In the midst of the final boss fight of Helltaker, I said and I believe I quote 'I wish burnt pancakes on the creator of this game' as I tried to deal with the boss fight for the umpteenth time. Maybe the feeling that the shift from planned puzzle solver to real time attempt at rhythm game was jarring to me. Maybe I hadn't really be grabbed by the scenario of this game as deeply as others might have. Perhaps I was dealing with the frustration of how snap quickly I'd had to make judgements when before it'd been something however mundane I'd been able to take at my own pace. Maybe it was just frustrating and boring to my own perspective? All of them are I think true of the matter.
Helltaker is at its core, a vehicle for the creator to show off their cute demon and angel women original characters. It is at its best when it is showing off said cute designs and playing around with its semi 'I'll kill you or kiss you vibe' and to a degree though it's rare, in a puzzle solving vibe. While it feels very restricted in how you can solve said puzzles in my own limited experience with the genre, having more played things like TETRIS, it isn't exactly a bad experience. A single set solution doesn't make a puzzle bad and even when I didn't know, the solution was something I looked up with my girlfriend who I was playing it alongside in the moment so it felt collaborative and fun. But the inherent experience itself was not one that gripped me because it didn't feel strong enough, just rigid and difficult. I also acknowledge that is exactly the vibe some might seek, but this game itself was valuable to me for a different reason.
This was the first game where the 'reward' for completing it was 'you get this girl in your harem' and the final boss fight was awful that I said a different, perhaps other defining personal moment aloud; 'Yeah, but is she worth it though?' The games gameplay and experience were such a turn off, the idea of dating a cute woman was not just a straight up yes, which for my queer ass is a massive step toward not blindly playing and enjoying a game because cute girls are in it. The games premise, its gameplay and its inherent here or there on some elements (how rigid it is, how it doesn't really commit to me in flowing solutions, how some of the girls don't really feel like even with the talk option they don't really grab me as characters, how abysmally hard the final boss fight is and goes on) and that maybe, just maybe there could have been more done to facilitate a more fun experience. But I guess I'm just content that Helltaker taught me; even I'm growing a standard of which I don't want to subject myself to things. And how Helltaker has ideas that might work but that maybe they're simply not for me.
Also; I'm sorrowful for wishing your pancakes get burnt friend, that final boss just sucks really bad.
Helltaker is at its core, a vehicle for the creator to show off their cute demon and angel women original characters. It is at its best when it is showing off said cute designs and playing around with its semi 'I'll kill you or kiss you vibe' and to a degree though it's rare, in a puzzle solving vibe. While it feels very restricted in how you can solve said puzzles in my own limited experience with the genre, having more played things like TETRIS, it isn't exactly a bad experience. A single set solution doesn't make a puzzle bad and even when I didn't know, the solution was something I looked up with my girlfriend who I was playing it alongside in the moment so it felt collaborative and fun. But the inherent experience itself was not one that gripped me because it didn't feel strong enough, just rigid and difficult. I also acknowledge that is exactly the vibe some might seek, but this game itself was valuable to me for a different reason.
This was the first game where the 'reward' for completing it was 'you get this girl in your harem' and the final boss fight was awful that I said a different, perhaps other defining personal moment aloud; 'Yeah, but is she worth it though?' The games gameplay and experience were such a turn off, the idea of dating a cute woman was not just a straight up yes, which for my queer ass is a massive step toward not blindly playing and enjoying a game because cute girls are in it. The games premise, its gameplay and its inherent here or there on some elements (how rigid it is, how it doesn't really commit to me in flowing solutions, how some of the girls don't really feel like even with the talk option they don't really grab me as characters, how abysmally hard the final boss fight is and goes on) and that maybe, just maybe there could have been more done to facilitate a more fun experience. But I guess I'm just content that Helltaker taught me; even I'm growing a standard of which I don't want to subject myself to things. And how Helltaker has ideas that might work but that maybe they're simply not for me.
Also; I'm sorrowful for wishing your pancakes get burnt friend, that final boss just sucks really bad.