except a few minibosses which veer more towards punishing Souls-style combat. What difficulty there is comes from the fact you can only take 4 hits (6 with upgrades). Nonetheless, the combat is braindead 98% of the time. The weapons are boring: Sword, hammer, daggers, big sword, and a gag weapon (umbrella, aka the best). The upgrades are boring: Damage, atk. speed, dodge, magic damage. Exploration is probably the least boring aspect, but it's still unrewarding because of the boring upgrades and collectibles. There is some secret stuff to do after you beat the last boss. That's where I am now, but if you don't like the earlier parts of the game...just don't bother, it's not worth it for the slog. Everything about this game is bland. On the plus side, you play as a bird. It may also be an effective sleep aid.
If you want to find everything, expect to play for upwards of 50 hours. I suppose all the health/stamina upgrades are optional, even though you'll them, but it also has hidden/optional equipment, abilities, and lore. I suspect if you tried to run through the game seeing as little as possible, on a first playthrough you'd easily still get more than 15 hours (the typical length of a metroidvania) out of it. The combat is more hardcore than you would expect given how cutesy the game looks. For example, one of the common complaints I've seen is that your basic attack has short range which isn't increased with upgrades. But you'll learn that most enemies don't inflict contact damage, meaning you can stand inside their sprite. Another example, one personal gripe with the combat is that you get knocked and bounced around like a pinball, which sometimes makes me rage, but this can be mitigated somewhat through the robust 'accessibility' (difficulty) options which also let you drastically reduce the severity of stamina management among other mechanics. Additionally, you can 'tech' when you hit the ground at the right moment, although I find this hard to do. The bottom line is the the skill ceiling is higher than you expect. I can't emphasize enough how charming the game is. You'll become attached to the characters. The setting is interesting, and full of surprises. There are hundreds of NPCs with amusing and heartwarming dialogue. There are dozens of food items (your healing items), with no particular reason to use most of them over another, it's just pure enjoyment. There are in-game achievements, each of which reward you with concept art once you've finished the game. Collectibles are constantly rewarding, as they're tied to upgrades. (There's also a fortune teller NPC who will give you a clue for every collectible for a modest fee.) Just remember to keep notes of places where you can't go and will need to backtrack.
