Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Well, I get why people like this game. It does an amazing job simulating mental illness and voices in your head. The game looks really nice and the unreal 4 engine is put to good use. If you like stories with the gameplay as a side dish then maybe this is for you. For me personally I couldn't get invested in the story and the unskippable cutscenes didn't help. The constant whispering in your head got annoying really quick and the majority of the time I was just waiting for something that I can actually contribute to the game. TL;DR + Good music + Good graphics + Nice touch on possible mental illness - No replay value - Unskippable cutscenes - Gameplay is pretty so and so Get it on sale. Would not recommend for full price. I got about 6 hours from this game and I did everything there is to do.

While I enjoyed it at first, it quickly became a tedious slog with very frustrating moments. Too much focus in this game is on art and the audiovisual experience, to the detriment of engaging gameplay and entertainment. When you have to make an effort to keep advancing, you realise that in the end the game is just not fun. Positives: Visuals, atmosphere, some innovative elements - especially the use of environment to progress through the game, voice acting. Negatives: - Absolutely atrocious controls and combat that has clearly been designed with the sole objective of being as frustrating and obnoxious as possible. There is literally nothing fun about it and even though combat is not too frequent, when it does come up, it is very bad. Not because of difficulty - it doesn't take too long to read every enemy type and learn to counter them - but due to the combination of bad controls, the environment design, repetitiveness and as you progress through the game the ever increasing duration (mainly through adding more and more waves). It's an endless slog that's more likely to result in muscle cramps than anything else. - Poor checkpoint system that can sometimes screw you over. This is even worse when you consider that there is only one save slot and when you die too many times (the game keeps track of your deaths through a taint system that progresses through your body), it will be deleted - and you have to start the whole game from scratch. - The game is 100% linear with absolutely no choice. Yes, it makes it easier to develop a tight and deep narrative, but you end up with a completely and utterly linear corridor game. - The world of Hellblade is essentially empty. While there is a reason behind it (the whole premise of the game), it gets boring very fast. No matter how good the visuals, you can't build a fun game on a tedious and repetitive gameplay in an empty game world.

First one have to mention: This game runs on linux with lutris, dxvk, feral gamemode. It would be nice, if gog can make a package for quickinstall. The fiddling with the sofware is real complex in order to run it. The game itself is verry nice to play. It has an epic story. It is it all about atmosphere and the psychotic disorder of the character of senua. I really enjoy this kind of game. It is not mainstream. The fights are not the big deal. There are bazillions of other games, if you want a strategic gameplay or a fast paced shooter, this is not the game for you. This is a epic game with deep inner conflicts. Based on the academical recherche on mental deseases and nordish mythology.

The game is beautiful. The design is very nice, and the concept is great. The gameplay on the other hand is rather tiring. The combat is not satisfying and most of the game you will spend running in slugish pace. I mean it is not really so slow, but the levels are designed in such way tak it takies ages to get where you want. Also the ending was a little bit cliche, and disappointing for me. It is really hard to rate this one. I haven't played anything like this. Maybe you need to check yourself :)

1) Battles are boring and repetitive. 2) Puzzles are annoying and repetitive. 3) And my biggest problem with the game: Senua just didn't connect with me on an emotional level. I guess you will get a lot out of this game if you can connect with Senua, but it just didn't happen for me...