^^That is one of the biggest spoilers of this game. If you became aware of it then the purpose of the game fails. Its put there for a reason by the developers.
Anyways completed the game at last.
Honestly I would tell all of you who have not played this game to just play it without reading anything, because saying anything about the plot may act as a spoiler. lets just say it explores the norse mythology in a different manner. In short I would say its like god of war for adults with no over exaggerated character like kratos.
I will not divulge anything from the plot which I feel might murder your interest for this game. Thus there is no need to worry.
The theme of this game is a bit dark because senua our protagonist is ill. She embarks on a mission to reclaim the soul of dillion her lover from hela, who most probably got killed in a war but senua blames herself for this. The rest of the game is about how she enters helheim & confronts hela. On her way she will solve puzzles & fight some other bosses too from the norse tales.
The story of hellblade is told mostly through narrations & flashbacks. Ninja theory's way of presenting this harrowing tale is one of the reasons which kept me interested through out the game. I could never anticipate what will happen next or how the climax will be.
This game has no HUD, no in game notifications and no map. You can see the controls from the menu which are very simple & easy to remember. Instead of these things you hear voices from senua's mind. This is a smart move from the developers. These voices helps you in combat,speaks to you also guides you in some situations. For eg. during combat the camera gets locked you cannot move the camera any way you want. Now if you got surrounded my multiple enemies and someone from your behind is going to attack, you will hear a cry "behind you" indicating its time to dodge right now. Though you are alone but you will never feel lonely due to them.
This game has very less characters but they are not at all forgettable. Druth is someone worth mentioning here. There are many runestones scattered across the map for you to find. They also act as a collectible, I missed one thus couldn't get 100% completion
. Anyways The runestones feature Druth narrating the many Norse legends. The voice acting is remarkable here. In fact voice acting in this game is one of its strongest features.
The animation & character design of this game is fantastic! The enemies in this game really looks frightening (when you encounter them for the first time) with their appearances and the way they fight. The detailing is so much impressive that when we see the close up of senua we can clearly see the despair in her eyes, the anger in her face & sometimes both. Every emotion is shown properly.
The combat is fluid & it looks satisfying too if you can pull some moves together which will make it look like a combo. The music during the battles feels like drums thundering & some tribal men/ warriors are chanting in chorus circling a bonfire as if some ritual is taking place. This makes the situation more tense. Also if she dies too much & the rot (Hela infected her arm with rot, and the tendrils of decay moves up her limb with each death) reaches her head as the game says it will delete all the progress and it will start from the beginning. Though the fights are not that difficult but sometimes you may loose when you are facing multiple opponents of varying difficulties. So what I was doing was whenever I felt like I would loose I would exit the game & start from that checkpoint again.
You can do this too if you face situation like that.
Now the puzzles are a mixed bag. Some are easy & some are tough if you are not paying attention & you may feel like taking external help. One notable level where I found the puzzles difficult was "valravyan's keep". They mostly consists of finding hidden glyphs in the area, fractured walkways which requires a certain viewing angle to get completed & passing through the doors which leads to a different version of the world. They are interesting none the less. However the glyph puzzles at some levels appears far too often which makes it a bit chore.
Visually this game looks beautiful & sometimes gorgeous too. But for pc they should have put a bit more detail on the textures as it looks slightly like a ps4 version as some textures are a bit low resolution. But you won't find it if you are not looking for it. If you see the overall detail then chances are you won't spot it that easily.
Together with the features I have mentioned so far it creates a brilliant atmosphere of deception,confusion,sadness & joy which successfully captivates your interest, since you’re never quite sure what’s real and you will progress further to know the answers.
I can also say this game took the best parts of walking simulator & hack n slash genre & merged them together.Overall its roughly a 10 hour game. Which is good for players like me who don't like unnecessary dragging. I got this game on the release day itself but couldn't complete it due to other pending games. It really worths the price.
Now this is the best ninja theory game that I have ever played. I have played heavenly sword, enslaved & the very badly written, cheesy nonsense DMC reboot too from the same developers & none of them comes near it. With Hellblade it looks like ninja theory got tired of those things & really started thinking...thinking of doing something better.[DOUBLEPOST=1518188394][/DOUBLEPOST]Screenshots (near 4k downsampled)
I was playing the game thinking like that and thanks to you that now I researched a bit &
