Blasphemous

✅ Dark, brutal world, inspired by Spanish religious horror.
✅ Satisfying combat, mix of Soulslike difficulty and Metroidvania exploration.
✅ Beautiful pixel art, detailed and haunting.
✅ Deep lore, rich with symbolism and mystery.
✅ Challenging but fair, tough bosses and platforming sections.
❌ Backtracking can be tedious, especially with no fast travel early on.
❌ Storytelling is cryptic, might need extra effort to fully understand.

Final Verdict: 8.5/10 – A stunning and brutal Metroidvania with deep lore and challenging combat. If you love dark fantasy, it’s a must-play.

Blasphemous - A Brutal Symphony of Guilt and Gore

Blasphemous is more than just a game—it’s a visceral pilgrimage through a nightmarish world of religious horror, wrapped in pixel-perfect gothic artistry. Developed by The Game Kitchen, this punishing metroidvania soulslike hybrid drips with atmosphere, challenging platforming, and combat that demands precision. After two hours in Cvstodia, here’s my take on this haunting experience.

Aesthetic & Atmosphere – A Painting of Suffering

From the very first steps, Blasphemous immerses players in a grotesquely beautiful world inspired by Spanish Catholicism, complete with macabre iconography, blood-soaked altars, and tormented saints. The pixel art is an absolute masterpiece—every frame feels hand-drawn, breathing life (and death) into each twisted environment. The level of detail in character animations, enemy designs, and backgrounds is staggering, reinforcing the game’s oppressive tone.

The soundtrack, composed by Carlos Viola, further elevates this haunting world. It’s a melancholic blend of somber strings, eerie chants, and tension-building melodies that perfectly capture the essence of a land cursed by divine punishment. Each note resonates with the themes of guilt and penitence, making every encounter feel like a desperate struggle for redemption.

Gameplay – Precision, Punishment, and Payoff

At its core, Blasphemous is a brutal action-platformer with tight, responsive controls. The combat is methodical and unforgiving—every swing of The Penitent One’s sword, Mea Culpa, must be deliberate. Parries are satisfying, rewarding skillful timing with devastating counterattacks, while dodging and positioning are crucial against relentless enemies.

Platforming is equally challenging, with tricky jumps, environmental hazards, and traps that demand careful movement. The game embraces a metroidvania structure, with interconnected areas, secret pathways, and locked-off regions that tease future exploration.

Enemy design is phenomenal—each foe feels unique, both in appearance and attack patterns. From grotesque flagellants to monstrous clergy, every encounter adds to the oppressive atmosphere. Boss fights, though I’ve only faced a couple, are a highlight, offering grand, disturbing spectacles that require patience and skill to overcome.

Technical Performance – A Well-Oiled Machine

On the technical front, Blasphemous runs flawlessly. The pixel art is crisp, animations are fluid, and the game maintains a steady framerate, even during the most chaotic battles. Input response is tight, ensuring that every dodge, slash, and jump feels precise. The hit detection is fair, making deaths a result of player error rather than cheap mechanics.

The game’s UI is minimal and clean, never breaking immersion. The map system, while useful, could be slightly more intuitive, but it serves its purpose well for tracking progress. Load times are short, keeping the momentum going without frustrating delays.

Conclusion – A Dark Journey Worth Taking

Even in just two hours, Blasphemous proves itself as a masterclass in atmospheric storytelling and challenging gameplay. It’s a game that demands patience and respect for its systems, rewarding perseverance with an experience that’s both harrowing and satisfying. If you enjoy punishing yet fair combat, hauntingly beautiful pixel art, and a world dripping with dark religious horror, Blasphemous is an unforgettable pilgrimage you won’t regret undertaking.

💀 Final Verdict: 9/10 – A grotesquely gorgeous and brutally satisfying metroidvania soulslike.

Amazing game, soundtrack, and game play. If you are a fan of metroidvania type games this is the one for you. This dark and brooding game incorporates lore similar to Soulsborne type games. Controls are responsive, visuals are amazing, no loading times, and hours of game play to unlock everything.

Excellent metroidvania/soulslike game, tons of content, fantastic art and writing. Approachable difficulty for newcomers to this genre, with plenty of challenge for the veterans. It's the complete package. There's also a mod launcher with an item/enemy/world randomizer, plus other fun bells and whistles. If you like any of these things, you'll get a lot out of this one.

Decent game with nice pixel art. It has that dark fantasy appeal people might be familiar with from dark souls or bloodborne and it might make you think it plays exactly like those games too. However, you have to remember it's 2D exploration so there's a fair amount of platforming. I'd say the platforming is the game's weakest point, as movement can be slow and clunky which leads to some frustrating moments during exploration. The speed could be this way to keep the combat at a certain pace, but this creates a trade-off with exploring. Not a deal breaker though and the game scratches that metroidvania itch if you were looking for more.

Blasphemous es un atractivo y deleitoso juego, su estilo de arte, la profundidad de sus personajes y lo satisfactorio de su gameplay lo hacen uno de los mejores metroidvanias contemporáneos

The game is cool AF, very original
The places are inspired in Andalusia and the history it's based in christianity.
With beautiful graphics and a very nice soundtrack this is what it gets:

Graphics
Good

Gameplay
OK

Audio
Good

Audience
Teens & Adults

PC Requirements
Potato

Difficulity
Normal

Story
Very good

Game Time
Short

Price
Worth it

Bugs
Good for speedruns

?/100
71

Amazing game, all the bosses were easy on my first playthrough but i struggled really bad in ng+ trying to get that no heal achievement lol, definitely recommend.

跑酷那四张图花了我十几个小时才通关，我不知道设计师怎么想的，游戏其他部分难度都适中，到了跑酷那几关难度陡升，陷阱有很多都是躲不开的，还有好多BUG，一不小心就重来，重来了还要等地图上的各种机关慢慢移动。真的纯浪费时间，一点乐趣都没有。

Incredible gameplay and art, no doubt is one of the best metroidvanias available!

Beautiful artstyle, great level design, interesting world and storytelling. Music is also beautifully composed. Now to the criticism: combat and general movement of the character felt clunky at first to the point that I almost quit the game. You get used to it eventually however, and it gets better with the items you get as you progress. It's fun and challenging, but I'm definitely a fan of more dynamic fights than what blasphemous offers.

Nonetheless, definitely worth the money it asks.

One of the best 2D metroidvania i've played after hollow knight
this game is simply amazing filled with amazing levels, lore and artstyle
play if you like 2D soulslike game
The amount of time i died from areas more than bosses in this game is really impressive.
Although this game can be difficult at some parts where some corpses will tell you where to go next for items, so to pay attention to those details.

Fun game, great visuals. A bit too reliant on slow gameplay, where the gameplay isn't actually difficult but just takes forever to get through.

Blashpemous is a memorable Metroidvania that handles a vague 'souls-like' approach to story telling, beautiful pixel art and art direction, cool bosses and some chuncky movement, but overall a memorable experience.

One of the best, if not difficult Metroidvania games, it pays off to explore and upgrade your attacks, find all the rosary beads and experiment with what you like. The Spanish Catholic inspired art and world is amazing, the devs really did a good job with this one. Combat is satisfying but not overly complex with the combos etc, upgrade your skills and get good at parrying/dodging.

The only complaint I have is you will spend hours, HOURS looking for that last cherub or collectible, so mark them on your map if you can't reach it for later, so you can easily go back and grab it. They give you multiple map marker icons for a reason after all.

9/10, I spent 3 days or so finishing it, I couldn't put it down.

This game is not good. The devs shoved everything bad about plattformers into the game, that's it. Off screen hits, check. Unstoppable hits from enemies appearing, check. Wall climbing is not prioritised if something can be hit nearby, check.

The bosses themselves are easy, the hardest one is the crybaby who calls his sister. Game is about 8h long if you explore all the map. Sekiro is difficult, but fair, this is just overhyped.

There are also bugs that exist since the game came out, but the devs are too lazy to fix them. Flying ladies that leave you stuck in a room should and you have to reset is not a thing that should be. The fanboys don't like when you point of the game is just full of bugs and badly put together.

Blasphemous is a very enjoyable souls-lite metroidvania with solid level design and very interesting bosses.

First of all this game is mostly a metroidvania which means if you hate backtracking then you will have a bad time. Luckily you can mark things on the in-game map and later on you will unlock bonefire fast travel (donate 20 000 to the church) so backtracking won't be that much of an issue.

Secondly the souls-lite mostly refers to the non-combat features such as world and level design which means you have looping levels, a dying world, estus, bonefires and all that, but combat itself isn't stamina based and there is no equipment load mechanic.

Blasphemous features a lot of different upgrade systems which work very well together, especially the beads. There are some very cool effects such as "i-frames when using estus flasks" on top of all the generic +%DMG/resistance.

Main game bosses are very well designed, but are mostly pushovers and won't be much of a challenge. DLC bosses on the other hand are quite challenging and will require proper preperation.

As for the platforming part, most of the time it's trivial except for a handful of maps which means backtracking won't be that much of a pain.

Steam Deck

Excellent game, beautiful art, and overall a really good experience. Can be frustrating as hell sometimes tho

Soild Metroidvania. Difficulty is balanced, fights are challenging but not impossible. Puzzles are creative. Lots of replayability.

an amazing metroidvania game i love the diffculty its an amazing game seriously play it even if it's hard (and don't worry its not to hard i myself am only casual and can kill every amaendas and golden visage eye boss without healing so don't worry)

苦难如何是神的恩赐呢

当肉体的苦难超越了精神的痛苦 当畸形的牢笼带来了不可思议的奇迹 苦难即是救赎

Poorly designed text. I cant even fck read some words. annoying enemies. (not hard, just annoying) It's Just terrible to learn to play it. RPG sistem is boring to...
its like 5/10

This game is one big hell yea

Art style & dark themes are peak
Story (& voice acting) is sick so far
Combat is violent and enjoyable
OST & soundscapes are exactly what you want in a title like this

I’m quite doggy at the platforming aspect but getting better at it becomes rewarding. Haven’t played a side scroller in decades but this stuff absolutely rocks

Opino que si ya pagué por el juego en stream debería dejarme descargarlo gratis en mi celular desde la App Store, para seguir lo jugando, además steam ya tiene formas para jugar desde el celular pero no está muy bien optimizado, el juego es genial y process quiero Descargarlo también en mi celular pero no volverlo a pagar. No sé qué inconvenientes vean ustedes…

Fantastic! Great combat and the story, lore and art were all excellent. Difficult, lots of backtracking and easy to miss some quests. Not too bad blind but as usual if you don't want to be locked out of endings on first play through look it up.

Recommend!

Brutal, dark and deep game every fan of Metroid should try. Every part of this game is amazingly brilliant, the graphisme are majestic and even with a few bugs, the game is still my favorite in the genre. The achievements push you to seek for secrets and the NG+ mode adds a LOT to do. I recommend !

A lot of unique areas, different NPCs and enemies. Interesting story, color palette and sound design. Even pixel graphic which I usually don’t like looks nice. However the main issue with the game is probably combat system, it just doesn’t feel right… It doesn’t have this smoothness and a feeling of control of your character like hollow knight has. Can’t really explain it, you just have to play both games. Overall it’s a great game

Blasphemous is what happens when Dark Souls, Metroidvania, and Catholic horror get together for a brutally gorgeous nightmare. You play as the Penitent One, a silent, guilt-ridden warrior slicing through a grotesque world of religious torment, cursed miracles, and enemies that look like they crawled straight out of a medieval painting.

The combat is precise and punishing, rewarding skillful dodging, parrying, and brutal executions. The pixel art is stunning—every environment drips with eerie, gothic beauty, and every boss looks like it was handcrafted to haunt your dreams. The lore? Deep, cryptic, and soaked in suffering.

With its tight gameplay, haunting soundtrack, and relentless difficulty, Blasphemous is a must-play for fans of Souls-like games and atmospheric platformers. Just be prepared—redemption doesn’t come easy, and neither does survival.

Pros:
Gorgeous!
Good sound
Fairly fluid combat

Cons:
KNOCKBACK!! (almost ruins the game for me)
Hidden stuff are far too cryptic for my tastes
Obnoxiously much to do for 100%. It's more than half the game
Extra jump on lanterns is the worst implementation of this mechanic I have ever come across
Swapping in and out the traversal powers is a baffingly stupid decision to me

It's not awful. But there are far too many problems and annoyances for me to truly enjoy it or recommend it

One of if not the best indie games i've played with beautiful artstyle, voice acting, gameplay, mechanics and story. If you are tempted to play the game it's definitely worth a shot

This was my first souls-like and metroidvania. This game is an absolute masterpiece. The game is very hard but the feeling of overcoming a boss or a difficult area is one of the best i ever felt. it's story is also great 9/10 would recommend

The combat and boss fights were really fun and gave a great adrenaline rush. my only problem with this game is the map design in my opinion just sucks

9/10

Would recommend if you're interested in the art, story and dark gothic/catholic asthetic. Awesome worldbuilding (though somewhat edgy at times) and very good art. The combat is very good too.

If you're in it for the metroidvania aspects, it's less good. Platforming is rather awkward and some base mechanics could have definently been thought out better. Trap rooms aren't fun and insta-kill spikes are a bad gameplay decision that punishes too heavy when compared to the rest of the game.

To 100% the game you gotta play it at least 2 times, plus a speedrun of half the game, so beware of that.

TL;DR: Play it if you like the vibe the steam page gives off. Don't play it if you're just looking for a metroidvania with good mechanics.

Totally recommend it. Nice art, stories, everything, especially for castlevania fans out there

probs one of the best games ever. very addictive and challenging great story too

Absolutely phenomenal. There's a love/hate relationship I have with this game.

The Great
- The Gothic haunting visuals are an absolute treat, the bleak hopelessness of Cvstodia is brought out with visual clarity with every passing level
- The soundtracks are perfect for each new landscape, they go well with the monsters that inhabit these lands
- Bosses are absolutely breathtaking, I absolutely loved how much real life references has gone into creating each of them, while they aren't particularly challenging, every boss battle was a visual spectacle
- Unlike the Souls series where bosses dictated difficulty, in this game traversing through the terrain itself is a challenge and the checkpoints are spread just enough to give you a frustrating yet rewarding experience once overcome
- The voice acting is top notch, every twisted monstrosity or meaningful character you encounter were voiced to perfection

The Good
- I love the map elements in the game, instead of adding many layers, it simply shows up as one large world map, makes it easier to navigate and mark secret locations and hidden power-ups.
- The entire system of rosary beads, hearts, prayers, relics, etc. come together as a nice way to build player power and the difference between having the best build is apparent when changing between builds
- Every monster feels fresh and different, going through levels, each monster adds a new level of frustration and feels rewarding when conquered

The Bad
- While I love the visuals, the messages from the corpses or clues to the hidden puzzles were vague and out of context, not a complaint for the game's grim layers, I absolutely love that but crucial game aspects need to be respected and stay relevant
- The Mea Culpa upgrade system is terribly boring and felt one-dimensional, there isn't a caster/ranged/summoner playstyle, it's melee all the way with a few ranged options, makes going through NG+ boring
- While backtracking is alright since the game itself isn't long, NG+ feels extremely stale and the game doesn't feel necessarily difficult the 2nd time around, I usually prefer an added layer of challenge after completing a game
- Starting a NG+ run will also not give you many bonus items to collect, there's about 8-10 items to collect and it feels truly repetitive
- The DLC content doesn't add too much weight, it's also easily miss-able depending on the route you take which means you have to start a new NG+ to continue

The Ugly
- The atrocious double jump is unnecessarily made difficult, it almost becomes a gamble to get right when rushing through the notorious crystal levels (timed)
- The controls aren't responsive, the input time feels clunky
- When combined with the bad controls, jumping can feel extremely clumsy as you can randomly cling to surfaces when you weren't intending to and other times, fall off, when u intend to cling

Overall, the game is magnificent and appealing to play. I absolutely loved and hated this game on my way to 100% completion + plat trophy. Blasphemous is up there among my favourite games and it hits the nail when it comes to merging atmosphere and gameplay.

Truly a fun game with plenty to offer upon a second play through! If you ever enjoyed the old castlevania or metroid games growing up then this can scratch that nostalgic itch with some Dark Souls difficulty through in for extra flavor. If you are curious about the second game I would play this first!

I completed the game just last night. This is a solid souls-like metroidvania game. The pixel art is beautiful. I loved the voice actors. The story and lore are amazing with so much depth to them. I just have a few gripes about this game. The biggest one for me was the lack of fast travel between all checkpoints. There are transportation teleports scarcely sprinkled throughout the map but if you want to reach certain locations, you have to trave to the nearest porta, which may not be as close to the location you want to go, and traverse traps and enemies again to get there. The good things about this is enemies do have have an aggressive aggro so you can get away with running past a lot of things. Still, this lack of transportation between checkpoints has you backtracking a lot... and I mean A LOT! My first souls-like metroidvania game was "The Last Faith", so maybe I am spoiled in that regard. Also, the bosses in this game don't seem to be difficult. The Last Faith bosses were more punishing, with more move sets and a ton of aggressiveness. The bosses in this game are creative, but lack that difficulty that defines a good souls-like game. Still, I reccomend this to anyone who enjoys souls-like metroidvania games, or just metroidvania, or just souls-like games. Great addition to the genre.

This game is purely cult classic.

And i can understand that and why community loves it so much since its aesthetic and the whole atmosphere made me buy the game on itself...

Yet the gameplay is more than terrible in many ways.
Okay, you cannot do much on metroidvania soulslike game but the fighting, the controls, the enjoyment of killing foes-zero. Like absolutely zero. It feels like the game was made with a cover of "haha its soulslike so we made it insanely cancer to play (not talking about difficulty at all since its soulslike)" then gets dedicated fanbase due to it being aestheticaly pleasing and simply existing as a soulslike game.

Aesthetic: 11/10
Everything art related: 10/10
Gameplay: pure cancer/10

I honestly did not enjoy playing this game. It has some of the poorest implemented combat and platforming mechanics I've even seen from a combat/platforming game. The combat is unsatisfying and incredibly easy, and the platforming is frustrating and boring. I could beat most bosses within 2-3 tries and they can all realistically be damaged tanked if the player even slightly uses the right build.

On the topic of builds, the game's progression isn't that great either. For the first half of the game, your build does not matter. The tools you have affect so little, the difference between using them or not is meaningless. That is, until you get the late game items allowing you to backtrack and collect 50+% of the total items at once.

I would also argue this is not a metroidvania. The movement/ability "upgrades" within the game are purely optional. Unless you are trying to collect every item in the game like me, I do not believe you will ever be locked out of an area because you lack an upgrade. On top of this, the upgrades they give do not affect base gameplay. No air dodge, no double jump; just items that let you collect other items in very specific areas.

The quest design is poor as well. Nearly every quest in the game has a fail condition that is not explained and very easy to encounter without even knowing. I completed 90% of my first run before finding that a boss I killed 15 hours previously locked me out of an ending and the ENTIRE DLC SECTION (the dlc was free, I didn't miss payed content outside the base cost of the game). This was never explained, I would have needed to break normal pathing to avoid this outcome, and if I didn't look it up I wouldn't have known how to fix this in my next playthrough.

The only small complement I can give to Blasphemous is that I love a good dark fantasy. Should having a good setting be an excuse for everything else being bad? I don't think so. If not for the sunk-cost fallacy and my need to 100% games, I would not have finished this game.

That fact that this game is nearly the same price of Nine Sols and $10 more than Hollow Knight is crazy to me.

There is a bug that the devs have known about for 5+ years and still not fixed. When you die and need to press any button to continue, none of your controller buttons actually work. Meanwhile they even realised a new game, come on.

Also quite possible the worst quest system I've ever experienced. It's like they took all that's confusing about Fromsoft's quest system and just copied it here.

A gorgeous, souls-like metroidvania that punishes the player for exploring with janky controls, lots of instant deaths, mediocre combat, and massive amounts of repetition and backtracking.

This game is decent if treated as a straightforward action game (i.e. by using a guide and removing the metroidvania elements).

PROS:
-Gorgeous pixel art
-Good voice acting
-Non-linear level design

NEUTRALS:
-There are some shortcut paths that can be enabled once you've made it through so you don't have to repeat everything.


CONS:
A metroidvania that punishes you for exploring just doesn't work.
-The game has LOTS of platforming elements with instant death traps, janky controls, and very few checkpoints. If you die, you have to repeat large sections again.
-There are VERY few fast travel locations. If you want to explore a different location, you'll have to navigate large portions of the map, getting past all the traps again. TIP: Donate 20,000 Tears to the Church as early as possible to activate fast travel between save points.
-If you die, you leave behind a "guilt fragment" that you now need to recover (meaning you have to go back the same way again) which further punishes you from wanting to explore a different path.
-Non-linear map design (which is usually a good thing) combined with this immense punishment for trying to explore and a complete lack of any direction whatsoever to guide the player just doesn't work.
-Due to the "soulslike" design, you can NOT speed run through things. Each area must be methodically passed through which inhibits exploration even further.

Combat is almost entirely trial and error.
-Can you block that attack? Only way to find out is to try, die, and just remember that one can't be blocked.
-Can you dodge through an enemy? Sometimes! Try it and if you get stuck, memorize that animation cannot be dodged through.
-You have to "unlock" combat skills by using currency earned by farming enemies. This adds absolutely nothing to the game.

-The most awkward double jump mechanic you've ever seen.
-Nothing is explained. None of the map icons are described anywhere. There is no quest log. The items only include vague descriptions. I get leaving things for the player to discover, but there is so little information ingame that you will invariably have to google just to figure out what items do.
-Plot is nonsense/gibberish. I don't even know who my character is supposed to be.

amaizing game for a good price. highly recommend if you're into challenging games.

I liked it! The platforming is very unforgiving which takes some time to get used to but the story and art was exceptionally beautiful.

I think what makes this game special is its art. The combat wouldn’t feel as smooth if not for the hand-drawn frames created by the developer. The combat itself is satisfying, and the music is top-notch.

A must play if you like Metroidvania's and Souls-like games. The combat and exploration feel great. The Gothic pixel art is outstanding. I loved the Spanish guitar filled OST. The track "Arpegios en Ocre" is so good, it made me just stop for a moment and listen to it.

Lots of content, I'll definitely go back and play new game+ in the future.

I played Blasphemous for the first time when it came out back in 2019.
I got it for the Switch and it introduced me to the Metroidvania genre at large but also to Souls-Like elements like the difficulty.
The first two hours were tough and I was very much struggeling and when I put the game down, I was reconsidering if I made the right choice for myself with purchasing the game.
The next day, I picked it up again and it just clicked and then I never put it back down until I finished it completely.
When the first two DLCs were out, I got back into the game and finished it again, did a NG+ run and defeated the Amanecidas, tried out the platforming challanges of the Strife & Ruin DLC and completed all three penances.
I did noth expect to put this mcuh time into the game again, but I had a blast throughout everything.

After the third and final DLC got announced and with a sequel on the horizon, I knew I had to get into the game once again at some point, so I decided to get it again for PC and play through all of it before i check out the sequel.

Now that I'm done completing everything again and experiencing the Wounds of Eventide DLC I have finally done everything the game has to offer.
I conclude that this is one amazing game, rivalling the greatness of even the likes of Hollow Knight.
It's a joy for everyone who likes to get challanged and a must have for every Metroidvania fanatic.

The "campaign" from the beginning up until the final boss is defeated is generally an enjoyable experience, but the slog that comes afterwards if one wants to get all the collectibles is draining.

There is also a second "better" ending (and a third, not sure how to get that one and I don't care to) that is locked behind absurdly obscure steps that must be taken in order for it to be achieved.

Good game, but it demands a little too much for a little too little.

have a lot of bugs, i can't count how many times things been struck in walls. But is a really good game