Reviews: Blasphemous - Wounds of Eventide
My personal, spoiler free review of this beautifully intricate pixel art game with religious themes, initially brutal difficulty yet compelling story that kept me coming back to it.
About the game
Blasphemous is a brutal action-platformer with skilled hack’n slash combat set in the nightmare world of Cvstodia. Explore, upgrade your abilities, and perform savage executions on the hordes of enemies that stand between you and your quest to break eternal damnation.
The game was released in Sept 2019 and was developed by The Game Kitchen and published by Team17.
There is a sequel called Blasphemous 2 which released in 2023.
Margot’s stats
Device: Steam Deck Oled
Difficulty: One setting
Completed: yes - main story
Time: 12 hours
Summary: 2D shorter “Elden Ring” came to mind. Beautiful eery pixel art game, with a mysterious but pastiche story focusing on religion. I thoroughly enjoyed the game and kept thinking about it when I wasn’t playing it. Combat can become repetitive but each area is worth exploring, just from an art and boss battle point of view.
Score: 7.5/10
I completed the main story in 11.3 hours, while How long to beat states the average play-through is 13.9 hours with getting close to 30 hours for 100% completions.
When I finally picked up Blasphemous this October from my backlog I really didn't know what to expect. I’ll be honest, I bought it because it was on sale and I saw Blasphemous 2 on a “Top Metroidvanias” list, and it was a 2D side scroller with beautiful and creepy pixel art. Tick tick and tick again. I have a soft spot for pixel art games and fairytale or mysterious and magical themes, especially in autumn and winter.
As soon as I started playing I had a bit of deja vu in terms of the feeling the game evoked from me. That feeling was frustration.
I died a lot, bringing back memories from starting Elden Ring and not having got a clue what was going on. I took a deep breath and started to attack the enemies after learning their attack patterns and slowly but surely got the hang of it.
But it wasn’t just the dying that created a similar feeling as Elden Ring had. There was also an eeriness and a want to see more. For me it was all about the pixel art, the way the world was creepy and full of scary and misshapen creatures and beings that drew me in. Someone had taken time to create these monsters out of pixel art. I wanted to see the next boss and the next one and see how it was animated, and how creepy the next one is.
However some things that appealed to me, seemed to put some other reviewers off. Mostly the simplicity of the combat and weapons / spells that are available.
Combat and Gameplay
There is just one weapon in Blasphemous. You learn and unlock some extra attack patterns, which help defeat enemies quicker, but in essence it is very much hack and slash with some encouraged parrying. Like always for me, I found parrying tricky and I forget about it. I tend to hack and slash. But I enjoyed the simplicity of learning how one weapon works well. Alongside the weaponry you do have spells to use as well, which tend to create a wider area of effect attack. Once you get the hang of these spells, they can really make a difference in how quickly you deal with the bigger bosses and enemies. I don’t need hour long boss fights, I like to progress and see the story unfold, so I was glad for these.
As a criticism, I did feel that combat is extremely hard in the beginning and rather easy at the end. I died a lot in the beginning and had to really work hard to puzzle through the tougher battles, but around the mid point it became very easy to beat most bosses, especially right at the end. There are a couple where I maybe died once and then dispatched of the boss. While I felt like a super gamer doing this, it might be something that others will feel is disappointing.
The animations of the fighting are very slick and nicely done, giving the game a more modern feel, while distinctively harping back to the 2D era. I wonder if I was so obsessed with this because it vaguely reminded me of the Mega Drive game Altered Beasts!? Just me?
In terms of the general gameplay, being hit is pretty frustrating and could lead to easily being killed, due to how the character falls and then gets up just as the enemies are ready to hit him again. A dash can sometimes get you out of such situation though.
There were some annoying environmental traps as well, but overall I found the game mechanics smooth and easy to use on my steam deck. The character felt responsive and nicely animated.
I did struggle to bond with the main character, and really understand his intentions and motivations, but in a way I also did not care. Exploration to see the next area and boss enemy, was what drove me to keep coming back.
Genre
Blasphemous is often referred to as a metroidvania. Having played the second one, I feel like Blasphemous is actually a borderline metroidvania/action, hack and slash game, while Blasphemous 2 is a lot closer to a metroidvania. The second one put more of an emphasis on unlocking abilities to backtrack and find / unlock secrets for progression. This is also evident to me on how much easier it is to travel around in the second game compared to the first.
The main element Blasphemous has in common with metroidvanias, I think, is that it is reasonably non linear to start with. You do have to be careful to not complete or unlock certain things though to not lock yourself out of one of the endings. There are some abilities you unlock, that can help reach extra items, but I never felt like I was back tracking constantly, like I am doing in the second one (a review will follow soon). But I don’t think Blasphemous should be called a metroidvania to really explain where it fits in. It’s a 2D side scroller with action and hack and slash elements. I completed the game without unlocking a double jump for example. Isn’t that a staple for metroidvania abilities. :D
Besides Blasphemous makes you work pretty hard to be able to fast travel around the map, meaning it can become tedious to back track. Something the second instalment in the series does a lot better.
The about text does mention the platformer genre, but there are no real platforming elements I can think of that stood out to me, worth stating it is a platformer. There are some nice traversal skills, like climbing walls by using your sword as an anchor which look and work pretty well.
World building
What grabbed me was the feeling and atmosphere that the developers managed to create. It is pixel art after all and I was blown away at how it had been used in this game. The world is full of dark dungeons, old cathedral like buildings and horrific beings. Maybe I should add that as a teenager I was a goth and very much into fairytales (still am) and mystical beings. So the eeriness appealed to me.
The enemies could easily be added into a horror survival game in terms of how they look, but the religious overtones made it feel less scary to me and just very unsettling. The content is not all safe for work, or for younger minds though. There is some gore and nudity. Nevertheless I devoured this world and game, enjoying its disturbing style.
Each area of the map is stylistically different with a newish set of enemies and different levels of difficulty. Although in theory all areas are beatable in any order, but some areas I started, died, died again and then went back to later on.
A few of the enemies are reskinned, which could be disappointing for some, but for me it meant I did not die as much and hence was less frustrated progressing through the game as I learned more about it. While there aren’t many bosses compared to something like Hollow Knight, each one was unique and more importantly uniquely disturbing to look at.
The world is rough and a tad depressing while beautiful to look at. Several times I said out loud “so beautiful”, despite how dark the world is.
The NPCs, vary in what they offer in terms of flashing out the background story. Most have quests for you to bring them items, leading to small rewards for you, either in terms of tears (which is the currency) or upping your health.
Verdict 7.5/10
Blasphemous had the fun factor for me. I do describe it as a “2D Elden Ring” as it invoked that same feeling of frustration and wonder, followed by accomplishment in me, while having the eery and creepy factor in terms of art style.
I wanted to see the next section and beat it. If you can conquer the initial frustration of being a bit underpowered and needing to learn the various attack patterns of the enemies, there is a story rich game to explore with beautiful and brutal environments. You can easily sink 20 hours into the game, exploring all corners and collecting all loot, making it worth its price tag. Besides it is often on sale.
I can’t wait to complete the second one and see how they compare.
What do you think? Is Blasphemous a metroidvania? Does it also remind you of Elden Ring if it was a 2D pixel art game? I’d love to chat about your thoughts.
Nice review. I want to play this, but the difficulty seems a bit heavy.
Agree with all of this - I think it's a great game but has limitations. I picked up 2 and heard it's a wonderful improvement on the 1st.