I’m playing - but not recommending - Blasphemous this week. It is quite possibly the least fun I’ve had playing a video game. It’s a game that is specifically designed to infuriate you and waste your time, and I guess in that respect they really nailed it. If the bosses weren’t so easy I’d say playing Blasphemous feels like what people who have never played a Soulslike thinks playing Dark Souls feels like.
It’s a shame too because I want to like this game. I want to love it. The art direction is great. The music is good. The lore and world building is interesting. The level design on a macro level - the interconnected world and the way shortcuts link areas together - remind me of Dark Souls 1 in the best possible way.
It’s just an absolute chore to play. The mixture of deliberate but awful game design combined with absolutely terrible execution makes for quite the mix. You can’t make what is essentially 80% a platformer filled with instant death hazards when the controls are this clunky, movement feels this bad and hitboxes and ledge/ladder grabs are this atrocious.
Contact damage on every single enemy (with all damage in the game having knockback on you) is a lazy and unfun design choice. Enemy placement - especially projectile launching enemies - is done to maximise impact so you can’t quickly skip through areas on subsequent visits but have to slowly clear them out lest you’ll get knocked into some instant death spikes. And there is a lot of backtracking required, both for the quests (that are unsolvable without a Wiki by the way) and for retrieving your body after dying.
I’m in the final non-DLC area now but I’m very close to just calling it a day instead of succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy. I’m really not having fun and it’s taking every ounce of willpower to not just do what I want to do, which is fire up NG+ of Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree.
I spent exactly 1 hour with Blasphemous before refunding it. Too much platforming for me and the combat is not exactly fun and didn’t feel fresh.
Best combat in any metroidvania is F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, IMO. They’re almost like character action games: launchers, on-the-fly weapon switching, dash/jump canceling… etc. Full combo systems—only thing missing is a style meter.
If you thought the first hour of Blasphemous had too much platforming then hoo boy. Just wait until you see the endgame areas. I agree about the combat completely, and also the character customization and progression is very lacking which also reduces my enjoyment. Most of the character upgrades are completely useless - wow, an uppercut as a 4th attack in your attack string? You barely have enough time between dodges for two attacks, let alone 4. A charged attack that takes three years to channel? When are we supposed to have time to use this?
I’ll look into F.I.S.T., looks kinda cool. Will keep an eye on any sales. The Lost Crown is on my radar too, I recall it got rave reviews.
I really do want to recommend Mandragora though. It is more heavy on the Soulslike and ARPG than platforming, which I personally really liked. Heavy emphasis on character progression, upgrades and skill builds. Still plenty of fun Metroidvania elements with secrets and ability gated sections of earlier areas and so on. Heavily recommended!
I agree with all of your points about Blasphemous, good and bad. I knew the games (both Blasphemous 1 and 2) received mediocre reviews, but I still purchased both together during a sale because I really liked its art and setting.
However, when I played Blasphemous early last year, I had just got back into the platformers genre after around a long break. I had just finished Hollow Knight (just the first ending or two, I didn’t have the time or the patience to finish the other endings).
The wonderful art and interesting story did not alleviate the pains of the gameplay. Its contrast with Hollow Knight only made it worse. It was clunky, and the game seemed to (unintentionally) work against the player.
I did complete the first ending, as well as the first ending for the sequel. The mechanics of the sequel are a bit more forgiving, thankfully.
I still would not recommend the games, unless one really likes the art and setting of the games.
Also, thank you for introducing me to Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree. I have bookmarked it, and hope to play it soon.
Yeah I got it on the summer sale because it was 90% off and I was on a Metroidvania/Soulslike-kick after Mandragora. Honestly, had I known how much platforming it had I wouldn’t have bought it even for a dollar. I’m not really a platformer guy, I’ve avoided Hollow Knight for a reason (also I’m not a god gamer and from what I understand HK is impossibly difficult).
Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree on the other hand I had an absolute blast with. I love character progression and customisation and creating a build from the PoE-esque skill tree tickled my brain just right. I’m honestly torn between NG+ and doing a second playthrough with a different playstyle/build.
It also had a better balance of gameplay for my tastes than Blasphemous: the bosses were more fun and the platforming was much less frustrating. Being able to teleport to any “bonfire” from anywhere through the map was also so nice. I like when a game isn’t deliberately wasting your time.
I like when a game isn’t deliberately wasting your time.
Well said.
Also, PoE is a game that I have not visited in almost a decade. How is it now? When I played it last, it felt like Diablo 2 but with very little explicit story to experience (it had lore that one could discover). I gave up on the game after a few days since without a proper story, the grind got boring very quickly.
Oh, I haven’t played PoE in about that long too, I think. I used to play the temporary Hardcore leagues back when it was new, but eventually the feature creep started to get to me. Which also meant that getting back into it later felt like such a daunting task I never did. And then by the time PoE2 came out last year I was kind of over the Diablo-style ARPGs
I gave up on the game after a few days since without a proper story, the grind got boring very quickly.
Yeah, I couldn’t tell you what the story was either beyond being exiled on an island. I also have felt that in my older age I’m gravitating more towards medium-length games with a proper story that you can finish and put away, as opposed to the endless MMOs and grindy ARPGs I enjoyed in my youth.
I also have felt that in my older age I’m gravitating more towards medium-length games with a proper story that you can finish and put away, as opposed to the endless MMOs and grindy ARPGs I enjoyed in my youth.
You could not have captured it better.
I am glad we had this conversation. Please do recommend me some more games. if you do not mind.
I was on a long break from gaming (almost a year) due to life, and plan to resume weekend gaming soon. For the same reason, I have been scouting these communities and threads for recommendations.
As of now, I zeroed down on the Mass Effect trilogy on the Steam Deck but I am also considering a second play through of Ghosts of Tsushima. I would prefer a light(er) game which is easy to get into and allow me to take breaks as I don’t think I will be able to pull off hour long sessions initially.
For another indie game you might not have heard about Skald: Against the Black Priory was a surprise hit with me when I played it earlier this year. Cool story and world building, very concise and conscious of its budget limits so smaller in scope, probably a 16-20h game with no filler and no grinding. I liked it a lot, and it should play great on the Steam Deck too. Sort of a tribute to retro CRPGs but without the clunk of those old games. Combat was simple but fun, not overly complex. Beautiful pixel art, especially the splash screens.
I am way less high on Ghost of Tsushima than most people. I would never even consider a second playthrough. The game is way too long for what it is, which is essentially just a more polished garden variety Ubisoft open world game. There is not enough variety in it to sustain a what - 60h playthrough? The quest design isn’t interesting or varied enough and most importantly: the writing isn’t varied enough. You can’t have 60 hours of dialogue delivered in only a stoic, dour monotone. 15 minutes of Kenji spread over a handful of moments isn’t enough to break it up. Anyway, rant over.
Okay what else… Well, Blue Prince came out this year and is a contender for Indie of the Year - maybe even a potential Game of the Year nomination. I liked it a lot, a puzzle roguelite is an interesting concept and if you like note taking and screenshotting and escape room type puzzles you’ll have a good time with I think.
Otherwise I won’t be the first you see of this if you’ve been scouring these threads, but Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is almost a shoe-in for game of the year and the hype is most certainly deserved. Any gamer should do themselves a favour and experience it, not least to be able to participate in the zeitgeist.
Thanks again for the recommendations. Blue Prince looks refreshingly good and different. I did hear quite a bit about Clair Obscur, but turn based gameplay never appealed to me. I did not play Baldur’s Gate 3 for the same reasons, in spite of it being so well received.
I agree with your criticisms about Ghosts of Tsushima, and have made similar observations as well. However, Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man are my comfort games where I just soak in their music and atmosphere while I do something else like talk with someone.
Clair Obscur has active combat elements injected into turn based combat. Attacks require QTEs to pull off successfully and most importantly - enemy attacks can be dodged or parried in real time. It feels much more like playing Dark Souls than a traditional turn based game. The gameplay designer uses to be a Sekiro speedrunner, and it shows. I will again almost insist on you giving it a chance, it’s very rare for games to come around that are works of art in this manner.
For what it’s worth: I don’t think BG3 is as good or as important to play. I think BG3 has a lot of flaws and doesn’t deserve the hype of “best game of all time”. It’s a fun game to play, but that’s it. It’s writing is “okay for a videogame” territory, but nothing more. It also falls apart in the third act in several ways.
Clair Obscurdoes imo deserve the hype. It is gaming as an artform in a manner that’s rare to see in a AA+ budget format. It also has a very strong prologue, which should fairly easily fit under Steam’s refund window. I suggest giving it a shot.
I’m playing - but not recommending - Blasphemous this week. It is quite possibly the least fun I’ve had playing a video game. It’s a game that is specifically designed to infuriate you and waste your time, and I guess in that respect they really nailed it. If the bosses weren’t so easy I’d say playing Blasphemous feels like what people who have never played a Soulslike thinks playing Dark Souls feels like.
It’s a shame too because I want to like this game. I want to love it. The art direction is great. The music is good. The lore and world building is interesting. The level design on a macro level - the interconnected world and the way shortcuts link areas together - remind me of Dark Souls 1 in the best possible way.
It’s just an absolute chore to play. The mixture of deliberate but awful game design combined with absolutely terrible execution makes for quite the mix. You can’t make what is essentially 80% a platformer filled with instant death hazards when the controls are this clunky, movement feels this bad and hitboxes and ledge/ladder grabs are this atrocious.
Contact damage on every single enemy (with all damage in the game having knockback on you) is a lazy and unfun design choice. Enemy placement - especially projectile launching enemies - is done to maximise impact so you can’t quickly skip through areas on subsequent visits but have to slowly clear them out lest you’ll get knocked into some instant death spikes. And there is a lot of backtracking required, both for the quests (that are unsolvable without a Wiki by the way) and for retrieving your body after dying.
I’m in the final non-DLC area now but I’m very close to just calling it a day instead of succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy. I’m really not having fun and it’s taking every ounce of willpower to not just do what I want to do, which is fire up NG+ of Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree.
I spent exactly 1 hour with Blasphemous before refunding it. Too much platforming for me and the combat is not exactly fun and didn’t feel fresh.
Best combat in any metroidvania is F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, IMO. They’re almost like character action games: launchers, on-the-fly weapon switching, dash/jump canceling… etc. Full combo systems—only thing missing is a style meter.
If you thought the first hour of Blasphemous had too much platforming then hoo boy. Just wait until you see the endgame areas. I agree about the combat completely, and also the character customization and progression is very lacking which also reduces my enjoyment. Most of the character upgrades are completely useless - wow, an uppercut as a 4th attack in your attack string? You barely have enough time between dodges for two attacks, let alone 4. A charged attack that takes three years to channel? When are we supposed to have time to use this?
I’ll look into F.I.S.T., looks kinda cool. Will keep an eye on any sales. The Lost Crown is on my radar too, I recall it got rave reviews.
I really do want to recommend Mandragora though. It is more heavy on the Soulslike and ARPG than platforming, which I personally really liked. Heavy emphasis on character progression, upgrades and skill builds. Still plenty of fun Metroidvania elements with secrets and ability gated sections of earlier areas and so on. Heavily recommended!
I agree with all of your points about Blasphemous, good and bad. I knew the games (both Blasphemous 1 and 2) received mediocre reviews, but I still purchased both together during a sale because I really liked its art and setting.
However, when I played Blasphemous early last year, I had just got back into the platformers genre after around a long break. I had just finished Hollow Knight (just the first ending or two, I didn’t have the time or the patience to finish the other endings).
The wonderful art and interesting story did not alleviate the pains of the gameplay. Its contrast with Hollow Knight only made it worse. It was clunky, and the game seemed to (unintentionally) work against the player.
I did complete the first ending, as well as the first ending for the sequel. The mechanics of the sequel are a bit more forgiving, thankfully.
I still would not recommend the games, unless one really likes the art and setting of the games.
Also, thank you for introducing me to Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree. I have bookmarked it, and hope to play it soon.
Yeah I got it on the summer sale because it was 90% off and I was on a Metroidvania/Soulslike-kick after Mandragora. Honestly, had I known how much platforming it had I wouldn’t have bought it even for a dollar. I’m not really a platformer guy, I’ve avoided Hollow Knight for a reason (also I’m not a god gamer and from what I understand HK is impossibly difficult).
Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree on the other hand I had an absolute blast with. I love character progression and customisation and creating a build from the PoE-esque skill tree tickled my brain just right. I’m honestly torn between NG+ and doing a second playthrough with a different playstyle/build.
It also had a better balance of gameplay for my tastes than Blasphemous: the bosses were more fun and the platforming was much less frustrating. Being able to teleport to any “bonfire” from anywhere through the map was also so nice. I like when a game isn’t deliberately wasting your time.
Well said.
Also, PoE is a game that I have not visited in almost a decade. How is it now? When I played it last, it felt like Diablo 2 but with very little explicit story to experience (it had lore that one could discover). I gave up on the game after a few days since without a proper story, the grind got boring very quickly.
Oh, I haven’t played PoE in about that long too, I think. I used to play the temporary Hardcore leagues back when it was new, but eventually the feature creep started to get to me. Which also meant that getting back into it later felt like such a daunting task I never did. And then by the time PoE2 came out last year I was kind of over the Diablo-style ARPGs
Yeah, I couldn’t tell you what the story was either beyond being exiled on an island. I also have felt that in my older age I’m gravitating more towards medium-length games with a proper story that you can finish and put away, as opposed to the endless MMOs and grindy ARPGs I enjoyed in my youth.
You could not have captured it better.
I am glad we had this conversation. Please do recommend me some more games. if you do not mind.
I was on a long break from gaming (almost a year) due to life, and plan to resume weekend gaming soon. For the same reason, I have been scouting these communities and threads for recommendations.
As of now, I zeroed down on the Mass Effect trilogy on the Steam Deck but I am also considering a second play through of Ghosts of Tsushima. I would prefer a light(er) game which is easy to get into and allow me to take breaks as I don’t think I will be able to pull off hour long sessions initially.
For another indie game you might not have heard about Skald: Against the Black Priory was a surprise hit with me when I played it earlier this year. Cool story and world building, very concise and conscious of its budget limits so smaller in scope, probably a 16-20h game with no filler and no grinding. I liked it a lot, and it should play great on the Steam Deck too. Sort of a tribute to retro CRPGs but without the clunk of those old games. Combat was simple but fun, not overly complex. Beautiful pixel art, especially the splash screens.
I am way less high on Ghost of Tsushima than most people. I would never even consider a second playthrough. The game is way too long for what it is, which is essentially just a more polished garden variety Ubisoft open world game. There is not enough variety in it to sustain a what - 60h playthrough? The quest design isn’t interesting or varied enough and most importantly: the writing isn’t varied enough. You can’t have 60 hours of dialogue delivered in only a stoic, dour monotone. 15 minutes of Kenji spread over a handful of moments isn’t enough to break it up. Anyway, rant over.
Okay what else… Well, Blue Prince came out this year and is a contender for Indie of the Year - maybe even a potential Game of the Year nomination. I liked it a lot, a puzzle roguelite is an interesting concept and if you like note taking and screenshotting and escape room type puzzles you’ll have a good time with I think.
Otherwise I won’t be the first you see of this if you’ve been scouring these threads, but Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is almost a shoe-in for game of the year and the hype is most certainly deserved. Any gamer should do themselves a favour and experience it, not least to be able to participate in the zeitgeist.
Thanks again for the recommendations. Blue Prince looks refreshingly good and different. I did hear quite a bit about Clair Obscur, but turn based gameplay never appealed to me. I did not play Baldur’s Gate 3 for the same reasons, in spite of it being so well received.
I agree with your criticisms about Ghosts of Tsushima, and have made similar observations as well. However, Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man are my comfort games where I just soak in their music and atmosphere while I do something else like talk with someone.
Clair Obscur has active combat elements injected into turn based combat. Attacks require QTEs to pull off successfully and most importantly - enemy attacks can be dodged or parried in real time. It feels much more like playing Dark Souls than a traditional turn based game. The gameplay designer uses to be a Sekiro speedrunner, and it shows. I will again almost insist on you giving it a chance, it’s very rare for games to come around that are works of art in this manner.
For what it’s worth: I don’t think BG3 is as good or as important to play. I think BG3 has a lot of flaws and doesn’t deserve the hype of “best game of all time”. It’s a fun game to play, but that’s it. It’s writing is “okay for a videogame” territory, but nothing more. It also falls apart in the third act in several ways.
Clair Obscur does imo deserve the hype. It is gaming as an artform in a manner that’s rare to see in a AA+ budget format. It also has a very strong prologue, which should fairly easily fit under Steam’s refund window. I suggest giving it a shot.