Blasphemous All Boss Fights Let's Play: Narrating a Grim Pilgrimage as a "Heartwarming" Tale

At the start, the narrator confirms that the protagonist can restore health by drinking bile. During the first boss fight, they go over the basic controls. The standard attack on the Square button can be chained up to three times. The R2 button makes the protagonist do a "slippery" slide, which can be used to dodge enemy attacks. The narrator explains that by repeating a cycle of attacking a few times and then dodging, you can whittle the boss down bit by bit. They also seem to like the crisp sound effect the attacks make.

The next stage is a set of ruins. The protagonist finds a statue reminiscent of the Pietà, the Virgin Mary holding Christ. The boss emerges by smashing that statue. The narrator first took it for a power type, but it turned out to be a "pretty nasty" opponent that, in addition to close-range attacks, sprouts roots from the floor.

The narrator lays out concrete counters for each attack pattern. For the stomp, pass by it while landing a jump attack. For the one-armed attack, time a jump attack in place. When you see the wind-up for a big attack, dive in with an attack at the right moment. Every situation offers plenty of chances to counterattack. According to the narrator, that covers all of its attack patterns, so you just need to watch its movements and respond correctly. They rate it as a reasonable level of difficulty for a second boss. They also mention that having learned the fourth hit of the combo along the way made the attacks feel even "crisper."

Waiting at the altar of the convent is a saint whose face is badly burned. According to the narrator, she was originally a beautiful woman. But because of that beauty she came to be worshipped religiously, so she poured boiling oil on her own face. The narrator reacts to this with "Wow, she really went for it."

The fight involves jumping around while dodging the enemy's magic attacks and striking her weak point, the wound. She has a lot of health, so you need to be patient. The ping-pong-ball-like projectiles can be knocked back with attacks, and hitting her with them does considerable damage. However, the direction they bounce is finicky, so getting them to go where you want takes some ingenuity.

The narrator devises a strategy for this fight. Once the boss's HP drops below 50%, her behavior changes and she becomes harder to hit. So first, they chip her HP down to just above the middle of the gauge, around 51%. Next, they lure the boss to the center of the screen. Once everything is set, they reflect the projectiles and finish her off in one go during the second phase.

"Tres Angustias," fought in a vertical shaft, is introduced as an embodiment of the suffering of three sisters. Since the three attack separately, the fight looks troublesome at first glance. However, the narrator calls it a "squishy boss" in practice, because there are hitboxes for all three. Multi-hit magic feels satisfying, so they aim for spots where the enemies are clustered together. During the mode where they attack from the walls, the narrator focuses on dodging. At the end, clouds gather and a large form appears, but they keep attacking regardless and defeat it.

In the cathedral, they fight "Melquíades, the Exhumed Archbishop," a giant skeleton forming a sign with its fingers. The main body is held aloft by numerous hands. The flow is to defeat the hands and then attack the main body. The narrator praises the magic learned along the way as "super handy." It has a wide area of effect and looks flashy, too.

Against "Exposito, Scion of Abjuration," an infant who suddenly appears beneath the cathedral, they land a few standard attacks and then cast magic. They wait out the magic's cooldown, then finish it off with magic once more.

After losing their footing, the protagonist ends up fighting Quirce. According to the narrator's introduction, he was burned at the stake as a heretic but was resurrected from the ashes by a miracle. The narrator says that since each boss has a legend serving as its motif, there's also the fun of digging into the background lore.

Deep in the ossuary, they fight a woman with a beautiful voice. This boss has very high health, and MP runs short over the course of the fight. So the narrator restores MP by "self-harming" between attacks.

In this fight, the narrator also touches on parrying, which they hadn't been using until then. Physical enemy attacks can be blocked by parrying, which is useful in situations where dodging is difficult. However, in this game you can almost never knock bosses down. For that reason, the narrator rates parrying as having limited payoff, just one defensive option that's hard to turn into a counterattack. Magic, on the other hand, grants invincibility frames at the moment it's cast. So the narrator's conclusion is that it's best to take enemy attacks with magic whenever possible, and they say this tactic worked well in this fight too. When the enemy's health drops to 20%, she disappears and takes a break. The protagonist uses that time to restore MP by self-harming, and finally defeats her by spamming magic.

At the ship graveyard, they fight Sierpes, a serpent so enormous it doesn't fit on the screen. Here the narrator introduces the equipment system. The protagonist can equip rosaries, and different combinations change how you fight. This time they choose a rosary that makes the sword emit lightning when bile is drunk. Refilling on bile periodically, they whittle the boss down with the electrified sword.

Sierpes is also a high-health boss, but thanks to this equipment, they say they're chipping away at a good pace. The fight is divided into three stages. Taking off about half its health moves it to the next stage, and the arena gradually rises. In the second stage, the attack patterns don't change much. When an attack comes, either cast magic or drink bile and dodge. In the third stage, as you can tell from the way the rain falls, strong winds blow left and right across the arena and push the protagonist around. The narrator describes this as "keeping things fun." Since the boss has little health left, they push through and defeat it.

Blocking the protagonist's path on the roof of the cathedral is Crisanta, a devout believer. According to the narrator, she seems to be controlled by the will of heaven. So they head into the fight saying, "Let's beat her up and wake her up." The game has multiple endings, and the narrator is following the true ending route. They also cite the late-game developments unique to this route as one of its attractions.

The Crisanta fight is divided into a first half and a second half. In the first half, Crisanta is full of openings and goes down quickly. In the second half, she frequently runs around, so you need to keep attacking persistently. However, all of her attacks can be stopped with a parry, so dealing with them isn't that difficult. The thing to watch out for, they say, is her fast low attack. The narrator calls the lightning effect produced by her overhead downward swing "the best." Right after it there's an opening for a dash slash, and the spacing for that is perfect, they say. They remark that just the presentation of this one exchange shows a strong dedication to combat presentation.

On the other hand, they also point out one shortcoming. If she uses her low attack right after you attack, you can't react in time. As a result, whenever a low attack might be coming, you have no choice but to play cautiously. The narrator says that if the low attack were just a few frames slower, the two could have traded blows much more fiercely. Even so, the narrator's verdict is that, even taking this complaint into account, it's an incredibly fun boss fight.

They also touch on the change in atmosphere. The boss fights up to this point had a strongly gloomy atmosphere, with dark, damp battlegrounds. From this boss fight on, that changes completely, and the BGM becomes a refreshing flamenco-style track. The narrator says it's a fight that gives a great sense of release precisely because you've walked the path of pilgrimage to get here. In the end, they slip through her big four-hit combo and defeat her.

The last to stand before the protagonist is His Holiness Escribar, the supreme leader of the church that rules this land. The final boss is a three-fight gauntlet. The first fight is over quickly.

In the second fight, the "Last Son of the Miracle," the opponent grows enormous and attacks. Attacking the golden parts opens the mask above, and hitting the face underneath deals damage. You keep attacking the face while crossing disappearing platforms. The fire attack is troublesome because it locks you in place for a long time, but the narrator explains you can turn things around by moving widely at the edge of the screen. By waiting for the mask to close and return to normal, then hitting it with magic as it gets back up, you can attack the face again. In the end, they whittle it down in one go.

In the final fight, it's the last battle against the resurrected opponent. The boss's health isn't displayed, and the narrator says "it's basically an event battle." Here, Crisanta, who had once been the protagonist's enemy, appears and shields the protagonist from a massive beam. The narrator takes this development as something heartwarming, if brief.

The narrator interprets the story as follows. Escribar appears to be a devout believer in the will of heaven. However, considering that Crisanta's will was bound by chains, Escribar's will was probably also under heaven's control. This is presented as the narrator's own speculation. On that basis, the narrator says that the story goes beyond the good or evil of the mastermind and also prompts a bit of reflection on the act of faith itself.

After seeing the ending, the narrator reports, as the conclusion of the pilgrimage, that they have reached the source of the miracle that rained down on this land. They praise the thoroughly crafted world and the carefully drawn graphics. They look back on the journey as one through a gloomy world that symbolizes the path of atonement, yet say they were able to have a fun pilgrimage thanks to encouragement from the lively bosses. Finally, they mention that there's a sequel and that they'd like to play it if they get the chance, closing out the video.