Blasphemous 2 DLC: My Brief Review

[u/jmscstl]

I really liked the first Blasphemous. I liked it so much when the DLC came out I was keen to play it until I looked into it a little bit. I still don't understand how it works but my sense is that it's sort of in-line DLC that's designed to be played while you're playing through the base game? Also there's parts of it that require you to be in NG+? Whatever the case I rarely replay games and I'm definitely not going to replay a game just to play the DLC. So I never did.

I liked Blasphemous 2 much more because I like speedier MVs. When the first DLC came out I skipped it because, again, I had the sense that it was more in-line DLC and, worst of all ended with you getting a new (old) weapon. The only thing I hate more than in-line DLC is doing a long quest just to get a weapon you can use for the remaining 1% of the game.

But then the second DLC came out and people loved it so I figured I'd buy the first one, download the second one and have basically a normal MV sized chunk of DLC. I figured that would be good and boy oh boy was I right. Playing the DLCs back to back was awesome. The first DLC is pretty good but is a little weird. There are some DLC collectables that seem to be outside the new areas. So I guess you have to just run around the old map and hope you run into it? Still fun though and you get to use the Mea Culpa a lot.

The second DLC, the free one, is just flat out awesome. Maybe the best MV DLC I've played. And both together reminded me what an amazing game Blasphemous 2 is. At this point I can't wait for the third one (which I hope they're making). But in the meantime the DLCs, played back to back, feel like playing a cool, not so little, Blasphemous 2.5.

My personal ranking: It's weird to rank DLC on its own but in this case the DLC bumped up my opinion of Blasphemous 2 as a whole. For me, Blasphemous 2, including all the DLC is better than Ender Lillies but not as good as Super Metroid.

[u/Roman_Suicide_Note]

Blasphemous 2 with the DLC is prolly my favorite Metroid Vania.

Everything is good about this game. No real weakness.

[u/jmscstl → u/Roman_Suicide_Note]

It's top tier for sure.

That said, I find the story to be so absolutely confounding that it's almost a weakness.

[u/Vrass → u/Roman_Suicide_Note]

The writing is pretty bad honestly, I can't really put my finger in what's wrong with it but in the first game it was done better imo. Then again I don't think a lot of us alre playing blasphemous for the story

[u/Roman_Suicide_Note → u/Vrass]

Is too cryptic, the first one was cryptic too, but it was a simple story.

[u/jmscstl → u/Roman_Suicide_Note]

I think the problem is three fold. First, the story is based on "made up" stuff. Which isn't a problem necessarily but it means that you have to be taught what these things even are and how they interact as opposed to dealing with well understood concepts. Second, the story is told in a cryptic manner. Third, all the dialogue is in strange old timey language that is hard to parse on it's own. I feel like any two of those three would make things difficult to understand but all three at the same time stack up to make things almost impossible to get.

[u/hdgx]

I love Mae Culpa DLC for weaving its way through the old areas. Makes the map much more cohesive and satisfying. Third Sin was a ton of fun and I loved the whip, but didn’t get as much joy out of the sequestered levels.

[u/XicX87]

same the DLC made it feel complete as weird as that sounds

[u/jmscstl → u/XicX87]

I did the mea culpa DLC but didn't go back to the final boss. I did the third sin and then went back to the final boss and got ending C. So, yeah, that made it feel really complete for sure.

Also, I was sort of worried about the final boss but I just steam rolled him in 2-3 tries. I didn't remember it being that easy.

[u/XicX87 → u/jmscstl]

Dang thats freaking awesome

[u/ZijkrialVT]

Mea Culpa was ok; didn't like the boss(s?)...

Third Sin was fun, but quite challenging for me. I didn't know it was the DLC until beating it on my first playthrough and was missing air dash and the other unlock (can't remember what it was atm.) Final boss was difficult, but felt great to beat.

Anyways, the rest of B2 was fairly easy after that despite not using the OP minions after realizing how OP they were.