Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice could have been great but it does the most stupid thing imaginable in it's second half. While it's first half is a perfect mix of exploration, puzzles and combat; the second half decides to throw in these mechanics one by one which obviously gets incredibly boring after a while. Solving puzzles 40 minutes nonstop or doing combat for 15 minutes nonstop are the "brightest" ideas of the second half and well, they are not that bright. I loved the first half but got bored to death in the second half. I am right in the middle with this one.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
Two Sides of the Same Coin
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an important game. It's the game thar put Ninja Theory on Microsoft's radar as well as many players' radar. It's a game that is loved by many even though it has some haters as well.
I think Hellblade is a great game, sorry, "was" a great game. I haven't seen a game betrayed by it's pacing this much in a looooong time. And it's so stupid, it's crazy to think that anyone at Ninja Theory found this structure for this game plausible.
Okay, let's start from the beginning with the story. Our story is set in the 8th century, somewhere up north. We play as Senua and she is on a journey to get to Helheim in order to save the life of the love of her life. The game doesn't give you much more than this when you start it but the story is uncovered slowly through the flashbacks.
In terms of presentation, Hellblade is really solid. Director Tameem Antoniades did a great job with the performances being really really good as well. Especially Melina Juergens who played Senua is the main component that holds everything together. She is so powerful yet so vulnerable at the same time, Juergens really blew me away.
However, when you come to the end of the game and you now know all of the story, it's not that good. Writer is also Tameem Antoniades but I have to say, his writing skills isn't very creative. The story here is very basic when you look at the big picture and the ending, well, it was a very big disappointment.
So, the story is not good but the presentation is pretty solid. Bundle that with great performances and I was overall feeling good about the story side of things.
The biggest problems comes with the gameplay. In Hellblade, there are 3 things we do. We walk, we fight and we solve puzzles. Let's start with the exploration and puzzle solving first. Exploration, what exploration? Hellblade is a very linear game and while there is a collectible type that gives a little bit more context to some characters and events, it's not enough.
I did not like the things those collectibles spoke about and I was not interested in them after a point. I collected all of them by the way and I don't think they were worth it. Puzzle solving on the other hand was fine, it was nice.
There are some chapter specific puzzle types but there are also "Illusion" puzzles, I think that's their name. These are featured in the game from start to finish. You have a locked door, there are some signs on it. You explore around and try to find that sign in the environment. That's how you unlock the door. Obviously sometimes there is more than one sign.
I know a lot of people that got bored with it but I think they were very clever with it's usage. Overall, I really enjoyed these puzzles. I had much bigger problems with some of the chapter specific ones. But I won't go into detail because of spoilers.
There is a third pillar to the gameplay, let's talk about that now. Combat. Combat in this game is pretty solid but when you play it in smaller chunks. The camera placement is great, you really feel your hits, enemies also gets knife cuts and stuff. So it's really really good. Especially in presentation again. There is not much variety in the combat but there is a bit of enemy variety at least.
Now I need to talk about the structure thing. Oh my god, this is so stupid. In the first half of the game, everything is great. You walk a bit, you fight a bit and you puzzle a bit. In the second half however, the game goes crazy and decides to throw in a bunch of puzzles and only puzzles. Then it throws a bunch of combat and only combat. I mean, why?
The first half had a great pace with every mechanic in the game being used but then the second half decides to go through the mechanics one by one until you die of boredom. There is kind of a story reason but the core story isn't that good like I said so the gameplay of the second half is ruined for something that's not even good.
I loved the game during the first half but hated it during the second half. It's, truly a mixed bag in that sense. Now let's get a little bit into the technical side of things and end our review.
Even if the game came out in 2017, I think it looks pretty good. Especially the animations are very nice. Combat animations looks crazy in a good way. But obviously the environment looks a little old these days. And as a linear game, you do feel like you are walking along corridors at many points.
When it comes to sound, Hellblade is quite impressive. It uses binaural audio to convey the sounds inside Senua's mind to the players and headphones are highly recommended. I played the entire game with headphones and it really does feel interesting and even nauseating at times. In a good way though because it puts you really in the mind of Senua. They managed to do that very well.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice could have been great but it does the most stupid thing imaginable in it's second half. While it's first half is a perfect mix of exploration, puzzles and combat; the second half decides to throw in these mechanics one by one which obviously gets incredibly boring after a while. Solving puzzles 40 minutes nonstop or doing combat for 15 minutes nonstop are the "brightest" ideas of the second half and well, they are not that bright. I loved the first half but got bored to death in the second half. I am right in the middle with this one.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
Two Sides of the Same Coin
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an important game. It's the game thar put Ninja Theory on Microsoft's radar as well as many players' radar. It's a game that is loved by many even though it has some haters as well.
I think Hellblade is a great game, sorry, "was" a great game. I haven't seen a game betrayed by it's pacing this much in a looooong time. And it's so stupid, it's crazy to think that anyone at Ninja Theory found this structure for this game plausible.
Okay, let's start from the beginning with the story. Our story is set in the 8th century, somewhere up north. We play as Senua and she is on a journey to get to Helheim in order to save the life of the love of her life. The game doesn't give you much more than this when you start it but the story is uncovered slowly through the flashbacks.
In terms of presentation, Hellblade is really solid. Director Tameem Antoniades did a great job with the performances being really really good as well. Especially Melina Juergens who played Senua is the main component that holds everything together. She is so powerful yet so vulnerable at the same time, Juergens really blew me away.
However, when you come to the end of the game and you now know all of the story, it's not that good. Writer is also Tameem Antoniades but I have to say, his writing skills isn't very creative. The story here is very basic when you look at the big picture and the ending, well, it was a very big disappointment.
So, the story is not good but the presentation is pretty solid. Bundle that with great performances and I was overall feeling good about the story side of things.
The biggest problems comes with the gameplay. In Hellblade, there are 3 things we do. We walk, we fight and we solve puzzles. Let's start with the exploration and puzzle solving first. Exploration, what exploration? Hellblade is a very linear game and while there is a collectible type that gives a little bit more context to some characters and events, it's not enough.
I did not like the things those collectibles spoke about and I was not interested in them after a point. I collected all of them by the way and I don't think they were worth it. Puzzle solving on the other hand was fine, it was nice.
There are some chapter specific puzzle types but there are also "Illusion" puzzles, I think that's their name. These are featured in the game from start to finish. You have a locked door, there are some signs on it. You explore around and try to find that sign in the environment. That's how you unlock the door. Obviously sometimes there is more than one sign.
I know a lot of people that got bored with it but I think they were very clever with it's usage. Overall, I really enjoyed these puzzles. I had much bigger problems with some of the chapter specific ones. But I won't go into detail because of spoilers.
There is a third pillar to the gameplay, let's talk about that now. Combat. Combat in this game is pretty solid but when you play it in smaller chunks. The camera placement is great, you really feel your hits, enemies also gets knife cuts and stuff. So it's really really good. Especially in presentation again. There is not much variety in the combat but there is a bit of enemy variety at least.
Now I need to talk about the structure thing. Oh my god, this is so stupid. In the first half of the game, everything is great. You walk a bit, you fight a bit and you puzzle a bit. In the second half however, the game goes crazy and decides to throw in a bunch of puzzles and only puzzles. Then it throws a bunch of combat and only combat. I mean, why?
The first half had a great pace with every mechanic in the game being used but then the second half decides to go through the mechanics one by one until you die of boredom. There is kind of a story reason but the core story isn't that good like I said so the gameplay of the second half is ruined for something that's not even good.
I loved the game during the first half but hated it during the second half. It's, truly a mixed bag in that sense. Now let's get a little bit into the technical side of things and end our review.
Even if the game came out in 2017, I think it looks pretty good. Especially the animations are very nice. Combat animations looks crazy in a good way. But obviously the environment looks a little old these days. And as a linear game, you do feel like you are walking along corridors at many points.
When it comes to sound, Hellblade is quite impressive. It uses binaural audio to convey the sounds inside Senua's mind to the players and headphones are highly recommended. I played the entire game with headphones and it really does feel interesting and even nauseating at times. In a good way though because it puts you really in the mind of Senua. They managed to do that very well.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice could have been great but it does the most stupid thing imaginable in it's second half. While it's first half is a perfect mix of exploration, puzzles and combat; the second half decides to throw in these mechanics one by one which obviously gets incredibly boring after a while. Solving puzzles 40 minutes nonstop or doing combat for 15 minutes nonstop are the "brightest" ideas of the second half and well, they are not that bright. I loved the first half but got bored to death in the second half. I am right in the middle with this one.