A masterpiece on a technical standpoint, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II features some of if not the highest level's of visual fidelity I have seen during the current generation. And undoubtedly the most masterclass audio design I have experienced in a video game to date. The voices sending chills down my spine every time they become the forefront of the dialogue, as they sound less like they're coming from your headphones (PLAY THIS GAME WITH HEADPHONES) and more like they're actually coming from inside your head. It does an excellent job at making you feel immersed, however. That's all the high praise I can come up with for the game, though the combat is much improved in my opinion, feeling more visceral and hard hitting. And the story peaking my interest at times, with some semi memorable characters. Everything else about the game feels like a major step down from the first. The world may be breathtaking but that doesn't make it interesting or engaging, there was never a time I felt the want or need to explore beyond the path that you're meant to go on. The puzzles are extremely dull and become repetitive after just a few, as they repeated the same three types through the entire game. The only time I ever really felt engaged with the gameplay were the high stakes set piece battles with waves of enemies, and the giant fights. Everything else made me want the game to conclude sooner. I feel stuck in the middle because the things I liked about the game make me want to rate it higher, but the overwhelming things I disliked makes me want to rate it even lower. It's still a solid experience and is worth checking out for the visuals and audio design alone, but unfortunately it did not compare to the first game in my eyes.

holy crab that was sharking great!

But seriously though, really solid game and a fine addition to the souls-like genre. Fun exploration that feels rewarding and worth it, engaging combat with interesting abilities (Not "difficult" but there is a learning curve) extremely vibrant and pretty visuals and a neat little story with memorable characters. I really enjoyed my time with Another Crab's Treasure and I'm looking forward to whatever Aggro Crab works on next.

My only real complaint would be that the visual map feels very bare bones which made it a bit difficult to figure out exactly where you are and have been at times. No moving it around or anything, it's locked to your exact location. Not the worst I've seen and not bad enough to feel negative about though.