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.
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.