I’ve played Blasphemous about 2 years ago, just a few months after its initial release, and decided to stop my playthrough. As a fan of more exploration focused metroidvania titles, I didn’t gel well with the action focus of the game, especially since it was also going for the “Dark Souls inspired” challenge, seemingly. But a few months ago I’ve seen other people play it on streams and realized, that the game wasn’t exactly what I first thought it would be. So I decided to give it another go.
Blasphemous plays like a more grounded and hack and slash heavy take on a metroidvania. There are no crazy movement abilities – even double jumps or wall jumps are not a thing. The amount of enemies are mostly toned down, with focus on more strategic approach to fighting, with parrying and dodging, instead of mashing buttons. It does have a “souls” inspired healing mechanic, where you have set of healing items that replenish every time you “rest” at a particular altar-like structure, that also heals you. And due to the same influence, enemies respawn as soon as you rest, while otherwise they stay dead even if you move between rooms or locations. Even the death mechanic involves leaving a mark in the world that you must pick up, except it’s not as punishing as in some of the games that also feature this concept.
With many updates since the release, the game has grown to have a lot of very helpful upgrades that most certainly make the playthrough more enjoyable and frankly, I don’t think I would’ve liked the game much without them. Same updates add more challenging content too, though it is mostly optional. That said, I managed to stumble upon the new “true ending” introduced in the final update completely on accident by my nature of loving to explore as much before I do any boss fights, and that ending path does get rather ridiculous closer to the resolution. Frankly, I don’t know why the game even goes this hard occasionally, especially since most of the time the solution to the problems lies in managing your equipped items, which is more of a chore than a fun part of the game, given just how many items there are.
Though, that said, some of the areas are just outright rude. I decided to stop attempting the areas tied to the crossover with Bloodstained, for example, because for whatever reason those areas play as ridiculous precision platformer locations that are on an incredibly tight timer. So tight, in fact, that while most of the sections have a “climb up to try again” parts, it’s pointless to – if you don’t do everything perfectly, there’s never enough time to finish those. I’d rather they gave a quick restart button instead. Most of the main game locations aren’t really like that, but still, you may stumble from time to time on a section that’s just designed to be frustrating, instead of fun or challenging.
It is very fun to explore, though, with a lot of very beautiful (and creepy) locations, accompanied by a great soundtrack and some solid voice acting for characters. It’s all very “weird” and cryptic, but the story is told in a mostly comprehensible way. It’s hardly gripping, but then again the focus is set more on the world and the atmosphere, rather than a traditional story. I would’ve probably went and completed the game again, just to explore it again but in a different order and for other endings, if the new game plus option (added as one of the early updates) didn’t also make the game “harder”. But hey, the game clearly wants to be “challenging” rather than fun and its main audience loves that, so I can understand that.
Overall, even if you’re not very into action-heavy, parry and timing-necessary titles, you can enjoy Blasphemous. If you outright dislike that, then yes, this game won’t click with you at all and you should look at other, more exploration and/or platforming focused metroidvanias. But I’ve managed to enjoy my time with the game and can see lots of people liking it as well.