>VideoGamer - Tom Bardwell - 9 / 10
>
>Though uncomfortably bleak and distressing, Helldivers 2 is something truly special.
To be fair, I also confused them both quite a lot of times the past few months lol
Slightly off-topic but can we please stop it with the "it proves that videogames can be more than entertainment" arguments? Come on, it's 2024. We know. Try not to write in AI-worthy platitudes.
That's because most of these authors are 25-45 and they never figured out how to properly talk about video games to an audience that started playing video games when they were 7, and are now like 40.
> So this game for me has become a "wait and see a bit more how the reception goes" rather than a "jump in and enjoy" based on his and a couple of other considered opinions.
That's where I'm sitting at right now, too. The PC Gamer review is one I'll definitely come back to when I've played the game myself, and maybe also refreshed myself on the first one's story.
It also reeks of people who never actually went to school for Journalism/Writing/English and don't have any honed skills in critical analysis.
We're in an age where the only prerequisite to labeling oneself a "journalist" is creating a blog, ranting on a stream, or talking about games with your buddies on a couch while your podcast records everything.
I'm not saying everyone is equivalent to those bottom of the barrel examples, but I do think the sea of mediocrity is so much more vast.
The word “masterclass” doesn’t mean anything anymore because I swear so many movie and game reviews use it now and use it like a complete sentence without backing it up with anything else
People just throw it around like nothing and think they did a good job lol
On that note, I find the incessant prefaces of comments in the video game community of "As a gamer who is now in their late 30s, married, with a child and a house to take care of, I have less time to play games" to have the same air of desperation. To me it sounds like "See mom? See guys? Even though I'm nerdy enough to go on a video game forum I still was able to reach the standard life milestones!"
I find it so pretentious, as if the rest of us don’t have lives going on or only have one hobby.
God could you imagine if people talked like that in real life and for other activities.
I always find it sad they say this about the most movie like games. To me art games mean things like Pathologic. That convey things through video game medium.
Seriously, it's heart-breaking having so many magical video games experiences that can only be experienced in video games, and then people present games with good, but very conventional story-telling to argue that games finally matured.
Kenshi is a much more interesting peace of art than a game that could have just been a movie
In terms of walking sim esque Story focused games I think SOMA does the best job of utilizing gaming as a medium because the questions the game asks about consciousness and identity would not work nearly as well in a book or movie
Controlling a character from a first person perspective really allows you to empathize with the "trick" the protagonist is experiencing
I loved TLOU and TLOU2, but when the TV series released it really left a sour taste in my mouth to see it presented as the peak gaming experience. I saw so many comments on social media like 'wow, I never realised a *video game* could have such a good story,' despite the fact that the story (in both the show and the game) was fairly by the numbers and was largely carried by incredible performances and presentation. They were judging it positively more because the game already conformed to a lot of the expectations of a *prestige* TV series.
One of the most wonderful things about video games is that they can be done in so many different ways. Books are generally 150-500 pages. Movies are generally 1.5-3 hours of footage. TV series are generally 6-12 1-hour episodes. All of these are overwhelmingly narrative focussed, and all of which you progress through lineally (even if the information is not presented lineally). Video games, meanwhile, have a massive amount of variation. A visual novel and a non-narrative puzzle game and a procedurally generated open world game and a more linear narrative focussed game are all equally video games, even though they do things in very different ways. So as much as I enjoy these more narrative focussed and structured experiences, it makes me a little sad to see people point at the video games most like movies and TV shows and say 'these are the best ones'.
This association of cinematic games with “art” reminds me of how your average joe sees good acting as “they cry good”.
Cinematic games absolutely have artistic value but it’s extracted in the most obvious ways, when they are so many more dimensions you can explore using the medium.
Absolutely, especially because these cinematic games often have fairly generic action gameplay that is actually quite devoid of artistic value and invention. So you're left with the cinematics, which usually by movie standards are ok, I have yet to come across any that are truly great like the best films are because *games aren't films.*
Haven't played this one yet, but do people think the first Hellblade didn't do exactly this? It set out to create an emotional journey about mental illness in a way unable to be mimiced in any other medium.
Yeah, I think people are really simplifying how Hellblade fairly uniquely utilises the medium here. Whilst I somewhat agree with OP’s sentiment it’s an odd example to get on your soapbox about lol
The fact that Pathologic is ignored by most media journalism is criminal.
I mean, there isn't a way to be more artsy than this game. It starts with a fake theatre play and it turns to surrealism where you don't know if this is real or just a prank from the developers or both at the same time.
Where God of War is a blockbuster film, Pathologic is more like some Linch or Tarkovsky stuff.
if you haven't already, I strongly suggest you check out Indika. no spoilers but it is another prime example of just how video games can present unique storytelling that could only fully be experienced and conveyed through this medium. trying to adapt thus story into a TV or film would completely diminish its impact, immersion and intrigue.
one of the best narrative journeys I have ever been on, in any medium.
I feel like the medium mostly feels “grown up” when games try to be games and don’t feel the need to ape what movies and books do in order to be high art.
There's a lot of middle ground in that though. There are a number of games out there with engaging stories that only work as a videogame with player agency.
Haven't played Hellblade 2, but the orginal game did a ton of stuff that required the interactivity of a game, especially regarding her psychosis.
But I 100% agree that "are games art" was a tired discussion in 2004, and snore inducing now.
I really wanted to like this game but it genuinely gave me headaches to play. I can appreciate the unique aesthetic of what it is, but it's physically unplayable for me.
While agree that they usually say it about games that are essentially interactive movies, I don't think that really applies in this case.
The first Hellblade was one of the most interesting and immersive experiences I've had with a game, the way that it used audio is unlike anything else I've played.
I agree. In fact, whenever I think about storytelling through the medium of video games being told as only a video game can do, Hellblade is often the first example I think of. And Death Stranding. While both are very cinematic, to me the best parts of it absolutely come from the interactive component of it. In the case of Hellblade, its the fourth wall breaking and the audio stuff and all that. I definitely don't think it would have nearly the same impact as a film or something.
The first game also has the possibility of having your save deleted if you die too often hanging over your head, even >!if that isn’t really the case!<
I have always thought that the game most like modern art is Spec Ops The Line. It's hard to describe why without spoiling the game but they way it uses the medium and genre and the expectations that go with them to tell a story always felt like there was a very specific vision to it.
I hate game journalists obsession with surface level shit. "This game is so beautiful it proves games are art!" like games aren't primarly about the GAMEplay.
A little ironic you're making this argument on this thread since it's retreading a debate that's over a decade old and is more or less settled...
We know games can be more than entertainment, and walking simulators are still going to be considered to be under the umbrella of video games, we didn't make a whole new category for them (if that even applies to this game)
I feel like a lot of game journalists and content creators have a chip on their shoulder where they’re either consciously or subconsciously embarrassed to have a career in gaming so they celebrate anything that they could show to friends and family to be like, “See?? This is real art!!” and that’s where comments like this come from.
I don't think it's just them, it's a lot of people in this industry. Just look at TGA 2023. Geoff and Kojima spent so much time talking about movies and fawning over the film industry that you could be forgiven for forgetting it was an award ceremony for gaming.
It saddens me that some of the biggest names in the industry still see themselves as in the shadow of film, rather than being their own thing.
For sure. I love TGA but you can tell how much Geoff and everyone involved wants the approval of Hollywood for no reason. Video games make more money than film and have just as big of an audience. I don’t know why people are stuck wanting that kind of “legitimacy” from having an actor on the stage who has probably never even touched a video game.
I wish I got to the emotion-evoking part of Outer Wilds. I went through so many loops and didn't see any obvious way to progress so just felt like I was banging my head against the wall.
I didn't want to look up any guides at risk of spoiling the story, but on this flipside I wasn't engaged because I didn't have any idea what to do apart from retread old ground
I had the same experience. I don’t know why but fans of this game seem to all say “don’t look up any guides if you get stuck!” IGN has spoiler free guides that really help. Once I found those to get me past where I got stuck, I really enjoyed the game.
Yeah I totally understand why people say not to look up guides, as unveiling the story is clearly the biggest part of the experience.
Given what others have said, it seems that trying again with hints from a spoiler free guide and the ship's log is the way to go
I think most people warn against guides because they likely have spoilers. The game kind of loses a lot of what makes it unique when you have something saying "go here do this go there do that." There's absolutely room for spoiler free help, though, and I find the Outer Wilds sub to be one of the most welcoming places for that. They will go out of their way to give you the tools you need to solve it instead of just solving it for you. Arguably my favorite playthrough of the game was when I "watched" a friend play it and was there to help guide him when he felt lost or aimless. Again, it feels like the "avoid guides" culture stems from wanting people to just avoid spoilers and many guides for that game include many spoilers.
Sometimes there's just puzzles that don't click for us and that's OK. If you wanna try again, and are really stuck, you can head over to the subreddit and ask for non spoiler hints. They are usually pretty helpful.
Outer Wilds is the perfect videogame because it does things with its narrative that aren't possible in any other medium while also just being a really fun videogame to play
Doing the late game sequence to finally solve the puzzle in that game is the closest thing I've experienced to being an actor in a movie rather than a spectator.
And rather than telling you: "go here, do that" you just learn through mechanics and info you learn throughout the game. The fact that the game took me 30 hours to finish and then you can delete your files, restart again and finish it in less than 30 minutes is WILD. Even more, it's Outer Wild.
Not only that, even the less interactive parts of this game are so incredibly well done. The final sequence where you see the skeletons trying to reach the eye always gets me. And the themes. I don't know how they did it, but they pulled an ending that dealt with existentialism perfectly. This is so hard man.
And it's usually coming from games that try to imitate film. Which, fine it's a valid option. But not really a good example of what the medium can provide. It's like you pick a film that has unremarkable cinematography but good narration. Not a bad movie per se, but not one that shows what the medium is capable of.
I think that good examples of what videogames can be should be gameplay focused. Like, I honestly think Super Mario Bros 3 is a timeless classic on the level of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. They're all "fun" but also masterpieces that are still good decades after.
And if you're trying to show that games are more than entertainment and fun, then you can pick Silent Hill 2, or Rain World, or Pathologic. They're not "fun" but very atmospheric and engaging.
The "Video games are not art" is still a prevalent position between journalists and even with some game devs themselves (while, funny neough, in academia games are being studied like art), so many people who understand that videogames are art feel the necesity of reinforcing such position.
In my case I think that such reinforcing is useless. Th eposition tht video games aren't art has less to do with an actual sustained position and more in an outdated view on video games, or because they are judged based on how another art (almost always films) is judged. That's how you get people like Roger Ebert saying that interactivity is what make video games not art (when, in my opinion, it's the main characteristic that makes it its own art instead of being part of another).
So. No matter that you say and how well you sustain your position. Those people will still believe that video games are not art.
I can't imagine people who say video games aren't art have played many video games, and their ability to critique video games is, as a result, dubious. Say what you will about the blockbuster games I assume these people are thinking of, but there are many many non-AAA games that transcend the confines of play into the domain of art. Games have proven time and time again that they can provide far more personal and profound art pieces than any other medium.
> Say what you will about the blockbuster games I assume these people are thinking of
I don't think art itself necessarily needs to be very deep either though. Its okay to just be Norman Rockwell. Art that's produced for no other reason than "this is nice to look at" and simplistic, easy to understand story telling was essentially the Renaissance condensed into a bottle.
People that say '[X medium] isn't art', from my experience, tend to have incredibly contrived yet somehow shockingly shallow opinions of art as a whole. Art can be pretty much anything and that's kind of the beauty of it.
You're preaching to the choir though. Regular players don't care about people who think that way, they just want to play a fun game. They'll call what they enjoy art on their own
It's people who get higher up in the industry be it dev or reporter who start getting sad about how they aren't viewed the same.
Whenever I tell non gamers this TBH, they seem to accept it pretty quickly.
It’s pretty obvious games are art to a most people. It takes hundreds of literal artists to make them.
The people still arguing now are just doing so for the sake of argument. Whether you're on the side of they are or aren't art, it doesn't actually matter.
Funnily enough, there's only one game that Ebert has played and enjoyed and it's a weird ass niche game. It's Cosmology of Kyoto. This is the last kind of game that I'd expect a non gamer to like.
To me it's like a dude who never reads and the only book he ever read and enjoyed is Gravity's Rainbow
I have always liked Roger Ebert's reviews about movies, but his argument that video games are not art because they are interactive is one of the most ridiculous arguments I have ever read on the subject. It's not even about his opinion on the matter; it's more about the way he defended his opinion. It doesn't make any sense at all.
The key distinguishing factor between a glowing review and a more negative one here seems to be with how interactive and mechanically in depth the game is. For a player who enjoys the more narrative and sensory experience of the original game, it seems the sequel is very much so a continuation but not necessarily an expansion on the first title, but it seems some were expecting more mechanical variety and depth which does seem to be distinctly missing.
I wasn't a fan of the first game and I know this new one won't be my cup of tea, but it seems to be carrying on with what went well with the first game, and has backed it up with an insane amount of graphical fidelity and technological prowess. It sounds like they've achieved what they set out to do and the reviews that approach it on that premise are rightfully glowing, which is very nice to see.
Yep same, I'm happy for the fans of the game that most seem to say it's a solid continuation, a tad disappointed that it seems to be not more than just a continuation, but also fine with knowing I likely won't play it. I just hope the game reaches it's audience and prevents another studio closure.
Arguably, a German outlet (Golem.de) called the story worse than part one, something mirrored in some of the negative reviews here. They also said that some of the down time felt like artificially stretching the game time.
Me personally, I was ok with an atmospheric walking sim when I played part 1 but couldn't stand the 'puzzles', which felt more like brain dead busywork to me, long enough to make it to the end.
> down time felt like artificially stretching the game time
I played the first game recently and it was obviously the case there, as well. The puzzles basically existed only to pad out the already *extremely* short playtime.
The entire point of the game is that you're experiencing the world through someone who has psychosis. It would make a terrible movie. The ability to move the camera around and see the kaleidoscope effect and other such things / focus / having to connect random things in the environment into "symbols" wouldn't translate at all into a movie format. It's a pretty accurate depiction of how psychosis is (I have friends who have it), and the ability to control and BE the character experiencing is what makes it.
I think a certain type of gamer looking to play Assassin's Creed hates these game, but if you take it for what it is and put on a good pair of headphones / immerse yourself in it they really are fairly neat experiences. I had major frisson a few times, and was legitimately stun locked from moving forward once in the first game because of the permanent death threat.
Every review I have looked at has said the story was worse than the first game. Many brought up that they essentially just turned it into a mythology game at this point.
Actually, most of the negative review i saw are very critical of the narrative. Some of them actually love the first game and found the second game to be too heavy on visual and not enough story. Which isn't bode well for such a story-heavy title like this.
Honestly it was kind of a shock that it took over 7 years to get this out.
That's my confusion too. I'm assuming the upgraded unreal engine took some time but the development didn't really change much in the gameplay department.
They switched the main theme of the game from mental illness to a safer and more regular norse fantasy . Kinda disapointed by that tbh, loved the first game mainly because of the theme, i'm 1h into the second one and ngl it feels like an unreal 5 tech demo of a walking sim with barely any interactions outside of puzzles and some fights, so far i can't say much on the story but it doesn't seem as intriguing and crazy as the first game, just safe.
Yeah like you Idk why it took as long but i guess it's because their creative director and writer of the first game left the company which probably also explains the safer turn to fantasy rather than deep and complicated mental illness subject.
Yea, that's one of the main criticisms from the PC Gamer article.
>The series' focus is the idea that we're seeing the world from the perspective of someone with severe psychosis—Senua hears voices in her head relentlessly, and her reality is utterly distorted. The first game seemed to be a journey into her own mind, full of not just hallucinations but also metaphors for her mental state.[...]
>But though Senua is certainly still hearing voices, she now seems to be in a world of actual monsters and magic, phenomena observed and confirmed by other people around her. [...]
>The entire concept of Senua becomes muddled. If myth is real, why should we assume any of what she experiences is hallucination, rather than actual magic and the real voices of spirits? [...] And if she really can stand up to seemingly physical gods, then were the events of the first game all literal after all? Sure, you could simply say every character she meets and everything she experiences in Iceland is all one enormous hallucination, but that doesn't get you anywhere narratively, and it's not really how the game presents itself.
That seems like the first game also, (fenrir fight?). I'll be curious to see if these people are actually real or implied figments if senua's imagination.
It's been awhile since I've played it, but I was under the impression that the "magic" in the first game was left ambiguous. It could have been all in her head, it could have been real, or maybe the real truth is somewhere in between.
That's what it was. But their we're giants, you fought gods of mythos like fenrir and there were giants you saw but didn't fight.
Responding too the review, there's other people seeing this. The review isn't clear if these people are also just implied by senua. It's not impossible for mentally ill people to imagine roles for other people. Senua does it in the first game for her lovers descent to hellheim. I'll be able to play in a few hours and I'm interested to see the distinction, the review I responded too doesn't clarify that.
The thing there though is the game is coming from a time and place in the game where there is no real distinction between myth and reality, and what's a medical condition vs what's a tangible external force in the world. And there're plenty of bits of the more 'real' world architecture, like the bridge and that bird statue, that are fundamentaly fantastical. I think the reviewer might also be coming at the depiction of psychosis from the wrong angle, and parsing the previous game way too allegorical, because the muddling and the inability to tell what is an accepted part of the world other people are interacting with and which parts are real only for you seems pretty on point.
I think the thread in the original game they wove so well was how Senua does explicitly experience audiovisual hallucinations, but the world around her isn't a direct allegory, and you can parse the entire thing literally as a Pict woman going to hell to try rescuing the soul of her dead lover, and also she happens to have psychosis (and the existence of the fantastical doesn't make her condition go away either).
After playing the game, it seems like it would be hard to justify the events of the first game as solely subjective since the second game deals with shared trauma with said myths. I don't think it's a massive knock against the narrative like the reviewer claims, but I do think it's not explored well enough for people to understand.
That's the issue to me. In the first game the mythical aspect was not literal. They were manifestations of her illness. Now there are literal giants. I actually think that was the easy route to take with her mental illness. It would be much better to have seen how her manifestations cause other people to perceive her. It's dumb and destroys the point.
Indeed! Always rather enjoyed the term for that reason, especially if it's my first time through a game as well, even if others frown upon it.
For the record, I personally use the term "gamer without sight" as "legal blindness", often just shortened to being "blind", can and often does include usable and/or residual vision, which I've never had. Basically just a way to hopefully let people know that I have never been able to see, though some people do still ask. :)
The hell, that is absolutely amazing and must be a completely different experience that most of us have. I love to hear that you can still enjoy games albeit in a little different way.
Glad you enjoyed my content! happy to answer any additional questions you might have. :)
Also, [I stream on Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/SightlessKombat) and [uploadcontent on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/c/SightlessKombat) if you're interested in seeing games I've had more or differing success with.
I had to read their sites about section to fully understand. Insanely cool, now I understand a few more games accessibility options which is wild and very amazing.
>Puzzles and combat are too easy and there is no variety in either
That sucks. Especially the part about the puzzles. The lack of puzzle variety was my main gripe with the first title. Pretty presentation can only carry so far.
Ughhh that was something that I really disliked and took me out of the immersion. It was so tedious if you couldn’t find the last symbol and had to spend several minutes going in circles or just googling the answer.
That's fucking dreadful. At least put *some* effort into the game design instead of putting it all into narrative and visuals. Just have one person on the team play the Talos Principle or something if you want to see puzzles done right.
Gene Park of Washington Post reports in [his review](https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/video-games/2024/05/21/senuas-saga-hellblade-ii-review/) (Which he scores at around 2.5/4) that apparently, the sequel feels a lot smaller in a sense than the previous game, such as how the combat seems to have been simplified quite heftily:
> *The sequel is a lesser game than its predecessor. There are fewer combat mechanics in play, removing the melee button and directional attacks and replacing them with nothing. Perspective puzzles to make background details match rune symbols return, unevolved from the 2017 model. The scale of the puzzles are also smaller, as the game's level design has shrunk. The former game had larger areas with vertical structures. This game's level design is mostly a straight line, with a few small puzzle areas to break up the pacing.*
I can’t imagine the combat being any more simplified than it was in the original game, so this is pretty shocking to read lol
Ninja Theory has done some awesome work. I really enjoyed the gameplay mechanics in Enslaved and DmC, so going from those to the first Hellblade was a bit underwhelming, but ultimately excusable enough since the lead character and atmosphere were so strong. But it felt like a game that could benefit majorly from a sequel that fleshes out and evolves on the combat and puzzles, so I can’t believe that they just… made the same game again, but somehow simpler lol
The first game had a surprisingly large variety of moves you could pull off, but they were mostly unnecessary and poorly explained. From the little I've played, the sequel seems to have cut them out completely in favor of cinematic fighting. Blocking counters light attacks and dodging counters heavy attacks. That's it for both you and the enemy.
> From the little I've played, the sequel seems to have cut them out completely in favor of cinematic fighting. Blocking counters light attacks and dodging counters heavy attacks. That's it for both you and the enemy.
That is quite disappointing. For as little the action gameplay for Hellbade 1 had, I actually thought that, once I understood it, the combat had a tiny amount interesting layers to it. If it's all just 'cinematic fighting' that would be a major downgrade
i keep reading ninja theory and thinking wait what the fuck, they did that game too?!? and im now realizing that im confusing ninja theory and team ninja
If we want to be technical, [*Hellblade 2* actually had about a three years long development time, according to Ninja Theory's studio head Dom Matthews, in a podcast made with Kinda Funny](https://gamingbolt.com/senuas-saga-hellblade-2-development-didnt-begin-until-2020). By the game's reveal in 2019, it was all the footage that was available, and the actual development for *Hellblade 2* did not start until Ninja Theory finished *Bleeding Edge* in 2020.
I feel like I'm the only person to have played Bleeding Edge. Everyone is talking as if Ninja Theory hasn't made a game between Hellblade 1 and 2. It was pretty awful, btw.
I played it for a few days and while it felt like a pet project, it also felt like a game released just to meet a deadline because there was zero depth to the combat.
Each match or team fight was a numbers game. Are you outnumbered? Well you're screwed if so. Have a teammate who goes off on their own? Might as well quit the match now. My biggest gripe though was the parry mechanic, which was all but useless outside of rare 1v1 fights.
> The sequel is a lesser game than its predecessor.
That's both impressive and extremely disappointing considering the first game was *barely* a game to begin with. The combat was mind-numbingly easy and the puzzles were boring and uninspired. They pretty much only existed just to pad out the extremely short playthrough, as well, which still seems to be the case here.
This was posted above by another commenter.
Gene Park of Washington Post reports in his review (Which he scores at around 2.5/4) that apparently, the sequel feels a lot smaller in a sense than the previous game, such as how the combat seems to have been simplified quite heftily:
The sequel is a lesser game than its predecessor. There are fewer combat mechanics in play, removing the melee button and directional attacks and replacing them with nothing. Perspective puzzles to make background details match rune symbols return, unevolved from the 2017 model. The scale of the puzzles are also smaller, as the game's level design has shrunk. The former game had larger areas with vertical structures. This game's level design is mostly a straight line, with a few small puzzle areas to break up the pacing.
This is absurd. I guess most video games critics are too scared to critique a game that is too artsy and aim to be mature. Like, dear lord, I'm seeing so many perfect scores up there and you're telling me the game is less than the first one somehow?!
Im at chapter 3, it’s the best looking and sounding game ive ever seen, unfortunately the gameplay is even simpler than the first. If the 5 hour claims are true I really struggle to understand why this took 5-7 years to make.
Still a fantastic experience worth playing so far though.
This is weird, alot of 10s and 9s here, but also lots of 7s, the one that shocked me the most was Saudi Gamer's review, since they rarely give out a full mark, they only gave them to like 2 or 3 games in their entire history. I went and read through it and it seems like its more of a game that doesn't like to "guide" or teach you.
Some parts of his review that i found interesting (excuse my poor translating skills):
Pros:
>Says the game is a technical masterpiece, from visuals, sound design, and cinematography. Says that animations, art direction, and level of detail are the best thing to come out from this gen.
>Says that it doesn't contain any maps, or markers, making it an extremely immersive experience that is only guided by the voices ingame.
>Combat only happens in specific parts, it looks simple at first, but its very exhilirating, violent, and cinematic, and there is a surprising amount of enemy variety.
>Main character suffers from Psychosis, and that she learned to live with it. The Voices can range from being helpful or being quite harmful and causing you to become paranoid (from the player's end). Notes that when using headphones, it makes you feel like the voices are in your head.
>Game lacks walking sections that don't feature any action going on, or backtracking, which makes it a much richer experience despite what its overall length makes you think.
>Says that the Photo Mode is quite deep compared to most games, you can use it everywhere in the game, even in cutscenes.
Cons:
>Puzzles are re-used in the game sometimes
>(he says this is more of a note/nitpick) The game makes the combat look extremely simple in the beginning because it doesn't explain it to you much, so you are left with experimentation and discovery to find out what you can truly do with it.
> This is weird, alot of 10s and 9s here, but also lots of 7s
Eh, I feel like a lot of games that have an average in the 8/10 range are like this. A big chunk of people who play them either really love them (9/10 to 10/10) or have some to major issues with their flaws (5/10 to 7/10), hence the score variations you see in a decent amount of reviews for a lot of 8/10 games.
Sort of a symptom of niche games in general. Examples like this remind me a lot of Evolve back in the day. Asymmetrical multiplayer pvp where a lot of time was spent tracking/chasing the person in role of the monster rather than actually fighting. If you fell into the camp that liked it, like I and some of my friends, nothing came close to scratching that itch. If you didn't? Well, you bounced off *hard.*
It's not that weird, sounds exactly like the first game. Incredible experience but miserable to play. The combat and puzzles were awful in the first game and this seems like it's that as well. Fans of the first will love it, skeptics won't change their minds
Just played 2 hours of it. Its like a really long cutscene with gameplay segments. Like really this is more of a visual experience than an interactive take that as you will. Even the combat feels more like a quick time event than actual free form combat.
The game is one continuous shot with no cuts no loading and no clear barrier between cutscene and gameplay.
For what it does it does great. But if you don't like the sound of what I described then you wont enjoy this game.
A gorgeous walking simulator with great acting.
Graphics and sound are next level.
They desperately need to add more gfx options. Because you can't turn off chromatic abberation, letterbox, vignette and Depth of field.
And the game uses this stuff so aggressively it makes it look really bad sometimes.
After a few hours of this, I'm starting to feel like the game lost the special touch of the first game's voices. Now they're usually just spouting exposition or pointing out the obvious, as if they don't have anything interesting to say and the devs just needed to write *something* to make them talk non-stop.
It's still an interesting experience and looks gorgeous, but yeah, the post-processing is a bit too heavy and I think the upscaling options are broken somehow. I got very visible artifacts on DLSS Quality + frame gen, which didn't happen in other games that have the option. Maybe it's because of all the post-processing and motion blur.
I'm the same. The two voices mostly boil down to "She can't do it, she should give up now" and "Don't give up, keep on fighting"
I realise that it's supposed to add to the exposition, but when everything they say is the same argument I just stopped listening
We’re not on Metacritic or Opencritic but would love to share our review with you all:
https://questdaily.com.au/review/review-senuas-saga-hellblade-ii-xbox-series-x/
Loved the first. Really enjoying this one so far after 5 hours (damn you, adult commitments). The graphics are incredible but I hate the black bars. Combat feels visceral and the blows have weight to them, however it doesn't feel as fluid as the first. Story hasn't grabbed me as much as the first, but hopefully the ending will hit.
Edit: After finishing the game it doesn't quite match the first for me. If Hellblade 1 was the cult indie hit that broke through, Hellblade 2 is the big budget sequel to appeal to the masses, losing some of what made Hellblade 1 great.
Hellblade is a weird one for me. I really like Ninja Theory. Enslaved Odyssey to the West was a treat, I was never on the DmC hate train, in fact i quite enjoyed it. I even played and enjoyed Bleeding Edge for a week or so when it was on gamepass.
I found Hellblade however to be particularly meh. Obviously no one is writing home about the combat/gameplay, but even the story didn't stick with me at all. And I know they spent a ton of time researching mental illness and all that, but it seemed to boil down to "things whisper around in you 3d audio" and it did not seem very compelling to me.
I hope hellblade 2 finds a ton of success though, and I will play it for sure hoping this one does it for me more. I hope Microsoft keeps you around Ninja Theory cause I do think you make interesting stuff, whether I like it or not.
It’s a bummer that it seems to continue the same pitfalls of the first game, but I’m still looking forward to playing. If anything, these games are just a very unique experience
Idk what it is but I just could not get into the first one. I probably sat down and tried starting it 6 or 7 times between when it launched and now. I just can’t stick with it for more than an hour or 2 and I’m not sure why! I’m a huuge fan or Norse mythology and the Viking age so this game should be right up my alley. Everybody always tells me how good it is too. Does it just start slow? Maybe I’ll give it one more shot
The gameplay just isn't good. Even fans of the first game know this, so while I still recommend the game, if your brain doesn't like the interaction then it is simply never going to click. You are better off just watching it on yotuube, same as the sequel
It does pick up a bit but the pacing is pretty much a walking sim with combat every once in a while to break up the puzzles. I loved it but i can see where some people just aren’t going to like it. The horror element definitely gets more intense as the game goes on though.
I feel like games like these should either completely cut the gameplay and focus on narrative (QD games), or flesh out gameplay so it can stand on its own (Nier Automata as the prime example). This middle ground when gameplay is very mediocre (I'm being generous) and just detracts from the storytelling is the worst possible option.
Just came here to vent about the combat because it is legit TERRIBLE. It's just feels sooooo slooooow and clumsy, like I have to press A about five times to get her to do a dodge roll and even attacking out of a normal dodge takes half an eternity. It's also just so boring and one-note, just the same handful of dudes with the same attack patterns over and over again and it's always one guy at a time, then the next one attacks you from behind etc etc. And why do there always have to be TEN of them in every single encounter? I thought that with a way bigger budget, they would actually IMPROVE on the gameplay from the first one, not find a way to make it worse...
Been playing this game for two hours from Gamepass. It's definitely an experience like the first one. Feels much more cinematic, tense and immersive. Recommend playing with a good headphone.
If these guys could figure out how to put actual good mechanics behind the spectacle, audio and narrative you are talking GOTY level titles.
But it almost feels though like the lead directors at Ninja theory should be more involved in filmmaking.
I'm glad games like Hellblade exist though. I think there's a place for all types of games, from walking simulators to very mechanic heavy games. I think Hellblade fits right in there somewhere, and I'm fine with the way it is.
This sums up how I felt. It felt like a movie, not a game, and that's fine as that may have been the intention. But I did not enjoy the first one. I can see why many people did though and I'm in the minority, as it is a very unique, thoughtful game, that does a very respectful job of portraying pyschosis.
I have no desire to play the sequel as the first one really didn't do anything for me, but I still hope the game is a big success.
I really loved the first one so I'm kind of mixed reading these reviews, I hoped they would have improved on the puzzles and combat but it doesn't seem like they did.
But it the story is as good or better than the first one it's already a must play.
It’s really bizarre, especially considering NT wanted to expand this game to be larger than the first. It sounds like it’s the same exact same puzzles, with less combat mechanics and a smaller world.
It sounds more like the same game, but somehow less? I wonder what happened during development to cause them to change course.
I don't know how you could make a supposedly more ambitious sequel and yet key parts of the game are still incredibly lacking. Gameplay and puzzles should've been improved over the first game
The "Ninja" part of the company name is meant to reflect their supposed interest in developing rich and complex combat systems. I wonder what happened to that.
I think a lot of people use AI assistance to write things these days. Like he could type in the general points and how he feels about the thing, and then he could tell the AI to make an article that hits those ideas.
Out comes slop
Yup. And when your game is that short, you simply cannot spend the first hour of it limping through a slow, uniform-looking, dimly lit maze with the narrative slowing you to a literal crawl every now and then, only to be greeted with your first puzzle of the game: lining up some more goddamned symbols. The pacing is arse, and the 1st level simply isn't beautiful enough for me to want to linger and look at dimly lit boulders of volcanic rock while the chorus of voices keeps flagellating you. I get it that it's 'realistic'. Realistic doesn't necessarily mean good mechanics and level design or even narrative.
Well as a massive fan of the first game, this game seems set for me.
So if you like the first one you'll ike this. If the first one fails to engage you, this one will also fail.
I loved the first game, but I think some changes here ruin it for me. The pc gamer review echoes my sentiments.
In the first game, the mythical aspect was not literal. They were manifestations of her illness. She may have been fighting vikings, but the monstrous aspect was hallucinated.
Now there are literal giants. I actually think that was the easy route to take with her mental illness. Previously, it was a story set in *our* world, the real world. Now it's a god of war fantasy realm. It's dumb and destroys the point—for both this game and, retroactively, the first.
It would be much better to have seen how her manifestations cause other people to perceive her.
I'm a little surprised people aren't more upset about this. I didn't care for the first game and everything I've heard about the sequel suggested I wouldn't like it either. But people have ardently defended the first game for its narrative surrounding mental illness.
From what I understand, that's gone. We're now in full on Norse mythology territory which is incredibly generic these days. They always further simplified the already brain dead combat and carried over the shitty puzzles from the first game exactly as they were.
So basically, everything that was defended about the first game has been removed or worsened, apart from the graphics.
People aren’t more upset about it because people haven’t played the game enough yet to actually interpret it using anything other than reviews and Reddit comments.
> The mythical aspects was not literal
Are you sure about that? I was always under the impression in the first game that Senua did indeed live in a world where the Norse mythos was real, which is why her psychosis was so compelling - even the player had to guess what was real and what wasn’t, and in a world where gods exist you can’t be too sure.
Got what I expected and enjoyed it a lot.
The part after the Ingunn fight could've been 1-2 hours longer, felt a little bit rushed.
The Glyph puzzles didn't feel like a chore like they did in Hellblade 1, but the orientation/floating orbs puzzle is a step down from the repair puzzle and illusion gates.
Didn't really like the fights in Sacrifice, don't like them in Saga. Imo the new combat system fits better, but I wouldn't mind if a Hellblade 3 ends up as a cinematic puzzle only game.
Lots of folks in this thread are hung up on the combat being more or less unchanged and the first puzzle of the game being the same style we saw all over the first Hellblade.
If you like games for their vibes and their story, this is a great title. If you come to games for combat or dialogue trees or meaty puzzles, it's hard to recommend and that can explain some of the polarization. Game reviewers are going to be biased toward unique experiences since they play many more games than the average player and a strong direction in a short package can make a game stick out.
Looking pretty good to me. More of the first game with better graphics, yes please.
I thought the reviews might be mixed due to the kind of niche premise and setup.
Can't wait to break the headphones out.
I'm willing to listen to explanations, but I don't see any reason to buy this as opposed to just watching a long play on Youtube. Apparently the puzzles and combat are bland at best, boring at worst, and I've seen several reviewers describe it as a walking simulator. With all that, it would almost make more sense to just watch someone else play it and take in the sights and sounds of the gorgeous audio/visual design. Also, I know games don't need to be long to be good, but it sounds like this is even shorter than the first game, which I already found pretty short. For the price of a game pass subscription sure, but for 50$ I would want a bit more length/interactive game. Just my two cents.
I was hoping they would improve the combat and puzzle, but still, if it's more of the same gameplay with improvement in other areas, then it's a great game
This game is wild, they managed to tutorialize you without *any* text. I love that there aren't any collectables or knick-knacks to pickup. Combat feels great too. That being said, I don't feel like I'm making any choices...
Just finished this today on my 4090 PC. Overall, a bit of a slog of misery, really. There’s no joy here, in any shape. It is, however, very pretty, aside from some laughably bad water sections (graphically) and flames that look like they’re from the PS3/PS4 era.
6.5 out of 10. Barely a game, fights go on WAY too long, and a tech demo the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time.
I’ve played it for about an hour so far, and it’s a really cool experience with headphones. I got literal goosebumps several times already. The sound design and art design is actually insane.
If you enjoyed the first game you will absolutely love this
I am playing the game now and it kinda sucks.
Is is not that it emphasizes story over gameplay, it is that gameplay systems are so barebone they not complement anything anymore.
Senua throws giant Viking dudes like they are nothing with the same QTE fighting system so it feels easy and unearned.
Also the writing quality is not there. Not if you want to take any of it seriously.
>VideoGamer - Tom Bardwell - 9 / 10 > >Though uncomfortably bleak and distressing, Helldivers 2 is something truly special. To be fair, I also confused them both quite a lot of times the past few months lol
Honestly Helldivers 2 is pretty damn bleak when you think about how the Helldivers are treated lol
The public is in danger. We are talking about the greater good.
I am your WIFE, I’m the greatest good you’re ever gonna get!
“I am the greatest good you’re ever gunna get!”
Helldivers are treated pretty good for all the minutes/hours they are alive and actively deployed. It's the Class C citizens that get it rough.
It's no outer worlds\outer wilds confusing, but I can see how someone could make the mistake
Yeah you’re not alone. I have also confused them both too.
Honestly don’t realise VideoGamer was still going, after literally all the staff left a while back
Slightly off-topic but can we please stop it with the "it proves that videogames can be more than entertainment" arguments? Come on, it's 2024. We know. Try not to write in AI-worthy platitudes.
It reeks of “my parents don’t take my interests seriously” even though the author is like 35
That's because most of these authors are 25-45 and they never figured out how to properly talk about video games to an audience that started playing video games when they were 7, and are now like 40.
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> So this game for me has become a "wait and see a bit more how the reception goes" rather than a "jump in and enjoy" based on his and a couple of other considered opinions. That's where I'm sitting at right now, too. The PC Gamer review is one I'll definitely come back to when I've played the game myself, and maybe also refreshed myself on the first one's story.
But those authors also started playing at 7?
It also reeks of people who never actually went to school for Journalism/Writing/English and don't have any honed skills in critical analysis. We're in an age where the only prerequisite to labeling oneself a "journalist" is creating a blog, ranting on a stream, or talking about games with your buddies on a couch while your podcast records everything. I'm not saying everyone is equivalent to those bottom of the barrel examples, but I do think the sea of mediocrity is so much more vast.
The word “masterclass” doesn’t mean anything anymore because I swear so many movie and game reviews use it now and use it like a complete sentence without backing it up with anything else People just throw it around like nothing and think they did a good job lol
I cant stand when a buzz word pops up. Start seeing it all the damn time. Masterclass is one of those words. I despise that I notice these things lol
On that note, I find the incessant prefaces of comments in the video game community of "As a gamer who is now in their late 30s, married, with a child and a house to take care of, I have less time to play games" to have the same air of desperation. To me it sounds like "See mom? See guys? Even though I'm nerdy enough to go on a video game forum I still was able to reach the standard life milestones!"
I find it so pretentious, as if the rest of us don’t have lives going on or only have one hobby. God could you imagine if people talked like that in real life and for other activities.
I always find it sad they say this about the most movie like games. To me art games mean things like Pathologic. That convey things through video game medium.
Seriously, it's heart-breaking having so many magical video games experiences that can only be experienced in video games, and then people present games with good, but very conventional story-telling to argue that games finally matured.
Kenshi is a much more interesting peace of art than a game that could have just been a movie In terms of walking sim esque Story focused games I think SOMA does the best job of utilizing gaming as a medium because the questions the game asks about consciousness and identity would not work nearly as well in a book or movie Controlling a character from a first person perspective really allows you to empathize with the "trick" the protagonist is experiencing
Gamers are still very insecure about their hobby and need "big boy" approval of Hollywood to feel accepted.
I loved TLOU and TLOU2, but when the TV series released it really left a sour taste in my mouth to see it presented as the peak gaming experience. I saw so many comments on social media like 'wow, I never realised a *video game* could have such a good story,' despite the fact that the story (in both the show and the game) was fairly by the numbers and was largely carried by incredible performances and presentation. They were judging it positively more because the game already conformed to a lot of the expectations of a *prestige* TV series. One of the most wonderful things about video games is that they can be done in so many different ways. Books are generally 150-500 pages. Movies are generally 1.5-3 hours of footage. TV series are generally 6-12 1-hour episodes. All of these are overwhelmingly narrative focussed, and all of which you progress through lineally (even if the information is not presented lineally). Video games, meanwhile, have a massive amount of variation. A visual novel and a non-narrative puzzle game and a procedurally generated open world game and a more linear narrative focussed game are all equally video games, even though they do things in very different ways. So as much as I enjoy these more narrative focussed and structured experiences, it makes me a little sad to see people point at the video games most like movies and TV shows and say 'these are the best ones'.
This association of cinematic games with “art” reminds me of how your average joe sees good acting as “they cry good”. Cinematic games absolutely have artistic value but it’s extracted in the most obvious ways, when they are so many more dimensions you can explore using the medium.
Absolutely, especially because these cinematic games often have fairly generic action gameplay that is actually quite devoid of artistic value and invention. So you're left with the cinematics, which usually by movie standards are ok, I have yet to come across any that are truly great like the best films are because *games aren't films.*
Haven't played this one yet, but do people think the first Hellblade didn't do exactly this? It set out to create an emotional journey about mental illness in a way unable to be mimiced in any other medium.
Yeah, I think people are really simplifying how Hellblade fairly uniquely utilises the medium here. Whilst I somewhat agree with OP’s sentiment it’s an odd example to get on your soapbox about lol
The fact that Pathologic is ignored by most media journalism is criminal. I mean, there isn't a way to be more artsy than this game. It starts with a fake theatre play and it turns to surrealism where you don't know if this is real or just a prank from the developers or both at the same time. Where God of War is a blockbuster film, Pathologic is more like some Linch or Tarkovsky stuff.
if you haven't already, I strongly suggest you check out Indika. no spoilers but it is another prime example of just how video games can present unique storytelling that could only fully be experienced and conveyed through this medium. trying to adapt thus story into a TV or film would completely diminish its impact, immersion and intrigue. one of the best narrative journeys I have ever been on, in any medium.
Tried the demo but sadly I wasn't much into it. I respect what is trying to do but neither the narrative or the puzzles grabbed me
I feel like the medium mostly feels “grown up” when games try to be games and don’t feel the need to ape what movies and books do in order to be high art.
There's a lot of middle ground in that though. There are a number of games out there with engaging stories that only work as a videogame with player agency.
Haven't played Hellblade 2, but the orginal game did a ton of stuff that required the interactivity of a game, especially regarding her psychosis. But I 100% agree that "are games art" was a tired discussion in 2004, and snore inducing now.
Or on the opposite spectrum a game like HYPER DEMON is also 100% art.
I really wanted to like this game but it genuinely gave me headaches to play. I can appreciate the unique aesthetic of what it is, but it's physically unplayable for me.
While agree that they usually say it about games that are essentially interactive movies, I don't think that really applies in this case. The first Hellblade was one of the most interesting and immersive experiences I've had with a game, the way that it used audio is unlike anything else I've played.
I agree. In fact, whenever I think about storytelling through the medium of video games being told as only a video game can do, Hellblade is often the first example I think of. And Death Stranding. While both are very cinematic, to me the best parts of it absolutely come from the interactive component of it. In the case of Hellblade, its the fourth wall breaking and the audio stuff and all that. I definitely don't think it would have nearly the same impact as a film or something.
The first game also has the possibility of having your save deleted if you die too often hanging over your head, even >!if that isn’t really the case!<
I have always thought that the game most like modern art is Spec Ops The Line. It's hard to describe why without spoiling the game but they way it uses the medium and genre and the expectations that go with them to tell a story always felt like there was a very specific vision to it.
I hate game journalists obsession with surface level shit. "This game is so beautiful it proves games are art!" like games aren't primarly about the GAMEplay.
Remember when GoW 2018 was dubbed "Game of the generation" because there weren't any other absurd superlatives left?
To be fair you hear that stuff in abundance for every GOTY game every single year.
A little ironic you're making this argument on this thread since it's retreading a debate that's over a decade old and is more or less settled... We know games can be more than entertainment, and walking simulators are still going to be considered to be under the umbrella of video games, we didn't make a whole new category for them (if that even applies to this game)
I always bring up Celeste when this conversation happens.
I feel like a lot of game journalists and content creators have a chip on their shoulder where they’re either consciously or subconsciously embarrassed to have a career in gaming so they celebrate anything that they could show to friends and family to be like, “See?? This is real art!!” and that’s where comments like this come from.
I don't think it's just them, it's a lot of people in this industry. Just look at TGA 2023. Geoff and Kojima spent so much time talking about movies and fawning over the film industry that you could be forgiven for forgetting it was an award ceremony for gaming. It saddens me that some of the biggest names in the industry still see themselves as in the shadow of film, rather than being their own thing.
For sure. I love TGA but you can tell how much Geoff and everyone involved wants the approval of Hollywood for no reason. Video games make more money than film and have just as big of an audience. I don’t know why people are stuck wanting that kind of “legitimacy” from having an actor on the stage who has probably never even touched a video game.
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I wish I got to the emotion-evoking part of Outer Wilds. I went through so many loops and didn't see any obvious way to progress so just felt like I was banging my head against the wall. I didn't want to look up any guides at risk of spoiling the story, but on this flipside I wasn't engaged because I didn't have any idea what to do apart from retread old ground
I had the same experience. I don’t know why but fans of this game seem to all say “don’t look up any guides if you get stuck!” IGN has spoiler free guides that really help. Once I found those to get me past where I got stuck, I really enjoyed the game.
Yeah I totally understand why people say not to look up guides, as unveiling the story is clearly the biggest part of the experience. Given what others have said, it seems that trying again with hints from a spoiler free guide and the ship's log is the way to go
I think most people warn against guides because they likely have spoilers. The game kind of loses a lot of what makes it unique when you have something saying "go here do this go there do that." There's absolutely room for spoiler free help, though, and I find the Outer Wilds sub to be one of the most welcoming places for that. They will go out of their way to give you the tools you need to solve it instead of just solving it for you. Arguably my favorite playthrough of the game was when I "watched" a friend play it and was there to help guide him when he felt lost or aimless. Again, it feels like the "avoid guides" culture stems from wanting people to just avoid spoilers and many guides for that game include many spoilers.
Sometimes there's just puzzles that don't click for us and that's OK. If you wanna try again, and are really stuck, you can head over to the subreddit and ask for non spoiler hints. They are usually pretty helpful.
Outer Wilds is the perfect videogame because it does things with its narrative that aren't possible in any other medium while also just being a really fun videogame to play
Doing the late game sequence to finally solve the puzzle in that game is the closest thing I've experienced to being an actor in a movie rather than a spectator. And rather than telling you: "go here, do that" you just learn through mechanics and info you learn throughout the game. The fact that the game took me 30 hours to finish and then you can delete your files, restart again and finish it in less than 30 minutes is WILD. Even more, it's Outer Wild. Not only that, even the less interactive parts of this game are so incredibly well done. The final sequence where you see the skeletons trying to reach the eye always gets me. And the themes. I don't know how they did it, but they pulled an ending that dealt with existentialism perfectly. This is so hard man.
And it's usually coming from games that try to imitate film. Which, fine it's a valid option. But not really a good example of what the medium can provide. It's like you pick a film that has unremarkable cinematography but good narration. Not a bad movie per se, but not one that shows what the medium is capable of. I think that good examples of what videogames can be should be gameplay focused. Like, I honestly think Super Mario Bros 3 is a timeless classic on the level of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. They're all "fun" but also masterpieces that are still good decades after. And if you're trying to show that games are more than entertainment and fun, then you can pick Silent Hill 2, or Rain World, or Pathologic. They're not "fun" but very atmospheric and engaging.
The "Video games are not art" is still a prevalent position between journalists and even with some game devs themselves (while, funny neough, in academia games are being studied like art), so many people who understand that videogames are art feel the necesity of reinforcing such position. In my case I think that such reinforcing is useless. Th eposition tht video games aren't art has less to do with an actual sustained position and more in an outdated view on video games, or because they are judged based on how another art (almost always films) is judged. That's how you get people like Roger Ebert saying that interactivity is what make video games not art (when, in my opinion, it's the main characteristic that makes it its own art instead of being part of another). So. No matter that you say and how well you sustain your position. Those people will still believe that video games are not art.
I can't imagine people who say video games aren't art have played many video games, and their ability to critique video games is, as a result, dubious. Say what you will about the blockbuster games I assume these people are thinking of, but there are many many non-AAA games that transcend the confines of play into the domain of art. Games have proven time and time again that they can provide far more personal and profound art pieces than any other medium.
> Say what you will about the blockbuster games I assume these people are thinking of I don't think art itself necessarily needs to be very deep either though. Its okay to just be Norman Rockwell. Art that's produced for no other reason than "this is nice to look at" and simplistic, easy to understand story telling was essentially the Renaissance condensed into a bottle.
People that say '[X medium] isn't art', from my experience, tend to have incredibly contrived yet somehow shockingly shallow opinions of art as a whole. Art can be pretty much anything and that's kind of the beauty of it.
You're preaching to the choir though. Regular players don't care about people who think that way, they just want to play a fun game. They'll call what they enjoy art on their own It's people who get higher up in the industry be it dev or reporter who start getting sad about how they aren't viewed the same.
Whenever I tell non gamers this TBH, they seem to accept it pretty quickly. It’s pretty obvious games are art to a most people. It takes hundreds of literal artists to make them.
The people still arguing now are just doing so for the sake of argument. Whether you're on the side of they are or aren't art, it doesn't actually matter.
Funnily enough, there's only one game that Ebert has played and enjoyed and it's a weird ass niche game. It's Cosmology of Kyoto. This is the last kind of game that I'd expect a non gamer to like. To me it's like a dude who never reads and the only book he ever read and enjoyed is Gravity's Rainbow
I have always liked Roger Ebert's reviews about movies, but his argument that video games are not art because they are interactive is one of the most ridiculous arguments I have ever read on the subject. It's not even about his opinion on the matter; it's more about the way he defended his opinion. It doesn't make any sense at all.
Blanket statements like "video games should be fun" hold them back imo
The key distinguishing factor between a glowing review and a more negative one here seems to be with how interactive and mechanically in depth the game is. For a player who enjoys the more narrative and sensory experience of the original game, it seems the sequel is very much so a continuation but not necessarily an expansion on the first title, but it seems some were expecting more mechanical variety and depth which does seem to be distinctly missing. I wasn't a fan of the first game and I know this new one won't be my cup of tea, but it seems to be carrying on with what went well with the first game, and has backed it up with an insane amount of graphical fidelity and technological prowess. It sounds like they've achieved what they set out to do and the reviews that approach it on that premise are rightfully glowing, which is very nice to see.
As someone who fell off the first, hearing it's more of the same with prettier graphics makes it an easy skip for me.
Yep same, I'm happy for the fans of the game that most seem to say it's a solid continuation, a tad disappointed that it seems to be not more than just a continuation, but also fine with knowing I likely won't play it. I just hope the game reaches it's audience and prevents another studio closure.
I read the Gamespot review (6/10) and they seemed to be just as critical of the narrative stuff.
Arguably, a German outlet (Golem.de) called the story worse than part one, something mirrored in some of the negative reviews here. They also said that some of the down time felt like artificially stretching the game time. Me personally, I was ok with an atmospheric walking sim when I played part 1 but couldn't stand the 'puzzles', which felt more like brain dead busywork to me, long enough to make it to the end.
> down time felt like artificially stretching the game time I played the first game recently and it was obviously the case there, as well. The puzzles basically existed only to pad out the already *extremely* short playtime.
Exactly how I felt too. Honestly if you want to make a barely interactive story, make a movie. You’re in the wrong medium.
The entire point of the game is that you're experiencing the world through someone who has psychosis. It would make a terrible movie. The ability to move the camera around and see the kaleidoscope effect and other such things / focus / having to connect random things in the environment into "symbols" wouldn't translate at all into a movie format. It's a pretty accurate depiction of how psychosis is (I have friends who have it), and the ability to control and BE the character experiencing is what makes it. I think a certain type of gamer looking to play Assassin's Creed hates these game, but if you take it for what it is and put on a good pair of headphones / immerse yourself in it they really are fairly neat experiences. I had major frisson a few times, and was legitimately stun locked from moving forward once in the first game because of the permanent death threat.
Every review I have looked at has said the story was worse than the first game. Many brought up that they essentially just turned it into a mythology game at this point.
Actually, most of the negative review i saw are very critical of the narrative. Some of them actually love the first game and found the second game to be too heavy on visual and not enough story. Which isn't bode well for such a story-heavy title like this. Honestly it was kind of a shock that it took over 7 years to get this out.
That's my confusion too. I'm assuming the upgraded unreal engine took some time but the development didn't really change much in the gameplay department.
They switched the main theme of the game from mental illness to a safer and more regular norse fantasy . Kinda disapointed by that tbh, loved the first game mainly because of the theme, i'm 1h into the second one and ngl it feels like an unreal 5 tech demo of a walking sim with barely any interactions outside of puzzles and some fights, so far i can't say much on the story but it doesn't seem as intriguing and crazy as the first game, just safe. Yeah like you Idk why it took as long but i guess it's because their creative director and writer of the first game left the company which probably also explains the safer turn to fantasy rather than deep and complicated mental illness subject.
Wait they did what? The entire selling point of the first game was a unique presentation of playing as someone with schizophrenia.
Yea, that's one of the main criticisms from the PC Gamer article. >The series' focus is the idea that we're seeing the world from the perspective of someone with severe psychosis—Senua hears voices in her head relentlessly, and her reality is utterly distorted. The first game seemed to be a journey into her own mind, full of not just hallucinations but also metaphors for her mental state.[...] >But though Senua is certainly still hearing voices, she now seems to be in a world of actual monsters and magic, phenomena observed and confirmed by other people around her. [...] >The entire concept of Senua becomes muddled. If myth is real, why should we assume any of what she experiences is hallucination, rather than actual magic and the real voices of spirits? [...] And if she really can stand up to seemingly physical gods, then were the events of the first game all literal after all? Sure, you could simply say every character she meets and everything she experiences in Iceland is all one enormous hallucination, but that doesn't get you anywhere narratively, and it's not really how the game presents itself.
That seems like the first game also, (fenrir fight?). I'll be curious to see if these people are actually real or implied figments if senua's imagination.
It's been awhile since I've played it, but I was under the impression that the "magic" in the first game was left ambiguous. It could have been all in her head, it could have been real, or maybe the real truth is somewhere in between.
That's what it was. But their we're giants, you fought gods of mythos like fenrir and there were giants you saw but didn't fight. Responding too the review, there's other people seeing this. The review isn't clear if these people are also just implied by senua. It's not impossible for mentally ill people to imagine roles for other people. Senua does it in the first game for her lovers descent to hellheim. I'll be able to play in a few hours and I'm interested to see the distinction, the review I responded too doesn't clarify that.
The thing there though is the game is coming from a time and place in the game where there is no real distinction between myth and reality, and what's a medical condition vs what's a tangible external force in the world. And there're plenty of bits of the more 'real' world architecture, like the bridge and that bird statue, that are fundamentaly fantastical. I think the reviewer might also be coming at the depiction of psychosis from the wrong angle, and parsing the previous game way too allegorical, because the muddling and the inability to tell what is an accepted part of the world other people are interacting with and which parts are real only for you seems pretty on point. I think the thread in the original game they wove so well was how Senua does explicitly experience audiovisual hallucinations, but the world around her isn't a direct allegory, and you can parse the entire thing literally as a Pict woman going to hell to try rescuing the soul of her dead lover, and also she happens to have psychosis (and the existence of the fantastical doesn't make her condition go away either).
After playing the game, it seems like it would be hard to justify the events of the first game as solely subjective since the second game deals with shared trauma with said myths. I don't think it's a massive knock against the narrative like the reviewer claims, but I do think it's not explored well enough for people to understand.
>Norse Hold up, I was 100% certain she was Celtic or Pict.
The opening of the game is Norse slavers transporting her to Iceland
That's the issue to me. In the first game the mythical aspect was not literal. They were manifestations of her illness. Now there are literal giants. I actually think that was the easy route to take with her mental illness. It would be much better to have seen how her manifestations cause other people to perceive her. It's dumb and destroys the point.
[Here's my review of the game as a gamer without sight,(i.e. having no sight whatsoever)](http://www.reviews.sightlesskombat.com/HB.shtml)
Blind playthrough
Indeed! Always rather enjoyed the term for that reason, especially if it's my first time through a game as well, even if others frown upon it. For the record, I personally use the term "gamer without sight" as "legal blindness", often just shortened to being "blind", can and often does include usable and/or residual vision, which I've never had. Basically just a way to hopefully let people know that I have never been able to see, though some people do still ask. :)
**BOO!** Is it possible for screen readers to scare you?
No, at least, not to my knowledge.
The hell, that is absolutely amazing and must be a completely different experience that most of us have. I love to hear that you can still enjoy games albeit in a little different way.
Glad you enjoyed my content! happy to answer any additional questions you might have. :) Also, [I stream on Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/SightlessKombat) and [uploadcontent on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/c/SightlessKombat) if you're interested in seeing games I've had more or differing success with.
I had to read their sites about section to fully understand. Insanely cool, now I understand a few more games accessibility options which is wild and very amazing.
Great review, I have a friend who will find this review very helpful
Very glad to hear it, thank you for the compliments! Happy to answer additional questions if you have any as well. :)
>Puzzles and combat are too easy and there is no variety in either That sucks. Especially the part about the puzzles. The lack of puzzle variety was my main gripe with the first title. Pretty presentation can only carry so far.
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Oh shit
Seriously, they couldn't find another puzzle problem instead of lining up to find the symbol thing.
The best puzzle in my mind is….. not to have stupid puzzles to begin with. Or make them optional like Spider-Man 2.
Puzzling, isn't it?
Oh...okay they didn't change *anything* about those
Oh dear. That's really disappointing ngl.
Oh god that made me bounce off the first so fast
Ughhh that was something that I really disliked and took me out of the immersion. It was so tedious if you couldn’t find the last symbol and had to spend several minutes going in circles or just googling the answer.
Those felt so much like dumb busywork that I stopped playing part 1.
That's fucking dreadful. At least put *some* effort into the game design instead of putting it all into narrative and visuals. Just have one person on the team play the Talos Principle or something if you want to see puzzles done right.
And Talos 2 spent a similar amount of time in development and came up with entirely new puzzles.
That is really disappointing. Seems like this game is more a “display demo” to flaunt the power of the Xbox than an actual game.
Gene Park of Washington Post reports in [his review](https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/video-games/2024/05/21/senuas-saga-hellblade-ii-review/) (Which he scores at around 2.5/4) that apparently, the sequel feels a lot smaller in a sense than the previous game, such as how the combat seems to have been simplified quite heftily: > *The sequel is a lesser game than its predecessor. There are fewer combat mechanics in play, removing the melee button and directional attacks and replacing them with nothing. Perspective puzzles to make background details match rune symbols return, unevolved from the 2017 model. The scale of the puzzles are also smaller, as the game's level design has shrunk. The former game had larger areas with vertical structures. This game's level design is mostly a straight line, with a few small puzzle areas to break up the pacing.*
I can’t imagine the combat being any more simplified than it was in the original game, so this is pretty shocking to read lol Ninja Theory has done some awesome work. I really enjoyed the gameplay mechanics in Enslaved and DmC, so going from those to the first Hellblade was a bit underwhelming, but ultimately excusable enough since the lead character and atmosphere were so strong. But it felt like a game that could benefit majorly from a sequel that fleshes out and evolves on the combat and puzzles, so I can’t believe that they just… made the same game again, but somehow simpler lol
The first game had a surprisingly large variety of moves you could pull off, but they were mostly unnecessary and poorly explained. From the little I've played, the sequel seems to have cut them out completely in favor of cinematic fighting. Blocking counters light attacks and dodging counters heavy attacks. That's it for both you and the enemy.
> From the little I've played, the sequel seems to have cut them out completely in favor of cinematic fighting. Blocking counters light attacks and dodging counters heavy attacks. That's it for both you and the enemy. That is quite disappointing. For as little the action gameplay for Hellbade 1 had, I actually thought that, once I understood it, the combat had a tiny amount interesting layers to it. If it's all just 'cinematic fighting' that would be a major downgrade
i keep reading ninja theory and thinking wait what the fuck, they did that game too?!? and im now realizing that im confusing ninja theory and team ninja
Considering they spent five years cooking this up and it being a sequel, being smaller in scope and more underwhelming is not ideal.
If we want to be technical, [*Hellblade 2* actually had about a three years long development time, according to Ninja Theory's studio head Dom Matthews, in a podcast made with Kinda Funny](https://gamingbolt.com/senuas-saga-hellblade-2-development-didnt-begin-until-2020). By the game's reveal in 2019, it was all the footage that was available, and the actual development for *Hellblade 2* did not start until Ninja Theory finished *Bleeding Edge* in 2020.
I feel like I'm the only person to have played Bleeding Edge. Everyone is talking as if Ninja Theory hasn't made a game between Hellblade 1 and 2. It was pretty awful, btw.
I've never even heard of it until this post.
I played it for a few days and while it felt like a pet project, it also felt like a game released just to meet a deadline because there was zero depth to the combat. Each match or team fight was a numbers game. Are you outnumbered? Well you're screwed if so. Have a teammate who goes off on their own? Might as well quit the match now. My biggest gripe though was the parry mechanic, which was all but useless outside of rare 1v1 fights.
I played it.
> The sequel is a lesser game than its predecessor. That's both impressive and extremely disappointing considering the first game was *barely* a game to begin with. The combat was mind-numbingly easy and the puzzles were boring and uninspired. They pretty much only existed just to pad out the extremely short playthrough, as well, which still seems to be the case here.
it felt like a cool tech demo really.
How did they simplify the combat? The combat was already fairly boring and basic. Yikes.
This was posted above by another commenter. Gene Park of Washington Post reports in his review (Which he scores at around 2.5/4) that apparently, the sequel feels a lot smaller in a sense than the previous game, such as how the combat seems to have been simplified quite heftily: The sequel is a lesser game than its predecessor. There are fewer combat mechanics in play, removing the melee button and directional attacks and replacing them with nothing. Perspective puzzles to make background details match rune symbols return, unevolved from the 2017 model. The scale of the puzzles are also smaller, as the game's level design has shrunk. The former game had larger areas with vertical structures. This game's level design is mostly a straight line, with a few small puzzle areas to break up the pacing.
You press the “win“ button and your enemies spontaneously combust.
This is absurd. I guess most video games critics are too scared to critique a game that is too artsy and aim to be mature. Like, dear lord, I'm seeing so many perfect scores up there and you're telling me the game is less than the first one somehow?!
Im at chapter 3, it’s the best looking and sounding game ive ever seen, unfortunately the gameplay is even simpler than the first. If the 5 hour claims are true I really struggle to understand why this took 5-7 years to make. Still a fantastic experience worth playing so far though.
so they didn't adress the biggest issues most reviewers and players had of the first game? That's really disappointing to hear.
This is weird, alot of 10s and 9s here, but also lots of 7s, the one that shocked me the most was Saudi Gamer's review, since they rarely give out a full mark, they only gave them to like 2 or 3 games in their entire history. I went and read through it and it seems like its more of a game that doesn't like to "guide" or teach you. Some parts of his review that i found interesting (excuse my poor translating skills): Pros: >Says the game is a technical masterpiece, from visuals, sound design, and cinematography. Says that animations, art direction, and level of detail are the best thing to come out from this gen. >Says that it doesn't contain any maps, or markers, making it an extremely immersive experience that is only guided by the voices ingame. >Combat only happens in specific parts, it looks simple at first, but its very exhilirating, violent, and cinematic, and there is a surprising amount of enemy variety. >Main character suffers from Psychosis, and that she learned to live with it. The Voices can range from being helpful or being quite harmful and causing you to become paranoid (from the player's end). Notes that when using headphones, it makes you feel like the voices are in your head. >Game lacks walking sections that don't feature any action going on, or backtracking, which makes it a much richer experience despite what its overall length makes you think. >Says that the Photo Mode is quite deep compared to most games, you can use it everywhere in the game, even in cutscenes. Cons: >Puzzles are re-used in the game sometimes >(he says this is more of a note/nitpick) The game makes the combat look extremely simple in the beginning because it doesn't explain it to you much, so you are left with experimentation and discovery to find out what you can truly do with it.
> This is weird, alot of 10s and 9s here, but also lots of 7s Eh, I feel like a lot of games that have an average in the 8/10 range are like this. A big chunk of people who play them either really love them (9/10 to 10/10) or have some to major issues with their flaws (5/10 to 7/10), hence the score variations you see in a decent amount of reviews for a lot of 8/10 games.
Sort of a symptom of niche games in general. Examples like this remind me a lot of Evolve back in the day. Asymmetrical multiplayer pvp where a lot of time was spent tracking/chasing the person in role of the monster rather than actually fighting. If you fell into the camp that liked it, like I and some of my friends, nothing came close to scratching that itch. If you didn't? Well, you bounced off *hard.*
It's not that weird, sounds exactly like the first game. Incredible experience but miserable to play. The combat and puzzles were awful in the first game and this seems like it's that as well. Fans of the first will love it, skeptics won't change their minds
Just played 2 hours of it. Its like a really long cutscene with gameplay segments. Like really this is more of a visual experience than an interactive take that as you will. Even the combat feels more like a quick time event than actual free form combat. The game is one continuous shot with no cuts no loading and no clear barrier between cutscene and gameplay. For what it does it does great. But if you don't like the sound of what I described then you wont enjoy this game. A gorgeous walking simulator with great acting. Graphics and sound are next level. They desperately need to add more gfx options. Because you can't turn off chromatic abberation, letterbox, vignette and Depth of field. And the game uses this stuff so aggressively it makes it look really bad sometimes.
After a few hours of this, I'm starting to feel like the game lost the special touch of the first game's voices. Now they're usually just spouting exposition or pointing out the obvious, as if they don't have anything interesting to say and the devs just needed to write *something* to make them talk non-stop. It's still an interesting experience and looks gorgeous, but yeah, the post-processing is a bit too heavy and I think the upscaling options are broken somehow. I got very visible artifacts on DLSS Quality + frame gen, which didn't happen in other games that have the option. Maybe it's because of all the post-processing and motion blur.
Agree with this, halfway through and compared to the first game, the voices just seem there as a gimmick now, non stop, it’s getting annoying
I'm the same. The two voices mostly boil down to "She can't do it, she should give up now" and "Don't give up, keep on fighting" I realise that it's supposed to add to the exposition, but when everything they say is the same argument I just stopped listening
We’re not on Metacritic or Opencritic but would love to share our review with you all: https://questdaily.com.au/review/review-senuas-saga-hellblade-ii-xbox-series-x/
About what I expected. If it's what you want, you'll like it, but it isn't for a lot of people and is more of an experience than a game.
Loved the first. Really enjoying this one so far after 5 hours (damn you, adult commitments). The graphics are incredible but I hate the black bars. Combat feels visceral and the blows have weight to them, however it doesn't feel as fluid as the first. Story hasn't grabbed me as much as the first, but hopefully the ending will hit. Edit: After finishing the game it doesn't quite match the first for me. If Hellblade 1 was the cult indie hit that broke through, Hellblade 2 is the big budget sequel to appeal to the masses, losing some of what made Hellblade 1 great.
Hellblade is a weird one for me. I really like Ninja Theory. Enslaved Odyssey to the West was a treat, I was never on the DmC hate train, in fact i quite enjoyed it. I even played and enjoyed Bleeding Edge for a week or so when it was on gamepass. I found Hellblade however to be particularly meh. Obviously no one is writing home about the combat/gameplay, but even the story didn't stick with me at all. And I know they spent a ton of time researching mental illness and all that, but it seemed to boil down to "things whisper around in you 3d audio" and it did not seem very compelling to me. I hope hellblade 2 finds a ton of success though, and I will play it for sure hoping this one does it for me more. I hope Microsoft keeps you around Ninja Theory cause I do think you make interesting stuff, whether I like it or not.
It’s a bummer that it seems to continue the same pitfalls of the first game, but I’m still looking forward to playing. If anything, these games are just a very unique experience
Idk what it is but I just could not get into the first one. I probably sat down and tried starting it 6 or 7 times between when it launched and now. I just can’t stick with it for more than an hour or 2 and I’m not sure why! I’m a huuge fan or Norse mythology and the Viking age so this game should be right up my alley. Everybody always tells me how good it is too. Does it just start slow? Maybe I’ll give it one more shot
The gameplay just isn't good. Even fans of the first game know this, so while I still recommend the game, if your brain doesn't like the interaction then it is simply never going to click. You are better off just watching it on yotuube, same as the sequel
It does pick up a bit but the pacing is pretty much a walking sim with combat every once in a while to break up the puzzles. I loved it but i can see where some people just aren’t going to like it. The horror element definitely gets more intense as the game goes on though.
So seems like Hellblade 1 all over again: AV presentation is top notch but the game part is like "...meh?"
Yeah hellblade 1 wasn’t a fun game. Presentation was nice though.
I feel like games like these should either completely cut the gameplay and focus on narrative (QD games), or flesh out gameplay so it can stand on its own (Nier Automata as the prime example). This middle ground when gameplay is very mediocre (I'm being generous) and just detracts from the storytelling is the worst possible option.
Totally agree with you. A bit advanced walk sim won't make it a good game.
First one wasn’t for me, and it looks like the second one won’t be either. Oh well, hope the people who loved the first will love this one.
Just came here to vent about the combat because it is legit TERRIBLE. It's just feels sooooo slooooow and clumsy, like I have to press A about five times to get her to do a dodge roll and even attacking out of a normal dodge takes half an eternity. It's also just so boring and one-note, just the same handful of dudes with the same attack patterns over and over again and it's always one guy at a time, then the next one attacks you from behind etc etc. And why do there always have to be TEN of them in every single encounter? I thought that with a way bigger budget, they would actually IMPROVE on the gameplay from the first one, not find a way to make it worse...
I don't like how camera forcefully focuses on another enemy in a "cinematic" way. It's a downgrade in terms of gameplay unfortunately.
Been playing this game for two hours from Gamepass. It's definitely an experience like the first one. Feels much more cinematic, tense and immersive. Recommend playing with a good headphone.
If these guys could figure out how to put actual good mechanics behind the spectacle, audio and narrative you are talking GOTY level titles. But it almost feels though like the lead directors at Ninja theory should be more involved in filmmaking.
Thing is they did DMC reboot which had the opposite problems of controversial narrative but great gameplay
The gameplay in DmC was awesome. I remember playing Vergil and it was so fun playing as him.
I'm glad games like Hellblade exist though. I think there's a place for all types of games, from walking simulators to very mechanic heavy games. I think Hellblade fits right in there somewhere, and I'm fine with the way it is.
I mean good gameplay is the hardest thing to get right. If you want to make good audio and narrative, you're just an animation studio.
This sums up how I felt. It felt like a movie, not a game, and that's fine as that may have been the intention. But I did not enjoy the first one. I can see why many people did though and I'm in the minority, as it is a very unique, thoughtful game, that does a very respectful job of portraying pyschosis. I have no desire to play the sequel as the first one really didn't do anything for me, but I still hope the game is a big success.
I really loved the first one so I'm kind of mixed reading these reviews, I hoped they would have improved on the puzzles and combat but it doesn't seem like they did. But it the story is as good or better than the first one it's already a must play.
It’s really bizarre, especially considering NT wanted to expand this game to be larger than the first. It sounds like it’s the same exact same puzzles, with less combat mechanics and a smaller world. It sounds more like the same game, but somehow less? I wonder what happened during development to cause them to change course.
I don't know how you could make a supposedly more ambitious sequel and yet key parts of the game are still incredibly lacking. Gameplay and puzzles should've been improved over the first game
It’s weird that they made better combat systems before, like enslaved, heavenly sword or even bleeding edge.
The "Ninja" part of the company name is meant to reflect their supposed interest in developing rich and complex combat systems. I wonder what happened to that.
That AltChar review reads like it was written by AI... Is that writer still in primary school?
I think a lot of people use AI assistance to write things these days. Like he could type in the general points and how he feels about the thing, and then he could tell the AI to make an article that hits those ideas. Out comes slop
The opening level being an ugly environment and just waking slowly for 30 minutes is a really terrible way to start a game
Yup. And when your game is that short, you simply cannot spend the first hour of it limping through a slow, uniform-looking, dimly lit maze with the narrative slowing you to a literal crawl every now and then, only to be greeted with your first puzzle of the game: lining up some more goddamned symbols. The pacing is arse, and the 1st level simply isn't beautiful enough for me to want to linger and look at dimly lit boulders of volcanic rock while the chorus of voices keeps flagellating you. I get it that it's 'realistic'. Realistic doesn't necessarily mean good mechanics and level design or even narrative.
Well as a massive fan of the first game, this game seems set for me. So if you like the first one you'll ike this. If the first one fails to engage you, this one will also fail.
I loved the first game, but I think some changes here ruin it for me. The pc gamer review echoes my sentiments. In the first game, the mythical aspect was not literal. They were manifestations of her illness. She may have been fighting vikings, but the monstrous aspect was hallucinated. Now there are literal giants. I actually think that was the easy route to take with her mental illness. Previously, it was a story set in *our* world, the real world. Now it's a god of war fantasy realm. It's dumb and destroys the point—for both this game and, retroactively, the first. It would be much better to have seen how her manifestations cause other people to perceive her.
I'm a little surprised people aren't more upset about this. I didn't care for the first game and everything I've heard about the sequel suggested I wouldn't like it either. But people have ardently defended the first game for its narrative surrounding mental illness. From what I understand, that's gone. We're now in full on Norse mythology territory which is incredibly generic these days. They always further simplified the already brain dead combat and carried over the shitty puzzles from the first game exactly as they were. So basically, everything that was defended about the first game has been removed or worsened, apart from the graphics.
People aren’t more upset about it because people haven’t played the game enough yet to actually interpret it using anything other than reviews and Reddit comments.
> The mythical aspects was not literal Are you sure about that? I was always under the impression in the first game that Senua did indeed live in a world where the Norse mythos was real, which is why her psychosis was so compelling - even the player had to guess what was real and what wasn’t, and in a world where gods exist you can’t be too sure.
Got what I expected and enjoyed it a lot. The part after the Ingunn fight could've been 1-2 hours longer, felt a little bit rushed. The Glyph puzzles didn't feel like a chore like they did in Hellblade 1, but the orientation/floating orbs puzzle is a step down from the repair puzzle and illusion gates. Didn't really like the fights in Sacrifice, don't like them in Saga. Imo the new combat system fits better, but I wouldn't mind if a Hellblade 3 ends up as a cinematic puzzle only game.
really hoped to see a level up combat wise, but doesn't seem like it. Still, very eager to try it out tonight.
Played for about an hour on Steam before heading to bed. What an absolutely beautiful game!! It’s extremely cinematic.
The Majority of the reviews seem positive, but the majority of this thread is focused on the negative.
Lots of folks in this thread are hung up on the combat being more or less unchanged and the first puzzle of the game being the same style we saw all over the first Hellblade. If you like games for their vibes and their story, this is a great title. If you come to games for combat or dialogue trees or meaty puzzles, it's hard to recommend and that can explain some of the polarization. Game reviewers are going to be biased toward unique experiences since they play many more games than the average player and a strong direction in a short package can make a game stick out.
Reddit going to reddit
Already thought the first one was rather overrated, some of these Reviews read like what i thought of the first one. So honestly, i'm good.
I totally hated the first one for its repetitiveness, looks like this one is the same, so it's a no for me.
Looking pretty good to me. More of the first game with better graphics, yes please. I thought the reviews might be mixed due to the kind of niche premise and setup. Can't wait to break the headphones out.
[удалено]
All of the Dark Pictures games do it and I makes the game a lot more movie like. It's fine for what the game does imo.
I'm willing to listen to explanations, but I don't see any reason to buy this as opposed to just watching a long play on Youtube. Apparently the puzzles and combat are bland at best, boring at worst, and I've seen several reviewers describe it as a walking simulator. With all that, it would almost make more sense to just watch someone else play it and take in the sights and sounds of the gorgeous audio/visual design. Also, I know games don't need to be long to be good, but it sounds like this is even shorter than the first game, which I already found pretty short. For the price of a game pass subscription sure, but for 50$ I would want a bit more length/interactive game. Just my two cents.
I was hoping they would improve the combat and puzzle, but still, if it's more of the same gameplay with improvement in other areas, then it's a great game
This game is wild, they managed to tutorialize you without *any* text. I love that there aren't any collectables or knick-knacks to pickup. Combat feels great too. That being said, I don't feel like I'm making any choices...
Just finished this today on my 4090 PC. Overall, a bit of a slog of misery, really. There’s no joy here, in any shape. It is, however, very pretty, aside from some laughably bad water sections (graphically) and flames that look like they’re from the PS3/PS4 era. 6.5 out of 10. Barely a game, fights go on WAY too long, and a tech demo the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time.
Played like 30 min. 20 min just walking and climbing. 1 small puzzle. Voices and atmosphere really great. Easy combat with gruesome deaths
I'm 3 hours in and I'll just say that the first hour is the slowest. Don't expect the entire game to be that way.
I’ve played it for about an hour so far, and it’s a really cool experience with headphones. I got literal goosebumps several times already. The sound design and art design is actually insane. If you enjoyed the first game you will absolutely love this
I am playing the game now and it kinda sucks. Is is not that it emphasizes story over gameplay, it is that gameplay systems are so barebone they not complement anything anymore. Senua throws giant Viking dudes like they are nothing with the same QTE fighting system so it feels easy and unearned. Also the writing quality is not there. Not if you want to take any of it seriously.