I was 22 when I had my first psychotic episode. I had dropped everything and moved to Austin with a girlfriend who was not a good fit for me, pursuing my dream of (somehow) becoming a professional actor. None of this was going well; the relationship and the jobs I was working were all dead ends that I wasn't really acknowledging or dealing with.

Eventually all the stress and self-deceit came to a head in a giant fight, and I started thinking things that were decidedly false. I came to believe that I was the center of a conspiracy of surveillance, Truman Show style, that was being run by my friends. Every detail that I noticed confirmed this: I saw a car make a weird U-turn which to me was proof positive that it was following me. A dump truck passed the window with a flashing yellow light; this was clearly someone trying to signal to me that they were in on the conspiracy. A cat sitting on the hood of a car must have been some kind of sophisticated spy camera.

I never experienced hallucinations, I was never violent and I didn't cackle maniacally like every single clueless, no-effort depiction of mental illness in Hollywood and elsewhere. The only thing that was missing was my capacity to critically examine my own ideas.

You know how when you're thinking super hard about something for a long time, and you finally figure it out, and you get that big rush of endorphins like "ahhhhh I finally got it." It's a great feeling, but you have to work to get there right? You have to come up with and reject a lot of ideas before you find the one that fits. Well, I was having that "ahhhh" feeling with every fleeting notion. You don't realize how many thoughts you reject as nonsense until you lose the ability to do so.

You might see a squirrel run toward you and think "Wouldn't it be cool if that was some kind of little robot?" then immediately reject that idea without a second thought. That rejection is what was broken in me; even the most momentary flight of fancy became the unassailable truth. I saw the squirrel and it was self-evident that it was being remotely-controlled as a way to keep tabs on me. Not a single thought in my mind that any of this stuff was wrong.

Public mental health facilities in Texas at the turn of millennium were about as you'd expect. I was there involuntarily and kept trying to escape, so I spent a lot of the first few days restrained (more than 20 years later I still get a panicky feeling in my chest when I think about being strapped to that bed). I was shot up with Haldol that left me a drooling, twitching mess. At no point did I receive anything resembling therapy. After a few weeks the doctor assigned to my case finally came back from vacation and I seemed fine so they basically shrugged and let me go.

"Depression with psychotic features" they called it that first time. Eventually, after experiencing more episodes and being institutionalized and re-diagnosed a few more times, they settled on the diagnosis of Bipolar I disorder and I've been stable on lithium for over a decade now. I was lucky and got basically the happiest possible outcome. I don't think that's the case for most people dealing with mental health issues, especially psychosis.

Mental health is like sexuality, in that we as a society are obsessed with it but only seem to engage with it in the most unhealthy ways. In our entertainment media, references to insanity are constant. Calling someone's sanity into question is an easy and common insult. After every mass shooting, the airwaves are crammed with politicians scapegoating the mentally ill. We're finally to the point where (in some circles) it's considered unacceptable to use "gay" or "retarded" as insults, but nobody bats an eye if you call someone "crazy" or "psycho".

But for all of that, it's basically unheard of for someone in power to say anything meaningful about mental health. When Hollywood approaches the topic, the results are universally rancid. Games tend to fall into two camps: crazy-person-as-horror-villain studio hack jobs, or autobiographical indies that actually bring some experience to the picture.

And that's why Hellblade stands out so much to me. It's not an indie; it has the full weight of a storied and talented (albeit small) studio behind it. But they've done the work to actually try to depict psychosis in a realistic way, that brings the player into the experience as an exercise in empathy, not just a cheap aesthetic choice.

It was a marvel to me how the puzzles in the game are built around seeing patterns that aren't really there, exactly like I did during my psychotic episodes. The scene where all the trees have eyes, but they're really just tricks of the light, was so incredibly true to my experience. I never saw things that weren't there; I saw things that were there but misinterpreted them in critical ways, just like Senua.

And Senua? Possibly my favorite protagonist of any game. Melina Jeurgens gives it so much of herself, and her character design is such a breath of fresh air in an industry full of gross fan service. She looks like a real person! She's still pretty, but doesn't look like a RealDoll that someone dressed up in cosplay gear.

I could only play this game in short sessions because it's so damn intense. The story hits hard, and Senua's agonizing deaths were challenging. Mechanically, the game is really quite light. Only a couple gameplay verbs are made available as the story progresses very linearly. Hellblade aims to challenge the player on a sensory, emotional and intellectual level more than a gameplay one. For me, it was deeply effective and affecting.

With the sequel on the horizon it's exciting to imagine what Ninja Theory has in store for us next. It really feels like the conversation around mental health is starting to turn; the crazies are finally out telling their stories, taboos and misinformation be damned. I love how indie developers have stepped up and started raising the level of discourse around mental health and I really hope that more and bigger studios follow suit. Fear of retaliation or judgment can make mental illness a really isolating experience. It really does feel good to feel seen, and playing a game like Hellblade is really great reminder that I'm not alone.

This is way less of an ethically focus tested mental illness empathy simulator GAME 4 CHANGE than the (offputtingly self righteous) marketing might lead you to believe. I think this is both a good and bad thing. The way Senua experiences mental illness / hallucinations is hyperstylized and painted with both ridiculous elements of gameification (FOLLOW THE PUZZLE RUNES IN UR MINDZ EYE 4 NEXT OBJECTIVE) and nu-metal woad raider mythological window dressing. It's all just a tad TOO self-seriously morose and hellish and obsessed with exaggerated primeval suffering, and this God of Trauma vibe makes Senua's experiences of mental illness like, totally unrelatable and unaligned with the primary needs and struggles of people dealing with psychosis today. These real-life concerns are usually way more mundane and demoralizing; low decibel but high impact social and material struggles concerning healthcare availability, getting hired/making rent, and functioning in a a hostile individualist world of bootstrap productivity designed for neurotypical people but empathetic to nobody! I really dont understand how, aside from "ending stigma/spreading awareness" this game offers any real calls to action for the lifting up of mentally ill people. Ninja Theory framing their games marketing so high-mindedly but not engaging with any ideas of real material advocacy is laughable, and imo people are completely justified in their disgust and divestment from the entire project based on that alone.

BUT BUT BUT

As a survival horror / walking sim tonal experiment with a unique setting and bold audiovisual design? There are some very interesting choices here. The 3d sound design and fully narrated internal greek chorus is moody, genuinely disturbing, and almost totally unique in popular gaming. The FMV/CGI composite memory sequences have a singular, scuzzy visual texture I just love. IMO Melina Juergens delivers a really absurd performance of almost universally one-note agonized wailing, but her naive (and probably badly directed) commitment to the "heightened intensity equals good acting" bit is equal parts camp and actually kind of cool and transporting if you can meet it where it's at??? The game lags and fails in many ways (redundant, tepid puzzles, kind of awful combat that truly feels there for no reason) but there are a lot of laudable aesthetic choices that give it a much more entrancing and horrific atmosphere than it would have without them. I think this is FAR less of a "mental illness empathy sim" than it is an unrelentingly bleak tone poem about celtic death mythology/ripoff chris cunningham music video using stylized trappings about mental illness to reinforce its oppressive atmosphere, without being 100% hostile and stigmatizing to people with mental health conditions in real life. Personally? I think it's okay for media to explore stylized (even grandiose, mythologized, lurid, "unhelpful") renditions of neuroatypical characters in all kinds of settings, especially when it does make an effort to not make you hate or fear schizophrenic people by its end. I DONT think its okay for work like this to advertise itself as groundbreaking or progressive, especially with so little material centering the lives of neurodivergent people out there.

That's maybe a weird line to draw, and I completely understand (but dont fully agree with) anyone feeling like it's 100% not okay to use such a sensitive topic as window dressing for your grimdark survival horror game under any circumstances. I COMPLETELY agree that the marketing of this game is maybe the most ableist and grotesque thing about it and that just calling it an exploitation horror game would be way more honest. It's like if fromsoftware came out saying that bloodborne is ACTUALLY about ENDING MENTAL ILLNESS STIGMA with FULLY RESEARCHED DEPICTIONS OF BREAKS FROM REALITY. like i dont care if you parade footage from some sensitivity focus group in your making of featurette who the fuck are you guys kidding

fyi I am not someone who deals with hallucinations or any of the symptoms Senua (and millions of irl people) experience, so I am by no means any authority on this--plz dont listen to me i have no power or sway 0:). I'm a big dumb idiot writing about a middling videogame with aesthetics i only sometimes really clicked with!

also the credits song is one of the most embarrassing and maudlin things of all time

also its SO stupid they're making a sequel to this and it totally reveals the insincerity behind all their high-minded promotion of the first game :)

Repetitive combat, uninspired level design, and a sluggish narrative that doesn’t have nearly as much to say about mental illness as the breathless advertising and media coverage of this game would lead you to believe. It does some interesting visualization of nightmare PTSD scenarios, but that too quickly grows repetitive (get ready for lots of tall sword dudes in demonic armor. And fire.). There’s close to zero accuracy in its depiction of schizophrenia according to a bunch of mental health professionals and actual schizophrenic people out there, so strip that away and I’m not sure what you’re left with but a dull action game with a thick layer of mud caked over its otherwise lovely visuals.

By the end of the first two hours it hasn’t communicated as much as even a mediocre genre film, which is pretty much my metric for a badly paced video game. It’s also just plain not “fun” to play, though you could probably have guessed that going in.

Beautiful and unique but boring and uninspiring to play.

Hellblade is an interesting game and one i'm struggling to actually review. The idea is pretty fascinating and I tilt my hat to the developer Ninja Theory for the attempt. It focuses on a young pict warrior called Senua on a journey to take her husbands head to Helheim to save his soul. Senua however is suffering from psychosis both hearing voices as well as hallucinating which obviously makes her journey a lot more....complicated.

The voices Senua hears are excellent and disconcerting. They come from different directions (I, and the game, recommend earphones for best effect) with completely different tones, some shout warnings while other laugh when Senua gets hurt. I rather liked it and they are really unsettling and really help you get into Senua's head. Unfortunately the way her psychosis is used for the game part of video game doesn't quite work as well as the cinematic part.

The game plays as a fairly linear adventure mixed with puzzles and combat, both of which have fairly big issues. The puzzles are...mostly exactly the same, having a locked door that Senua needs to find a matching shaped rune out of objects in the nearby environment to unlock it by visualizing it. This has you wandering around trying to find the right spot and then angle for items to line up. It's not particularly interesting as puzzles go and there are loads of them with some doors requiring two or three runes to pass. It feels like they thought they needed something to have the player do and tried to tie it in to the mythology of the world but it's not actually fun and would be better off without.

On the combat side things are better but still have big issues, they mostly seem to be foes Senua is hallucinating but are no less dangerous to her because of it as she believes them to be real. There are several enemy types from sword wielding barbarians to axe wielding ones and erm...shield wielding ones. Ok so there aren't that many and you will see them a reasonable amount in the 7-8 hour adventure. During combat Senua can light attack, heavy attack, block, dodge and parry. The camera is honestly...terrible, one on one fights it is fine but once there are multiple enemies in becomes unwieldly to fight and you will get hit in the back. The voices sometimes shout out "behind you" giving warning to block (really neat idea) but they don't always and the enemies often come in waves sometimes spawning behind you for cheap hits. The combat is functional but it's just not really all that great. I feel one on one battles against more unique foes would have been a lot more satisfying. Lastly, Hellblade has a move called focus that allows Senua to slow down time. I found out by accident hitting the wrong button as the game never actually explains this. I had the voices shouting at me during a boss fight to "focus" which came across as insulting, not a tutorial for a newly unlocked ability.

So although the gameplay lacks polish the presentation is polished to high heaven. The graphics are amazing, especially for a small published title. Easily rivaling games like Horizon Zero Dawn or God of War in places. Senua looks especially impressive, her face and clothes are so detailed and the environments are gorgeous with stunning skyboxes and environment design, it really is a looker. The audio design as mentioned earlier is also top notch. The voice acting is perfect to immerse you inside Senua's head with several characters on top of the normal voices Senua hears like flashbacks. The music is also excellent and often melancholy setting the atmosphere.

As mentioned previously, the game is around 7 hours long. It doesn't have much replay value outside of some audio logs found through examining runestones hidden around the environments. but at it's smaller price it's still fairly good value for money considering it's production values I feel.

So to sum up, it's an interesting experiment trying to put the player in the shoes of someone suffering from a mental illness and in that aspect I feel the game really succeeds. It's also an absolute gorgeous looker and sounds superb but it doesn't nail the gameplay aspect of the game. I feel like it doesn't hit it's full potential in some important areas which is a real pity.

+ The voices and attempt to put the player in Senua's shoes are excellent.
+ The presentation is amazing, the game is beautiful.

- The puzzles are a incredibly tedious and repetitive.
- The combat is clunky, boring and repetitive, especially when fighting groups.

As our titular hero is rows us into an eerie world of fog and visions of death, the first credit appears: Paul Fletcher, Mental Health Advisor. That’s how serious the game is about its visceral depiction of psychosis.
Whilst plenty of games have explored mental health before, and probably made less of a song and dance about it, but Hellblade places Senua’s state of mind at the forefront. Her mental illness is reflected vividly through the relentless voices in the sound and dizzying visuals of flickering lights, symbols and human faces. As an artsy assault on the senses, it is compelling, so much so that you forget it’s even a game, albeit one with a distinctly adult tone.
It’s certainly not always fun watching the hero suffer as much as she does - she does not have a great time for the most part. This does, however, make those moments of triumph in the epic sword battles all the more satisfying - Ninja Theory’s distinct combat gameplay is as thrilling as ever here. The visual mindtrickery plays effectively into the puzzle segments that fill the rest of the gameplay, encouraging the player to find unlikely symbols in the landscape and see things the way Senua does.
Whilst it’s admirable that mental health is the key ingredient of Hellblade - the game is stripped of any distractions such as collectibles and side quests - the main story’s simplicity seems to render everything else rather empty. For me, it’s hard not to measure it against something like Silent Hill 2, which is rich in themes of mental health, depression and trauma but weaves them effortlessly into a horror-mystery narrative with engaging characters and a world that feels lived in and not quite as abstract.
Still, Hellblade remains a sensory assault, particularly for fans of horror and adventure. It’s a real shame that the Norse mythology aspect now gets roped in with 2018's God of War, which feels like Disney in comparison.

After around 7 hours of pure concentration, I can finally say I LOVE THIS GAME!

In the beginning, I struggled to get used to the fighting mechanics and I didn't quite understand what the game was supposed to be about (because I wanted to give myself a blind look into the game). After looking up what the main story synopsis was, it made me understand the overall narrative a lot better. In addition, by the end of the game, I felt REALLY confident in my combat skills.

The story was incredible and the voice acting and environments were amazing! At some points in the game, I wondered if it was made in the Decima engine (because of how amazing it looked). I am beyond hyped for the upcoming Senua's Saga game now; I can't wait to play it!

Um projeto ambicioso, que apesar de suas ressalvas, se destaca principalmente por seus acertos, e se mantém como sólido.

Muitas das sensações a respeito de alguns elementos foram agridoces para mim, hora parecia estar agradável, hora parecia estar arrastado ou não funcionando como deveria.

Apesar de inicialmente parecer interessante, a resolução dos puzzles se tornou cansativa e até mesmo insuportável em alguns pontos depois de um certo tempo, e sendo os mesmos uma grande fatia do que nos faz progredir, é um problema considerável.

Já o combate, é mais complexo, e pode até ser algo pessoal, mas foi me passada a impressão de que o sistema não foi feito pensado no combate com múltiplos inimigos, em trechos nesse contexto, as opções pareciam disfuncionais, não senti que estava agradável, mas em combates diretos contra um único inimigo, em especial contra chefes, foi o exato oposto, as mecânicas de combate são mais fluidas e bem mais divertidas.

No entanto, deixadas as ressalvas, é preciso comentar a respeito do que fez Hellblade fazer o barulho que fez quando foi lançado, o primor técnico no que se diz respeito a experiência audiovisual.

É impossível pensar em Hellblade sem relacionar com a necessidade e recomendação de se usar fones de ouvidos para uma experiência completa, e não é a toa. O trabalho feito com a ajuda de neurocientistas na retratação da psicose através dos visuais e principalmente das vozes é sublime, a imersão é inigualável e a mensagem é forte.

Alinhado a uma trilha sonora fantástica, um storytelling impecável e uma atuação de primeira classe de Melina Juergens como Senua, Hellblade é espantoso, principalmente se lembrarmos que tudo partiu de um estúdio independente.

Apesar de gostar do que vi, eu não sei se recomendaria com tanta segurança para qualquer pessoa, mas é definitivamente um trabalho artístico que merece ser experienciado pelo máximo de pessoas possível.

Exemplo de resiliência.

Não é a primeira vez que nos deparamos com personagens psicóticos, transtornados ou com uma bagagem emocional pesada como Isaac Clarke, Max Payne, entre outros. Aqui, acompanhamos a árdua jornada de Senua, uma jovem guerreira que tenta encontrar paz para o seu amado e acima de tudo, para si mesma.

A junção das mitologias nórdica e celta não poderiam ter culminado em uma atmosfera melhor para essa narrativa. Desde os mitos distorcidos que assombravam as mentes desvairadas daquele período até o politeísmo emaranhado nas vidas de todos que se deixavam guiar por ele! Diante disso, temos uma protagonista atormentada, lutando para superar a escuridão que toma conta do seu ser enquanto tentamos entender mais sobre o passado, traumas e perdas que a fizeram chegar a esse ponto.

Falando das mecânicas, o combate é um pouco decepcionante, porém, aceitável e conta com esquivas, um sistema de parry "OK", ataques rápidos e fortes. Alguns puzzles são frustrantes mas bem elaborados, havendo alterações nos cenários em que se encontra e mudando a perspectiva do jogador, oferecendo desafios interessantes. O trabalho de áudio é admirável e a parte visual dispensa comentários, principalmente na versão de PC, que recebeu atualizações trazendo suporte a DX12 e Ray Tracing.

Sendo sincero, só resolvi dar uma chance por conta da sequência já anunciada, entretanto, posso dizer com tranquilidade que o saldo foi positivo. A experiência em si consegue ir além do substancial e se faz bastante necessária em questões importantes, abordando com certa sensibilidade temas delicados e relevantes.

It's an old story, as old as you want to make it, a woman takes the severed head of her lover with her into hell. Contrary to what she tells herself her journey is not to bring him back, but to confirm that she cannot. The paradox of death is that we cannot conceive of total absence, the absolute denial of being, and that to think of death is to fall into the trap of thinking nothingness a thing that can be positively thought. This is the problem for the living, how can he be gone and I just go on? Conceiving of death in its totality is a philosophical problem, and Senua is not concerned with metaphysics. She is concerned with the severed head hanging at her side. For Senua the journey through hell is to prove that one can walk with their body through death, that the afterlife is a continuation of life, that there is no such thing as total absence. "Turn your back on death and you only see the shadow that it casts". Like the sun, death radiates its own meaning, produces its own shadows, and that's the inevitable tomorrow.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice has nothing to say, really, but it has a lot it wants to make you feel. I think where death and cruelty and meaninglessness are concerned, producing a work of feeling is basically an ethical act. Early on Senua's fights and puzzles distract from its feeling, although its strange and nonsensical puzzles are later explained as a conspiracy of madness. Why wouldn't reality adhere to the organisational patterns Senua projects onto it when reality for Senua is that which can be arranged against the total chaos that really is there? The signs that she looks for to support the answers she's already committed to? It's not a popular opinion that action games should be shorter, particularly relatively short games like Senua's Sacrifice, but this should really begin with The Bridge to Hel. Valravyn's Keep and Surtr's Domain feel like an unnecessary warmup before total despair. The fights feel like padding in these early parts, neither involved enough to invest in nor cathartic enough to match the game's mood. With The Sea of Corpses however, relentless mobs work to overwhelm and exhaust the player, which is the requisite path to ultraviolent ecstasy. Blood and blood and hands and fire and Senua with her rotting flesh screaming her way toward the rocks in which she hallucinates her mother's face.

I had been looking for a game like this for a while. I liked The Last of Us Part II because I thought of it as an exploitation work rather than a literary one with 'things to say'. In fact the game's total lack of ideas and tonal misery made it superior as an exploitation work to the ones that wink at you. The game's will to violence is moving, in that the AI and level design force you to only act out of desperation, resorting to the sloppiest and cruellest measures at the drop of the hat. It is about becoming one with chaos, and the speed at which blind adrenaline bypasses ethical thought. The arc from Downtown to the Seraphite forest makes for one of gaming's finest descents into hell. The Sea of Corpses in Senua's Sacrifice picks up from there, and the four Trials of Odin explore the psychological ramifications of this descent. The action gets sloppy and desperate, the colours bleeding into the eyes, the voices in Senua's head distributed across channels and adding to a spatial disorientation within even the most linear environments. The Trials draw affective game design back to its fundamentals: low lighting and shallow draw distance in horror, feeling space through the vibrations in the controller, how golden sunsets induce warmth in your body and the rain takes it away. It is a game that violently happens to you.

It is sensorially rich, its world rots and decays, and it is frequently geared to sensorial overload. When it finds its rhythm it is the inherent madness of the hack and slash videogame made text. But something that stands out in Senua's Sacrifice is its experiments with direct address. Senua's eyes bulge at the player, and in its heaviest moments the three dimensional spaces of the game fall away for a moving collage of grimacing faces emerging from blood and darkness, pressed flat against the screen. The game is frequently cinematic, not in the sense of looking expensive (although it does), but in its use of montaging techniques from experimental cinema, and in its understanding of the alienating pull of melodramatic acting. Here motion capture isn't deployed to make digital bodies look like natural humans but to explore human expressivity within the realm of videogames. Instead of withdrawn psychological realism Melina Juergens acts like a dancer. She expresses internal processes in such a way that the player can't help but catch and mimic them, contorting her unsettling rolling eyes and thrashing arms into the heart.

I'm not qualified to make any claims as to whether its famous use of a mental health advisor gets us anywhere closer to a visualisation of psychosis, but I doubt it. Sometimes I see people out of the corner of my eye who I know are not there, and sometimes I don't know where I am or if any of the things I remember actually happened. Sometimes my hands don't feel like my hands and I don't know if I exist anymore. I don't think aestheticising symptoms works to immerse the player in the experience of even mild depression such as mine, but what the game does so well is rescue psychological horror from generic surrealism. For a game concerned with mythologies and afterlives and eternities, it is always about the psychophysical toll taken by events in the material world, and the way this ruined world persists alongside you. Just as questions of nonexistence remain an issue for philosophical thought, Senua's Sacrifice knows that death is only a problem for the living. And if you're sobbing in the end it's not for loss, but for the persistence of life after death and the dawning of that inevitable tomorrow.

Finally got around to playing this much-acclaimed and much-awarded project from Ninja Theory. Having now experienced it, I do have to say that I ended it with far more appreciation than enjoyment. Perhaps that was by design, and I do think that this story was meant to be portrayed as a video game, however I found the gameplay to be largely tedious.

It definitely had its moments, don't get me wrong. When the combat really connects, it can truly feel cathartic, especially as it coincides with Senua doing battle with herself and desperately trying to keep her psychosis at bay. The puzzles were unique and engaging, but definitely started to drag as the game went on considering there's not much variety.

It's a story steeped in metaphor and subtext, presented in a nonlinear fashion that somehow never feels convoluted or trite. Melina Juergens's performance as Senua truly shines and it's wild to think that this is her first real acting role. Talk about starting off strong.

All in all, while the presentation, story and themes are truly deserving of its praise, I can definitely agree that the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. However, thanks to both the core values and short length of Hellblade, it never feels like it drags too much or overstays it's welcome so it can be easily forgiven for any mechanical foibles.

7/10

This "game" if you even can call it that, is pretty boring.
There is a lot of care and detail put into the idea of how a person with psychosis sees the world, which I appreciate, but the execution of the game and it's story is so bad that it would have been better off as a movie.

Typical gameplay:
- press forward to walk for 5 minutes, hearing incessant voices and dialogue in your head over and over
- find a "puzzle" where you press a button to focus in on something, then look around to find another thing that looks like it
- do some combat I guess, which is serviceable, but very basic
- experience the "story" which is almost entirely exposition dumping and a narration that is so far up it's own ass trying to be interesting

Maybe you'll love the game based on the merit of it's pros, mainly the stunning visuals and mocap, and the respectful treatment of mental illness. However, this one really didn't do it for me. There are better games out there that tell better stories and do a better job telling them.

Note on my ratings:

Treat my stars like Michelin Stars - just having one means the game is worth playing in some way.

1/2 ⭐: hot trash garbage, since you can't do zero stars here
⭐: below average, needs work
⭐⭐: average
⭐⭐⭐: pretty good
⭐⭐⭐⭐: excellent
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: all time favourite

🎮 Platform: PS5
⌚ Time to finish - 7.5h Story (9.5 with trophy clean up. I missed one collectible and had to replay story up to that. C'mon chapter select....). I also looked up most solutions since i HATED the puzzles in this game.
🏆Trophy completion - 100% - Really enjoyed collecting the lore stones and hearing the stories. I love norse mythology and this was stories from their mythology.
🤬Difficulty - its not a difficult game but the puzzles are tedious.
🌄Graphics – Very nice. Rivals AAA games. In general i like vibrant colors in games and this doesn't have that. But its very fitting.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – AMAZING! This has some of the best sound design of any game i played. You Really feel like you are in the character's shoes and get a glimpes into her mental disorder. Its really well done. It reminded me of a better version of alan wake sound design.
📚 Main Story / Characters – I really liked all the main characters. They are complex. Senua is great. I really felt for every character in the game even if they were the "Bad" guy. There are only a few and they are very nuanced. There are things they tell you and things that are inferred. It made me feel for characters like top oscar nominated movies usually do.
🤺 Combat – Challenging and engaging and not too many brawls. I am not sure why so much negative criticism for combat. I actually liked it.
🧭 Side Activities / Exploration – I hated the puzzles in this game. They are all environmental puzzles and boils down to finding objects on the world, and look at them with a certain angle. I hated it. I looked up answers to most of them because it was really taking away from the game, and things were getting to a dead halt. Lorestones were great!
🚗 Movement/Physics – Great. Camera sometimes gets in the way during combat... which was annoying.
📣 Voice acting – Excellent. Some of the best if not the best in any game i played.
🥇 Best thing about the game - Story telling, sound design, characters. Everything about the story is 5/5 from the start to end. Its gripping. It will stick with you for a long time.
👎 Worst thing about the game - puzzles. I hated the puzzles here (1/5) as much as I loved the story. No chapter select for trophy hunters. This one level where everything is pitch dark seriously....
💡Final Thoughts:

Amazing game. If you find that you are getting stuck with puzzles, do yourself a favor and look it up. Do not let the puzzles get in the way of enjoying the game. I started looking up solutions after the 4th chapter and the game went to a 5/5 from a 3/5 experience. The story flows and it feels like i am in senua's head. I wish I could give this a 5/5 but i cannot because of the shitty puzzles.

I wish they picked somethign else between the story beats. Even more combat would have been better. Story and story telling was amazing, gameplay especially puzzles left alot to be desired.

I missed one lorestone and had to replay about 4 chapters. Honestly i thought this would be bad but it went by fast, and also because I knew the ending, I had alot more understanding about some of the motivation of characters in the beginning. You can only know this after you watch the ending.

Amazing game. play it!

I'm stressed.

An absolute master class of sound design, especially when using solid headphones. In addition to a great narrative with solid mental health representation.

The actual gameplay itself (and some of the jankiness that came with it) leaves a bit more to be desired but never enough so to take away from the above.

Absolutely worth a look if you aren't completely averse to some of the themes or hack n slash gameplay.

I downloaded this game after hearing great things about it when it went on sale, and I played it in just a few settings. Probably the closest thing to a souls-like game I've completed. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a great game about overcoming the grieving of a lost lover in a Norse mythology setting. And huge points for developers being thoughtful and grounded with their portrayal of psychosis throughout the game.

The game would have it's moments struggling from time to time in terms of framerate being noticeable, and the occasional glitch that would keep me from progressing the story, but otherwise, it was relatively fun experience.

Hellblade es uno de esos títulos que todo el mundo debería jugar por lo menos una vez en la vida, sin importar a que género de videojuegos esté acostumbrado a jugar. Ninja Theory se puso en el arduo ejercicio de adaptar mecánicas y gameplay a una característica que muy pocas veces se ve retratada en la industria, los problemas mentales. La atmósfera oscura y desalentadora genera la dosis correcta de incomodidad mientras el espectacular personaje principal que debemos ayudar a avanzar nos muestra como ve el mundo alguien que no puede confiar en sus propios pensamientos. Es un juego enfocado en la historia y la exploración con una dosis perfecta de acción que nos mantendrá enganchados hasta que lleguemos a los créditos finales. Si bien en algunas ocasiones se vuelve un tanto monótono el proceso que debemos seguir para avanzar, el estilo artístico, la tensión de los combates y la asombrosa interpretación de Melina Juergens como Senua, nos hacen querer seguir adelante. Es un juego que basa todo su concepto en crear tensión y desconfianza, en mostrar a un personaje principal vulnerable mentalmente y lo hace como ningún otro que se haya visto. Extremadamente recomendado.

Review EN/PTBR

It's like you're on a discord call with your friends giving you backseat all the time

A very well executed work of art with an excellent narrative using Norse (Nordic) mythology very well and an incredible soundtrack, a well done combat that you can get the hang quickly even without a tutorial and one of the best games to use 3D sounds leaving you crazy

I think it's incredible how in the middle of combat several times Senua's voice's saved me by saying "BEHIND YOU" or "WATCH OUT"

I recommend to everyone this incredible journey to the path of darkness for the salvation of the soul of the one you love.

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É como você estivesse em uma call no discord com seus amigos dando backseat no teu ouvido toda hora

Uma obra de arte muito bem executada com uma excelente narrativa utilizando muito bem a mitologia nórdica e uma incrível soundtrack, um combate bem feito e que você pega rápido o jeito mesmo não tento HUD ou tutoriais e um dos melhores jogos a usar sons 3D te deixando louco

Eu acho incrível como em meio ao combate diversas vezes a própria voz da cabeça da Senua me salvou por dizer "BEHIND YOU" ou "WATCH OUT"

Recomendo a todos essa jornada incrível ao caminho da escuridão pela salvação da alma daquele que você ama.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a clinically and historically supported analysis of psychosis through the lens of a Norse epic about death and the incredible courage required to be able to look stare it in the face and not be afraid. There are many games about death, loss, acceptance and clarity, but rarely is what the hero trying to rid themselves of, is you. Senua fights with every possible intrusive thought from herself--curiosity, fear, anger, suicidal ideation--but she is also very much fighting for control of her life. The very act of inhabiting her body and as an anonymous player and having control is intrinsically tied to the condition she faces. She wants freedom from herself and from the influences of anything other than her true self.