Hellblade: Senua Sacrifice and Senua's Saga: Hellblade II when compared together, feel like a give-or-take duology that beautifully bounces off each other in a symphony.

The first game has the better story, thanks to its singular focus on Senua and her psychosis, while the second game comes just close to overtaking Sacrifice as it takes Senua singularity, and gives her a purpose larger than life, an almost shamanistic task of taking down the giants and lead a group of people, which inadvertently takes away the story's focus on psychosis as that plot thread was already resolved in the first game

Gameplay wise, I knew what to expect and got what I was l looking for, a story led interactive adventure game, but as a sequel, 2 makes some sacrifices that are both necessary, but some confusing to distinguish itself from the previous games. The puzzles, for example, are few, longer and simplistic to the point some didn't need to be here, like that hour-long hidden folk trials, and combat, which I admire how raw, visceral and violent it is, feels a bit sloppy when trying to time attacks, read enemy movements and the lack of charge stabs and kicks makes it the more confusing why the simplification when it would've actively contributed to the presentation

Speaking of presentation, this game is nuts. I would confidently call this a digestible spiritual successor to Kane & Lynch 2 Dog Days, as the game employs a ton of post-processing to make it as filmic as possible, like an anamorphic lens, black bars, chromatic aberration, distortion, film grain, it's immense the number of techniques employed for this as well as the character's fidelity, which is industry leading.

Had they not simplified some crucial combat mechanics from 1 and expanded on the puzzles, I feel it could've surpassed the first game

Remains as fun as it's ever been with sometimes funny writing, creative boss encounters and a surprise appearance of Akira Yamaoka on the soundtrack (I keep forgetting he worked at Grasshopper)

If there's one thing I hope RePop addresses is the combat's game feel. The entire system feels like it's constantly fighting between being animation-led or responsive-led and the lack of fluidity it brings between transitions or what have you is painfully felt and more times than 1 it makes some encounters atrocious to strut through

Also, playing this game on RPCS3 in 4K60 is eye-opening, and with patches to remove the vignette and film grain, the image pops up so much more, which makes it baffling why such a colourful game is suppressed by those two