It was 2019 when fans of Metroidvania They had the opportunity to get their hands on Blasphemous, which was also born thanks to the support of a successful Kickstarter campaign. It was a good starting point, which was however open to various criticisms, despite being quite entertaining overall.
Now, four years later, The GameKitchen returns and offers us a sequel that, in short, is a denser and more varied version of the first chapter, the result of all the experience accumulated with Blasphemous and probably also the result of a larger budget guaranteed by the profits of the previous game.
Not everything is perfect, of course, but to know all the details keep reading ours. Blasphemous 2 review.
Penitent, arise
Blasphemous took us to a Hispanic world, the cradle of a Catholic fundamentalism that sees in suffering and penitence the only possible way. The adventure, however, attracted more attention for its imagery and its atmosphere, so full of symbolism and references that even those less experts in Christianity could understand the depth of the criticism and the macabre beauty of the sins committed by the characters of the story. movie. game.
Blasphemous 2 does not deviate one bit from this approach, with the consequence that once again it is not easy to understand why we do what we do. Once again we are Penitents and once again we go to war against beings who have surpassed the status of human to become children of a vulgar and disfiguring miracle, which protects a city in the heavens that almost seems like a mockery of a Paradise that punishes rather than rewards. We won't go into details to avoid spoilers, but even if we wanted to, Blasphemous's story is so cryptic that even after defeating the final boss we're not sure we have a precise idea of what happened.
On the other hand, Blasphemous 2 is one visual wonder, not only because on an artistic level the pixel art of The Game Kitchen is magnificent with visible advances compared to the first chapter, but also because on a design level each fragment of setting, each enemy and boss says something. You may complete the game without understanding exactly what these elements told you, but the overall charm is undeniable.
Therefore, it is up to the player to decide whether to simply enter the sinful world of Blasphemous 2 and be enchanted by its images, or whether to completely immerse themselves in it and dedicate themselves to understanding every bit of the story (all of them). fully translated into Spanish). In any case, our advice is to opt for the excellent Spanish dubbing, which really seems like the most natural way to fully experience the world of the game.
Penitent, fight
Blasphemous 2, on the other hand, changes the cards on the table regarding the combat system. While in the first chapter you only had a weapon and a magic slot, in this new game we will have it available. three weapons (we choose one at the beginning, the rest we recover quickly as we advance) and two different spells always available among the many that we will find as we explore. As for weapons, we are talking about a censer that behaves like a kind of slow but powerful flail, a serrated saber balanced in attack and defense and the rapier and dagger pair, fast and excellent for counterattacks that are difficult to execute but devastating. Not only do we have several types of attack approaches available, but each weapon has its own skill tree with new moves and various upgrades that significantly change our chances of victory as we progress through the game.
Blasphemous 2's combat system is faster on average than the first and overall more satisfying, since we always have a lot of control over how we approach each battle. And it is no coincidence that the sensation is very different, since for this occasion the game engine has been completely redesigned from scratch.
Our Penitent can also be strengthened in several ways, starting with the uninteresting Rosary - useful mainly for increasing defenses - and the very useful Rosary Figures from the Altarpiece of Favors, which allow you to obtain various types of bonuses and, through combinations that will be understood through attempts or intuition, unlock additional unique powers. These include the ability to freeze time for a few seconds after healing and new weapon attacks that can really change the balance of battles.
Adding those already mentioned magic (Prayers, in Blasphemous 2 parlance), you can create different builds based on a certain weapon or a certain elemental category (fire, miasma, electricity, mystic). Don't expect the variety of an RPG hundreds of hours long, but for a "small" metroidvania this is an excellent result.
The problem with all this is that, after the first few hours in which we still do not have many updates available, for a good part of the game the difficulty level becomes very low with the consequence that the bosses are defeated without much effort and we do not enjoy the "action-platform" design of the battle since we do not need to pay too much attention to their movements. Let's be clear, we're speaking from the point of view of those who have turned back (more on that shortly) at every opportunity and left behind only a couple of collectibles and secondary upgrades. We don't deny that we had a Griever as strong as a tank on our side, but even so some battles turned out to be too banal.
At least that's true until the penultimate boss, which is only in its second phase. excessively increases the level of difficulty. Considering the ease of the previous hours, we were surprised by the difficulty spike we surpassed after a large number of attempts and building tests. If there is Blasphemous 3, we'd really like to see a little more attention to the difficulty curve. In case of death, in any case, the punishment is minimal: you lose some Tears of Redemption - a currency useful only to merchants - and you suffer a penalty to the Fervor bar; returning to the place of death eliminates some of the penalty and by paying an NPC you can also cancel what little is left.
Penitent, explore
Recoil, we said, the cross and the delight of metroidvania. Blasphemous 2 offers a much closer advancement to the genre than the first chapter, proposing step by step various types of "power ups", such as the classic wall jump, double jump, aerial race and also the possibility of attaching to handles supported by cherubs .
Not only is progress in the sections of the plot conditioned by the improvements we obtain, but in each region of the game there will be multiple treasures that will look at us mockingly until we have the right combination of skills to reach them. This means that each area must be explored several times in several phases of Blasphemous 2: fortunately The Game Kitchen was careful to speed up the movements. Overall, not only is it easy to move from area to area while avoiding enemies, but if you explore carefully early on, you can unlock multiple teleportation methods. In the second half, in practice, we could reach another point from any point in a few seconds thanks to a combination of spells and bonuses linked to checkpoints.
It's a shame that Blasphemous 2 never wants to test us on its parts. platform. We are glad that, unlike the first chapter, there are no continuous fights where it is easy to fall into the void or into traps (there is no shortage of them, but they are better managed). At the same time, however, there has never been a platform-based section that has required any special effort on our part. Even in the secondary segments of the game, where there are some timed challenges, a couple of attempts are enough to get the reward. Considering the remarkable movement capabilities obtained in the final phases, the bases certainly existed to propose something more varied and challenging in this sense.
Finally, we would like to point out that in total we needed About 20 hours to reach the final boss and beat him., achieves 98% map exploration and 92% total completion. In addition to pure progression, expect classic collectibles and side quests based on finding items and bringing them to the requester. These are mostly obvious requests, but there are some secrets that require a little intuition.
Conclusions
Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam Price 29,99 € Holygamerz.com 8.0 Readers (34) 8.2 your voteBlasphemous 2 is the game that fans of the first chapter wanted. It's blasphemous to the core, but it's even more beautiful to look at with its macabre imagery, more varied in its combat system, and more dense in content. Of course, the plot remains cryptic, the platform component has been left too much in the background for a metroidvania and, what is more important, the difficulty curve is poorly managed, with a good part of the adventure being too easy and a peak of challenge in the end. Overall, however, we are talking about a fun game that never makes the player waste time in the backtracking phases. There is room for improvement, but it is absolutely recommended.
PRO
- Excellent variety in the combat system.
- Incredible and visually fantastic images.
AGAINST
- Difficulty curve to review
- The main plot could be a little clearer.
- It couldn't have hurt more interesting platform challenges
