Blasphemous: Review

Blasphemous is an Metroidvania action-rpg platformer which depicts the story of a deeply religious world in distress caused by monsters, bearing a curse, 'The Miracle'. The game has been developed by Game Kitchen and published by Team17. The game is available on almost all the platforms

The opening sequence of Blasphemous shows how a revile called "The Miracle" has struck the place of Cvstodia, causing a frightful predicament that has driven its residents to franticness with ‘Guilt’ and outrage. As such the ‘Twisted One’ with the help of the Mea Culpa, a sword is entrusted with lifting the revile that has caught the world in a perpetual pattern of death. The Mea Culpa, a blade manufactured by Guilt, was made to overcome the different adversaries and managers that involve prisons, chapels, and peaks in the game world.



The game is crafted with aesthetic pixelated graphics which as a matter of fact experiences no difficulty on creating the environment of such a ruthless world. The cutscenes can truly capture the main essence of the game as it is as gory as it is violent. The equivalent can be said in the game world also. Situations, character models and outlines all offer similar exceptionally nitty gritty illustrations that must be hand-drawn rather than rehashed resources, which means each bit of Blasphemous' visuals is unique, making it a noteworthy game to see. Coordinated with its frightful ensemble like soundtrack, the game's reality establishes the pace for an excursion through some serious hardship on Earth.

As the player progresses onward, the story goes on to become way deeper. Each of the items, armor, collectibles, power-ups etc. have their own background and story and has a bit of foundation and root to its reality.

 When it comes to gameplay, Blasphemous has done an impressive job by taking many of the fan-loved elements of other Metroidvania and Darksoul games. ‘Tears of Atonement’, an item dropped by the enemies has the same function of that of the ‘souls’ in Darksoul. Additionally, altars named Prie Dieu are found all over the world that players can go to recharge health bars and healing flasks. It is likewise a respawning point after death. The game comprises of an open world that has numerous connecting ways which should be returned to every now and then.

In my opinion I found Blasphemous’s story a bit blundering and almost getting in the way of gameplay.  As the players venture further into the game and have contributed a good amount of time, they might get a sense of dissatisfaction as not getting rewarded properly for all their actions. For instance, as keep on playing looking for power-ups and other important items, all you get is collectibles, items that serve almost no purpose but is there just for the players to read their item description, quest items etc. It becomes genuinely hard to find items that add to your abilities or experiences as the game progresses.

As such a game which has the same genre as Darksouls, I believe it is a shame that the game doesn’t reward its players properly making it almost boring at some point. A great deal of platforming and adventure games love to compensate the most inquisitive and bold players by placing rare rewards/collectibles in the most impossible to know places. However, as a player, not even once did I have the satisfaction of finding a rare item no matter how much I explore.

For the combat in Blasphemous, it has done a pleasant work as the enemies pose a good challenge and I’m talking about even the minions. But the most fun part of the game would probably be the individual special takedowns for each group of enemies. The combat system is mostly high paced which can keep you on the edge of your seat for hours. As in all platforming games, not all enemies are required to be killed to progress into the lore. But many of them can be killed using just casual attacks.  A slight problem here are the enemies wielding a shield. These enemies can only be killed by only casual attacks for which you have to wait for them to move their shield which really slows down the fun pacing of the game.

The depth and distance perception of this game is a bit off making it more likely for you to miss special attacks and not making successful wall jumps or climbs.




TLDR: Though all its faults, Blasphemous is, without a doubt, an impressive game with its world building, player choice and exceptionally well done graphics as though being pixelated can easily depict the intensity and fright of a scene like the player collecting a demon’s blood in his helmet and proceeding to wear it.