Hellblade:Senua's Sacrifice is a story about a woman fighting her way into viking hell to rescue her boyfriend's soul. Our hero is Senua, a wide eyed, incoherent white woman wearing dreadlocks and face paint. She's a viking, though one that was apparently crossed with a hippy from a Burning Man festival.
The first thing you notice about Senua is that it looks gorgeous. The landscape is this barren, stormy landscape, covered in corpses, shipwrecks, and ramshackle idols to pagan gods. Senua herself is exquisitely crafted, even if she is sometimes looks at odds with the real life actor footage they splice into the game's cutscenes. Before long I was spending more time setting up screenshots than I was actually playing the game. The second thing you notice is that this game is horrible for anyone else not playing it. Senua suffers with a severe paranoid psychosis, and at nearly any given time there are voices whispering in her ears. It's an effective feature and a boon for ASMR fans, but it is also incredibly annoying for anyone else in the same room as you, trying to concentrate on something other than the game. Senua helpfully recommends the player wear earphones.
Gameplaywise, Senua divides itself between hack and slash combat and perspective based puzzle solving. The former is chunky and violent, but gets very repetitive by the end, as you fight the same few spongy enemies every 15 minutes or so. Better still is the puzzle solving, in which you have to search for specific spots on the landscape to find hidden rune shapes. Why you have to do this is at all is anyone's guess. Both features feel like they exist to give you "gamey" things to do, plopped into a game who's story feels much more in the vein of a "Walking Simulator". If they had stripped the gameplay out, or at least reduced these bits by two thirds, I'd have finished Senua in an afternoon, but because neither gameplay feature is particularly robust or fun, I ended up dipping in and out, taking months to finish what is a relatively short game.
If the gameplay doesn't make it feel like a slog, the story itself tries its best to. Senua spends the entire game suffering horribly, crying, screaming, and being yelled at by insane gods. It's quite a heavy experience, and not at all suited to anyone looking to unwind or relax. You need to be in the right frame of mind to take on this daunting subject matter, which only encouraged me to play it even less. Which is a shame because at its heart, Senua is an arresting idea that broaches the subject matter of mental health in a way that feels far more authentic and earnest than the attempts made by many other games. I give it a recommendation, but one in the full knowledge that there is a good chance most people will, quite reasonably, not like it.
The Antisocial Game
Hellblade:Senua's Sacrifice is a story about a woman fighting her way into viking hell to rescue her boyfriend's soul. Our hero is Senua, a wide eyed, incoherent white woman wearing dreadlocks and face paint. She's a viking, though one that was apparently crossed with a hippy from a Burning Man festival.
The first thing you notice about Senua is that it looks gorgeous. The landscape is this barren, stormy landscape, covered in corpses, shipwrecks, and ramshackle idols to pagan gods. Senua herself is exquisitely crafted, even if she is sometimes looks at odds with the real life actor footage they splice into the game's cutscenes. Before long I was spending more time setting up screenshots than I was actually playing the game. The second thing you notice is that this game is horrible for anyone else not playing it. Senua suffers with a severe paranoid psychosis, and at nearly any given time there are voices whispering in her ears. It's an effective feature and a boon for ASMR fans, but it is also incredibly annoying for anyone else in the same room as you, trying to concentrate on something other than the game. Senua helpfully recommends the player wear earphones.
Gameplaywise, Senua divides itself between hack and slash combat and perspective based puzzle solving. The former is chunky and violent, but gets very repetitive by the end, as you fight the same few spongy enemies every 15 minutes or so. Better still is the puzzle solving, in which you have to search for specific spots on the landscape to find hidden rune shapes. Why you have to do this is at all is anyone's guess. Both features feel like they exist to give you "gamey" things to do, plopped into a game who's story feels much more in the vein of a "Walking Simulator". If they had stripped the gameplay out, or at least reduced these bits by two thirds, I'd have finished Senua in an afternoon, but because neither gameplay feature is particularly robust or fun, I ended up dipping in and out, taking months to finish what is a relatively short game.
If the gameplay doesn't make it feel like a slog, the story itself tries its best to. Senua spends the entire game suffering horribly, crying, screaming, and being yelled at by insane gods. It's quite a heavy experience, and not at all suited to anyone looking to unwind or relax. You need to be in the right frame of mind to take on this daunting subject matter, which only encouraged me to play it even less. Which is a shame because at its heart, Senua is an arresting idea that broaches the subject matter of mental health in a way that feels far more authentic and earnest than the attempts made by many other games. I give it a recommendation, but one in the full knowledge that there is a good chance most people will, quite reasonably, not like it.