Fourth play through.

So many people who praise and highly rate this game still have caveats, like complaining about repetitive puzzles and saying “oh the combat isn’t actually supposed to be fun”

I have no idea what the fuck those people are on about.

Reason for the medal: First of all, I am ashamed to give 4 stars to this masterpiece, but this is a game and I have to evaluate it as a game. Generally speaking, it deserves 5 stars very easily in terms of the subject it aims to cover and the game. The reason I deducted points is that I got bored of the game's puzzles and that the whispers Senua heard bothered my ears due to her psychosis. As for the game being a work of mastery, it has a unique plot and functioning. However, when they present such a thing as a game rather than a movie, it can remain an experience and have flaws. The strongest part of the game is the storytelling, it never tells you the keys, it doesn't tell you where to go, there are no nonsense indicators, you move with zero hud, full cinematic experience and sound. Instead of an indicator, you hear the enemy behind you whispering "there is an enemy behind you" as one of Senua's hallucinations. You fight alongside Senua and solve the puzzles consisting of her delusions by coordinating with the character as if it were your own problem. You are afraid together in the parts where Senua is afraid, you hear the disturbing sounds she hears together. You smile at the good things he sees and get disturbed by the bad things. But Senua doesn't get bored with puzzles like me :D Or she doesn't get disturbed by whispers. I wasn't as invested in the story as I was in Senua. I just moved forward wondering what would happen in the end. Parenthetically, I didn't care about his wife at all on the journey he set out to save his wife. It has a unique experience and excellent presentation compared to other games. Yes, it is a unique "experience". The things that make the game a game have been completely stripped away. If I showed someone watching it without showing me controlling Senua with the controller, it would be hard for them to understand that it was a game. That's why I have to deduct points from the subjects I'm bored with.

Gold Medal

Medal System:

0.5 stars - This game will make you its b*tch! (Coal medal)
1 star - Extremely boring (Broken medal)
1.5 stars - Boring (Empty medal)
2 stars - Not fun (Wooden medal)
2.5 stars - It could have been fun but... (Bronze medal)
3 stars - Normal fun (Silver medal)
3.5 stars - I had more fun than usual (Emerald medal)
4 stars - I had so much fun (Gold medal)
4.5 stars - I loved it but something is missing (Platinum medal)
5 stars - Special for me / my favorites (Diamond medal)

Resumo:
Uma experiência alucinante, muito ambiental, sério, você se sente ali dentro do jogo, acompanhando a loucura da personagem de frente, entendendo seus medos, traumas, embarcando junto com ela nessa jornada, uma jornada sobre superação, na luta com seus próprios demônios.

História:
O jogo sabe bem misturar a esquizofrenia da personagem com algo mais palpável, quero dizer, são representados por monstros e deuses da cultura Nórdica, e que narrativa formidável essa viu, é de se impressionar, ao longo da gameplay você pode encontrar no mapa monumentos de pedra que lhe darão mais detalhes sobre a história da personagem e sobre a sua cultura. O inimigo principal aqui é a escuridão que basicamente representa a dor da personagem, é todo o fardo que ela carrega e que de certa maneira sempre vem a tona novamente e relembrando de seu passado e de seu objetivo, ressuscitar seu amado marido.

Gameplay:
Gráfico de brilhar os olhos, cutscenes absurdas de bem feitas, como é um jogo mais focado em contar uma grandiosa história, não diminua o jogo por não tem mais ''elementos'' de jogabilidade, é simples, andar, bater, lutar, e..., algumas mecânicas de zoom para focar em certos detalhes e só, e é o bastante, e cumpre o que promete sem inventar moda. O combate devo elogiar, é satisfatório dar umas porradas de espada nesses bichos, não é difícil nem nada mas as vezes, com muitos indo pra cima de você ao mesmo tempo, pode te deixar meio enrascado. Os puzzles são bons o suficiente pra te deixar bem entretido, uns bem inteligentes com desafiadoras ilusões de ótica.

Conclusão:
Recomendo a todos, uma experiência um tanto quanto diferente, na pela de uma personagem com sérios problemas mentais, que te faz refletir como é ter esse tipo de doença, uma história rica em detalhes, uma gameplay fluida, sem muitas mecânicas, se você não ligar para isso, vai gostar muito desse jogo.

One of those that I just never got around to when it released despite being interested in it. I don't have any excuses; I'm just a bad person. Though not anymore, because I finally did play Senua's Sacrifice this February! Fueled by being sort-of-hyped-but-not-really-sure-why for Senua's Saga releasing this April, I thought I might as well try this one out before that one releases (which I won't be able to play anyway since I don't own an Xbox and my PC is definitely not strong enough for it) to experience the beginning of Senua's Journey.

And this is an interesting game, I think? I mean, not every day you get a game where the main conceit is the main character suffering through some kind of psychotic episode and it being, apparently, very deeply rooted in what that's actually like for a lot of people. Hearing constant voices in her head, hallucinations, paranoia, and pareidolia specifically, and I sort of have to just trust that these aspects were done well since I have never suffered from any kind of psychosis myself, but seems like most who have and have played the game seem positive on Ninja Theory's depictions of these things. From my layman point of view on the whole thing, I'm impressed how they managed to sort of gamify these very serious things without feeling disrespectful (though, again, what do I know), and making the experience of playing Hellblade actually pretty enjoyable and not just a miserably bleak walk through Norse environments.

This isn't just trying to teach a broad audience about mental health issues and destigmatizing of said issues, but it uses them in a way where I as a player get a broader understanding of them through making them the focus of the gameplay. You have your puzzles, your combat with supernatural beings, your audio logs, and they can actually all be explained by reading up a bit on what different experiences one with psychosis might have, while also being pretty fun to play for most of the game's runtime. It's also really clever how the developers made the voices in Senua's head act as tutorials for what you're supposed to do when needed, though since they're constantly talking for most of the game, it doesn't really feel like the game's hitting me over the head with information so much as frightened voices yelling at Senua how to not die and subtly hinting towards what you should be doing.

The actual plot Senua's Sacrifice tells really impressed me as well. It's pretty simple, but fun to piece together through Senua's revenge filled journey where her trauma induced psychosis (at least I think that's what it is? Though I seem to recall it being mentioned her mother also suffering from something similar, so maybe there's more to it) is used to first shield her from an awful truth, and then to let her process what's been happening. It is sort of ludicrous how the entirety of the game is apparently set over one single day, though, and I shouldn't really let that bother me, but when the rest of the game seems to focus so much on correctly depicting many of its mental health related aspects, it's sort of ruined by Senua seemingly coming to terms with her very traumatic experience and completely moving on, less than 24 hours after it happened. The ending is still beautiful, but... I don't know, it doesn't quite work with this fact in mind.

There's also just an issue with how this short, seven hour game is still too long for its own good. I said the gameplay was fun, and it is! But it's fun for maybe four or five of those seven hours. I thought the combat was fine, but the more I got to experience it, the less interesting it got, and as much as I liked the puzzles of finding various patterns and lining them up right or finding three identical ones, the game never really evolves beyond the first few. What you see in Senua's Sacrifice in the first hour is basically all you're ever going to get, and as novel as they are the first few times, they're not good enough to carry an entire game in my opinion when they don't ever evolve into something more interesting or even really become more challenging, and especially not when the story starts taking a backseat so there isn't really much interesting to experience between puzzles or combat. The one time it really switches things up is in this obnoxious dungeon where you're quickly killed by a creature if you don't stay in the light, which isn't exactly ideal and feels very video game-y in a bad way.

Overall, I'm not the biggest fan of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Had it been just four hours I might have complained about it being too short I guess, but it just can't carry its length as it is now. Its gameplay isn't interesting enough for it and there isn't enough plot to keep things intriguing in those moments, which lead to me just hoping it would end sometime soon which shouldn't be the case with such a short game. It still does extremely cool things, talks about topics that are never really covered in video games and certainly not in any respectful ways, the sound is absolutely out of this world (I almost never play with headphones, but felt like I had to with this since the inner voices are such an integral part of the game, and it was quite the experience!), and for about two thirds of the game, I was hooked on the gameplay and the plot. So, not some hidden masterpiece I've missed out on all these years, but definitely interesting enough to be worth playing and an instance of a video game that probably couldn't be made into another art form without losing a lot of what makes it special. Which I generally don't really care that much about to be honest, but it's worth mentioning, I guess.

Um jogo legal, cenas bem legais por conta da personagem ter problemas mentais, porém, algumas vezes achei a gameplay meio parada por conta da velocidade que a personagem anda, corre, etc.
A imersão que o jogo proporciona dentro da mente da personagem é incrível, a temática meio "dark" achei que ornou muito com as cenas, cenário, atitudes, etc.
Combate bem gostoso, tanto contra inimigos normais, quanto boss, a câmera não ajuda muito, mas gameplay bem gostosa apesar de tudo.
História curta, porém, por conta da velocidade da personagem e também cutcenes muito longas, o jogo pareceu bem mais maçante do que realmente é, 11h pra platina "tranquilas" algumas horas por conta das cutcenes e pegando os coletáveis. Mas bem legal o game.

Está mais para uma experiência do que prum jogo.

A atmosfera é maravilhosamente bem construída e te deixa imerso como se estivesse realmente dentro daquele universo, sentindo todo o medo e tensão de Senua. A história é intrigante e complexa, mas muito bem contada, tendo também vários contos que te ensinam mais sobre a mitologia nórdica.
Apesar de tudo isso, a gameplay é maçante, o que transforma as poucas 7 horas de jogo em uma eternidade. O combate é simples mas funciona por pouco tempo, o "capítulo" final é cansativo pelas incessantes hordas gigantescas de inimigos. Ponto positivo para as batalhas contra chefes que são bem interessantes.

Ahead of the upcoming release of the sequel, I decided to return to ‘Hellblade’ to refresh my memory and to be able to notice (and hopefully appreciate) all the changes included in ‘Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2’.

The second playthrough didn’t change my general view of the game - it’s a must-play for anyone seeking a rich narrative experience with a couple of issues that hold the game back from being a true masterpiece.

The good stuff first - the game is built around a really interesting story that is told with maturity and boldness rarely seen in other games. Senua’s desperate, exhausting journey towards redemption and her gradual unlocking and analysis of past events to remove the shackles imposed by her upbringing is truly fascinating to watch. Dip all that in a healthy dose of Norse mythology, some top notch acting (Melina Juergens is a star) and you’ll end up with a truly special narrative experience. The game delves heavily into the topics of mental health and psychosis in particular, with one of its most advertised features being ‘voices in your head’ (first time in forever I played a console game with a headset, simply because it’s one of the few games where it enhances the experience significantly, even if sometimes those voices offer input on puzzle solutions too quickly). This helps tremendously in immersing yourself in the story and in sympathizing with Senua. The topic of ignorance of complex mental issues paired with religious zealotry is also an important part of the game. By the end of the story I felt truly proud of Senua, even if the final song was too cheesy and on the nose for my taste.

In a lot of ways the gameplay serves the narrative, with one of the most obvious examples being Senua searching for runes hidden in the environment. I think it’s a neat idea, however I did feel like the game relied too heavily on it - that also includes the mechanic of “look through gate to open path”, which appeared too many times for my liking.

The game breaks up the pace in a number of ways, e.g. when Senua needs to stealthily move amongst monsters made of pulsating flesh, running between sources of light to evade a ‘dragon’ or sprinting through a burning house. These are truly standout moments in the game.

A whole other thing is combat. I have a problem with it simply because I realize it was not intended to be “fun” - quite the opposite, actually. If these encounters symbolize Senua struggling to go on, her debilitating illness trying to stop her from continuing her quest, then fighting off the physical manifestations of it should be frustrating and difficult. However, I felt like the combat sections gave up on their narrative significance quite quickly and became simply a thing for the player to do (there are a few moments where it makes sense to have Senua fight off hordes of enemies, to be fair). Perhaps the developers were afraid that without them the game would be too akin to walking simulators and written off by many players disliking that particular genre. I, for one, wouldn’t mind being challenged in other ways (e.g. through more complex puzzles) to emphasize Senua’s struggles. The combat itself is pretty run of the mill, with camera being often detrimental when fighting several enemies at once. Same with switching targets - I don’t think the combat system was well designed to accommodate more than 1-2 opponents at once. Also - please, include an option to sprint next time, in some larger areas it took forever to get between points of interest.

İnceleme
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Öncelikle bu oyun herkese hitap edecek bir oyun değil. Hatta benim için bu bir oyun değil tamamen bir deneyim. Psikoz hastalığının resmetmeye çalışan bu oyun Psikoz'u bir oyun ile çok iyi şekilde açıklayabilmeyi başarmış. Benim için oyunun en can alıcı noktası kesinlikle buydu. Psikoz'un resmedilişi ve oyuna uyarlanışı çok başarılı şekilde yapılmış. Tekrardan söylemeliyim bu oyun herkese göre bir oyun değil. Eğer ki devam oyunu olan Senua's Saga: Hellblade II'da bu şekilde olacaksa yine bir kesime hitap edip bir kesime hitap etmeyecektir. Öncelikle oyunun görselliği inanılmaz iyi gözüküyor. Işıklandırmalar, grafikler, karakterin yüz göz detayı ve animasyonu çok hoş gözüküyor. Oyun görsel açıdan gerçekten etkileyici gözüküyor. God of War'da gördüğümüz kesintisiz kamera tekniği bu oyuna çok yakışmış. Ben inanılmaz derecede beğendim. Bu kamera tekniğiyle de görsel açıdan etkileyici bir çok sahneye şahit olabiliyorsunuz. Bunların dışında oyunda bir bulmaca sistemi ve kılıçlı aksiyon bulunuyor. Bulmaca kısımları tamamen Psikozu yansıtacak şekilde tasarlanmış. Zaman zaman bu bulmacalar kendini tekrar edebiliyor. Yakın dövüş ise bence fazlasıyla tatmin edici. Kılıcın keskinliğini fazlasıyla hissediyorsunuz. İndirdiğiniz her bir kılıç darbesinde düşmana verdiğiniz hasarı görebilmek çok tatmin edici. Burada tek sorun hem düşmanların hem de komboların sürekli olarak birbirini tekrar etmesi. Bu iki maddeye kıyasla düşman çeşitsizliğini belki çok sorun etmeyebilirsiniz ama kılıçlı aksiyonun kombo çeşitliliğini muhtemelen sorun edebilirsiniz. Buna rağmen oyunun aksiyon kısmı bence yeterince eğlenceli. Bunlar haricinde Psikozun zihinsel etkilerini hem görsel açıdan hem de duyusal açıdan görüp işitebilmek çok hoş olmuş. Oyunu oynarken karakterimiz Senua'nın yaşadığı Psikoz sorununu karakterimizle beraber hissedebiliyor bu hastalığı resmen deneyimleyebiliyoruz. Hikaye konusunda da oyun kendine has bir hikaye anlatıyor. Elbette mükemmel bir deneyim değil ama kimi kesim için ilgi çekici yanları bulunuyor.

Tekrar söylemekte fayda var bence Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice her kesime hitap edecek bir oyun değil. Eksik yanı elbette bulunuyor. Portal adlı kanalın Psikoz Neden FELAKET Bir Hastalık? | Hellblade Felsefesi videosunu izleyip bu oyunu deneyimlerseniz belki benim hissettiğim şeyleri sizlerde hissedebilirsiniz.

i don’t like talking about videogames like they are new iphone, but
great storytelling, performance, vfx/sfx
questionable level design, bad fighting mechanics
honestly, this game is very annoying to play, but great to watch
it should have been a netflix animated movie

Honestly one of the best story-based puzzle games I have ever played in my entire life. The combat sections are hard but fun and rewarding when you parry correctly. And witnessing Senua descend into madness every so often was jarring but seeing her fight back against was motivating for me to keep going and as well as for personal reasons. Currently ive been going through a rough patch but playing the game and fighting off the northman and refusing to succumb to madness related to me in a way as to keep pressing on and to keep going and you will fight off all your mental demons you are dealing with. Bit of a long and personal review of this game but it really stuck with me and i loved it, can't wait for Hellblade II now.

Just started playing this game today. A few quick thoughts.

The opening sequence is nice, very reminiscent of Half-Life or PREY.

The sound-design is absolutely fantastic. I really loved the binaural audio.

The writing is strong -- lots of Nordic lore, intervoven threads of the past. The graphics and cutscenes are rendered in-engine, and look gorgeous.

But I'm not a fan the puzzles and quest-system. Its tedious and confusing. I ran into some blocks and had to look up a walthrough to continue (because life's too short to keep being stuck)