Finished Blasphemous 2.
TLDR: It's good. It's a more polished and feature-rich game than the first. It has tighter handling, somewhat more mechanical gameplay depth, better quality of life, more exciting boss fights, some cool designs and the soundtrack slaps (which I'm listening to while I write this.) In terms of the setting and story though it lacks the unearthly quality, the same fervor and zeal of the first game. As though having proven its devotion once already its grace was assured.
Gameplay-
Story aside, I enjoyed it. Blasphemous 2 is a solid incremental improvement on everything mechanical and technical from the first game. Nothing mind blowing but all enjoyable. The new features, additional weapons, variety of move sets, animations, the Figurines mechanic, all the different kinds of side-stuff to track down, the puzzles and secrets.
It feels a little short compared to the first game, despite being a bigger game overall (I think.) I finished it at just over 30 hours. I think that's partly due to all the fast travel options you get. There's layers of backtracking to do so thank the Miracle for they're there. In terms of total content vs. value I think it's well within "acceptable" territory. Now that I've finished I find myself wishing there'd been a few more boss/mini boss fights. I enjoyed pretty much every boss and I'd say well over half of them put up a decent challenge for me. There's only 10? bosses which is enough for an indie game, but it left me wanting more. A good problem for them to have I suppose.
On the Secrets/Collectibles front I found ~85% of stuff without spoilers but definitely needed walkthroughs for the last 10% in several categories. I'm sure there's still secrets I missed. Some quests had fairly esoteric clues you really need to be paying attention for (and I might have noticed eventually if I'd been more invested.) If I'd tried to find everything without spoilers, it might have been 50 or 60 hours for my first playthrough. However there simply wasn't enough left to do near the end game to entice me to put in more time. At 30 hours going back over the game with a fine-tooth comb for the sake of saying I figured it out myself didn't sound like fun. It's good enough to play all the way through but not live in. There's no new game + at the time of writing this but there's good odds it will happen and I'd play it.
I've run into a couple bugs from start to finish. Most are minor but there are several movement bugs that result in instant death or getting locked out of your controls. Those can be pretty frustrating for a game that doesn't auto-save. Thankfully they were rare. Mouse buttons might also still not be bindable, I eventually ended up playing on a controller. Those few things aside it's a pretty polished product.
Story Criticism-
I've always described Blasphemous to people as Metroidvania meets a Spanish Catholic religious fever dream. Blasphemous 2 still comfortably fits that bill. However it didn't grab my imagination like the first game did. Maybe that's just an inevitable consequence of being a sequel and the experience no longer being novel, when demand is the basis of its existence rather than a story that needed to be told.
As such it's more approachable this time around because characters tend to speak more plainly. The prose is less flowery and extravagant overall. While on the one hand that's good so your story isn't total squid-in-the-mouth, on the other it feels like the world and its inhabitants have less to say. The animation work done between the two games tries to fill in for parts of the narrative, but some of them feel very out of context (because they are) and the remainder don't really tell a story so much as back up the writing with visuals. The art style of the animations clashes pretty wildly with the rest of the game's aesthetic. They all feel abrupt. When it comes to the characters and the writing, they're all still tragic and grotesque and shocking (if you know you know) and their stories all end in a very Soulsian way just like the first game. And that is all competently done.
It just doesn't hit the same this time though. For example: the game hardly spends any time talking about the Miracle. Whereas the first game's characters pondered and wondered at the "Grievous Miracle's" inscrutable agenda, Blasphemous 2 just establishes that it's a thing and characters refer to it obliquely throughout the rest of the game. No talk of hierarchies or Greater Will or a larger world. If the Grievous Miracle of the first game is like a new Dungeon Master you've not played much with, who is unpredictable and can keep you on your toes, then the Miracle of Blasphemous 2 is one you've been playing with for years and you're comfortable with their habits. "Oh that Miracle, just up to its old tricks again huehuehue." As a character in the setting itself the Miracle sits in the background. Smugly.
As another example you don't really know who the "main antagonist" of the game is apart from an intro cutscene. You don't even know their name until you meet them because no one talks about them. Or about much of anything for that matter except their own lives. It's telling that there's no one in the main city just standing around to talk to and only one NPC has a "chat" option.
Similarly while the Penitent One In Disillusionment's mission and journey in Blasphemous 2 makes sense, the point of it doesn't feel as poetic and solidly constructed as the first game. Compare and contrast what it took to get the true ending in the first game vs. the second, how it related to the story. Blasphemous 1's true ending hit hard and was on point for the world and setting. Blasphemous 2's true ending doesn't have that level of thought put into it. More of a "See you next time folks!" vibe. It's a franchise now. A brand.
They throw in multiple references to the first game in an effort to try and tie it all together, to try and compensate for the lack of properly introducing the sequel's place in the world, but that effort lands a little flat, a little awkward. All of this could have been done with a solidly written and narrated intro, feeding in those connections with good old fashioned unvoiced dialog at points. But there's no guide, no Deogracias or lore-havers. Just a Lady on a Hand telling you where to go. Even the item lore felt kinda weak.
These and more are all details and world building bits I feel like the first game took the time to do better. The story and setting ends up coming off as perfunctory. Workmen-like. By the numbers. I hate even saying something like that about their work because it seems harsh for how good it really is. But it's a feeling I just couldn't shake while playing through.
Fin-
Overall Blasphemous 1 felt more like art, pretty inspired. Blasphemous 2 feels more like a product. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing as a game because it IS a better game! Unfortunately it felt like it came at the expense of the setting somehow, the sense of apocalyptic grandeur feeling forced. Presumed rather than earned. Going back to the above, Blasphemous 2 leans harder into Castlevania and away from the fever dream. Even down to the area designs which have a more classical medieval European look. Well-made but more generic. It's not that it's bad. It's just that from the enemies to the areas to the story, it doesn't pop as much. Fill as many guys with bees as you want, it's still not as weird!
Because let's be honest, while the gameplay is solid it's straight forward. It's the story and setting that makes Blasphemous special. And that's where I feel like it came up short, resting on its laurels.
Ultimately I'm glad I played it and do recommend it. I just wish it got under my skin as much as the first one. Sometimes sequels can be good while just not quite capturing, or surpassing, the magic of the original. I hope they do well with the game though. Always interested to see what they do next.
The soundtrack IS absolutely sick though.
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Topic: Blurb on Games that probably don't deserve their own threads. (Read 304689 times)