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.

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‎| ‎Historia:‎★★★★✩ | Jugabilidad:★★✩✩✩ | Gráficos:★★★★★ | Sonido:★★★★★ | RECOMENDADO
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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.

This was actually the last mainline DKC game I played. My first was returns, as I said in my DKC1 review. I played 1 and 3 shortly after that and I played Tropical Freeze the day it released. I didn't play 2 until years later in 2018 where an Instagram account I was following was selling a CIB copy for $35. That sounded like a good deal back then, and considering it's almost $90 now it's even better now, so I bought it off them. I really enjoyed my time with it, but it wasn't until replaying it in 2022, where I truly saw it as a masterpiece. Do I still think that now? Look at my score to find out (that means yes).

Let's start with the gameplay changes. The thing you'll notice when you first start the game is you don't play as Donkey Kong anymore. You still play as Diddy Kong but replacing Donkey is newcomer Dixie Kong. The main plot this time is King K Rool is back, he has kidnapped Donkey Kong and you must team-up as Diddy and Dixie to defeat him and save DK. Pretty simple but it works. Anyways, Diddy plays pretty much the same but Dixie is a bit different. Her main gameplay change is the fact that she can glide by using her hair. This is incredibly helpful with certain segments throughout the game and because of this plus being more fun to control, I definitely prefer this duo over the first game's. I still think Diddy feels better to play as since he's still faster here and has a better roll (Dixie's roll sucks if you're trying to roll jump off a cliff) so he was my go to Kong when I had both but Dixie is still very fun to play as here due to her glide. This game did add another new big mechanic that plays a part in a bunch of levels. By pressing the A button, if you have both Kongs, you can perform a Team Up. This basically lets you throw the kong upwards in whatever direction you want, and it lets you get up to high places you normally couldn't get to or collect items up high. It's nice and quick to pull off and just adds that much more depth to the levels.

The levels themselves are better than ever here. The level design is improved, with each level feeling pretty distinct from each other. One moment you'll be riding air balloons over a pit of lava and the next you'll be racing enemies in a haunted amusement park. Levels have gimmicks but they never feel intrusive or annoying to me. The level themes are also way more interesting this time. The mains setting here is pirates and that first world makes great use of it. You had levels where you run on top of a ship, levels where you are swimming inside the ship itself and then levels where you're climbing up the top of a pirate ship. That's all the first world, and even tho it's all pirate themed, they all feel distinct. Besides that, you have typical lava stages tho they're visually appealing in this game, you have these beehive stages where honey stops you dead in your tracks, you have bayou stages..just all the level themes in this game are so much more unique compared to the 1st game. Honestly, the backgrounds used in these levels are better than the 1st game's as well, they made them really clean looking this time around.

As for the collectables, you still collect bananas..and KONG letters. Animal Friend tokens are gone which is nice because they could kinda be annoying at times. Instead of finding a bunch of random bonus rooms to 100% the game, this time you must collect Kremkoins and DK coins. Kremkoins are all found in bonus barrels, or sometimes secret walls. These both lead to the bonus area, which instead of being all lax and random like in DKC1, you have to play a bonus game whether it's collecting all the stars or defeating every enemy or just getting to the coin itself. This is more unified than how it was in DKC1 and I prefer it this way. The DK coins are always only in levels once, and they're usually just in the stages and not in the bonus rooms. Anyways, collecting every Kremcoin and every DK coin, and completing every level, gets you 102% in this game. I much prefer this over the bonus rooms in DKC1. They are much easier to find without a guide, tho I still had to look up some but that's better than almost all of them like in DKC1, and it's better for it.

Animal buddies are back and you have some returning ones plus some new ones. Winky and Expresso are gone but Rambi, Enguarde and Squawks are back. Rambi and Enguarde are exactly the same except they have a charge move you can perform to go super fast and kill any enemies in your path or to open up secret bonus rooms. You can now ride with Squawks and shoot nuts out of his mouth at enemies, so he's changed drastically. There's a new animal buddy called Quawks who is only used in one level and is purple, cannot fly upwards (only glide down) and cannot shoot nuts. He's not worth getting into since it's just a downgrade of Squawks, but the other two animal buddies are. Rattly the rattlesnake, is basically Winky but better. He can jump high, jump on normally dangerous enemies like Winky but you can also charge him up to perform a super jump. The other new animal buddy, Squitter the Spider is awesome and is my favorite buddy in the series. You cannot jump on enemies as him but you can shoot projectile webs out of his mouth and if you press the A button, you can shoot a different type of web and if you press A again..you can create a web platform to jump on. They use this a good amount in some of the stages and this mechanic just makes him super fun and interesting to use. Along with all this, there are also these animal buddy barrels that let you transform into just the animal buddy.

The bosses in this game are also a big improvement from 1. Gone are very easy bosses that feel like a big version of a normal enemy. Every boss in this game feels distinct (besides the zinger fight tho his fight was pretty fun) and aren't piss easy and also aren't super quick. They feel like actual bosses, with the K Rool fight being a standout. Definitely my favorite fight in the trilogy. While not too difficult, he's still really fun.

If you had gotten 15 Kremcoins per world, you could pay them to this fella named Klubba. Once you do, you can access a level from the Lost World, a secret super hard bonus world. These are definitely some of the hardest levels in the game, tho I must brag and say it only took me two tries to beat Animal Antics this time around. Going back to the difficulty, yeah this game can be quite tough. It's not like bullshit hard, just the levels themselves can have some very tough portions and honestly, I welcome it. I still died a bunch in this game but I think the difficulty curve is very nice. It doesn't start off hard at all, it gradually start's getting pretty tough by world 4.

The OST is a big upgrade from the first game I think and is honestly amazing. Some of my favorites were Mining Melancholy, In A Snow-Bound Land, LockJaw's Saga,Hot Head Bop, and Forest Interlude. That is not even mentioning the absolute fucking goated song that is Stickerbush Symphony which is honestly a top 5 song for me from any video game ever. It's that amazing and I've loved it before I even played this game. This is a top tier OST I think and may be the best SNES soundtrack of all time.

If I had any little nitpick about this game, it's the fact you have to use banana coins to save and move to other worlds freely. I forgot to mention this in the collectables section, but you also collect bananas throughout the stages, they're plentiful, but after saving once or using Funky's Flights in a world, you must pay each Kong coins to do either action again. Because coins are super easy to get, this wasn't an issue for me but if you reset the game, you lose all your coins (and lives) so I can see where it would be an annoying mechanic to some people.

This is peak Donkey Kong Country imo. Everything from 1 was perfected in this game and then some, and it easily has the best soundtrack in the entire series, which does play a big part in me loving this game. I have more nostalgia for Super Mario World but I cannot deny the fact that this is the better platformer on the Super Nintendo. Because of this, I do think this is the best SNES game I've played period. It's just a masterpiece through and through. Do yourself a favor and play it!

I'm going to get back to the Kirby marathon now but I do plan on replaying DKC3 in the near future so stay tuned for that whenever I decide to play it!