Well shit, that was quite something.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. I want to make that very clear before I commence vomiting criticism in every direction. First game in quite a while where I was actually eager to get back to it and see where it was going rather than just being a vaguely entertaining thing to fill spare time.
Hellblade Reminds me a lot of Transistor, in that it's centered around a young woman carrying her lover's soul on a vaguely defined quest and in that it isn't terribly concerned with letting you know just what the fuck is going on.
I don't mind a heavy dose of vagueness and things being left to the imagination in a story, but at some point I always start wondering if there's actually a story there at all or if the writer is throwing an avalanche of psuedo-meaningful nonsense at me and hoping I'll buy into it being a cryptically delivered narrative.
There's a lot of questions that go completely unanswered. Is Senua actually in Hel? How much of it was all in her head? Who was she fighting the whole time? Were they ghosts of the underworld, phantoms of her own imagination or has she been butchering vikings the whole time while hallucinating herself to hell and back?
And that's all fine. A high degree of uncertainty about what is real and what isn't fits perfectly in a game with a protagonist up to her nostrils in literal psychosis and those questions aren't central to the story. There's a clearly conveyed backstory to latch onto and enough gameplay and scenery to engage the player throughout.
However it all got awfully flimsy at the ending. I got that she'd come to understand that her psychosis was as much the result of how she'd been treated as her own predisposition and that she'd achieved some level of acceptance about her lover's death. Beyond that though, I'm clueless. Did she actually strike some kind of bargain? Why did Hel turn into Senua, what on earth was that supposed to mean? Is Senua dead? Or ascended to some kind of godhood? Then the game saw fit to throw in a few appreciate-the-wonder-of-the-world sentiments right at the end. That sort of thing is just one step above giving sermons on the importance of hope. Left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The crappy end-credits song didn't help.
I hope the game is a success and I hope the developers go on to make more, but it's no masterpiece. There's a few rather bothersome flies in the ointment.
The combat is only juuust good enough. It's mechanically very simple and standard. Light attacks and heavy attacks which never seemed appreciably different to me, block which becomes a parry when timed right, block-breaker attack, dodge-rolls and that's about it. If you've played games with melee combat then it's practically certain you've seen it all before. It isn't quite visceral and satisfying enough to make up for that, although I'll be damned if it doesn't try. The saving grace is that the fights are spread out enough and the game is short enough that I never quite got sick of it, which isn't a condemnation but certainly isn't a compliment either.
The level design is sparse, constrictive and almost entirely linear. There's little to explore and little reason to do so. It's all rather pretty but the lack of interactivity outside of puzzles makes it a lot less engaging that it could have been.
A couple of the hallucinatory voices that Senua hears sound unmistakably modern and therefore utterly out of place in the mind of a 9th Century Pictish woman. Reminded me of Triss in TW3.
Speaking of voices, the game often uses them for player guidance. Which is fine and cool. But it got a bit heavy handed at times. Voices of madness yelling "look out" when I'm about to be blindsided is great, voices of madness almost-but-not-quite saying, "Press Right Trigger dumbass" not so much.
Lastly, and I'm getting a bit petty at this point, the game's name is fucking dumb. "Hellblade Sunua's Sacrifice". Try saying that out loud without feeling a bit stupid. Or imagine saying it to someone in a conversation.
"I've been playing a game that tries to depict the experience of psychosis mixed with Norse mythology."
"Yeah? Cool. What's it called?"
"Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice."
"Ehhhh..."
It sounds like it would only be at home in the mouth of a teenage edgelord. Should have gone with just 'Sacrifice', although that was already taken by a early 2000s RTS. Oh well.
If anyone has any insights or interpretations about the game I'd love to hear them. I'm fully prepared to accept that I'm just being dense here, especially in regard to the ending.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. I want to make that very clear before I commence vomiting criticism in every direction. First game in quite a while where I was actually eager to get back to it and see where it was going rather than just being a vaguely entertaining thing to fill spare time.
Hellblade Reminds me a lot of Transistor, in that it's centered around a young woman carrying her lover's soul on a vaguely defined quest and in that it isn't terribly concerned with letting you know just what the fuck is going on.
I don't mind a heavy dose of vagueness and things being left to the imagination in a story, but at some point I always start wondering if there's actually a story there at all or if the writer is throwing an avalanche of psuedo-meaningful nonsense at me and hoping I'll buy into it being a cryptically delivered narrative.
There's a lot of questions that go completely unanswered. Is Senua actually in Hel? How much of it was all in her head? Who was she fighting the whole time? Were they ghosts of the underworld, phantoms of her own imagination or has she been butchering vikings the whole time while hallucinating herself to hell and back?
And that's all fine. A high degree of uncertainty about what is real and what isn't fits perfectly in a game with a protagonist up to her nostrils in literal psychosis and those questions aren't central to the story. There's a clearly conveyed backstory to latch onto and enough gameplay and scenery to engage the player throughout.
However it all got awfully flimsy at the ending. I got that she'd come to understand that her psychosis was as much the result of how she'd been treated as her own predisposition and that she'd achieved some level of acceptance about her lover's death. Beyond that though, I'm clueless. Did she actually strike some kind of bargain? Why did Hel turn into Senua, what on earth was that supposed to mean? Is Senua dead? Or ascended to some kind of godhood? Then the game saw fit to throw in a few appreciate-the-wonder-of-the-world sentiments right at the end. That sort of thing is just one step above giving sermons on the importance of hope. Left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The crappy end-credits song didn't help.
I hope the game is a success and I hope the developers go on to make more, but it's no masterpiece. There's a few rather bothersome flies in the ointment.
The combat is only juuust good enough. It's mechanically very simple and standard. Light attacks and heavy attacks which never seemed appreciably different to me, block which becomes a parry when timed right, block-breaker attack, dodge-rolls and that's about it. If you've played games with melee combat then it's practically certain you've seen it all before. It isn't quite visceral and satisfying enough to make up for that, although I'll be damned if it doesn't try. The saving grace is that the fights are spread out enough and the game is short enough that I never quite got sick of it, which isn't a condemnation but certainly isn't a compliment either.
The level design is sparse, constrictive and almost entirely linear. There's little to explore and little reason to do so. It's all rather pretty but the lack of interactivity outside of puzzles makes it a lot less engaging that it could have been.
A couple of the hallucinatory voices that Senua hears sound unmistakably modern and therefore utterly out of place in the mind of a 9th Century Pictish woman. Reminded me of Triss in TW3.
Speaking of voices, the game often uses them for player guidance. Which is fine and cool. But it got a bit heavy handed at times. Voices of madness yelling "look out" when I'm about to be blindsided is great, voices of madness almost-but-not-quite saying, "Press Right Trigger dumbass" not so much.
Lastly, and I'm getting a bit petty at this point, the game's name is fucking dumb. "Hellblade Sunua's Sacrifice". Try saying that out loud without feeling a bit stupid. Or imagine saying it to someone in a conversation.
"I've been playing a game that tries to depict the experience of psychosis mixed with Norse mythology."
"Yeah? Cool. What's it called?"
"Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice."
"Ehhhh..."
It sounds like it would only be at home in the mouth of a teenage edgelord. Should have gone with just 'Sacrifice', although that was already taken by a early 2000s RTS. Oh well.
If anyone has any insights or interpretations about the game I'd love to hear them. I'm fully prepared to accept that I'm just being dense here, especially in regard to the ending.
R, so what is the game about? It's about someone with mental issues first and foremost. But it's about the psychological damage that the brutal death of a loved one could cause to someone with mental health issues, and about them overcoming that. As to wether the fighting was real? Well, that's vague and hard to answer. Some of it might have been. The travelling from place to place could plausibly be the Northmen she was fighting. But that's the point of the game. To people with psychosis, the hallucinations and voices and illusions are just as real as me or you physically standing in front of them. So asking them to be less vague about that one thing kind of ruins the point of the game a little.