Blasphemous 2 Review – Second Time and Darker

The first Blasphemous is a 2D metroidvania that is not afraid to overwhelm the player with pain. The protagonist, armed with a brutal-looking sword and a pointed hat, reached the end of his journey after a series of hard battles, after which he was finally allowed to rest. Not for long though, because Blasphemous 2 calls him back to work. The following lines of our review will tell you how the developers managed to create a continuation of an excellent work.

• Platform: PC, PS5, XSX|S, Nintendo Switch (Review)
• Publication date: 08/24/2023
• Manufacturer: play kitchen
• Genre: 2D metroidvania
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Download data:
• Game time: 20 hours
• Price: 710 CZK (couples)

Blasphemous 2 takes you back to a world with no hope of salvation

The story of Blasphemous will take you on a journey full of evil that needed to be sent to the depths of Hell. Blasphemous 2 turns you into Penitent again. He did not find the peace he sought, but was again called from heaven, because the darkness never sleeps and slowly reclaims the world, the visual processing of which greatly enhances the feeling of wandering through the countryside without any hope of salvation from heaven. But this time around, you don’t start out with a rough-looking sword that can cut through almost any enemy branch, but rather a trio of items. We have a massive mace, a sword with a dagger and, of course, a two-handed cleaver.

Each of the weapons featured has its own set of special attacks, often linked to the progression tree you slowly work your way through. However, unique lunges are not the only thing that the equipment offers you in this job. While elsewhere it’s just meant to mow down enemies, in Blasphemous 2 you actually activate previously closed paths, unlocking new weapons. For example, such a mace is a toy with which you can ring all the bells. What is this useless ability? Absolutely not.

The sound of the bells melts the metal gates, or vice versa, turns the seemingly liquid points over the abyss into fulcrum with which you can cross the depth. However, you can’t hesitate, some things are temporary, so if you hesitate, you may well run right into a blood-splattered spike. The two-handed man opens the way. Not with a sound, but by hitting it with all your strength at a certain point, jumping from a decent height, after which you will practically crush everything that stood in your way at that moment. I consider the really active involvement of technology in the gameplay as part of overcoming various obstacles a worthy step that increases the overall intensity, because more than once it happens that you have to combine individual tools, and then it’s just fun.

Some secrets will have to wait

The level design is somewhat tied to the gear you have. In addition, the skills that you acquire over time play a big role in progress. In short, as in any other metroidvania. Definitely don’t expect to reveal all the secrets within the first few hours. Some will wait for you until you bring the right tool. For example, the already mentioned lumberjack. Even without most of the items, you will still have a lot of fun. In Blasphemous 2, for example, it was great to go through the sand-filled ruins that had to be moved in the name of progress, leading to the depths of the dark tomb, which is the nail of the whole destination. In their bowels, waiting for me was nothing more than one of those bosses who needed to be properly cut down here.

More precisely, it was a severe beauty, on which the years spent in the sand had a strong effect. That is, the years and fragments that her giant body was full of. Her advantage was that she apparently learned how to properly use her equipment in the past, so without dodging and using her momentary tantrums was simply impossible. In my opinion, the meetings with the main sappers have become a little more dynamic than in the first part. Before each boss, there are also a bunch of enemies waiting for you.

Some have already been seen in the first Blasphemous. But a significant percentage are newcomers who are just waiting for you to brutally kill them, or vice versa, so that they radically kill you. Among old acquaintances, for example, I was annoyed by a skeleton with a candlestick, because sometimes I could not stop it from starting. Yes, I know it’s simple, but it doesn’t always work. Among the newcomers, I liked the strange bird that shoots feathers and rolls barrels down the corridor. However, in Blasphemous 2, you can quite brutally kill them all in one go. Just take enough lives from them and then just enjoy the harsh death of your juices.

Blasphemous 2 shows how to make a sequel

Penitent entered the fray in Blasphemous 2, and once again it was worth it. The creators of this work give players more space, a wider range of enemies and a hero who no longer operates with one weapon, but with several tools that interfere with the gameplay on several levels. As far as serious shortcomings go, I would say that during the game I did not encounter anything serious. In fact, we can say that the developers managed to bring the working idea to imaginary perfection.