Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Things put in the mixer to create Hellblade: AlanWake (Light and Darkness, several world-building effects, ...), PrinceOfPersia2008 (Fights against few enemies in sort of arenas), several walking-simulators with puzzels. (MIND would be the one suiting best, even the type of puzzles are comparable) Ah, put in some very good swordplay as well, swordplay, that doesn´t really fit any comparision. It works off great, you´ve got enough time to develop skill in it and so on. Well, what else is in there? We´ve got a lot of viking mythology background, which is presented absolutely great by audio. Top-notch sound design in general. On the side of optics... ...well, they are great in many aspects, but sometimes the environments feel "stocky", like they could have been in another game as well. ImageQuality is superb, the TAA is working great and so on. Graphics are absolutely gorgeous in terms of characters (the texturing of Sensuas skin is phenomenal), lighting and effects (they use tons of them and at least in UHD, all of them work off great. In FHD not so much.) but environments fall off. Not so great texturing and very little reactivity (vegetation, objects and obstacles don´t react to you) obstacles are thing you could criticize: The game suffers from the "why do I cannot clib up/ over there"-phenomen, can put you off the otherwise brilliant atmosphere sometimes. Brilliant atmosphere! Despite the criticism of environments earlier on, it has to be said that they aren´t only a letdown, but also a standout! The world often shows you things you´ll reach later on in far distance, it plays with light, with dreams, with shapes and so on. Really catches the theme. Several areas are just looking great and build up phenomenal fight arenas; fight arenas that aren´t marked but integrated, this creates a natural feel. A natural way of dealing with the topic in general, that´s Hellblade for certain. Having finished this game less then a day after release should work as a closing...

Graphics 10 Music 9 Cinematics 10 Story 7 Content 8 Controls 9 Gameplay 8 Overall eyjoyment 8 (good game, buy it) So Graphics, no question it visualy kicks ass. Performance on R5 1600, GTX 1060, 16GB DDR4 Everything on High, except Textures on Very High game plays fluently at stable 60 fps. [i found that there is some hidden setting that you don't see on the menu. For example if i change the overall setting to max and leave it like that i get about 54-60 FPS, but if i set overall setting to min and then change every setting to max individually i get about 68-72 FPS, which means there is some setting that gets changed only by the overall setting. Visually i didn't see difference, so try this for more FPS] Music, There is not much real music that stood out, but i think it was intentional there is a lot of ambience and whispering. Cinematics, pretty cool, looks like they mixed motion captured in game faces and mixed them with actual video, hard to explain but it looks cool. Story, i liked it while playing it but the end left me kind of confused, i mean i get it mental illness and all, but what is the conclusion of this all? Don't get me wrong i like confusing stories that you can theorize about and interpret and all that, like in Fincher or Nolan movies for example, but the ending of this was kind of meh and didn't give me much info, just confusion. All the Norse mythology stuff was pretty cool, i like that a lot. Content, there is enough of it to justify 23€(i think) that i paid, probably also 30€ but i would have liked a bit more gameplay, i will explain more in the "Gameplay" section. Controls, pretty good controlls, played with a PS4 controller simulating X360 controller, while fighting sometimes the block button didn't quick enough/the animation had didn't stop quick enough to start a different action, so i got hit. I am a big fan of the Souls games and they had this problem in Demon's Souls when i remember correctly, but they later fixed it. So yeah more i-frames i guess? The gate puzzles were cool, the find the rune puzzles were annoying sometimes, there could have been more variety and more puzzles over all, because there is more walking here especially more towards the end. Also some more fighting sprinckled throughout the game would be good. See the system is built for 1 v 1 fights or 1 v 2 max, but there were many instances where you have to fight 4-5 enemies an the same time and the fact that you can't lock on manually and there is no free camera in the battle mode makes it very hard to fight, the voices warn you if someones coming from behind, but it gets rediculous at the end. Especially from the bridge on at the end. It's just insane there is like 8 enemys at once and you are always loked on to them and the dodging isn't as good as in Bloodborne for example, you get hit a lot and the screen becomes blackish/redish and it's hard to see and you trie to beat them and they take a lot of hits and then they kll you. At some point it just becomes annoying and not fun at all.

The promotional materials do not lie, the storytelling in this game is amazing and unique, to be sure. I found myself pulled in to the story of Senua, being there with her, every step of the way, cheering her on to succeed. The art direction in this game plays a huge part in this, because the world where she travels is made exquisitely to look like, well, what I'd imagine a "viking hell" to look like. Soundscape increases the immersion and oppressing atmosphere further. As an experience, I don't believe there is any other game like Senua's Sacrifice, and I mean it in a good way. As a game, however, there are few things that did rub me the wrong way and have made me put the game on indefinite hold for me to actually finish it. I believe I am a little over halfway through the game right now. So, what did they do "wrong?" In my opinion, there is just too much pointless combat. If it was added to give the game a "frustration factor", it worked in my case. I feel that the game would have done well with just having the boss battles and puzzles to represent Senua's struggles. The run of the mill enemies don't really even work as practice, as each boss needs their own tactics to defeat, whereas the mooks are just hack, slash, repeat. Puzzles don't get a free pass either, mainly, the point that made me gave up has four puzzles back to back, which take at least 15 minutes to do even if you know exactly what to do, and way longer if you dont. For me, it broke the pacing and immersion completely, and reminded me that this is just a game, after all. And it is shame, since the game was clearly meant to be something to be experienced, yet someone in development felt it needed to be more like a traditional game. That said, I do intend to complete the game, some day. And if what I told you above doesn't deter you, then I wholeheartedly endorse this game for anyone who plays games for new experiences and not as mechanical problems to defeat.

you will like it uless you are a complete dork. Chararacter is great, immersion, voice acting, graphics all is top notch. Some woud say combat is simplistic but it's up to you, it can be beautiful too. It's short but I would play it any day over that triple a crap they throw at us these days. To me it's the future of gaming, thats what you get when talented devs do what they want. Thank you NT

Played on PS4. Narrative second to none. Some will criticize this as a walking simulator, fact is it's just a game with bold pacing. And when that pacing pays off the enjoyment is second to none. No other game has made me feel like more of a badass, while most of the time playing against seemingly insurmountable odds. There are games that are better fleshed out in terms of systems and mechanics, but as an experience, this is quite possibly my favourite of all time.