I love it formally and mechanically. It's like Dear Esther meets God of War, which is pretty cool. It's all light combat, environmental puzzles and straight up story (almost entirely voiceover). In a lot of ways it's my ideal game set up.
It's weird though because what it reminds me most of is the movie, The Revenant, which I hated. A lot of long takes. A lot of staring down the lens. A lot of mud and blood and shit. A lot of "harrowing anguish". And I don't know what it means for me that when a game does something a movie I hated did, I actually dig it (The Last of Us 1 and 2 kind of similiar). My only guess is because games are steeped in certain (very teen-friendly) aesthetics and tropes that when something kind of breaks through those barriers I get carried away.
Like this is sort of the inverse of God of War. God of War presents on the face a very literal fantasy world, where mythology is vibrant and alive. But all the gore and violence is still cartoonish. None of the characters feel like real people. Even in 2018's God of War, it's basically just an R-rated MCU movie. And the stakes... aren't there because it feels so fake.
Whereas Hellblade's reality is our reality. It's all mud and sticks and fire and blood and burnt, gored bodies strewn up all over the world like Christmas decorations. It's more natural and rustic. And the Norse mythology that runs through the game is filtered through dreamscapes/psychosis; it's a formalist unreality that God of War only kind of gets into at the end of III. And Senua is not Kratos. She's vulnerable and alone, and (initially (sigh at an upcoming sequel)) not a console mascot whose fate is kind of predictable. She's more human and relatable.
Where this game falls down for me is... well I don't know if it falls down but what I don't like about it is how it uses mental illness/psychosis as a device to obfuscate backstory. And it doesn't only use it for that. But I couldn't help but feel this game would be better if it were blunter. If Senua's backstory wasn't a puzzle to be revealed over time. If Senua's mental health didn't also skirt into "is she crazy or a genuine soothsayer". Part of this game feels designed to make you google "what was REALLY happening" afterwards.
I don't know, despite -- or maybe because of -- the immediate and showy mental health advisor credit that opens the game, it seems like "mental health" is something they stuck on as a gimmick, like someone's pitch was "what if you play as a crazy person" and it sprang from there. And I don't know if that's the case a all but it's the impression they leave by opening the game that way. And I don't know how much research they did and how much care they put in, but the portrayal was so extra and overwrought and lacking in subtlety it doesn't wind up feeling all that delicate. That credits winds up feeling like insurance.
Despite all that I liked how hopeful the game kind of felt by the end. How much the game recognised your mental health is something that isn't conquered but how equilibrium is learning to live through it and with it.
Part of me wishes this could have just been as scaled down narratively/thematically as it was mechanically. Been more Valhalla Rising, less The Revenant.
It's weird though because what it reminds me most of is the movie, The Revenant, which I hated. A lot of long takes. A lot of staring down the lens. A lot of mud and blood and shit. A lot of "harrowing anguish". And I don't know what it means for me that when a game does something a movie I hated did, I actually dig it (The Last of Us 1 and 2 kind of similiar). My only guess is because games are steeped in certain (very teen-friendly) aesthetics and tropes that when something kind of breaks through those barriers I get carried away.
Like this is sort of the inverse of God of War. God of War presents on the face a very literal fantasy world, where mythology is vibrant and alive. But all the gore and violence is still cartoonish. None of the characters feel like real people. Even in 2018's God of War, it's basically just an R-rated MCU movie. And the stakes... aren't there because it feels so fake.
Whereas Hellblade's reality is our reality. It's all mud and sticks and fire and blood and burnt, gored bodies strewn up all over the world like Christmas decorations. It's more natural and rustic. And the Norse mythology that runs through the game is filtered through dreamscapes/psychosis; it's a formalist unreality that God of War only kind of gets into at the end of III. And Senua is not Kratos. She's vulnerable and alone, and (initially (sigh at an upcoming sequel)) not a console mascot whose fate is kind of predictable. She's more human and relatable.
Where this game falls down for me is... well I don't know if it falls down but what I don't like about it is how it uses mental illness/psychosis as a device to obfuscate backstory. And it doesn't only use it for that. But I couldn't help but feel this game would be better if it were blunter. If Senua's backstory wasn't a puzzle to be revealed over time. If Senua's mental health didn't also skirt into "is she crazy or a genuine soothsayer". Part of this game feels designed to make you google "what was REALLY happening" afterwards.
I don't know, despite -- or maybe because of -- the immediate and showy mental health advisor credit that opens the game, it seems like "mental health" is something they stuck on as a gimmick, like someone's pitch was "what if you play as a crazy person" and it sprang from there. And I don't know if that's the case a all but it's the impression they leave by opening the game that way. And I don't know how much research they did and how much care they put in, but the portrayal was so extra and overwrought and lacking in subtlety it doesn't wind up feeling all that delicate. That credits winds up feeling like insurance.
Despite all that I liked how hopeful the game kind of felt by the end. How much the game recognised your mental health is something that isn't conquered but how equilibrium is learning to live through it and with it.
Part of me wishes this could have just been as scaled down narratively/thematically as it was mechanically. Been more Valhalla Rising, less The Revenant.