Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

The story is about Senua, a Pictish female warrior on a quest to save the soul of her deceased lover. The world she inhabits, as well as the enemies she faces along the way, feel like they've been pulled out of a dream. The world is dark, gloomy and somewhat surreal, though there are a few moments of beauty and light. Senua also happens to be suffering from psychosis. Her illness takes the centre stage, as you are constantly surrounded by voices in her head as well as various patterns and visions in the world. The fact that the game is set in the late 8th century also creates some interesting interpretations for her condition. It also makes Senua a somewhat unreliable narrator. The game features some basic combat, but it is NOT the focus of this game. There are difficulty settings in the game, one of which is adaptive difficulty. The only thing that difficulty seems to control is the health pool of enemies, so if you are very good at fighting, the game will increase the health pool of enemies way too much and, as a result, later section of the game may start to feel tedious. I would recommend setting it to something static, such as Normal. It's not a horror game, but it uses some clever trickery to create suspense and dread for the player. There are a handful of puzzle types throughout the game and while they do repeat, they never overstay their welcome. The game features collectibles in the form of rune stones that act as audio stories, all of which are interesting and do not feel needlessly tacked on. The soundtrack is good and fits well. The games leaves you with a lot to think about as well as raises awareness for psychosis and mental illness in general. It is an amazing achievement, especially considering it was made by a team of about 20 developers on a relatively small budget. Games like this make me think that limitations of any kind bolster creativity. I highly recommend this game to everyone who likes great story-rich games. It's worth every penny!

Has some annoying bugs, the most prominent with subtitles that stop working or that are directly bad. But the worse part is, that the gameplay is boring and cluncky as hell. The storytelling and ambientation, plus the different mind problems that the character has are supposed to be the selling point of this game. Well, the inmersion is good, the graphics too, but the storytelling? I have played lots of games with this premise, loved most of them. But this one is not the case, I can't convince me to play it anymore after 2 hours trying. Check it before buying, you might be dissapointed.

It's a walking sim that can be completed in less than 7 hours. But it has combat that most likely will turn away those who actually like walking sims. The combat is about crowd management and not getting hit in the back. It is suprisingly fun also, once you get the hang of the timing, the good telegraphing and combat flow. The autofocus sometimes draws you away from your current enemie, switching to another (you are not really in control - which is the theme of the game BTW), so you need to change priorities quickly. Being familiar with Dark Souls and the likes surely helps! Dodge-rolls and running melee attack are you friends, as is Focus, which gives you finishers. Actually, combat is not as dumb as it seems first, but it still gets repetive. I am not sure the difficulty-setting actually_change_ anything. It wouldn't be the first lie the game tells you. Also the game likes to combat-ambush you. The time between fights is spent solving optical illusion puzzles that are mostly fun but never very demanding or clever and the only rewards for exploring are short (superflous) lessons nordic mythology. The _other_ thing: the story. While Ninja Theorie boast with their research on mental conditions, the implementation in the game is utterly annoying and B-Movie like. My empathy for people with mental conditions is no greater than it was before I played this game. The 'core message' got lost like tears in the rain and the game as a whole is neither that much fun nor very unsettling. For me, the strong opening was almost the narrative peak of the game, never to be reached again. The Darkness did well, too. I paid $4.50 for it (GOG superdisount), It wanted to see what it was all about and I am glad I did not spent more. A 2.5 rating - but I give a 3 for trying. This game has some good things but not enough or in the right way. PS: If you want learn about mental people go watch Bojack Horseman or Finchers Fight Club. They're more fun, too.

I was very eager for Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, and partially it holds up its promise: Graphics and sound are state of the art and the game world is fantastic, even amazing. I love the combat system and the minimalist controls. There is no inventory, so you don't pick up a bunch of junk and have to manage it, there's no tons of weapons, and there is no real exploration - this is not an open world game. Basically it's walk, walk, walk, then an enemy appears and the game switches to combat mode (the game does this automatically, you cannot use your weapon outside of combat mode, and you cannot enter combat mode manually). You fight an enemy, you exit combat mode. Then comes a puzzle. That's basically the came in a nutshell. Rinse and repeat. And it is this that kind of ruins the immersion. The puzzles are ANNOYING as hell and the game would have been a lot better completely without them, as they only stall the game. They are there to simply enhance gameplay time and it shows. Especially when you have to do the very same puzzle twice, trice. They should have ditched the puzzles and added more enemies to keep the flow. Want puzzles, play Tomb Raider, the puzzles there are creative.

Very nice graphics. Nice idea with the voices in your head. That's it. Rest is getting boring, same fights over and over, always outnumbered, always the same enemies. Controls are not really good or precise... I would not buy it again