Beautiful, but far too cryptic
Blasphemous is an action metroidvania by the Seville-based studio The Game Kitchen, published by Team17 on 10 September 2019 for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Drawn in pixel art, with an imagery built on Andalusian baroque and on the rites of Holy Week, it puts the player in the shoes of the Penitent One, the sole survivor of his order, in a land twisted by a curse called the Miracle.
The Miracle, precisely: in that land it is grace itself that turns into condemnation, because it grants prayers to the letter and carves them into the flesh of whoever uttered them. People endure and suffer according to a rigid reading of Scripture, whereby pain purifies and opens the gates of Heaven; those who go through such torture, after all, asked for it. Only one way is left to the Penitent One: to commit the ultimate blasphemy, the one act able to free the people from divine suffering and to tear the Miracle out by the root.
The sacred, dark and cryptic setting makes the game feel very soulslike, backed by Spanish religious music: it feels like taking part in a pilgrimage made of scourging and self-flagellation. When the character dies, the words EXEMPLARIS EXCOMMUNICATIONIS appear on screen: death is an excommunication, the Penitent One takes on Guilt and the journey grows harsher; sins and Guilt, of course, are atoned for by confessing at the church altars.
The game is a joy to look at. The pixel art builds an exquisitely crafted image, in complete dissonance with what it tells, where everything is condemnation and affliction: the NPCs carry a punishment in every corner of the map, and the music itself is one long, harsh religious procession. At first sight it even looks worse than Dark Souls in terms of difficulty.
And yet it is not. The game is hard, but damage and exploration are well balanced and there are no real difficulty spikes; perhaps only the final bosses raise the wall, while the rest plays beautifully (then again, if you pick one of the three Torment modes in New Game+, that is on you). Quite a different story from Hollow Knight: Silksong, where past the halfway mark you start calling on every saint because the fights are simply too hard.
The game is perhaps too cryptic and does not let itself be understood easily: to get the full picture you have to put every piece of the puzzle together.
If you are a metroidvania veteran with quick reflexes, I strongly recommend this game.