Over the last few weeks, I’ve been spending some time catching up on my backlog of games and one I finally finished up was Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
This game weaves a beautiful story together in a dark visual novel that highlights it’s main characters’ journey into a land called Northmen. You play a Celtic warrior named Senua who is on a mission to the mythological Norse land of the dead called Helheim. This game is loaded with mythological lore, historical fiction, and non-fiction that helps bring this story to life in a very dark but beautiful way.
This Norse based story is extremely impressive but the story isn’t the only thing that immerses you into this dark world as the designers brought together an impressive sensory mechanics system for the game as well. During the start of the game, you are given a prompt to play with headphones so you get the full effect of the simulated three dimensional sound environment. Once you throw those headphones on you will be immersed into a mass sound of voices that haunt Senua who constantly talk to her and brings a very creepy aspect to the game.
These voices Senua hears are a crucial part of the story, and also gameplay throughout as they can help with advice, and also such things as arguing with her, tear her down, and pick her up at just the right time. This mix of voices, paired with the soundtrack and visual story brings an experience that is worth every minute put into the game. Hellblade is also a visually gorgeous game full of darkness, strange lights, and mixed muted colors that fill the world. All aspects of what the creators did tell a beautiful story that truly brings a chill to the bones while playing. One way the developers immersed you further into the story was the mix of audio and visual distortion that brings a frightening effect of psychosis and hallucination that Senua is dealing with throughout the story.
Most of Hellblade seems to revolve around Senua’s senses in the environments and landscapes she is searching through. You as the player will have to search throughout the different areas and figure out multiple different puzzles in the game. These puzzles all have meaning within the game which takes on new layers of depth and opens up the world around you. A lot of these puzzle moments once figured out can be very rewarding as they open up things like hidden paths and because they are all reinforced by the overall story.
Combat was also a way that brought a lot of interaction with the world and things Senua was a part of. Hellblades combat was a great experience as well giving you multiple ways to interact with the world around you that paired beautifully with the story and progression system. I only encountered a few fights where I felt overwhelmed and unable to handle the battle but that was near the end of the story where enemy numbers and difficulty seemed to spike.
This game was beautifully done and the attention to detail that was placed within the atmosphere, storytelling, and mechanics made for a great experience. Playing as Senua and living out the insanity that was filled in her mind was a different take on a game of this style. All in all the six or so hour playthrough it took was well worth the time spent seeing what the developers created. Even though this game came out a couple years ago it’s still well worth a play if you have never experienced it yet.
Have you ever been in your car at a complete stop but thought you were moving, freaking out and smashing the break just to realize you really weren’t moving at all…? Well, that’s how this episode played out for me cause I thought we had some momentum built up and the story was really moving, and building to quite a climactic story plot…..then BAM you realize this episode is almost at a standstill in the story, or at least a creeping crawl in first gear.
This episode of the game is anything but graceful about it’s approach to the people in Clementine’s life as they seem to exist solely so their departure can hurt her. The loss of people has been a large focus of season 2 and this episode is no different other than how Clementine begins to process those big hits. She as a young girl really is put through some awful and terrifying situations, but those moments seem to define her from the decisions she “You” get to make for her.
Characters vanish in this episode so rapidly and unexpectedly that it steals some spotlight away from the emotional connection this game brings with it’s characters. Some of the characters exits are cheap and unfulfilling, while others are unjustified, forced and forgotten very quickly. Worse, some of those departed characters are replaced by new villains who come out of nowhere with no introduction.
Season 2 has been a large building block for the story and seems to be something much larger for Clementine, but it fizzles here by the end of Episode 4. Large stories by this time like the political battle between feuding sides seems to vanish, and Clementine begins to feel much smaller in the grand scheme of things, despite the grand large she is having to overcome. Meanwhile, although The Walking Dead: Season 2 has been building to something bigger for Clementine, it fizzles here by the end of Episode 4, the complex political drama that’s been brewing between feuding sides all but evaporates. Bickering elders don’t seem to weigh on Clementine as much as the grim things she has to do on her own. She’s starting to feel small, despite the big things she’s doing. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing yet.
A Hobbits Journey 