I applaud this game for delivering such a great narrative in an interesting and immersive manner, and for really striving to make the whole thing tie together cleanly with no fat. I think we'd be lucky to have an industry full of people striving to make this sort of game in larger studios. You see it with indie games, but if the landscape had more like this, we'd be better for it.

Everything that happens serves a larger metaphor about abuse and trauma and mental illness that comes together in a satisfying way. obviously this is no secret when you boot the game and it mentions that it was made with the help of advisers for psychosis.

I'm a little tired of norse style aesthetics in games as there have been an onslaught in recent years, but this one deserves to be at the top of the podium.

spoiler below

I understood the metaphorical reason for the ending, acceptance of her mental illness and no longer fearing or fighting against it, as with her traumas. I'm not sure if the game is supposed to be taken literally at all, and if not, it did perfectly. If so, it's a bit weird to have Hela kill senua, then show Hela dead on the ground. I think the metaphor is the stronger ending, so i choose to take that as its only outcome

The combat feels great too. I'm not sure if the auto setting in the VR version is made a little easy or something to compensate from the weirdness that VR can bring(like the camera whipping around in a peculiar way when switching targets) but I felt like it was satisfying if a bit simple. The low UI and intuitiveness of it rewards you well for learning it.

I also played in VR as I said and I'm not sure if some of the presentational weirdness arises in the main version. It wasn't perfectly optimized, so ignoring that as it was mostly fine, the FMV characters and some of the graphical glitches were a little hard to ignore in the VR aspect. It pulled back the lens to a narrow screen for cutscenes in which the VR camera wasn't sympatico. I do hope NT, with their weird interest in VR does have some VR stuff for senua 2 when that comes around.

I played Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice after it was in my backlog for almost a year it seems. And boy was it worth the wait. I should have played it sooner, but at least it's played.

The story is ver enthralling. I love Senua as a character, who isn't just a one or two-dimensional character. She has multiple layers that you get to experience. The way it tells its story is interesting and very well done!

The combat is engaging. You feel every hit you take or that you bring to an enemy. Especially, the ones you take. I do enjoy exploring the world as well. It's a bleak world sure, but you learn so much lore within your adventure that I just appreciate a lot.

(Review From 2021)

Since the newest trailer for the 2nd game looked kind of neat from a directing and editing standpoint, I was curious to finally try this out.
This is exactly what I cannot stand about a lot modern video games. Just full on blast pretentious "we aren't like those other video games, we are... Hollywood. And video game systems are cringe".
The concept itself, great idea. Execution is insanely annoying and falls flat.
Combat is horrendously simple for a game that genuinely does not offer any other interactivity than its combat. It reminds me of licensed games that usually just slap the most straight forward combat system they can think of, while not engaging the player with anything else. Enemy variety essentially does not exist.
The whole game is just making you walk forward while being blasted with voices, the novelty of this wears off instantly. Then stopping you at obvious doors to spawn the same enemies over and over or gracing you with a "puzzle", which makes you look at surrounding garbage.
Literally just looking around with your camera, to form rune shapes by aligning objects like twigs or fences to match the shape superimposed on your screen. It will also tell you when you are near such matching objects through visual and audio cues, essentially removing even the tiniest bit of player agency in the only section of players interacting with the game.

Fuck "games" like this.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an okay game with an amazing story. Each of the acting performances in this game is so expressive and conveys so much emotion that sometimes it shocks me with the depth of emotions displayed. The world and lore of Hellblade are also amazing with different areas all full of different themes and experiences. There are also multiple areas just made for players to get more background information and clues to piece together the story. Every set piece in this game really is amazing and should be experienced, but sadly the gameplay in Hellblade doesn't match the same highs as everything else.

Throughout the game, you will mostly be walking from area to area and dealing with visual puzzles which get very repetitive as they keep popping up. The combat is also nothing special and is pretty simple making the gameplay all around kinda mind-numbing. That being said Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is still worth a play to experience everything it has to offer.

What a special and unique experience, it isn’t just any historical epic, but this game genuinely tries to do something touching with its themes and trying to spread awareness of what people in similar situations go through especially when combined with powerful emotions. As well the Audio design is just perfect. Combat was really great too, I expected it to be much weaker, but it felt thrilling in its own way! Genuinely a fun and touching game. My biggest issue was the symbol puzzles that didn’t suck on their own but the repetition that I encountered, made me slightly annoyed. Yet when I watched the documentary, I understood the purpose and how important they are and appreciated it much more. Just a great compelling game, that leaves you thinking in the end

I really don't understand what people see in this title. The psychosis representation is well done and the pattern identifying gameplay is interesting because it's indicative of paranoia - but that doesn't make the game any better.

I could rant about just about every section of the game, but in the interest of my own time I'm going to keep my critique brief:

- The graphics are technically nice, yet every area looks the same and the whole game is far too dark.
- I didn't care one bit for Senua, her journey or any of the other "characters" in the plot. The narrative was entirely ungripping to me.
- The puzzle design is loathsome. I know it's subjective but I never had any clue what the game wanted from me, and when I eventually fumbled my way to a solution it still made no more sense. It's all so obscure and poorly informed to you.
- The combat sucks. I have the feeling that's the point, but it didn't need to be so plentiful if it was meant to be bad. I did, however, like the final boss encounter (the music and the "let go" solution was cool).

I know this game is entirely unique (excluding the existence of the sequel) and that the developers should be praised for their creative vision, but I really didn't get on with this game at all. It is a very short game and yet I spent most of it just begging for it to end. I know it's a representation of Hel and that it isn't supposed to be fun, but I don't think that's an excuse for being just plain not very good.

Very engrossing and unique game (at least in my experience) that's the perfect length, and is extremely interesting. I'm extremely glad I didn't play this on a console, as I wouldn't have played with headphones on. PLEASE play this with some headphones; it does a fantastic job in immersing you into Senua's role.

The combat feels nice, and I grew to love the visual puzzles more and more overtime after a sort of lukewarm introduction to their implementation and frequency. And as weird as this sounds, the collectables in this game are about as numerous as they should be; there isn't an overabundance of them, but there is enough of them to do a bit of exploring off the beaten path. Plus, hearing more of Norse legends is always hella cool.

The art direction was also great; I really enjoyed how they blended live action footage with the already nice graphics. The clash they sort of create made me uneasy in a way to only immerse me more in the world. Not to mention there's some cooooool hellish visuals that were really interesting to just sit there for a moment and watch. I highly recommend this game, it's absolutely worth the praise it's been getting.

"In this waking nightmare where all dreams come true...
You searched for control, a way to pull through...
When you were in love you left him in tears
To smother your furies and banish your fears...
But in darkness they came, through stormy black seas
They raided these shores... Do you still hear his screams?

And now... that you're home... he's so far away...
They've taken his soul... To these gods you cannot pray...
They can break you, but not your promise.
Even death won't keep you apart.
Through this darkness you will find him.
In your sword still beats - a heart.

You fought for love unspoiled by your darkness within.
You fought for your dreams, now there is no way to win.
In the head of his corpse lies the seat of his soul,
So you must carry his vessel and bring him back home."

O que mais me fascinou sobre Hellblade é o quão interpretativo ele pode ser. Tudo que acontece aparenta ser uma metáfora que desafia a própria realidade e o tempo todo você se pergunta se aquilo que tu está vendo é real, ou não.

Isso é o que a psicose de Senua nos causa durante toda essa jornada e como eles conseguem manipular esse elemento com proeza criando uma das atmosferas mais perturbadoras, imersivas e pesadas que já vi em um jogo é de tirar o chapéu - e o melhor disso tudo? Fazem isso sem desrespeitar pessoas que sofrem com essa condição na vida real.

Esse jogo é carregado de mensagens, sobre a vida, sobre escolhas, sobre o futuro, passado e sobre o amor e as suas consequências, tudo isso culmina numa história profunda e manipuladora, pois, a história te engana e faz isso muitas vezes, te confunde e se tu não estiver atento, você não entenderá o que esse jogo tá tentando dizer.

Tenho muito a pensar sobre o que foi Hellblade, mas com certeza, nunca esquecerei dos momentos em que estive nesse mundo confuso e estarrecedor.

Another solid game made by Ninja Theory with a few flaws. One of the few games to address mental health well.

Firstly, this game is pretty. The atmosphere is amazing. The beginning moments are very eerie. The voice acting sells this game. Playing it with headphones is an actual benefit.

Be warned though, this game can be triggering. The story is beautiful. It deals with a lot of heavy topics. Don't let that stop you.

Combat is a bit simplistic. It is still fun though. Some fights can be a bit infuriating. But once the game clicks, it has a great flow.

The rune puzzles are fun and not fun at the same time. At first it is enjoyable to find the runes. Later on it gets really hard and frustrating. Nothing like walking around for 10 minutes because you can't find the vague shape of a rune off in the distance.

Puzzles do vary throughout the journey. Enemies are based on areas. Each area has a gimmick. Some are better than others. Near the end there is a set of challenges that can bite me. Some are simply not fun and annoying.

Trophies are easy to get. It is one of my few platinum trophies. Look up a guide for the collectables. Everything else is a freebie. It's also a short game.

This is such a unique game. A game that should be played with headphones. It's a joy to play. I just hope you like looking around for runes. Because you will be doing a lot of that.

Esse jogo é uma experiência única, MUITO lindo, difícil achar algo tão bem feito, o combate é muito gostosinho e os puzzles funcionam muito bem, mas claramente o foco é a narrativa e sinceramente, É MUITO BOM.

Toda a jornada da Senua é intensa e retrata temas sensíveis e doenças mentais da maneira mais criativa e madura que já vi em uma obra, fazendo a personagem crescer MUITO pra mim, amo muito a Senua, uma das melhores personagens femininas nos jogos pra mim. O jogo conta com toda uma ambientação da mitologia nórdica muito boa, cheio de historias e um universo próprio que faz você se sentir na pele da Senua mesmo, me senti imerso no game e na mente da Senua a cada segundo que passava jogando.

"It is the will of the gods."
"Fuck the gods!"

Replaying this one was an odd experience. I first played this nearly 6 years ago, gave it much high praise, then slowly moved on to forget what exactly I loved about it. All I remember was that it was a great standalone story, until the unexpected announcement of a sequel had me itching to return.

To put it brief, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice holds up, for what it tries to do. I had played this before 2018's God of War and vividly remember enjoying this interpretation of Norse mythology even more... but it's a different interpretation. Hellblade simply nails its narrative; a brief hero's journey and love story, centered around a young warrior who suffers with severe psychosis. The 3D audio is, of course, incredible at immersing the player into Senua's mind while adding a bit more flair to the game's combat and puzzles. It's also often horrific, and with its hyper-realistic art direction and surreal designs (including actual live-action shots), the story ends up becoming fucking awesome and heartpounding. Some of the boss designs genuinely made me uncomfortable, which is a merit to the world crafted here. By the time the player rolls credits, this becomes one of those experiences where they will browse the internet for some video essays analyzing what just occurred. It's not a power fantasy, but a simple story about overcoming your flaws and dealing with loss.
And, most of all, the actor performances, both in voice and motion capture, are some of the best I've seen in the medium. Melina Juergens is absolutely insane, among the rest of the cast.

Where I think Hellblade falls a bit flat though is in its gameplay. As stated, the 3D audio cues of Senua's voices add a neat addition to combat and puzzles, often aiding the player with cryptic hints or warnings. However, the game focuses just a bit too much more on puzzles than combat, and the puzzles that are there mostly consist of the same loop of lining up in-world objects to create runes or pathways. Even the combat, while decent to control, lacks the depth you typically find in action games of this nature, focusing purely on parrying, evading, and attacking. Sequences later on also swarm you with enemies, which can encumber your strategies in combat. As the narrative builds, these moments of gameplay ultimately slow down the process.

Do I recommend Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice to anyone? With its short length and good accessibility, absolutely. Just be aware that this experience shines more in its cinematic narrative and immersion than its gameplay. Maybe drop the difficulty down, if you don't wish to be challenged by its shortcomings.