Finished Hellblade 2
More of an experience than a game, or as some might think they're insultingly calling it a walking simulator. Probably not as close to your run-of-the-mill walking-simulator, but it does indeed have a lot of its systems streamlined and simplified. Especially its combat system. Even so, I've probably had the most thoughtful experiences and stories in so-called walking-simulators. SOMA and What Remains of Edith Finch come to mind. Overly used game systems do tend to break immersion or cause the fancy-named ludo-narrative dissonance issue, especially in these sorts of narrative heavy games.
With that intro and caveat out of the way, Hellblade 2 is most certainly, at this point in time at least, the most impressive rendition of graphics and sound. Especially graphics. Not sure if this is the first one, but its sporting of Unreal Engine 5 really sets it in a league of its own. And it's miles away from the competition. Of course, it also suffers from being very linear and constrained, with regards to the playground it offers its player. But with that in mind this is one beast of a looker. Its scenery, both up-close and far away, is on a level not seen in anything yet. Probably the closest we've come to photo-realism. Not exactly there yet, but incredibly impressive. The same level of fidelity can be see on the animations and characters, even in combat, though there it is a bit hard to focus on such things in the heat of battle. But having seen some examples of combat frozen in time via the game's impressive photo-mode, it is indeed staggering. This makes it doubly exciting to see what companies like CDPR, who have announced they'll be using UE5 for their next sequels to Cyberpunk and The Witcher.
A close second to the visuals is the audio. They weren't kidding when they recommended headphones. It really contributes to each moment. And is great all-around. Voices, music and sound in general. There is also one particular moment, during a particular encounter, with Senua sprinting in chunks, staying clear of lava, where I've not heard such a perfect sync between music and things happening on screen. For people that have played it, it's probably obvious; it is that impressive.
The combat, as mentioned at the start, has been streamlined and simplified even more than in the original. There's been a lot of humdrum made over it. This being a game. And I can sort of understand it, if you want it to be a game first-and-foremost. I'm of the opinion that we can have a few games that choose to make the combat less of hassle, and make it more appropriate from a narrative context perspective. The result is a series of partially-scripted impressive looking combat encounters, that visually are stunning, but mechanically they're as simple as they could get away with. And I'm fine with that, in this sort of narrative-focused game. Others might not be, and it's sort of understandable. At least it's definitely better than the repetitive system in HB1, which was one of its biggest negatives for me. Now there it really hampered the narrative since it too gamified the whole thing. It was like we were playing two different Senua's; one for out of combat, and one in combat.
But even with all of this said on the combat, with the negatives of streamlining and all, it still managed to have a couple of really impressive combat set-pieces. The one against the draugr, during their sacrificial ceremony, was incredibly evocative. The way they played with the light in that dark pit was impressive as hell.
On the story part there are some spoilers on the theme of the story, so it's definitely worth only reading after you've experienced it yourself. But here goes:
The last thing to be mentioned is probably the story. While it is incredibly impressive and obviously has had very high production value, it sadly didn't hit as hard and wasn't as touching as the story in the first Hellblade. It certainly had plenty of interesting moments, with a lot of mind-bending elements and artistic motifs and choices, making it probably the closest to an art-house film out of all games. But even with all of that I didn't have the same attachment as I did to Senua's plight in the first game. Probably centrally because it wasn't as evidently a personal journey as it was in that one. It felt more like a Norse folk-tale and a classic adventure, built upon the personal struggle of Senua, but a different struggle than in the first game. The ending really underlined that central internal conflict for Senua, but I feel it wasn't as poignantly portrayed until then. Or maybe I just need to replay it. But the central theme, of Senua fighting to not become her aggressors, while she could easily become that by fooling herself into believing she was doing it all for others's sake, I felt came a little out of left-field towards the end. Or again, maybe I need to re-experience it and be more attentive. Maybe it was more/too subtle and I missed it in parts. But it does now bring to light the message behind the game's central marketing portrayal of Senua with the clasping hands around her head. Yeah, so maybe I do need to replay it, especially given that once you finish the game's campaign it unlocks the ability to have two other narrators in place of the original one (Druth or the companions you meet along the way). And the narrated text does seem to be unique and different from the original; at least for Druth.
One concretely negative that can be said on the narrative, is the trope of doing lore-dumps from the hidden-folk via those dreams or hallucinations; the couple of times it did it. For all the genius and creative ways it handled its narrative and cinematic moments there probably was a much better way of relaying that context to the player. We really need to get away from using "ghosts" to tell what happened in the past.
With all of this said, I think it does bear repeating, as a favorite reviewer has recently said about it, that this is a "Cinematic masterpiece in game form but not a masterpiece game".
Your enjoyment of it will very much depend on how much weight you put on the experience, narrative, visual and auditory, vs the video game. And even if you do slide more towards the narrative, it will depend on your being sync with what it is trying to say. It's central narrative theme is sufficiently profound and classical in nature, but I will need to re-experience it to make up my mind if it's properly sprinkled through Senua's journey, or if I was right in feeling it coming a bit out of left-field towards the end.
It's going to be hard to score it, especially since comparison with the first one will inevitably happen, but I'll have to just score it absolutely, and not relatively.
Even though the story wasn't nearly as emotional as in the first one, all other components really do the heavy lifting. And even though it did not struck a perfect cord with me, it did have its beautiful moments.
I'll score it an 8.5/10 for now, slightly lower than the first Hellblade.
