Blasphemous was a mind-blowing 'metroidvania' style platform RPG released back in 2019 (metroidvania of course being typically a 2D platformer/RPG adventure taking place over one gigantic level). I loved playing it, scoring it a great 9/10. With the sequel, Blasphemous II releasing last Thursday, in anticipation I replayed through the first game, something was important to do as the third downloadable content, named 'Wounds of Eventide', added a third ending to the game, an ending which is the canonical one. As my review will show, I did mess that up quite a bit, but I also managed to see some of the extra content added since the my first initial playthrough. The review will also mention some of the other DLC added, though I didn't play all of that, again due to lack of research. Mild spoilers for some base-game stuff to follow.
Blasphemous takes place in a Medieval style world in which a kind of religious apocalypse has struck the land. Basically, anyone who deems themselves to be guilty, or is found to be doing something bad will be punished by a supernatural event known as the 'miracle'. This causes no end of suffering, with many people's perceived guilt resulting in them being transformed into grotesque monsters. You play as a man in a metal mask, the last surviving member of a brotherhood of voluntary mutes that had been wiped out by the right hand of a pope-like figure, he had also been killed, but was brought back to life thanks to the power of the miracle. His journey sees him travelling across the fictional world of Custodia in order to kill the corrupt pope.
'Wounds of Eventide' was actually the third DLC released for the game, all of which were completely free I might add. It turned out that the first DLC, 'The Stir of Dawn' mostly contained content that could only be seen by playing the harder New Game + mode. I hadn't realised this and so I started a game from scratch again and missed out (I believe) on five extra bosses, and one new area. The second DLC was for things outside of the game, such as a boss rush mode. The third DLC is the one I will be mostly talking about, though some things added were likely from the earlier new content. There is a convoluted quest you have to do in order to see the new canonical ending. I did the steps correctly up to the penultimate boss. Messing that up resulted in me not seeing the new third phase to the boss battle, and also not seeing the new phase to the final boss, and of course the new ending. Twenty two hours in, and with the sequel releasing the next day, I just didn't have the time to re-do all this, so had to watch a YouTube video of the real ending.
The game added in a whole bunch of new items and magic spells, as well as some new characters to talk to. Key of these was a giant monk who in exchange for fervour and quicksilver would upgrade the strength of the healing flasks, though at the sacrifice of losing one. 'Echoes of Salt' seemed to be a new area, though I believe that came with 'The Stir of Dawn', so the real new area was an underground cave system where giant wooden sailing ships could be located. This was very hard and something I had to leave till the end to do. At the end of this area is one of the two new bosses, a giant snake, so large that the boss battle takes place on its back. The second new boss can be found off of the room where an old man displays relics you find. Find enough and a new room opens up where a fight against a quick moving woman can be found. Should you do this new quest, the midpoint boss is no more, instead he lets you pass without needing to battle him.
Having totally forgotten there was extra DLC content added, my second play of this game was a lovely experience, despite messing up the steps that would give me the real ending. With one of the DLC drops introducing a much swifter way of fast travelling (by donating fervour to a new church area), this led to much less backtracking. There was also the addition of a crossover quest with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a cool addition but due to the intense difficulty in the five puzzle dungeons and slowdown on the Switch, I wasn't able to finish this quest line
I'm sure the second game is also going to get a lot of post-game content, and so when I inevitably go to re-play that one, I'm sure I will play through Blasphemous again, this time getting the proper ending and seeing all the new DLC.
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