You play as the Penitent One, a man who has sworn himself to silence in penance, and who journeys across the land to... um, Blasphemous follows Souls model of not giving you an upfront story, and trusting you'll just naturally travel around the game world murdering everything in sight. While there isn't much upfront story, there's a ton of lore buried within item descriptions and NPC dialogue, just like in the Souls games. I actually think Blasphemous' story is a bit easier to parse than the Souls games' stories, which I like. Plus, in a game like this, what's important isn't so much the direct "story" as the lore and atmosphere.
Luckily, the atmosphere in Blasphemous is absolutely divine. (Pun intended.) Blasphemous takes place in the land of Cvstodia, which has been ravaged by a force known as the Grievous Miracle. The Miracle works in mysterious ways, twisting and deforming people as retribution for their sins. It also forms the basis of Cvstodia's religion as the main object of worship for its inhabitants. The dialogue and item descriptions present tale after tale of the Grievous Miracle and its zealous church, which, together with the game's graphics, shows us the twisted cycle of sin, guilt, and penitence that grips Cvstodia.
Sin and penitence are ugly affairs, and it isn't called the "Grievous" Miracle for nothing. Blasphemous pulls no punches in showing the truth of a world that has consumed itself in a warped obsession over guilt and penitence. In other words, there's a bunch of nudity and gore. Probably more than any other work I've covered in this blog. While the game might have been able to function without them, the gore and nudity dispense any notion that that which is "holy" is also "pure" or "chaste," showing you the extent to which the world has broken.
To give you an idea of how gruesome Blasphemous is, let me go over what happens in the beginning of the game. We start off with a nice cutscene where a woman stabs herself in the chest with a sword. The Penitent One then wakes up in a large chamber filled with piles of naked corpses. We soon run into the first boss, who we soundly beat. The Penitent One promptly guts the boss, fills his helmet with the boss' blood, and dons his helmet again, drenching himself in blood. And that concludes the tutorial area. If you aren't comfortable constantly running into people who are naked and/or in horrendous agony, this probably isn't the game for you.
If, however, you are morbidly entranced by the grotesque, Blasphemous' art direction is sublime. The game takes a lot of inspiration and iconography from Christianity, immediately creating an austere, religious atmosphere. But all the previously-mentioned gore and nudity turns the mood dark, constantly reminding you that something is fundamentally wrong at the core of Cvstodia. Additionally, the levels and enemies are all visually distinct, yet remain squarely within Blasphemous' sacrilegious aesthetic.
Art direction is only half the battle though; fortunately, the graphics in Blasphemous are technically impressive as well. Blasphemous has absolutely gorgeous pixel art with immaculate animations. Despite the pixel graphics, the buttery smooth animations on the characters, enemies, and background make Cvstodia feel alive. And, of course, the fantastic art only makes the morbidly fascinating pull of Cvstodia's horrors that much stronger.
As you would probably expect, the music in Blasphemous is dark, gloomy, and morose. It's the extra layer on the cake, making the oppressive atmosphere of Cvstodia almost palpable. The soundtrack, like the art, draws lots of influence from early Church music, with slow, purposeful time signatures, lots of bells and chants, and a focus on droning harmonic progressions rather than memorable melodies. The music is grand and somber, perfectly matching your journey of penitence.
Alright, I think it's time to talk about the gameplay itself. Blasphemous has tight controls, making it easy and intuitive to play. You have a pretty standard set of moves: run, jump, attack, dodge, parry. You can also unlock a few more techniques as the game progresses, although they tend to either be incredibly overpowered or situational and useless. The world of Blasphemous is filled with a variety of twisted enemies, each one with a unique movement and attack pattern. Learning how to deal with some enemies can be tough, but once you've figured it out you can start cruising through levels tearing through everything that looks at you funny. A lot of enemies are vulnerable to one particular technique, which can make using it feel kind of unfair... but every time I tried to face an enemy like that head-on I'd get whooped and go right back to cheesing them.
The level design is great, branching and twisting unto itself into one large game world. There's a good mix of combat, platforming, and puzzle-solving throughout the game. Most levels also have some sort of unique gimmick that differentiates it from the others. For example, one level has toxic sludge that drips from the ceiling in some places, while another has wind that blows left and right. These add extra layers to the combat and platforming challenges, keeping them fresh and interesting.
Blasphemous as a whole provides a challenge without often being frustrating. Some levels can be tough to traverse, but there are a fair number of side paths, meaning once you've beaten them once there's no reason to go through them again on subsequent attempts. Save shrines are fairly common, and you'll be reaching checkpoints much more often than in the Souls games. Also, shrines are located in normal rooms (rather than being cordoned off in special side-rooms), so you never have to worry about missing a shrine that you've essentially "reached."
The death system is also a lot less tense than the Souls franchise's, in my opinion. Like the Souls games, whenever you die, a marker, called a Guilt Fragment, will appear in the spot you died. But rather than losing all your Tears of Atonement (Blasphemous' currency), you instead lose some of your maximum Fervor (the meter used for special attacks) and your rate of Tear accumulation decreases. Additionally, Guilt Fragments don't disappear when you die; you can have multiple Guilt Fragments at once, and they stay permanently until you collect them. There are also places you can go to eliminate all your Guilt Fragments in exchange for Tears. The fact that dying doesn't deprive you of any progress—it only temporarily slows your rate of progression—and that you have as many tries as you need to recover your Guilt Fragments made death much less of a setback, which in turn let me have fun just playing the game without worrying about dying.
The bosses are unique, memorable, and... actually kind of easy? Only two bosses took me more than two tries: the second and second-to-last, as it happens. Of course, that doesn't mean they weren't fun. Each boss brings something different to the table in terms of design, attack pattern, and strategy. Plus, everyone seems to have a different experience with Souls-like bosses, so maybe you'll have more of a challenge.
In true metroidvania spirit, there are lots of secrets and collectibles hidden around Cvstodia. I think Blasphemous does a fantastic job of providing just enough clues towards its story- and puzzle-based secrets to make finding them generally feasible without a guide and overall rewarding. But, y'know, they also do the "secret rooms hidden behind walls" thing, and no matter how thorough you try to be in whacking every wall you're probably gonna miss a few. And getting the last few collectibles is going to be incredibly tedious if you scour the entire game world yourself rather than consulting a guide. But that's just the nature of collectibles; I think being able to reasonably get 90% of the stuff in a metroidvania on your own is indicative of pretty good game design.
Blasphemous' structure can pretty easily be split into two halves with connecting sequences. There's the introduction, the first half, an intermission, the second half, and then the finale. You have to go in that order, but the bosses and levels within the first half and those within the second half can each be conquered in any order. So there is some structure, but also a fair amount of freedom to legitimately explore Cvstodia.
Blasphemous isn't perfect, but my complaints are few and far between. I wish you could take better notes on the map. There's a selection of symbols you can put on the map, but you can't put down text notes. And the symbol set just didn't jive with me; I ended up using two symbols a bunch of times, and didn't touch the others. As a result, I knew where all the "points of interest" that I wanted to return were, but I had no idea what each individual one was. Also, you can put "hearts" into your sword to change the way it functions, providing a different gameplay style... but very few "hearts" seemed to have benefits that outweighed the costs. I wish they had been a bit more balanced or varied so that the alternate playstyles were more accessible.
In case you couldn't tell, I really liked Blasphemous. I don't think it's for everyone, but if you like dark, morbid aesthetics and tight action-platformers, Blasphemous is for you. I wish the game was a bit longer, but I suppose it's better to leave them wanting more than to overstay your welcome. It took me about 15 hours to beat, which isn't massive but is perfectly respectable for the genre. While there is a New Game+ mode, which also allows you to play with certain challenges for a different game experience, so much of my enjoyment came from exploration and discovering new levels, enemies, and bosses that I don't think a replay would provide nearly as much excitement as my original playthrough.
Mysterious be the heart, Penitent One in detection.
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