Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

As far as the story telling goes, the whole game is awe-inspiring. Simply amazing. Mechanic is somehow constrained in various aspects (i.e no jumping), but compared to the story it just doesn't matter. Must buy.

I love audio and visuals in this game, as well as the narrative which keeps you going. This game is a pure journey into core of darkness within human mind. Some moments are truly frightening. NT really nailed it.

Hellblade : Senua's Sacrifice is an essential modern gaming experience, though, there are a few things you need to know before starting. 1. This is a game where immersion means everything. The audio quality is second to none, but headphones are a must, and to better appreciate the experience, you'd rather be ready to dive a few hours into it rather than play for 30 minutes and stop. 2. It takes a bit of time to get used to the game, who slowly introduces you to its mechanics. The start could even feel boring as you're not yet fully immersed into its world, and the early puzzle mechanics are dull. Don't give up, it's getting much better quickly. 3. This is not a game about fighting, and even though sword fights are part of the journeys, they are not the destination. 4. The game is short, can be finished in about 6 to 15 hours depending of how fast you solve the puzzles, and how much you rush the experience. I wouldn't advise you to rush it though. Once you have understood those few rules, immersing yourself into the world of Sennua is one of the most pleasing experience one can have. The sound stage is outstanding, there are smart idea everywhere, and those voices in your heard make a great job at both tricking and helping you. The UI is minimal, nonexistant even, and everything is delivered to you through sound and environment clues. That is superb. Even though not its main selling point, the fighting bit in Hellblade is pleasing, with a few great moment, though it does fighting more than one opponent not the greatest part of its package. The graphism as well as the art direction are superb, and you'd be hard pressed believing they achieved that with only a small team. In conclusion, I believe this game needs to be in any serious gamer's library. It's a 10 hours experience, with limited replayability, but will provide great moments of gaming. On top of that, this is on GoG, DRM Free. What are you waiting for ? buy it !

Hellblade is not a bad experience of itself but it is just trying so hard to be artsy and "unique" it falls short and feels super bland. My major painpoints were: - Super narrow over the shoulder view, I never liked that type of camera angle and in this game is so close to the character that it took me a little while to get use to it and not feel motion sickness due to the tiny FOV. - The "permadeath" gimmick as I understand after googling some articles turns out to be a sales pitch by the devs but in all reality doesn't even exist. - The game is boring. It basically boils down to walk around for 10 minutes, do a couple of "puzzles", walk into a suspiciously round area that looks like an arena fight some waves of enemies... rinse and repeat until you fight a boss. This makes the game predictive and repetitive, it doesnt feel like organic exploration and it doesnt feel like intense hack and slash either. - The puzzles are not very good either, they basically consist in moving from one point to another and pressing "E" to focus if you are standing where you should be then congrats! You solved a "puzzle". (Mind you the first few times it was fun, but it gets old really fast). -For some reason there is a photo mode that allows you to take cool pictures if you want to make a collage for your scrapbook or something, I was midly annoyed that we got that instead of an FOV slider. The only positive thing I can say about the game is that I really liked the way they use real life actors and that the cutscenes are seamlessly integrated to the little gameplay there is. Bottom line, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is just a boring game with boring mechanics and a kinda interesting story that really doesn't carry the whole game past the second boss... It has nice visuals, environments and aesthetics but that's it. If this game is a piece of art, is one of those you hang on a wall and don't touch it!

Immersion: -There is no HUD. There isn't a need for it. -The threat of permadeath makes you really care about the combat, pushing you to avoid failure. It puts you in her shoes, failure isn't an option in Senua's mind. -There aren't any tutorials. We're big kids, we've played video games before. We can figure out how to play it. Tutorials are annoying and break immersion. -The camera is close to Senua, making you sympathize with her more. During combat, the camera remains tight. It makes you rely on and trust the voices. Story: (No spoilers here) -Senua is a very well written character and in absolutely no way is a Mary Sue or "Strong Female Lead TM." She has genuine weaknesses that strongly effect the story. (Literally the main focus of the game) -It's historically accurate. right down to the outfit. In ancient history class, I was suprised that I already knew most of the Norse mythology talk because of this game. -The story is really interesting and has some twists and turns that had me at the edge of my seat. Gameplay: -There are so many different moves that by the end of the game I was still finding new attacks -The boss fights are really fun, despite the stress of trying not to die permanently -The few puzzle segments were unique, I've never had to do anything like alligning the terrain and objects to form runes in any game I've played before. -The combat was so good that the only thing stopping me from playing it again is how shook the story left me. -Only issue is the enemies were all the same, there's 7 or 8 types and that's about it Art: The art in this game is beautiful and terrifying. -You can tell that everything placed in the game was done carefully and was thought about. -The continuous shot, choice of angles, and the psychedelic effects all look amazing and create the right moods. Acting: -Holy shit. To conclude, game of the century, 10/10. Senua's Sacrifice is one of the few games I would call an artistic masterpiece.