Senua’s Sacrifice was one of the most unique video game experiences for me a few years ago when I played it, and I expected the same or even more from its sequel. All in all, I wasn’t disappointed, far from it, but you must keep in mind that this is indeed more like a narrative experience with a few gameplay elements rather than a video game in its classic sense. Of course, if you played the first installment you know what to expect, and if you didn’t, well, even then I think you should give this one a try.

Why? First of all, the graphics are crazy beautiful. I’m not exaggerating, believe me, this one’s a visual stunner. Everything’s so detailed and lifelike, the environments, the people, the weather… Honestly, I can’t even find the right words, it’s jaw-dropping. Last time I met such amazing visuals was in Alan Wake II, but I think Senua’s Saga surpasses even that. And I played the console version! Just imagining how the PC version on a high-end machine could look like gives me goosebumps… Trust me, you need to see this, even if you don’t like these kinds of games. It’s a real shame you can’t remove the letterboxing due to the game’s aspect ratio, and you have to watch everything with those stupid black bars… Well, unless you have an ultrawide monitor or you tinker with the settings in the PC version.

The same could be said for the audio. For the full experience headphones are strongly recommended, that way you can really immerse yourself in Senua’s world, giving you a realistic impression of the 3D space and all the voices the protagonist hears (just like in the first game). I loved the story, too, especially because we have more human characters now, all with their own personalities, fears and motivations. Of course, the main focus is still on Senua and her psychosis, insecurities and self-discovery, shifting between the real world and the manifestations of her inner struggles. I’d say the plot is even darker, heavier and gorier than last time, only recommended for mature gamers.

Unfortunately, not much has changed gameplay-wise. It’s mostly just walking around, with some collectibles and an occasional battle or puzzle here or there, but none of them are too difficult. As a matter of fact, I felt like they were simplified a lot, or at least I had more trouble with them in Sacrifice, maybe it’s just me. There's not much replay value, either, unless you want to hear the whole story with a different narrator. Based on this, some might even call this a walking simulator or an interactive movie, and they wouldn’t be wrong.

Still, I don’t mind that at all. This is a short, narrative experience that can be finished in one sitting, but even with the lack of gameplay elements this is one of those titles that stay with you forever, if you ask me.

Was Ninja Theory hier mit Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II geschaffen hat, ist etwas ganz Besonderes, das weit über die Grenzen typischer Videospiele hinausblickt und zeigt, was in diesem Medium möglich ist. Wie auch schon im ersten Teil werden hier Themen bearbeitet, deren Ebenen man beim ersten Spielen vermutlich nie alle verstehen kann und das in einer Qualität, die ihresgleichen sucht. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice war damals eine ganz besondere Erfahrung, an die ich bis heute zurückdenke. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II reiht sich da nahtlos ein und schafft es dabei noch diverse Aspekte des ersten Teils zu verbessern und zu optimieren.

Tecnicamente perfeito, acredito que seja o mais próximo possível de uma experiência "cinematográfica" dentro de um jogo. A ambientação é digna de aplausos, o design de som como esperado após o primeiro game da franquia, é de dispensar comentários. Em relação ao seu antecessor, tirando o fator "lúdico", a gameplay não mudou tanto, acredito que ficou mais dinâmica, tanto no combate quanto nos puzzles.
O ponto principal é que o jogo manteve a sua essência, de um foco completo na narrativa, fazendo com que a mesma seja algo simplesmente incrível, Hellblade não é apenas um jogo, mas também é uma experiência única e completamente imersiva. Recomendo bastante

A jaw-dropping game with a nice story and some underwhelming gameplay and puzzles.

Let's start with the most obvious thing: this game looks insanely good! One of the most, if not the most realistic-looking game ever.

The combat is unfortunately extremely similar to the first game's and some puzzles too, I was disappointed by that. There's also less combat here than in the first game iirc, but it seemed like there was more walking and cutscenes here.
At first, it bothered me, I wanted more gameplay elements. But I realized that a combat focused game isn't what they're going for and then I started enjoying it more. I still would've liked an improved combat system but we got some incredible animations so I guess it was a fair trade.
Animation wise it's also really, really good, from the combat sequences to the more calm ones where you're just looking around, everything is incredibly well animated. The music is also amazing! Gives a lot of atmosphere and tension to the world.

The story is okay. I didn't get very attached to most characters aside from Senua, the game isn't very long and you spend quite a bit of it alone so yeah. There was also a very predictable plot point that I saw coming from a mile away. The ending is pretty good! I think it's a good ending for the franchise.

I'm very interested in what's next for Ninja Theory!

Recentemente deixei aqui a minha análise de Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, um jogo que me surpreendeu imensamente pela positiva. Confesso que não esperava que a sequela conseguisse superar o que o seu antecessor fez, mas estava enganado - Senua’s Saga prendeu-me ainda mais ao ecrã e conseguiu marcar-me ainda mais profundamente.
Antes de mais, há que falar do elefante na sala - o jogo é, de facto, muito focado em partes cinematográficas, e penso que esse aspeto é o que mais está a dividir os jogadores, com alguns a desejar “mais jogabilidade e menos cutscenes”.

Percebo totalmente quem tem essa opinião, mas a mim, sinceramente, não é algo que me afete muito e até acho que encaixa bem na nova aventura de Senua. A guerreira celta regressa com uma narrativa incrível que nos leva novamente para a confusão da sua mente. Toda a história é extremamente cativante, repleta de momentos memoráveis e suportada por quebra-cabeças que, apesar de menos complicados do que os do seu antecessor, não deixam de ser bastante dinâmicos.

O recurso ao áudio binaural e a ambientação, cheia de cenários que possuem tanto de belo como de sombrio, provocam uma mistura de sentimentos ao longo de toda a aventura.

O combate é bastante semelhante ao do primeiro jogo, mas parece ligeiramente mais scripted, o que vai ao encontro do tal aspeto mais cinematográfico de que falei inicialmente, mas gostei do que foi feito.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 é uma experiência que entendo que não seja para todos os tipos de jogadores, mas eu, pessoalmente, diverti-me imenso a jogá-lo e estou curioso para ver o que o futuro reserva para a série.

Creo que lo primero que hay que hacer a la hora de hablar de un videojuego es describirlo por lo que es y no por lo que nos gustaría que fuese. Hellblade II es un videojuego muy divisivo por esto mismo y lo veo completamente normal. Es un título que muchísimas personas esperaron durante siete largos años desde su primera parte, por esto creo que muchos esperaban más, mucho más. Sin embargo, Hellblade es Hellblade y no es un juego de aventuras, ni un Hack and Slash... Es un videojuego narrativo y está hecho por y para ser justo eso, para despertar sensaciones a través de su apartado audiovisual y que empatices con sus personajes. Y en esto, creo que no le podemos pedir absolutamente nada más. Quizás te gustase más la historia del primero que era más íntima y personal o puede que te gustase más esta que sabe ser mucho más épica, pero lo que es una obviedad, es que técnicamente es lo más bestia que hemos visto nunca. Jugablemente, sabe ser más variado en sus puzzles y tiene un combate que aunque sea igual de sencillo que su primera parte, trasmite mejores sensaciones.

Senua con esta entrega se ha consagrado como uno de los personajes más redondos y complejos que he tenido el placer de conocer, gracias a la actuación de Melina Juergens que me parece la mejor interpretación que se ha visto nunca en el mundo del videojuego. La suma de todas las partes que componen Hellblade II hace que, por lo menos para mí, sea una experiencia casi inolvidable

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‎|| ‎Historia:‎★★★★✩ | Jugabilidad:★★★✩✩ | Gráficos:★★★★★ | Sonido:★★★★★ || IMPRESCINDIBLE
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Foi a melhor experiência com gráficos de ps1 à 10 fps que eu já tive!
O jogo é absurdamente lindo mas a minha gtx 1650 não aguentou tanta beleza, independente, eu continuei porque amei o primeiro jogo e esse tem uma história tão linda quanto. O tom dos dois jogos são bem diferentes e abordam a Senua de forma bem diferente.
As lutas contra chefes tem a mesma mecânica, mas são tão lindas e cinematográficas que você até percebe estar fazendo a mesma coisa mas nem liga de tão absurdo que é, a diferença nos cenários é algo que ajuda a esse sentimento.
Os puzzles são bem parecidos com o do primeiro jogo, só que piorados, eles colocam a forma que você deve fazer tão destacada no cenário que perde um pouco a graça, mas os puzzles das tochas e bolhas, são bem interessantes e esses eu gostei muito.
O combate é praticamente igual o do primeiro mas com a exclusão dos golpes corpo a corpo e de lutas com mais de um adversário, não chega a ser um problema (no meu caso foi muito bom).
é um jogo maravilhoso com uma história perfeita, ótimos personagens e enredo cativante, joguei ele inteiro no dia do lançamento (hoje, 21/05/2024) e em nenhum momento me senti entediado, mesmo com ele rodando igual a Superman 64.
ele ser um jogo mais curto foi algo que me agradou, ele tem o tamanho perfeito para sua narrativa, quero jogar a história com os outros narradores e ele ser mais curto é algo que me animou ainda mais de fazer isso.
Falei muito sobre o primeiro jogo mas durante minha gameplay senti que não é necessário jogar o primeiro para poder jogar esse, o resumo no começo já explica muito bem o contexto, mas se puderem joguem o primeiro antes para conhecerem a Senua da melhor forma.
Na minha opinião o primeiro jogo ainda é melhor, mas esse segundo não fica muito para trás. Vale muito a pena jogar, especialmente se você tiver o gamepass, mas 229 reais nele é um preço "justo", é absurdamente caro, mas vendo que os preços de lançamentos hoje em dia, acaba sendo "barato".

...Well this is awkward. This was such a shoo-in for GOTY for me. It had all the right pieces laid out and a whole bunch of incredible aspects that it seemed like it had in the bag. But.. there is something kind of missing with this game and I think I've finally nailed down what it is.

Obviously, though, let's start with the good. This may appear shorter considering it's an 8/10, but that's because the good things this game has are self-explanatory, even if you haven't played the first. Why yes, this is one of the best-looking games of all time. Why yes, it does have industry-leading sound design and performance capture. Why yes, the story is super intense and emotional and Senua remains one of the best lead characters in video game history. Of course, the soundtrack is really good. A good majority of this game is obviously excellent.

There are even some less obvious things that I honestly like more compared to the average person. For one, I kinda like the fact that it's only around 5-6 hours? For $50? Sure I can understand not thinking it's super worth it. But I honestly like shorter more concise games that don't have that much fluff in it (we'll get to that later). Additionally, the biggest criticism I've seen for the game is its combat. And while I do have some small disappointments for it later, I overall really like it. I like the weightier, more cinematic combat. It makes every sword swing feel deep and heavy in a super satisfying way. I also love the decision to make it only one-on-one fights now as it avoids a problem with the original where sometimes the camera lock-on would be finicky and you'd get stabbed by a random ass guy from offscreen while you're fighting someone else. Here, it's one-on-one with interactions between other enemies being kept to mid-combat events that add a sense of tension to it. These fights are also pretty challenging, especially near the end. There are also a handful of "boss battles", I guess, and these are super cinematic and memorably intense as well.

Overall, this seems like a slam dunk for me. It's the original Hellblade, but bigger, more tense, and with all of the original's strengths turned up to 11. But.. there are 3 things that sort of even it out to where I think I like this game about as much as the original.

First of all, while the combat is excellent, the exploration and puzzles I didn't find all that engaging. I'm not asking for stuff on the level of Viewfinder or Animal Well, but something at least on the level of Inside or Journey, where they're simple but still engaging. This game's puzzles are mostly similar to the ones from the first game which I was getting rather tired of by the time the end of that game rolled around, so I wasn't thrilled that they're back here. They do have torch-lighting puzzles and one particular moment stood out as being kind of interesting, but overall, the adventuring side of the gameplay isn't super strong IMO. Weirdly enough, this is a problem I had with the first hellblade too, I just wish it had been addressed a bit more.

Secondly, while the narrative, overall, remains very strong, I didn't really connect super strongly to most of the new characters introduced for this game. They mostly served as a way to show Senua's growth by having her interact with someone outside of the psychosis voices in her head. And while they do it well, they don't have enough screen time to be all that memorable, and I already forgot the names of some of these characters hours after finishing the game.

And lastly, and this is not something to knock against the game but it's just a personal disappointment, I felt like the game played it a bit.. safe compared to the first game. I was super interested to see what bold new themes it could tackle or how its already-known new themes would translate into gameplay sequences and mechanics similar to the first, but there isn't really much here. It feels like just Senua's Sacrifice but bigger and more, rather than something that could stand alongside its original on its own gameplay-wise. Again, this isn't inherently a bad thing, but considering we were waiting 7 years for this game I do wonder how it will be reflected on. I really hope that Ninja Theory's next game (which apparently was greenlit already) is NOT a new Hellblade game. It's super obviously clear that Ninja Theory is an intensely passionate studio with a whole lot of talent behind it, but I think that we've seen and heard about all we needed to from this story.

Am I glad that we got Hellblade 2? Absolutely. This series is better with this game than without it.

But, if I knew what this game was, would I have asked for a Hellblade 2? I'm not sure.