There's a lot to love and hate about Blasphemous. The Spanish-inspired setting is quite imaginative and brought to life through some top-tier pixel art. The areas are connected to each other through shortcuts on a level that rivals Hollow Knight. Even more impressive is how open the game is. You have to beat specific bosses to progress, but they can be tackled out of order and no power-ups are required to fight them. The lack of essential power-ups is unexpected, but after finishing the game, I can't say I missed them.

There is a caveat to that last statement though. Accessing secret areas often requires specific items that are very easy to miss, which brings me to my first complaint. I wish these items didn't exist at all because they slowed the midgame progression to a crawl. The character customization was somewhat neat, but I found many of the upgrades, especially the sword techniques, superfluous. They do not come in handy nearly enough to warrant their existence. As for the combat, I have mixed feelings. It feels great against the bosses, but regular enemies can be a huge pain to deal with. The stun effect when getting hit lasts a smidge too long for my liking, as it's very easy to get stunlocked by multiple enemies. Attack animations are also too long. The sword by default prepares a special combo strike when landing successive blows, but the long animation means you can't move if the enemy moves away or is about to hit you. It feels very sluggish as a result and I hope this is addressed in the sequel.

If you can stomach some clunky design, Blasphemous is definitely worth checking out. It's one of the longer Metroidvanias I've come across and generally doesn't feel padded out.