We didn't make a PWB September! And so as it's a bit late to start one now, let's have a thread just for this instead.
I Kickstarted Blasphemous what feels like forever ago, and even tried to sign it at one point. Team17 landed it though, so fuck those guys. The game's out and I have it. It's lovely.
Of course it'd be right up my street anyway: gorgeous pixel graphics, chunky combat, overly sacreligious themes, excessive silly violence, sprawling Metroidvania setup. But playing it shows that there's a great game underneath too. It's far longer than I imagined, since there's a trophy for getting past the Bronze gate (the game's primary goal) within three hours - turns out, however, that's only the 'Link to the Past, collect three medals before getting to the Dark World' scenario and it all fans out from there.
It looks gorgeous, it's challenging but not overly hard (I had a few issues but once you get to grips with the Dark Souls-lite aspects of using save points to recover your healing flasks and powering up your sword, it's not too tough) and the bosses are ridiculous. I'm thoroughly enjoying my time with it and considering it's only about £15, I think it's well worth a look if you can stomach the excessive pixel gore and frankly mad obsession with religious iconography. I'm loving the lore though, and usually I hate that stuff…
So, yes. Two thumbs up for this one. I doubt anyone bar me will bother though.
I'm not sure 'lovely' is an apt way to describe it, but I am interested, and have been foillowing it for a while. Unfortunately I keep buying platformers, and then not necessarily playing them, so at the moment it's going to have to wait until I've cleared more of the backlog, or it goes into a sale.
Case in point - in the last few years I have actually finished (or at least played a played a lot of) Celeste, Steamworld Dig, Dust: An Elysian Tale, Kirby Triple Deluxe, Mario 3D World, Dead Cells, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, Headlander, Yoku's Island Express, Mark of the Ninja, Xeodrifter, and a few (other) 2D roguelikes (Spelunky, Flinthook, The Swindle, Rogue Legacy) have had a look in too.
I still haven't started Salt& Sacnctuary, Guacamelee 2, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Kirby: Planet Robobot, Steamworld Dig 2, Void Knight, Sundered, Axiom Verge, Death's Gambit…
I'm not sure 'lovely' is an apt way to describe it
I think I meant that purely in terms of the richness of the pixel art (which is gorgeously hideous) and depth of lore, plus the solidness of the gameplay. Just as my girlfriend describes me as lovely, so this is too. Just not in the right way.
I still haven't started Salt& Sacnctuary, Guacamelee 2, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Kirby: Planet Robobot, Steamworld Dig 2, Void Knight, Sundered, Axiom Verge, Death's Gambit…
Death's Gambit is everything Blasphemous isn't - it's a shameless Dark Souls wannabe that doesn't do anything very well. I'd scrub it off the list if I were you. Conversely though, Salt & Sanctuary is bloody aces. I think I need to go back to that. Though I don't think it shares trophies, so the PS4 and Vita versions are separate. Shame, as I'd like to play on PS4 but already got a ridiculously hard trophy that I don't fancy repeating on the Vita one…
