Something I've found annoying about Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is that it's not overly obvious when you can safely quit the game without losing progress.
There has been several times when I've exited the game when I think I've passed a major milestone and when I've loaded back in, I've found myself further back than I thought I would be.
There isn't a way to manually save it, so it's especially frustrating when you have to do a major boss fight again!
The combat system in Hellblade can be so frustrating. The way you can only focus on one enemy at a time, and it's even worse when enemies spawn behind you already have multiple in front.
I’ve finished it! Overall I really enjoyed the storyline, but the gameplay was a little frustrating and restrictive. Clearly designed to make it difficult but still enjoyable for the most part.
Good Morning ☕️🍳☀️ Monday is over with!🎉 Definitely worth celebrating 🙂
Hope everyone had a great weekend as well. Missed out yesterday. Work has been really busy lately.
Started playing a game last night and caught me off guard! It’s been out a while but just never caught my eye! Can’t wait to play more of it #HellbladeSenuasSacrifice Have you tried it? I guess it’s fairly short 5-6 hours. #Gaming#XboxGamePass#XboxShare#VideoGames
I'm not one for "New Year's resolutions", but I am one for overly ambitious projects.
For 2023, Project365 is "One New Game Per Day".
Given that I have 634 unplayed games in my Steam account and {mumble} unredeemed bundle Steam keys, there's a reason my unplayed collection is tagged "Pile of Shame".
I'll pin this to my profile, and give a brief summary here each day (or x, if I miss x days due to work or stuff).
I'll play 15-30 minutes of (at least) one new game I've never played before (or played less than 15 minutes of). I'll give every game at least 15 minutes, even if I hate every minute of it.
I'm also open to suggestions; if you reply to this thread with a game, I'll schedule it, or tell you what I thought of it.
One of the things that's come up is that I have a bunch of games that I've played once, and not touched again.
August 29, 2023 - Day 241 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 261
Game: Hellblade: Senu'a Sacrifice
Platform: Steam
Release Date: Aug 8, 2017
Library Date: Jun 29, 2019
Unplayed: 1522d (4y2m)
Playtime: 31m
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a third-person action-adventure game, in which you play as Senua, a Viking-era Pict warrior, on a mission to enter Helheim, and save the soul of her dead lover.
The game opens with a mental health warning that it features representations of psychosis, with good reason.
Senua is experiencing psychosis, and hears voices.
I immediately found this challenging. I have lived with mental health issues for all of my adult life. While I have not experienced psychosis, I felt... a familiarity... with the game's expression of psychosis.
The game opens with Senua in a canoe paddling into a horrifying gorge in which bodies are floating in the water, and are impaled on stakes along the riverside, as the narrator speaks of Senua in the third person.
Senua is paddling into Helheim.
This tableau, however, is not an expression of Senua's psychosis.
The narrator is.
As the Senua paddles on, the narrator joins with a cacophony of other voices challenging, attacking, and goading Senua.
This is discomforting.
As Senua makes landfall, and progresses on foot through an environment that is no less harrowing than the river, light appears and fades; the screen distorts, the voices rise and fall.
The weight of this presses down on me. On Senua. On us.
Memories explode into view, and then fade.
Senua reaches the gates of Helheim, and engages in her first battle, which is frightening, and devastating in turns.
This has been a difficult and long review to write; the way in which the game shifts between the mental and physical is both visceral, and somehow weightless.
This too, feels familiar. It makes this a complicated game to play.
On a technical level, the visuals are excellent. The sound design is is something else; it lifts this game to another level.
There is no HUD, no health bar. No instructions on what to do.
With keyboard and mouse, the game relies on the standard WASD + F to use. Swordplay and blocking felt instinctive.
This game is only a few months newer than yesterday's game, yet almost perfectly embodies "show, don't tell". The attention that was seemingly lacking for gameplay in yesterday's game, is seen here in buckets, and the game is better for it.
However, these reviews aren't entirely a review of the quality of the game, but also whether I want to invest my gaming time in a particular game.
That is far more complex, because while this IS an excellent game, it's a difficult one for me to play; it is affecting on a level that I need to assess further.