[halonfire]

Hello !

Eldritchvania is a hand-drawn Lovecraftian Metroidvania. Free on Steam



"The game follows the aged occultist, Dougald, as he desperately tries to track down his son, Fergus. All clues lead him to believe Fergus traveled to the small island of Blackhorn, just outside the coast of northern Scotland. Dougald is convinced he must save his son before he unearths the ungodly knowledge buried deep beneath the island. But will his quest force him to uncover the very same secrets? Unearthing the long since abandoned ruins of lost civilizations, your cunning, endurance and sanity will be duly tested. Are you up to the task?"

[DoctorEldritch]

@halonfire I love Lovecraftian lore as you can probably guess from my nickname. The style is interesting, a bit cartoonish, but Eldritch Horrors gain a certain bizarre quality in this form, too. I will grab it for later, currently I am playing GRIME metroidivania, which is not purely Lovecraftian, but does have a few hints towards it. And I'd rather not play two games of the same genre at the same time, but it could be a good option for when I am done with GRIME.

[halonfire]

@DoctorEldritch Yes i can tell you are a fan of Lovecraft.
I'm currently playing Metroid Dread, i'm always searching for this type of games. Grime is perfect me, looks like a gem, cant believe i didn't hear about it.

[DoctorEldritch]

@halonfire Grime is very good, and you may be happy to know that all the planned DLCs are out now, too (there are 3 of them if I am not mistaken), so if you decide to play it, you can now get all content at once.

When you say "searching for this type of games" do you mean metrodivanias or Lovecraftian? I would want to try Metroid Dread, but it is Nintendo only, so I can't and not sure how Lovecraftian it is, but from what I could see in the trailers, not so much.

But if it is metroidivanias that you like, there are good examples out there. Are you waiting for Silksong like me? This is one of the top games of 2024 that I am waiting for.

[halonfire]

@DoctorEldritch Yep, GRIME: DEFINITIVE EDITION 🤩
I mean Metroidvania games. And you can play Metroid Dread on PC with Yuzu, runs like a dream!
Hollow Knight of course, a great game.

[DoctorEldritch]

Originally Posted by halonfire

@DoctorEldritch Yep, GRIME: DEFINITIVE EDITION 🤩

That's the one! I am in the middle of playing it right now.

Never tried Yuzu, I may give it a go when I finish GRIME. Though I am not sure how to buy Nintendo games without Nintendo, will need to read up on that. Does it emulate good for the keyboard as well, from the way Nintendo is designed, it may work better with controller?

Metroidivania is one of my favourite genres as well, and Hollow Knight is great. What say you about Blasphemous?

[halonfire]

@DoctorEldritch You can play with a keyboard but its meant to be played with a controller. Dread is challenging and rewarding. Blasphemous reminds me of Castlevania, looks good. I will have to toss a coin Grime/Blasphemous.

[DoctorEldritch]

@halonfire Ah then I may need to get more practice with a controller in before trying it out. Even though I have a controller now, I do not use it all that often, mouse+keyboard is still my main way to play. It is surprisingly difficult to switch without regular practice.

Blasphemous has some similarities with Castlevania, that's true, though I'd say that it is darker and more quintessentially Gothic (Castlevania is more "vampire Gothic"), and while Blasphemous is not a franchise like Castelvania with other games and series and all, Blasphemous has done a wonderful job in creating lore.

To help with your coin toss, there are three points about Blasphemous that may be good to know. The first one is, that there already is a second part (which, admittedly, did not create as much hype as the first one, but then again, such is often the case with sequels). So if you like it and want more, you can get some easy.

The second one is that Blasphemous also has all the DLCs released. One of them is a crossover with Bloodstained - Ritual of the Night and you get to meet its protagonist Miriam. Bloodstained - Ritual of the Night is another good metroidivana with a similar vibe and style (although with stronger anime homage), so if you have not played it yet, it may be something to look into as well:

And it is also a plus if you like crossovers, not sure what's your stance on those.

And thirdly, the last DLC is the one that actually introduced the "true ending", before that DLC you could finish the game with a good or bad ending, but not the true ending. This ending ties into the sequel. But gameplay-wise, Blasphemous did a thing similar to Nier: Automata, and to get the "true" ending, you need to play the whole game twice. Personally, this was not a plus for me, I had to take a break between the runs or it would have been too much. But if you do not mind replaying the game, then it could be a good thing. Either way, just thought you may want to know about this.

[halonfire]

@DoctorEldritch Even when you are used to a controller you need to work on your timing, reflexes etc... Fingers get more nimble as the game progress.

Thank you for the breakdown, Blasphemous is definitely my kind of game but I don’t see myself beating it twice. Those types of games are exhausting. Good thing today is that we can watch endings on Youtube. I will probably skip the “Anime” crossover DLC.

[DoctorEldritch]

@halonfire I think that what I am most not used to is how close together you need to put your hands, it is unusual for me. Normally with a keyboard and mouse, there is a lot of space between my left hand and my right hand, but with controllers, your hands are very close together, and it is causing me problems at this stage. I get cramps in my wrists, but it may be because my hands are large. I can see how controllers are good for a TV setup where there is more distance between you and the screen, but for a PC it may not be as convenient. Or it's just me. I'll get there in the end.

With Blasphemous, maybe a decent solution would be to search on Nexus for a savefile where the game was completed once. Then you only need to play it once, but the game will be harder. I did it once with the Assassin's Creed game because I was not in the mood to collect all the stuff on the map, so I used a save that had all those points and collectables done with none of the story. Saves some grind time, I do not like the grind mechanic at all. But YouTube videos work too.

Well, Bloodstained - Ritual of the Night is a proper metroidivania game and worth looking into separately unrelated to Blasphemous. It just has some minor anime-style elements in character design and visuals. But you may be interested to know that it is actually a spiritual successor of Castlevania. Here is an extract from Wikipedia for you:

Igarashi conceived the game after his departure from Konami in 2014, prompted by numerous fan requests to continue making games in the style of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night... Ritual of the Night received generally positive reviews upon release, with many describing it as a worthy successor to the Castlevania games that inspired it.

So if you like Castlevania, chances are you may enjoy this one, too. But you are right about skipping it in Blasphemous, there the DLC is mostly a series of platformer challenges unrelated to the plot, you will not miss anything by skipping it, except that you will not get a cosmetic reward and one (powerful, but not the best one imho) spell.