One of those that I just never got around to when it released despite being interested in it. I don't have any excuses; I'm just a bad person. Though not anymore, because I finally did play Senua's Sacrifice this February! Fueled by being sort-of-hyped-but-not-really-sure-why for Senua's Saga releasing this May, I thought I might as well try this one out before that one releases (which I won't be able to play anyway since I don't own an Xbox and my PC is definitely not strong enough for it) to experience the beginning of Senua's Journey.
And this is an interesting game, I think? I mean, not every day you get a game where the main conceit is the main character suffering through some kind of psychotic episode and it being, apparently, very deeply rooted in what that's actually like for a lot of people. Hearing constant voices in her head, hallucinations, paranoia, and pareidolia specifically, and I sort of have to just trust that these aspects were done well since I have never suffered from any kind of psychosis myself, but seems like most who have and have played the game seem positive on Ninja Theory's depictions of these things. From my layman point of view on the whole thing, I'm impressed how they managed to sort of gamify these very serious things without feeling disrespectful (though, again, what do I know), and making the experience of playing Hellblade actually pretty enjoyable and not just a miserably bleak walk through Norse environments.
This isn't just trying to teach a broad audience about mental health issues and destigmatizing of said issues, but it uses them in a way where I as a player get a broader understanding of them through making them the focus of the gameplay. You have your puzzles, your combat with supernatural beings, your audio logs, and they can actually all be explained by reading up a bit on what different experiences one with psychosis might have, while also being pretty fun to play for most of the game's runtime. It's also really clever how the developers made the voices in Senua's head act as tutorials for what you're supposed to do when needed, though since they're constantly talking for most of the game, it doesn't really feel like the game's hitting me over the head with information so much as frightened voices yelling at Senua how to not die and subtly hinting towards what you should be doing.
The actual plot Senua's Sacrifice tells really impressed me as well. It's pretty simple, but fun to piece together through Senua's revenge filled journey where her trauma induced psychosis (at least I think that's what it is? Though I seem to recall it being mentioned her mother also suffering from something similar, so maybe there's more to it) is used to first shield her from an awful truth, and then to let her process what's been happening. It is sort of ludicrous how the entirety of the game is apparently set over one single day, though, and I shouldn't really let that bother me, but when the rest of the game seems to focus so much on correctly depicting many of its mental health related aspects, it's sort of ruined by Senua seemingly coming to terms with her very traumatic experience and completely moving on, less than 24 hours after it happened. The ending is still beautiful, but... I don't know, it doesn't quite work with this fact in mind.
There's also just an issue with how this short, seven hour game is still too long for its own good. I said the gameplay was fun, and it is! But it's fun for maybe four or five of those seven hours. I thought the combat was fine, but the more I got to experience it, the less interesting it got, and as much as I liked the puzzles of finding various patterns and lining them up right or finding three identical ones, the game never really evolves beyond the first few. What you see in Senua's Sacrifice in the first hour is basically all you're ever going to get, and as novel as they are the first few times, they're not good enough to carry an entire game in my opinion when they don't ever evolve into something more interesting or even really become more challenging, and especially not when the story starts taking a backseat so there isn't really much interesting to experience between puzzles or combat. The one time it really switches things up is in this obnoxious dungeon where you're quickly killed by a creature if you don't stay in the light, which isn't exactly ideal and feels very video game-y in a bad way.
Overall, I'm not the biggest fan of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Had it been just four hours I might have complained about it being too short I guess, but it just can't carry its length as it is now. Its gameplay isn't interesting enough for it and there isn't enough plot to keep things intriguing in those moments, which lead to me just hoping it would end sometime soon which shouldn't be the case with such a short game. It still does extremely cool things, talks about topics that are never really covered in video games and certainly not in any respectful ways, the sound is absolutely out of this world (I almost never play with headphones, but felt like I had to with this since the inner voices are such an integral part of the game, and it was quite the experience!), and for about two thirds of the game, I was hooked on the gameplay and the plot. So, not some hidden masterpiece I've missed out on all these years, but definitely interesting enough to be worth playing and an instance of a video game that probably couldn't be made into another art form without losing a lot of what makes it special. Which I generally don't really care that much about to be honest, but it's worth mentioning, I guess.
And this is an interesting game, I think? I mean, not every day you get a game where the main conceit is the main character suffering through some kind of psychotic episode and it being, apparently, very deeply rooted in what that's actually like for a lot of people. Hearing constant voices in her head, hallucinations, paranoia, and pareidolia specifically, and I sort of have to just trust that these aspects were done well since I have never suffered from any kind of psychosis myself, but seems like most who have and have played the game seem positive on Ninja Theory's depictions of these things. From my layman point of view on the whole thing, I'm impressed how they managed to sort of gamify these very serious things without feeling disrespectful (though, again, what do I know), and making the experience of playing Hellblade actually pretty enjoyable and not just a miserably bleak walk through Norse environments.
This isn't just trying to teach a broad audience about mental health issues and destigmatizing of said issues, but it uses them in a way where I as a player get a broader understanding of them through making them the focus of the gameplay. You have your puzzles, your combat with supernatural beings, your audio logs, and they can actually all be explained by reading up a bit on what different experiences one with psychosis might have, while also being pretty fun to play for most of the game's runtime. It's also really clever how the developers made the voices in Senua's head act as tutorials for what you're supposed to do when needed, though since they're constantly talking for most of the game, it doesn't really feel like the game's hitting me over the head with information so much as frightened voices yelling at Senua how to not die and subtly hinting towards what you should be doing.
The actual plot Senua's Sacrifice tells really impressed me as well. It's pretty simple, but fun to piece together through Senua's revenge filled journey where her trauma induced psychosis (at least I think that's what it is? Though I seem to recall it being mentioned her mother also suffering from something similar, so maybe there's more to it) is used to first shield her from an awful truth, and then to let her process what's been happening. It is sort of ludicrous how the entirety of the game is apparently set over one single day, though, and I shouldn't really let that bother me, but when the rest of the game seems to focus so much on correctly depicting many of its mental health related aspects, it's sort of ruined by Senua seemingly coming to terms with her very traumatic experience and completely moving on, less than 24 hours after it happened. The ending is still beautiful, but... I don't know, it doesn't quite work with this fact in mind.
There's also just an issue with how this short, seven hour game is still too long for its own good. I said the gameplay was fun, and it is! But it's fun for maybe four or five of those seven hours. I thought the combat was fine, but the more I got to experience it, the less interesting it got, and as much as I liked the puzzles of finding various patterns and lining them up right or finding three identical ones, the game never really evolves beyond the first few. What you see in Senua's Sacrifice in the first hour is basically all you're ever going to get, and as novel as they are the first few times, they're not good enough to carry an entire game in my opinion when they don't ever evolve into something more interesting or even really become more challenging, and especially not when the story starts taking a backseat so there isn't really much interesting to experience between puzzles or combat. The one time it really switches things up is in this obnoxious dungeon where you're quickly killed by a creature if you don't stay in the light, which isn't exactly ideal and feels very video game-y in a bad way.
Overall, I'm not the biggest fan of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Had it been just four hours I might have complained about it being too short I guess, but it just can't carry its length as it is now. Its gameplay isn't interesting enough for it and there isn't enough plot to keep things intriguing in those moments, which lead to me just hoping it would end sometime soon which shouldn't be the case with such a short game. It still does extremely cool things, talks about topics that are never really covered in video games and certainly not in any respectful ways, the sound is absolutely out of this world (I almost never play with headphones, but felt like I had to with this since the inner voices are such an integral part of the game, and it was quite the experience!), and for about two thirds of the game, I was hooked on the gameplay and the plot. So, not some hidden masterpiece I've missed out on all these years, but definitely interesting enough to be worth playing and an instance of a video game that probably couldn't be made into another art form without losing a lot of what makes it special. Which I generally don't really care that much about to be honest, but it's worth mentioning, I guess.