Song
When I had initially played Blasphemous (2019) I had thought it was incredible. Mainly the reason why I had thought this was due to what it most clearly mimicked from the Souls series. Most particularly a checkpoint system and echoing audio design during voiced dialogue. I still believe that Blasphemous is really good, and I don't particularly mind its lack of mechanical iteration in the way others do. What it seems to lack in tight level design for example is made up with from its other more artistic iterations. In particular its application of spanish folklore into the realm of the religious gothic with grace. This guy goes into that more if you're interesed but for me, the flamenco nuevo soundtrack makes it all worth it alone. I can excuse a lot of mechanical flubs if the art and sound is good, so for a long time I had hyped this up in my head as an ignored masterpiece.
Sadly though Blasphemous is not a masterpiece, it's just good. I have a couple really weird arguments for why this is the case. However before we really get into that, you will have to accept some terms and conditions first. Similar to my Tunic and Hollow Knight write ups, I will be taking this and blatantly drawing comparisons to FromSoft's souls design. I know that on first blush such a comparison may seem tedious and I agree that in many cases it is. I hate the term souls-like more than anybody because of how constraining it is. Simultaneously, though, Hollow Knight actually feels great to play in part because how derivative it is as a souls title in terms of its design space. At some point we have to admit to ourselves that one of the reasons why Dark Souls (2011) feels as refreshing as it is, is because of its smart mechanical design decisions that push against the player. Dark Souls and to a lesser extent Demons Souls (2009) introduced through experimentation design decisions that simply make sense. For example autosaving, checkpoint systems, stamina systems, currency on death, etc. These all introduce friction to a player probably used to save scumming and throwing lives away at a problem without risk. So that's why everyone is obsessed with it and why comparisons are drawn. These elements and how they play together function as 'mechanically rich' design that constantly tests the player.
Every action based title probably should be considering the design of the Souls titles at some stage of development because its sensible design. That being said, I don't think that these elements should lock a title that is deriving from them to a sensibility of being derivative because everything derives off of good design from before. It's why I prefer the term 'search action' over 'metroidvania', its good to find the common denominator in my view rather than constraining the future of design in a medium to its past.
With all that said blasphemous and Hollow Knight are actually more derivative of the souls titles in particular in a few nuanced ways that deserve that point of comparison. Most notably hidden 'good endings' through obscure actions the player has to follow. A point of discretion that many of the Souls games involve in and that Hollow Knight, Tunic, and blasphemous follow in stride. Along with weird ways of shrouding its content through esoteric access points. For example the DLC content of Wounds of Eventide for blasphemous and Godmaster for Hollow Knight are both performed through strange and easy to miss access points that are nested away. There's no beating around the bush with this, this esoteric design is something I'm not particularly fond of and I think these titles need to cut this shit out.
For what it's worth I like when it's done for characters having them move about and being able to miss their sidequests that's all fine. It's legitimately cool that I had thought for example Petrus from Dark Souls was a cool dude for literally years, because I didn't know about his sidequest and its implications that he's a terrible rapist. I think this can add an extra allure to a story that justifies its position in the medium of 'videogames' because it makes sense that being able to hide secrets and offpaths through discovery is something this medium naturally can take advantage of. So I understand the appeal there. I don't think the novelty of hiding special good endings through weird actions is great though. blaphemous has an ending accessible through breaking the healing statues but theres nothing to indicate that they were breakable. These design decisions don't need to be imitated or used because instead of making the player feel like they 'found' something they are instead just obscuring content which will be unimmersive because it's going to be found through a walk through. It's not actually testing the player its just a marketing gimmick. Yes it 'feels cool' but its genuinely unsatisfying in retrospect. By comparison anybody who knows Cruelty Squad (2021) probably knows how obscure some of the endings and content is. I wont spoil it but Cruelty Squad is justifiable for this because if you replay the levels and talk to the NPCs they actually do tip you off about it, the aspect resolution reveal is a great example of this. Even aside from that though none of Cruelty Squad's secrets feel tidy. They feel disturbing, which in my mind is how secrets typically should feel. Portal has the ratman secret, a secret so great and so disturbing that it has become an iconic point for appreciating it fully. There's something to be said about secrets as a form of disturbing the player rather than rewarding them, something that Cruelty Squad has so successfully realized that I genuinely hope people obsess over the design of that title soon before people just forget about it. Along with this, Cruelty Squad also suceeds through not making its endings typically triumphant, I won't say more than that because of spoilers but this sensibility of rewarding players with the groteque is an important element. By comparison the endings for Tunic, blasphemous, and Hollow Knight are binaries. Either 'you didnt do enough, play again' or 'you did it, you found everything'. Do I really need to explain why this sucks? Let's move on.
The other place blasphemous flails is when it ironically doesn't derive enough from the frictional design of Souls. Some of them are obvious I think. blasphemous doesn't have a currency on death system you lose no tears in it when you die, probably because of its tree progression system of leveling. In order for the tree progression system to work you'd need to not punish the player via that risk system. However that risk system is there to stop players from simply throwing bodies away. All you have here is a minor diminishment of the mana bar when can be fixed so easily as to trivialize them. Small aspects like this I imagine these developers don't want to borrow from because of that fear of being derivative but yeah I think that not only should designers shamelessly borrow from them they should realize why they are even there in the first place.
There are more nuanced examples of this to. For example in contrast to the esoteric access point system, which everyone seems to like but secretly sucks. There is an inverse: A system everyone claims to hate but is secretly pretty good. That system is the boss runback. Dark Souls does not present a bonfire right before its bosses where blasphemous does. Now on paper that should mean that blasphemous made the better design decision right? You allow the player to do the challenge they want to do, you don't mess with them with a tedious run through to the boss allowing them to focus. This misunderstands the point though, Dark Souls has these runbacks both for immersion and to keep the player on their feet. I'm legitimate when I say that one of the reason Orstien and Smough is an iconic fight is because you do have to navigate and run past those giant enemies on the way in. People forget this part obviously, but Orstien and Smough would feel like a different fight if the bonfire was right next to the fog door. Elden Ring on the other hand takes this 'straight to the boss' approach via the Miraka statues, and if you ask me I think it makes the experience a little more lame. Feeling a small thrill of being chased and distanced from the action reminds the player to prepare and creates just that extra bit of friction making the issue of 'losing' have a bit of impact. If you lose against the boss this run up is your punishment. To me as long as there's some enemies chasing you that you have to navigate in the run up this is a good design decision.
Boss run backs are one of those aspects that nobody wants to defend and I wont warp this whole post into a defense of boss run backs aside from what I already said. However the point of this illustration is that there are nuanced design decisions like this everywhere that due to consumer pressure is often removed. People only vocalize hating these aspects of design. Saying things like 'X old game would be better without a loading screen' or 'fuck live systems they just artificially make the game longer' but I think extrinsic frictions like this are actually a motivator and a title that extra character. In retrospect we always want these frictions to not exist in part because of how memory and replay actually function. Nobody is consciously thinking about the Loading screen or fetch quests, we 'fast forward' our minds to these cool moments and as we age and our time becomes more precious we want games themselves to 'fast forwards' as well. Part of the reason for this is quite depressing: Even without the Hedonic Treadmill involved, playing Megaman as a kid and as an adult are functionally different due to both the abundance of other titles and our relationship to leisure. If other games exist that have no loading screens, why the hell would I play one that does? Not to mention that even in terms of enjoyment, games that get too frictional actually can alienate because you simply aren't being dripfed the amount of joy you are used to. Developer wise, there are a couple work arounds here, two that come to mind are either just ignoring that alienation and slapping 'retro' or 'masocore' on the title, or making the frictions only very slight (I choose the O&S souls example on purpose here since it's the easiest run back in the game). However, its not so simple from a critical consumption side because we have to say stuff beyond just pure enjoyment. I am maybe one of the only people that defends a static load screen and want to see it, because to even promote this idea is patently absurd. However its not that functionally different from what the risk of a currency on death system does. They are both Systems that slow down the player.
To turn back finally to blasphemous I'm not saying that its actually bad. It's a great experience to 'feel' again for its best boss fights through listening to the soundtrack, and generally its a fantastic experience from the audiovisual direction. It's just that it doesn't 'stick'. To paraphrase friend Femboygenius said that Cruelty Squad, something that only came out 2 years ago, is one of the only 2 games worth playing. Obviously this is a take meant mainly to enrage but I do think its interesting. FemboyGenius' favourite games all are from the past 10 years, and really stick to frictional design which means it's not an issue of something needing to be a 'classic' or not, just need to obey the principle of frictional design. I agree entirely that Cruelty Squad is probably one of the best fast FPS shooters since DOOM (1993). The reason I think this is because I have a similar flavor for so called 'masochistic' design, design that is constantly testing me to make those standout experiences matter. blasphemous and Elden Ring are both great audio visual experiences and to a certain extent this is enough. However there is something to be said about the aspect of what makes something iconic and really stand out, and that's putting obstacles in the way of the player rather than servicing them, Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby for example is a browser meme classic because startled players with its difficulty, this is what everyone remembers when the dust settles.
The good will please us, the great will test us.
When I had initially played Blasphemous (2019) I had thought it was incredible. Mainly the reason why I had thought this was due to what it most clearly mimicked from the Souls series. Most particularly a checkpoint system and echoing audio design during voiced dialogue. I still believe that Blasphemous is really good, and I don't particularly mind its lack of mechanical iteration in the way others do. What it seems to lack in tight level design for example is made up with from its other more artistic iterations. In particular its application of spanish folklore into the realm of the religious gothic with grace. This guy goes into that more if you're interesed but for me, the flamenco nuevo soundtrack makes it all worth it alone. I can excuse a lot of mechanical flubs if the art and sound is good, so for a long time I had hyped this up in my head as an ignored masterpiece.
Sadly though Blasphemous is not a masterpiece, it's just good. I have a couple really weird arguments for why this is the case. However before we really get into that, you will have to accept some terms and conditions first. Similar to my Tunic and Hollow Knight write ups, I will be taking this and blatantly drawing comparisons to FromSoft's souls design. I know that on first blush such a comparison may seem tedious and I agree that in many cases it is. I hate the term souls-like more than anybody because of how constraining it is. Simultaneously, though, Hollow Knight actually feels great to play in part because how derivative it is as a souls title in terms of its design space. At some point we have to admit to ourselves that one of the reasons why Dark Souls (2011) feels as refreshing as it is, is because of its smart mechanical design decisions that push against the player. Dark Souls and to a lesser extent Demons Souls (2009) introduced through experimentation design decisions that simply make sense. For example autosaving, checkpoint systems, stamina systems, currency on death, etc. These all introduce friction to a player probably used to save scumming and throwing lives away at a problem without risk. So that's why everyone is obsessed with it and why comparisons are drawn. These elements and how they play together function as 'mechanically rich' design that constantly tests the player.
Every action based title probably should be considering the design of the Souls titles at some stage of development because its sensible design. That being said, I don't think that these elements should lock a title that is deriving from them to a sensibility of being derivative because everything derives off of good design from before. It's why I prefer the term 'search action' over 'metroidvania', its good to find the common denominator in my view rather than constraining the future of design in a medium to its past.
With all that said blasphemous and Hollow Knight are actually more derivative of the souls titles in particular in a few nuanced ways that deserve that point of comparison. Most notably hidden 'good endings' through obscure actions the player has to follow. A point of discretion that many of the Souls games involve in and that Hollow Knight, Tunic, and blasphemous follow in stride. Along with weird ways of shrouding its content through esoteric access points. For example the DLC content of Wounds of Eventide for blasphemous and Godmaster for Hollow Knight are both performed through strange and easy to miss access points that are nested away. There's no beating around the bush with this, this esoteric design is something I'm not particularly fond of and I think these titles need to cut this shit out.
For what it's worth I like when it's done for characters having them move about and being able to miss their sidequests that's all fine. It's legitimately cool that I had thought for example Petrus from Dark Souls was a cool dude for literally years, because I didn't know about his sidequest and its implications that he's a terrible rapist. I think this can add an extra allure to a story that justifies its position in the medium of 'videogames' because it makes sense that being able to hide secrets and offpaths through discovery is something this medium naturally can take advantage of. So I understand the appeal there. I don't think the novelty of hiding special good endings through weird actions is great though. blaphemous has an ending accessible through breaking the healing statues but theres nothing to indicate that they were breakable. These design decisions don't need to be imitated or used because instead of making the player feel like they 'found' something they are instead just obscuring content which will be unimmersive because it's going to be found through a walk through. It's not actually testing the player its just a marketing gimmick. Yes it 'feels cool' but its genuinely unsatisfying in retrospect. By comparison anybody who knows Cruelty Squad (2021) probably knows how obscure some of the endings and content is. I wont spoil it but Cruelty Squad is justifiable for this because if you replay the levels and talk to the NPCs they actually do tip you off about it, the aspect resolution reveal is a great example of this. Even aside from that though none of Cruelty Squad's secrets feel tidy. They feel disturbing, which in my mind is how secrets typically should feel. Portal has the ratman secret, a secret so great and so disturbing that it has become an iconic point for appreciating it fully. There's something to be said about secrets as a form of disturbing the player rather than rewarding them, something that Cruelty Squad has so successfully realized that I genuinely hope people obsess over the design of that title soon before people just forget about it. Along with this, Cruelty Squad also suceeds through not making its endings typically triumphant, I won't say more than that because of spoilers but this sensibility of rewarding players with the groteque is an important element. By comparison the endings for Tunic, blasphemous, and Hollow Knight are binaries. Either 'you didnt do enough, play again' or 'you did it, you found everything'. Do I really need to explain why this sucks? Let's move on.
The other place blasphemous flails is when it ironically doesn't derive enough from the frictional design of Souls. Some of them are obvious I think. blasphemous doesn't have a currency on death system you lose no tears in it when you die, probably because of its tree progression system of leveling. In order for the tree progression system to work you'd need to not punish the player via that risk system. However that risk system is there to stop players from simply throwing bodies away. All you have here is a minor diminishment of the mana bar when can be fixed so easily as to trivialize them. Small aspects like this I imagine these developers don't want to borrow from because of that fear of being derivative but yeah I think that not only should designers shamelessly borrow from them they should realize why they are even there in the first place.
There are more nuanced examples of this to. For example in contrast to the esoteric access point system, which everyone seems to like but secretly sucks. There is an inverse: A system everyone claims to hate but is secretly pretty good. That system is the boss runback. Dark Souls does not present a bonfire right before its bosses where blasphemous does. Now on paper that should mean that blasphemous made the better design decision right? You allow the player to do the challenge they want to do, you don't mess with them with a tedious run through to the boss allowing them to focus. This misunderstands the point though, Dark Souls has these runbacks both for immersion and to keep the player on their feet. I'm legitimate when I say that one of the reason Orstien and Smough is an iconic fight is because you do have to navigate and run past those giant enemies on the way in. People forget this part obviously, but Orstien and Smough would feel like a different fight if the bonfire was right next to the fog door. Elden Ring on the other hand takes this 'straight to the boss' approach via the Miraka statues, and if you ask me I think it makes the experience a little more lame. Feeling a small thrill of being chased and distanced from the action reminds the player to prepare and creates just that extra bit of friction making the issue of 'losing' have a bit of impact. If you lose against the boss this run up is your punishment. To me as long as there's some enemies chasing you that you have to navigate in the run up this is a good design decision.
Boss run backs are one of those aspects that nobody wants to defend and I wont warp this whole post into a defense of boss run backs aside from what I already said. However the point of this illustration is that there are nuanced design decisions like this everywhere that due to consumer pressure is often removed. People only vocalize hating these aspects of design. Saying things like 'X old game would be better without a loading screen' or 'fuck live systems they just artificially make the game longer' but I think extrinsic frictions like this are actually a motivator and a title that extra character. In retrospect we always want these frictions to not exist in part because of how memory and replay actually function. Nobody is consciously thinking about the Loading screen or fetch quests, we 'fast forward' our minds to these cool moments and as we age and our time becomes more precious we want games themselves to 'fast forwards' as well. Part of the reason for this is quite depressing: Even without the Hedonic Treadmill involved, playing Megaman as a kid and as an adult are functionally different due to both the abundance of other titles and our relationship to leisure. If other games exist that have no loading screens, why the hell would I play one that does? Not to mention that even in terms of enjoyment, games that get too frictional actually can alienate because you simply aren't being dripfed the amount of joy you are used to. Developer wise, there are a couple work arounds here, two that come to mind are either just ignoring that alienation and slapping 'retro' or 'masocore' on the title, or making the frictions only very slight (I choose the O&S souls example on purpose here since it's the easiest run back in the game). However, its not so simple from a critical consumption side because we have to say stuff beyond just pure enjoyment. I am maybe one of the only people that defends a static load screen and want to see it, because to even promote this idea is patently absurd. However its not that functionally different from what the risk of a currency on death system does. They are both Systems that slow down the player.
To turn back finally to blasphemous I'm not saying that its actually bad. It's a great experience to 'feel' again for its best boss fights through listening to the soundtrack, and generally its a fantastic experience from the audiovisual direction. It's just that it doesn't 'stick'. To paraphrase friend Femboygenius said that Cruelty Squad, something that only came out 2 years ago, is one of the only 2 games worth playing. Obviously this is a take meant mainly to enrage but I do think its interesting. FemboyGenius' favourite games all are from the past 10 years, and really stick to frictional design which means it's not an issue of something needing to be a 'classic' or not, just need to obey the principle of frictional design. I agree entirely that Cruelty Squad is probably one of the best fast FPS shooters since DOOM (1993). The reason I think this is because I have a similar flavor for so called 'masochistic' design, design that is constantly testing me to make those standout experiences matter. blasphemous and Elden Ring are both great audio visual experiences and to a certain extent this is enough. However there is something to be said about the aspect of what makes something iconic and really stand out, and that's putting obstacles in the way of the player rather than servicing them, Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby for example is a browser meme classic because startled players with its difficulty, this is what everyone remembers when the dust settles.
The good will please us, the great will test us.
Reviewed on Mar 02, 2023
Erato_Heti
1 year ago
Also I don't really a point in priming people with the policy thing I can just put it in my bio or something.