I really enjoyed 2017's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, it did something different that I had never seen in a video game before, while it was also extremely good looking. Playing as a schizophrenic protagonist who constantly heard voices and suffered hallucinations made you question a lot of what was happening during her apparent journey through Hellheim to rescue the soul of her dead lover. Gameplay wise it wasn't as stellar, with there not being too much to what you actually did during the adventure. I had heard that the sequel, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II was more of the same without really trying anything new. While this certainly was the case, the game was still fun, if not matching the novelty that the first game brought. Minor spoilers for the first game to follow.
In the early 9th century, some point after the events of Hellblade, Pict warrior Senua (Melina Juergens again reprising her role) now having sorted out her fractured mind has become driven to get revenge on the Northmen men who raided her village and killed and captured her people. Senua allows herself to be captured, hoping that once she arrives in Iceland she will be able to free her enslaved people and defeat the leader of the Northmen. Her plans are scuppered when a large storm sinks the slave ships, and Senua washes up on shore. She eventually finds and confronts slave master Thórgestr, keeping him alive so that he can lead her to his father's settlement in Borgarviki. She learns from the man that the reason for the capturing of her people was to offer them as sacrifices to appease giants roaming the area. This changes her plan, with Senua deciding to confront and defeat each of the giants, hoping that with this threat gone there will no longer be a need for the raids on her homeland.
Initially I was a bit concerned that the horror element of Hellblade would be lost. Whether in her mind or real, the events of the first game had her travelling through Hell, while this sequel is set in real world locations. Thankfully, again the line is blurred between what is real and what is in Senua's head. Many of the combat sections has her fighting demonic looking creatures with glowing red eyes, tellingly, every now and again when these parts are over the corpses of the monsters seemed to morph back into more human looking enemies. This also applied with the bosses, on occasion they transformed back into more realistic proportions. This change also occurs with locations visited, with legends and folklore around in large quantities, Senua's perception of the world is changed accordingly. This time around she is not alone, over the course of the six or seven hour game she builds up a crew of people, anti-hero Thórgestr, Fargrimr who recognises Senua's condition, believing her to be a sage, and a female leader of a local settlement who too wants the giants defeated. That the antagonist 'giants' appear to be instead natural disasters was a neat part, meaning that despite all the characters believing that their land is plagued by these creatures, it could just be their lack of understanding that has them believing this, rather than there actually being monsters existing in the world. That later part fed into the overall plot in a cool way.
Despite a larger world to explore, this is just as linear as the first game. Wide expansive areas are revealed to be much more smaller when you go to explore them, with even ankle high rocks and detritus preventing Senua from straying from the golden path. There are collectible stories to be found in the world, the best of these were rock formations with faces on them. By focussing on these faces hidden pathways would be revealed. There is no real change in gameplay with Senua spending much of the game walking and solving simple puzzles such as lining up symbols in the environment to open locked pathways. Combat hasn't so much been improved as altered. The fights are always one on one but are really dynamic. Each violent defeat of an enemy leads to a little cutscene of the next enemy entering the fray. Fighting was very simple, but I did love how it created the impression of being in a much larger battle than you actually were.
There were some tremendous levels here, the most powerful one being the first proper horror level. Senua tasks herself with heading to a village that had been ransacked by a cannibal tribe (that she identifies in her mind as draugar). The beating drums lead her ever onwards to the village centre, and the blending of visual and auditory signs was very impressive. Many times the music seems to meld perfectly with the visuals, such as during boss fights against the giants where she has to sprint from safe zone to safe zone. These scenes were a near perfect mix of sound and visual design creating an intensely unique feeling. If the game had all been like that this would have scored a lot higher. There may only be five or six of these parts in the game but they were the supreme highlight. I haven't mentioned it again, but the sound design for the voices in Senua's head is as sublime as before. The three main voices seemed to dance around, sometimes coming from one ear on my headphones, sometimes swimming around the back of my head and coming out the other, very impressive as was to be expected due to how well handled this was first time around.
Other parts didn't impress as much, in particular a lengthy part in the middle of the game where Senua has to head ever downwards through a cave system, solving simple puzzles involving scenery changing orbs as she does so. I reckon it took about an hour to do this part and it just seemed to go on forever. Being in a cave rather than outside meant there wasn't much variation to look at, with me dying for it to be over. I also thought the pacing of the story wasn't as good. Senua's easy to understand journey of revenge is superseded with the weird quest against the 'giants'. Add to this her unreliable view of the world and I was forever questioning what was real and what wasn't. I had gone so far down the rabbit hole that when it was actually revealed what was happening it wasn't as surprising as what I had been thinking.
There is no doubting that Hellblade II is a very impressive looking game. It didn't blow me away as much as others seemed to have been, but the game's locations looked sometimes photorealistic (if you were squinting), and Senua's character model and acting was fantastic. There were plenty of genuine highlights here, but there were also a fair share of more downbeat moments that outstayed their welcome. I did enjoy the game, but I would say I didn't enjoy it as much as the slightly superior first game. This may play better, but I enjoyed that first one more. Senua's Sage: Hellblade II is currently available to play on Xbox Game Pass.
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