#Senua saga

[captainpissofff]

SHE'S HOOOOMMEEE

BABBYYY GIIIRLL IS HOMMMEEE

Fiiirsttt thing in the morrninngg raaaaaggggghhhhh 🦅☠️🤌🏼🥵

[corvidgames]

#1 Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

THIS REVIEW IS NOT SPOILER FREE

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is one of the most uniquely captivating games I've played in a long time. It was able to draw me into a world and character that I have very little prior experience with in my personal life. The representation of psychosis is something that I've rarely seen done positively in media, especially in such a violent and emotional world as the one Hellblade presents.

In any other game Senua would likely be presented as a throwaway villain, but Ninja Theory created a sympathetic and highly heroic character out of Senua, without shying away from the horrors that she experiences in her own mind. She's both a victim and a fighter, and is given room by the story to express both incredibly well.

The combat and puzzle-solving mechanics of Hellblade were well-made and smooth for the most part, and things felt weighty and responsive. I rarely felt like death wasn't due to my own mistakes, and the difficulty was fair and scaled nicely as the story progressed, all the way to its final, dramatic battle.

Despite my comments on mechanics, at its heart Hellblade feels like a highly cinematic game. There are many long cutscenes and sections where you're wandering around listening to the narrator and voices in Senua's head teaching you about the world and it's history. Some of the cutscenes could have probably benefitted from being a little shorter, but nothing in them feels inherently distracting, just moreso unexpected. A few times I just sort of, took my hands off of the keyboard and mouse and watched for a while, with the scenes long enough to feel like I wasn't quite playing a game anymore.

The soundtrack is minimal, and because of that, you really end up paying attention to the sound design of Senua's hallucinations and Druth's stories. This makes for a highly personal experience as a player, everything worked to draw me in for a visceral experience that'll be hard to forget.

The one and only thing that often stole my attention away from this game was how glaringly unoptimised it was in some sections. There were extended sections of the game where my frames dropped significantly, and I encountered a few glitches where I got trapped and had to reload my game to continue, though they weren't often enough to discourage me.

Altogether, Hellblade is not a game without flaw, but it's definitely one that I think of highly. I really recommend trying it out, especially if you have Gamepass on Xbox or PC!

Rating Calculation

Story: 8/10

Hellblade's story is gritty and harrowing. There's a real sense of empathy that I found myself gaining over the course of the 7 or so hours I spent getting to know this world and it's history. The clash of the Celts and the Northmen, the real mythology sprinkled through the voice-notes from Druth, and the environmental storytelling of the scenes all add together to tell a story that really draws you in from the get go. Even during it's quieter sections, Hellblade never stops feeling like a delve into Senua's psyche. The ending, learning to let go of Dillion's death and accepting that maybe the world we've played in isn't quite real, was emotional, especially with the final fight scene of the game coming right before it.

In a hoard style scene we stuck fighting an endless swarm of the Northmen enemies in front of Hela, in order to try and finally get a chance to attack her with a sword made to strike down the gods... except we never get that chance, no matter how hard you fight, you will eventually be overwhelmed, and there is no winning. You always always end up dying, and being finished off by Hela... only by accepting that Hela, the darkness and the Gods aren't the reason for Senua's suffering, and giving up, can we find peace. We try with all our might to fight the truth, that Dillion is gone, and he isn't coming back, but there is no way to avoid it. It's a tragically beautiful scene.

Character(s): 7/10

Senua as a character was compelling and a great look into a whole new world through her position as a representation of psychosis. Her struggles and perseverence felt real and weighty, and experiencing her development was immersive. I really felt connected to her character throughout the game. The side characters such as Druth and Dillion, whilst interesting in their own rights, weren't as strong in my opinion, they felt a little more flat, though their presence as hallucinations throughout the game somewhat excuses that.

Atmosphere: 9/10

The atmosphere of Hellblade is bleak, heavy, and manages to throw itself back and forth between being lonely and full of other life. The voices that follow us around over the course of the game, and the incredibly creative level designs toward the sections of Hel sold the horror of Senua's mind perfectly to me.

Style/Graphics: 6/10

Hellblade has a style changes back and forth between surrealism and realism, in a manner that is often disorienting. This, considering the story that Hellblade is telling and the perspective of Senua as a protagonist, is entirely understandable. The character models of Senua, the enemies and the environments they are in are well made and, as mentioned earlier, the designs of Hel were my favourite section of the game, even if it was shorter than the rest. However, the use of real footage for NPCs such as Dillion and Druth were often distracting and their difference in comparison to Senua was occasionally laughable. The writing and direction made up for it most of the time, luckily, but had it not have, I'm sure I would have laughed at a few of the interactions between Senua and her hallucinations.

Sound Design: 9.5/10

The sound design of Hellblade is stellar. The voices that follow you around swirl around in your headphones and never let you feel truly alone. Good sound design is one of the biggest parts of selling Senua's hallucinations and psychosis and I really feel like it was without fault. The only thing that kept me from giving it a 10/10 was the voice acting of the narrator/darkness that we hear during the fight with Fenrir. I understand that Ninja Theory was trying to make him sound dark and ominous, but it was so gravelly that it just sort of felt laughable. I couldn't take his performance seriously.

Mechanics: 6/10

The fighting mechanics in Hellblade aren't anything massively special, there's a dodge, a light attack, a heavy attack and a satisfyingly clang-y parry system. It's pretty basic and it get's the job done, I can't complain about it. The level design and puzzle mechanics were unique, though sometimes with the rune discovery puzzles it did get frustrating to find alternate angles that were, by all means, correct in displaying the shape of the rune required, but weren't the solution intended by the game, and were therefore incorrect and a waste of time. When it works, the perspective sections of Hellblade really drew me in, and when they didn't they completely threw me out.

Performance/optimisation: 5/10

The optimisation on PC for this game is... not so great. For a good half of the game I was able to run 150+ frames in 1440p high settings, but for some sections, particularly in the middle of the game when in the docks during the storm, my frames dropped as low as 20 and stuttering became very apparent. It was only very specific areas of the game that weren't optimised, but when you encounter one it draws you completely out of focus with the story and makes it hard to pay attention to anything. Turning down the settings even to the lowest presets possible did nothing to fix this, I'm not sure what the issue there was. I've heard it's more common on Radeon cards and when running the PC Gamepass version of the game, both of which are true in my case, so I'm not sure how these areas will run on console or when launched through Steam or with an Nvidia card.

I also faced a few issues with glitching and getting stuck in areas where I couldn't move at all, this happened 2 to 3 times throughout my playthrough, and every time I had to reload my save in order to get free. The autosave system is forgiving enough that it was never more than a few minutes of progress that I lost, but it was still disheartening at times. When Hellblade works it works great but when it stumbles it can be really frustrating.

(8 + 7 + 9 + 6 + 9.5 + 6 + 5)/7 = 7.21 = 72/100

Date of completion: 06/01/2025

Genre: Psychological RPG

Time to beat: 7hrs 24mins

Level of completion: Main story + most side content

Trophies/Gamerscore: 900G 13/14

1-100 rating: 72%

Platform: PC/Xbox Gamepass

[quibbs]

some unfinished hellblade 2 paintings… senua baby you are always on my mind!!!!!

[sweeetestcurse]

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II 01/??

[thelvadams]

SENUA'S SAGA: HELLBLADE II • May 21st 2024

I've dreamt of this. This place of fear and fury. Do you hear it? The heartbeat of the lost ones. I can feel them on my skin. Each death inked in blood. I won't stop fighting for them. Until the very last beat fades away.

[talesfromthecrypts]

We are not our fathers.

SENUA'S SAGA: HELLBLADE II (2024) dev. Ninja Theory

[jimmymcgill]

SENUA'S SAGA: HELLBLADE II (2024)

[ninth-galaxy]

Senua

[carrionsflower]

SENUA'S SAGA: HELLBLADE 2 (2024)

[youdoso]

[halfwayriight]

What will I become?

[hysterialevi]

"He wants to change."

"Does he?"

HELLBLADE 2 - Screenshots (3/?)

[thorgestr]

I need more photomodes where their models are moved closer together heh

[demekii]

A bunch of Hellblade sketches because I’ve thought of nothing else for the past few weeks

[sweeetestcurse]

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II 03/??

[thelvadams]

SENUA’S SAGA: HELLBLADE II • dev. Ninja Theory