Blasphemous 2’s main game path is certainly thrilling, but if you stick rigidly to it throughout your journey then you’ll miss out on some of the very best it has to offer. Down branching side routes you’ll discover a cast of colourful characters, each steeped in their own wince-inducing penance, each with a final favour to ask of you.
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Some of these side quests have happier endings than others, and some offer better rewards than others, but all of them are well worth experiencing before your time with Blasphemous 2 is over. Here are our picks for the most intriguing, most compelling, and most rewarding side quests that The Game Kitchen’s creation has tucked away.
10 Finding The Cobijada Sisters
Long-time Metroidvania fans will appreciate the Cobijada Sister hunt, since it requires you to track down nine nun-like creatures hidden behind fake walls in different areas of the game. These fake walls can be dispelled by attacking them with your weapon, in a similar way to the breakable walls found in the classic Symphony of the Night era Castlevania titles.
Thankfully, the Sisters also give out a wailing sound when you’re in the same room as them, making the search more than just a blind wall-bashing campaign. The rewards for finding them all are excellent as well, including vastly improved fast travel options and the ability to refill your Fervour at any Prie Dieu.
9 Rescuing The Trapped Cherubs
The biggest side quest in Blasphemous 2 by a fair margin, freeing all of Próximo’s angelic brothers from their red crystal prisons is a task you’ll be working on right up until the end. There are 33 Cherubs to find, some of which are just sitting out on the main path, and some of which are cunningly squirrelled away behind foreground details, visible only to those constantly on the lookout.
You’ll receive regular rewards as you turn in more Cherubs, including ten Marks of Martyrdom, a Rosary Bead, and two Altarpieces, one of which is required to reach the game’s True Ending. This is the Blasphemous 2 equivalent of the hunt for the trapped Grubs in Hollow Knight, and it’s just as engrossing as that quest was.
8 Tracking Down The Wax Seeds
A quest notable mainly for its narrative framing rather than its rewards, the quest for the Wax Seeds starts oddly late in the game, in a small room in the Severed Tower area. Here you’ll meet Cesáreo, a single father cursed to nurse his colossal baby: truly one of the more tragic sights in a game with no shortage of them.
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To help him out you’ll need to find six Wax Seeds, which can be planted to create surrogate Wax mothers for the child. Your reward for doing so is a single Altarpiece, making it underwhelming in that regard, but in terms of furthering the darkly religious tone of Blasphemous 2, this one hits the nail on the cross.
7 The Quest For The Unwavering One Altarpiece
One of the more cryptic quests in Blasphemous 2, and one of the few where you aren’t given specific instructions on how to complete it, you’d be forgiven for missing out on The Unwavering One Altarpiece during your first playthrough. It’s worth picking up, however, since by our reckoning it’s one of the best Altarpieces in the game.
To get it, you first need to receive The Maiden Altarpiece from the honey-drenched man in Choir of Thorns, ‘break’ it by attacking enemies with it equipped, then return to the honey-drenched man to have it repaired. Each time you do this the Altarpiece will grow stronger, until it reaches its final form, The Unwavering One. The honey-drenched man will meet a cruel fate, but the trade-off is a nice boost to critical hit rate and damage for you.
6 Completing The Lullaby
You’ll find the ‘quest giver’ for this one very early on in the game, the silent woman with the child in Profundo Lamento, but you won’t figure out what she’s asking of you until much later on since she never actually speaks to you. What she wants are the fragments of a Lullaby to soothe her restless child, and you can find these scattered across different areas in the game.
Once you have them all, talking to the woman will let you enter a dream sequence that plays out like an extended platforming challenge. At the end, you’ll gain access to a powerful Prayer, the nature of which hints at a connection between this woman and the enigmatic Yerma.
5 The House Of Grief And Hatred
You get a lot of bang for your buck with the House of Grief and Hatred quest. Not only do you get a solid collectables hunt as you track down the five dying daughters of the House, but you then get to enjoy a series of combat gauntlets, one per daughter, when you return to the quest location.
Said location is some kind of alternate dimension accessed via the Streets of Wakes, ruled over by a huge woman in funereal garb. These mini-challenges give you a great opportunity to flex your combat muscles, and offer some excellent rewards as well, including Flask upgrades and key Altarpieces.
4 Helping Our Lady Of The Chalices
Your health bar, and the Bile Flasks that replenish it, are some of the most important aspects of Blasphemous 2. You can’t do battle with unholy horrors when you’re dead, after all. Increasing your total health pool and the potency of your Bile Flasks are high priorities, therefore: priorities you can address at Our Lady of the Chalices.
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This angelic figure can be found in the City of the Blessed Name, where she’ll offer upgrades in exchange for Ornate Chalices, Empty Receptacles, and Silver Clad Crystal Shards. You’ll up your resilience each time you visit her, but in exchange she’ll gradually be flayed alive in one of the more gruesome character fates in the game.
3 Gathering Besamanos’ Fervent Kisses
Fervour is the resource you’ll need to cast Prayers and use weapon skills in Blasphemous 2. The more you have, the more you can unleash the Penitent One’s true power, which makes Fervent Kisses a very valuable Key Item indeed. You can find these throughout the game, and trade them in at the giant hand Besamanos for increases to your maximum Fervour.
There are five Kisses in all, and tracking them all down not only maximises your capacity for special moves, but also unlocks a nice bonus secret in the Broken Key. This unlocks the door behind Besamanos, letting you fill out your map completion while enjoying a dark narrative twist at the same time.
2 Aiding Yerma In Her Journey
Drawing inspiration from the Dark Souls school of side quests, wherein you speak to characters at various key points in the game to further their storylines, Yerma’s quest for vengeance is one of the biggest secondary plot threads you’ll encounter in Blasphemous 2. Each time you meet her, she’ll offer to help you out against an upcoming boss, effectively serving as a ‘summon’ for the encounter.
Take her up on her offer each time, and go on a brief detour to find some Holy Oil towards the end of the game, and you’ll be able to see the resolution of her mission at the end of the Two Moons area. Your reward is a nice Prayer and some narrative resolution: we’ll leave it to you to decide which of those is more valuable.
1 Lifting The Curse Of The Unforgiven
Most of Blasphemous 2 is fairly straightforward, but the quest to lift the Curse of the Unforgiven is almost unhinged in how cryptic it is. It begins with a letter found in Streets of Wakes that gives you instructions to carry out, leading to a chain of other letters as you complete each unconventional task.
These range from waiting at the edge of a certain platform to walking under a certain door a few times, and you’ll be reaching out for a guide each time you read one of the hyper-vague letters that hint at them. In the end, you’ll get a Prayer for your trouble, as well as a profound sense of satisfaction for cracking the trickiest side quest in the game.
NEXT: Blasphemous 2: The Hardest Bosses
