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.

Abuse and Trauma. Psychosis and Stigma. Grief and Acceptance. Love and Loss. Redemption and New Birth. Somehow, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice masterfully presents these themes in the single piece of interactive media that I believe transcended the simple experience of a video game. Every piece of Senua’s journey is carefully chosen and crafted to present her story through every aspect of gameplay and every cut-scene. Throughout the entire experience, I felt more identified with Senua than with any other video game protagonist whose body I have inhabited.

The thing that elevates Hellblade to the status of masterpiece is that it is quite possibly THE most important story ever told in video games... The empathy the game creates for Senua is unmatched within the medium, and significant because it allowed me (a white, American male without disability) to feel the pain of an ancient woman dealing with trauma and mental illness in a culture that did not understand and only deepened her sense of responsibility for her pain. My heart broke like nothing else has ever caused.

I must acknowledge that the game’s combat is fairly problematic, with bad camera angles and an awkward always-locked-on mechanic that led to many frustrating deaths and extended battle scenes, but even so, it feels untrue to this game to give it anything less than a perfect score. You cannot miss this game.

(Platinum Trophy #16 on 1/25/2020)

I really enjoyed this game. The concept was refreshing, the audio design was incredible. The story was beautiful and haunting. The combat is boring and repetitive, and there only seems to exist a single puzzle that you must repeat throughout the game. The section of the game where you are blind is my favorite, a breath of fresh air in a game that has felt the same.

My hope for the sequel is an improved combat system and more diverse puzzles.

But this is just my truth.

Well made story that really showed that the designers did their research and listened to the people who had the same disorder as Senua.

SPOILER

Still miffed that I didn't get to safe the guy in the end. Woud have been nice to rescue the prince for once. :/

END SPOILER

Also a great soundtrack and awesome performance by the actress playing Senua.

Es un juego duro, no te va a llevar de la mano para que entiendas sus
mecanicas tanto en combate como de puzzles, la primera mitad del juego
es algo tediosa... pero conforme vas avanzando desde la mitad en adelante
se vuelve un juego mas interesante, tanto en su ritmo como en su historia
y personajes, el final es muy interesante y refleja todo lo que el juego
es en su esencia.
Un juego sin duda que no voy a olvidar por muchisimos años.

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.

A very neat game. It does its absolute best to portray an often ignored in media and very real mental condition in the form of the main character Senua, who spends the whole game fighting with herself just as much as she fights everything in Helheim. The binaural sound worked incredibly well, making it feel like the voices in Senua's head came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. However, in my opinion, by having a permadeath mechanic the game kind of shot itself in the foot. Since the player will lose all progress if it dies too much, the game simply cannot be too hard. This meant that in order to compensate, the game is almost pitifully easy, regardless of difficulty (which only affects combat), making it so I completed most puzzles first try and without really thinking. I particularly remember a section where Senua can't see and there is a lot of monsters lurking around which instakill you if they grab you. It was presented as if you had to be really careful, but I found it extremely easy to just run past all of them, virtually unmolested. Its a weird dissonance, how the game tries to make you feel as hopeless as Senua with all the gory and dark imagery, the annoying voices bickering while you do things, and the whole permadeath thing, but at the same time being so easy that you can just breeze through all the challenges and walk out unscathed. Combat is pretty fun though, if a bit simple. You rarely fight more than 3 enemies at a time, and enemies go down quickly enough that it's never too much of a chore to mow them down, but the animations and the crunchy sound effects make it all viscerally satisfying. Despite what I've said until now, Senua's Sacrifice is a good game which deserves all the praise it's gotten, and I'm very excited for the sequel.

I played this on the Switch and the port is kind of... bad. Every time a cutscene tries to end seamlessly by framing the camera in the way it usually is framed when you play, the quality just jumps out of a bridge and I couldn't help but cringe a little bit. Some weird pop-ups far away and loading textures up close too. I'm not usually one who cares that much about graphics but Hellblade is clearly trying to be a cinematic experience, at the expense of what sometimes could gameplay more involving than walking around, so visuals should be one of the more important things to it. Sound, on the other hand, is great! I couldn't play with headphones but still, the way the games uses audio to create an experience that doesn't rely on HUDs, questmarks or whatever is a very well done choice of design.

Gameplay can be a bit of a drag because so much of it is doing puzzles that start to repeat themselves very early, they just start asking for more of the same mechanics, which I'd say is pretty bad. The combat is fine, but I don't like how the slow motion trivializes the combat. I think I'd work just fine without it. And, in general, it could have either less downtime or more meaningful content.

The story is not ground-breaking with it's revelations that can be seen from very far away with not-so-sutble hints, but it is functional and tight. It develops well in simple terms and it portrays mental illness in a way that is supposedly very respectful. I couldn't say because I'm pretty neurotypical. But yeah, it's good.