To put it simply, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is a sequel to the original in every sense of the word. From the obsessive emphasis on visual and audio quality (which are still incredible, by the way), to the combat that chooses being visceral over functional. Luckily for me, I loved the original Hellblade and while the story in Senua's Saga has a different focus from that game, it resonates because of those differences as well.

The events of the first game can still be felt on Senua, and that growth helps her on this journey where she has to open up to others and be more vulnerable. Each chapter effectively emphasizes a certain aspect of growth that Senua must come to terms with. From the past, she must both remember the happy times of her life, and become in control of her trauma and use that pain for good. For the future, her ability to maintain a healthy relationship with those she comes to trust comes into question. Additionally, I am kind of a sucker for stories where empathy is a key part of dealing with antagonistic forces, and this game has that in droves and I loved that aspect of the narrative.

The elephant in the room for both Hellblade games is the combat. Combat in the first game was entirely serviceable; it got the job done. Hellblade 2 doubles down in a way I did not expect when the game was first announced. Rather than make the combat more satisfying on a moment-to-moment basis, they went in the opposite direction. When Senua pulls off a perfect parry, it feels incredibly satisfying, but miss the timing, and she can be knocked back and fall to the ground from the weight of the enemy's swing. Animation plays a much larger role in Hellblade 2's combat, and while the spectacle surrounding each encounter is unmatched in terms of the visuals, music, and even the way Senua transitions from enemy to enemy, that level of base satisfaction is not truly there. The game's emphasis on visuals and realism is already divisive, and Ninja Theory doubling down on weighty, animation-lead combat won't be an effective sell for people who just want a good action game.

Puzzles also have more variety than they did in the first game, which is appreciated, but they still aren't hard enough that I had to stop and think about the solutions too much. They made my brain work just enough to not be bored by them, but never so much that I felt an "aha" moment after solving one. Some of them are clear improvements over the original, but having to match signs in the environment could easily be replaced by a The Last of Us pushing a dumpster to climb a ledge scenario and not much would be lost.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, despite being a game published by Xbox, is still very much Hellblade, and that surprised me quite a bit. With the first game being relatively niche compared to games from any first-party publisher, it would have been easy to spin the sequel into something more mass-market like the evolution God of War underwent to great success. But it's not. People will hate this game, and from the outside looking in, Ninja Theory was given free reign to simply make a more expensive Hellblade and double down on aspects of the original that were already contentious. Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 worked for me, however, and I'm happy it exists in the way it does.