confused about difficulty

[Julymorning]

i read in negative reviews that the platforming in this game is hard and punishing, however i watched over 1 hour of gameplay of various stages of the game and didn't see any difficult platforming. people are mentioning death spikes and enemies knocking you off once you jump on a platform leading to instant spike death. is this game truly too difficult or some reviewers don't have patience? how would you compare the difficulty of this game to dark souls games?

[Velarune]

I don't think it's very difficult. I'm also someone that doesn't find the Souls games difficult either. The same thing applies here that does in the Souls games, where if you charge in swinging, then you're going to have a bad time. If you take your time and think before you act then things are relatively simple. There's some parts that of course provide some challenge, but overall I would say things are more annoying or unforgiving then being difficult. I've definitely played harder sidescrollers before, such as the older Metroid and Castlevania games.

[Buttermilk Tom]

I've only played a bit of dark souls, but I'd say if dark souls was 10, this game is like 7-8 in difficulty. It is slightly unforgiving, but after a few tries you figure it out. Honestly the boss fights are the hardest part, platforming isn't bad and regular enemies have 1-2 moves. It takes a small amount of patience (like a couple of hours and maybe 10 deaths) before you really get the groove.

[Teacyn]

This game is easier than dark souls by a significant amount, and i mean that in a good way. Outside of one specific room (which just got patched to be less awful) very few of my deaths in this game have felt unfair or like I got nuked for trying something. Some of the bosses are quite difficult and regular enemies will destroy you early on if you try to just bypass them or ignore their patterns.

They just patched platforming to make it a little bit more fair too. They added ghost jumping, which is that thing where you can still jump for a frame or two after walking off a ledge to alleviate the difficulty of some extremely precise jumps.

[Gwyn]

Overall the game is at medium difficulty by regular 2d side-scroller games standarts. It's hard to compare it to DS, but if you played Castlevania series - I would put it somewhere between Aria of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin, maybe. Platforming is very very simple. And the only "room" that had some small platforming challenge was nerfed and reworked recently, because of some bad players, who were whining about it...

[Lotor]

There are a few really really ♥♥♥♥ move enemy placements by the devs but in terms of like actual (im not sure how to describe it) statistical difficulty then there isnt really much thats hard. The game also stays far away from difficult platforming, my least favourite parts there being Jondo/Greivance Ascends, once again because of how enemies are placed, not because the platforming is hard.
As much as I can say without actually giving away details, be vary wary of any enemy that can attack you from a range greater than the hitbox of a sword swing.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Fenixx:

I don't think it's very difficult. I'm also someone that doesn't find the Souls games difficult either. The same thing applies here that does in the Souls games, where if you charge in swinging, then you're going to have a bad time. If you take your time and think before you act then things are relatively simple. There's some parts that of course provide some challenge, but overall I would say things are more annoying or unforgiving then being difficult. I've definitely played harder sidescrollers before, such as the older Metroid and Castlevania games.

This has been my experience as well.

There's a few area/enemy placement that are challenging simply because you can easily die if you screw up and immediately start panicking. E.g. there's a zone that has a lot of platforms that crumble ~2 seconds after touching it, so if you miss a jump and panic you can easily fall to death or land near enemies.

IMO, initially some enemies seem difficult but remember you can Parry/Guard a lot of attacks. I had forgotten the game allows you to Parry Heavy Attacks;which results in you guarding and being pushed back. So I was having a hard time with some enemies that spam Heavies, then when I realized you can Parry those... they became much more forgiving.

Personally, I felt games like Hollow Knight or The Messenger were harder than Blasphemous. The combat in Blasphemous is much better than Hollow Knight though, IMO.

[Janne]

In regards of platforming I don't think that there really is any way to compare Blasphemous to Souls games. But I would say that the movement Blasphemous just does not feel as good and tight as it does in games like Hollow Knight or The Messenger. For example, the character slides slightly while on moving platforms as well as after jumps. And one of the zones right in the beginning has maybe the most frustrating platforming of any zone in the game with ice and wind and stuff. Also your character is super squishy in the beginning.

[Deaavh™]

Try actually playing it. You'll be singing a different tune.

[Brma]

I haven't had trouble with platforms yet but I find random areas are harder to traverse through. Similar to Hollow Knight where there is an "order" of difficulty increase but you don't have to follow it.

I'm not very far in so I could be wrong. I just felt the first and second boss areas were simple and then I took a wrong turn and ended up in somewhere significantly harder.

[geraq]

Originally posted by Morphic:

Originally posted by Fenixx:

I don't think it's very difficult. I'm also someone that doesn't find the Souls games difficult either. The same thing applies here that does in the Souls games, where if you charge in swinging, then you're going to have a bad time. If you take your time and think before you act then things are relatively simple. There's some parts that of course provide some challenge, but overall I would say things are more annoying or unforgiving then being difficult. I've definitely played harder sidescrollers before, such as the older Metroid and Castlevania games.

This has been my experience as well.

There's a few area/enemy placement that are challenging simply because you can easily die if you screw up and immediately start panicking. E.g. there's a zone that has a lot of platforms that crumble ~2 seconds after touching it, so if you miss a jump and panic you can easily fall to death or land near enemies.

IMO, initially some enemies seem difficult but remember you can Parry/Guard a lot of attacks. I had forgotten the game allows you to Parry Heavy Attacks;which results in you guarding and being pushed back. So I was having a hard time with some enemies that spam Heavies, then when I realized you can Parry those... they became much more forgiving.

Personally, I felt games like Hollow Knight or The Messenger were harder than Blasphemous. The combat in Blasphemous is much better than Hollow Knight though, IMO.

I disagree, I beat both Hollow Knight and The Messenger and their stages are much easier to navigate than Blasphemous stages. Controls are tighter and combat is more fast-paced in Hollow Knight and level design is more intuitive in The Messenger. Also death is not as punishing in the latter, and lots of skills make navigation easier. Blasphemous becomes very frustrating and annoying in later levels mostly due to enemy placement. None of the IGAvania titles is as difficult or frustrating as Blasphemous either, not even Circle of the Moon or Order of Ecclesia.

[The Fountaineer 🖋]

Okay so, objective statement first: the game’s difficulty is subjective. Somethings will feel natural for you and others will feel stupidly hard to master. Occasionally you may meet something thats like “♥♥♥♥ this ♥♥♥♥, gdi!!”

That being said as a seasoned player of both Souls and to an extent, Metroid-like games, Blasphemous was surprisingly not too hard. There are points where the difficulty spikes and require you to really focus - mainly the bosses and level layouts. But I think the difficulty is fairly consistent throughout.

Yes, spikes can instakill you and enemies can knock you off ledges and wall hangs. Some ledge grabs are iffy but rarely ever cost you anything serious, as there are means to bypass penalties. But thats the point of video games, to challenge you. This game is also very specifically about suffering and atonement, so ina way its theme and lore appropriate to fail repeatedly. The point is that you get better. So by all means if you’re up for a steady challenge, get this game.

[The Fountaineer 🖋]

Additionally I wanna say Dark Souls hasn’t aged perfectly and isn’t totally 100% equitable to this game in terms of gameplay or difficulty. It has a reputation of being teh HARDEST GAME EVURRR but really Fromsoft did their marketing well: its more like a 7-8/10 when you use common sense and do a little research. Like many games it has a fair amount of challenge and a pinch of jankiness.

[Velarune]

Originally posted by William See:

Additionally I wanna say Dark Souls hasn’t aged perfectly and isn’t totally 100% equitable to this game in terms of gameplay or difficulty. It has a reputation of being teh HARDEST GAME EVURRR but really Fromsoft did their marketing well: its more like a 7-8/10 when you use common sense and do a little research. Like many games it has a fair amount of challenge and a pinch of jankiness.

The issue people have with Souls games is that they don't know how to play them. They're portrayed as a generic hack and slash action adventure game, and that's what people go into them thinking. People run in and start swinging like crazy and immediately get their ass kicked due to losing all their stamina and attack delays. Then instead of learning and adapting, they run to message boards and start whining about the game being so hard and unfair. I saw so much of that with Demon's and the first Dark Souls.

I do wish people would stop comparing difficulty to the Souls games. They are challenging, but they're not the hardest thing ever. Playing through the first Gears of War on the hardest difficulty I found to be tougher to do. Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry on harder difficulties are more challenging. Even Resident Evil 5 on Pro is tougher. The Souls games combined with a bit of patience and strategy makes them relatively easy. That's also what I found with Blasphemous as well.

[Radical Rat]

Those who say this game has difficult platforming most likely never played classic NES games like Megaman or Ninja Gaiden

[geraq]

Originally posted by rusty-double-oh-seven:

Those who say this game has difficult platforming most likely never played classic NES games like Megaman or Ninja Gaiden

I did play all Mega Man games, and I do say Blasphemous has difficult platforming.