A foul curse has fallen upon the land of Cvstodia and all its inhabitants - it is simply known as The Miracle.
Play as The Penitent One - a sole survivor of the massacre of the ‘Silent Sorrow’. Trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, it’s down to you to free the world from this terri...
A foul curse has fallen upon the land of Cvstodia and all its inhabitants - it is simply known as The Miracle.
Play as The Penitent One - a sole survivor of the massacre of the ‘Silent Sorrow’. Trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, it’s down to you to free the world from this terrible fate and reach the origin of your anguish.
Explore this nightmarish world of twisted religion and discover its many secrets hidden deep inside. Use devastating combos and brutal executions to smite the hordes of grotesque monsters and titanic bosses, all ready to rip you limb from limb. Locate and equip relics, rosary beads and prayers that call on the powers of the heavens to aid you in your quest to break your eternal damnation.
Explore a Non-Linear World: Overcome fearsome enemies and deadly traps as you venture through a variety of different landscapes, and search for redemption in the dark gothic world of Cvstodia.
Brutal Combat: Release the power of Mea Culpa, a sword born from guilt itself, to slaughter your foes. Acquire devastating new combos and special moves as you purge all in your path.
Executions: Unleash your wrath and relish in the gory dismemberment of your adversaries - all in beautifully rendered, pixel-perfect execution animations.
Customise Your Build: Discover and equip Relics, Rosary Beads, Prayers and Sword Hearts to give you the new abilities and stat boosts you need to survive. Experiment with different combinations to suit your playstyle.
Intense Boss Battles: Hordes of gigantic, twisted creatures stand between you and your goal. Learn how they move, survive their devastating attacks and emerge victorious.
Unlock the Mysteries of Cvstodia: The world is full of tormented souls. Some offer you aid, some may ask for something in return. Uncover the stories and fates of these tortured characters to gain rewards and a deeper understanding of the dark world you inhabit.
The game is great, smooth, interesting story and a gory gameplay. It's basically 2D darksouls, and I love it.
But I can't give this game 5 stars because it looks like the publishers have done it again and are treating GOG players as second class costumers. A free DLC has been released and the good people on steam have received and enjoyed it while we continue to wait with nothing but a ' we hope to have news on it soon'.
Regardless of the reason why it was delayed, it should have been delayed for both platforms, instead gog players are once again feeling like their purchase isn't worth as much. I suspect that this is just another ploy to move players away from GOG and to Steam and control how, when and by who their game is played. For that very reason I still reccomend that you buy this game on gog - just to show it to them.
This is an excellent metroidvania and is one of my favorites within the genre. The uniqueness of Blasphemous lies with its story and art style taken from the Catholic tradition; I thought this was an excellent choice in art direction as there is a deep well of breath taking art, music, and lore from which to craft a video game.
My Gripes:
As is tradition, Blasphemous oozes guilt, sin and suffering at themes in the storyline. It does get a little bit tired as every character is focal point of near pornographic proportions of self-flagellation, and fatalism. Second, the visuals of this game suffer from undue pixilation--a frequent grip of mine. However, Blasphemous has roughly 1300 years/4 periods of visual art styles to emulate and seeing the visuals truncated circa SNES graphics was disappointing. It would have been top shelf to have played Blasphemous as Baroque/Renaissance painting for example. Lastly, the game play is fairly analogous with others of this genre with the exception of the “air impulse” which requires simultaneous button press midair with a timing and angle that is uncharacteristically unforgiving given Blasphemous’ source material.
I definitely recommend this game. Overall, it is well and lovingly crafted. There are also free DLC that come with this game which provide additional game play which I enjoyed.
8/10
I haven't had this kind of fun in a metroid-like in a long long time (I think the last time was Hollow Knight, since it was suggested earlier by someone else) It's a brilliant game with very cool mechanics. The mechanic of guilt for example or the whole level in Jondo is nicely crafted. In terms of gameplay, it's all very fluid with a few rough edges. The lack of recovery time is, at times, aggravating but, in a way, I understand it's a part of the gameplay. The artistic direction is simply gorgeous, the character, the enemies, the levels, everything feels very cohesive and so so beautiful to look at. The music are absolutely breathtaking and again, it feels very cohesive with the rest of the game, it all fits very perfectly. I have however a few gripes which I hope, can be corrected in a patch. For example, you constantly see the mouse on the screen and it can get very distracting, even tucked in a corner, and, I think that's the sore point in the game, you have no way to mark interesting spots in the game. I don't mean necessarily make a written note but just a dot or something to mark down the merchants, the angels and whatnot. The map is so vast and there are so much things to remember to look at when you do have the element to access that you end up losing track of what to check.
Overall, it's a stellar game and it deserves all the praise it's gotten so far.
As a game developer, I usually look at games differently...
Immediately I see the questions, the difficulties, and the decisions. As I start playing, I look for the reasons, the whys and the hows...
But Blasphemous has achieved that, besides admiring its thoughtfulness and complexity, I simply just enjoy (almost) every second of it.
Fantastic, haunting world and story, awesome boss design, hard but fair combat, challenging but not frustrating platforming and most importantly: plenty of hidden secrets and extras and a complex, huge map to explore...
The pixel art is jaw-dropping (although I could have imagined more moving elements on the background layers) and the music and sound design are phenomenal.
I just finished the game, but I will go back to get the true ending!
(Regardless of the fact that I shouldn't be playing but developing my own game right now...)
It's clearly a 9.5/10.
Almost perfect.