Summary
Blasphemous 2may not have made the same splash thatHollow Knight: Silksongwill whenever the latter happens to launch, but as a comparable 2D Metroidvania action-platformer bearing Soulslike characteristics it’s certainly one of the best of its ilk.Blasphemous 2wields its dark fantasy Catholicismto its advantage with world-building not unfamiliar to anyone who’s played a Soulslike game, and while its gameplay is different it persists as a Soulslike in every positive sense.
Soulslikes are commonly defined by how rich and dynamic players’ chosen builds can be. This involves being able to orient stat allocations toward a particular weapon, for example, and detailing a custom character with a specific class that they can then mold toward stats they know they’ll desire down the road. TheBlasphemousgames don’t have such RPG elements and instead concentrate on skill tree-based weapon and passive upgrades. That said,Blasphemous 2stretched the franchise’s legs in a way that could make one FromSoftware Soulslike feature seem plausible and rewarding inBlasphemous’ future.
Blasphemous 2 Made the Right Call by Going Slow and Steady with Weapon Variety
Blasphemous’ evolution between games has been remarkably and favorably granular. Obviously as an indie game it won’t have thebudget or scale that FromSoftware’sElden Ringcould achieve, but whatBlasphemous 2does to improve and iterate on its predecessor is still profoundly impressive.
Blasphemous 2could have devised a lore-retconning reason to reprise theiconic Mea Culpa as its lone weapon, for instance, but instead The Game Kitchen chose to design three unique weapon playstyles that all have necessary and authentic utility in platforming as well. This was easily the sequel’s defining trait, especially because it allowed players to choose which of the three they’d begin the game with.
The other two would then need to be found throughout the game with respective platforming and regions being inaccessible until they’d retrieved the weapon that could perform whatever traversal is required.
It’s unlikely now that aBlasphemous 3would feature as many weapons as aDark Soulsmight, and yet it’s feasible that The Game Kitchen could enjoy this formula and what supplementary weapons can provide in terms of builds or playstyle preferences. If so, an interesting way to see additional weapons introduced inBlasphemouswould be if it adopted FromSoftware’s means of transposing a boss’ soul into a one-of-a-kind and otherwise unobtainable weapon, typically the one that the souls’ previous owner was wielding in their boss fight.
Blasphemous 3 Should Debut Boss Weapons
Whether it’sa boss soul or a Remembrance transposed, FromSoftware Soulslikesgifting players the weapons that their greatest foes wielded is a massive sense of achievement. There are so many weapons in all of these games that players may not care much to pursue them, especially because it’s also not an explicit feature, not unlike most systems in FromSoftware’s action-RPGs.
Still, boss weapons provide a lot of variety with iconography players can be familiar with and behave like memorial tokens of a player’s favorite bosses. Then, part of why these weapons can be so engrossing is that they often grant a unique ability or attack that their respective boss had, such as theWaterfowl Dance as a weapon skill onElden Ring’s Hand of Malenia.
It may be a tall ask now for a potentialBlasphemous 3to include its own boss weapons since it only recently debuted a few new weapons that were all intrinsic to gameplay throughout the sequel. That said, if theBlasphemousfranchise is indeed planning to persist and evolve, boss weapons would be an exciting way for weapons to be developed further.
This way, weapons could be granted to players via bosses exclusively and not necessarily be mandatory, while a starting selection is still available that can be swapped out for a preferable boss weapon. The possibilities are infinite for how aBlasphemous 3might look, but with additional weapons being integral inBlasphemous 2it makes sense that The Game Kitchen would want to iterate on that even more.
Blasphemous 2
WHERE TO PLAY
The second scripture in the Blasphemous series portends the return of The Penitent One, with a story that continues from the free Wounds of Eventide DLC for the original game, where The Heart in the sky heralded the return of The Miracle and foretold the birth of a new miracle child.Awakened in a strange new land, and displaced from his final resting place, The Penitent One is thrust back into the endless cycle of life, death, and resurrection, with no other option than to explore this perilous new world and uncover its long-forgotten secrets.Hordes of grotesque enemies stand in your way, awaiting final judgement by the brutal hand of the Penitent One, with titanic twisted bosses also lurking in the darkness, waiting for their chance to return you to the grave from whence you came.Taking them down won’t be easy, but with Blasphemous 2 offering more chances to customise and improve your skill set, along with several new unique weapons to wield with righteous zeal and unending fury, victory might just be within grasp.Ultimately, only one thing is certain… Penance Never Ends
