izigame.me

I would not want to downplay Hellblade's technical brilliance. It's unparalleled & jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I do not want to parrot all these arguments as pretty much everyone else initially would. It does look good, granted. It comes at a hefty price though—the letterbox. It's nothing new, albeit a bit rare. It is something we have seen in The Order: 1886 and The Evil Within. But, a huge but here, Hellblade 2, even though in the existence of black bars and DLSS, would have offered me 15 to 20 FPS during some of its sequences. I can't fathom how it would play out if it was truly 16:9. With that being said, I didn't mind the stutters or the low fps (though I mostly got 30 to 40 on 4K res with full settings /w a 3080ti) because there was not much reason to. We'll come to that.
Hellblade had a limited scope but was self-aware of its strengths & weaknesses. Apart from overusing the 'optical illusion' puzzles (which were thematically sound), it had a repetitive nature but still left room for improvement. What Hellblade did so well was how it merged the narrative and gameplay. It did it in a strong mythos, blurring the thin line between reality & the depictions of her psychosis. It told players when to fight, when to give up, when to accept, how to overcome. Most of the process was earned, and the fight with Hela was a good counteract against ludonarrative dissonance (years later APT: Requiem would employ a similar tactic).
In Hellblade II... well, it's like as if they cut out all the gameplay so there couldn't be any dissonance. I am particularly annoyed at Hellblade II's gameplay because I see so much potential in it. This franchise could have been a hidden golden goose. Ninja... you've done it all. Heavenly Sword, Enslaved.. and now you've regressed to a point where you release enemies onto players one by one? This is exactly where the problems rise. This is a video game. You let me select difficulty. You provide me with a 'Dynamic' difficulty choice where it supposedly adapt to my gameplay, then throughout the WHOLE game you rely on one single trick: downgrading the combat into a more cinematic experience. There's no denying that it still ends up looking good, transitions are seamless, while having some dynamics to it, but the whole game acts like you're playing an on-rails shooter. You don't need to move; you can occasionally dodge, but it's fine if you don't really. Parry a bit, then land a small combo of a few light-heavy attacks combined, and your enemies are done & dusted. Enemies appear when a certain story is going on, thus feeling awfully scripted, removing the feel of imminent danger. Your inner voices no longer warn you. Can't blame 'em. You spar with a single enemy at a time as if the game tries to depict a heroine without peripheral vision. A trick done in a hope to aid combat, to make it more tense and tight, only to achieve little to nothing. It kills the emergent gameplay—the biggest, inexcusable sin they could ever commit.
Puzzles do vary. However, the optical illusion puzzles are heavily downgraded. I knew people didn't like them much, but now all you do is some pathfinding and then focus so the game can solve the puzzle for you. Then there are puzzles where you alter the level as you transit into a different world only you can see. In an attempt to gamify the psychosis, I give it a pass. The transition is seamless once again, done in one-cut (well, perhaps not really, but it does a solid job at concealing it as the first one did). You can manipulate the level design within a very limited scope that only allows you to solve some kindergarten level puzzles. Once again, there is nothing really emergent. I have psychosis but somehow, it only comes in hand when developers want it to (and yes, that would be solving mediocre puzzles). I can't use it in real-time in combat encounters or to traverse. Pitiful. It gets even more ironic when you realize a certain game recently included puzzles where you distort reality, altering the scene to gain a vantage point. Alan Wake 2. Did it much more cleverly, not even a year ago. With that being said, level design in Hellblade II is almost non-existent. You proceed to jog 80% of the time so you can reach to your next objective, your biggest reward still would have been a collectible.
The damn voices. Senua was able to make a pact with her inner demons, and now her psychosis is relatively under control. She wouldn't attend to the voices like she did in the first game. And sure goes the usual motto: Progress is not linear. I can get behind that. However, the voices are way too caricatured into a binary system where they either support and encourage you or literally trash you. When not done in the correct context, it undermines the previous journey of Senua. In contrast to the Hellblade, I don't believe this time around they got the inner monologue right. Hell, oftentimes I was unable to listen to the other characters because the voices would refuse to not talk over the others. Can't they be more than distractors? Because now that we know Senua has actual companions, she is ready to install herself back into society. And somehow, all these characters believe Senua is gifted. Mf you just met me. They are easy to trust and accept her, in a society where her mother was burnt. It becomes too much of a disbelief to ask for but whatever… I'll sustain whatever I can. The cast is charismatic, but you can achieve only so much in a 5-hour runtime. When the story begins to pick up and you begin to develop some intimacy with the cast, guess what happens? The game ends. It tries to be poetic by vomiting a legion of words at you only to convey a Kingdom Hearts-esque message. Rushes the finale and never reaches to the climax simply by not being dense enough.
Back to being less cynical, Hellblade II has strong messages that are noteworthy. The strength of men is their community (support system). Tyrants are born out of fear. Pain is not an excuse to repeat old mistakes. These might be common themes, but I appreciate the way Hellblade II tackles these issues. We have the returning abusive father figure who knowingly instilled guilt and fear into Senua. I appreciate that Hellblade 2 explores this more, as it was made known Senua's father was her long shadow. It still muddles the reality. We do know certain events happen and other characters react to them. Hence, Senua starts to be seen as a true folk heroine. I don't know about you, but it does sound like your usual folkloric epic to me. The game insists on the message that "every monster was once a man." Doubling down on it with a simple but strong twist: The last giant of the game was a man. At first glance, he appeared to be sort of supernatural; however, it would later appear Senua and Aleifr were fighting in the camp where Aleifr was visually weakened and his people had already turned their backs on him.
There is not much player agency in Hellblade II. It talks a big deal about choices but doesn't do any trick, unlike some of the other aforementioned games. It's alright if the writers wanted to bring Senua to a certain point. It at least should create some consistency; otherwise, you might end up with a finale where a certain ending is intended and aligns with the rest of the game, and the other choice is just there tto be there so you can complete your video game. I'm glad that it's not an issue here, but don't you ever dare to act like we were given a choice. Ironically, we weren't even given an illusion of it. You kill plenty so you can forgive one. Well it's TLOU2 all over again. Barely earned. Some moral absolutist shit out of nowhere.
There is much more to talk about, but I am running out of space. I just want you folk to know: This game is heavily disconnected. Tech in HBII will eventually be outdated. What remains of it when you subtract the style? Nothing substantial, I'm afraid.
★★½☆☆☆, doubt it'd stay long enough with you.