Blasphemous (PS4)

"Never read the comments" is the unofficial creed of the Internet. It's bound to bring you misery and unhappiness. And so it cast me into the depths of ignorance concerning Blasphemous. A metroidvania that was reviewed by many and by almost everyone tainted with the sin of "awkward platforming". Form over function. A mediocre game. Meh.

I listened to them.

Fuck.

I really shouldn't have. A good solid year later I picked up Blasphemous in a sale and it blew me away right from the start. Awkward platforming? Form over function? Mediocre?! Like hell it is.

Yes, Blasphemous is a metroidvania. Yes, it does invoke the spirit of Dark Souls to a certain extent, but like stablemate Hollow Knight, it possess a clarity and focus lacking in so many other similar projects. It's form and function.

I'm not a religious person by any standard, but I do love the system and mythos it lays out in front of people. Blasphemous positively drowns you in this. There's the usual zones and bosses to clear and abilities to pick up, but how often are all of these inspired by a strong Iberian blend of Catholicism?

Everything oozes high-level religious concepts, from the omnipresent touch of the Miracle, to the acceptance and suffering of sin, to the Penitent One himself. Yes, in a kind of Jesus-turned-action-figure twist, you are moving through the game world to collect all sins of the world as your personal burden and repent to invoke the Miracle. No prizes if you can guess how that'll end.

And it is glorious. That awkward platforming whittles down to jumps being a bit more precise. It's more akin to Castlevania (oooh, I see what they did there) and if you learn and know what you're doing, the game is perfectly fine in a way that make the Dark Souls streak in it all bubble to the surface.

The graphics and the music steal the show though. Reinforcing the religious fervour on every level, it's one of those games that absorbs you into its world. Completely.