Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (2017)

Stunning visuals. Brilliant, detailed, wonderfully realized main character. Thoughtful, very calculated, intentional depiction of a difficult subject matter. The story is enough to tie everything together, but nothing more. The environmental/visual puzzles are simple, yet fun; nothing too challenging.

The fighting is similarly simple but effective, and the fighting controls feel tight and intuitive enough that you get better as the game goes on. The things you fight along the way get pretty repetitive and -- aside from the boss fights -- the developers really only up the difficulty by throwing bigger and bigger groups of the same enemies at you. You can die only a certain number of times (I'm not sure how many) before the darkness permanently swallows you; this is effective at making some of the gameplay even more terrifying as you try to puzzle out how to get past a certain tricky area without dying.

They did a good job mixing up new elements and making the various trials in the game darker, scarier, and more difficult as the game went on. So the challenges/trials presented by the game always felt fresh, with the exception of the visual rune/light-based puzzles, but I never tired of these as they were a often nice break from some of the darker, more challenging areas and the fighting. And they really do ramp up the terrifying, dark scenery and difficulty as the game goes on; I spent the first half of the game actually enjoying things, while the second half rarely had moments that I would describe as "enjoyable," though I would say they were rewarding and worth the experience.

Overall, just incredibly well done. Hats off to Ninja Theory as they really put a lot of love into this one.

I had such a wonderful time playing this game even though it was dark and felt heavy throughout. But that’s what made the experience of playing this game memorable. The whispers in your headphones, the haunting imagery, all fantastic ! Gameplay is lacking in terms of depth but it’s more about the journey here and its underlying message. One of my recent favorites and there’s scenes in this game I’ll never forget.

I had started Hellblade almost a month ago and today I finally made it to the credits. The game itself is not that long, but at the first half of it I just couldn't play more than an hour in a row. Voices in your head, grim atmosphere, eery story — I felt physically tired in a short time. This is probably the first game that made such an impact on me.

I didn't get any "fun" out of this game. It was uncomfortable to play, sometimes it was even scary, but still I can't deny the greatness of Hellblade. Once again, Ninja Theory created such an outstanding story (check Heavenly Sword and Enslaved), that made me feel a wide spectre of emotions and most of them I didn't expect to get from a videogame. Also, kudos to devs for bringing mental illness subject.

This game is unforgettable experience and I recommend everyone to try it. Probably, you won't enjoy it, but you'll remember it. I've seen this line in bmo's review and I couldn't say better:

Hellblade is one of the few games that I loved yet never wish to play it again.

Little note about fighting system. Some people wrote that it is primitive, but I'm disagree. Every fight was challenging (difficulty was on "auto") and I replayed them A LOT. I felt a wave of relief every time I managed to win a fight.

An amazing experience that is more than just a game.

Senua's Sacrifice is amazing. And the first 2 hours of playthrough were really magical. It's been a while since I felt so anxious while playing a game. Constantly checking behind my back, walking instead of running and taking the environment in. This game just oozes with atmosphere.

After a while you kind of learn the language of the game and the initial amazement fades a little bit. But even so the game is great and would really recommend experiencing it to anyone.

Mechanically this is a third person exploration game with some puzzles, action, and fighting elements. A lot of times it feels like a waking simulator and I would still love the game if that were so.

The game tells a story of Senua a Celtic warrior on a quest to Hel to retrieve the soul of her loved one. She travels through nordic mythological world trying to reach Hela.

But what the game is really about is psychosis. It tries to emulate what this mental disease is. Throughout the game you constantly hear voices whispering in your ear. The visuals shift and you're never sure what's real and what is not. This is such an amazing experience and its really worth watching the attached documentary after finishing the game.

The visuals are really nice. From the great main character sometimes bordering on the uncanny valley to breathtaking views the game is gorgeous. Sure after a while you can see that it is rather linear but its really well crafted.

The walking simulator part is quite nice. The voice acting is good and the story is interesting.

The puzzles are not too taxing and felt just a little bit repetitive at times. It's a mixed bag here and I'm glad it wasn't the man focus of the game.

Similar goes for fighting. While the monster design is great and the enemies feel scary and towering over you the fighting itself took a while to get used to. At first I was really taken aback with it but came around eventually and ended up liking it more than not.

Overall this was a great ride from start to finish and I highly recommend it.

Gameplay: 3.5/5 Story: 3.5/5 Presentation: 4/5

Basis:

Story= plot progression, intrigue, characters, world

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

Beautifully well put together, but the action and definitely the puzzle-solving started to feel redundant. The action as smooth as it was felt frustratingly out of your control. Certain perfect counters just lead you to get hit, but aside from that minor detail, the combat was solid. Where this game was strongest was in its ability to present a surreal depiction of the Norse version of hell. There were so many psychologically disturbing things as well as some visual that mess with you through the game. Great ending too, though it is left open.

LIT ON THE SPOT - REVIEW

Based on Norse mythology, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is pure psychological horror disguised as dark fantasy. Its suffocating atmosphere is the consequence of dealing with themes such as depression, agony and death, while diving into the mind of a character whose mental illnesses infuse the game with hopelessness and despair. It feels so claustrophobic because it doesn’t observe these issues at a safe distance, but inside the very same mind where these feelings thrive.

In the story, Senua is traveling to the “land of mist and fog. The place the Northmen call Hel” to get back the soul of her dead boyfriend, Dillion. Like in the myth of Baldr, here the goddess Hela holds a soul so precious that one would do anything to retrieve it. But what Hela wants from Senua is not something universal, like she did with Baldr, but something deeply personal. Senua’s objective is to go deeper and deeper into her own psyche – and because it is one harmed by illness, the journey becomes excruciatingly dark. It’s plainly stated several times during the game: “The hardest battles are fought in the mind.”

One of the things to first stand out in Hellblade is its art direction. As Senua slowly rows the log she’s using for vessel to land in Hel, she starts to see impaled bodies, hanged bodies, burned bodies, all kinds of bodies. It becomes immediately clear that the place where she’s going is about suffering and death. It’s about darkness and hopelessness. The very proposition of her mission exemplifies how futile it is: “She wants to rescue him. He’s already dead.”

Senua is far from being a straightforward protagonist. She suffers from some unspecified mental illnesses that make her listen to voices in her head, have visions and reinterpret the world around her to worst suit her notion of self, connecting her struggles to people who suffer from schizophrenia, depression and even anxiety. The game opens by describing a “darkness” that towers over Senua. A darkness that never leaves, that “builds onto itself”, and that it’s only a bad day away from claiming her life. This darkness is not something that she can get used to, since her good days only reinforce how awful the bad ones can be. It’s a menace that is forever there, a shadow over the person, just waiting for its chance to take the reins again. Senua’s voices warn her: “You might try to ignore it, turn away, but it’s always there just out of sight, where you are most vulnerable. It’s like it knows that just enough light… is all you need to see its suffocating power.”

The game’s main mechanic is an ingenious one because it acknowledges that what mental illness damage so much is one’s capacity of perception. To navigate the land of Hel, Senua must try to find meaning amidst the chaos, seeing specific patterns in the shape of trees or in the way parts of buildings overlap when observed in a certain angle. Senua can only proceed when she can shift and control her perception of reality. There are moments that you must look between certain objects and portals so that a bridge that was not there suddenly is now. When everything seems lost, paths may open if Senua has someone or something to guide her gaze. In other words, Senua must use the same thing that is so deeply corrupted to fight the thing that is corrupting it. In Hellblade, perception is the stage of a fierce battle between Senua and her darkness, with her mind as the prize.

Thus, the world of Hel depicted here is all about illusions. The monsters she kills seem to fade away like they never existed. Sometimes Senua activates the memories of fires in villages she never visited – or maybe did, and those are her memories, making everything more terrifying – where she must pass through carbonized bodies and hear endless screams, while the voices in her head keep saying that all of that is herfault and that she should run as fast as she can, tapping into her guilt and fear.

There is a brilliant sequence of pure horror when Senua gets trapped inside a dark monochrome place. She can barely see anything ahead of her, and so must follow sound cues and Dillion’s voice to find the exit. But soon she must go inside a building where a disfigured blobbed monster lurks, one that she can barely distinguish moving in the darkness. And if she sees it, it sees her and she’s dead. The sound design is terrific – headphones are not recommended, they are required – and you can hear the floor creaking with Senua’s every step and the chains nervously rackling when you stumble on them. And when you think she’s finally safe, you suddenly see her half underwater near a bunch of the same creatures, whose shapes can now be confused with the fleshless bodies that are hanging from the ceiling.

It’s no wonder that Senua is going through these lengths to save Dillion’s soul: as this scene proves, he often saved hers from her personal hell. While her father despised her, deeming her cursed, unfit and broken – feeding her illness – Dillion was there to help her, guiding her through the darkness. He is literally depicted as a beacon of light at several moments, which is a masterful touch, if not subtle.

One of the game’s main discussions is on the issue of suffering, asking whether it has a purpose or if it’s just plain old pain. On the one hand, someone – especially a Christian – could argue that suffering is a way to wash away ones’s sins, a form of penance, and a path to heaven. The word “sacrifice” is on the very title of the game: Senua believes that her suffering will achieve something; she thinks that by giving herself away she’ll get Dillion back. On the other hand, though, there is the possibility that is all for naught. As Senua’s spectral guide, Druth, tells her: “The Northmen made fire sacrifices, burning slaves like me, to reveal the path to Surtr. I searched for meaning in their suffering, in their eyes, but they just screamed like helpless pigs.” For Druth, is not that suffering doesn’t mean anything. Actually, for him suffering takes so much from a person that it makes it simply stop being human, leaving only the animal: there is no higher meaning to it, no conscience anymore, only screams. There is no need for language when there is only pain.

This leads us to the game’s main theme: death. It’s true that Senua goes through several narrative arcs. After all, she must deal with the constant voices inside her head – will she fight or accept them? –; with the narrative that she’s worthless – will she treat it as a narrative or as fact? –; and even deal with past trauma – will she be able to hide from it forever or have to relieve it once again? But her main task still remains the same: to retrieve her dead boyfriend’s soul.

But, as Druth constantly points out with his tales of Norse mythology, death is inevitable. That is why what you’re supposed to do during the first and last battle in the game is the very same thing. Druth explains that even the Gods themselves can’t escape Ragnarok: “There is nothing they can do to prevent it, but Odin ever seeks knowledge and magic, hoping, hoping to find a way to postpone the dark day.”

Besides that, there is a bigger problem that lies on the fact that Senua’s ultimate goal and the objective of her darkness are the one and the same. Her illness entices her to take her own life whilst she wants to offer it to the Norse embodiment of Death as a sacrifice to save Dillion. Her experiences on the failure of perception then begin to make more sense as Senua starts to realize that what she wants and what she perceives may not be what she really wants and what she’s really there. Mental illness can deform one’s notion of reality and Hellblade exemplifies this in the most suffocating way possible.

Senua’s wants to defy death by bringing her beloved back to life. But as she goes through her personal hell, she eventually begins to discover that to defy death is not to revert it – even the Gods couldn’t when they tried with Baldr – but to keep living. For Death is ultimately personal: you can only deal with yours. That is why her journey in the game is so tailor-made to tap into her fears and uncertainties. That is why Hela looks precisely like another character in the game. As she goes deeper into Helheim, Senua is going deeper into her own soul. The voices may say that what she is doing what she is doing for Dillion, but in the end is Senua herself who comes out changed.

The game’s presentation is also brilliant and even on the Switch the art direction shines, especially the moments of great spectacle, like the setting of a grotesque river of blood, while the binaural sound is put to great use to represent Senua’s voices surrounding her, whispering, shouting and laughing all at the same time. The music during the more important battles, with its guttural voices, hampers the excitement of the fights, while lighting is used to create an epic mood.

The battle system is a simple one, but combat is far from being the focus of the game. You have the usual light and heavy attacks, the ability to parry and dodge, and finally a move to use against shielded enemies. What makes the fights interesting is the paradoxal use of Senua’s voices: sometimes they help you, warning from where a blow is coming from, but often they only add noise to the battles, making everything sound too chaotic, and so reinforcing the suffocating atmosphere. That is why the gauntlet of enemies in the aforementioned river of blood has the potential to make any player breathless – and not in the good Keanu Reeves way.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a brilliant horror game and easily one of the best games of this generation. It has no fear of dealing with difficult subjects in a gruesome, but honest way, while developing one of gaming’s most memorable and tragic female protagonists.

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You really need to play this game yourself to understand how great it is, no description or review is going to do it justice. Even if you watch a let's play on YouTube, you'd still be missing out.

I could talk about all the aspects of mental health issues that it explores that I have never experienced in any other form of media, but will never be able to truly describe how visceral and impactful it is in the game.

I could talk about how the audio makes you feel like you're going insane, that someone is standing right behind you, whispering or screaming crazy-making nonsense into your ear, telling you to get up and fight or give up and die, but that won't help you hear it.

I could explain how the sudden or gradual shifts in the visuals help bring the protagonist's state of mind to life, that you will understand her deepest fears or greatest triumphs by experiencing the world around her, but that doesn't help you see it.

I could try to describe how the combat system can be both utterly frustrating and extremely satisfying in the span of 30 seconds, but that won't make you slam your fist into your leg as you get knocked down for the third time in a row, only to stagger up to parry a blow and finally destroy your foe with an exuberant wail.

I could talk about how the endless puzzles throughout are a metaphor for understanding a different perspective, that it takes time and effort and the occasional backtracking to truly understand something this complex, but that won't make you sigh in frustration as you walk in circles looking for the right angle, or the tiny, nearly imperceptible hint you missed.

I don't think this is a perfect game, it has its flaws. It can be frustrating, confusing, and monotonous. There are glitches in the design throughout. I had trouble interacting with objects at times and had to restart after the game froze right before a cut scene.

To expect perfection is to expect disappointment. This is not a perfect game, but it is a powerful game. It is a beautiful game that can only be understood by playing it, but even then, you still might not get it. I don't expect everyone to enjoy this game as much as I did, but I do recommend at least giving it a try.