Senua's Slugfest: Hellbruh II
Man, this was such a let down for me that it's almost hard to put into words. Senua's Sacrifice back in 2017 was one of the neater gaming experiences I've had in recent years, a fantastic dive into the Celtic mythos coupled with a passionate tale of the general scorn and abandonment that those who suffer from mental illness have suffered for a heartbreaking amount of time. Even though it was largely basic in terms of gameplay, I felt like there was enough agency in movement and originality in the story to keep me going. Overall I gave it a four out of five stars, because the scant gameplay couldn't bog down what the message of the game set out to offer.
Senua's Saga however took the concept of the first game and somehow turned it into a numbing tech demo with a runtime almost insulting for the price its offered at. I played this on Game Pass, but saw it was lifted as $50 on retail websites, and even then it's not worth it. It feels like 75% of the gameplay loop of Hellblade II is walking through fantastically designed, yet unfortunately monotonous environments, at snail speed as voices speak into your character's ears. Trot, trot, trot you do with very little in the way of worldbuilding or interesting conversation with your party members. A story is there but its told in such a jolted and lazy fashion that I couldn't be bothered to piece things together. The other quarter of the game is boiled down to brainless puzzles that revolve around pushing the trigger buttons to open up pathways, and then combat that is so incredibly one note and boring that you could very realistically fall asleep while playing. Dodge, attack, dodge attack... ooh an npc runs into the enemy you're fighting and stabs them, but is killed by a NEW enemy... no way? Rinse and repeat that a million times until completion. Everything is boiled down to the same recycled one on one fight, sometimes the enemy has a different appearance, but every single one plays the exact same. I like to believe this was better in the 2017 title but man, I don't have the heart to know.
Hellblade II is a lazy glorified tech demo. It's beautiful and the cutscenes are something special, but you are missing absolutely nothing by skipping this game. For a game that was paraded as a flagship title for Xbox in the current generation, Senua's Saga is quite telling of Microsoft's gaming offering. Starfield, Senua's Saga, Halo Infinite... all have been so impressively garbage that they're being lapped by everyone else when it comes to putting out compelling video games. I'm not sad, I'm just incredibly disappointed. If you want good games in the creepy linear walking sim genre, just play the Plague Tale titles, at least those have something going for them.
Man, this was such a let down for me that it's almost hard to put into words. Senua's Sacrifice back in 2017 was one of the neater gaming experiences I've had in recent years, a fantastic dive into the Celtic mythos coupled with a passionate tale of the general scorn and abandonment that those who suffer from mental illness have suffered for a heartbreaking amount of time. Even though it was largely basic in terms of gameplay, I felt like there was enough agency in movement and originality in the story to keep me going. Overall I gave it a four out of five stars, because the scant gameplay couldn't bog down what the message of the game set out to offer.
Senua's Saga however took the concept of the first game and somehow turned it into a numbing tech demo with a runtime almost insulting for the price its offered at. I played this on Game Pass, but saw it was lifted as $50 on retail websites, and even then it's not worth it. It feels like 75% of the gameplay loop of Hellblade II is walking through fantastically designed, yet unfortunately monotonous environments, at snail speed as voices speak into your character's ears. Trot, trot, trot you do with very little in the way of worldbuilding or interesting conversation with your party members. A story is there but its told in such a jolted and lazy fashion that I couldn't be bothered to piece things together. The other quarter of the game is boiled down to brainless puzzles that revolve around pushing the trigger buttons to open up pathways, and then combat that is so incredibly one note and boring that you could very realistically fall asleep while playing. Dodge, attack, dodge attack... ooh an npc runs into the enemy you're fighting and stabs them, but is killed by a NEW enemy... no way? Rinse and repeat that a million times until completion. Everything is boiled down to the same recycled one on one fight, sometimes the enemy has a different appearance, but every single one plays the exact same. I like to believe this was better in the 2017 title but man, I don't have the heart to know.
Hellblade II is a lazy glorified tech demo. It's beautiful and the cutscenes are something special, but you are missing absolutely nothing by skipping this game. For a game that was paraded as a flagship title for Xbox in the current generation, Senua's Saga is quite telling of Microsoft's gaming offering. Starfield, Senua's Saga, Halo Infinite... all have been so impressively garbage that they're being lapped by everyone else when it comes to putting out compelling video games. I'm not sad, I'm just incredibly disappointed. If you want good games in the creepy linear walking sim genre, just play the Plague Tale titles, at least those have something going for them.