I could update after every play session to give you a good overview. Thing is…this game can be completed under 6-8 hours. Even shorter after the first time you played through it. So with that out of the way let’s start writing…
It is made by Ninja Theory. They have made some games like the latest Devil May Cry and Enslaved: Oddysey to the West. With that in mind it was clear what to expect. DMC was the only game in their stable that had great combat in comparison with their other games. Enslaved was more a story driven game with amazing environmental set pieces with clunky combat. To the point of infuriatingly frustrating on harder then normal difficulties. That sets a nice and realistic amount of expectation for Hellblade. I didn’t expect anything fancy and for 30 euro’s it was a safe pre-order for me.
Hellblade delivered exactly what I expected. You might see this as a “walking sim” early on in the game. There are rune stones in the world that tell the tales of norse mythology so that Senua understands the realm she has entered. For she has entered HellHeim the realm of the dead to find someone that was important to her. Throughout the story she also constantly hears voices. Some give advice, some warn you, some tell you how you suck at everything. This fits nicely with the fact that this game tries to tell a story of someone with mental issues. At the start this is portrait well, but later on it starts to fall a bit flat.
To open certain gates/areas you need to unlock the passage first. You do this by finding the runes that lock the passage. These runes however are not just drawn on a wall or something easy. No you have to look through your environment. From some perspective tree branches overlap to form the shape of the rune you need. When climbing on a rooftop you look down and see fallen burning leaves forming a rune. This makes it more like a Hidden Object adventure at times. And man do I hate those with a passion. Luckily in this game it isn’t as bad although it might take some time for players to figure out how the hints/mechanics work that show you where to look for the rune. Otherwise you’d end up running around the entire area for no good reason. When entering the required area the rune can be found relatively easy. For one I found a vertical wooden pole and just had to move around it too find the rest of the rune hidden in the environment in order to line it up.
Combat isn’t all that special either. There are no real heavy combo actions. You have a melee, soft sword, hard sword, evade, block, run button. With block you can easily parry and follow up with strikes to counter. You can run at an opponent and do a kick. There is some depth to it however. Since there is no UI to speak of in this game it is important to use the audio cues. One of the voices in your head will scream “behind you”. Which is the trigger to evade for something that is coming at you offscreen. Opponents, and you, show bloody wounds as a sign of battle progress. Bosses also use extra techniques that make them invulnerable to your attacks. At that time you need to use the Focus button. When doing so you will reveal their true nature and be able to keep attacking them. Its like looking at them through your 3rd/spiritual eye basically. Opponents eventually do require you to use minor tactics, but overall the attacks are telegraphed well so I can’t imagine anyone dying too often even on “hard”.
Which brings me to the last mechanic in relation to failure state. This is a game you can finish in 6-8 hours for the first run. Once you know how to do the runes it can be done a lot faster. From narrative point of view the character has mental issues and this also seems to manifest physically in the form of “rot”. Every time you fail or die the rot spreads to your head and you die. Upon that death the entire game will be reset and you have to start from the beginning again. No checkpoint or save game can be used to resume where you were. There might be people opposed to this, say its outdated, but really… This is a narrative based game with minimally challenging combat. Dying during a trail of the gods will get you killed faster then the actual battles. So you might be walking a lot early on, but during those trials…RUN!! if you’re not fast enough you can suffocate or die in other horrible ways.
The PC version isn’t well optimized it seems. It requires a range of 40 - 75% of my cpu and fps goes from anywhere in between 35-80. My setup is an I5 cpu running 3.9ghz, RX480 8gb, 16gb ram with ingame everything set to High instead of Very High.
Totally agree with Jim’s review for once 